coming out, dinner at august, drag show, chanel, obama voting anecdotes

so we have this friend that we talk about all the time, mostly to discuss how he's gay and won't come out. well, this week he actually came out. which means we no have nothing left to talk about anymore.

went to the opening day of chanel's mobile art exhibit. a very hard ticket to get but (patting myself on the back) i had some early access promo code that i got ages ago. i win. it's a futuristic white snail shell looking thing. you enter two at a time, checking coats and purses and are fitted with mini mp3 players and headphones (that, for whatever reason, they put on you). they press play and you hear a voice. a deep, froggy voice. it's a woman, but sounds pretty asexual in the way that a troll or swamp creature in a sci-fi movie might sound. "come with me," she croaks. "stand up and turn left, walk under the archway..." as she guides you through the space. along the way you look into cardboard boxes to see video being projected into the bottom of the box which makes it look like two little people are inside. and they're naked. and whacking each other on the head with purses. my absolute favorite part was a tiny dark room where the woman told you to take a seat along the back wall, nothing is across from you but an empty wall but down on the ground was water and dirt, the way you'd find puddles along the curb after a downpour. the water was so still that you could see in its reflection, an illuminated row of four-story apartments. little people walking through their living rooms, people turning lamps on and off, closing curtains. just sitting in the dark watching life. i could have sat in that room for hours. but the frog wouldn't let me. photos of human faces sculpted out of leather were grotesque but i couldn't take my eyes off them. a giant purse rounds out the ending. inside, a chanel compact with a television monitor in place of a mirror, showing people shooting the crap out of some very expensive bags. you see a photo montage of purses being made. froggy lady keeps calling it skin, which it is, but you don't want to think of a purse as skin. it's gross. she tells you to write a wish on a tag and hang it on a tree. i do. i'm given a shrinkwrapped 12x14inch chanel catalog that i still haven't opened. the end.

brian's birthday tonight. going to a drag show. it will either be fun or terrible. we were instructed to bring "tranny gifts" which, for me, is going to be a wet n' wild makeup set. if they even still make wet n' wild anymore. i actually have no clue.

had dinner with emily at august. chef: terrence gallivan who strangely has zero google presence. that means this blog will infinitely increase his technorati rating or something. this place is, by far, the coziest, cutest little restaurant i've been to all year. i'm shocked at myself for not having been earlier. ashamed, actually, is a better word. the new love of my life for the next 5 minutes was the guy who was hosting that night. a bearded dark-haired fellow who i just wanted to nosh on for a while. really fucking pretty, this guy.

we started with the pimenton mussels which were underwhelming. the meat was so small and there was almost zero sauce to speak of which left them unnecessarily dry. things looked up as we hit the tarte flambee, a favorite there. tons of soft barely caramelized onions piled on a smoky bread that had been cooked in a wood-burning oven, drizzled with creme fraiche. rock the fuck on. we had the skate saltimboca and a side of creamed brussels sprouts. (sidenote, firefox spellcheck doesn't like this paragraph at all.) and we finished with beef over mashed potatoes with some other stuff that i can't remember because we actually didn't touch it because we'd ordered too much and were too full by the time it showed up on our table. our initial server was a girl, and she was great. we were there fairly late so i'm sure she got cut, and whoever was closing plussed over our table (how's that for waitress speak! i may be an attorney, but i never forget where i came from. holla.) so this guy is really eager to get us out. he still had 4 tables sitting. he cleared the fish that we'd told someone we wanted to finish. he brought dessert menus, we said we didn't want dessert and in a snap he'd whisked away the menus and we had the check. we had tried to tell him that we wanted dessert wine but that's literally how fast he'd whipped up the cards and fled away. i wanted to yell, "hey, buddy. we get the hint. you want us GONE."

also slightly annoying but to no fault of the restaurant, some french table that kept taking pictures of their food. i know it was dark in there but why use flash? it's distracting and now all your pictures are over-exposed you ignorant fool! why don't you adjust manually, with your fancy camera? maybe because even though you spent some $500 euros on it you never learned how to use it?

in all, i still adore this place and if i lived anywhere near the west village, it would be my new home away from home. i'm going back. immediately.

and this story is amazing. i fucking love it. i voted by absentee ballot. highly anti-climactic. i'll be in chicago on election day. hopefully doing some voter protection somewhere. and yes, i should be in PA where it counts...but i really wanted to try to get to the rally that night in the park. it's selfish. i'll do some extra phone banking to repent...