Hot Pockets

The kid’s calling me “darling” again.

I don’t remember his name, unfortunately. I know the shiny-headed, handsome and nearly-as-smooth-as-Colin-Salmon African-American bartender is named Adrian. I do not remember the name of the kid with the light brunette scruff and the forearm ink.

I’m at the comfy speakeasy bar again (the one in Denver, not the one in Boulder I danced burlesque in–and actually am pretty sure I got roofied at. But that’s a different story for a different day).

I crunch into my chicken fingers (literally–the breading is a panko coating which isn’t bad at all), and overhear the “darling” kid introduce himself as Logan to the bleach blonde in cute boots sitting a couple seats down from me with a young hipster-ish looking black goateed guy who reminds me of the cellist from the performance at the other speakeasy. I sigh, settle my weight into the cushy leather barstool, and crunch another bite, before wiping my hand on my cloth napkin, which doesn’t really take the crumbs.

The young dude in the backwards ballcap, sitting to my left, looks at his phone and says to his equally touristy looking friends, ducks all in a row, “There’s no train to Boulder.”

Nope. But there is a bus. A couple different ones in fact, one of which I’ll be embarking on relatively shortly. As a non-driver and a Boulder resident, I should inform them. But my introverted ways are at the forefront today, and I crunch again instead, ostensibly ignoring them.

I’m here fresh from Stage Movement class over at MSU, and just before that, a stay at Seamus’ place. The Stage Movement students are under the impression (I conclude, after workshopping them this morning) that performing Dr. Seuss adaptations was going to be easy. This is their final exam, however (going up in full zero-budget production next week), and o they of little faith that would think I’d do such a thing to them. Anyway, they all struggled, but rather beautifully, and next week’s culmination of their work should be a lot of fun to witness. And grade.

The shortish stays together Seamus and I have managed to wrangle lately have been precious, cherished, and lovely, and I’ve started to affectionately name them Pockets of Cohabitation in my brain. We’re working through a heck of a lot, and really tbh shouldn’t be trying to even date right now if friends and erstwhile therapists are to be listened to. But he and I know: they’re not to be listened to, not about this. What we bring to each other is a helping hand, a leg up, a shoulder to cry on, and an ear to bend. Amongst many other things. Some of those quite literally. We are growing together. In fits, starts, lots of texting, and in pockets. It’s important.

What’s also important (and yes I do recognize this, lest I be worried about as being blind with lovesickness), is that I’m on my way to my own little birdhouse after this pint, or the next one. The bars do need to be parallel, not perpendicular, for a while yet. After all, I don’t know the length of his lease but mine’s a year.

Reason I even muse about this is he met my parents and a good number of my peeps last week, and I’m rather taken aback by: a) how readily, sincerely, and fully everyone accepted and even embraced him; b) how much it meant to me that I was able to introduce him to them.

As you’ll know if you’ve been reading up to here, readers, his world is not yet ready for Peony Primetime. Only one of his (now erstwhile) peeps knows about me, and it’s not really at all a good thing. So in the interest of his children’s (and let’s face it, his and everyone else’s) stress level, no introductions of me to his peeps are pending. I’ve noticed, interestingly enough, that I’m being slowly introduced to some places of his. Just not people, yet.

The Pockets of Cohabitation are important, then, because of this too, beyond the very simple fact that he and I miss each other muchly when we’re apart (compelling personal essays though such separation engenders), but also are nodes of connection and wee bits of foreshadowing into whatever the heck future lies in wait for us.

We’ll keep you posted, from the bar. Bars. Plural.

Our Daily Bread

The airport bar had a specials board outside that said, “Soup of the day: Tequila.”

I didn’t have any tequila. I had a couple of Modelos and some greasy adobo with still greasier chips and it felt fine, just fine.

The place is Minneapolis. How to explain this? I’ve neglected – or deliberately declined – to get to into too much of what I actually do for a living, largely to protect those who might be affronted by being dragged into guilt-by-association, though nearly all of them are guiltier to begin with than I could ever be if I tried (and believe me, I’ve tried). But it’s a matter of some sensitivity, as I’ve always existed at the intersection of two very different worlds, at least as far as my profession vs. my personal life and trials.

