HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND INTIMIDATE PEOPLE

the man who followed us from itaca, where we arrived after two hours of prepartying at the apartment and then two and a half more on the streets trying to walk off some of the preparty and figure out where we'd be spending the rest of our night out (never having figured out the situation with the flamenco show that was supposedly happening late in the plaza de san marcos), that man, he followed us to a place called utopia that seemed to have much more potential than itaca -- a big, late, spanish c.c. slaughters -- stopped us at a corner and asked us first if we were the police. i guessed at first that his tapping on his forearm meant that he wanted to sell us drugs, but then i wasn't sure whether the number he was giving us was a price or a measurement because he grabbed himself at me and asked what exactly it was we were looking for when we passed by and passed on the other club. did we like men? or was she a lesbian? not tonight? (the game of gay or gay-not-gay that we played so often in portland has translated well into the game of gay or just european that the kids play here -- and that apparently i'm losing.) but if tonight we both like men then we should both join him, he said, and grabbed himself again, so it might have been drugs AND sex that he was offering us, or maybe one for the other.

at that point, she was already trying to talk to the perfectly vapid looking guapo sitting nearby on one of the pylons that mark the borders of the roads on and around the alameda, but as soon as he responded he got up and pushed his way inside utopia, which, through the door that the bouncer opened to let the guy in, looked too closely packed to accommodate her upset stomach (some of the fashion choices here are dubious at best, and this place was looking more and more like a pair of jeggings: tight and unflattering), but at least our tail from itaca had given up and went in search of other prospects.

what can we say except that we'll know better how to try the next time? or that we know how we're going to try to try better the next time. but before then we have a man to contact about a room, because the principle lesson learned last night was definitely that it can be dangerous to mix business and pleasure, and the office was completely ruined by the preparty.