Margarita Hour

It's a tad late. Or early. (Or both.)

Just returned home from margaritas and guacamole out with B, my musician boy friend. Yes, exactly the kind of guy I should go for as a musician girl.

For about 2 weeks last winter, B & I wanted badly to hook up....and talked about it at a bar over beer with our knees touching, followed by another evening out to the opera followed by chardonnay at another bar, this time with knees touching and bantering shoulder taps. Yet. We decided to preserve our platonic rapport. Because it was quality rapport....which, how often does that happen?....and the impulse passed.

Which in all ways, turned out to be the right decision. Anything we would have pursued now looks like wishful opportunism. He's thoughtful but impulsive, passionate, and at the age of 29, just figuring out what he really wants in a woman and in his life. We are closer friends for our history, and it's entertaining to watch him do this. (To be a part of it? Surely a roller coaster.)

So tonight.....B has a new love interest and was itching to tell me about it. I was itching to listen. We usually have beer, but because we just felt like it, ordered tequila and lime on the rocks instead. Then rolled into a conversation that rarely happens--where nothing is sacred and everything is game. Love. Sex. Talents and careers. The history of them. Expectations about them. The kind of conversation where you leave and anything you think about feels beautiful and possible.

Granted, it was a Wednesday night at the only mildly-happening Cottonwood Cafe during one of the wackiest weather days in Boston's recent wacky weather history, but.....at 10:45, well before we were ready to finish, our waitress was reading a book at the bar, waiting for us to leave.

Eh. It was a Wednesday. We skated out onto the Berkeley Street sidewalks up to Boylston. A drunk met us on that corner, yelling at us to keep our balance as he struggled to keep his. And he was playing (and I'm not joking), "The Hustle" on a pennywhistle, stopping every few notes to wish us good night. No choice but to wish him good night, too, and wave, and make sure to not fall over ourselves. Which when you're under a few thumbs of tequila and things still feel beautiful and possible, is the only way to be.

And then B took off on his bike through the slush. Careful yet heedless with his giddiness and liquor and compromised balance and the potholes and the 9 blocks to ride home. But I knew he'd be fine because, sometimes, everything just is.

Again. 3 cheers for Friends Who are Boys! I will sleep well tonight.