Which, I would posit, sort of fits. Look, who is Seamus C. Hogue anyway? He is many things. On the one hand he is, for better or worse, the scion of East Cost Brahmin. He is old money when the money’s all gone. He’s oak wainscoting and old brandy and leather bound volumes and William F. Buckley, only the wainscoting hasn’t been dusted and the volumes are piled haphazardly in a box at the estate sale. He’s the sole survivor flung clear of the wreck of a noble old English galleon, run aground on the rocky shores of the new world.

He’s also the lowest order of cowboy, a whiter shade of trash and a redder shade of neck, the great, great grandson of a mick mule skinner who crossed the western ocean in Black ’47 and let his deranged seed run rampant in the land of opportunity.

In other words, he is the logical product of spectacularly, almost historically ill-matched parents. He is highborn and low-brow, both catholic and protestant, the type of guy who earned his bread in college swabbing up the unholy excesses of his fellow students from the floors of their public bathrooms, supplementing his income with a little dope, a little roadie work, then went on (as he did indeed go on) to join one of the preeminent white-shoe consulting firms of the very same old world that had long since coughed him up. So.

The point of which is to state that I have, in spite of my best efforts, attained to what might at least charitably be called a somewhat distinguished white collar career. Over two decades and change I have built a remarkably modest record of corporate success, and established an income that places me in our nation’s highest tax bracket while nonetheless being barely adequate to cover my fierce and ever-expanding cash outflows, as creditors, ex-wives and children line up every two weeks, beaks gaping skyward, like so many hungry nestlings.

But on this day? On this day I have earned my beer, giving an against-all-odds sales presentation to an initially dubious audience that called upon every skill of preparation, perception, cajolery and subtle charm that I could muster. Will it be successful? I don’t yet know, and while I care, I don’t care as much as you might think. Which is a funny thing. A million dollars and more will change hands, or not, depending on how today’s labors are perceived. Part of that money, if it becomes real, will be mine, and again I do care about that. But I find myself caring more that I was equal to what was needed, it was done well, it couldn’t really have been done much better, and nothing was left on the table. Is it possible to feel satisfied with the gamble, even as the roulette wheel still spins? And which of my hereditary selves gifted me that talent, if talent indeed it is? Things to ponder, but not today.

Bars of Yore: Outback Saloon

…not to be confuscated with the chain steakhouse of nearly the same name, the Outback Saloon is an ancient bar of the type you don’t expect to see in Boulder. To wit: scuzzy doesn’t even come close to describing this place. Even wearing sandals there makes one worry about the health of one’s toes, getting too close to that floor. The bar opens early in the morning (for the night shift folks), and closes late. Also, at least when we used to go: no food after a certain hour, but for the ugly and shady, goo-besmudged popcorn machine. Husband used to put Tabasco on said popcorn, as an alcoholic’s desperation snack. He doesn’t drink at all, these days. But back then…

This was a regular haunt of mine way back in the earlier days of the 27-odd years of being out-of-touch with Seamus. The late ’90s. Ish. The karaoke days were more in the early 20-teens.

…

Just after a rigorous and disciplined three hours straight of hard martial arts practice, we all walk down there, in half-gi and half Boulder comfort gear. The Big Bear, the Dreadlocked Wonder, my brother, my husband, our roommate The Badger, and me.

We continue shuriken practice with darts and copious pitchers of 90 Schilling, then move on to the clotted, scruffy shuffleboard table, where we divide into teams, one headed by husband (the sensei) and the other headed by me (the senpai). Comraderie in the form of competition ensues.

The night goes on, pitchers are drained and refilled, and after husband and brother get far too hammered (which happens often), they spin the theory of The Sobrunken-Stoned Index, which is the level of intoxication necessary for prime sport or game performance. They spin the science of this, detailing that when one is too sober one’s inhibitions get in the way, and when too far gone, technique gets sloppy. They come up with a formula. We all laugh. It’s a good night, and it’s nice to lubricate after such rigorous training. Or is that an undoing of it? Doesn’t matter, that night.

