So much to say.
I went to work for a while yesterday, as I detailed in yesterday’s entry, and then scootled home to take a shower and get ready for our evening of merriment. My very excellent friend Markus (the only person to ever write a guest entry on this page) is moving to North Carolina for a new job and yesterday was his going away party at Sports Bar #412. It was so very bittersweet. All of our friends were there. Esteban and I gave him a DVD player as a going away present, because we are gradually taking him kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. It’s slow going. I’m going to miss him so very much. He was the best man at our wedding and just a general sweetheart. I actually wasn’t long at the party, as I had to meet up with the Golf Chicas to go to the Sheryl Crow/Michelle Branch concert. In some ways, I’m torn up by the fact that I couldn’t spend every last minute with him, but I guess the final half hour before he left was pretty heart wrenching, with tears from many people and I know I would have turned into a big bawling basket case. While I am sad that he’s leaving, I’m also very happy for him because he’s got this excellent opportunity and I know he’s going to kick some major ass down there and besides, it’s not like we’re not going to visit him. So I wouldn’t have been crying for that reason, but I have a hard time watching people cry and it makes me cry. I’m a chain reaction weeper.
I did have a moral dilemma however. I was telling Joel that we were going to the Bad Bar after the concert and if he wanted, he should join us later. He said, with a very serious look on his face, ‘You’ve been going there a lot, haven’t you?’. Well’ five times in the last six months, but it IS a lot for me. I’ve drunk more alcohol in the last year than I probably did in the ten preceding it, but it’s still not too terrible. Then I remembered’ I had made a pledge a month back that I wouldn’t drink until Journal Con which is still two weeks away. Oh no! I ran outside in the rain and called my PA and asked him if it would make me a lush if I broke my resolve and drank at the Bad Bar. He assured me that I had proved my point and it wasn’t a big deal to have one night of merriment every now and then. Besides, I was already doing penance for the entire thing by standing in the freezing rain and talking with him. I heart my PA. He tells me everything I want to hear.
As it turned out, the very fun Eric and somewhat entertaining Jason would also be in attendance at the Bad Bar. Jason was sporting a five day growth of stubble on his head after he shaved it all off earlier this week. He was getting entirely too much pleasure out of having others rub his head, as if it were Buddha’s stomach. And Joel kept rubbing it as though he expected a genie to pop out. It was bizarre. I did not partake in the head rubbing. It was just too porno-erotic for me. I’m entirely too repressed sometimes.
So I skeedattled out of there before the waterworks started and met the girls. We were all dropping our cars off at the Bad Bar, thus setting the stage for some insane Bad Bar action later that evening. The concert was in a large tent with no chairs, so we secured a standing spot roughly thirty feet from the stage and proceeded to wait. Strangely enough, I channeled Carissa and began talking to a group of women next to me. I thought I recognized the tall one and then later asked them where they were going after the concert. They didn’t know, so I told them that we were going to The Bad Bar, to which tall girl replies ‘See’ I suggested that. I’ve been there one time before.’ And I said, ‘A few months ago?’ and she said ‘Yes!’ and then I said ‘Did you get your hair cut recently? Did it used to be shoulder length?’ ‘YES!’ ‘And you were with a man and another couple? And you were dressed really nicely?’ ‘YES!!!’ ‘I was there that night, remember I got you guys some candy necklaces!’ ‘Oh my gosh, how do you remember that?’
Yeah. Maybe I do go there too much.
Michelle Branch was awesome but very very tiny. Sheryl Crow was incredible. ‘Strong Enough’ was perfect and honestly my primary reason to see her in concert. The curse of the genetic mutants standing in front of me at concerts continues. Not only did I have a six-foot-six by three-foot-two man standing directly in front of me, but ahead and next to him was a six-foot tall woman wearing a cowboy hat. People, don’t wear cowboy hats to concerts. It just ain’t righteous. I don’t care if you’re wearing a gawdy shirt that shows women wearing cowboy hats. The shirt also had women wearing bikinis and you’re not wearing THAT to the concert, are you? Even Sheryl Crow wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat. I tried offering the linebacker in front of me $10 to take her hat and stomp on it, but he wouldn’t. Oh, and these girls behind us kept trying to get close to us so that we’d take a step up and they could get closer to the stage. At one point, one of their pelvis’ were touching my ass. I started randomly shifting position so that she would be afraid of getting stomped on. Seriously, if she were any closer to me, she would have been in front of me. I think I’ve had more space between my husband and me while we’re having sex. (There, Katrina from the Guestbook, r u happy?)
