Protected: Putting the needle down

You really couldn’t have it more wrong.

So this is two weeks in a row that my Friday experience has very negatively impacted my Saturday experience. Which makes me think that there are some changes needing to be made.

To be fair, I was pissed as all hell going into Friday, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t enjoy myself, but still I might have if everyone I ran into wasn’t such a total douchebag. I was edgy and irritable, I know, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was insulted in about 397 ways, and had to deal with some major fucktwats.

Seriously, when you’re talking to someone and they keep telling you that maybe you should shut up before you hurt their feelings, and then they are forced to say, “OK stop. Just stop talking now.” but you keep talking… then don’t be acting surprised when they have a negative reaction to the rest of what you’re saying, and possibly try to run you over with their car later in the evening.

And don’t get that shocked look on your face like “Why is this girl trying to run me over with her car?” Because you should intuit that shit way before I am forced to mow you down.What am I, made of some kind of non-feelings-having substance? Is it seriously OK to say anything to me, and expect me not to care? I am so tired of being polite, I am so tired of being nice, I am so tired of peacekeeping and making allowances for things people say to me – I am so, so tired of it. There is only so much a girl can take, OK? I know I am smiling on the outside, but on the inside I am six inches from stabbing you. Continue reading »

Adventures in Dipshittery – VFW Invasion Edition

After a certain point in a night out I have to switch from drinking pint glasses of straight tequila on ice (known at this bar as a margarita, but not recognized as such anywhere else in the world.) and start drinking water so that I am in some kind of shape to drive home.  This is a good thing for me and the other people on the road, but when I am drunk and talking a lot and it’s smoky my throat gets dry and I tend to guzzle water like it’s going out of style. Consequently, by midnight or so my bladder is usually pleading for mercy, and I start making trips to the bathroom every ten minutes.

This weekend I was sitting at a table with guaca_molly, and had to excuse myself for a minute. I hate doing that, because I really hate it when people leave me sitting alone. Being left to sit alone at the bar is the suck, because at best you just look kinda friendless, and at worst you look like you need/want someone to hit on you, and some hapless drunken fuckwit usually obliges. Either way, ick. And this table we were at is in the drunken fuckwit hot zone. Seriously every time I sit there I am approached by a freak. But guaca_molly is pretty hardass, and I had to pee really badly, so I ran off for a minute to take care of business.

When I got back she looked a little shell-shocked, and said that I had to sit down and listen to her story, but not act like she was telling a story in case the person she was telling the story about was looking. I sat down, but before she could really tell me what was up this little motherfucker comes up to our table, all sporting a grossed-out goatee and looking like some kind of white trash explosion of unwashed hair and deep-fryer grease. Now, like I said I was pretty drunk, so here’s what I remember happening, although it may be conflated with the story guaca_molly told me later: Continue reading »

Friday Shenanigans – Bring Your Own Glass

Considering how rip-roaringly, staggeringly, gigglingly, sneezingly drunk I got last Friday, I suppose it’s not a surprise that I don’t recall with absolute clarity the exact events of the later part of the evening. However, I just remembered the most interesting part of the early evening, when Matt had to throw someone out of the bar.

It’s not exactly a rare occurrence that Matt has to eject someone from the illustrious environs of everyone’s favorite dive bar, but it’s almost always amusing when it happens. Matt has such a way about him when dealing with obnoxious drunks; it’s quite lovely to watch. It’s part of what I love most about Matt: his almost unshakeable calm and presence of mind while he’s working, even when he’s as staggeringly drunk as the rest of us. It’s impressive.

As I’ve said before, I am irresistibly drawn to people who are calm. If you’re totally unflappable, I totally want to sit next to you. That’s mostly because I myself am excessively flappable, and want to bask in the presence of people who don’t seem to be freaking out all the time. It’s why myself and MyTodd™ are symbiotes, and why I have such preternatural fondness for Dave who won’t Twitter. Those are some chilled out guys. It’s usually hard to get them to express an actual real-life emotion, much less evince any form of upset. I need that around me. People who are nervous and excitable and freaking out all the time (I am looking at you, RD) make me jittery, and I don’t like to feel jittery. (Re-reading this I think it’s possible my ultimate companion might be some kind of emotionless cyborg.)