…

Since Christmas Eve was the holiday w my family, husband and I walk on over to The Outback late morning on Christmas Day. We play a little shuffleboard, then sit right at the big picture windows, watching the fluffy snow fall onto the red and green Christmas lights wound around the railing to the patio outside. We toast with our pints, to many christmases together to come.

There were a few after that (well, several), but not there.

…

Karaoke night there is actually quite competetive; not everyone gets to sing, and those who do actually have pipes to show for it. Only a slight step below actual auditions, especially on Saturdays.

The host is my bank manager–I went to high school with him (acted in The Way We Live Now together in fact), and so he knows I know my stuff.

Husband performs his slightly off-key rendering of his fave Peter Murphy song, and our girlfriend sings that one song about the kids and their kicks, better run better run…? That one? She’s a lot younger than us, and I am not versed in her era of music so much. I take a risk (the risk coming from my level of beer down my throat), and pull off with aplomb and extended high notes the theme to James Bond movie Goldfinger.

Then girlfriend and I go up for a duet: the Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun.” We alternate verses and share choruses, and jump around together, and mosh each other, and somehow by the end of the song I’m on my knees, arched back over my heels, mic protruding from my lips like a bird beak, and she’s likewise on her knees, worshiping the mic stand in a quasi child’s pose.

That whole three-way relationship was ostensibly secret, but I cannot imagine our circle of friends didn’t suspect something was going on at least between the two of us, after that performance. She claimed not, but it later transpired she was a cold-blooded liar, so who knows indeed.

I do remember needing to wash my hands after touching that peeling-away carpet, and did an actual shot of actual goldschlager to sanitize my mouth after contact w that mic.

A squicky place with some good times. It’s still there. Haven’t been there in a long, long time…

Quivering Shreds

I stand, the hard lumps of my burlesque costume bag digging into my spine as I sip on a Girl Scout Stout (made with real Girl Scouts!) in the little bar corner of my fave pub as I wait for a table. I don’t even have enough cash for two pints but I really want at least one, and this place (as you’ll know well if you’ve read my previous posts) is my comfort zone.

I was supposed to go to my parents’ and let them feed me dinner and do my laundry and watch Columbo tonight.
But after rehearsal I am way. Too.
Tired.

Mainly just the social energy, especially for to deal with my Mom, who takes (and to give her credit, gives forth) a *lot* of energy. And I’m an ambivert, slanting acutely to the introvert side of that fence.

But I’m also still quivering all over from my exertions, all day.

What exertions? They began at a quite reasonable hour this morning, actually. Started with the fucking stairs up Red Rocks Amphitheatre. And if you’ve been there, intrepid readers, you will not need me to describe further. The fucking. Red Rocks. Stairs. Though how to describe them to one who has not had the painful pleasure, I’m not sure. There are many, and they are all high. And there are many more than you think. It reminds me of that scene in Phantom Tollbooth (one of my favorite juvenile level books) where Milo chooses the eternal staircase instead of the road that goes on forever, because he thinks it’ll be shorter to get to eternity that way.

Once Seamus and I did get to eternity, he proceeded to show me a little of his flavor of martial arts, mainly American boxing (with a little delightfully and sexily sweaty Muay Thai after that). Honestly, my giant ego worried a little when he first suggested doing so last night–it sounded so fun but I was afraid I’d be disappointingly clumsy or lame. I was pleasantly surprised at how much was left in my body’s memory, however, as well as how much strength and endurance for such things remained, having done not much but a little theatrical combat instruction here and there for about a dozen years now. But it was so much fun, and Seamus’ instruction well laid on, and I got to unlearn a little of my Classical Japanese stuff but also show it to Seamus after, who took it on with bewilderment and skill.

