Barb by Proxy

Age is a funny thing. As long as we grow old we look forward to (or dread) landmark ages. Old enough for school, a teenager, driving, voting, drinking in Canada, drinking in the US, being able to rent a car, etc. After that, age is more of a turning toward maturity. For most of my firends maturity revolves around drinking. There is the first time you drink and know that even the most scrutinous bartender or bouncer will have to let you in because your ID is legal. Then there is getting to the point where you don't get carded. And when you realize that you can simply ordre a drink with dinner without the fanfare of "yes! I can drink! Ha!" Or when it hits you that a pitcher of sangria, two beers and a glass of wine does not leave you drunk and giggling. (A recent revelation that I had while out witht the same friends that figure into the following two happenings).

First of all, in a whirlwind evening out that included dinner at out favorite mexican place and seeing a friend DJ at our favorite dive bar, we headed off to a new venue, Sutra. Obstensibly because our friend Kate is stalking Micheal Pitt and he hangs out there. Anyway, we soon learned that Mondays are gay night. Drag-queen gay night. So, riotous fun and the enjoyment of hanging out with the girls while not having to fend off drunk men hitting on you. Unfortunatly that leads to assumptions about who is who. My friend Sam was on her way over and was a little lost. So I headed out to the sidewalk to guide her. Seeing her three doors down and not wanting to go out into the torrential downpour, I yelped "Hey, Sam!" to her and she found it. Now, Sam happens to be 5'11" without heels. Normally a good thing to be tall and lithe, unless you're heading to a drag-queen night in a newsboy cap in NY. The bouncer mistakenly identified her as the nights entertainment! Only in New York.

But perhaps what hits you the most as a sign of maturity is when you simply want to go home. After a particularly entertaining evening (involving the previously mentioned incident) three friends and I were en route to the subway heading home when we ran into periphrial friends of Kates. They were headed to another bar and invited us along. Now, it was only 2 am, and I wasn't drunk though two of my friends were to the point of stumbling (ah, the days gone by of being a cheap drunk). They ended up heading off the bar while I went home. They seemed confused my my refusal to accompany them despite the fact that I had nothing to do the next day, no meetings to be up early for, no appointments to keep, nothing but sleeping in and writing. And it occured to me that a true sign of maturity is simply enjoying being out and not feeling the need to prove that you can. Just because you can stay at the bar until 4 and head to an all-night diner doesn't signal getting older. It signals the need to assert your party-hardy attitude no matter what. Maybe I'm just getting older and relish the thought of heading home to a soft bed and my cat, but I'd like to think that instead of slowly turning into a crazy cat lady I'm simply growing into the adult world where how old you are isn't as important as how old you act.

I recently had a very odd dream. If you know me, you are thinking, so what? This is because I always have odd dreams---ones where rooms turn into completely other worlds when you open a window, ones where people who never onew each other mingle in contrived circumstances, bizzare ones involving time portals and LOTR figures and spies (don't ask). Most of the time I chalk these up to a few too many cocktails and my extremely vivid imagination. They serve as inspiration for my writing and a good laugh for those who hear about it. I don't consult a dream book to find hidden meanings in them or analyze why someone I hadn't thought about in years would be in my dream. I just don't see a linear connection between the dream world and Inner Barb.

Until this one. In it I was on the bus going to jail. Yes, with an orange jumpsuit and everything. For making wine, of all things (actually for having moved sugar from its origional container to glass bottles, but whatever). The thing was, I was on the bus with all of the people that I work with. Not friends from work who occasionaly end up in a dream, but nearly everyone I work with. People I don't even like. Now, if that doesn't indicate that I am beginning to hate my job, I don't know what would. Sigh, time to start job hunting again. Damn, and I just got a bump up in benefits.

So here I am, finally committed to posting on a blog. I tried once before to lackluster results (so much so that my origional blog was absconded with!) and then the better part of eternity passed. But as I've been so full of both resolve to sit down and write and many instances that need a venting outlet recently, I've decided to give it another go. So here it it. WIP, much like everything else in my life right now.