So, Matt is like MyTodd and DWWT, but on an Enterprise Level! He’s professionally chilled out and calm, and good at making people feel welcome and happy and not-jittery. It’s a trait you’d love to have in a really good therapist, and more than you can rightfully expect from your friendly neighborhood barkeep. Nevertheless, he’s got it.

So Friday night, quite early, some old drunk staggers in. He looks vaguely familiar (and no, not because he’s one of my close friends, who are also mostly old drunks now that I think about it.) and I think I’d seen him in there being old and drunk and smelly some other times. But he bellies up to the bar, and everyone is prepared to let him be old and drunk and smelly as long as he does that in a nice, quiet way. But no. Nothing will do but that he insert himself into our conversation, after first talking to Matt for a while (sample conversation):

OD: “Did I tell you I am moving to Texas?”
Matt: “Yeah, you said that before. When are you going to go ahead and do it?”

We were hardly discussing anything earth shattering, I was still goggling over KK bringing her own wine bottle and glass with her. Because that is about as classy as it gets, really. And we were also discombobulated by the fact that BeanieStu had stolen our registered corner of the bar (because he thought that if he sat in our seats he would have a chance to get all bromantical with Matt – but of course that’s not how it works.) So we weren’t really paying attention to the old drunk. But the guy kept trying to converse with us, no matter how steadily we ignored him. I think MyTodd™ might have also been whispering to us about his favorite story with that particular old drunk guy, which entails him doing  an ass-plant on the concrete outside the bar one night, then trying to play it off when people proffered help,  whipping out a cigarette and acting as if he was just purposely having a quick lie-down on the pavement. As you do.

Anyway, he finally got so obnoxious that Matt addressed it with him, and the guy said “Hey, it’s a free country, if you don’t like what I am saying, why don’t you just throw me out then?” to which Matt replied “OK, how about I just throw you out then?” which baffled the guy for a minute. This was long enough for Matt to grab up his cigarettes and beer as the guy spluttered something. See, Matt has the loveliest, non-confrontational way of ejecting an objectionable patron. He doesn’t touch them, he just takes their drink outside and sets it on the picnic table. Then they have to follow it. It’s really effective and low-contact. One time he took a guy’s drink AND his change and led him out of the bar crooning “Follow the money, follow the money.” to the poor befuddled dipshit who’d just been fondling Jessica.

See, this is why we love Matt.

So Matt courteously poured the guy’s remaining beer in a plastic glass and started walking it and the guy’s pack of cigarettes out. Of course the guy didn’t think much of his own suggestion anymore, and now felt like he’d rather not be kicked out of the bar.

OD: “If you take my beer outside, there’s gonna be a fight!”
Matt (deadpan): “OK, bring it on then.”

Of course I am excitable and start looking around to see who can back Matt up if he has to fight the Old Drunk. And none of the bar’s patrons at that time looked as if they were particularly up to the task, except for BeanieStu who looked disinclined to offer assistance, and RD, who was nowhere to be seen. Of course my worrying about it was for naught, since Matt could certainly take Old Drunk unassisted, but still I like to worry. As I was fretting the guy sheepishly staggered out the door and into the frigid South Grand evening, collecting his sad plastic cup of beer along the way.

And for the absolute capper (at least for those who know the history) here comes RD a moment later, saying “Hey, what happened? Did I miss someone getting thrown out? I was in the bathroom!”

Of course you were, RD. Of course you were.

There’s really no moral or punchline to this story, it was just fun for me to see Matt doing some Basic Drunk Wrangling™. Luckily he didn’t also decide to wrangle my drunk ass later that evening, although the entertainment factor of my letting another girl there twice stick her face in my cleavage and then (apparently) play my breasts like bongos probably worked in my favor. I was three miles into hot mess territory last week.