After that, I was vibrating with the exertion, that I hadn’t felt during it. The stairs down were much easier for me than up, but by the time I had taken the longish public transportation home I nearly lost the use of my knees going up the short three flights of stairs to my little birdhouse.

After that I walked the several blocks to rehearsal, down in a little bar where Seamus first met me post Exile and gave me a birthday present. In heels.

I am doing three pieces for this upcoming burlesque show, the day before 4/20, and rehearsed two of them this afternoon in the speakeasy. One doesn’t take physical energy as such, but tons of theatrical energy. The other (the ham sandwich piece Seamus mentioned in his earlier tits post), takes a modicum of anaerobics, particularly navigating the totally different type of chair I needs must do gymnastics on, and trying to get my heels to make sound on the carpeted stage.

Now, the quivering hasn’t let up since this morning, but now it reverberates from my very center, through my wrists made of plastic drinking straws, to my hands, making them tremble like a wino’s. Well. When in Rome… I toast the lady with the phoenix, still there on the chalkboard, and shift my bag and back.

Two bars today, only one with a pint, and my outer layer of clothing smells like Seamus. He broke a wine glass half full of wine over it last night and so washed it in his home facilities while we slept. Scent memory makes me both smile and sigh.

There’s a favorite book of mine, a spectacularly written sword-and-sorcery piece, wherein one one of the anti-hero’s women declares, of all his previous loves, “May they be chopped into still-sentient quivering shreds in Hell.”

Actually that may be a paraphrase. But. It’s how I feel now, except for the Hell bit. I feel pretty good withal.

Not looking forward to climbing my stairs again though…

Sunday

It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon, and to my pleasant surprise the cigar bar is not a ghost town. A business type and a couple beery malefactors are holding down one end of the bar. Charon and Uncle Chuck are holding down the other. I call Uncle Chuck that because his last name is also Hogue, and we had an interesting chat about our genealogy. It’s a whole different thing for my uncle, as unlike me he’s a black man, so tracing our shared name leads him to slave owners in Virginia. His goal was to understand how and when his true ancestors were brought over, but I guess for him the trail goes cold around 1820. For me the sordid boatloads of jolly fuckups go straight back to Charlemagne. So there’s a little white privilege for you if you hadn’t had enough today.

Now as a one time boxing coach and trainer, I’m used to being the only honky in a room full of color. To all my pasty brethren out there, let me just remark: if you haven’t made a point to sit down and talk, one on one and at length, with a gentleman like my uncle, fuck you. I guaran-goddamn-tee you there are things you’ve never considered, however liberal your sensibilities may run. Go down to a bar, buy a man a drink and respectfully ask him to tell you about himself. He will, too. And you’ll have a larger worldview for it.

Scene: the wind picks up and some napkins fly. The kid behind the bar tries to close the garage-style door at one end and it won’t go. Charon leaps up, nimble as you please, and sets about moving tables around on the patio for clearance. My smoke is a Nica Rustica, and I watch all this wreathed in thick, fragrant Maduro smoke as the first bourbon hits my blood. Jamaican dancehall plays over it and this is right. This is my journey through the world.

Anyway. I went up to see Peony this last week – I’ll spare you all the sidebars. But I went to Boulder’s only “cigar bar.” In fact I enjoyed it, but I have a fondness for odd things. The smoking room was just that – a small room, full of old timers. I learned quickly that though there was a group in there, they did not know each other. Just four or five aging fellas who’d come together for a smoke and a chat. Their conversation turned to the hunt and guns – things I don’t mind talking about, and we had a nice chat with a Carolinian, the two of us perched on ancient stools arranged around a decrepit poker table jammed in the corner.

See, I can’t have nice things. Three of the nice things I can’t have are guns, gambling and cocaine. That’s not because I don’t like all three, and I can tell you about all three at length. But any of three would be, for me, a one way ticket to Charon’s landing. Give me all three in combination and I’d be a memory in 24 hours. So I don’t indulge. I limit myself to my already substantial collection of lethal vices and count myself fortunate that I can.

