I was heading out the door around 3PM, Saturday December 22nd. It's the day after my brother's graduation (coincidentally my best friend/3rd cousin Angela, and my boyfriend's graduation, as well), and I had a relatively quiet evening at home.
Andrew's graduation was fairly low-key. It's a winter graduation, nonetheless, and though I never really knew SJSU to be a college campus to be known in the area of Health Sciences, it seems he was in good hands, all along. I met with his dean (also, a professor in several of his courses), who had mentored him throughout most of his stay at the college. She had nothing but good things to say about him, and it seems he is on a clear path to success, after much soul-searching, he's found his calling. In Dean Roe's words, "I mean, who wants to hang out with a middle-aged woman?"
And so the night ended with a 10 course meal at Mayflower Seafood Restaurant in Milpitas, with about 20 guests, half - family, and half - his friends. The bill total: 762, exactly. One expensive, expensive meal, that my mother deemed entirely worth the $$.
Saturday morning, I ran around and did a little bit of Christmas shopping, but I've never been especially good at shopping for gifts, mostly because I can never decided on anything unique to give to people, and usually end up with a generic giftcard, for fear of getting people things they neither want, or need, but are too afraid to say otherwise. I think I've played safe for the most part. I think next year, I'll go a bit farther out on the extremes...! I was heading back to Sephora, and I was in the parking lot, when I realized it was already 3:30PM! I wasn't exactly sure what time diner would be, but! considering it was the weekend before Christmas, I assumed all sorts of madness trying to go home for the holidays. So instead of parking, went back out the front, and paid $0. parking, and got on the freeway. Let me say, thank goodness I left when I did, because I was in traffic for a good 2-3 hours, mostly stop and go traffic. I made it into Sacramento with enough time to stop in at the malls, and headed out to Florin to meet my boyfriend. He, of course, was neither dressed or near ready to leave the house.
10 minutes later, he was driving my car down a long stretch of dark road. And several minutes after that, we were there. I wasn't meeting the family at home, in Stockton. I was meeting them in Sacramento at a restaurant pre-determined. It wasn't until we were walking towards the restaurant that I voiced my fear, "is this a surprise dinner? And they don't know they're meeting me?" To this his only response was, "I didn't tell them specifically, but I think they know." I had left my greeting gifts in the car, especially since my first meeting would be at a restaurant, but as the time came, my dearest walked out with my keys, only to return some seconds later, "Hey Angela, could you come out for a second?". In the back of my mind, I realized that I would greeting his parents in the cold, yet I still had a lightness of heart. Sure enough, as I turned to face him, I see his parents standing by the door, as though they were about to walk into the restaurant. I had been fooled to think that they looked as old as my own parents, having married at a much later time than most other couples, my mom was 30.
His parents looked a bit younger. His dad's hands- rough from work, with slits of black having settled between the cracks of his toughened hands. His mom adorned a festive white-pastel colored jacket over an equally festive shirt, topped with a very short, lace-like scarf (if you can even call it that). I had imagined a couple much like my parents, and semi-mirroring my boyfriend's own physique, something that would suggest "I'm their child", but this was not the case, at all. They were much smaller in frame, in contrast to his 6'1, medium build figure.
Dinner went well, with occasional silences, where my dearest failed to fill in the gaps, instead focusing all, or most of his attention to the Chinese version of Dancing with the Stars. So his parents would quiz me on various interests of mine, and were bold enough to immediately ask, upon his brief leave of absence from the dining table, his dad jumped on the opportunity to ask how we had met. I told them the gist of how we met, leaving out the details of our 6 odd month courting, and they seemed satisfied with how coincidentally we had met, and how lucky we were to have found something that stuck. All of this was said just as he returned to the table.
Throughout the night, surprisingly, I spoke with relative ease in somewhat fluent Cantonese, and all the more surprising is how my fluent-ness contradicts one of his earliest statements, in which he coupled with extreme laughter, "Your cantonese is worse than mine". This, at the time, was especially disconcerting, considering I had spent a good part of my teen years studying Cantonese, and graduated my junior year in High School from what the Chinese would consider elementary school.
The night ended well, we presumed, his mom while saying goodbye exclaimed the usual it was good to meet you, and both re-iterated that I should go to visit them in Stockton, but most notable was his mom's open embrace, something that no one expected, me, least of all.
Hopefully the food bodes well with them, and I'm in the clearing, at least for now.
Monday, December 24
Dec 24, 2007
This is my first Christmas Eve after college... and it's different, to say the least. I no longer have the week to two weeks of entire freedom, mostly because the business world, especially in Finances tends to play outside of that ballpark. The world still turns, and as long as the (stock) markets, or the Federal Reserve (banks) is open, our company is open.
