magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

After a few weeks without brunch, today was a return to our regularly scheduled program, with Chris showing up 45 minutes late and all. (In his defence, the J wasn't running over the bridge.) 'Cybèle is supposed to be arriving in town this evening,' he told me when he showed up.

'She left me a message the other day,' I said, 'but she must have called from a payphone, and I only got every couple of words, and had no idea what she was talking about. "Hello . . . is Cybèle . . . in town . . . if you're free . . . I'll . . . talk to . . . later . . ." I didn't know whether she was in town, or was coming to town, or what.'

'Six o'clock, is what she told me. Probably on a Chinatown bus, from Philly.' We walked down towards Chinatown after brunch, but Chris was weary of the smell on a hot day like today, so we walked back up towards Union Square and got a drink while we waited for her to call. And then back down to meet up with her, and from there, a cab into Bushwick.

At Chris's house Christian was sitting shirtless at the kitchen table eating dinner. We all sat around drinking beer and sweating for a while until we decided that we needed to go somewhere with air conditioning.

'I know we had brunch at Life in Manhattan, and you hate the one in Brooklyn,' mainly to Chris, 'because it has an open kitchen and smells like grease, but I could really use some food.' And so we stopped in for a bite and another round of beers. And then on to, 'Where are we headed?'

'We could go to the other bar, right across the street.'

'The one that used to be a sports bar? Or we could get a drink at Kings County.'

'Where's that?'

'Just around the corner, three blocks up.'

'You and Bean and I got a couple drinks there once before when you were in town. It's the kind of goth bar.'

'I can't go to a goth bar,' Christian said.

'It's not really a goth bar. It's hipster-goth. It's small and dark and has some ornate woodwork, but it's right in the middle of loft-land.' So another drink in the courtyard behind Kings County. 'I looked at apartments in this building when we were moving out of the loft around the corner. Totally new renovations, they gutted the place and started from scratch. They were nice, smallish lofts, but more than I could afford. I do kind of miss the neighbourhood though.'

And then on again. 'So are we going to the bar on the water?'

'I don't think we talked about any bar on the water. There's a couple down towards the end of Grand street that are near the water, that we could check out if we were to stop by Nadav and Gisel's.' Cybèle had called and they were just home cleaning, but said we could stop by.

'No, the place where there might be a show?'

'Well, it's nowhere near the water, and it's not actually a bar, but they do sell beer,' Christian said, and said the name of the place which I again didn't catch.

'So we're going to a place that's not a bar, that's not on the water, that might or might not have live music, and might or might not have booze?'

'There will almost certainly be music. And they definitely have booze.'

We passed the Wreck Room again on the way and Cybèle ducked in to use the bathroom. 'We should all be going in and getting a drink there,' I said. But we didn't.

The bar that's not a bar (you're choice of four hipster beers), that's on Broadway in the middle of Bushwick (no water in sight), is a place called Goodbye Blue Monday, and not to be derisive in any way, looks like what would happen if Dave had a trust-fund. It's actually a pretty cool place, not exactly my aesthetic, but the coffee shop / bar / free internet / hangout / live music vibe is nice. And there was live music happening. Not a huge crowd. We sat and drank some more, and then again, headed out.

'We could walk Bean to the L train and stop and actually get a drink at that other bar this time,' Cybèle suggested.

'Or we could just pick up boozes at the corner store and go back and drink them at my house,' Chris said.

'That's fine with me. Boozes is boozes.' So a couple more beers and conversation in the air conditioned room at Chris's. Rules about where the line falls when hitting on friends' exes, ex-crushes, current crushes, etc. If hypothetically at a party the opportunity were to present itself.

Heading out at 3:30. Walking past my old apartment five minutes later, but not home for an hour and a half.