Across the way is a movie theater, and I gather that a kids’ movie is starting. A young dad comes in holding the hand of a five year-old boy. The boy has a Mohawk and is clutching a stuffed animal (kids call them plushies now) and is hunched against the wind in that vulnerable, small-shouldered way. You might not gather this from my collected works here, but I am a dad when I’m not in the bar. And I think I’m a decent one. I have two little boys that I would do almost anything for short of quitting smoking, though I never do it around them, and I abstain for days at a time when I have the honor and pleasure of their company. At some point I’ll have to cash all this in, too, for their sake. They’re going to be nothing like me. They’re growing up wealthy, for one thing – not by way of me, but their mom. They’re cocky, athletic and clever. The little one’s almost certainly gay, and we all love it. They’re of mixed ethnic descent – true 21st century global citizens. I’ll give them a root in the old world – all I can do. Not that they’ll emulate it, but maybe they’ll carry a little stripe of this ancestral memory and it won’t quite die. It’ll morph, it’ll be a stripe of color blending away into the palette of what they’ll do with the world, when they’ve taken over and race is finally done away with and the last of these nasty old white guys have died out. This century is young. I belong to the last one. I won’t be sorry to miss the new one, but I’ll be happy to toss what I know of life into that stream, and happy to know it goes on without me.

What I’m gonna do now, I’m gonna close out this entry, and I’m going to sit back and smoke, and then I’m going to go home and do dishes. Call it a good day, all in all.

Lazy Bird

I’ve been hit on in this bar more often than anywhere else in Boulder, which is a really weird thing to first pop in my head as I sit at the u-shaped island bar, scrolled amber oak wood prickling salt sprinkles into my forearms as I hunker over my IPA.

The other night, Seamus dragged himself out of his Exile 2.0 and came up here to test out our local cigar bar (not bad, not as good as his, but maybe he’ll write about that one), and then since my fave bar had a punishing wait, we ambled on over here.

Sports bars have always been comforting for me, as much as no sports are really my cup of tea at all. But this place is literally down the block from the bus station and so I have spent some little time here with the bitter Lagunitas and the swiveling bar stools. Maybe that’s why I tend to get male attention–I’m usually dressed either oddly or professionally or both, and so incongruous in a basic sports bar.

There’s a hockey game on just over my right shoulder, and the Masters golf tournament is on the big screen right in my line of sight. I only was (am?) interested in watching either or both because of my husband. In the last few months I still lived w him, before we sold the Xbox, we’d play NHL 2015 on an almost daily basis, full Stanley cup tournaments, over and over. It turned into sort of a peace pipe type activity for us. And as far as golf goes, my husband is one of those who delves into the sport in the sublime, zen-meditation, martial artist type way only touched on in Bagger Vance.

I’m here now because the other day, they lost Seamus’ credit card. So I’m in possession of a gift card for the place. And I’m broke and hungry. So I sip and munch, and the heavyset, tattooed bartender who reminds me of my college friend Rachel remembers what I like, and sings well in tune with the top-40-from-my-college-years music, and I try very hard not to worry about how much I owe to the IRS, and try not to worry about Seamus.

But if you knew me, you’d know that me trying not to worry is a ridiculous endeavor.

Phil Mickelson misses his putt and I shake my head and sip my sloppily poured pint. I’ll get a box for the rest of this meal and it’ll feed me tomorrow too.

More burlesque tonight, this not of me, but the overly-arrogant beginners, whom I very much hated listening to at our business meeting last night. Whiners. I’m in a foul mood, anyway, and that was just the first reason stacked upon many between last night and tonight.

Ah well. Even the best of us misses a putt sometimes. And more reasons why IPA so matches the bitterness of this old bird…

Begin Again

It’s a chalk painting: a starry night sky in the background, spangled with glowing Bob Ross fingerprints, thick brush strokes in slate blue showing the chalkboard between them, more geometrically cross-hatched than Van Gogh’s piece but echoing it.

