Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac
Well, been running around and keeping busy, so haven't been on MWO at all the past few days. But here it is, 1:30 AM and I not only can't sleep but was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack, so here I am. Writing here always helps, and plus I figured an update wouldn't hurt.
So I drove to Vegas over the weekend. One of my good friends from back home called last Wednesday to tell me he'd be there for a cousin's wedding, and though it was short notice I figured what the hell, right? How many times am I going to get the chance to run around Vegas with him? So after doing a bunch of laundry and stuff around here on Friday, I packed up and headed out. Took a long, long time thanks to traffic getting out of LA, and I was having some anxiety about going to Vegas in the first place, so it was kind of a mini-nightmare holding it together on the drive, though that did clear up a little as the sun went down and the traffic lightened. By the time I was out in the desert in the dark I was feeling pretty good for the most part - had coffee with me and smokes and good music on the radio. Got in around 10 PM and hooked up with him and his crew, and by that time the anxiety was coming back strong, not sure why. I think just being there, where you're kind of expected to be both really drunk and irresponsible, was enough to make me fear some kind of total collapse or something. I took 1/2 an Ativan before leaving the hotel room, and that did take a little while to kick in, but eventually it kind of evened things out.
So we went to a nightclub in one of the casinos, and got bottle service and a reserved table, for what cost a FORTUNE, but my friend paid most of my share for me, 'cause I drove out there and because I don't drink anymore, so WTF do I need with bottle service. I was happy enough to toast with cranberry juice as our group took down two bottles of vodka. Then we stood over by the dance floor and watched the craziness ensue. My buddy was of course not done drinking by a long shot, so he started hitting the Jameson on the rocks really hard - my favorite - and hitting on women, surprised that they talked and flirted right back with him, and even more surprised to learn that they were prostitutes. So we closed down the club at 4 AM, and he wanted 2 things: at least another drink or two, and a single girl. So we're walking through the maze of casinos toward our hotel, and I find us a place where there's a bar with some people, and he spots a girl sitting by herself. Mission accomplished, right? I mean, I led him straight to the promised land, considering he was too drunk to really even know where he was. He said he was going to hit on this girl, who even being drunk he knew she was not all that attractive. So I left, and went back to the room and went to sleep around 6 or 6:30 AM. At 11 we woke up, and about the only thing he remembered from the night before was that he had sex with an ugly girl.
At breakfast with his mom, he kept trying to figure out where all his money went and why he felt so awful, and I had to then tell him he started drinking Jameson after all the vodka was gone. "I did!?" was pretty much his response. "Yes. Yes you did."
The wedding was that afternoon, and he was in the wedding party, so there was lots of getting ready and tuxedos, and the ceremony. Afterward we headed to the reception at this sushi restaurant, and I sat with my friend's mom and an aunt and uncle - I've met them before but don't get a chance to see them much. While the rest of the folks my age proceeded to get drunk again. After sushi we wandered this huge mall, heckled shopkeepers and hit on salesgirls, got giant margaritas and daquiris, gambled a bit, and then hit up a strip club.
I'd not been to a strip club in Vegas, so I was interested in seeing what it was all about. Well, I was unimpressed but did respond when one of the girls massaged my shoulders a little and started talking to me, and asked me to buy her a drink at the bar. So we chatted for a bit, mostly me asking her about how things run in Vegas, and we negotiated a lap dance. Basically, this meant that she started around $100, and I started with "hey, but the sign over there says $20." I mean, I understand she works for a living and do want to support her and pay for the services she's providing - and yeah, to me that means just being there to look at, I feel they should be paid for their time because the club sure as hell isn't taking care of them. So that's my reasoning: she was nice and friendly, rubbed my shoulders for a bit and put on the act of flirting and being interested in me, and for that I'm willing to then pay for a lap dance. We settled on $40 for a couple songs. During those songs, while she was dancing, is when she propositioned me for sex back at my hotel room, and I had to politely decline, citing financial rather than moral objections.
