The past several days have been brilliant. I started 6 days off work on Thursday.

So, Thursday started with several hours laying of sun at The Country Club. Then I headed to the Quarter to meet the weekend's special guest, a fellow blogger spending a long weekend in New Orleans. I've been talking to Clee online for a while now and reading his blog just as long, but I'd never met the boy in person, so I was a bit nervous bout the whole shebang. On the way to Good Friends, we arranged to meet, I saw a cute guy on Bourbon Street. After a bit of a doubletake, I realized that the cute guy was Clee at about the same moment that he realized who I was. So, we head to Good Friends for a drink and so I can use the ATM. Then it was on to the Shim Sham for 80s nite.

For some reason, I've never really gotten that into 80s nite. Well, this week was an exception. I was shaking it on the dancefloor all nite. The big discovery for us that nite was that Sweet Child of Mine is very much a dance song. Why didn't I ever realize this in the 80s? It's got a total dance beat. Anyways, Jonathan met up with us at the Shim Sham as well and a good time was had by all.

Post Shim Sham, I wandered the streets a bit with Clee (that's pronounced like a posturpedic would be, by the way... Sealy) before grabbing a cab home. Beyond that all I'm gonna say is that someone is a very good kisser.

Friday, I met Clee back in the Quarter for lunch. I took him to my favorite complete tourist restaurant.... Cafe Maspero's on St Peter Street. Maspero's has huge sandwiches for small prices but it's always way packed with tourists. But, it was all good. Clee then go to experience the tropical nature of New Orleans, because by the time we finished eating, a ferocious rainstorm swept into the Quarter. The streets and sidewalks were flooded like crazy and trying to take cover under balconies did no good, they all leak and drip on you. Clee had to hop a cab to make an appointment in the Marigny for an upcoming artshow he's doing, so I ran into Virgin and browsed before hopping a bus home.

Friday nite, Jonathan and I went for a late dinner at La Peniche in the Marigny. I had a scrumptious shrimp platter. Afterwards, we went to the Quarter to meet up with Clee and Bud, a San Fransisco expatriate that he had dinner with. We all were pretty bushed so we called an early nite of it.

Saturday, back to the Quarter to meet Clee for coffee. We decided to ride around a bit in my car, mainly so we could hit More Fun Comics. Now, here's a guy after my heart... he's happy to go comic book shopping while on vacation. I picked up my weekly comics, including the first issue of The Filth, the latest offering from the brilliant mad brain of Grant Morrison. After comics, I introduced Clee to the yumminess of Juan's Flying Burrito. Then we just spent the afternoon hanging out and talking. A bit after 7, Clee and I met up with Jonathan, Robert and Steve at Lola's. Lola's is an amazing little restaurant on Esplanade Avenue. It's sort of Spanish, i guess... paella, ceviche, gazpacho, lots and lots of garlic. We waited about an hour for a table, standing outside and sipping wine in the humid evening. But, it was all good, good conversation, anticipation of an amazing meal. I was a bit surprised when two of my employees came walking up and said the were driving by and saw me and stopped just to say hi. That made me feel kinda nice, I have to say.

Anyways, dinner really was brilliant. I had calamari, gazpacho and seafood paella. We consumed quite a bit of wine. Conversation flowed as easily as the wine. A pretty great evening. Then we headed back to Robert's for a bit of conversation before calling it another relatively early evening.

Sunday, was another hang out in the Quarter day. I met up with Clee and we just walked around. Then my friend Brian called and met up with us. Then Jonathan called and met up with us. We wound up at Good Friends again, having frozen drinks called separators, just missing a bakesale where a cake was reportedly sold for $300.

After Good Friends, we wandered down to Tea at the Bourbon Pub. I ran into scads of people that I knew. I felt ever so popular. Twas a bit weird actually... Unfortunately, Clee had to leave pretty early to get sleep since he had an early flight out. Jonathan and I tried as hard as possible to get him liquored up so he'd stay longer but we failed... darn it...

So, we then proceeded to stay out until about midnite, getting quite soused, before grabbing a late nite snack at Angeli.

And today has been total 'sit on the couch and watch movies while eating junkfood day.' And I succeeded wildly at this....

A great fucking weekend... now I just have to figure out how to deal with a crush on someone on the other side of the country...