The subject: a woman, long black hair, pale skin a little tinged w the same blue as the sky behind her, though she doesn’t look cold w that plunging décolletage. The strips of cross-hatched lavender clouds parallel the strands of her streaming black hair, in Dutch-tilt slant, one of her gold-adorned hands and wrists guiding one strand out of her face.

She wears an ermine hat, Russian style, of a fur that matches the trim on her shirt’s open neck. We see her, and the sky, and her fur-trimmed sleeves, only down to just below the breasts. A bust. She gazes to her right, off-camera. She has a satisfied almost-smile smirk on her face. There are opal colored bubbles in her hair, and her right hand looks like it must be on her cocked hip, to judge from the crook of her elbow.

And on that elbow, just alighting, a phoenix, eagle-shaped with a crest on its head, the color of many temperatures of flame, it lifts its wings to land, flame yellow eyed, clutching a heart shape in both its sets of talons. The heart looks as though it is moving with flame. There is an oval amber jewel embedded in its breast, which matches the one embedded in the woman’s.

This painting fills me with foreboding.

A few months ago, mid-November to be exact, Seamus abruptly put himself in Exile. This chalk painting appeared mere days later up on the big chalkboard of my favorite pub. Naturally the phoenix theme and the flaming heart and etc. made me supernally moved, and, since I follow the artist on Facebook, I told him so. I mean, I didn’t *tell* him, I just thanked him for the image that came to me just as I needed it. The artist was glad it meant something to me, and then told me an extraordinary story.

See, normally what this artist does is, he comes in very late at night when the place is abandoned, and he creates each piece, spontaneously, through the course of the night, till just before the place opens the following morning, it’ll be there, finished.

Apparently he had done this, but just as he was almost done, he was struck with the feeling that it was not up to snuff. Not meant to be. Not good. So he erased it completely, down to the zero of dark chalkboard. I had noticed this, and wondered: there were two, three days there when the chalkboard was blank, a dark nothing, a zero with potential, an empty vessel waiting to be filled. Then this image  appeared, and I drank in the image much more thirstily than I did the excellent beer in the establishment. The artist never told what the rejected painting depicted.

But.

Why foreboding?

Normally, the artist changes the image once a season (he often broadcasts the erasing process on Facebook, to many fans’ exquisite chagrin). This image, first up in November, is long past due its erasure. The new image should have taken its place by now. It hasn’t. This image, beautiful woman and phoenix and Lazarus heart, remains.

Seamus has attempted another exile, though it isn’t a full blown one. His silence scares me much, much more than any talk of death would, or does. I don’t want to have to need this picture again.

I can fix nothing, heal nothing; all I can do is be here and maybe certain thoughts aren’t quite so frequent when I am, but I have no illusions. This image, lingering, long past its time, however, makes me uncomfortable, nervous. Not nervous, worried. Apprehensive.

I’ll finish my IPA, the color of the jewels embedded in the bird’s and the woman’s chests, and think on the symbol of burning to ash, into resurrection. Making a ground zero of oneself, to be gloriously born again, in cleansing fire, out of the egg incubated by the ashes of the previous self. Into a new self, and a new world.

Somehow, in this echoing silence, I’m still worried…

Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead

That day of our pub crawl was momentous for this whole other reason, which was that it marked the fifth of five consecutive days without major depression, suicidal ideation or violent paranoia on my part. I think that’s at least a recent record. And those were five nice days. Were.

Well. I’m back in my corner with my sharpened stick, peering out, and I pointedly (see what I did there?) didn’t invite Peony in here with me. She’s out there instead, and she’s none too pleased about it.

I tend to get my hangovers from happiness. And I let myself feel happy Friday, walking in the rain with Peony to the usually-shitty-but-not-this-time contemporary art museum. And I let myself stay happy on the way back to the cozy pub where she drank this broth of hell that somebody called an IPA and I rode all leisurely down the side of a martini glass full of something amazing that the bartender had rather unhurriedly put together, as though it were so artisanal that he had to distill each ingredient to order.

