Growing Pains

I am very lucky to have a handful of interesting individuals in my life. I have three friends in town—three good friends whose idea of a good time is to be at home drawing pictures, or getting lunch, or even just sipping beer while the hours slip by and conversation unfolds.

From time to time I think that I ought to really get out there and get to know some new people. So I did. I went out and tried to be social on a saturday night. What a joke. I am a fairly open-minded and willing companion, but (you can really hear that looming) I just don't have time to waste getting wasted, really wasted on a saturday night. It's not just that I have a breakfast joint to run, it's that I just don't hate myself that much anymore.

It all started with a call to dress up. I always dress up; sometimes it's a skirt or even a dress, at others jeans and wicked boots, but I always dress with care and precision and dislike being told how to present myself (I am not a package and do not wear bows, toggles, and despite the holiday cheer, I do not wear bells.). Skirt goes on, layers of shirts, stockings, sweaters, jackets, jewelry all go under and over and I am still freezing because it is december and I'm in a skirt.

First drink and everything is fine.

Second drink's when things start to get weird. But, I think, I'm weird, how weird could this all really be? I find out that she had been drinking and smoking long before I picked her up at 7.

By the third drink I had moved on to ginger-ale and she asked if people would mind if she smoked weed in the bar. I said yes they most likely would. I don't think that the general public is okay with people smoking controlled substances in wide open non-smoking bars. It's the kind of thing that gets you kicked out really quickly and asked not to come back.

Your probably right she said. Are you straight edge, she asked.

As I had just had two drinks I was thrown off by this question. Before I had a chance to reply she asked, Do you want to get some coke?

I was stunned and completely grossed out, Yeah, no, I said. What I didn't say was that I had no intention of breaking a personal code of behavior on a first date.

But the truth was that there was the little tiny part of me that thought I could. For a second I thought it would be fun and that I could just do a bump and then be fine and go home and work in the morning. Then reality flares up. I look at her, she's 30 and wasted and I don't want that. I don't want any of that. So I drop her off and head home.

My bed's warm and I'm off to sleep.