January: Week Five (Patreon)

Sunday, January 29

Dude, occasional drinking is where it is AT. It’s like, once every few months I get to feel like just ~magic~. People who drink regularly? They don’t even know. They’re immune. But when you only drink a handful of times a year, it just makes your body glow and it feels like you’re standing in this pleasant river of warmth and it’s magic, it’s just magic.

Monday, January 30

As he was ringing me up, my hair stylist looked up from the computer and apologized genuinely for talking about some of his recent struggles while he had been cutting my hair. “It’s ok to share that stuff with me.” I told him. “We’re friends.” So now it’s official, we actually are friends, for reals. On the way home I detoured to another friend’s house and had a cry about my own Bullshit Life Stuff. It’s ok. We’re friends. Friends share their hard stuff with each other. It’s what friends do. Also, my hair is v. cute.

Tuesday, January 31

Most of the day was lost to Bad Brain Fog but then this evening we went out for a fancy-pantsy dinner, care of my dad’s Christmas gift to me. He gave me a gift certificate to a for-reals nice restaurant downtown that would cover an indulgent dinner for two. I put on my Fancy Shoes (with heels! Also a gift from my father… wow, over a decade ago.) and our server led us to our reserved (fancy) table. She asked if we had ever eaten there before (no) and if we had any questions (yes!). “I hate to be crass,” I said, handing her my gift card with the restaurant’s name beautifully emblazoned across its face. “But can you check how much money is actually on here first?” Without making any motion to reach for the card she answered definitively “No.” I thought I must have made a faux pas before she followed up with, “Not here I can’t. …This is Fancy Restaurant X.” She saw that I still wasn’t understanding. “That card is for Fancy Restaurant Y.” She wasn’t snarky about this! I can see how this might read snooty, but it wasn’t. Within us all lives two wolves. One wolf wants to save face, stay seated at the table you reserved under your name, and just pay for an expensive fancy meal out of pocket rather than scuttling past the servers and patrons again like the embarrassed crabs of ineptitude that you truly are. The other wolf wants a free dinner. That wolf won. We relocated to Fancy Restaurant Y (five minutes drive away) and fortunately they had more than enough space to give us a table for two right then and there. My dudes? My dudes. It was Real Good. We ate real good. It’s amazing how quickly your embarrassment melts away when you’re stuffing your face with steak that melts in your mouth and dessert that… also melts in your mouth because it’s mostly ice cream on top of a hot chocolate lava cake. There was a lot of melting going on, on multiple levels. Clothes look better when you get them for a deal and food tastes better when it’s on somebody else’s bill. My compliments to the chef, my gratitude to my father, and my sympathy to my poor husband who has to deal with my air-headed mix-ups like this on the regular. “Is it hard being married to me?” I asked him. “Well, it’s never boring,” he said. “You always keep things interesting.” PLUS, I COME WITH FREE FANCY DINNER SOMETIMES, SO THERE 😤