Looking in the Broken Mirror

After a week or more of staying outside, the cat is suddenly back in.  She is very affectionate and lies on my feet and licks my leg.  She is such a sweet, strange thing.

After work yesterday, I went to a worker's party at a local bar.  I was the only supervisor there.  I felt flattered that I was asked to come and took it for a sign of love and affection.  Pride before the fall.  They were all drunk by the time I got there and some were beginning to leave.  I had thought to drink something non-alcoholic and then go to the gym, but there was no way out of having a beer.  I could still work out after a beer, I thought.  I don't even have to drink it all.

But I was way behind a few of them, and sooner than later, I was hearing things I didn't really want to hear.  About me.

It is surprising to me when anyone sees me as a boss.  I cannot.  And I think of myself as self-effacing and beneficent.  Oh. . . I am foolish, I guess.  That little looking glass mirror got a good cracking.  Someone ordered a second beer for me.  Foolishly I stayed.  Things devolved.  It wasn't awful.  I mean there was still love, but I don't care to talk about me or hear about me, and there are always the small comments that hurt the most.  You think you are one thing.  You think you are safe.  You think you are something and you hear you are something else, not something completely different from what you thought, just not what you thought.

Boring because of the lack of detail, I know.  Here is detail.  One of the fellows I like got very drunk, too drunk to drive, so I said I would take him home.  I think he was hurt by this in a small way.  I thought I was doing a favor, but after dropping him off, I realized that he wanted to keep going until something happened, just keep drinking until a story broke out, one we could tell in "future times."  He is a writer of repute, and I know I disappointed him.  That was the toughest part, I realized.

I got home late without having eaten or gone to the gym.  I have barely eaten in days, have drunk too much, and can't remember where the gym is.  I should have stopped on the way home, I guess for there was nothing much to eat in the house.  I heated up some leftover beans and rice and put some eggs in the skillet.  I was even out of whiskey.  I squeezed an organic lemon with the citrus squeezer that is here courtesy of a friend and mixed it with vodka.  Weird but o.k.  I had a couple.  Then it was after midnight.

 Waking this morning, I could feel it all, feel the toll.  I must quit it, I know.  My face is slack, my eyes dark and swollen.  My gut looks like Tommy Lasorda's.  Hell, I look like Tommy Lasorda.

It is back to the factory now.  I just want to stay here with the cat.