On my way down to the bar I stopped to text M and see if she was gonna stop by. She couldn’t, she told me, she had stuff to do. Well, fine, I was heading down anyway. And so I did. Stopped for dinner, as per usual, and got another text from M. She would be showing up, it seemed. Well, all right, cool.

So I hit the bar and M and Moran are sitting and talking.

“I wasn’t going to come until he twisted my arm, via text message,” M said, indicating me.

“Wow, really? That one message? It musta had a hellofa twist.”

“Yeah, just twisted it right off. That one. And I had to stay at work late, and plans didn’t happen and… I blame the text message.”

So we sat around a while and hung out. M had to leave so Moran and I sat around chatting like we do. There are far worse fates. While we’re talking this guy comes in and sits down. Wearing a suit he orders a beer and then takes out a book. He starts to read his book, ignoring the music, and slowly sip at his beer. Halfway through his beer he stands up and leaves. Just … woosh.

I can’t image what happened there. I mean who goes into a jazz club and sits reading a book, in very dim light no less, while drinking a beer? Ignoring the music, and just sipping at a beer that was then left at least half full? So many thinks wrong there.

I told Moran I wanted to chase him down to demand answers but she convinced me that since I didn’t know what the guy looked like, really (he had a blue suit, two arms, two legs, a head, white hair, white guy, between 5′10 and 6′), and he left a good ten minutes before I decided I simply had to know why … well I didn’t chase him down.

I considered going outside and shouting “Strange suit wearing reading half beer drinking man! Come back!” but I didn’t do that either.

There was also a long row of people in town, all together. They were from … Italy I think. And they were simply fascinated by Cosmopolitans. They ordered a few, and I don’t think they knew what they were. They just ordered them. So then they sat, admired, sipped and called Moran over for a conference.

And then they debated what they guessed was in them, with her. “… and cranberry juice,” Moran says at last to a chorus of “Oh!”s and “I knew it”s. You would have thought the cranberry was the easiest part to guess. Oh well.

Later on some other regulars came in and we talked a bunch. Ralph bought me a beer. Nice of him, and I owe him one, but I was having an early night of it. Or planning to. So Ralph buys me a beer, which I can’t refuse to drink once Moran puts it down. So I’m drinking that when this other guy, Mark, sits down and joins in on the conversation. Ralph has to move, after 40 years in the village, so we’re talking neighborhoods and such.

Mark is a recent transplant and has lived in London and Japan and such and is just interested in NY. Yeah. Two natives already bitching about the city … it’s a way to get an earful.

So I tried to leave and Mark tried to buy me a drink. I finally got Moran to not get me that drink, because I simply had to go. I still had some stuff to do, and sadly, it means I had to turn down a free drink.

Sucks, but that’s life.