Our new place is slightly smaller than our old apartment. But, it's newer, nicer, cleaner, has a fantastic view (as opposed to our old place: a basement unit), and has a cat door to boot. Granted, the cat door perk evaporated suddenly this morning when one of the feral cats from the abandoned house/meth lab across the way suddenly figured out how to use the cat door this morning; but still, even with home invasion, it's a nice place.
I can only assume that the sudden influx of "nice place" mood in us - and perhaps an abrupt upswing in the feeling of "coupleness" due to our month-and-a-half old domestic partnership - can explain a recent trend in the life and home my boyfriend and I share: entertaining.
Despite the fact that he's 30 and I'm 26, he has a law degree and I'm trying to get a Ph.D., and we're both fairly stable and responsible enough to keep our asthmatic cat drugged up on steroids and clean my newly-pierced ear lobes, my boyfriend and I never really fit in well with the young-and-hip crowd. I'm bookish, brooding, boring, and am often known to have the social skills of a thumbtack. He's professional, proper, polished, and approximately the same height as Napoleon. So, I guess I'm more likely to spend my evenings reading while sipping cheap wine or watching Star Trek while drinking cheap beer, and he's more likely to sit in his home-office listening to classical music while secretly hatching plots to conquer Europe. All-in-all, we fit pretty well in the description of pasty white guys who just happen, by some genetic and environmental fluke, to be raging homosexuals.
Of course, there's more to us than that. My carriage and demeanour around my boyfriend or my close, selective crop of treasured friends (one of whom, a one-armed lesbian named Miffins, gave me this platform upon which I occasionally practice my typing skills) is dramatically different. Same with my boyfriend. But, since that amounts to about a dozen people spread across North America, I'm still shocked that - recently, very recently - we've started entertaining.
Of course, we're not entertaining others on the same level that you, the reader, likely do. We're still the pasty white guys in bed by 10:00PM (for my boyfriend) or 11:00PM (for me) and up by 6:00AM to drug the cat, listen to NPR, and make some turkey bacon. On Sundays, Zach likes to challenge the devil by sleeping in until 7:00 or 8:00, but that appears to be the extent of his rebellious streak (not counting his "blue hair" period in college, before we knew one another). So, our entertaining episodes have been appropriately mild. Still, the act of letting folks (and feral cats) into our home for any reasons other than catsitting is, I think, headlineworthy (though the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer disagree).
The most noteworthy episodes to date were a "movie night" for myself and some co-workers last week and a small dinner party my boyfriend is orchestrating tomorrow night for some friends of his. Mine was a beer-and-pizza gaggle of scientists watching that childhood classic, Return to Oz. For his, I'm afraid I'll actually have to wear a shirt with a collar - and if so, I'm tying a bow around the cat's neck, since misery loves company. But, I nearly wet myself this morning when I realized that Zach's slightly-more-sophisticated gathering is the perfect opportunity to crack open the biggest Elephant in the Room object we own: the good bottle of wine.
We have a small wine rack, which I keep stocked with a variety of horribly cheap wine. It's horribly cheap because I don't know anything about wine, and therefore see no reason to spend lots of money I don't have (the NIH doesn't pay much for graduate student slave labor) on a fancy bottle, when the cheap one tastes just fine to me. The same goes for beer - though I keep beer in one of the crisper drawers in the refrigerator. But, about a year or so ago, I helped a former associate move his wine collection into a storage facility, and he (very kindly, I might add) gave me a bottle of "fancy wine" (I'm pretty sure it's red, but the label is written in French, which I don't speak). In one of my more ridiculous conversations over Instant Messenger, he gave me an approximate translation of some of the bottle's words. But, since I've no reliable memory, I don't remember much other than "red wine."
So, with such precious cargo delivered into such unqualified hands, that bottle of wine has been sitting on the wine rack for over a year now - and the clock is ticking. The man who kindly gave it to me told me to drink it within two years (I forget why, but I think it has something to do with... how... uh... wine is made). But, I've delayed opening the bottle for several reasons. First, my boyfriend barely drinks - mostly because he has no tolerance for the stuff. Two New Years Eves ago, he was passed out by 10:00PM due to half a glass of (cheap) champagne. Second, I feel this generous gift is my first and last attempt to drink "fancy wine." The rest of my days on this Good Earth, I'll likely stick to my "$12.00 or less" rule. I cannot fathom a single reason I'll ever again get to drink "fancy wine." I won't be having any wedding ceremony, receiving wealthy gifts, or suddenly ascending the social ladder of this stratified society rapidly enough to reach the lower rungs of "fancy wine" level. Plus, should I ever find myself in such a "fancy wine" situation, I'd likely feel naked, uncomfortable, and alone. I still, after all, think in terms like "red" and "white," which I'm told by many in Seattle that such a mindset reveals my poor, humble, and very Southern/Midwestern roots.
So, I need a situation, within the next year, where I can open this bottle, enjoy it with a group of people (since half a glass will satisfy, and possibly intoxicate, my boyfriend). Bonus if it's a setting a little more formal than my default beer-and-pizza-and-random-movie program of entertainment. Thus, tomorrow evening seems like the perfect opportunity to open this bottle and have my first - and last - taste of sophistication. Hell, I'll gladly wear a collar for that.
Except I'm not sure if we have wine glasses.
Posted by James at September 14, 2007 10:17 AM