Tonight – moderation is the key!

Seriously!

Hope That’s Working Out for You

Last night MyTodd™ called me at 3:30 or so to see what I was doing for dinner. “Looking for it” was the only correct answer, since I had not eaten lunch and was just that moment pondering whether to have a very very late lunch, or just give the whole thing up for a bad business and eat a very early dinner when I got home. He suggested that he come pick me up at 5:00 p.m. and we go tool around town and find some food to eat, and I found myself inclined to acquiesce to that proposal. We ended up at Tucker’s in Soulard, and though I had promised that I was hungry enough to eat anywhere, I was disappointed that the menu seemed to be “Meat”, “Meat with a Side of Meat” ,”Red Meat with a Meaty Sauce” and “Meat Medley.” I settled on a burger, and he got a steak. OMG, someone should remind me that a Quarter Pounder is actually only 4oz, because this burger was 9oz. That was a lot of meat. It was tasty, but I don’t eat red meat that often, so it was a heavy meal.

Anyway, we had a nice time, catching up on our respective weekend activities. We sat right in front of the window, one floor up overlooking the sidewalk below which was really nice and vaguely European in feel. That part of the city has lots of random men in black leather coats walking around, and according to MyTodd™ most of them were Armenian mob bosses and their bodyguards. So we ate meat, people-watched and gossiped. It was quiet in the restaurant, because it was still pretty early. The bar was a little busier, I suppose with happy-hour style people. When we were almost done with our dinner we were interrupted by a loud voice coming from the other side of the room. “SORRY!” the voice proclaimed. Turning our heads we were startled by the appearance of a disheveled late-30-something woman with spiky hair and smeared eye makeup. “I’m sorry! My friend just died. A good friend.” she slurred, lurching toward the stairs down to the bar. The woman was wearing some kind of age-inappropriate miniskirt and heels, neither of which looked like they were going to serve her well for an evening of drunken lurching.

“I’m sorry, sorry to ruin your dinner.” Continue reading »

Protected: Just for now

Protected: You are totally jealous of my wicked-awesome action plan

Protected: Plus/Minus

Protected: How My Night Behaves

Rise of the South Grand Lycans

I was going to type up a whole description of my Surprise Sober Saturday Shenanigans this weekend, but once I started I realized it was too boring for anyone but me to care, and I already knew what happened.

I will say this, we discovered that on Saturdays South Grand is populated by 67% Lycans. The amount of shape shifters in the place was startling. Some of them were possibly metrognomes who just looked like lycans, but I think a lot of them were the real deal. The copious amounts of body hair and the beady-eyed, slouching stares give them away.

Then, toward the end of the evening, a small cadre of long, lithe vampires came in, palely seeking their leader. We thought we were going to be in the middle of an Underworld-style slayfest, but the death dealers must have all been elsewhere, because they retired to the corner of the bar, and things remained peaceful.

My absolute favorite quote of the night came from @SgtHotpants. When I told her that MyTodd™ and I had determined that most of the people there were lycans, she responded quizzically “What? They all face north?”

Anyway, it was fun.

Find Some F*cking Balance, Already

One of these nights I am going to rediscover the midpoint between a) soberly loathing everyone I see and b) falling-down drunkenly not minding them as much. But that night was definitely not last night.

Progression of the night was something like this*:

