Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Reflections on recent events.

It's almost as if being out here has broken my confidence even more than sitting around at home, broke and alone. At least at home I knew people, knew the ins and outs of town, where to go, what to do, and how to spend my time. Here, I know nobody, having my doubts that I will know anyone, and all the home-cooked meals in the world are no match for feeling like one is home.

The past few days have been a whirlwind--St. Patty's Day celebration was a wash, still didn't wind up meeting any folk on account of my severe intoxication by the time the parties really started up later in the evening, woke up with the most killer hangover ever, slept through the rest of the weekend and most of today, and still feel like for all the writing I've done and the things I've seen and heard that I have ever so little to show for it.

I know I'm bitching and moaning instead of doing anything about it, and that's my problem and not anyone else's. At some point soon I need to call off the pity party and get off my ass about the whole situation. It just feels like I'm going to leave here in no better shape than when I arrived, which is depressing. Of course, if I want to feel better, I have to start working for it, and that has been a problem for me.

My senses of entitlement and expectation of others carry on strong despite all evidence that both of these are ungrounded sentiments and should be abandoned. I need to start working for myself instead of assuming that everything I think is awesome about me will just sort of work out and do all the heavy lifting for me. I need to remember that at this point in my life, nothing I think means shit, and until I start working towards making the things I want to happen happen, that isn't going to change.

As far as what's been going on out here: this weekend was one big blur. Saturday was the massive St. Patrick's Day celebration in town, and all the bars had people in 'em as early as 9 or 10, and we were all drinking. The parade was pretty nifty, with bagpipes and fire trucks and shit, but at one point I was very much in a "okay, that's great, now let's go get hammered!" mood. I was with my parents most of the day and my father and I got well and truly hammered by about 12:30.

At one point, as my mother was getting a tattoo with my sister and my name in it, my father and I got into a confrontation that I've been meaning to have for a while, but not then, not in those circumstances. I really would have preferred not to see my dad cry for the third time in my whole life while we were all drunk in front of one of the busiest bars in town, but sometimes that sort of thing just happens. I said "fuck you" to my dad for the first time in my life, and that was a long time coming, and I'm surprised he didn't deck me.

That was just the start of "wtf" experiences on Saturday. Once we reconciled our shit and decided to talk about it when we weren't both completely sloshed, we went and had a nice prime rib lunch and I made eyes at one of the hostesses who was making eyes at me but didn't do anything about it because I was drunk, with my parents, it was crowded, and I knew I'd make an ass of myself.

So then eventually we all went our separate ways and I wound up at a little dive-style place. There was live music and a bunch of people and an outdoor patio to smoke on. When I say patio, I mean tiny little area with two port-o-potties and an outdoor bar, capacity maybe 15. I had a conversation with some old guy about the world "altruism" and gave him advice on how to deal with his 14-year-old daughter (wtf) and then made fun of Billy Mays and the ShamWow! guy with him and the guy tending bar outside.

All the while I am sipping from a half-pint of Jim Beam and the bartender is hooking me up with Sam Adams. At this point, around 7 in the evening, I have had 4 50-50 whiskey sours, about 12-14 shots of Jameson, and was working on the bourbon and beers. By about 9, I'd killed the bourbon and had 4 beers. That exceeds the "1 unit of alcohol an hour" recommended by, well, anyone. Suffice it to say I was raving, stumbling, completely incoherently drunk dancing with an overweight woman and wondering where my tie had run off to.

The rest of the story are things that I just plain don't want to get into.

I wound up back at home at 6:30 in the morning, still completely incoherent and stumbling drunk. Collapsed in bed until 12 or 1 o'clock, woke up, drank some water, ate some food, and went right back to sleep. Woke up for a little more, went back to sleep again, woke up today at 10:00 or so and still felt like a wreck. The hangover lasted about 36 hours. This is not how I like to spend my weekends.

Tomorrow is Providence and, well, who knows what I will wind up doing there. Either that, or downtown again, with the express goal of trying to start random conversations with people. I had an idea a while ago of starting a website/book comprised solely of recorded conversations with completely random people plus insight and reflections and etc. on those conversations. It seems that when I have a shtick or "reason" to start cold conversations with people, I have no problem. The second I just want to do it for the sake of it, I clam up.

This cannot stand.

So wish me luck.

2 comments:

  1. Much luck, Greg.

    The only way you're going to feel better is if you make yourself, and it's damned hard to start. It seems like you know this, though; so do it. You absolutely can.

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  2. Good luck to you, I know you've had enough Career Center hours in front of wikipedia to have an educated opinion (or some general semblance thereof) about anything, so I'm not worried about your ability to strike a conversation with anyone. Believe it. Own it. Other motivational buzzwords.

    Anyway, I miss ya - looking forward to you coming back so we can actually watch Battle Royale 2.

    Love that that picture with the afternoon sun (the second one below your panoramic).

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