Affirmation

What an interesting week this has been. Tonight being Sunday offers me a nice chance to decompress after a long week. Not having had a weekend after last weekend's trainings, this weekend is was particularly important for me to feel like I caught up emotionally and physically.

Wednesday I met with a counselor. Turns out I am not an alcoholic. As we talked, I remembered how nice it is to have someone just sit and listen to you. Someone who has not heard about your breakup ad neasum for the last three months. Someone who hasnt tired of hearing you complain about how you have no gay friends. She determined that I have some "other" issues that I need to deal with, but on the face of it, alcohol does not seem to be the concern. Dealing with my problems through alcohol would be, but I have learned my lesson with that one.

Thursday everyone went out to bar review. I went along with the whole group, and just hung out. I did shots of water and drank Cokes. It is a really nice way of saving some money. The bartender was a bit disdainful about it, but screw her. The next morning I was very proud of my decision given how hungover everyone else was. One friend couldnt even get out of bed. I had a tour to take, and I was glad to not show up for this one in the same condition as I did last time. And I had still enjoyed my night thoroughly.

Friday I made it through classes (albeit underprepared for both), worked out in between at the Y, had lunch (free) with a prospective student, then went to BOOM to have my photo taken for Lavender Magazine's bartender of the month. The writer/photographer was pretty cool and he ended up offering to hook me up with some freelance jobs. We'll see what I can think up for content. Im kinda disconnected with the gay world here, so I dont have a ton to write about. Worth following through with though.

Then I napped on the couches in the restaurant until my friend, I'll call him (Stud), the guy from the Streetlaw training showed up. He and I had a pleasant dinner, just chatting and seemed to connect well. It was an early night because he was understandably tired, and he said he'd call or email er something. I get the feeling that this one is too good to be true. We connected so well, but I dont know that he was feeling it. My brain is just telling me that he is too good to be interested in me. I mean, this guy is so attractive that all the other staff at the bar was immediately asking about him (although I could have brought the hunchback of Notre Dame in there and they would have probably questioned too just for the sake of gossip). I think important to see though is that this was an opportunity to make a friend. Regardless of everything else, hopefully this will be a guy that I can call to go out with.

Well, then I planned on going out with the Tommies, but none of them called (GRRRR!), so I ended up going to Brokeback Mountain with a new friend who lives down the street. We had been chatting for a while, and he is new in town, so our friendship is truly mutually beneficial. We then hung out for a while on Saturday and our activities may have tested the boundaries of the friendship, but we seem okay today. I tried to make it extremely clear to him that I am far far more interested in maintaining and building a friendship than in just hooking up. He is incredibly intelligent and cute as hell, so those lines may have gotten blurred. Still though...

Then off to work, where I had a stellar night. They are not starting me lately until 9pm, which is SO much easier to enjoy because I dont feel drained past the point of comprehension at the end of the night. We were dead until about 9:30ish and then BAM wall to wall. The computers all decided that they were going to have about a 5 second processing delay, and while that sucked, it added to the challenge of the evening, and I did kinda revel in it. It's amazing how much the atmosphere has changed since our old manager left. I am really enjoying this job now. The new guy is just a plain-old sweetheart who differs to our judgment most of the time, and things seem to be running way smoother (with the exception to the computers, but that should be an easy fix). Anyway, fun stuff.

Then today, I went to Muffaleto's with Christina, caught up, had a fantastic brunch, and then home for a very long nap. Got my reading done, watched Grey's and Desperate with my new friend, now here I am.

All that, and I finally kicked my cold. Life is looking good.