1. “WTF do you mean there’s no parking? Fuck this whole street full of people.”
2. “Oh gross, Backstreet is here and is the first person I see. Bleh.”
3. “Yay! Matt and Todd!”
4. “OK this end of the bar is fine, I like these people. Can I get a drink over here?”
5. “Yay! Dave!”
6. “Yay! Jessica!”
7. “Oh! Mix CD from Jessica, sweet.”
8. “WTF do you mean the men’s bathroom is broken? Great. Love to share the ladies’ bathroom with the guys. As if the bathroom situation here wasn’t fucked up enough already. Umm, no Dave, we’re not going to pee together holding hands across the table. No, not even if I have three more drinks.”
9. “Why are there so many people standing behind me? Stop standing behind me you horrible standy motherfuckers. Go away. Preferably somewhere dead.”
10. “Who’s Todd talking to? Oh, for fuck’s sake. Not THAT GUY. Yeah, I still recognize and hate you with your beard shaved off, dickweasel. And your boyfriend, by association. Ugh. And HER too? And I even have to pretend to like her. Do I have to talk to her? I am going to pretend to be invisible. Fuck this noise.”
11. “Give me another drink please? Also I think a tranquilizer might be in order right about now, to take the edge off of how much I hate you all.”
12. Drink, drink, talk, drink. Hate on people.
13. “OK, whatever, these people suck some serious ass, but I don’t even care all that much. Hey, can I get another drink over here?”
14. “Yay! Molly!”
15. “Wait, where did Todd go?”
16. Txt to Todd: WTF I hate everyone where are you?
17. Txt from Todd: I am nine feet away, calm yourself. Don’t hate.
18. “OK, Todd’s within an acceptable range, although not visible. Can I have another drink please?”
19. Drink, drink, talk, drink. Hate on people, add people to list, talk, drink, talk. Begin greeting people I loathe with hugs and kisses.
20. “Oh, these are all my favorite people! What wonderful people I know! How wonderful life is! Srsly!”
21. “I am not sure if I can drink all of this drink, I feel a little oddball right about now.”
22. Sip drink, talk, talk, glance askance at drink, avoid drink, talk more.
23. “Oh, people are the best and most fun! What interesting conversation! How witty we all are! Life is so delightful!”
24. “Wait, I feel seriously strange right about now. Can I have some water or something?”
25. Txt to Todd: Srsly WTF? Where are you now?
26. Txt frm Todd: W/E! I am coming back!
27. Todd comes back!
28. “Todd! Hello Todd, only person I love in the whole world!”
29. “Todd I feel like maybe I need to go stand outside for a minute.”
30. “Todd, it’s really fucking cold out here, I feel like we need to go back in.”
31. “Four. Cheez-its. No, no dinner. Did I skip a step? I don’t want to be here anymore.”
32. Sit, talk, chat, talk, drink water. People come and go.
33. “Yay! Hotpants!”
34. I don’t feel well at all. At least I don’t have hiccups.
35. “Todd, I really wish I was at home in bed right this minute.”
36. “Mangia? Are you fucking kidding my shit? No. Home, bed, please.”
37. Home.

So I am going to chalk last night up as mostly FAIL. I had fun, but then felt so bad at the end that I couldn’t even enjoy the fun I was having. I don’t know what happened to the perfect therapeutic drinking level balance that I was rocking for the last 6 months, because that was really working for me. I think that the worse my work-week is, the more I think drinking is going to fix it on Friday, which is (duh) obviously not the case. And I resent trying to have fun and then being forced to talk to people I don’t like, because I can’t talk about anything real with people I don’t like standing right there. They always try to jump in with their opinions, and I want to punch them in the face for their presumption. My brain has learned that drinking=not minding people as much, so then I drink more faster because I really want to not hate everyone.

But next time I’m going to just count on my hatred of everyone slowly dissipating through the night as I relax, rather than wanting it to be immediately gone and pounding down drinks until that happens. That process = a world of bad stomach feelings, pronounced dizziness and sometimes hiccups.

Also I have a really strong feeling that someone gave me a Girls Gone Wild DVD last night and I left it at the bar. However I also have an equally strong feel that was a dream, because I can’t imagine who would do that or why.

Also, when I talk about hating everyone, I don’t mean YOU. I mean, you’re one of my favorite people! Of course I don’t mean you! It’s the others. The others I loathe, precious.

*texts are paraphrased because I don’t feel like going to find my phone and figure out what they really said. That’s what I remember of them. Also some details have been glossed over and/or omitted so as to protect the dignity of your friendly neighborhood superBadGirl.

Protected: Things that are confusing

Christmas Wrap-Up — Part 1 “The Eve.”

Oh Christmas. You most fun and joyous of all holidays. (Aside from every other holiday, including flag day.)

