A big, stylized letter Q marks the front of upper Queen Anne's brand-new lounge. This is the lounge's name: Q. The grand opening is packed with an improbably good-looking crowd in a way the fire marshal likely wouldn't appreciate. The women, in general, possess improbably perfect cleavage, improbably pert noses, and improbably blond hair. Scientists predict that the last natural blonde will be born in Finland in approximately two hundred years, and then that'll be the end of them. The blonde gene is weak; further, it's thought that bottle blondes are expediting the imminent decimation of the congenitally blonde, as men like the fakes better than the real—a coup of antinatural selection.
I find myself in an eddy of brunettes in the sea of blondes. The brunettes talk among themselves, while the blondes talk to sturdy, handsome, well-groomed men. Those males not conversing with blondes look the blondes up and down, intermittently gazing at a basketball game playing above the bar. Their masculinity seems somehow sweetly compromised; they've put on dress shirts to go to a sexy urban lounge, but they'd probably rather be home in their underwear drinking a six-pack.
My reverie is interrupted by an exorbitantly personable blonde bearing a tray of miniature burger patties sandwiched within miniature croissants. While these are conceptually troubling, resistance is futile, and eating one proves to be a mood-altering, evening- (and, who knows, maybe life-) changing event. It's got mild cheese gone all melty around rarish, juicy, slightly spicy meat (lamb, I'm sure; the blonde doesn't know) with a layer of baby lettuce and tangy dressing. The butter factor from the tiny croissant pushes it over the edge in the best possible way.
Buoyed by this pleasant culinary shock, I accept a drink borne on another tray by another blonde. What appears to be a Windex, served up, proves to be sweet, blue vodka with a little raspberry-red Chambord sunk into the V of the martini glass. An extremely cute cutout star of jicama floats in between. It's a midnight-blue martini, the Bomb Pop of drinks. Drinking it, I go from Q's main room (midsized, dim, blue, pleasantly upscale) down a hallway (soothing green with dark wood bathroom doors swinging open without warning) and onto a deck.
Overheard: "...the online revolution. More people are gonna be shopping online..." "I'm gonna go reload." "Did you get me a drink? You suck." "Can I totally bum a cigarette off you?" "I'm Stan's girlfriend." "How did you and Stan meet?" "No comment." As I transcribe, a sharp observer asks if I'm a writer. I solicit this person's input. The refreshing response: "I feel that I've reached a level of evolution where I can admit that I have nothing to add."
It begins to rain, and a man chivalrously offers shelter for my nonblond head under a Cuervo umbrella, where I finish my drink and eat its star.
Q, 1625 Queen Anne Ave N, 281-1931
