I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane

I haven't yet told you about my friend Q, who was swell enough to drive me and Pinky to the airport for our final trip home. He picked me up at The Librarian's apartment, early, but not too early, and wanted to stop for coffee before we hit the 101. Whoops, I mean 101. Only Southern Californians say "the 101."

I got into Q's car, a Honda something, and noticed right away that it was a standard. A stick. That's even more rare in California than in most other places, I've been told by car guys, and it's rare in most other places. By which I mean it was unusual and noteworthy, and even more reason to like him.

Not that I didn't already like him, you understand. I liked him the first time I met him, about a year and a half or so ago, when a mutual friend at the bar introduced us. Q is a music critic; his job is to go to concerts and write about them. That was my dream job, once upon a time. He knows fascinating bits of stuff about a whole slew of bands. He even knows who The Fleshtones are, and listed them on his Facebook page as one of the bands he'd seen live.

So he was a guy that I saw around from time to time, usually at local music festivals or at a bar where The Careless Hearts were playing, and then one time we got to talking about The Killers and that they were coming to play in San Jose, and Q said that if he could get a second ticket that he would call me.

Which he did, a few weeks later, and we went to the show together. It was one of the best live shows I've ever seen, incidentally, but I was a little distracted, just a little, because I wasn't sure if I was on a date or not. I guess if you have to wonder you're not, and that was fine, but it would have been finer if I'd known for sure.

On the other hand, how do you know for sure?

In between songs he asked me, so what's up with you and The Librarian, because he always sees us together. Everybody always sees us together, and I've only just begun to realize that that's not a good thing. He's like my older brother, but everyone thinks we're a couple. I think maybe he scares the real men like Q off.

After The Killers show I asked if I could buy Q a drink, but he said he had to go write the review. He had a deadline. He asked for a raincheck, which I eventually gave him, but it was a long time before I saw him again, and then when I did, he was with a different girl every time. He's not a player, and he's not particularly tall or good looking, but he has a quality... I don't know what it is, but I like it. So do lots of other women.

Lately I've seen him around quite a bit, and we'd taken to texting each other to see if we'd be at the same show, and then it was a week before I was leaving and he offered to drive me to the airport. We sang Love Shack together at my farewell party — he's a really good singer — but all that and we're still just friends.

That's a terrible expression, isn't it? "Just" friends. Like it isn't a wonderful thing to have a swell guy like Q for a friend. Yeah, it is. But for the record, I totally would have gone there.

The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes

Yesterday I took my beautiful Mac G4, the one Jack gave me when I moved here, to the geniuses at the Apple Store. The Mac is for my music only, and sometimes for watching TV shows in bed on Hulu, but lately it's been acting cranky. Stopping, stuttering, stalling. You know, doing the sorts of things they say Macs don't do. It turns out they do.

"It can't be saved, I'm sorry," said the genius.

I miss my personal geek every day, but I don't think even he could have saved it. So I did what Jack would have done if he had been there. I bought a ridiculously expensive pair of shoes. I'm talking Michael Kors, at the fabulous Nordstrom's shoe department. They weren't even on sale. It was just like that day Jack bought me those beautiful pink shoes, except of course, he wasn't here to help me pick them out. Or to go get his shoes shined while he waited for me to browse.

There's a kind of poetry in the timing of all this.

One Way Or Another

So I was at The Blank Club with the Librarian and his new friend, Slade, last night. The two of them came to my place first, bringing beer with them as all good guests must do. I was in the bathroom, drying my hair, when they came in. I'd talked to Kapp on the phone earlier and said, just come on in when you get here, I'll probably be in the bathroom. He has a key because he looks after Pinky when I go away.

So I'm in the bathroom with the hair dryer going full blast, and Kapp opens the door — yes, I mean the bathroom door — and yells, "We're here!"

I came out a few minutes later, and Slade comes right up to me and sticks out his hand and says, "You must be Sass!" He said it with the exclamation point, all six foot five of him.

Kapp was in the kitchen, pouring beers for all of us. "You know, after three years, I've finally figured out our relationship," I said to him. "You're the annoying older brother I never knew I didn't want."

We went down to The Loft for a quick dinner, then headed to the club. The Careless Hearts, a popular and pretty darned good local band, were playing a double set. First as themselves, then as Iggy and the Stooges with special guest guitarist James Williamson. The club was full of old rockers. It was quite the event, Williamson coming out of retirement.

Between sets Kapp and I went outside for a while. People hang around on the sidewalk outside the club, smoking and just cooling down. It's really hot inside. So we're standing there and this guy who looks just like Clem Burke, black bangs and all, walks up to the door, then inside.

"Did you see that guy?" I asked Kapp. "He looked exactly like Clem Burke. It was freaky."