OK, fine it wasn’t that bad. Since I have now learned to go with the crazy-ass flow of my family and their nonsensical antics, I had a peaceful day filled with laughter, which didn’t even involve alcohol or chemicals. That’s pretty impressive, now that I reflect upon it.

Christmas Eve saw myself and MyTodd™ wanting to create a new Christmas Eve tradition for ourselves, since his family no longer gets together on CEve, and mine never did. He had to work early on Christmas day, so no late-night carousing for us. We decided to have an early dinner, and then go ride around looking at Christmas lights with the top down on his convertible. It was chilly, but we were going to work that out through the application of copious amounts of butt-heat and regular heat. We were also going to cheer the houses we liked, perhaps singing a joyous carol, and hurl day-old cupcakes at the houses we didn’t like.

With this plan in mind, we set off for Mangia, where neither of us had eaten for years (ever since the “pasta that tasted like paint thinner” debacle way back when they first re-opened.) But all these people had been raving about their damn food, so we decided to see if they were just lemmings, running off a paint-thinner slicked hill to their own gastronomic doom. Turns out they weren’t kidding, as everything was delicious. We even ate dessert. Was somewhat weird and awkward having people I know bringing me food. It seemed rude somehow, like having a house party and telling your friends to go ahead and wash your windows while they’re over. But I’ve never been one to comfortably conflate the personal and the commercial, so my minimal discomfort was to be expected.

Food done, we decided to stay and have one drink before our cake-throwing festivities commenced. Yeah. Well it turned into 4-5 drinks apiece, and we stayed all evening. It was fun though, since it seemed that someone we knew came into the bar every 20 minutes or so, so we had a steady stream of friends popping by, and we didn’t even have to go anywhere. We headed home by 10pm though, like the old fogies we are.

Adventures in Dipshittery – Pt. 602

So tonight MyTodd™ and I grabbed a bite to eat at Onesto on Macklind, then ran some errands. (Sidenote: I love their URL, because it looks like the name of the place is One Stop Pizza, which I assume was unintentional.)

Afterward we took a run to Target to pick up the five things I forgot to get each and every other time I was out running errands this weekend, and some Liquid Plumber Foaming Pipe Snake for Todd, which I just like to repeat as often as I can. Liquid Plumber Foaming Pipe Snake. Why couldn’t I have been on the team of marketing gurus who thought up that kick ass product name? I would rest so hard on my laurels, they’d be permanently squished out of shape.

Anyway, when we were ready to leave we played Checkout Challenge, each attempting to find the quickest checkout line among many. Whoever gets the shorter one gets to make outraged, impatient faces at the loser. (I had already won the quest for Parking Primacy, so I was on a roll.) Todd not only kicked my ass really hard at Checkout Challenge, but suddenly there was a bizarre fiasco unfolding in front of me and I couldn’t escape to a better lane, because all my shit was already on the belt thing.  The guy in front of me was normal, but when he cleared off the cashier turned to a couple who was perched at the end of the lane with a large cart full of crap. Apparently there was some irregularity with their checking account, mainly caused by their not having sufficient money in it to pay for their purchases. They’d tried once before and now the cashier tried to ring them out again, making me wait while she did so. Todd was finishing up at this point, and I didn’t want to wither like a hothouse bloom under the scornful gaze he was sure to aim in my direction, so I was understandably impatient. The cashier futzed around with them for a while, but the check still wouldn’t clear.

I am trying, very hard, to find some non-theist charity in my heart to offer to these people whose poor financial planning made it impossible for them to purchase these goods they seemed to desire. However, charity for people who hold me up in line is always in short supply. People who hold me up when someone else is waiting on me, and is soon to begin lording his lane-picking skills over my own inferior ones… well, it’s nonexistent.  Once it became abundantly clear that the check was not going through, these grifters poor souls gave up and walked away, leaving their whole cart of goods sitting there, which I assume you will agree was an asshole maneuver. So, you know, glad I didn’t waste any charitable feelings.

