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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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The Demon Who Scoffs At Sake
I took Max in for sushi. Max is interested in the Aisho as the Aisho is such a boy's boy (as opposed, of course, to a man's man). His boyishness appeals to other boys and draws them in, gay or straight, I mean. I ordered sake. I have this thing about sake. I don't like it, but I like to keep trying things I don't like so that I can try to figure out why I don't like them. And, having very little experience with sake, wasn't expecting it--truly--to pack any sort of wallop whatsoever. So I ordered a large sake, poured Max a thimble, poured myself a thimble. And I drank it. It tasted like sake. Which I don't like. So I drank some more, asking myself, why don't I like this? I said something along the lines of, "I shouldn't have ordered a large." "Do you want me to help you?" Aisho asked. I misheard him, said, "No." He said, "Gawd!" and I told him I had misheard him. "Do you have a cup?" He brought over a cup and I filled it up. We toasted and drank. Toasted and drank. And that large sake was gone. So I ordered another. It's just sake, right? How drunk can you get on rice wine? Well, the answer to that turns out to be: Very Drunk Indeed. The Aisho served Max his food, putting my stuff last. (A bit of a control issue? A bit of "You're waiting on me, and not the other way around"?) I commented that I was going to have to eat something soon. We finished another large sake. So I ordered another large sake. Finally, the Aisho began to feed me. I had ordered--god, who even knows now? I was pretty drunk by this time, but didn't want to believe it. We were talking then about the Aisho-san's having gone $25,000 into debt to soup up some car. We were talking about the dog/ex-girlfriend situation. And then, he said, "So, Sublingua, have you given up?" I replied, "On?" He was silent. I said, "On what, Aisho?" He said, "On setting me up." (Referring, of course, to my suggesting that since I'm leaving that I set him up with one of my friends. "These women are your friends?" he had asked. "No, Aisho," I said, "I just go onto campus with a big net.") I said, "Do you want me to set you up?" I was looking down. He didn't answer, so I said, "Well?" Max said, "He shook his head." I asked, drunkenly, "What?!" Max repeated, "Head shake." I turned back to Aisho. "So then what are you going on about, Aisho? You seem pretty ambivalent about the whole thing." He said, "What?" I said, "Ambivalent. Conflicted. What do you want? No, tell me, what do you want in a woman?" And what did he say? "She has to be open-minded. And she has to like sushi." He paused, then added, "She has to cook." So, there's the Aisho-san's perfect mate for you. I was drunk, but I'm not sure that that is entirely to blame for the loud guffaw I issued at this list that characterizes The Perfect Woman, Aisho-division. But then he quickly went on to say, "And what do I have to offer?" and then he listed off what he had to offer--beginning, to his credit, with some serious things ("I'm hardworking. I own my own house."), but ending, to his detriment, lamely ("I do my own laundry. I do my own cooking."). I said, "Do you want to have children?" He said, "Well, eventually." I said, "God, I never want to have children." He said, "I don't want children." I laughed. Because I was drunk, right? Right. And there's more. Because I haven't even told you about the mask's adventure in the restaurant. But I have to go...
More lies:
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