At about 2:30 AM we were about done with the strip club, but my friend was by no means done drinking. So I asked the group - which included the groom - if they trusted me, and they said they did. So I lead us across town to downtown Vegas, to this biker bar that I think is just the coolest place on earth. It's dirty, it's full of locals, it's a bunch of chicks dancing topless on the bar whenever they want, and bartenders in bikini-tops screaming at people over megaphones. I could stay there forever. What I did not take into account, though, which in retrospect was completely obvious, was that my friends are black. Black and from the hood. So they were shall we say less than comfortable right away, and even refused to walk toward the door until my friend went with me to check it out. That never even occurred to me, but no there were no other black folks there. But anyway it all worked out and my friend LOVED the place, like I knew he would. It was just the groom and two other cousins who were miserable and I felt really shitty and on edge because I'd dragged them out here, and that was balanced by how happy I was to be there again and just hang out and watch people have FUN. It's not like the rest of Vegas - people were just genuinely enjoying themselves here and if you were in that bar and not an asshole you were basically family.
But my friend was also hitting on this girl from our group, and so as he continued to get inebriated he got more and more laser-focused on her, and everyone else wanted to leave and things just fell apart. And it was finally around 5 AM that I got him and this girl out of there and into a taxi. And they started making out in the back seat, and he decided to get out with her at her hotel, leaving me to take the cab back to ours - I was staying in his room. And he gets in at about 6, and has to leave for the airport at 6:30, and passes out the moment he finishes packing, and passes out in such a position that he's snoring violently for about 5 minutes until he stops breathing, because he's closed off his own airway with his fat head folded over his neck down on his chest. I'm waiting, one second, two seconds, about to get out of bed and roll him over, when he bolts upright, coughing so hard I thought he was going to be sick on me. He then passes out again, his mom calls, I start beating him with pillows and shaking him awake, twice, and basically push him out of the damned room. He will remember almost none of the entire weekend. He barely remembers almost having sex with that girl this morning.
That was our weekend. I slept in until 11 again, and checked out of the room, returned his tuxedo, and drove back to LA. All in all, I feel like the more things I go do, and not drink, and not end up in catastrophe, makes the anxiety a little better. You know, I didn't need any Ativan the second night. And I didn't drink - I smelled my friend's Jamesons a couple times, but didn't drink. And there wasn't any catastrophe for me and no hangovers and no withdrawal. This time Vegas didn't have to be a 56 hour straight bender, capped off with a ton of Ativan on the ride back. I feel like each time I do things like this I should get a little stronger.
But I got back here and got home and just got so, so down. I was happy to be coming back. I was annoyed as shit with my friend. I was tired. I wanted to be back here, but man I just got so low and cranky and kind of pissed off and anxious about a lot of stuff. By the time I got in bed around midnight the anxiety was already taking over. Took 600mg of neurontin, but then almost immediately also took 1/2 an Ativan. Starting to feel better. I probably shouldn't have made almost a full pot of coffee this evening, but I really wanted it.
I have a writing deadline on Thursday.
The other development is the girl back home - the one I slept with, and am going to see again in San Diego next month. We talked on the phone almost the whole time I was driving back. And she's decided to fly out here in 2 weeks for a weekend visit. She didn't want to have to wait another month. And I didn't want to wait, either. I suddenly really like this girl. Like really like. It's kind of inexplicable, and complicated of course, with me being fairly new at this sobriety-game, and her getting out of a 6 year relationship. But we'll have a weekend with just the two of us soon, and then a week in San Diego with a few other friends. And we're already talking about plans over the Christmas break when we talked on the phone I think two more times after I got home tonight. Maybe it just all adds up and anxiety took over? I don't know.
Sorry this turned into such a long post. I just really needed it. The Ativan is starting to kick in and I'm getting pretty sleepy. And It's 2 AM and I have alarms set for around 7 so I can get up and start writing for this deadline. So guess I'll sign off here, and take my ass to bed for some much needed rest after this self-inflicted exhausting weekend.
Hope everyone's well. And I'll probably be around the boards a little more again the next fee days. Hang in, everybody. Space, thinking of you especially. And Skull I think I saw you got 60 days - that's awesome, man. Keep it up!
