A cup of Joe

So, I call my friend Joe today, because I have been a bad friend and not talked to him since his birthday in January, basically. Lynn and I are planning to spend my birthday weekend in Chicago at Joe's and I thought it would be nice to let him know. I met Joe about 2 1/2 years ago when he started dating one of my friends after another and I started informing him that all my friends were asses. So 2 years ago on St Patty's day I called him up and asked him out...not out in a date way, but out in the way that one gay alcoholic asks another to come be co-dependant drinking buddies for the evening. I did, however have an ENORMOUS crush on Joe*. So we went to Chumley's for beer (not even green beer, what gives?) and stayed till closing, then headed to Hunter's Pub Down Under (down under a bank downtown) where we met up with a guy I had known for a couple years and his friends. Let me be perfectly honest, this was not a friend, just a guy I had known. Well, the end of the night comes and I think Joe is going to come back to my place downtown to crash, and he says he is going to stay and hang out with other guy. Come to find out, he hadn't stopped dating my friends, he just stopped telling me about it, lol...

Anyway, that didn't last and Joe and I became platonically exclusive. Every Sunday night we would curl up on my couch and watch Queer as Folk and drink. The most that ever came of it was a few drunken nights of making out at parties...although we did get named "The Sleepytime Twins" because we tended to go to an after-hours party, find the nearest sofa and promptly fall asleep on each other. We would sneak into the bathroom at parties and lock the door so people thought we were getting the business...but we were usually talking about all the other people at the party. I only knew Joe a few months before he moved to Chicago, but in that time, I met Ami, his (soon to be my) friend. Joe and I went to the Neon Cactus in the Levee and he said his friend Ami was going to be there. So, she shows up and Joe proceeds to leave us alone for the next 20 minutes while he is in the bathroom. This is just enough time for me to realize that Ami is a pompous bitch that I can not stand**. Ami and I slowly warm up to each other and when he moves he tells her that I can take his place as her gay friend. Because, yes, Joe and I are so very similar you could hardly tell us apart, ahem...sorry, that's a lie. Anyway, after Joe leaves Ami and I soon find out we share a fondness for the drink and start to go out on the weekends, then on Wednesdays, Thursdays (of course), Mondays (if we're not too busy), Tuesdays (it's pint night). It got so bad we were invited to the employees Christmas party at Chumley's because we were there so much. By this point we were inseperable, and moved in together, first in her 1 bedroom apt, then to a lovely 2 bedroom unit. Then she left me, too...to South Carolina.

Anyway, the point of this story was supposed to be that Joe was asleep when I called and hardly coherent, so I don't know if he is cool with us staying at his place that weekend.

* SO over that, lol.
**From later conversations with Ami I learned these feelings were mutual, I came across as a 'horrible bastard'.