The cashier started to move my things to the front of the line, then stopped and said she was just going to clear away all of the assholes’ goods before she rang me out. Fine, whatever, I busied myself with ignoring Todd’s solemn head waggles in my direction, and started doing my debit card thing. Which, by the way, I don’t care for Target’s new system, which goes like this:  Input PIN –> Do you want cash back Y/N? –> Do you want it all on this card? Y/N?

If you answer “Yes” to that last one, the machine automatically debits your card when the cashier totals the transaction, without letting you review the charge. I think that’s some kind of gimmicky thing to keep you from seeing right away that they’ve made pricing errors, but I am suspicious like that.

The cashier is now staring at the assholes’ abortive receipt and notices that – hey, their charge actually went through. They’ve paid for their shit after all. She starts looking around to see if they’re still in the vicinity. They’re not. She hits the light and calls the manager over. Todd’s lips are pursed into a state of practical non-existence, and he’s now mouthing questions and making irate hand gestures at me over the heads of the other shoppers. I shake my head back at him helplessly, trapped into this Twilight Zone of a never ending checkout lane. The manager comes over and then she and the cashier stare at the receipt, look for the long-gone couple, look at the receipt, look at the basket of goods, look at the receipt, look each other, etc. I am going to slap some bitches in about 12 seconds. Then the cashier looks at me and says “You didn’t put your debit card in there, did you?”

And the dawning realization that I have just paid for the assholes’ $350 basket of crap hits me. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask them, with a casual, “Are you fucking kidding me?” tone to my voice. But no, they are not fucking kidding me. I’ve just paid for $350 of asshole crap. (The worst kind of crap, really.) So then they assure me that they can void that right out (you betcha!) and proceed to do just that. They give me an extra-special voided out receipt to show they did it, then ring out my own pile of crap, which I pay for. By this time, it’s been 62 hours since Todd checked out, and he’s become permanently grafted onto the railing over by the escalator. All the way to the parking lot I had to hear about how I have no lane-picking skills, and how anyone could have seen that was a bad, slow, evil lane. I am not going to live this one down for awhile, especially considering that at least 1/3 of the dipshittery here was mine-all-mine. I shouldn’t have been so impatient and started my transaction while she was still clearing that other one. But I assumed that she knew what she was doing and was in fact clearing it, since she had already started handling my stuff. Target’s asshole non-clarification of the amount debit system is a piece of crap too, and exacerbated the whole mess, since I would have noticed that I wasn’t actually buying that much junk.

Anyway, I have yet to check my account to see if I have been correctly debit/credit/debited, because even if it’s all wrong there’s nothing I can do about it tonight. I can wait until tomorrow to holler at people, if that’s what will need doing.

I am sure there’s a lesson here somewhere, and I suspect it has something to do with doing all my shopping via internet, where there’s never anyone in line ahead of you.

Miscellaneous Weekend Wrap-Up Ramblings

This weekend passed too quickly, as they all do when they’re a paltry two days. Full week of work this week (though Friday is pretty much all party.) Two days the week after that, and then off for eleven days in a row. Thank you FSM.

Went shopping Friday after work and I think I have finally resolved the shit-sucking tights dilemma of 2008. Unfortunately I had to solve it to the tune of $28/pair tights, but these things are awesome so I suppose it’s worth it. I also got some insanely cute knee-highs with bows, though I can’t imagine when and where I will wear them. Can a woman with bows on her knee-highs be taken seriously in a work environment? Something tells me not so much.

Nothing much to report on Friday night, random lip kisser struck again, so I guess I am just going to have to get used to that. He’s pretty harmless, but dude – it’s cold and flu season. Seriously.

Ended up sitting next to R, who is so entirely aggravating I don’t know why he doesn’t get punched in the mouth more often. At one point he said that I was being as mean to him as Molly always is, and I had to point out that perhaps Molly is mean to him for a reason. And P.S., please don’t try to talk to me about fucking web marketing when I am out drunk on a Friday evening. The last thing I want to think about is goddammed web marketing, and what’s wrong with you anyway? Web marketing at midnight on a Friday. Piss off.