So this explains why I am writing to you from my office cubicle on the 6th floor of my company building at 215 Fremont St.
It's almost like the day after Thanksgiving, I was here super early (as usual), and was practically the last to leave, or if hours were counted, it was as though I worked a full day. The break, I suppose, was from all the people usually running around, chit-chatting to the point where there was little silence. Today, given that most people will leave in the next hour, I could potentially hear a pin drop, if I concentrated hard enough.
I have one more person to really shop for, and though it should also be the easiest, I am having a relatively tough time doing it. My father! I think I'm going to play it safe, and get him a couple of pairs of wool socks, because, first off, he doesn't own too many pairs, and second, he use to always complain of his socks NOT being thick enough. And I love wool socks, especially the ones from GAP, because they have the warmth coupled with comfort. So I may just opt for wool socks from GAP. Yes, that's what I am going to get. Perfect!
So this explains why I am writing to you from my office cubicle on the 6th floor of my company building at 215 Fremont St.
It's almost like the day after Thanksgiving, I was here super early (as usual), and was practically the last to leave, or if hours were counted, it was as though I worked a full day. The break, I suppose, was from all the people usually running around, chit-chatting to the point where there was little silence. Today, given that most people will leave in the next hour, I could potentially hear a pin drop, if I concentrated hard enough.
I have one more person to really shop for, and though it should also be the easiest, I am having a relatively tough time doing it. My father! I think I'm going to play it safe, and get him a couple of pairs of wool socks, because, first off, he doesn't own too many pairs, and second, he use to always complain of his socks NOT being thick enough. And I love wool socks, especially the ones from GAP, because they have the warmth coupled with comfort. So I may just opt for wool socks from GAP. Yes, that's what I am going to get. Perfect!
Sunday, December 9
Dec 9, 2007
My 24th year of life official starts tomorrow, and I celebrated it early, yesterday evening, well into the early dawns of today.
For one reason or another, I had been looking forward to my birthday for most of the previous week. I was especially ecstatic that I would be reunited with my significant other, it had been one long week at work and to be rewarded with the attention of the one person who has become a large part of my life was the perfect ending, or beginning, to another week of intense week at work.
To be completely honest, I had even gotten up in the morning, started it with a coffee date with my best friend/ex roommate, and though it was only hours away from the official celebration, my emotions were relatively normal; on the outside, it was just another day, but on the inside, I was bouncing all over the place. To sidetrack, a little, I go through most of my life with relatively tame acts of celebration, in the past couple of months, rarely had I followed the masses, and lately I've become especially tame, and reclusive. To sum it all up in one word, it was the beginning of a relatively tame night, but just the beginning of what would be the breakdown of my bottled up frustration, and silence.
Around 4:30PM, my love arrived. The bottom of his jeans still wet from sitting on the porch for some minutes before I was able to amble out to greet him, he shyly handed me a bouquet of mixed flowers: carnations of various shades of red, and daisies of a bright orange, crisp clean white, and rich purples, and sat at the edge of my bed watching as I rearranged my pot of flowers. This was in perfect timing, because the lilie buds had just about all opened, with an exception of one which still had another couple of days. I cut the stems under water, cleaned out the flower pot, and refilled about half way up, and added a couple of teaspoons of sugar for flower food. At which point, I finished up with my almost daily hair routine.
***
Let's take a minute to describe my hair, which now takes about half an hour to dry and style to "perfection". Growing up, I had never been one to fuss over how I looked, or even remotely cared how people viewed me, it didn't matter as long as I was able to get my shat done. Sometime in college, all of that changed for me. I started to want to go shopping, I had something of a shopping addiction, beyond my own belief, and I acquired just about anything I felt like I wanted. It didn't matter then whether I really needed it, or if I was planning to wear the item more than once. I acquired quite a debt because of it, and am still currently paying the price of my bad habit. It may have been a result of not having been able to, and not particularly wanting to acquire anything, and so when it was time to do an entire change of wardrobe, it was a closet change, as well.
So with all those changes, the one thing that I have taken with me is having a regular hair appointment with a salon stylist every month and a half for maintenance, mostly, and in the last couple of months, color changes. I've done all sorts of randoms to my hair, and have finally settled back on my stacked/shaved bob from many, many, many months ago, before the whole pob thing with Posh's bob. It was fashion-forward to an extreme, almost like predicting what would be in, before it was even in. In any case, in high school and much of my college career the only thing that I bothered to spend a little extra $$ on was shampoo and conditioner, I really had no idea what this business was with flat irons, curlers, hair lotions, hair waxes, and the like was all about... but since then I have started to invest in these items, mostly because upkeep was key to maintaining good looking hair. I mean why bother going to a hairstylist once a month or so, and not try to keep it that way all the other days of the week in between those visits, right?
