So I've actually left my apartment a few times since Friday, and I'm on sort of a high...

Last Tuesday at girls night out, we decided that our friend Shelly, who is getting married on the 26th, had not yet done any proper bachelorette things. So we took her out Saturday night.

The evening started at my place because I live uptown, which would mean stumbling distance home for people if necessary. This was the first time I formally had "people" over to my place since I moved in a year and a half ago. Also I had this wonderful new sofa and chair to show off.

So being the good little hostess in the upscale apartment (I was told my place was like the "after" on a home makeover show like Trading Spaces or Queer Eye!) I made some snacks.

I stayed away from the traditional southern 'orderves' like Vienna Sausages and cut up sticky buns with toothpicks in them.

We had vegetable crudite, and party mix, and baked brie en croute, and cheese and crackers. Lovely. Shelly brought a giant jug of pre-mixed margaritas... It was 11 before we left the house. :mrgreen:

So 5 women go wandering the streets of Charlotte. We had agreed not to make Shelly wear the condom veil, or the penis hat, or anything. Maybe if we were still 25. But there's something unseemly about women in their 30's acting that way...

Our first stop was Connolly's, an 'Irish Pub'. (Funny, Uptown Charlotte has 3 Irish pubs, but no Japanese restaurant...) It was dark, hot, crowded and smoky. We had one drink and left.

We went to Time, which was a club none of us had been to before. Two bars and a decent size dance floor, club music, etc. Relatively un-smoky. There's a nice seating lounge area that's all lit up in pastel blue lights. They had one platform with a skimp-ily clad woman dancing on it. And while she was dancing, a man was body-painting her with sky blue paint. In the other corner, a man wearing a hockey mask was carving an ice sculpture with a chainsaw. Later, they set it on fire with kerosene. Note: if you are going to pull this stunt, do it in a more well ventilated area than a club.

Well, we drank a lot, and some of us danced (*not a dancer, but an intense people-watcher!)

I got groped verrry nastily more than once. (I mean full on breast fondling, and all I was trying to do was walk through the crowd to the bathroom! I also got pinched.)

We met up with Dori's new roommate's friend who wanted a ride home.
His name is Alp. Yes, like a mountain. Yes, almost like "Alf" or "Alpo".
This name makes for great fun when you've been drinking.

We left and harrassed many men on the street. Especially if they were alone. One guy showed us his ass. It was great. Really. Beware a band of drunken bachelorettes!

Shelly decided to go stumbling down the street yelling "Pita Pit! Pita Pit!" So we went to the Pita Pit, where Shelly bought everyone food even though it was her night out. I ate falafel.

Some people crave nasty foods when they drink. I crave chick peas. Falafel or hummus will do it for me.

And we went home.

Sunday I didn't even bother to get dressed. I sat on my new couch all day with my laptop and taught myself Flash and Dreamweaver MX to build this guy's website. Made some kick ass, sound-effected, flash navigation buttons. Watched Adult Swim. Ironed some clothes. Went to bed.

So I was in a pretty good mood this morning, when my friend Ross called me.

For the uninitiated, Ross is a former boyfriend who is my best friend now. We met on match.com. He is the reason I moved to Charlotte from Raleigh. We had a very turbulent 3.5 year romantic relationship, during which he repeatedly ripped out my heart and stomped all over it, and I forgave him, and he did it again. And again. The very last time I said "No more" but good thing, because he met someone else anyway. I forgave him for many, many wrongs, and we decided not to throw away a good friendship. We've got almost 7 years behind us now.

So the woman he met at that time, he now lives with, and bought a dog, and a house, and now a car, with. But he has not yet married her. Anyway, despite the fact that I have successfully transferred all those romantic-love feelings into platonic-love feelings, and he lives with this woman and has the dog-house-car, she still doesn't like the fact that he and I are friends. However, she needs to get over it because I come with the Ross package, and she knew that going in.

So ultimately what this results in, is that any time she goes out of town is optimum hang out time with Ross. So this morning he calls me up and says the girlfriend's out of town, do I want to go see Chronicles of Riddick with him, and maybe catch a bite to eat? I say sure, and we agree to meet up that night.

