for Lizzie, not my Lizzie, but they’re both Democrats, and the truth about Democrats, no surprises there. Gun control, abortion. (Personally I don’t get that sales pitch about a fetus not being a person until it’s twelve weeks old.) They should try being a bleeding-heart liberal and owning a restaurant. They’d go broke, the endless fucking laws, every friggin’ one protecting theemployees. I’ve got to write chapter and verse on folks to fire them. By that measure I’ve written more than Michael. And you’ve got to let the bartender steal from the till, acknowledge it up front, make some rules about it. And deal with your waitresses’ STDs, seriously you can’t believe the shit they tell you, the sobbing about the losers they’re involved with. Sometimes you have to fuck them to cheer them up.
Just playing you. I don’t do that but I could.
If I said that to Lizzie, she’d start screaming about how I’m a pig.
I’d never been to Rome. That afternoon I had a glass of Chianti and a smoke near the tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus. It got to me, how insignificant each life is basically, all the stuff we go crazy over. I’m in Rome. There a guy next to me texting, and down the
via
is the tomb of a Roman general who died in the second century.
I tease Taylor, but she’s right. Travel rocks your perspective.
Beppi’s was excellent. I had fresh anchovies. They aren’t salty, a bit tangy, and if you’re into that part of the female anatomy, I’m not, fresh anchovies are in that ballpark but milder. I could never get my diners to order them. Anchovies and capers are not popular in Portland either with the natives or the tourists. They like chowder, the lobster roll of the day, the fresh fish I get off the day boats. I wish I had a dollar for every time a diner ordered a Caesar salad, hold the anchovies. I can get fancy with the lettuce, serve sockeye salmon crudo, spike a tartar sauce with jalapeños, but tourists tend to be conservative. They come for a Maine experience and we’ve got to give it to them.
I appreciated how elegantly the Romans prepared their food without turning it into something pompous. I try for that too. These waiters were lifers and proud of it. That’s something I have respect for. I wasn’t happy to spend the entire meal with my hand in my pocket rolling a Camel Light between my fingers. I never carried a pack. Taylor could spot the bulge in my pocket. I knew that because, way back when, she had. I engineered a tour of the kitchen to duck outside and take a couple of drags.
Why didn’t I tell her?
It’s never good to be honest with Taylor. It’s an invitation for her to fix me.
Smoking is a reason to get up every morning. If I pass a smoker, I breathe deeply and for a second, life is better. I could spend all day scarfing other people’s nicotine, and this obsession gets in the way of, no question, in the way of just about everything. I quit cold turkey when I met Taylor thirteen years ago, which does not feel like yesterday, it feels like thirteen years. It’s dumb when people say it feels like yesterday, at least it’s not a feeling I’m familiar with. When we got engaged, she called it “a pledge of love.” I would have promised her anything. I felt clean when I was with her. Clean, classy, and kind of powerful. Smokes had no place in that scenario.
Right after we got married, I started up again. One a night. Stashed the pack under the bar and extracted a cigarette at precisely one a.m. I capped every night with a beer and a fag, and finished it off with a Tic Tac.
That was when I was into beer. Taylor said I was getting fat.I had to agree. I’d been downing a six-pack a day since I was eighteen, no side effects, and suddenly I’ve got a pouch you can pet. My face was getting puffy. I caught a glimpse of myself walking by the bar one night—there’s a long mirror, Tay’s idea, hung across the back, that cost me two thousand dollars—and didn’t recognize
Just playing you. I don’t do that but I could.
If I said that to Lizzie, she’d start screaming about how I’m a pig.
I’d never been to Rome. That afternoon I had a glass of Chianti and a smoke near the tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus. It got to me, how insignificant each life is basically, all the stuff we go crazy over. I’m in Rome. There a guy next to me texting, and down the
via
is the tomb of a Roman general who died in the second century.
I tease Taylor, but she’s right. Travel rocks your perspective.
Beppi’s was excellent. I had fresh anchovies. They aren’t salty, a bit tangy, and if you’re into that part of the female anatomy, I’m not, fresh anchovies are in that ballpark but milder. I could never get my diners to order them. Anchovies and capers are not popular in Portland either with the natives or the tourists. They like chowder, the lobster roll of the day, the fresh fish I get off the day boats. I wish I had a dollar for every time a diner ordered a Caesar salad, hold the anchovies. I can get fancy with the lettuce, serve sockeye salmon crudo, spike a tartar sauce with jalapeños, but tourists tend to be conservative. They come for a Maine experience and we’ve got to give it to them.
I appreciated how elegantly the Romans prepared their food without turning it into something pompous. I try for that too. These waiters were lifers and proud of it. That’s something I have respect for. I wasn’t happy to spend the entire meal with my hand in my pocket rolling a Camel Light between my fingers. I never carried a pack. Taylor could spot the bulge in my pocket. I knew that because, way back when, she had. I engineered a tour of the kitchen to duck outside and take a couple of drags.
Why didn’t I tell her?
It’s never good to be honest with Taylor. It’s an invitation for her to fix me.
Smoking is a reason to get up every morning. If I pass a smoker, I breathe deeply and for a second, life is better. I could spend all day scarfing other people’s nicotine, and this obsession gets in the way of, no question, in the way of just about everything. I quit cold turkey when I met Taylor thirteen years ago, which does not feel like yesterday, it feels like thirteen years. It’s dumb when people say it feels like yesterday, at least it’s not a feeling I’m familiar with. When we got engaged, she called it “a pledge of love.” I would have promised her anything. I felt clean when I was with her. Clean, classy, and kind of powerful. Smokes had no place in that scenario.
Right after we got married, I started up again. One a night. Stashed the pack under the bar and extracted a cigarette at precisely one a.m. I capped every night with a beer and a fag, and finished it off with a Tic Tac.
That was when I was into beer. Taylor said I was getting fat.I had to agree. I’d been downing a six-pack a day since I was eighteen, no side effects, and suddenly I’ve got a pouch you can pet. My face was getting puffy. I caught a glimpse of myself walking by the bar one night—there’s a long mirror, Tay’s idea, hung across the back, that cost me two thousand dollars—and didn’t recognize
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