Monday Mimisms: Maybe I Picked The Wrong Pencil Skirt

I have a headache.
Let me tell you what happened.

It was dark. Smoky. Noisy. I was alone. My friend (see her here) decided to stay home and grade papers. Can you imagine? She did not think I would venture out alone last week on a school night no less, but that is exactly what I did.

As you'll recall, the night ended up nicely at Mimi's Cafe where they even let me wear my crown and knew my name by heart.....
- but that is not how it began. Before I met my friend for a late dinner, I was on a mission to prove to my out-of-practice-single-self that if I walked into a bar and sat down on a bar stool and ordered a club soda, that somebody would notice and if worse came to worse I'd at least get a blog post. Do you see this skirt? That's not me but you get the picture. I have a zillion lethal skirts just like this one....

That skirt should stop a man dead in his tracks.

Who knew I picked the wrong skirt?

When you are single and live in the town of nowhere you have two choices. You can type endless chat messages and emails to people who pretend to be single, pretend to be doctors, and pretend to be smart (all 3 things happened to me just recently) - not to mention the guy who asked me out and "forgot" that we'd already met. Right. (I forgot to tell you that he suddenly "remembered" later when I wrote a so-long-see-ya reply) Too late, Einstein.... you can meet somebody in the comment section of your blog.....OR you can drive to another town where there are actually people who don't spit on the sidewalk and take your chances in the singles scene of insanity. There was a singles "wine event" at a great place about an hour away. I decided to go.

Will somebody tell me why only crazy men live in my state? (Lee, you are excluded dear) Next time I will cross the border. And what was the problem, you may ask?

Who knows? I know I wore the right skirt. If there's anything I know, it's skirts. Perhaps it was my level of confidence. Let's examine, shall we? After a final primp and comb and spritz in the parking lot mirror, I seductively stepped out of my Toyota (what a hot car), did the pageant Queen wave, naturally, and hit the singles pavement running. Walking into the bar was not the problem.

I can do this.

The place was packed. This was going to be a lot of fun. All I needed was a bar stool and a sideways cross-legged pose, my mother's lip plumper to execute my finely tuned pouting-while-flirting look (ala innocent deer in headlights face) and a willing victim partner with a weakness for skirts. Easy, right? Wrong.
There was nowhere to sit at the bar.

How am I supposed to wage the power of my pencil skirt if I can't sit down?

People were waiting in line just to get to the bar and order. I finally made my way through and ordered a water (with lemon). And that's when my plan started to fail.You see, there was this guy at the end of the bar near the outside patio door. I knew him. We'd talked online a few years ago but never met. He was very attractive, as I'd remembered from his photos and a-l-o-n-e....He was engaged in conversation with an older gentleman next to him and eating dinner. So I made my way through the sea of giggling perfumed women and tipsy boisterous men to say hello.

And then it happened. My phone rang. My mother calls NOW? I dropped it. When I very carefully bent down to pick it up the rest of the contents of my purse fell out on the floor, including my demon possessed cellphone which started blinking in the dark. And suddenly I felt like a total Quork (that's Queen + dork for all you non-blog speakers).
I was embarrassed.

There was only one thing to do.

It was nicer in the ladies room.

No smoke. And I needed to have a talk with myself.
There was no one in there to ignore me either. I stared at the stupid orange wall, snapped a shot for this blog (crazy, right??!) and gave myself a good talking to while straightening out my purse and figuring out how to murder my friend who let me come alone.

I was on the verge of tears.
Why did I come here?
I do not belong here.
I hate it.

I do NOT want to go back out there.

Oh the thoughts in my head. "Listen girl, you spent two hours getting ready, you drove an hour, you've been here for exactly thirty minutes and yes yes yes we all know you hate it but so what you're not alone so does everybody else who starts over and besides you'll never meet anyone or even make a new friend standing here taking pictures of the stupid wall. Now go back out there and try again." And then I looked at my surroundings and the whole scenario struck me as hysterically funny which made me laugh.

So I did.

By the time I had the epiphany pity party in the ladies room and got back he wasn't alone anymore...he was just plain G-O-N-E.
Probably trying to get away from the clumsy lady with the blinking phone.

And even though there was still nowhere to sit and the writing was on the wall, I walked around and smiled at people and struck up a conversation here and there with my second glass of lemon water (shut up Homer) dripping ice water in my purse and wishing I'd worn lower heels but at least I wasn't in the latrine talking to smart aleck tiles.

And besides, there's always next Wednesday night and a dance Saturday night. I'll be there.

Same skirt.
Same blog.

Perhaps the pageant wave was a bit much......

What was on Mimi Writes one year ago today? Buttons