***
Anyway, let's get back on track, my SO sat on the bed, and browsed through magazines, while I primped for some half an hour. I had not worn contacts in some weeks, and I had the whole make-up business to also complete before I headed out, that was on top of actually putting on clothes. I had been prepping for my actual night out, in terms of how to do my make-up, and as such, had been practicing the type of make up I would wear the night I went out, and this included lining my eyes, various methods to apply the colors of eye shadows I would use.. this took about another 15-20 minutes, while putting on the actual clothes took about 5 minutes, I had already decided the previous night... of course, that meant ransacking my entire closet to find the perfect top to go with the perfect bottom. I ended up looking a bit stick-thin in the end because of the attire I chose, mostly because it was a 3/4 sleeve sweater over a form-fitting tee, paired with black, knee-length tights, and a pair of black, suede, knee-high boots.
I thought I looked presentable.
Before heading out, DEEEnise phoned to borrow a flat-iron, and arrived just as SO and I were about to leave. I carried with me my business bag, stuffed with make-up, a pair of black patent peep toe heels, a gray tuxedo tank top from Express, and a pair of old, old jeans for the after-dinner event. We made a quick stop at the ATM, and proceeded to our final destination, Elephant Bar, in the adjacent city. After exiting the freeway, I noticed that my radio had stopped responding to the key buttons on the dash, but brushed it off, and assumed that when I took the keys out of the ignition all would be fine. Wrong!
When we finally parked on the top floor of the parking structure, I pulled my keys out, and after a good, couple of seconds, I realized that my radio was still turned on, as though the keys were still in the ignition, the only thing was, the keys were in my hands. I proceeded to insert the keys back into the ignition, and removed them again, just to see if this would help... it didn't. I almost started to panic, but my SO was well-versed in fixing things, in general, and took charge without my help. He finally decided to unplug the battery... but we didn't have a wrench to un-do the screw. I phoned a friend, and he would come to my rescue, only, it took much longer than I was patient enough to wait. Finally, a Asian/American couple walked by, stared a bit, and walked over to ask if we needed a jump, since we had the hood propped up. We corrected her, and told her we needed a wrench to unplug the battery, in hopes of fixing whatever it was that went wrong with the radio. They go and retrieve the wrench, and it was fixed in a matter of minutes. (My car is still requesting a CODE to unlock the radio.) Though I never reached a state of panic, without my SO I may have freaked out.
Nice way to start the beginning of my 24th celebratory evening, wouldn't you say?
We finally get to Elephant Bar around 6PM, when we were suppose to rendezvous at 5:30, and only 3 of my guests had arrived. We had bumped into Jennifer on the way over to our parking spot, but everyone else had called, or messaged to inform me of their tardiness.
My list of attendees for dinner, included:
myself, of course,
my SO, Robert,
my sibling,
my cousin,
my cousin-in-law, DEEnise,
my exroommates, Jennifer, Erica, Lauren,
my high school friends of sorts, Henry, Gregory, Estella,
my pledge "brother", Dorothea, and her mate, Christopher,
my co-worker, Susan, and her mate, Kenneth,
and my college friends of friends, Cynthia, and Don
Before we were even seated, my SO and Susan's mate ambled off to the bar to get a glass of something to drink, my family had gone to the bar earlier on, and were taking shots without me.
By 7PM, we were seated.
I had decided on the fresh fish of the day: Salmon with a macadamia nut seasoning, while the food was being prepared, most of my groups of friends had met, save for Kenneth and Susan, and everyone was especially friendly, so everyone was well-entertained for the evening. Food arrived, and we were finished by around 8:10P, except for the delicious coffee cake bought by the roommates. DELICIOUS! Thanks, ED!
Shot count:
jager bomb
vodka
many sips of other peoples fruity mixed drinks
***
Since we still had a lot of time to kill afterwards, Susan and I drove over to Erica's place to prep for the rest of the evening. Lauren and Erica were already home, and we were waiting on Cynthia and Sophia, back in Berkeley. Cynthia calls and inquires about medication possibly dropping into the bag that she gave me, only after checking, she calls me and it was in the last possible place she would have checked, a plastic bag she never uses. By this time, it was getting close to 10PM.
