GIVE A DOG A BONE

[hider]I kept waiting the whole night for somebody to say something ridiculous so that I could look at them with sudden, uncharacteristic shock and ask them: “Are you Sirius?”

And I was consistently denied the opportunity, left and right and straight down center, so now only you, my adoring fan, get to know how terribly (un)funny I am.

Sirius Drinks is the sort of place that wants to be there for you, no matter what you need it to be, no matter where you find yourself. You might be reminded, if only faintly, of the fires at the bottom of the Ash in [i]Night and Falling Stars: a Novel of the Outside[/i], where fallen angels work to love those that nobody else can or will. Except if Sirius Drinks is Hell, then the sinners are unionized, working hard to love each other, and haven’t committed any sins save those against the mores of society. Sirius Drinks is a place where you can let your inner animal out, and where the human body explodes into a hundred different directions on the evolutionary tree.

There are much worse things that you could be than a furry, you know, if that gives you a touch of the heebie-jeebies, if that brings to mind politicians ranting about litter boxes in schools and zoophiles trying to groom your pets. Everyone I saw at Sirius Drinks that night, dancing and gyrating on the sound-curtain-segregated dance floors (wild tangos flirting with arhythmic styles of yesteryear, artistic remixes of FAEWYL-D, and, inexplicably, at one point, [i]Tom Sawyer[/i] (Bass Boosted)) was there just to be themselves, and to ask others: will you look at me? Will you admire me? Will you envy me? Will you want me?

The sort of questions that everybody asks themselves, and ones that I, dear reader, am no stranger to myself. I couldn’t help but ask the audience the same things when I hit the dance floor, even though I’m 98% human and 2% rad as fuck. (I still haven’t figured out the appropriate amount of animal-themed clothes to wear to a furry bar that doesn’t come off as appropriative, but maybe next time I’ll bring some ears and a clip-on tail. Switching out my babies for some big fluffy paws is probably a step too far, though. Or a scamper too far?)

Now, here I’m supposed to tell you more about the food, the decor, the prices, all the things that swirl around to make a good review, especially when those things can be quantified so that they can be pit against each other. (Philistines! The unscored review is a dying art.) But if I’m being honest, I didn’t actually get around to trying out the menu (next time, I promise!), one which seems to cater to every step on a voyage of love (a mixed metaphor I refuse to apologize for), from bar grinding to first dates to birthday parties to anniversaries, to the point where there’s more than one kind of cake under the dessert menu. I could talk about the almost-privacy of alcoves and how they entice the eye to peer and try to catch a glimpse of what might be happening behind (or under) the tables. I could even make a big deal out of the fact that there were several different sizes of stall in the facilities, and make salacious suggestions that they’re to accommodate flings instead of unusual bodies.

But I don’t need to rely on implication and rumormongering, dear reader. I’ll just admit it.

I ended up being marched out of Sirius pinned between my girlfriend on one side and an enthusiastic, generous, and boundlessly energetic wolf on the other, a state of affairs that continued for the rest of the evening in a secondary location (one which I was, on the whole, rather glad I was abducted to).

[i]The work of Hell is holy in this life.[/i] So, too, is the work of Sirius Drinks, which pulls out all the stops to be a place where the big bad wolf is right at home, and it’s Red Riding Hood who has to adapt herself to the environment. If you see me there, feel free to say hi— just don’t unclip my tail!

That would be Siriusly rude![/hider]