And I stayed fairly happy over a greasy burger at the grimy, historic pub down the street, and I really took a chance by opening up the doors to the cigar bar, as she said, something which certainly does carry with it the potential for grave consequence.

And then, yes, a good meal at a Mexican place where the gent’s is wallpapered with pages from those small-form Mexican porno comics that you may or may not have come across depending on what you do when you’re in Mexico, which we’re here neither to judge nor condone. And then the time capsule bar, where the staff were a little thickened with age but where I was, to my quiet astonishment, remembered after a decade and change. And all the time Peony a little thoughtful, a little absorbed. Committing everything to memory or to literature.

I like the idea of the time capsule. I like the idea that the whole day was one that might slip down between the couch cushions of time and get missed, to be periodically unearthed when you’re looking for something else. One of those days that you gradually write into your own self-mythology, a node on which you’ll hang some other number of things that happened, a navigational landmark in those waters you’ll never chart.

I’d also like for it not to be the last time Peony ever saw me alive, regardless of where life goes from here, though you’d certainly have to admit a certain poetry to that (although even in expressing that out loud, it becomes a sort of contrived literary device, so maybe not). Still. Nobody ever kills themselves or doesn’t over the fear of cliché. Nobody ever does it over “to be or not to be” either. The Wikipedia list of writers who killed themselves runs to 335 entries, from Manuel Acuna to Stephan Zweig, so I suppose the problematics here represent a wide and well-trodden field. But I’d still give the last word on the subject (thus far) to David Foster Wallace, and since he spoke with precisely the authority that I’m trying to avoid, I’m happy to leave it there. But we digress.

To Peony’s point, that was a day for being alive. There’s only so much to do in Denver when you are alive. I can’t imagine that the options improve on the other side. So we live on.

Things to do in Denver When You’re Alive

As Seamus has noted, readers, he and I have had the blessed opportunity and crazy alignment of schedules recently to spend a modicum of time together. This string of days and nights cumulated in a mutual day off. We began our long day together with some brain food (in the shape of an art exhibit), because. Well. It’s Seamus and Peony. After enjoying same, what to do as it’s suddenly the afternoon and miles to go before we sleep? Of course, we bar-hop. After all, it is Peony and Seamus.

What follows is my impression of our shared day of (literally) pint-sized delights, in lieu of a Bars of Yore or a solo bar memory. I’m sure his memory of the day was quite different. Please to enjoy.

1
Though I do not frequent Denver, apart from when I’m working there, this lovely speakeasy style bar is a regular haunt of mine. I like the old-timey classy decor: the dark wood, gushy leather barstools, elaborate cocktails (one of which Seamus ordered), dapper (if rather inattentive) staff, and of course (the main reason I come here often), the proximity to the bus terminal. I come here when I am waiting for a bus back to Boulder, and if I have a couple bucks, I’ll make sure I do have a wait.

Seamus’ cocktail was like a slow kiss; my pint was like an uppercut to the jaw. Both were very enjoyable. And as we sipped and chatted, it suddenly struck me like a hammer that the last time I enjoyed a pint here was alone, and it was that day Seamus described as me sitting here with a pint in one hand and my heart in the other. Could it have been that soon ago? Long ago? Doesn’t seem possible. And of course the present company made me so very much more at ease, calm, and happy than only the company of my own broken heart, and the shadow of that of a person’s that I caused.

Seamus tasted my pint and his eyes popped. A boxer that was not expecting the straight left. And he was getting hungry, and it was time to move on, so move on we did.

2
This place is one of those that it’s ridiculous I’ve never actually been to, Denver though it is. I have a small list of places that it’s just stupid I’ve never been: a jazz club, a dance club, and this place. There are others, but this is a biggie.

Inside, it’s very old-school diner-esque, and their beer choices, though good, were a short list. But the fried food?? Good Lordy is it exquisite. Seamus will gently mock me for my love of eating fries with my beer till the day we expire, side by side in our rocking chairs, but I say let him. Especially when the fries (and onion rings!) are as good as this. If I had been even the least bit peckish after our breakfast earlier I would have had one of those burgers too. Just. Anyway.

