A Night of Opposites

In my usual fashion I see a party opportunity in every event in my life. At the moment I wouldn’t say I have a party crew to go with that though. Everyone in my life is incredibly busy and live on opposite ends of the world it seems. The only girl that has time is my ex’s current ex. I also have several men in my life that I love to hang out with, but would never put them all in the same room together. There’s nothing wrong with any of this separately, just not conducive to a “party”.
Now that I’m living in the south end, have been trying to help an old friend, Mondavi, out with his night of DJ and dancing by bringing friends with me, and have almost completed my name change I thought it would be a wonderful idea to throw all that together in one shot. The place was really close to my guy’s place of residence as well as my other friends who are the busiest.
Now that it’s said and done, it was a great and lame night all at the same time. The good things weren’t completely good and the lame things weren’t completely terrible. It was just a whole yin-yang event that kind of amazes me.
I work in a museum and NO ONE ever comes to visit me or the museum. No matter how hard I try, “free” and my awesome personage just aren’t enough to make it worth anyone’s while. Amazingly Ricky, who I known only a couple weeks now has been offering to come down and check it out. I was semi-blown away. He and I have been hanging out in the interest of my friend VA who we’re trying to hook-up with his friend Scott, who I’ve known for years (and have blogged about here). I was excited that he was coming down until he walked in the door a half hour before closing. The one time that I’m the busiest with my job and when he really didn’t have time to go through and see the place.
We took a moment to walk through the new exhibit and I sent him off to visit with VA who was working close by or occupy himself in the hundreds of other awesome exhibits. Going downstairs to finish closing procedures I was definitely annoyed that it had taken him four hours between the time he said he was coming down and actually showed up, and that I couldn’t even really talk with him at all. Like I said, I NEVER get visitors and the fact that I couldn’t enjoy finally having one made me cranky.
My name change party that night had pretty much fallen through. A bunch of people decided that the south end was too far away and the people in the south end weren’t going to make it. Hell even my guy hadn’t even responded to my text messages about showing up to celebrate with me. The only person that was still up for going out with me was VA and I would be driving her around for the night. She was my captive for whatever I decided would happen that night, but she’s always a good sport about it all.
Ricky hung around after they kicked him out of the museum and the three of us went to dinner. I figured inviting him to my name change party would be strange and I wasn’t at that point where I wanted to explain that I had been previously married. That’s always an awkward conversation even with people that I have a platonic relationship with.
Dinner was really fun. The more I hang out with Ricky the more I enjoy his company. For someone that I use to admire and go to see spin in clubs he is a very down to earth person with a hilarious sense of humor. The whole meal was stories and laughter but VA and I spent WAY too much time talking about work. I know how annoying that can be for the one person who has to have everything explained to them. I honestly felt bad for Ricky who patiently sat through the whole meal as if he was interested in all our stupid work rants. Yet even as I apologized for it, she and I would launch into something else. Oh well…
Dinner went later than I had expected and I rushed us girls home to get changed and get going. I had just planned to put on some tight jeans and a t-shirt and call my effort for the night done. Then I found out that my guy was coming down and had two friends in tow, friends that I really didn’t like, but he was really going to hang out! The last time I had hung out with his two friends, without him, they hadn’t had anything nice to say about either my romantic interest in their friend or his intentions toward me. That was months ago when I was still really insecure about where I stood with him, and I just couldn’t stand that people can call themselves close friends and then talk so much shit when that person isn’t there. But none of this could be said to my guy, he’s too nice and too optimistic about life and his friends. That whole evening has been festering for a while and not making me look forward to their company.
Even if I was in a rush I had to think twice about what I was going to wear now. For some reason I’m still in that trying to impress phase with my guy. We had lived together back in college and had seen each other at our worst. Yet I had changed a lot of how I look and dress and seem to make it a habit of always looking my best. I took way too long getting dressed only to really end up in an outfit that wasn’t the best combo. That’s what comes out of rushed indecision. But that also meant they got there before we did, and this casino/nightclub I had been hanging out in was not the sort of place any of them would feel either comfortable in or even enjoy. Now instead of calm and pleased I was running out the door with VA in tow and feeling stupid for taking so long. I spotted them through the window as I walked around the building toward the entrance. They were camped out a table looking really uncomfortable.
From there it was just lame. The singers, rappers, ect. were back from two weeks ago when Renzo and I had tried to go dancing. At the time I had hoped that was just a CD release for the record label they had mentioned at the time, but this had the appearance of being a weekly event. If they were trying to get a dance floor going, this was the worst way to do it. The DJ was playing mediocre music because in three or four songs he would just switch back to one of the performers. The performers were either singing (read karaoke) or rapping while everyone in their entourage would swarm the dance floor and mouth every word of every song they did. Even if the DJ did play a good song, a person had to fight their way through the mob to dance anyway. It was really obvious I wasn’t going to “dancing the night away”.
The guys were completely bored and having more fun texting each other than talking to us, which was fine because it was too damn loud in there even though we were on the whole opposite side of the room from the DJ. My guy bought me a drink and we got the chance to joke around a little before they gave up on the whole affair. For a moment I was really sad that more of my friends hadn’t come out and yet I was glad they hadn’t as well. More people bored and wanting to go home wouldn’t have made the situation better.
One by one the guys took off and I felt like I had made such a terrible choice in places. Then again I know I wouldn’t have gotten my guy to come out if it hadn’t been so close by. But then AGAIN if I had known it was just going to be them and VA and I, we could have gone to a nice restaurant or bar and enjoyed a quieter atmosphere. I wouldn’t have been dressed like a hood-rat and that would have made for a better evening. But I wanted to dance. And I wanted this casino to be my new place to hang out. Neither of those things was going to happen.
VA and I ended up going over to my guy’s place and hanging out for a bit. I continued to drink, because I was feeling upset that my evening hadn’t gone the way I wanted to. By the time we left I was not sober and for the first time in a long time my guy seemed concerned. He’s never been the sort to ask me to check in or to make sure I got home safely. For once I got a text asking me to let him know when we got back to my place. I wanted to feel good about his concern but really I was just ashamed that I had so obviously and irresponsibly kept drinking only to jump back in the car and drive my friend VA.
We made it home fine and both immediately passed out. Both of us had to work in the morning and that was only a couple hours away. Before going to sleep, I realized it had been forever since I’d had a friend stay with me for any reason. Men never stayed over, it was always I that went to their place. Friends all my life had never liked my parents or my apartment so it had been the same. I hung out and slept over at their places. Kind of a depressing thought.
Now as I sit here thinking about it, I want to shake my head and ask for a redo. At dinner Ricky had mentioned that my friends Scott and Steve were spinning up in the U- District that night. If I had wanted to dance I should have gone there. It wasn’t a terrible night. The time spent with VA and my guy at his house were great. It was just odd that everything that happened was tinged with the opposite emotion or outcome no matter what it was. The night is only describable as one of opposites.