Tag Archives: blogging under the influence

Shield

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Someone asked me today, quite bluntly but I appreciate her directness – she started our conversation with this question, “Are you happy in your marriage?”, whether I get hit on a lot when I travel.

Have you hung out at the hotel bar? Airport lounge? And nobody ever hit on you?

Frequently. All the time. Never.

Let’s assume that I’m totally hit-worthy. I believe the reason why I’m never hit on is because I always seem like such a regular at the bar, and I enjoy talking to old bar tenders very much.

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I’m at the airport now. My waitress told me that I’m waiting for “someone” because she’s not supposed to bring me two drinks at once.

Another reason why I’m never hit on could be that I just took a picture of my drinks, and I laughed out loud at some posts on Facebook.

Alcohol consumption + Crazy friends on Facebook = Preservers of marriage sanctity. Who knew?

By the way, I think I may be playing my role of an uptight, reserved worker bee too well? I don’t understand why some people at work are so confused after seeing the two Vodka Lin. They’re convinced that I was drunk and needed to be reined in. Really, honey? You’ve never met people who behave differently at work and outside of work?

How do I convince them that what they are witnessing is the real me in all its glory?

Ok. Maybe I do get a bit self-grandiose after a couple of drinks… But maybe that’s just me, coming out of my insecure crab shell?

Circles

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Scene: The basement of an upscale restaurant in a hip Chicago neighborhood

Cast: Her. And a throne of other women. It would be accurate to add “mostly young and attractive (and white except her and one other woman, though this has nothing to do with anything really…)” Being young adds 20% at least to the overall attractiveness btw. Youth is something the young does not know to appreciate.

Setting: A “women @ company” event aiming to “unite” women in the company. Tonight’s event is for a popular Chicago chef to share with her exclusive audience how she overcame the male-dominant restaurant business.

There have been several emails going out to all the women in the office promoting this event. Come meet your co-workers, listen to someone who’s braved the male-dominant world and made it, be empowered (well, they have never actually used the word “empowered” in any of the communications. It’s like we are so liberated now, and all these “women @ company” events have to be coached in a non-militant, non-aggressive way), and oh yeah, have some cocktails and food while you do all of the above. She was not planning to go because she does not have any friend in the office. She just joined the company this past year and for all her work duties, she works with a different office remotely. For all intent and purposes, the space she occupies may as well be a rental space. Proof? This office location had two holiday parties and she was not invited to either. Sorry.

Somehow she decided that it’s her duty to support this bourgeoning group, “Women @ Company”. It’s simply not nice to poo-poo these events and cry about women not being valued (or valued less) in the company. With the sense of duty and “Oh, how bad can it be?” thought, she walked the 3 blocks.

She was relieved upon entering the room reserved for private parties to see one of her cubicle mates. Great! Someone she knew. She quickly got a vodkacran from the bar tender who listened sympathetically as she recounted how the office holiday party in another city that she went to last week had only a not-open open bar. The bar tender, probably feeling sorry, gave her a heavy pour of Ketel One.

She stood around awkwardly with her cube-mate and a couple of women whom her cube-mate knew. She instinctively sensed that one of the other women would rather not be in this circle that they formed. You just know these things, right? You could tell from the body language. The angling out. The slight turning-away. The “Oh I am so relieved you are here because now I don’t have to be talking to this woman whom I don’t know and have no interest in knowing” expression when someone else showed up. So now the circle was broken into two. Inconspicuously. But not, unfortunately for her, imperceptibly.  Leaving her and her poor cube-mate whom she suspected was cursing her own bad luck, “Wait. I want to be in that other circle. The new one!”

Cube-mate quickly announced, “Well, I have to leave. I have to be home by 6 to relieve my nanny.” Yes, cube-mate is one of the few other women in the office with kids, even though cube-mate is probably almost a decade younger than she is.

With cube-mate gone, she’s left in an awkward position. “No matter. I will go get another drink!” Bar tender was happy to see her friendly face again. “Another one?” “Yes.” It’s amazing how almost all the bars she’s visited she never had to tell the bar tender what she wanted after the first round. She turned around with her new drink, and was faced with one of the most horrifying realizations. She did not have a circle to go back to.

AWKWARD.

 

She went back to the vicinity of the aforementioned new circle, just to test the water. No. Nobody made that slight movement to welcome her. She’s now faced with a tough decision: “What the fuck should I do now?”

Cellphones.

She took out her phone and pretended to check her messages in the midst of women engaging in delightful conversations. “This probably looks really rude. People are going to think that I am being a-social.” Chastised, she put away her phone quickly and braced herself. She turned around, took a deep breath, and slowly made her way to the bar. With a FULL drink.

