Mardi Gras 2008.1

As this blog nears one year old, I am reminded of why I started writing it. At a post-MG party about a year ago, my friend S charged me with writing a blog of what it was like to be the sober one in our group of friends. Alas. How far we've come.

My friend B- had a party on Saturday, to celebrate the beginning of Mardi Gras. I intended to go for the day parades, go home, throw together a costume, and head off to a party at J & R's house: the artist. Instead, I stay at B-s all day... go out for night parades, because it's that time again. By the time we get back at the end of the parade, they're playing some raucous drinking game. Chandeliers, or something. It's some variant of quarters that doesn't require a whole lot of thought, but is remarkably fun (as opposed to the regular quarter, imho).

They ask where we're going next, and I say, Fat Harrys, because if we go anywhere else I have to drive, and if I'm driving I'm going home. I end up there with S-; when did we connect? I don't remember. At that point, I had been drinking for nearly 12 hours, so needless to say my short term memory was pretty nearly shot. After an hour at the bar, he leans in to kiss me, and shortly after we're on our way home.

We both say we won't sleep together. I lay down the rules about no clothes coming off, no Sex, no anything.

*sigh*

He wears me down.

And then, it was lovely, to be quite honest. We talked the next day, in between sessions of great sex. Smart and fun and funny.... and I begin to realize what I knew when I let him in: I've blown this. If I had wanted to see him again, I would have stood strong. Maybe next time I'll learn not to go "back to my place."

And here I am, 24 hours later, still regretting it a little but also trying to figure out if I'm really unhappy about it. I'm not sure what I would have done differently. I am learning things about myself; I have no desire to sleep with anyone only once. I could take a lover, but I'm not interested in one-night stands.

But then, after C-, I wonder if I could even handle that? I can't control how I feel about things, or about people; that's against the point, right? I've learned that I have these control issues, but when will I learn there's gotta be another way to do this?

Perhaps if I had gotten laid more recently? But isn't 2 months a healthy period? It is, I thought. It's the drinking; the alcohol is what does it. And now, looking back, oh so vaguely, at last carnival (wasn't that the 3 different men in 5 days?)... and I begin to realize why maybe I stopped drinking for 40 days.

Only time will tell. And patience. And a little less alcohol, maybe.

Or maybe....... just maybe... it's all just fun and games until someone loses an eye?

Carnival 2008

it's started again.

Against my best intentions, i have been out three nights in a row, staying busy, meeting people and being (perhaps?) the center of attention. Or maybe i'm just the center of my own attention.

Met m- last night. Nice guy, very smart, interesting interests (ha!), but am Not dating. I wonder how I'll explain that to him when he calls. Which he will.

There is a little fear that I might be missing something. What an interesting fear it is. What if I meet someone in the this time who is The One? Is that the fear? When will I realize that Time is part of what makes someone right. So far, the time hasn't been right with any of them.

Saw H last night - how wonderful! I adore her and she me and it is nice to occasionally reinforce that we are soul mates and will be 'together forever' as strange as that sounds, and ... how lovely. How just really lovely.

And despite "not dating" I am still reading CL, including personals (!). I don't know why I'm doing that. Am I just keeping the hope alive here? Keeping these little disney fantasies alive and awake in my head?

Anyway... there is more to clean and do and Be Productive. Hungover though I may be.

My Craigslist Missed Connection

I want to post it. Just don't have the balls.

"My Coffeeshop Boyfriend M4W - Poydras"

I come to see you almost everyday. You, along with the caffeine, give me an afternoon pick me up. I've all but fired my neighborhood coffeeshop because I like seeing you. We couldn't ever really date, could we? I love your attitude and how grownup you seem, even though I have no idea how old you are.

Thanks for brightening my days. I'm hoping the only reason you haven't made a move is because you'd be fired for hitting on a customer.

If I'm not crazy and you like me too, tell me what I drink.

Losing Friends

It's been an interesting (and busy) first two weeks of this year.

