Last night I enjoyed a delicious dinner at Bistro 1689 on Church Street with Lucky Bachelor #13. The cuisine is “French/Californian,” and from what I sampled, bistro cooking at its best. We both had the duck confit. The skin was crispy, and the meat just fell off the bone. The sauce served with it cradled the essence of the meat in a smooth richness that didn’t distract or enhance. It just let it be–a little ducky that gave its sweet little life to me. The wine that I had with it did exactly the same thing, stimulating just a small portion of my palette, but with an amazing array of flavor and experience packed into that little corner of my mouth. I find a lot of French wines to be that way, quite different from the California style of assaulting the taste buds from every which-a-way. My salad, of baby romaine lettuce with sauteed mushrooms, was drizzled with a coarse-grained mustard vinaigrette. And love.
So back at #13’s pad, making out on the sofa with the TV blaring in the background, I heard something on TV about the Unabomber and started laughing. “What?” he asked. “I was just thinking about the Unabomber…” but he cut me off before I could complete my thought, mock-offended that my thoughts could so diffused–like a Sonoma County Pinot, and not the French bordeaux that he thought he was sipping. Somehow my thoughts about the Unabomber led to a discussion of sex, and I told him that I wasn’t in a hurry to hop in the sack, having spent 6 months with a guy whom I didn’t really like, but liked having sex with, and very limited sex at that, but still, limited sex within the confines of a relationship structure that had no meaning or substantial content. This time I want to get to know the person first, and see if there’s something relationship-y that can support a sexual exploration. If not then maybe we could be friends. Or just have sex anyway. I just don’t want sex to cloud important things that I need in a mate, like an appreciation of mid-century lighting and Joan Blondell. Or maybe that’s a bunch of bunk and I’m just experiencing anxiety around his fear of more challenging endowments. Just what is too challenging for him, anyway? I know I’m making too much of it, for if he really loved this other guy he would have worked–or nibbled–his way around the problem, but still.
Calm blue waters, calm blue waters, calm blue waters…