Ran into Mussssssster, who was trying to explain my chart to me, all about the conflict between my intellect and my emotion, but who the feck doesn’t have one of those? Anyway, I was drunk by then and don’t remember most of what he said. How come everyone always tells me how much I’m in conflict with myself without coming up with some kind of strategy to ameliorate that? What do I need, a Cuisinart for my psyche?

Not the actual tuque in question, but you get the idea.

Apparently random WayOut hat guy from this summer was back in the bar, but Matt wisely waited until he was gone before even letting me know he was there, so I didn’t have to freak out—even though Matt said he was trying to come over to me. Ugh. Apparently the human body barricade strategy is working well for me, because nobody but my friends was rubbing up on me—until the very end of the night when Red Tuque felt like he needed to be grabbing up in my hair, explaining to me that I had a lot of it. Thank you for that newsflash you headwear-challenged piece of shit, and also please enjoy a fist to the nutsack. Get your hands out of my fucking hair. Jesus.

Umm, other than that it was fun?

MyTodd™ had an after-hours, but I was not feeling any of that. And he had fucking Backstreet over there, without stabbing him in the neck and dumping him in the alley, even. He’s definitely getting marked up on his report card this year for fraternizing with my enemies. Also, I hear that a mutual friend of ours who is in a seemingly committed relationship fucked Backstreet in Todd’s basement. I can’t decide what is more nauseating—fucking Backstreet, period or fucking anyone in a south-city spider infested basement. Lack of taste and discretion all around. No ambulances were called, and that’s usually a good end to one of MyTodd’s™ get togethers.

Saturday I lazed around and did some gooey-butter-cake baking, and then went to a party in the p.m. with a bunch of people I barely know. Without MyTodd™even, so I get a gold star for that shite. I do believe I had a nice time, and everyone was nice to me. I tried not to frown at anyone accidentally. Actually, I had to take so many calming drugs to make my attendance possible that I don’t remember clearly all of what happened. If my sketchy memory serves I think I talked way too much and eventually lost control of my word-making mechanism. At one point I was trying to explain to someone about a girl named Bridget’s odd fetish, which somehow turned into a conflated “her british.” (It was an odd, adorable fetish but not especially Anglo.)

Anyway, I don’t do new people very well, but award myself 7/10 for trying. I can only hope that eventually all new people will turn into “Oh, those old people?” and then it’s not a big deal anymore. But for that to happen you have to keep doing this thing called “socializing” with them. It’s a process involving sharing the same space at the same time while simultaneously conversing and/or participating in a coordinated group activity*. MyTodd™ keeps trying to explain it to me, but it’s way more algebra than I can handle without a graphing calculator.

Today was a late start, spent most of the early p.m. cleaning the bathroom (Thank you, barkeeper’s friend. You can be my friend too!) and cursing the hard water in this city. Todd and I were going to run errands and then Dave invited us over for some dinner, so we stopped by and devoured his delicious carnitas. I have to stop letting him feed us so often. Mayhap I will have to have them over here for a Sunday dinner in the next few weeks. I could cook Indonesian again, maybe.

Shine On Me, You Magical Man

I showed both of them the Shine On Me video, and we decided that Mikespresso is PERFECT to play Chris Dane Owens next year for our Halloween epic costumed adventure. I maintain my desire to be the curly-haired evil witch. MyTodd™ said he was definitely going as the alligator. He also opined that the video crew probably found it more cost-efficient to buy, rather than rent, the wind machine they used on their sets, and I believe he was correct. I am thinking that there needs to be a whole new LARP universe devoted to all things Chris Dane Owens. Because you just know parts 2&3 of this video trilogy are going to kick even more ass than the original did. Who knows what new characters and imagery he will introduce into this Shine world? I vote an Asian theme, which must include ninjas. Ninjas on centaurs.

And that’s it. Another weekend done. And a wintry mix on the way, but probably not arriving soon enough to get me the day off tomorrow.