In the ninth ward
◊ Well, I guess it was inevitable.
I went to a party and I didn't drink.
This may have had something to do with my showing up at about 1 a.m., when all but the most rockin' of parties are on their last legs and knee-deep in suckage and soggy cigarette butts.
It might have been because now it's cold at night and I was outside chain smoking with the collar of my jacket up, cursing my sexy-but-impractical polyester-blend pants for their lack of insulation.
It could also be that the only alcohol available was a keg of Coors Light and my sister's raspberry-vodka-and-raspberry-soda monstrosity. This barely-alcoholic berry-fied stuff was light, sparkly, and reasonably palatable, if you're the kind of person who likes drinking Robitussin straight from the bottle with a cough-drop chaser.
There's a distinct possibility it was the vibe. There were a bunch of people sucking nitrous from party balloons, which just isn't my bag. If I wasn't into huffing when I was in high school, I'll never get into it now.
Everyone was plastered; I was sober and tired and pissed off. Due to my own fucktardedness, I am missing out on the NorCal JACC awards tomorrow because I forgot to get someone to cover at work. I spent all day on the phone, begging and pleading and threatening and whining, hoping someone could help me out, but nothing.
By the time I got off work, all I really wanted was to go home and get into my pajamas and listen to Tom Waits. But I had to go to the party, because two people called me during my shift tonight to invite me.
Party-whore logic: "If two people want me there, then it can't possibly be a party without me!"
Nobody ever said party whores were smart.
So I have to be at work early tomorrow morning and hate my boss and make overpriced coffee drinks and clean and clean and clean while all the other editors are accepting prizes and running around pretending to be journalists.
On top of that, I couldn't get my tongue barbell downgraded today because I slacked and slacked and went to Pierce Ink an hour before work. Someone was about to be pierced so I would've had to wait for 45 minutes I didn't have. I gotta go back tomorrow.
So now I'm at home in my pajamas, doing the high school thing and listening to the same song over and over again. It's Tom Waits' "I Wish I Was in New Orleans." I love the way he hisses the last part of "... if it ain't that ol' Chuck E. Weiss."
I have such a crush on Tom Waits.
I guess I could pull a stalker and hie on out to Sebastopol to try and hunt him down, but I'm pretty sure that would ruin it. I'm not fast enough or clever enough to know what I should say.
Some people have that. Some people always know what to do. Me, I stare at my shoes and hope that whoever I'm talking to stops staring or laughing or crying or whatever it is they're doing that has me all mixed up.
I'm not very good at people.
Not anymore, anyway.
I used to be good at people, but after things tanked with my last boyfriend, I lost it. I couldn't get along with someone who loved me and had so much in common with me and who I loved with the part of my brain or heart or whatever misguided organ it was that still believed in forever. I don't know how I'm supposed to deal with everybody else.
Being a grown-up means being killed by inches, doesn't it.
I think I'll just love Tom Waits and try not think about it too much.
Except I'll read an interview where Tom will talk in his gruff, reluctant way about settling down and being in love and being happy, and it makes me sick with sadness and jealousy.
I think I'll be in love with Kermit the Frog instead.