The few seconds felt like eternity and the short walk felt as if it’d never end. Sorry for the cliche. But it is what it was. Nobody. She did not know anybody. Nobody acknowledged her presence. No circles opened up. She positioned herself by the bar, with a FULL drink, pretending that she’s waiting in line. For what? Her drink was fucking full. Yes, she could have finished her drink quickly so she could get another one. But she’s going to be faced with the same hell with a 3rd drink in her hand. She quickly decided that drinking heavily and fast by yourself in a small, and worse, well-lit room where it’s easily seen that you’re drinking heavily and fast by yourself was probably more pathetic than the situation she was already in. She moved back to the new circle and she forced herself into the circle by physically tresspassing the invisible line that formed the circle.

“Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt. Hi, I am XXX. Nice meeting you.”

Now, this was not her imagination: If people want to include you, they will move slightly to make room. If not, they will simply turn around in order to address you, without moving.

It was made very clear to her.

“Fuck. This is even more awkward than before.” She quickly thought. “Do you know what time the chef will start speaking?”

“Oh. She’s supposed to start at 5:30.”

“Ok. Thanks!”

The women went back to their conversation.

She moved away from the force field and looked at her watch. 5:15. She turned around to survey the sea of circles and felt her eyes getting warm.

She needed to get out of there now.

On her way back to the office, her tears started swarming out of the corners of her eyes. Luckily it’s winter and it’s already pitch dark. The turn of the event caught her off guard. This was one of the selves that she was not prepared to confront.

She resisted looking at the darkened shop windows as she walked by, as her vain self was wont to, afraid that she’d see someone from the past.

“I thought I’ve left you behind many years ago.”

And she’d been proven wrong. So. very. wrong.

Fly your freak flag high

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or maybe this is not such a good advice.

Sigh. I have had a draft of this post for a couple of days now. I was going to write about how we should all let our hair down, show our true colors, and let our freak flags fly high. Way high.

To mix the cliches, we should fly that flag up and see who salutes.

I am too old, and life is too short, for all this shit of trying to fit in.

I was going to write about in the past two weeks, I had been under the duress of performance reviews (Oh, I absolutely hate writing self assessment and writing reviews for the others stressed me out to now end. I’d rather drink milk. Ok, maybe not. But you know what I mean. Maybe you don’t. Then good for you…) Due to the stress and the serious lack of sleep, I came a bit unhinged, according to my honest self assessment. I caught myself breaking into songs and dance moves at work. I was constantly invoking the  Hyperbole and Half’s meme: Answer ALL the emails! Invite ALL the peeps! Cancel ALL the meetings! Write ALL the reviews! Complete with the raised arm (which nobody else around me seemed to get…)

I believe it was unsettling for the people who sit nearby.

In my head, I saw myself walking over the edge, letting it all hang out, and I was at the same time feeling conflicted, not wanting to show my crazy at work. I wrote a co-worker that I was worried I have been flying my freak flag too high, kidding-on-the-square-ly, and he responded: Your freak flag is one of the few things that keep me going here. Keep your freak flag high.

I broke down and cried.

 

Hi, it’s me again. You know, the two straight-up vodka me. I can feel the alcohol working through my veins even as I am typing this. I know the feeling well. I am trying to NOT be drunk and I am very conscious of my drunkenness. I have to make extra efforts to keep myself lucid and carry a cohesive conversation and keep my voice at a socially acceptable decibel. I am also paranoid of people finding out that I am actually drunk so I try to stay as socially engaging as possible while mentally checking everything that I just said, and then try to dig myself out of it. My English becomes great. My accent is mostly gone. Two vodka me is awesome. Life at the party. (Note to self: Being “life at the party” is actually a sardonic phrase when everybody else is sober)

Well, all that immediately went out the window when I made a gesture wider than my brain could detect and control and knocked it down to the kitchen sink and broke it. All before 8 pm.

Yup.

So I am sitting here back at home wanting to cry because it was a party at the neighbor’s and all the other neighbors were there. I have already felt like an odd duck in this neighborhood. We were finally invited to a party! Maybe this time we could blend in and people would think that we are normal!

I am such a hypocrite, am I not? After all, I was the one the tweeted, facebooked and tumbled:

Today’s motto: Let your freak flag fly high.

And I made these memes because I was so damn proud of myself.

 

 

 

We are going to start a goddamn movement! Complete with a parade. With them flags!!!!!!

