Give Me a Kutch

"Awwww, give me a kutch!" the Welsh woman in the red shirt said as she enveloped me in a huge hug -- one that lasted so long that it was almost uncomfortable.

A "kutch," as I learned at the Bar that Shall Not Be Named tonight, is a hug -- a cuddle, of sorts -- that comes from the heart, especially when something has been lost. When I asked her to spell it, she looked taken aback. "Well," she said, frowning. "I've never written it before."

For me, something has been lost. My grandfather died on Saturday evening, in his sleep. It wasn't a huge shock -- his health had undergone a serious deterioration since the last time I saw him, in June. I had been told that he could no longer be alone -- he had to use a walker and an oxygen tank that helped his "forgetful" spells.

I have pushed it aside for the most part, because I got the news at N's apartment, early on during a Sunday afternoon. I felt selfish, standing there in a man's T-shirt, on my cell phone, in an unfamiliar place. My grandfather was not the kind of person that I am. He was the kind of person who served on boards and distributed scholarship money and worked in the church and for his family.

Today was hard. Real-estate drama with my move (an apartment that's half-finished and coated in a fine layer of construction dust, yet they assure me I'll be able to move in by Thursday). Heart drama with N (I so wish that he would have called me today, but I have to play the Game and wait for his move, since I've asked HIM out these past two times.... I hate that.). Drama with my willing shelving of the news of my grandfather's death. And drama with the fact that I hate my roommate, who gets less and less bearable as the days until my move tick by.

So, of course, I went to the Bar that Shall Not Be Named tonight for some form of distraction. No Brazilian bartender. No Clooney-esque bar manager, who is always trying to convince me his motives are pure. It was me and this friendly, enviable, so-in-love middle-aged Welsh couple and a highly unattractive, portly, gay Irish bartender. We drank in rounds, and it's way too late now, and I had sworn that I wasn't going to drink tonight, but...here it is. Denial coupled with too many Miller Lites that produces some form of drunken prose that I always expect to sing. This is it tonight. This is how I feel. I hope that you respect that and my state.