Dining With Friends - Part Two

After attending services at St. Thomas Church in New York City, I flagged a cab to head downtown to meet with Terry aka Queer For Christ, Gabe, and their friend Lynn at Maroons, for a cool jazz brunch. Terry has a job, works as an actor on occasion, is writing a play, and has a blog. I told him that I definitely wanted an invitation to the opening night, once his play is produced. Gabe aka U.C. or Ultimate Concern, is a seminarian at General Theological Seminary. He has a blog, too, and he writes beautifully, but not often enough.

For our gathering in New York last October, Gabe had kindly arranged a room for us to meet in at the seminary, after which we attended Evensong as a group. On the Sunday following, several of us met at St. James in Fordham, Tobias' church, and Terry, Gabe, Klady, and I went to lunch afterwards and had a lovely time. When I knew I would be in New York, I emailed Terry, and we made our plans to meet.

Gabe is a smart, sweet, gentle man, and I believe that he will make a fine priest. Judging from the writing at his blog, I'm certain that he will be a wonderful preacher, too. Terry is gracious (he's from the South) and kind, full of fun and quite the wit. He also has a law degree, so if all those other efforts don't work out, he can always fall back on that - maybe. The way Terry tells it, it would be a last resort.

At Maroons, Gabe recommended that we order a dish of waffles and fried chicken, which we did, and it was absolutely delicious. I believe the waffles were covered with orange butter, but I could be wrong about that. The dish may sound like a strange mix, but it was quite tasty. In the background, or the foreground, sometimes nearly drowning us out, we heard real jazz - not some of the second-rate noise that is, on occasion, called jazz. Gabe and Lynn had to leave early to get Lynn on a plane, but Terry and I lingered and talked for a while and had a lovely tête-à-tête.

When we left the restaurant - it's the kind of place that allows lingering after the meal - Terry was quite solicitous about assuring that I got the right subway back to the hotel. In fact, he went down into the station and sliced his own subway card to get me through the turn-style, since I had not purchased a pass. He had to slice it over and over through the slot to get it to work. I hope that I didn't put gris-gris on it. It was great to see Gabe and Terry and meet their friend Lynn, who is on her way to becoming a doctor. Oh, and they treated me to brunch, too.

Later that afternoon, I went to the Museum of Modern Art, particularly to see the Lucian Freud exhibit, which included etchings and paintings, often of the same subjects. Freud, who is the grandson of Sigmund, does not idealize his subjects, but portrays them just as they are, warts and all, without prettifying them. Women in the area who are not satisfied with their own bodies should hasten over there. Some of Freud's women are downright obese, and I guarantee that you will come away feeling absolutely svelte.

The highlight on Monday was lunch with PJ and Johnieb. They arrived right on time, despite PJ's getting them lost and headed in the wrong direction after getting off the subway. That happens to me often, too, since I have absolutely no sense of direction. I'm always pleased to meet fellow sufferers of the same malady. It makes me feel not quite so stupid.

Since PJ had a recommendation to The Eatery, the same restaurant where I had eaten with David, aka Reverend Boy, and which I had enjoyed, we decided to walk over there. We had a very good meal. PJ and I had meal-sized salads, and Johnie had a very large dish of I can't remember what, except that it was a lot of food. Then he ordered dessert! It was a scrumptious mixture of chocolate and cheesecake, I believe, and he did share with us, as he was pretty much forced to do, since the waitress had pointedly brought three spoons.

At the meeting in October, I hardly had a chance to talk to PJ. In fact, for a good portion of the time, I didn't know who she was, and then we sat at different tables for dinner, so we didn't have a chance to talk much. PJ won't like my saying this, but she's a beautiful woman, and her hair is absolutely gorgeous.

Johnie and I sat next to each other in October, and we had a chance to talk, so I knew him a bit better before our lunch. We chatted like old friends throughout the meal and then returned to the lounge in my hotel to continue the conversation. Once the bar opened, the barmaid asked what she could bring us, but we didn't really want anything, so we had to move along if we were not going to spend money. It was time for them to get to their train and time for me to move to my other hotel for the opera program. What a pleasure to meet Johnie again and to spend more time with PJ. They are two great people, and I am proud to call them friends.

Again, it was amazing how we dove right into conversation as though we had known each other for a long time. We had a few gaps to fill in about our personal lives, but other than that, I felt as though I was with old friends. Communities that form online and then turn into friendships are fairly new phenomena, and it will be interesting to see where they go.