(The guest list at the bar closed at 11PM. Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I had been in constant correspondence with one of the guys at the bar to organize and reserve a table for the evening. I reserved one table, which seats about 6-7 people, anticipating no more than about 10 people to make an appearance; however, in the last couple of days prior to yesterday, more and more people had expressed interest in attending. Last minute calls, and inquiries, and I had a list a little over 40, 10 of which were friends of a friend's mate's friend, and 3 of whom I had briefly met.)
We finally leave the house around 9:55PM, and exited Fremont in San Francisco around half an hour later, we parked a couple of blocks from the bar. We arrived, and there was a line. Oddly, we step into the line, and lo and behold, my high school friends/acquaintances were there. They were in line, and apparently were not on the guest list. My sibling had recognized a lot of these people, and had randomly promised that he'd be able to get a lot of them in free... most likely. The funny thing is, usually bouncers are less likely to accommodate male individuals. I get to the front of the line, and while the bouncer is checking my ID, he asks if I'm the one who had the table reservation, and when I confirmed, he tells the list guy that I was THE ------ ----- with the reservation, and said I had a table set up. While this guy is checking me off the list, I tell the bouncer that I was unable to get a lot of my friends onto the list in time, and inquired about whether he'd be able to get them in as a favor to me. Guy says he'll try to see what he can do, and then someone from within calls out the approval, and some 10-15 people entered without a fee, and the "Happy Birthday, ------", or a "Thanks, ------". I had "flirted" with a bouncer, for the first time, neither begging or pleading, simply with a "I'm celebrating my 24th", and an arm around the bouncers waist... how powerful it is to be a woman who knows her capabilities, sadly, that was entirely blind, and un-rehearsed, and I am not versed in the art of flirtation/coercion. Thankfully, bouncer, was in an especially friendly mood, and let everyone in.
My sibling had attempted, but ended up with an empty promise, I pulled through, and this will be an accomplishment that will mark the beginning of a wonderful 24th year.
The VIP area was nice, with only 3 tables near the entrance, by the main bar. Most of my friends were at the table for a short period of time, just at the beginning of the night. By the end of the night, I had had a total of some 8-9 shots of various vodkas at the bar.
absolut, Kenneth
151, Will
patron, Corinna's friend's fuck buddy
vodka, Susan
champagne, ME
Well, I have a very vague memory of who got what for me.
my brother
my cousin
my cousin in law
Daniel
Robert
Thomas
Andrew M
Will
Corinna (+4)
Susan
Kenneth
Dorothea
Christopher
Sophia
Cynthia
Lauren
Erica
and of course, the mass of Esther's friend who I got in for FREEEEEEE!
I had invited my ex-boyfriend to join in on my celebration, and while it was with good intent, the outcome was far from bizarre. He randomly divulged various happenings of our year in dating to a roommate, who had heard it all already, made exclamations like "So... THAT's Robert", inquired about my personal life from those closest to me, my sibling and my cousin, and had even attempted to be in SO's words "buddy-buddy" with him. My exroomie theorized that this may be the cause of my ex's attempt to continue to be a part of my life, fearing that if the current boyfriend is disapproving of our friendship, I may decide to cast him aside. My pledge brother, though, has a different theory, she believes that with all the drunk, phone calls, this may actually be an attempt to get back into my life, by being a part of it as much as he can. To be honest, I'm not sure which I really believe, but in either case, neither is good. I wholeheartedly believe the saying "ex's are ex's for a reason".
By the end of the night, we had one puking, my dearest ED, in the bathroom downstairs, and while we waited for her to come out, the group of us ended up downstairs waiting. Some flirtation/friendliness on my part did not go un-noticed by my good friend, Thomas, or my boyfriend, apparently, and for a brief moment, he was angry with me. It seems, at the time, I was too buzzed to focus or dwell on the matter for more than a couple of minutes. For this, my SO still has not completely discussed with me.
Thomas, ah, Thomas. The one who made a comment far too harsh, "------ and ------ are un-original names." For that, he angered my brother, and my high school acquaintances/friends have given me the "You know I've got your back", and "Where IS he? I'll beat his ass", empty claims, but the kind of mental support I needed to calm my nerves a bit.
Anyhow, we got back home around 2:30AM, but SO and I had about a 3 hour "chat" session outside of ED's house, and didn't fully realize the time until around 6AM. We headed back to my house, and knocked out, almost immediately.
***
I'm one day shy of 24 today, and sadly it began quite alright, but stories of the night's events surfaced, and my parents were less than thrilled. They focused on drunk driving, and assumed that everyone who arrived at the event, drove home drunk. They were not especially thrilled of the bar idea, and were less than ecstatic when they realized almost everyone at the event (to their knowledge from the he-said-she-said's) had spent at least $100 on buying rounds of drinks. They lectured with the usual, don't look at us and think we're going out to play when we go dancing, and how money should be saved, and not spent frivolously, on unnecessary bad social activities. I agree in retrospect, but at the time, it was sheer blame, and finger pointing, and statements like "If anything were to happen to either your brother or your cousin, you'd be the one to blame... you'd feel good, right, if that happened!" It was definitely a lot of talking down to.
