I’m Sick. Feel Sorry for Me.

Screw Dallas and its “I can’t make up my mind” weather patterns. Screw all of the healthy people on Katy Trail on Sunday. And screw you and your uncongested sinuses that taunt me from your mimosa-sipping perch at Taverna, while I struggle to remember again why exactly it’s a bad idea to drink while on antibiotics.

For weeks now, I have been the awkward one who people step away from as I cough involuntarily on the elevator, sneeze out of desperation in my tiny little cube and blow my nose every hour in the bathroom like clockwork.

Yeah. It’s gross. I know. Believe me, I’m more tired of it than you are. But more than any of these disgusting occurrences, the thing that chaps my hide the most is the fact that I can’t taste my frickin’ food. At first I thought to myself, this was sure to only last a day or two. Eight days later, here I sit, still unable to taste food and pretty much pissed at the world because of it.

I’m certainly not the skinniest beanpole of the bunch, but also nowhere near the same category as a mind-blowing size 32 True Religion. And food is one thing I love.
From my fabulous bone-in steak at Nick & Sam’s to my Potbelly Wreck, hold the oil… from my Mambo Taxi @ MiCo to my Kenny’s Woodfire Grill lemondrop martini with sugar on the rim, I heart food & drink.

As some friends and I made our way to dinner last Friday night, I was oddly apathetic about where we were headed, simply because deciding between crunchy or mushy wasn’t quite doing it for me. We settled upon the random selection of Cremona, the shadiest of shady Italian restaurants in our beloved city, where the declaration on the menu of being around since 1977 was likely another way of reiterating just how long it had been competing with Campisi’s for the best place to hide a Tommy Gun in a restaurant.

As we made our way back to the Uptown-mobile, we noticed a building much shadier than Cremona could have aspired to be on even its best day. The words “Jet Set” were lit up in red, surrounded by stars as though we had just stumbled upon the coolest Star Wars bar in the city. Excitement filled our group as we wondered if we had finally found a true “hole in the wall” bar that hadn’t already received five stars through Guidelive, or been named “Best Hole in the Wall” by the Observer. One of our friends decided to Christen this new hopeful hallowed of halloweds, crossing his fingers he didn’t die in the process.

He returned not thirty seconds later, eyes wide open and mouth slightly gaping, letting us know it wasn’t what he was expecting – yet we still had stumbled upon greatness.

“She told me to come back on Thursdays,” he said. “Who told you?” we all asked, perplexed.

“Umm, the madam?”

The madam. Thursdays, apparently, were gay night.

“Buuuttt… you aren’t gay, Andrew.” I said.

“I know. But I was alone, so gay was my best option.” he said.

As we all stared at him, confused, we realized just what we had stumbled upon. A swinger’s club, to be sure, and the Madam’s rule was “twos only” on Friday and Saturday nights. Our people-watching options on the weekends will forever be changed by this soon-to-be classic discovery.

And while no, Jackie O is not a swinger, or married for that matter, finding a swinger’s club in the middle of Uptown for some reason gave me the same kind of giddy excitement I experience when I get a table on free sushi night at Steel,
or when I take my first bite of a Mooyah Special and don’t have to imagine how good it tastes, and, soon enough, when I have a front row view of my unassuming friends’ faces when they meet me and my runny nose at the newest little hotspot in Uptown on Friday.

It’s the little things that get you through the rough times. The little things.