delighted/dismayed

I've been avoiding this entry for a couple of days. It helps that I've been on a non-stop social whirlwind (well, for me) and between my demanding public and my domestic duties there's been little time to work out the proper tone. But when have I ever let that stop me?

Okay. Those of you keeping score at home (and I've run into at least two of you this week) know that I've been taking ridiculous risks since the summer began. I've been carrying on like every night is Poet's bachelor party, which isn't a good strategy when you have a pre-schooler and a 40-year mortgage. Why? Well, the best I can explain it is that at the Maddy, I started to get to know Mason as more than just a work friend, as, in fact, an accordion wingman and general all right guy. Not having had a lot of recent experience with making friends (with two major exceptions: mommies & knitters), I seem to have reverted to my old template that used to serve when I was making new friends in my undergrad. Result? Alcohol-fueled bad decisions.

This all came crashing home to me on Wednesday night, when Mason told me that his partner was concerned. I believe the words "bad influence" floated around. And at first I was kind of tickled. Then the shame and guilt hit.

There's a gesture that Stacy makes when she is delighted by something: she throws her hands in the air and cheers briefly. She also makes this gesture when she is very displeased by something. I was reminded of this gesture when the whole bad influence idea came up. At first I thought of my rock n' roll cred. Then I remembered what this would do to my decent human being cred. Delighted/dismayed.

It's taken me almost two full days to come up from the shame to breathe. Once, after Dirk almost drowned, I told him to go home and write about it until he felt better. Today I decided to take my own advice.

The funny/ironic thing is that I met up with three "old-timers" from the Ferg days, people who saw me drunk off my ass more times than I can recall. And we were too busy taking pictures and laughing and reminiscing and catching up to drink all that much. So I suppose there is hope for me; I just have to speed up the process so that it takes fewer than 10 years to kick in.

As alluded to above (if you didn't doze off during the Angst Storm above), I went out to see Brigit, Dot, St. Jack & NotAnArtist at the Wheat Sheaf (Maria was a bonus!) Considering that I haven't seen them in 6 years, 4 1/2 years, 10 months and 5 weeks respectively, the rollicking good time was both surprising and expected. NaA knew Brigit in middle school, so she and Maria were plunged into the messy tide pool of Ferg memories from the mid-nineties. They did very well for themselves, only falling asleep once or twice. (Hee!)

It was a wonderful night, very validating. Sometimes talking to casual acquaintances from the Old Days can make me feel like a suburban sell out, a mediocrity in mom jeans. These guys had much more class and much more love...but that's always been true. Pictures to come tomorrow, I think, when I'm not in another rush downtown and I can sort out my elbow from my hairline. (Or, as I might have said the last time I saw Dot, when I can sort out my ass from my moustache.)

Labels: angst, friends, nostalgia, outings, res

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 7/13/2007 04:19:00 p.m.