Seriously though? I am horrified to think that those people at the party are just going to think that my behaviors were due to my being drunk and rude and stupid: I mean, what kind of people got that drunk before 8, at a WINE party?! I don’t know why it bothers me so much. So just want to let you know. When I said I don’t care what others think, when I rah-rah-ed about how you just need to be yourself, when I encouraged you all to fly your freak flags high? That was more hypothetical. In an ideal world. If I were an ideal me. I would totally fly my freak flag. All. Day. Fucking. Long. And out in the open too.

I think I need to go to bed now.

I will fly my flag tomorrow. Sober too.

 

Why not?

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I sometimes wonder why I have not become an alcoholic.

I like myself better when I am just a little bit drunk. Like now.

The state of knowing that you are drunk, knowing that perhaps you should not have leaned out the car window and shouted at the guy across the street but you could not help it. Because it felt like the right thing to do. When you are simultaneously listening to the angel and the devil sitting on your shoulders: The should and the should not. And you are just buzzed enough that you listen to the devil even though otherwise you would have listened to the angel.

The devil asks the right question:

WHY NOT?

 

The WHY NOT. Yup. That is the one.

That is the question that gets to you when you are just the right amount of drunk, isn’t it?

Perhaps I should not have allowed the kids to run around all over the carnival on their own after dark. Nor should I have allowed them to have unlimited intake of sugar.

Perhaps I should not have jumped up and down and WHOOP! when your very interesting friend suggested that you all go to her boyfriend’s bar in the downtown area of Small Town, USA, now that the carnival is closing.

Perhaps I should not have agreed to bring all the kids to the bar now that it is past 9:30 in the evening.

Perhaps I should not have the first vodka+cranberry since I have had 3 drinks at the carnival already.

Perhaps I should not have allowed the kids to play pool and darts at a bar, complete with local townsfolk, drunk and otherwise.

Perhaps I should not have tried to engage the drunk man at the bar who said more than once that he was going to dance on the bar.

Perhaps I should not have mentioned the song Tiny Dancer to the man when he started talking about his little buddy Joe, who was invisible (but of course), that he took out from his pocket and put on the bar and whose sneakers the man asked your more-than-alarmed girlfriend to hold on to.

Perhaps I should not have found the man amusing. Or agreed with the man that Tiny Joe existed.

Perhaps I should not have my second drink. Or the third.

Or talked to the regulars in the bar. All of them were regulars, except us, of course, the way a bar in Small Town, USA is.

This was a place I would not have walked into if I were sober.

These were the people, the Small Town USA people, I would not have the courage to interact with (hey, stereotypes go both ways) if I were sober.

But why not?

So I did.

 

Never for a moment was I not self-conscious of the strangeness of me being inside the local bar where the real Americans, as Sarah Palin likes to claim those who are her people, hang out. But why not?

 

As I became the responsible adult and told The Husband that we needed to leave and bring the kids home, I found two of the bar patrons sitting on the sidewalk next to our car.

Hey. Is the midget going home now?

One of them, some guy that had a friendly conversation with me about Queen and David Bowie and Freddie Mercury and Under Pressure, pointed to my 8-year-old and joked.

Why not?

Oh yes. They are all midgets and that’s why they have the right to be at the bar at this hour. You know, we do not practice prejudices against midgets here.

His friend who just told me that he’s not had a break from working 16-hour days for over a month and is finally having a day off tomorrow sighed.

Isn’t this place just turning into San Francisco now? Are you telling me that we are becoming like San Francisco now?

I paused because I thought I’d misheard. He continued,

It is becoming more and more like San Francisco. I personally could burn a few buildings down in this town.

At this point I was no longer as drunk as I had thought.

Hey, it is the Fourth of July. We are celebrating freedom and independence! Come on. You said you will have tomorrow off!

The guy took a sip of his beer.

Yeah. I am just going to drink more and more and get saltier and saltier.

His friend raised his eyebrow and chuckled at the word,

Salty?

He took yet another sip and frowned.

Yes. Salty.

By  now it was almost midnight and  The Husband has got into the car with our kids and the other boys we were bringing home for a sleepover. (Why not?) I got into the car. As the car spun around, I leaned out the window and yelled,

Happy Fourth of July! Cheer up!

The man looked up, still grouchy, and yelled back,

Goodbye Sweetheart.

(Yes. Of course. The Husband made a motion to indicate that he was going to throw up upon hearing the word “Sweetheart”)

 

As I am still buzzed and am Blogging Under the Influence. I do not think there is any moral to this story. This is of course not a social commentary since I failed to confront the man. I simply needed to share. That is all.

On the other hand, how drunk could I be if I am 1) typing on a computer, 2) all the time thinking I need to go and clean the bathrooms because my mother-in-law is coming tomorrow and I have to leave home early for a 9 am meeting at work.

Later gator.