"I think that was Clem Burke," said the guy standing on the other side of Kapp.

Clem Burke came back outside. It was him, all right. I mean, he looked exactly like he does on the cover of Parallel Lines. I've been a Blondie fan for thirty years. They have always been my favourite band.

So of course I went over and talked to him. In my experience celebrities enjoy talking to real fans who don't act like idiots and who can say interesting and intelligent things. Like, "I was a card carrying member of the Blondie Fan Club in 1982," and "I actually met you briefly once before, in Toronto, during the No Exit tour. You and Chris Stein signed my copy of the first Blondie album."

After the show Kapp, Slade and I walked back to The Loft and made it for last call. And then, since we had been drinking all night and since there was no reason to stop now, it not being a school night, and there was still beer in my fridge from earlier, we went back to my place and listened to some tunes. Slade has thousands of records and CDs, mostly bootlegs, and he regaled us with tall tales and challenged us with music trivia. Who was the original singer for The Buzzcocks; what was Joy Division's name before they were Joy Division, and after.

Slade kept commenting on how tall I was, which was kinda funny since I was wearing flats. I told him I usually wear three inch heels. He seemed intrigued. Eventually it was time for them to leave. Slade was giving Kapp a ride home, so Kapp went on ahead. Slade closed the door behind him then said goodbye to me in that way that only very tall men can do. It involves a wall, is all I'm saying.

"I'm really sorry you're leaving," he said a while later.

"Me too," I replied, and I meant it.

Don't You Forget About Me

When I woke up this morning, or rather, when I finally went to bed to sleep this morning, I wasn't alone. It's not what you think, though. I wasn't at Rochester's condo.

But boy, was it nice. Very stylish. Very big. Very masculine in its design which was, he says, done by an interior designer. It's the kind of place that, if you saw it and didn't know who lived there, there wouldn't be any doubt in your mind that it was a man. I lost count of the number of TV screens. There was a huge one over the fireplace in the livingroom, and another twice that size on the wall in the second bedroom which he referred to as the man cave. Seriously, I didn't know they made screens that big.

There was also a screen in the kitchen, and one in each bathroom, and in each bathroom there was also a big soaker tub.

The most interesting objects in his place were the lamps, made from found objects by an artist in Santa Cruz. The lamp beside his bed (hey, he was just giving me the tour, OK?) has a hood ornament pinned through the base. Another is made from a collection of rusty gears and what looks like a transmission. And a fantastic floor lamp is made from an antique camera tripod.

He mixed me a gin and tonic, gave me the tour, and then JB called. He'd been invited, too, and he needed help getting in. Rochester's building occupies an entire block and has numerous entrances. Once inside, it's like a maze.

The three of us drank and talked for a few hours. I told them the story of what had happened the last two weeks, and that the movers were coming on the 15th. They were sympathetic, and they cheered me up. So did the shot of I forget what it's called Latvian booze. Eventually, Rochester said he had to be on a plane early tomorrow morning, so JB and I left.

I went home but then I remembered hey, I don't have to get up tomorrow. I don't have a job. So I went back downstairs to The Loft. Bender was there, of course he was, talking to a couple of Twinkies, but not for long. We took our beers out to the patio and had a cig. He lit mine with his Zippo. Yes, he carries a Zippo. I know. Pangs of desire shot down by an inner scream of how can you be so disloyal?

Bender is the sound guy at the theatre. He's the other type that I love: the long haired earring wearing intellectual artsie. His voice would make any girl's knees weak, and obviously did because he wore a wedding ring until two months ago. He hangs out at The Loft between shows.

I never went to the bar just to see him, I didn't need to, we were both there for happy hour at least twice a week. He has a way of listening that he hears things you didn't necessarily say, or maybe were trying not to say, and telling them back to you, because you missed them. He was there for the saga of me trying to get Beauty last year, and on the day I brought her home I pulled over in front of the Loft and ran in, hoping he would be there so I could show her to him. He was.

Last night we closed the place, then stood out front for a while, watching the usual Thursday night commotion outside the bars on Second Street. I know his routine, so I said, "So, what are you going to do, go back to your office and crash on the couch?"

"Yeah."

"Got any booze?"

"No."

We stood a while longer and finally I said, "I do."

In the next story, Sass meets a new interesting man and a celebrity.

Time's Up

Rochester's invited me over to his place tonight, for some "positive drinking," he says. He used to live two blocks from me, but then he moved into a new condo — across the street. We work in the same place, hang out in the same bars, and live in the same block, yet we only talk online. Remember I wrote once that we never really leave high school?

He's really inviting me over to say goodbye. I guess I have that effect on men, I have to leave town before they'll go out with me.

That's right, Gentle Reader, I'm leaving San Jose.

In the next story Sass continues to discover that the secret to attracting men is to leave town.