There was even the statement that I am a bad influence, because I asked everyone to go, and that without my asking, no one would know to go to the particular bar. My mother blamed as though, through her naivety, and narrow-mindedness, that my one event is what turned everyone sour. And since talking apparently showed no results, I mentally broke down, and had somewhat of a screaming argument with my mother about how naive she was to believe that my one outing to a bar is probably the only one to which my invitees had ever attended. The sad truth is that I rarely go out, and this was the first time I had gone out in ages, save for the occasional Friday after-work-one-drink events with appetizers/dinner. That ruined the day for me, and possibly my experience altogether, but I am truly thankful for the friends I have, and am glad that I had a DD, and that my cousin/brother had DEEnise as a DD. We're less than naive, thankfully.
***
Maybe it's all of this bottled up confrontational arguments that I avoided when I was younger that makes it so easy for me to randomly break down now in older age. Sometimes I feel like I have relationship issues because of what I had experienced with my mother growing up. Or maybe this is something everyone has to deal with growing up. Who knows.
For one reason or another, I had been looking forward to my birthday for most of the previous week. I was especially ecstatic that I would be reunited with my significant other, it had been one long week at work and to be rewarded with the attention of the one person who has become a large part of my life was the perfect ending, or beginning, to another week of intense week at work.
To be completely honest, I had even gotten up in the morning, started it with a coffee date with my best friend/ex roommate, and though it was only hours away from the official celebration, my emotions were relatively normal; on the outside, it was just another day, but on the inside, I was bouncing all over the place. To sidetrack, a little, I go through most of my life with relatively tame acts of celebration, in the past couple of months, rarely had I followed the masses, and lately I've become especially tame, and reclusive. To sum it all up in one word, it was the beginning of a relatively tame night, but just the beginning of what would be the breakdown of my bottled up frustration, and silence.
Around 4:30PM, my love arrived. The bottom of his jeans still wet from sitting on the porch for some minutes before I was able to amble out to greet him, he shyly handed me a bouquet of mixed flowers: carnations of various shades of red, and daisies of a bright orange, crisp clean white, and rich purples, and sat at the edge of my bed watching as I rearranged my pot of flowers. This was in perfect timing, because the lilie buds had just about all opened, with an exception of one which still had another couple of days. I cut the stems under water, cleaned out the flower pot, and refilled about half way up, and added a couple of teaspoons of sugar for flower food. At which point, I finished up with my almost daily hair routine.
***
Let's take a minute to describe my hair, which now takes about half an hour to dry and style to "perfection". Growing up, I had never been one to fuss over how I looked, or even remotely cared how people viewed me, it didn't matter as long as I was able to get my shat done. Sometime in college, all of that changed for me. I started to want to go shopping, I had something of a shopping addiction, beyond my own belief, and I acquired just about anything I felt like I wanted. It didn't matter then whether I really needed it, or if I was planning to wear the item more than once. I acquired quite a debt because of it, and am still currently paying the price of my bad habit. It may have been a result of not having been able to, and not particularly wanting to acquire anything, and so when it was time to do an entire change of wardrobe, it was a closet change, as well.
So with all those changes, the one thing that I have taken with me is having a regular hair appointment with a salon stylist every month and a half for maintenance, mostly, and in the last couple of months, color changes. I've done all sorts of randoms to my hair, and have finally settled back on my stacked/shaved bob from many, many, many months ago, before the whole pob thing with Posh's bob. It was fashion-forward to an extreme, almost like predicting what would be in, before it was even in. In any case, in high school and much of my college career the only thing that I bothered to spend a little extra $$ on was shampoo and conditioner, I really had no idea what this business was with flat irons, curlers, hair lotions, hair waxes, and the like was all about... but since then I have started to invest in these items, mostly because upkeep was key to maintaining good looking hair. I mean why bother going to a hairstylist once a month or so, and not try to keep it that way all the other days of the week in between those visits, right?
