birthday season update #2

I spent last evening with two of my favorite people, S & A. (Too bad S's name doesn't start with a T, 'cause that would be funny to say I spent the night with T & A! But anyway...) A picked us up at 6:15 and we headed over to South Austin, to Buenos Aires Cafe, which doesn't look like much, a divey little building under a billboard nestled between a pawn shop and a beauty parlor. It was probably a house once upon a time, and what used to be the front porch has been enclosed by tall wrought iron fence bars and thick clear plastic. And it's small. Only room for maybe 30 people tops, inside and out. And it was packed. But as my birthday luck would have it, there was one table available, right in the middle of everything.

The three waiters -- two male and one female -- worked the room together. They were all beautiful and sweet; I wanted them all and they seemed to want me, too, which is part of the reason I've been contemplating becoming celibate for a year starting on my (actual) birthday. S asked me what more that meant besides what I've been doing lately (not dating really, not having much sex) and in my mind it means not having any sex, not masturbating, not looking at porn, and not sexifying every moment of my life, every person I see. I want to stop wanting every personal (and not so personal -- i.e., seeing people at the grocery store, etc..) encounter I have to become sexual. I'm still thinking it through and will write more about it on Tuesday.

A ordered a bottle of organic white wine and then we ordered our meals. While we waited for our food, she ran out to the car to get what she said was my "trinket," but which was actually a cool recycled material shopping bag from Whole Foods Market with eleven gifts in it. I had told her about this being my Birthday Season, and she went with it! She made a card that said "Happy Birthday JDJB!! Tonight we start your BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL!!" Inside was a longer (lovely) message and a suggestion to open one present per day. So I opened one right then. It was a kid's Count Dracula Halloween mask. Fun!

My meal:

Spinach salad - A refreshing blend of organic baby-leaf spinach, feta cheese, Fuji apples and spicy roasted pecans in our sweet/tart vinaigrette.

Gnocchi Quartet - A unique combination of our wonderful homemade flavored gnocchi consisting of pumpkin-cinnamon, sweet potato-chipotle, cilantro-jalapeno, and potato-herb tossed with roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, mushrooms and haricots verts in an olive oil, finished with specialty sauces and fresh parmesan.

I couldn't decide between the Quatros Leches and the Flourless Chocolate Cake special, so S had one and I had the other. The Flourless Chocolate Cake wasn't on the menu (but was fantastic), and the Quatros Leches was described thusly:

This traditional Latin-American sponge cake has a distinct Argentinean touch that includes multiple sauces and dulce de leche liqueur for a truly unique flavor!

Amen to that!

One of the waiters had a cool tattoo on his arm, a negative space tattoo, a black circle with a peace dove in the middle. I'm very tattoo-aware right now since I just got my St. Francis tattoo. We chatted briefly about it, and then a little later into the meal, he came over with postcards for all of us announcing a gallery opening he and another waiter from the cafe are having. It's called Birdhouse, and it's not far from our home. The East Side is so cool and getting cooler. The card says "Just For You/New Work By..." and on the back:

To Whomever Finds This
thank you for taking the
time to find this. First
life is all electrity = No god
Its the most beautiful
thing to be a human
so
drink
fuck
love
cry
spend
save
none of it Matters

As planned, we went to see The Order of Myths after dinner. The Order of Myths is one of (in fact the final) "Mystics" organizations that marches in the Mardi Gras parades and throws out the beads and -- in Mobile, Alabama -- Moonpies! The movie broke my heart. It's beautifully told and so pertinent to what we're going through right now in the country

In Mobile, there is a white Mardi Gras organization and a black Mardi Gras organization; they each have a king and queen, and they each have a parade (same day, different times). It is one of the last hold-ons of segregation in Mobile. The documentary examines both sides of the centuries-old coin; there is a lot of joy and sadness on both sides, and a lot of yearning, particularly from the younger generations, to not be so segregated. This year (it was filmed in 2007), the king and queen on both sides made steps to integrate just a little bit, and it was this effort, this compassionate effort made by all of them (but particularly by the black couple) that had me crying through the last quarter of the film.

A, S and I went to Clementine Coffee Bar afterward for beverages -- A had a cappuccino, S had a beer, and I had hot chocolate -- to talk about the movie and other things. I got to bed at 1:00 a.m. and slept so soundly...

The first thing I did this morning was open my #2 gift from A:

a box of Ak-mak 100% whole of/the wheat stone ground sesame crackers!