:l:l
Well, been running around and keeping busy, so haven't been on MWO at all the past few days. But here it is, 1:30 AM and I not only can't sleep but was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack, so here I am. Writing here always helps, and plus I figured an update wouldn't hurt.
So I drove to Vegas over the weekend. One of my good friends from back home called last Wednesday to tell me he'd be there for a cousin's wedding, and though it was short notice I figured what the hell, right? How many times am I going to get the chance to run around Vegas with him? So after doing a bunch of laundry and stuff around here on Friday, I packed up and headed out. Took a long, long time thanks to traffic getting out of LA, and I was having some anxiety about going to Vegas in the first place, so it was kind of a mini-nightmare holding it together on the drive, though that did clear up a little as the sun went down and the traffic lightened. By the time I was out in the desert in the dark I was feeling pretty good for the most part - had coffee with me and smokes and good music on the radio. Got in around 10 PM and hooked up with him and his crew, and by that time the anxiety was coming back strong, not sure why. I think just being there, where you're kind of expected to be both really drunk and irresponsible, was enough to make me fear some kind of total collapse or something. I took 1/2 an Ativan before leaving the hotel room, and that did take a little while to kick in, but eventually it kind of evened things out.
So we went to a nightclub in one of the casinos, and got bottle service and a reserved table, for what cost a FORTUNE, but my friend paid most of my share for me, 'cause I drove out there and because I don't drink anymore, so WTF do I need with bottle service. I was happy enough to toast with cranberry juice as our group took down two bottles of vodka. Then we stood over by the dance floor and watched the craziness ensue. My buddy was of course not done drinking by a long shot, so he started hitting the Jameson on the rocks really hard - my favorite - and hitting on women, surprised that they talked and flirted right back with him, and even more surprised to learn that they were prostitutes. So we closed down the club at 4 AM, and he wanted 2 things: at least another drink or two, and a single girl. So we're walking through the maze of casinos toward our hotel, and I find us a place where there's a bar with some people, and he spots a girl sitting by herself. Mission accomplished, right? I mean, I led him straight to the promised land, considering he was too drunk to really even know where he was. He said he was going to hit on this girl, who even being drunk he knew she was not all that attractive. So I left, and went back to the room and went to sleep around 6 or 6:30 AM. At 11 we woke up, and about the only thing he remembered from the night before was that he had sex with an ugly girl.
At breakfast with his mom, he kept trying to figure out where all his money went and why he felt so awful, and I had to then tell him he started drinking Jameson after all the vodka was gone. "I did!?" was pretty much his response. "Yes. Yes you did."
The wedding was that afternoon, and he was in the wedding party, so there was lots of getting ready and tuxedos, and the ceremony. Afterward we headed to the reception at this sushi restaurant, and I sat with my friend's mom and an aunt and uncle - I've met them before but don't get a chance to see them much. While the rest of the folks my age proceeded to get drunk again. After sushi we wandered this huge mall, heckled shopkeepers and hit on salesgirls, got giant margaritas and daquiris, gambled a bit, and then hit up a strip club.
I'd not been to a strip club in Vegas, so I was interested in seeing what it was all about. Well, I was unimpressed but did respond when one of the girls massaged my shoulders a little and started talking to me, and asked me to buy her a drink at the bar. So we chatted for a bit, mostly me asking her about how things run in Vegas, and we negotiated a lap dance. Basically, this meant that she started around $100, and I started with "hey, but the sign over there says $20." I mean, I understand she works for a living and do want to support her and pay for the services she's providing - and yeah, to me that means just being there to look at, I feel they should be paid for their time because the club sure as hell isn't taking care of them. So that's my reasoning: she was nice and friendly, rubbed my shoulders for a bit and put on the act of flirting and being interested in me, and for that I'm willing to then pay for a lap dance. We settled on $40 for a couple songs. During those songs, while she was dancing, is when she propositioned me for sex back at my hotel room, and I had to politely decline, citing financial rather than moral objections.
