2005-03-04 - 12:33 a.m.

Oh, I was being so good about updating and then I didn't.

Got ditched again (my luck--it's always for a legit reason, but it's always getting ditched) so I went out to River Gods and it was actually pretty fun while I was there.

As much as I like going there, because I love the people in it, I actually hate that place. It's always cramped, there's always two hundred conversations going on at once, and if you want to sit down, you have to deal with awkward and heavy furniture, some of which is almost as tall as I am.

It's the kind of place that'd be absolutely perfect if everybody I knew and their friends pitched in 20 bucks a month and employed a bartender and bouncer.

But it's not that place. It's always a nightmare and I never feel comfortable there unless I can anchor myself to one person, which never happens.

I just don't know how people can switch, musical chairs style, so easily, but they just do. They just do, and every time I start to feel like I'm starting to get somewhere in the dynamic I'm finding myself in, it all changes so suddenly and everyone switches up so fast, and then I'm the only one standing so I'm going out for a butt or to the bathroom or getting another beer or pretending I'm interested in something random or just staring into space, waiting for the next switch, if it happens. And I'm the only person who has this problem. I do fine at parties, I do fine at shows, and I do fine at most bars, but not that bar.

I do have fond memories of that bar, however (here's three: staying after hours and learning to pour a Guinness, Randy Research calling a meathead a townie to his face and getting away with it while everyone (or maybe it was just me) laughed uncontrollably, and one other thing that was okay for me to do at the time but that I won't get into).

I tagged along when everyone decided to go to ManRay, and I'm glad I did. I haven't been there in so long, and it's just the kind of place that I'll hear is getting closed down in a week but I won't go to say goodbye because I wasn't really a part of it.

The people I went with wanted to dance and they were upset that there weren't many people there. I'm the kind of person that thinks wow, we have the place to ourselves. Needless to say, I left shortly after. I left the second I knew I was being a buzzkill and that my status would not change.

The one thing I would have changed is this:

The Roommate wasn't there. I would have changed that.

If she was there, (and if she wanted to, 'cause sometimes she doesn't feel like it), we could have danced a little, had a few beers, talked in the corner, explored the area a little, and I wouldn't have had to follow anyone around.

Put it this way--if the Roommate was there at ManRay, we could have sat at the bar and watched gay porn, had a few beers, smoked a few butts, commented on a few guys and a few girls, and wandered around that cavernous labrynth together, observing, learning, and talking too, and then a cab home.

I have met very few people in my life that I can say that about. The rest are either dancing to techno, or they never go out at night.