***
Anyway, let's get back on track, my SO sat on the bed, and browsed through magazines, while I primped for some half an hour. I had not worn contacts in some weeks, and I had the whole make-up business to also complete before I headed out, that was on top of actually putting on clothes. I had been prepping for my actual night out, in terms of how to do my make-up, and as such, had been practicing the type of make up I would wear the night I went out, and this included lining my eyes, various methods to apply the colors of eye shadows I would use.. this took about another 15-20 minutes, while putting on the actual clothes took about 5 minutes, I had already decided the previous night... of course, that meant ransacking my entire closet to find the perfect top to go with the perfect bottom. I ended up looking a bit stick-thin in the end because of the attire I chose, mostly because it was a 3/4 sleeve sweater over a form-fitting tee, paired with black, knee-length tights, and a pair of black, suede, knee-high boots.
I thought I looked presentable.
Before heading out, DEEEnise phoned to borrow a flat-iron, and arrived just as SO and I were about to leave. I carried with me my business bag, stuffed with make-up, a pair of black patent peep toe heels, a gray tuxedo tank top from Express, and a pair of old, old jeans for the after-dinner event. We made a quick stop at the ATM, and proceeded to our final destination, Elephant Bar, in the adjacent city. After exiting the freeway, I noticed that my radio had stopped responding to the key buttons on the dash, but brushed it off, and assumed that when I took the keys out of the ignition all would be fine. Wrong!
When we finally parked on the top floor of the parking structure, I pulled my keys out, and after a good, couple of seconds, I realized that my radio was still turned on, as though the keys were still in the ignition, the only thing was, the keys were in my hands. I proceeded to insert the keys back into the ignition, and removed them again, just to see if this would help... it didn't. I almost started to panic, but my SO was well-versed in fixing things, in general, and took charge without my help. He finally decided to unplug the battery... but we didn't have a wrench to un-do the screw. I phoned a friend, and he would come to my rescue, only, it took much longer than I was patient enough to wait. Finally, a Asian/American couple walked by, stared a bit, and walked over to ask if we needed a jump, since we had the hood propped up. We corrected her, and told her we needed a wrench to unplug the battery, in hopes of fixing whatever it was that went wrong with the radio. They go and retrieve the wrench, and it was fixed in a matter of minutes. (My car is still requesting a CODE to unlock the radio.) Though I never reached a state of panic, without my SO I may have freaked out.
Nice way to start the beginning of my 24th celebratory evening, wouldn't you say?
We finally get to Elephant Bar around 6PM, when we were suppose to rendezvous at 5:30, and only 3 of my guests had arrived. We had bumped into Jennifer on the way over to our parking spot, but everyone else had called, or messaged to inform me of their tardiness.
My list of attendees for dinner, included:
myself, of course,
my SO, Robert,
my sibling,
my cousin,
my cousin-in-law, DEEnise,
my exroommates, Jennifer, Erica, Lauren,
my high school friends of sorts, Henry, Gregory, Estella,
my pledge "brother", Dorothea, and her mate, Christopher,
my co-worker, Susan, and her mate, Kenneth,
and my college friends of friends, Cynthia, and Don
Before we were even seated, my SO and Susan's mate ambled off to the bar to get a glass of something to drink, my family had gone to the bar earlier on, and were taking shots without me.
By 7PM, we were seated.
I had decided on the fresh fish of the day: Salmon with a macadamia nut seasoning, while the food was being prepared, most of my groups of friends had met, save for Kenneth and Susan, and everyone was especially friendly, so everyone was well-entertained for the evening. Food arrived, and we were finished by around 8:10P, except for the delicious coffee cake bought by the roommates. DELICIOUS! Thanks, ED!
Shot count:
jager bomb
vodka
many sips of other peoples fruity mixed drinks
***
Since we still had a lot of time to kill afterwards, Susan and I drove over to Erica's place to prep for the rest of the evening. Lauren and Erica were already home, and we were waiting on Cynthia and Sophia, back in Berkeley. Cynthia calls and inquires about medication possibly dropping into the bag that she gave me, only after checking, she calls me and it was in the last possible place she would have checked, a plastic bag she never uses. By this time, it was getting close to 10PM.
(The guest list at the bar closed at 11PM. Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I had been in constant correspondence with one of the guys at the bar to organize and reserve a table for the evening. I reserved one table, which seats about 6-7 people, anticipating no more than about 10 people to make an appearance; however, in the last couple of days prior to yesterday, more and more people had expressed interest in attending. Last minute calls, and inquiries, and I had a list a little over 40, 10 of which were friends of a friend's mate's friend, and 3 of whom I had briefly met.)