So that’s what stuck out to me about this place. Not the historical aspects of it, not the two young gentlemen with 1970s era porn moustaches in deep intense conversation a couple seats down from us, not the letter from Neal Cassady up on the wall near the ATM, nope. The fries. Maybe Seamus is justified in making fun of me after all…

As we sipped the last of our pints, satiated from unhealthy deliciousness, in a lull in the conversation, he turns to me, ancient-amber eyes sparkling, and purrs, quiet enough for only me to hear: “So. Are you ready?”

“Ready?” I reply. “For what?”

“The place. Sanctum Sanctorum.”

“Oh!” I replied, catching my breath. “Is it…? I mean, is it safe?”

“Ish,” he replied, gathering his things. “It should be fine. If you want to.”

2.5
Here, dear readers, I needs must pause and explain a little more background. As you know if you’ve read our About page as well as all the posts up to now, you’ll understand that Seamus and I are still shaking off the stinging shrapnel of our marriages, and me the clinging vines of other relationships as well. Since Seamus was squiring me around his town and world that day, and since his world, unlike mine, is a world wherein polyamory is not and children are a thing, I am still for the most part a secret in it. My world is like: hey! One True Love is back! Good for you! Even my Mom asked how Highschool-Seamus is. His world, though? Different. Any regular haunt of his could very well be a haunt of his freshly-ex wife, which could cause no end of awkwardness at best, much much worse at worst. So you needs must understand that when he invited me to *the* cigar bar, I was breathless not just because of the smoke.

3
Actually, upon entering the Sanctum Sanctorum, the aroma immediately flooded me with good memories of the more-innocent mid to late ‘90s: my pipe and clove smoking days. As Seamus picked out his smoke of choice, I was snapped out of my memory high by the query of if I wanted to smoke myself. I did. But I also knew just how long it had been since I was a seasoned harsh tobacco user, and was also still shaking off a persistent cough from a previous illness. But the aroma, and the experience of being here, the momentousness of being invited, won out, and I allowed him to choose me a gentle stogie I could do slowly or not at all. And with the rye, it was a flavor I loved a little too much. I had to whip my logical, controlling brain into shape, as the dangerous high of the smoke and the mellow low-high of the drink conspired to make me take too much, because I liked it.

Looking around, I was struck by how different it looked than in my imagination. Newer looking, the exterior more strip-mall-y, sunnier. Even though a rainy day–I guess I mean lighter. Less wood, more light surfaces than I expected.

As it was, we had cozy leather seats side by side, Cialis ad style, in front of some UFC fights on the TV. I have rarely seen Seamus so enjoying himself, his sensations, and his surroundings, and just being Seamus, than in that place. Well, one other situation, but that’s private. No, but seriously: we puffed and sipped but mostly talked about the fights in front of us, and his eyes were alight and I thought if I could learn to smoke again I could spend hours in this place with him. Once it’s safe. If he wants me to. Sanctum Sanctorum.

4
I was hungry, after that. And more than a little high. In more than one way. But I won’t really count the next place, in that it wasn’t really a bar scene, at least not our experience of it. Only that I, unlike in the last place, did indulge just a bit too much. Food, not booze, so I still had energy, albeit a slight food coma. I’ll just say: really good Mexican food.

5
This is a regular for regulars that I would have added to my short list above, had I known it existed. As for Seamus, he was a regular back in the day, and the bartenders were such old regulars themselves that they recognized him. I nursed a pint and club soda and was mesmerized by the strings of lights (I’m a magpie by heart–I love sparklies) and the disco ball. I asked Seamus if the place had changed and he said it hadn’t, one bit. Almost scarily so. Another spot I could spend lots of time at, and its colorful-ness, widely varied clientele that acted like a family, and sheer comfort reminded me of my fave pub back at home in Boulder. Though, to be honest, as I snapped a shot of my love posing with his sacred heart tattoo in front of the wall icon of Jesus with the same one, I could think of nowhere home I would rather be.