Opposite Day!

One of these days, I need to declare an "opposite day." I need to do the exact opposite of all of my instincts and all of my impulses. I have to ignore my heart and ignore my feelings and follow my head. (The opposite of what I usually do, of course!) I need to eat foods I don't want to (like salad), drink beverages I don't want to (of a non-alcoholic nature), wake up early (whereas I love to sleep in), exercise (instead of watching crap TV and doing drugs), stay away from late night phone calls (and namely one Narcissist), write pages for one of my incomplete papers (instead of pages of drivel for my blog) and then, only then, do I think I'll be in pretty good shape.

Opposite Day! I need one!

Yesterday I had a crap voice lesson, mainly because my body is so run down from stress and the endless stream of booze being poured down my throat. Last night I had dinner with Dan, and like he put it on his blog, we had a "personal conversation." I both love and hate "personal conversations." It always feels good to open up to someone at the time I'm doing it, but afterwards, I have lingering anxiety. It's kind of like a conversation-hangover and it always takes me a few days to get over it. Oh well. We had a really good time though.

After dinner we stopped over at Cheers. My super was there, along with BulgarianGuy and BarMan was working. PumpedUp called and BarMan managed to get the whole story on why Crys got kicked out and forever "banned" from the bar on Saturday night. Basically he had been all over a really really (REALLY) drunk girl and one of the girl's friends asked him to "back off" several times. He didn't "back off" though and this guy asked him to back off yet again. At one point, he threw a punch at Crys, and Crys reacted to that. It just so happens that the guy who threw the punch is PumpedUp's friend, so things went sour for Crys. As weird as he is, I feel bad for him. It doesn't sound like the whole thing was his fault.

Anyway, after just two drinks or so, I wanted to turn in. I've been under a lot of emotional stress and I was trying to be prudent. I knew if I drank any more I wasn't going to want to stop and I didn't want it to turn into a night of drunkeness. So I told Dan I wanted to go home and he walked me to my building's entrance. Back at home, I tried for a little while to get some sleep, but I couldn't. I desperately wanted to go back out and get enough to drink that I wouldn't have to try to calm my thoughts on my own. I knew it wasn't a good idea, but eventually I gave in. Fuck it. I threw on some clothes and headed back over to Cheers.

I was surprised that they were still open. The place had been pretty empty when Dan and I left. Upon my return, no one was there except for BulgarianGuy and a friend of his. BarMan laughed that I was back.

"I knew that couldn't have been the end of you before!" he said.

We all hung out there for a while and then BarMan got a call.

"That's ThursdayGirl," he said. "She's downtown at a bar with her brother and a bunch of friends. Let's close this place up so we can get over there!"

He asked if we had somewhere to go to wait for him to close.

"Um, hello? I live right there!" I said, gesturing across the street. I was finally feeling drunk.

BulgarianGuy and I came back to my place and he played a little jazz piano. He popped open a bottle of wine and poured us each a glass. I sang a song. Finally BarMan called.

"We're good to go," he said.

We headed down to meet him on the corner and all piled into a cab.

"Hyde, you're riding bitch!" BarMan said.

I don't know the name of the place we went to. It was on 11th street between Avenue A and 1st. BarMan pointed out that it was the first time we had hung out outside of Cheers. I really like him. He has always been a really sweet (and non-judgemental) guy to me in a way that's sincere. (For example, when I was complaining about my incompletes once, he asked me if there's anything he can do to help, and he meant it. And when I was having that personal crisis in early June, he hugged me and told me that he would help me in whatever way he could no matter my decision.)

Anyway, when we got there, ThursdayGirl was there with her brother, two of his friends, a friend of hers from school and the school-friend's boyfriend. I was drinking hard and so I don't remember the details of any of our conversations. Just that the school friend was from Nashville. At some point I went outside and called Narc.

SHIT!

He actually picked up the phone. He was home and told me that he couldn't come out because he was "working." I must have tried to convince him, but he refused.

"I'm deep into my writing right now," he said.

"I thought your script was finished."

"It is."

He told me what else he was working on, but frankly, I don't remember.

Defeated, I went back into the bar. In my heart I knew that if I had called Narc (as I told myself I wouldn't do) I must have been about to hit to wall. I definitely didn't want to embarass myself in front of BarMan or his friends, and besides, I've been run down lately. So I made an excuse and told them all that I had to head out.

This morning I woke up feeling crappy. Two red bulls later, I'm starting to feel better and I'm glad. There's still time to salvage the day. I'm gonna take a shower, eat lunch and declare myself "reborn" by 1:00 pm. Then I have to call my mom and deal with my uncle's death. I've been completley ignoring it, but I guess I can't do that forever. Damn coping mechanisms!

Alright, later...

-H-