We finally leave the house around 9:55PM, and exited Fremont in San Francisco around half an hour later, we parked a couple of blocks from the bar. We arrived, and there was a line. Oddly, we step into the line, and lo and behold, my high school friends/acquaintances were there. They were in line, and apparently were not on the guest list. My sibling had recognized a lot of these people, and had randomly promised that he'd be able to get a lot of them in free... most likely. The funny thing is, usually bouncers are less likely to accommodate male individuals. I get to the front of the line, and while the bouncer is checking my ID, he asks if I'm the one who had the table reservation, and when I confirmed, he tells the list guy that I was THE ------ ----- with the reservation, and said I had a table set up. While this guy is checking me off the list, I tell the bouncer that I was unable to get a lot of my friends onto the list in time, and inquired about whether he'd be able to get them in as a favor to me. Guy says he'll try to see what he can do, and then someone from within calls out the approval, and some 10-15 people entered without a fee, and the "Happy Birthday, ------", or a "Thanks, ------". I had "flirted" with a bouncer, for the first time, neither begging or pleading, simply with a "I'm celebrating my 24th", and an arm around the bouncers waist... how powerful it is to be a woman who knows her capabilities, sadly, that was entirely blind, and un-rehearsed, and I am not versed in the art of flirtation/coercion. Thankfully, bouncer, was in an especially friendly mood, and let everyone in.
My sibling had attempted, but ended up with an empty promise, I pulled through, and this will be an accomplishment that will mark the beginning of a wonderful 24th year.
The VIP area was nice, with only 3 tables near the entrance, by the main bar. Most of my friends were at the table for a short period of time, just at the beginning of the night. By the end of the night, I had had a total of some 8-9 shots of various vodkas at the bar.
absolut, Kenneth
151, Will
patron, Corinna's friend's fuck buddy
vodka, Susan
champagne, ME
Well, I have a very vague memory of who got what for me.
my brother
my cousin
my cousin in law
Daniel
Robert
Thomas
Andrew M
Will
Corinna (+4)
Susan
Kenneth
Dorothea
Christopher
Sophia
Cynthia
Lauren
Erica
and of course, the mass of Esther's friend who I got in for FREEEEEEE!
I had invited my ex-boyfriend to join in on my celebration, and while it was with good intent, the outcome was far from bizarre. He randomly divulged various happenings of our year in dating to a roommate, who had heard it all already, made exclamations like "So... THAT's Robert", inquired about my personal life from those closest to me, my sibling and my cousin, and had even attempted to be in SO's words "buddy-buddy" with him. My exroomie theorized that this may be the cause of my ex's attempt to continue to be a part of my life, fearing that if the current boyfriend is disapproving of our friendship, I may decide to cast him aside. My pledge brother, though, has a different theory, she believes that with all the drunk, phone calls, this may actually be an attempt to get back into my life, by being a part of it as much as he can. To be honest, I'm not sure which I really believe, but in either case, neither is good. I wholeheartedly believe the saying "ex's are ex's for a reason".
By the end of the night, we had one puking, my dearest ED, in the bathroom downstairs, and while we waited for her to come out, the group of us ended up downstairs waiting. Some flirtation/friendliness on my part did not go un-noticed by my good friend, Thomas, or my boyfriend, apparently, and for a brief moment, he was angry with me. It seems, at the time, I was too buzzed to focus or dwell on the matter for more than a couple of minutes. For this, my SO still has not completely discussed with me.
Thomas, ah, Thomas. The one who made a comment far too harsh, "------ and ------ are un-original names." For that, he angered my brother, and my high school acquaintances/friends have given me the "You know I've got your back", and "Where IS he? I'll beat his ass", empty claims, but the kind of mental support I needed to calm my nerves a bit.
Anyhow, we got back home around 2:30AM, but SO and I had about a 3 hour "chat" session outside of ED's house, and didn't fully realize the time until around 6AM. We headed back to my house, and knocked out, almost immediately.
***
I'm one day shy of 24 today, and sadly it began quite alright, but stories of the night's events surfaced, and my parents were less than thrilled. They focused on drunk driving, and assumed that everyone who arrived at the event, drove home drunk. They were not especially thrilled of the bar idea, and were less than ecstatic when they realized almost everyone at the event (to their knowledge from the he-said-she-said's) had spent at least $100 on buying rounds of drinks. They lectured with the usual, don't look at us and think we're going out to play when we go dancing, and how money should be saved, and not spent frivolously, on unnecessary bad social activities. I agree in retrospect, but at the time, it was sheer blame, and finger pointing, and statements like "If anything were to happen to either your brother or your cousin, you'd be the one to blame... you'd feel good, right, if that happened!" It was definitely a lot of talking down to.
