Daily Blague

If I've had a better birthday, I'll shave off my beard and repent. What a night!

The usual suspects gathered at LXIV's Union Square apartment, where I had to tear myself away, repeatedly, from the window. It was such fun to watch all the passers-by, so different from and more interesting than the folks in Yorkville High Street. PPOQ was already there when we arrived, a tad early - oops. Chivalry forbids me to state just why I thought we were going to be seriously late, but, chronically punctual, I assumed that we wouldn't get to the party in good time, and completely overlooked the dispatch with which the 5 train whisked us to Union Square. "Don't worry," pooh-poohed PPOQ at the door. "He's been ready for hours."

It has been a long time since I've been in a flat as stylish as LXIV's, if, indeed, I've ever been in one. The edible treats were just as sophisticated. I worried at first about saving room for dinner, but then it occurred to me that, as it was my birthday, I could do as I pleased and damn the consequences. As it happened, I wanted very much to keep my head, so although it meant disappointing LXIV, who had looked forward to shaking up a few martinis (which he, however, wouldn't dream of drinking), I stuck to a very nice graves. Ms NOLA and M le Neveu arrived before too long, quickly followed by Miss G, who had been out on the town the night before. She had evidently recovered nicely. Owing to the bizarrely temperate weather, Ms NOLA was able to look fetching in one of those little black dresses that you can't ordinarily wear in January without making everyone around you shiver.

When it came time to head to Jules, the bistro in St Mark's Place, Kathleen and I decided to take a cab while the others chose to walk. Poor PPOQ went home, prudently enough. He wasn't feeling very well, thanks to an office cold that had finally nabbed him, and we all agreed that he'd been very gallant to come downtown at all. I don't know what kind of a time he'd have had at the restaurant. It was very noisy as usual, but he would have found the young men at the table next to ours most interesting. (Trust me; I've been out with him many times, and discretion, at least insofar as sharing his designs with me is concerned, is not his middle name.) They looked too young to have real jobs, but they were all wearing jackets. Miss G found the wearing of jackets on a Saturday night in St Mark's Place highly suspicious, and both she and Ms NOLA, who sat to my right, regarded the "pack" as an all-too-familiar bore. PPOQ, in contrast, might have found an extra seat amongst them, and ventured to offer career counseling.

The traffic on 14th Street was terrible, and the traffic on Second Avenue was unimaginable. Both were clogged by taxis. I realized that I had never been downtown on a Saturday night before. When we finally arrived at the restaurant, I got out my cell phone and started to dial Ms NOLA's number, but she and the others walked in before I could press the Call button.

My dinner was a classic: half a dozen oysters, steak-frites, and crème brulée. I damned the consequences when it came to the wine, and we went through three bottles of Domaine Chèze St Joseph. The waiter actually shook my hand when I signed the receipt.

Miss G took the photos, using my phone. I asked her to take one of the people sitting at the table outside, looking for all the world as if it were May. Because New York comes in two temperatures, cold and please turn on the air-conditioning, I had never noticed that the doorway area at Jules can be cleared out nearly to the dimensions of a garage door.

After dinner, LXIV walked Ms NOLA and M le Neveu back to Union Square, where they all had a drink before the latter two headed back to Park Slope. We walked Miss G around the corner to her apartment and then hopped in a taxi, which sped right up First Avenue to 86th Street and home - where I permitted myself a martini. And so to bed!