Another Night at the Summit

I love the Summit. Though I wouldn't consider myself one of the regulars, I have been dropping by for the past three years. One thing I love about the Summit is that it's a good place to meet people. There always seems to be at least one person I know there, and then they introduce you to other people they know or people just join in on your conversations. The always-lovable Shane is one of the bartenders, and he makes a mean margarita. The first time I met Shane was at the Summit. My sister and I were there on a double-date with a couple of Summit regulars, Darrin and Matt, when Shane walked in. At the time he and my sister were both working at Sport, and she introduced Shane to us. Shane, Matt and I ended up getting into a long conversation about William Gibson and other sci-fi writers. Shane and my sister started dating a couple weeks later, and after they broke up Shane and I remained close friends. Shane is also responsible for turning my mother into a fan of the White Stripes. He lives close to the Summit and after a year or so as a customer he took his place behind the bar, much to every one's joy.

I went to see "Kissing Jessica Stein" last night at Central Cinema. Jay was going to go with me, but then she fell ill with a cold yesterday and decided to stay home. After the movie I walked to the Summit to meet up with Erik, running into Liz at the store on the way. At the Summit I ran into Shane's friend, Don. As I sat out front smoking a clove, a young woman approached, joking that she'd smelled my clove but couldn't see where it was coming from as I was seated behind a sign hung on the railing. She came back out again with her beer and joined Don and I at the table. She introduced herself as Natasha, and said she had put Shane in the last chapter of her novel as a character. She lives in Chicago now but was in town for a legal conference. Erik came out with his beer and the buttery nipple I'd made him buy for me and joined us. I was telling a story about my purse being stolen a few years ago at the Twilight Exit when a rather drunken older women asked us what we were all laughing about (i.e. guy at Twilight Exit spent entire game of pool trying to grab my ass, won the game for us, and then grabbed my purse and ran out the door).

Erik left to go work on his song and I remained to chat. The drunken woman came out again calling Natasha and I her daughters. I also met Natasha's friend Tara, who's in a band called Ghost Lobby. I noted the name of her band so that I could add them as a friend on MySpace so I could be informed about their next show. We celebrated that we were all carrying identical pocket-sized Moleskine notebooks. Tara and Natasha had some catching up to do, so I left after giving Natasha my email address and asking if she would send me some of her stories to read.

I went to Liz's where she, Shane and Aaron were watching "Into The Wild." I fell asleep on Liz's couch until I woke up and walked home at 1am. I may have to check out "Into the Wild" again, but the pacing was too slow last night for a sleepy girl with a couple of glasses of wine in her.