Recommended Daily Allowance
Just saw Atsushi to the train; he’ll be on the plane back to Kyushu at 4:00. Flights were disrupted yesterday, but the weather’s cleared here now.
On Thursday, I ended up looking in the refrigerator and seeing that I had corned beef left over that really needed to be used up. That kind of ruled out the French toast plan for Friday–corned beef with French toast? No. So it was buttery scrambled eggs, which themselves were rather nice.
Speaking of eating–it was the cutest thing–we did Vietnamese for dinner that night. I was dilly-dallying about finishing my pho, trying to get the last few noodle fragments into the same spoonful of broth. Atsushi reached over absentmindedly with his chopsticks and started piling noodles into my spoon–an uncharacteristically intimate public gesture for him. He looked up and saw my bemused look and jerked his hand back a little. Then he recovered himself and gave his conspiratorial smirk. (You communicate in conspiratorial smirks a lot in Tokyo gay life.) Then he pointedly picked up the last noodle and deposited it in my spoon. Best mouthful of pho I’ve ever had.
It was a good food weekend overall, come to think of it. Last night, we went out with a good buddy of mine. (BTW, C., darling? I love you lots, but I swear–you will find a way to be an hour late for your own bleedin’ funeral.) Italian. Gay Italian: sea bass carpaccio and gnocchi and veal with cracked pepper and green salad and…ooh, can we get something else with pine nuts? We’re into pine nuts today.
My buddy C., BTW, is an example of the kind of guy who knows how to deal with a failed relationship like a gentleman. In the spring, his boyfriend of two and a half years betrayed him and then broke up with him. He still loves the guy and thinks about him all the time, and–well, I’m his friend, so I listen when he needs to talk. I, being loyal to C., hope his ex gets himself run over by a nice truck sometime soon, but I try to keep my own counsel on the subject.
Anyway, the good thing about C. is, unlike some people, he knows when he needs not to talk, too. As in, “It’s been 45 minutes of non-stop pining for my ex, so let’s change the subject.” And then he actually changes the subject. Or lets me change the subject. Of course, his frequent reward is to hear me grouse about how much I miss Atsushi; even so, he’s never once played the obvious “How can you complain about your long-distance relationship when I don’t even have a boyfriend?” card. What would you not do for such a friend?
So from tonight on, back to cooking for one and making my own tea and not encountering a warm, cuddly man when I roll over at 3 a.m. For another few weeks.