Happy Fucking New Year

For the past couple of days, I've had an old friend in town. My pal Jenny, whom I've known since the 4th grade and who is two days older than me, was here on business. I hadn't seen her in about 3 years. She lives in Lexington now and recently broke up with her cheating boyfriend. Ah, the single life. She has a kid with the bastard, which makes things really complicated. Anyway, she booked a room at The Drake, so I decided to crash there for the past two night just to say I've slept at The Drake like Prince Charles or something. The hotel is swanky, but not in a pretentious sort of way. A fully stocked mini bar awaited us, and I was tempted to drink it dry, but with a mini bottle of vodka costing $7 and Evian equally expensive, I passed. Last night we kind of hit the town. First, we had a pricey dinner at The Grill on Michigan. It was pouring down rain, so that's the first place we were able to seek shelter. My dinner bill reached $40 (including 2 overpriced and non-effective Blood Orange martinis.) She wanted to go to another place, so we took a cab to the W hotel and hung out in the lounge. The place was quite empty for a Thursday night in the big city. WTF? Did the rain or the new year deter people? Chicago was tired last night. Jenny wanted to go dancing, so the closet place I knew of was a cheesy pseudo-discotheque called the Hangge Uppe. I had been there before. Again, no one was there, but they did play some good 80s music. That's all I really ask for in a club. Jenny got pretty smashed, me, not so much for once. All the places we went, I got carded and she didn't. She's only two days older than me, but obviously appears older. I'm flattered when I get carded. Jenny's trying to convince me to move to Lexington, which I can't see myself doing, but I'm going to visit her very soon. Overall, it was a good visit and was a nice distraction from the January blahs. I'm beginning to really cherish the relationships I have with my single girlfriends. You really need them to bitch about boys.

Yesterday, DePaul Guy finally made his new year appearance. I was leaving my office for the day, simply walking out and minding my own business, when I noticed him standing there talking to a girl I work with! Holy shit! He knows one of the student workers! It seems wherever I go, I meet someone who knows him. The recent revelation was almost as shocking as when I found out he knew Onion Guy. Ugh. So, of course I wanted him to see me and made a point of walking by them. He glanced up for a split second, saw me, and went back to the conversation. I of course waved at him. Today I approched Student Worker, told her my story on him, and warned her about his jackassism. If nothing else, he's definitely given me a lot of great stories to tell. I've decided not to play this "we don't know each other" game anymore with him because we DO know each other goddammit. I'm not going to be so tentative anymore, either. If I see him, I will say hi and try to talk to him. All I really want at this point is for him to acknowledge me, throw some respect my way, re-add me to Myspace, and maybe talk to me once in a while. I don't need to be friends with him. Actually, it's impossible for us to be friends now because too much damage has been done and I don't trust him. I don't know if we were ever truly friends either because of our history together. As Mary J. Blige once said, "No more drama." But after seeing him, especially in his brand new Christmas coat looking all dapper, I felt very depressed. In the new year, why am I STILL being reminded of my past? Of ex-heartbreaking lovers? Ghosts? I suppose there is a reason for all this, but I don't know what. And even though I shutter when I see him, I really do want to see him. I also think I'm still attracted to Onion Guy/Guy I saw on NYE. But, I don't want to go down that road again, either. And the thing is, I don't really need nor want a boyfriend. I'm content going out, being social, hanging out with friends, and focusing on my writing. I just want guys to quit bringing me down just because they exist. I'm sick of being reminded of what once was and what will never be again. And the one guy, the one guy from my past who has a ray of potential and whom I haven't even seen in six years, well, he's thousands of miles away, and we keep having missed connections. Sigh.

Besides my constant boy drama, I'm really trying to focus on my writing career right now. I've put some feelers out to a couple of publications, so we'll see. Hopefully these things will pan out. I have to keep trying, though. It's the new year and I need to take advantage of the new beginnings presented before me and make shit happen. Stat.