Now, I love their dog Cisco. He is the most beautiful, smartest, sweetest golden retriever on the face of the earth. I love him to death, and the feeling is more than mutual. He dances in circles and cries, and grabs me by the wrist with his mouth to pull me in the house when I come over. How could you not love a creature like that? So Cisco and Aunt Kathy had some playtime tonight, which always leaves me on a super duper high! The unconditional love is the greatest thing in the world...

We went to the Roasting Company for food, which is an excellent place that serves all sorts of preparations of very delicious rotisserie chicken, at a bargain of a price. It's a favorite. Over our dinner of spicy chicken on rice for me, and soft chicken tacos for him, we discussed my weekend. I told how I was secretly flattered by the groping, much like the way I was secretly flattered in Florida by Dori's new boyfriend trying to do it to me all weekend.
(He called her last week by the way, but that's another story.)

He told me about his friend Chris, who used to be the guitarist for the band StretchArmstrong, but he quit the band last month for a woman he met, from NJ, no less. And now he's engaged. [giant eye roll]

I said he knew it was coming, and...so when are YOU getting married, Ross?

He says oh, I don't know...eventually...I still have to buy a ring... But something always comes up, either extra taxes to pay, or something for the house, or the air conditioning in his car just went out.

So we have a great dinner, and go see the movie. We smuggled in our take-away cups from the Roasting Company. Rather, I smuggled them. I hid mine in my purse, and his under the sweater I was carrying. I had some leakage in the purse, and it dribbled on my foot. I think I got my sketchbook wet... Anyway, TRULY enjoyed the movie.

Now, I forgot to mention he bought a car just a week or two ago with the girlfriend, and it's a beautiful, blue, almost new, BMW M3 convertible. I've wanted a convertible almost as long as I've known how to drive. So now, I'm insanely jealous over it. But this was the car we took out for the evening.

Once, we rented a Sebring convertible in San Francisco, and drove it down the Pacific Coast Highway to Del Mar. That was one of the best trips of my life. [sigh]

The murderous injustice of it though, is that the girlfriend told me last week that the $46,000 car they just bought is the same to her as the $20,000 one. She doesn't care really. I say she is not worthy!

Now, Ross is an excellent driver, and I trust him beyond a shadow of a doubt. He used to have 3 Eagle Talons, and one of those I helped him convert into a drag race car. We've been in many a speeding-on-the-highway, or down-the-backroads ride, but I know the whole entire time that he is in control of that vehicle. Once, in one of those Talons, we outran a cop car on I-95 near Quantico at around 2AM. He managed to melt a spark plug in that incident, but we made it to NJ safely, regardless.

So add his daredevil driving to the mix of my already good mood. It's a beautiful night in Charlotte tonight. It was raining all day, but it's trying to clear now. It's sort of cool - 60s anyway. We put the top down and drove back to his place. We're about to pull into his street when I say "No! I want to drive around some more!" So grinning, he said, "OK!" and we went for a spin.

The only drawback to the car right now is that it didn't come with the cd player. It has a...cassette player!!! But he got $300 off for that, so he's going to buy an upgrade soon...

Anyway, he's managed to pull out some old mix cassettes he made back in the early 90's to have something to listen to while driving, in the meantime.

So imagine us, in a beautiful convertible, on a lovely night in Charlotte, with the top down, blasting old Depeche Mode and New Order remixes!

Unfortunately, as 11 pm came on, we figured it was time to go back. Reluctantly I said ok, and we went back. Some more frolicking with my buddy Cisco, and a big hug goodbye, and I was on my way home with a giant stupid grin on my face!

So now it's 2:30am, and as you can see I'm still up. I'm not sure what for, or what all this typing has accomplished. Except that for an extended weekend so simple, it really just revived my spirits so much. I wanted to share it, especially because I've been a pretty grumpy gus of late.

There's nothing like surrounding yourself with those who love you, especially those who don't have to, and love you just because they want to, to pick you back up again.

I'm gonna go try and sleep it off now though.