After two vodkas and lemonade, I was going to burst, so I went to the ‘bathroom’. It was basically a trailer dedicated to porta-potties. They flushed, much like an airplane toilet, but they were the smallest things I’d ever been in. Strangely enough, they had a bowl of potpourri on the counter where you washed your hands. They had five ladies stalls for 2500 people and the stalls were very very small. When I sat down, my knees were up against the door. What is more, the stalls were very shiny silver material and when I stood to pull up my pants I realized that it was acting like a mirror and I could see the reflection of the girl in the next stall pulling up her underwear and adjusting her thong. Sheryl Crow had just broken into her final song of ‘Soak up the sun’ and one of the girls in the potty was singing along. It was a very surreal moment.
Then we went off to the Bad Bar, where I proceeded to down roughly 36 ounces of Blind Russian (read: nothing but straight Kahlua, Vodka, and Baileys, with nothing but a little melted ice to dilute it) in the space of an hour and a half. I was thirsty and it tasted really good. That is my only excuse. Jason showed up roughly about the same time that I got all hip hip wiggleness and became the hottest damn chick in the whole damn bar. Unfortunately, we were not positioned by the Magical Brick Wall of Support, so I had to make due with the Lesser Pole of Uprightness.
Then I hit a big pocket of ‘Uh oh’. I fled to the bathroom and hid in a stall. I think the pizza we had for lunch on top of the mini corndogs I had at the Sport Bar weren’t reacting so well with my post Operation Hottie grease intolerant stomach, however when I sat down to use the toilet, all of the different angles made me dizzy. That’s always been my best barometer for my alcohol tolerance. If I can manage to sit down on the toilet without it being a theme park thrill ride, I’m usually good to go. However, this time you must be this tall or higher to board this ride and I was distinctly out of my league. Jason sent Carissa in to make sure I was ok. I’m not sure what they were going to do if I wasn’t. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t puking, just needed some quiet time in the bathroom. And then I ran out of toilet paper and she got me some, telling me that she would do that for me because she’s so my friend. Yeah. I think Car was feeling her Blind Russians too.
Eric, Joel and Cheri showed up slightly after my triumphant return from my ten-minute sabbatical in the bathroom. I switched to ice water, figuring that I needed to dilute and hydrate, much to Eric’s annoyance, as he had planned to supplicate me with Malibu and Diet Cokes. Man. This diary is a curse sometimes. Seriously. It’s a good thing that I’m not a super hero because my arch nemesis would totally kick my ass exploiting my weaknesses.
Another surreal moment: my Golf Chicas met the rest of my friends for the first time. Eric introduced himself to Mary and said ‘So you’re the Mary that I’ve been reading about.’ And I guess she blushed (which, actually, she’s never done anything embarrassing on this page’ to my knowledge), to which Eric replied. ‘That’s ok. I swim.’ and she started to laugh. I could only sit there and giggle ashamedly. My poor friends. I don’t know why they put up with my shit. Probably because I am so very cute. Oh, and my hip hugger pants kept falling off my ass when I was dancing. Between the bathroom and the dancing, I was perhaps losing weight by the second. Take that, Weight Watchers. Points Schmoints.
Highlight of the night: Eric complimented me upon my choker necklace and replied that I am very much in style. As opposed to the acid wash jeans and stirrup pants I normally wear, I guess. No, really. It was very sweet.
After much merriment which I cannot possibly do justice to in the written word, and much sobering on my part, the evening died down and folks drifted away. I think Jason might just have been abducted by aliens because he suddenly disappeared at one point, never to return. (I hope the anal probing didn’t hurt too much, Jason) Eric and I wandered across the street to where our friend Phil’s band was playing. There we continued to drink water and discuss Eric’s various hair possibilities and which famous person he most looks like. Scotty Boom Boom finally showed up, sporting some kind of weird experimental mustache gone horribly awry. He had forsaken his goatee for this weird Fu Manchu thing. Apparently because it works for Phil and Phil is a cool guy, he figured he’d get him some of that. Yeah, well, not so much. And I’m pretty certain that a circle of friends can only support one quirky person with a Fu Manchu mustache without serious implications. I unfortunately couldn’t get over it, mostly because it kept looking at me and making me hungry for Cherry Sour Bombs, which I seem to associate with Charlie Chan. I kept expecting him to ask if I want egg roll with my moo shu. It’s just not a good look for tragically smart white guys. It’s just not. And that is your Weetabix fashion judgment of the day. Right there. Say no to bad facial hair.
Then we all went home. Because apparently I had not gotten the free floating rudeness out of my system when I openly chastised Scott for his facial hair expression, I called Jake and woke him up at what was 12:30 a.m. his time. And then when I went into the bedroom, I found that Esteban had been waiting up for me in case I needed a ride home, even though it was insanely late.
I’m a bad girl. And it’s an evil bar. I should never go back there again. But I probably will. Hi. My name is Weetabix and I’m addicted to kick ass music and magical glowy cups.