Wanted: Crazy Bitches to Party With at BlogHer

23 Replies

Warning: The following is BUI – Blogging Under the Influence. Like, now.

I went to a company shindig tonight. Great people. Fun people. People that I have worked with for five years and with whom I have been through a lot. The company is celebrating a wonderful event and everybody is in a good mood. We feel that we have finally got to the point where we can say: This. This makes it all worth it.

The event was open bar. That means yours truly started drinking as soon as she set foot in the room and by 6:30 pm, I have already downed four glasses of cranberry with Grey Goose vodka. (Yes, I am fortunate enough to work for a very generous company…)  This woman who happened to be by my side the whole time started saying, “Is that your fourth drink?” “That’s your fourth drink, isn’t it?” And she looked at me the way people look at you when they think you are drunk. (Come on, you know what I mean!) I reassured her that I was absolutely not drunk. That what she was seeing was the REAL ME. A little bit crazy. A little bit sassy. Very very friendly. Very very very flirty. Very very very very funny. And LOUD. She was not convinced the way people think you are definitely drunk when you protest and say “I am NOT drunk.”

No offense. But how the fuck did I get stuck with women? Young women. Women who are still on the market and therefore need to maintain a ladylike presence and continue to exclaim at my “bad” behaviors.

ETA (The morning after…) I have to tell you what happened just now (The morning after the company shindig) because it’s just priceless: I showed up at 8:30 am, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for action (work-related).  So the same woman who counted how many drink I’d had 30 minutes into the party? “Good morning! How are you feeling today?” In a way, you know, how people say it when they think you are having a massive hangover (For the record: I was not even drunk. Scout’s Honor. I drank 2 bottles of water and took 4 Advils before I went to bed. No hangover). Then she commented, “You have two kids right? You must not get out much.” Seriously? WTF?

All the men I work with know that I can hold my liquor very well. They may not want to admit it but I know they are impressed. They may be secretly pissed that I can drink more than they, but hey, they know it is the truth. And they don’t make a big deal out of it.

Can I tell you something? I love being one of the guys. I do. I love hanging out with them drinking. In college, I was never treated as a “girl”. I was their buddy. And I enjoyed every second of it.

At the end of the company shindig, the original plan was to continue the merrymaking somewhere else. The plan suffered a drastic blow when some guy who does not know me very well said, “Well, we are going some place to drink whiskey and stuff and probably do some ‘sexist’ things.” I had no idea what that meant but I was intrigued. Then one of the guys that I am pretty close to said, “It’s just a bunch of guys holding their penises and drinking whiskey!” You know what? I don’t care! I want to see them hold their penises and I’ll grow a penis and I’ll go!

But no. The womenfolk decided to go hang out at a different bar because we’d let men do what men do.

Huh?

So I ended up at a post-party party that’s not really a party and I was so fucking bored. Unfortunately for yours truly, I was also the oldest person there and I could not be interested in whatever they’re talking about. Half way through the torture of sitting at the table and nursing my seventh drink for the night, I went to the lady’s room to brush my hair. I was there for half an hour and I was happy.  When I came out, I found that my “girlfriend” decided to play pool. In my mind, you only play pool when you are trying to impress guys with your nice behind when you stick it up in the air. Since I am happily married, I have no fucking interest in playing pool. So I left. I came back to the office and I am just sitting here, wishing fervently that I had a penis.

I will be heading to New York City on Friday morning to partake in the madness that is BlogHer. It strikes me as hilariously ironic that right before my trip to BlogHer, aka WOMEN GALORE, I am sitting here, hating myself for succumbing to the female peer pressure and staying with the “girls”. I wish I had said, “Sorry ladies. I am going with the guys because you ladies have some images to uphold and are not crazy enough for me!” Especially since it turned out that the invitation to go hold penises and drink whiskey was actually extended to me.

Instead I am sitting here in the deserted, dark office, blogging.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. Give me some crazy women to party with at BlogHer. Women who don’t care how they look to the others. Women who don’t tsk tsk at you because you are not being “proper”. Women who are not secretly embarrassed to be seen with you and are not doing a good job hiding it. Women who don’t count the number of your drinks.

I need some crazy biatches to party with me in New York City. ARE YOU LADIES CRAZY ENOUGH?!

By the way, in case you are wondering whether I am a traitor to my sex. No ladies. It’s really just a vent above really. I don’t really want a penis. And I love shoes. In fact, I freak out about shoes once in a while. And like most, if not all, of you, I went overboard on the “shoe planning” front last week when I realized BlogHer is THIS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY!

What boxes? You mean these? Oh don't worry. I am returning most of them...

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Fine. I will NOT be keeping them all. Party pooper!