wednesday (grindr, an opera)

Last night I bailed on a hookup because of grammar. Not really, but kind of. There’s just something about People Who Capitalize Every Word that I do not trust. When I text people, I capitalize nothing. As I’m writing I can hear Kit asking me, with a wry grin, “is that because you are anti-capitalist?” He would pause gently around the punchline not to make sure it landed, he knows I am a stickler for puns, a fan would be a more accurate word, he knows I am a fan of puns, anyway this guy was texting me, his face was cute his photos were hot - really hot - and he writes Do You Want To Get A Drink and I say, actually I’m really tired suddenly and I want to go home.

I was suddenly tired and I did want to go home, that was also true. I had drank a negroni and a half relatively quickly, furiously scribbling in my notebook, trying to sort out the knot of thoughts in my brain. It was one of those rare moments when writing didn’t help at all, I was just scribbling nonsense in English and Spanish, switching to my phone, sending a barrage of lewd messages, actually today I went through all the messages I sent, there were a lot of them unfortunately, and most were not actually lewd, most were fun, kind, setting up a walk in the park or a coffee. The worst I did was send someone a picture of my dick after he sent me a screenshot of the food he had ordered on Uber Eats. Which is going to taste better, I wrote. You, he responded. Charming, no? Chivalry, tact. Jane Austen couldn’t have written it any better.

I had gone to see Carolina Mercado, a great young saxophonist here, play at the Tamayo Contemporary Art Museum, where I now work in an extremely tangential way. I was deadset on wearing this long-sleeve shirt I got at Rretiemble that opens across the abdomen — surprise! — but it was like 30 degrees Celsius when I left the house and although I don’t mind suffering for fashion, I do mind showing up to my new job drenched in sweat. Carolina was great, she spent a long time introducing every piece, which the audience appreciated. This show is one of the only ones, if not the only one, where the public is not eating or drinking during the set, their full attention is on the music and what’s more they are more there for the social experience of being at the museum at night than for the music, which they don’t understand. So it helps to explain it, because as we discussed recently, the other night, I was sitting in this same seat I think, it was raining and I was drinking rosé, thinking of him because this rosé in particular always made him — made us — very drunk. Anyway it helps to explain the music because music does not speak for itself.

During the show I decided I would go to the Duke of Lisbon after for a negroni. The Duke of Lisbon is a British pub on Calle Lisboa. They make a good negroni, my favorite burger in town, and they make a good English bitter too, which I always drink in memory of my dad, who after going to England a second time decided that every beer he wanted was an English bitter despite never being particularly clear on what an English bitter is. I don’t know what an English bitter is either but I do wish the Duke of Lisbon had some variety of lukewarm ale on tap. Anyway, enough about England because the Duke was packed out for the Wednesday cover band, which was the last thing I wanted to hear.

I walked around the corner to another bar, Recoleta, on calle Lucerna. The streets in the Juárez have a “towns in Europe” thematic which is fun because you can walk down Rome and turn right on Berlin and right again on Lisbon and end up on Lucerne. Recoleta makes good, strong drinks, has great service, and plays a mediocre, sort of gay playlist as loud as possible. The last time I was there I went to Sodome right after because I said to Fede, I’m basically at Sodome right now. I ordered a negroni, a mineral water, another negroni. The water ended up costing more than a beer costs in most places. The first negroni was amazing, the second negroni I started to get frustrated at how little progress I was making sorting out my brain and also became aware of this extremely blasé music pounding into my head. I was thinking, this guy will come here, he’ll be cute and fun, we’ll have a drink, we’ll go for a walk, we’ll find somewhere dark…

Then I was thinking about the last guy I met from Grindr. He sent me pictures of his face, then his body, but never the two together. When he came to the door to let me into his building he didn’t really look like any of the pictures. But I thought to myself, I’m here, why not? His apartment was vaguely gothic in an alarming way. I’ve noticed on Bumble that as I scroll down people’s profiles they tend to get older and older, their body type changes, they shave or grow a beard, they have glasses, they’re laced with firearms. Have you seen the selfie of the guy who tried to shoot Trump recently? That goofy grin he’s wearing? It really looks like a Bumble picture, or Grindr, or Tinder, or whatever. He looks like the kind of guy who texts me:

Hello (April 28, 8:08pm)

Hello (April 28, 8:30pm)

Hello (April 28, 9:05pm)

Hello (April 29, 1:05pm)

Handsome (April 29, 8:03pm)

Hello (April 30, 9:45am)

Hello (April 30, 11:20am)

Hello (May 1, 1:15am)

Hello (May 1, 8:17am)

Cute (May 15, 4:44pm)

Hello (May 21, 1:15pm)

Sexy (May 23, 12:20am)

You’re so hot (May 23, 12:21am)

Hello (May 28, 2:21am)

good morning! (May 30, 9:09am)

sends nudes (May 30, 9:09am)

Hello (June 2, 1:14pm)

Hello (June 2, 1:17pm)

Handsome (June 2, 1:18pm)

sends more nudes (June 2, 1:18pm)

Asshole (June 2, 1:20pm)

What is wrong with you? (June 2, 1:24pm)

Fuck you (June 2, 1:27pm)

Fuck you (June 2, 1:27pm)

Fuck you (June 2, 1:27pm)

Fuck you (June 2, 1:29pm)

Rot in hell (June 2, 1:29pm)