Started the new job, which has taken up a ton of my time, but I'm really enjoying it and I find myself looking forward to work in the morning. It's been a ridiculously long time since that's happened. I'm working hard to balance my time, but the prioritization is coming, if slowly. I keep having to remind myself of the difference between what I have to do and what I want to do. And to remind myself that sometimes I'll be late to the office and if that's my biggest flaw, then so be it. New boss A- put something in my personnel file this morning, which I fear was a note that I was late. But perhaps it was an email from Board Member A or M that I went above and beyond the call of duty this weekend.

But I still keep coming back to this thing that happened with J, now a solid month ago. Other friend J hurt her enough for her to really never talk to me again. Just realized she deleted me as a friend on facebook. The last time I did it, it was S-, who I have since readded.

I realize that I made a mistake, but the volume of her reaction is so huge.. I'm not sure how to process it. I hurt her feelings terribly, so much so that she has doubted the entire fabric of our friendship enough to sacrifice it entirely. It was as if I had made the remark. I don't know... is this me trying to control everybody? I told C, you can only treat people with respect, and let people feel how they'll feel. Am I really that much more forgiving? And isn't part of a friendship getting past the part you struggle with? I'm not Jewish, and that was part of what she appreciated, but now she's realizing that I don't understand a lot of what she goes through. Her Jewishness is more important than our friendship, I guess.

There's one line of her email that keeps ringing through to me, that makes it easier for me to let go, I guess... "His ignorant remark only made him look ridiculous and ignorant to an educated person like myself." This sounds... like high school to me? I kinda want to tell her to get over herself a little.

But I hate that it means I lost a friend.

Now, with time, C- I understand. We never really were friends. We spent some time, and shared moments or whatever, but weren't really friends. To me, one of the things that comes with friendship is working through things like this - I have gone over and over again to her side, trying to understand where she's coming from. As giving and generous and kind as she can be, I haven't seen her do that for me once. I don't see her trying to understand where I'm coming from.

And yet, I still find it hard to let her go. There were so many things that I loved sharing with her, and I miss that. This is not to say I will not have other friends, but it's the first time I've ever really been dumped by a friend. I guess it was bound to happen sometime. But it's hard to get used to.

Lower Nint' World

It doesn't get any easier.

Went to Brad Pitt's little pink village in the lower 9th world. Ward. World.

Driving across Claiborne on Forstall, and walking in past the Common Ground center, it does feel like the Lower 9th World. We're a 9th World Country. There are still make shift community centers with bottled water and hand-painted signs. It feels like it's no different than it was 2 years ago, walking through my childhood neighborhood and seeing uniformed soldiers walking in formation. With uzis.

Today walking past what used to be a neighborhood that is now an overrun field with the occasional concrete slab that has been dressed up with pepto pink pipe and drape... really? Is this supposed to make us feel better?

And does rebuilding the ninth ward make sense? There was one, no two, "real" families there today. One was in their house, working. It was brick, and like the third little pig's house, it's still standing. In the midst of devastation dressed up in magenta plastic. But as I was leaving, there they were, gathering up and going home, to where they really slept at night, and they were the only people there who felt real.

The rest of the neighborhood is abandoned. There are structures that are now falling down, after two years of weather on top of the Queen of all Weather. Walking through those streets, just another observer, witness, tourist, voyeur - all I could do was weep. There's a beautiful tombstone, brand new, carved in pure white marble, honoring a married couple who perished at "Sunset August 29, 2005."

I remembered today that I will tell my children that I lived through the greatest natural (or government-made) disaster in the history of this country. And I stayed. And half my family was proud, and the other half tried to talk me out of it. Out of love for me, they try to convince me to go to a "normal" place.

And today is Twelfth Night. Here we go again. Epiphany. The end of the holiday season and the beginning of Carnival. I missed the Phunny Phorty Phellows because I wasn't feeling very Phunny, phrankly. I made barbeque pork for sandwiches for the BCS championship game tomorrow, from the leftover suckling pig I roasted on New Year's Day.

Epiphany. I'm waiting.