There was even the statement that I am a bad influence, because I asked everyone to go, and that without my asking, no one would know to go to the particular bar. My mother blamed as though, through her naivety, and narrow-mindedness, that my one event is what turned everyone sour. And since talking apparently showed no results, I mentally broke down, and had somewhat of a screaming argument with my mother about how naive she was to believe that my one outing to a bar is probably the only one to which my invitees had ever attended. The sad truth is that I rarely go out, and this was the first time I had gone out in ages, save for the occasional Friday after-work-one-drink events with appetizers/dinner. That ruined the day for me, and possibly my experience altogether, but I am truly thankful for the friends I have, and am glad that I had a DD, and that my cousin/brother had DEEnise as a DD. We're less than naive, thankfully.
***
Maybe it's all of this bottled up confrontational arguments that I avoided when I was younger that makes it so easy for me to randomly break down now in older age. Sometimes I feel like I have relationship issues because of what I had experienced with my mother growing up. Or maybe this is something everyone has to deal with growing up. Who knows.
Friday, December 7
Dec 7, 2007
Email to a Friend
Oh Jennifer, it's always good to talk to you, even if for a brief moment.
I don't really have plans, but as all plans go, they're coming along just dandy. Think back to the Will-Angela episode, and you've got me and Robert, last night, mostly me getting randomly emotional about things that were imagined. I'm not sure why I had the breakdown, but I did. It may have been the aggregate of everything the past couple of days, my uninviting a friend because he was naive enough to believe that inviting 3 of his other friends, 2 of whom I have never met, was okay, and then ending yesterday when my coworker, after my heated monologue about how the aforementioned had frustrated me, inadvertently extends an invitation to our mutual acquaintance. She who works for the client service team, who just so happens to be best friends with whom I traveled in China. I figure it may just be that I know them that she thought it was okay, but after all the flaring rage (that's not really the right word), I'd expect better of people, my coworker, alas, but was not the case.
I guess I'm just heated about everything, and work, in itself, I feel like I have no real mentor. I constantly battle things alone, and only in solitude do I truly reflect on the happenings of what we call "work". I think for the most part I enjoy work in a far greater extent than most people, which I presume is the very reason I'm so excited all the time, but I think it is this very quality, or well, attitude that yields to all the frustration... because I become so involved that I assume everyone takes it as seriously as I do, which I have learned in the previous months, is not usually the case, and in the years to come, a very rare one at that.
Anyway, hopefully the dinner is intimate and non-exhaustive, and seeing Robert over the weekend will hopefully restore some of this random insecurity I have about, well, nothing, at all. Only one more day, love, and then another two before I see you. Hopefully nothing comes up on the 10th, I cannot wait to see you!
Angela
Oh Jennifer, it's always good to talk to you, even if for a brief moment.
I don't really have plans, but as all plans go, they're coming along just dandy. Think back to the Will-Angela episode, and you've got me and Robert, last night, mostly me getting randomly emotional about things that were imagined. I'm not sure why I had the breakdown, but I did. It may have been the aggregate of everything the past couple of days, my uninviting a friend because he was naive enough to believe that inviting 3 of his other friends, 2 of whom I have never met, was okay, and then ending yesterday when my coworker, after my heated monologue about how the aforementioned had frustrated me, inadvertently extends an invitation to our mutual acquaintance. She who works for the client service team, who just so happens to be best friends with whom I traveled in China. I figure it may just be that I know them that she thought it was okay, but after all the flaring rage (that's not really the right word), I'd expect better of people, my coworker, alas, but was not the case.
I guess I'm just heated about everything, and work, in itself, I feel like I have no real mentor. I constantly battle things alone, and only in solitude do I truly reflect on the happenings of what we call "work". I think for the most part I enjoy work in a far greater extent than most people, which I presume is the very reason I'm so excited all the time, but I think it is this very quality, or well, attitude that yields to all the frustration... because I become so involved that I assume everyone takes it as seriously as I do, which I have learned in the previous months, is not usually the case, and in the years to come, a very rare one at that.
Anyway, hopefully the dinner is intimate and non-exhaustive, and seeing Robert over the weekend will hopefully restore some of this random insecurity I have about, well, nothing, at all. Only one more day, love, and then another two before I see you. Hopefully nothing comes up on the 10th, I cannot wait to see you!
Angela
Dec 7, 2007
We had over 24 hours of rain the past two days, and I had been looking forward to another day of rain... though I'm really not complaining, I love the sunlight, too.
Tuesday, December 4
Dec 4, 2007
It rained, practically all of my ride into work, and probably much more before I woke in the morning. It's chilly out though, I have on a pair of pants, tights, and a black turtleneck. Early though I had on a sweatshirt, with a knee-length raincoat, and was sufficiently warm. Hopefully we get enough rain this season for a good winter out in the snow!
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