At about 2:30 AM we were about done with the strip club, but my friend was by no means done drinking. So I asked the group - which included the groom - if they trusted me, and they said they did. So I lead us across town to downtown Vegas, to this biker bar that I think is just the coolest place on earth. It's dirty, it's full of locals, it's a bunch of chicks dancing topless on the bar whenever they want, and bartenders in bikini-tops screaming at people over megaphones. I could stay there forever. What I did not take into account, though, which in retrospect was completely obvious, was that my friends are black. Black and from the hood. So they were shall we say less than comfortable right away, and even refused to walk toward the door until my friend went with me to check it out. That never even occurred to me, but no there were no other black folks there. But anyway it all worked out and my friend LOVED the place, like I knew he would. It was just the groom and two other cousins who were miserable and I felt really shitty and on edge because I'd dragged them out here, and that was balanced by how happy I was to be there again and just hang out and watch people have FUN. It's not like the rest of Vegas - people were just genuinely enjoying themselves here and if you were in that bar and not an asshole you were basically family.
But my friend was also hitting on this girl from our group, and so as he continued to get inebriated he got more and more laser-focused on her, and everyone else wanted to leave and things just fell apart. And it was finally around 5 AM that I got him and this girl out of there and into a taxi. And they started making out in the back seat, and he decided to get out with her at her hotel, leaving me to take the cab back to ours - I was staying in his room. And he gets in at about 6, and has to leave for the airport at 6:30, and passes out the moment he finishes packing, and passes out in such a position that he's snoring violently for about 5 minutes until he stops breathing, because he's closed off his own airway with his fat head folded over his neck down on his chest. I'm waiting, one second, two seconds, about to get out of bed and roll him over, when he bolts upright, coughing so hard I thought he was going to be sick on me. He then passes out again, his mom calls, I start beating him with pillows and shaking him awake, twice, and basically push him out of the damned room. He will remember almost none of the entire weekend. He barely remembers almost having sex with that girl this morning.
That was our weekend. I slept in until 11 again, and checked out of the room, returned his tuxedo, and drove back to LA. All in all, I feel like the more things I go do, and not drink, and not end up in catastrophe, makes the anxiety a little better. You know, I didn't need any Ativan the second night. And I didn't drink - I smelled my friend's Jamesons a couple times, but didn't drink. And there wasn't any catastrophe for me and no hangovers and no withdrawal. This time Vegas didn't have to be a 56 hour straight bender, capped off with a ton of Ativan on the ride back. I feel like each time I do things like this I should get a little stronger.
But I got back here and got home and just got so, so down. I was happy to be coming back. I was annoyed as shit with my friend. I was tired. I wanted to be back here, but man I just got so low and cranky and kind of pissed off and anxious about a lot of stuff. By the time I got in bed around midnight the anxiety was already taking over. Took 600mg of neurontin, but then almost immediately also took 1/2 an Ativan. Starting to feel better. I probably shouldn't have made almost a full pot of coffee this evening, but I really wanted it.
I have a writing deadline on Thursday.
The other development is the girl back home - the one I slept with, and am going to see again in San Diego next month. We talked on the phone almost the whole time I was driving back. And she's decided to fly out here in 2 weeks for a weekend visit. She didn't want to have to wait another month. And I didn't want to wait, either. I suddenly really like this girl. Like really like. It's kind of inexplicable, and complicated of course, with me being fairly new at this sobriety-game, and her getting out of a 6 year relationship. But we'll have a weekend with just the two of us soon, and then a week in San Diego with a few other friends. And we're already talking about plans over the Christmas break when we talked on the phone I think two more times after I got home tonight. Maybe it just all adds up and anxiety took over? I don't know.
Sorry this turned into such a long post. I just really needed it. The Ativan is starting to kick in and I'm getting pretty sleepy. And It's 2 AM and I have alarms set for around 7 so I can get up and start writing for this deadline. So guess I'll sign off here, and take my ass to bed for some much needed rest after this self-inflicted exhausting weekend.
Hope everyone's well. And I'll probably be around the boards a little more again the next fee days. Hang in, everybody. Space, thinking of you especially. And Skull I think I saw you got 60 days - that's awesome, man. Keep it up!
:l:l
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