sunday nights on the hill

last night was wonderful. seriously. perfect. maybe the little social matchmaker in me was pleased to see the nice array of couples around me (everyone from barista boy's co-worker and his nice little gee-eff to frey and - FINALLY - McText*); maybe i actually felt like i was one of those couples for a change; or maybe i was just happily slammed by the vast amount of booze and pommes-frites in my system. whatever it was, it was a great night.

who says sunday nights are for staying in? welcome to the hill. no one stays in really, because there is always a cheap pint (okay, let's be honest, it would be a pitcher) of beer calling your name around the corner and some boozy, divey bar where you know you'll run into friends or foes. it just makes life interesting. and if you do stay in, its with season two of arrested development and a coupla' tall boys of tecate.

my plan for sunday night involved something like this (written at seven o'clock in the PM):

1. reading a good book at presse (check) while sipping on some of the new tourraine wine that just came in (check)
2. checking my email excessively at home (sadly, check)
3. consider going to kings tavern because i just found out it is $3 bloody mary nite, all nite (check check check!)
4. probably end up on the hill again
5. maybe play some pool at quarter lounge?
6. hopefully end the nite with a gleeful gathering at the goblin house (assonance. or is it alliteration?) involving a little ritual called mexi-fest 2009**, part 4.

my actual night went something like this:
1. read a book at presse and drank too much wine. stumbled home.
2. checked myspace for a bit. ian texted me about going out to ballard.
3. tried to round people up to go to ballard but everyone was a'drinking already.
4. ended up at the stumbling monk with frey and McText
5. we got drunk-er.
6. stumbled over to barista boy's work, where we partied it up after hours style with him and the other baristas, courtesy of a fridge full (not full anymore) of company beers.
7. nine of us crammed in a car and headed over to presse, where we repeated #6 but more presse-style (where pommes-frites and actual hard liquor was involved)
8. drunkkk.
9. still drunk this morning.

someday in my life, i will look back at all this and cluck (cluck?) like some sort of mother hen (in my mind i will be wearing an apron and folding a lot of little kitchen towels to stack in one of my many kitchen cabinet drawers. oh lordy) and sigh, my, what an irresponsible life i used to live. but then, after a minute of folding towels, a tiny smile will leak out onto my middle-aged face full of worry wrinkles and too many years of chaperoning school field trips and i will think, "who the fuck am i kidding. i would do it all again in a heartbeat."

back to the list. let's divulge details! first of all, frey and McText. all over it. LOVE it. while we were sitting in the stumbling monk i was torn between wanting to find a convenient excuse to leave them alone for a bit and realizing that i wanted to nerdily keep observing their out-of-control flirting. in the end i suggested that all three of us go to get caffeine from the coffee shop where my barista boy was supposedly studying.

side note. i need to calm the fuck down sometimes. i am over-analytical, anxious, paranoid sometimes. okay i am a little bat-shit crazy. saturday night, especially, heightened my bat-shit craziness. after a week of barely seeing the boy, weird phone malfunctioning and stressful schedules, i asked him what the haps were for his saturday evening. he implied that he might stay in. no biggie. BUT. around midnight, when i stopped by oddfellows to see my good friend brittany, i was shocked to see barista boy exiting the establishment with a bunch of his friends! friends=fine. going out without me=fine. implying that he was going to stay in, acting sketchy about it, leaving me in the doorway off oddfellows with an awkward kiss and 'my friends are leaving! call you in a minute!' and NOT calling?=not okay. basically, it was just weird. and then the whole bat-shit crazy thing kicked in.

anyways.

back to sunday night. i had been texting barista boy all night, asking him if he wanted to join us at the stumbling monk. it is like, his favorite bar. he said he wanted to, but should study a while. i thought it would be nice to visit him at his coffee shop where he had been camped out with his books since his mid-day shift ended. when us three arrived, he had abandoned his books over in the corner and was drinking beers with his co-workers at the bar! pfft. studying, my ass. i half-jokingly (more like one-tenth jokingly) yelled at him and he shrugged his shoulders. i made a slight scene, throwing my mittens and hat at his chest as he made excuses, i yelled some more and all my bat-shit crazy rage from the night before made itself known. he just grinned and started smooching me, the little bastard. bleh.

long story short. frey, McText, barista boy, myself and all of the coffee shop crew ended up drinking at the coffee shop for a good while. we ended up rolling over to presse and drinking a heckuva lot more, and things just got happily fuzzy for me. as barista boy and i collapsed into bed around 3, drunkenly laughing and kissing and, well, yoooou knoooowww, we had this sudden, deep, crazy conversation. i told him i had never been in love. he said (cue the paraphrasin'), what is love? it just sneaks up on you. it could be the girl you left after a six year relationship. or it could be the girl you just met.

fuck fuck fuck.

and this is the moment i realize that this is the worst idea ever. and i dont care.

i woke up this morning and wanted to stay in bed with him forever. cheesy, i know. and then, when he left, i actually watched him walk down the street from my window! who the heck am i, all of a sudden? some sort of WB teenager? frickin' A. this is scary.


appendix!

* McText: he's from san francisco, him and frey met at various barista competitions (nerdy west coast kids!), they text. a LOT. sorta like a textlationship. and now he's in town (!!!)