fires, places

Yesterday, I joined the restaurant's Christmas Party (photos up in my phlog) and found myself skating on society's edge once more. I'm such an antisocial little freak...

I just don't know how to mix personal and work relationships. It's different if I'm friends with someone and then I end up in the same company with them. That's fine. That's easy. I loved bugging Hana and John on Skype! But becoming friends with someone I know through work is really hard. On one hand, I'm trying to give them the impression that I'm totally professional and diligent; on the other, I'm expected to (gasp) be human with them and relate through shared shortcomings. I can't maintain the illusion of the perfectly compliant worker when I'm bitching to colleagues about stuff - especially work! And personal relationships are messy! People fight. Imagine having to work with a friend you just fought with. Sucks! Compromises job performance in a big way. I know. I've Been There in ways you can't even imagine. If you think working the day after a break-up is difficult, consider worse scenarios.

I kept the fences up all night although various mixes of alcohol loosened me up and got me socializing with some of the great people I work with - and some attractive gay ones too (all with boyfriends). It was guarded mingling - at least in my mind - so when my boss's drunk 19 year old daughter was wrapping her arms around me and calling me her boyfriend, I was wary of how delicate the situation was and handled it pretty well.

I was just drunk enough to believe I was entering Narnia when that horse-drawn wagon took us into the pine-sheltered cabin of Hatfield Farm. It was a blissful buzz and the stars were mine, all mine. The bus ride home, however, took me on a downspiral and Morcheeba was my soundtrack as I sunk into a cognac-fueled depression. As soon as I stumbled through the doors of this house I presently call home, I knelt at my sister's feet and hugged her. She said my dialogue went something like this: "I'm so lonely, Ats... Everyone's a lonely star and I'm a meteor disintegrating in the atmosphere." I'm sorta glad she didn't let me use the computer. Lord only knows the drunken emails I would've written in that state. Consider yourself spared.

As is Matthew. We've stopped dating. He wanted things to lead somewhere and I wasn't about to lead him on.

Winter begins and the furnaces are ablaze.