“i’m not always as confident as i look.” –dignan

i previously mentioned that friday night i was a social butterfly. kind of an odd situation, but i actually had three events going on in one night, all overlapping. fortunately, everything turned out pretty well.
first, after work i headed to cyclone anaya’s on grey near downtown. a guy from another organization i’ve worked with some was leaving his job and having a going away happy hour. there i met chris (from where i work), luis (the guy in question), and three of his co-workers. i had originally thought about getting something alcoholic, but ended up just ordering a tea after i realized i was wearing a minor threat t-shirt. i got to the place a little later than i’d planned, and ended up staying later than i’d planned. but i enjoyed talking with the folk, and when we were leaving and i was shaking hands and doing the “it was nice to meet you” stuff one of the co-workers said “i’m going to give you a hug, because it was very nice to meet you.” i decided to enjoy the moment of thought that she might actually have meant she had some level of more interest in me, since she seemed pretty cool and i knew it wouldn’t take long for me to rationalize it all away. and of course, it didn’t take long. but it was a nice way to kick off the evening. (and who knows? maybe there was something to it. *shrug* my co-workers quickly helped me to squelch that thought on monday.)
due to my schedule shift, from there i hopped on my bike and headed over to tropioca for the geek gathering for the radio show. turnout was pretty good. there were a couple of new faces, but mostly familiar ones. i had a smoothie and was there for maybe about hour. at that point, i had to take off for my next event before it was over.
so i jumped back on my bike and headed to taft street coffeehouse. normally i wouldn’t go to that place. it’s run by ecclesia and i have some deep, old scars from the way they handled business, and ran things, and treated me and tamara, jack and sue, and others. my issue’s not with the members of the church (i’ve had numerous friends over the years who continued to go there), but the leadership that was in place when we were going there. and since it felt like (imo) more of a chris seay promotional and personal glory vehicle than a true church or church community (even though there have been and probably are people having community there, and i heard things have gotten better), i still just don’t really want to have anything to do with things tied directly to the church or chris. all that to say, the reason i went there was the gallery they have in the building – the xnihilo gallery – was having the opening/reception of an exhibit by jack potts. yes, my friend jack who does photography under the name bohemian photography. called “junk yard thoughts”, it’s photos jack took of various things in a big metal and scrap yard. there are some pretty cool images. there were a fair number of people there that i’ve known at various points over the years.
once they were closing the place down, i headed back to the geek gathering. as i’d expected, most everyone had left. but treocast was around and he and i had a good conversation for awhile outside.
after that, i went back home and changed shirts, then headed over to eric and amy’s place for an after-party for the gallery showing. jack was there, but ended up falling asleep on the floor since he’d only gotten about 1 hour of sleep in the previous three days. the only thing that really stands out in my mind from being there is DON’T DRINK BACARDI RAZZ! they were all complaining about it and i figured “hey, i like bacardi. how bad could it be?” i poured myself maybe a half of an old-fashioned glass, over ice. it was bad. it was really bad. it was like they prepare it by running rum over old rusted pieces of metal decorative fruit in the shape of raspberries. i had to force myself to drink it (hey! i poured it! i’m a guest!), and in the end i literally threw up a little bit in my mouth trying to force it down. okay, i’ve done my job by warning you. don’t make the same mistake i did.
saturday i slept in and eventually headed over to kevin’s folks’ place for a going away party for kevin and jo. they hadn’t been back to Texas for awhile, so their family wanted to see them off. it was good to see them several times while they were here.
saturday evening i went to m2 gallery up in the heights for the opening of the “600 sq mi” photo exhibit. it is a juried exhibition of photos relating to houston taken by various people. jay had a picture in it, laanba had a picture in it, marc had a couple of pictures in it, groovehouse works with the houstonist, and i knew from talking to her earlier in the day that amy was going to be there. so i knew i should be running into several people i know. it was really crowded, with a lot of ambient noise, so it wasn’t really the most exciting place for me to be. but i went through and looked at all the photos and talked with a fair number of people. the only bad time happened when i noticed a friend marc had introduced me to seemed to be cut off from conversation and/or isolated, so i thought i’d be nice and try to make small talk. normally i’m alright at it even though i don’t really like it that much, but this was just sort of halting and awkward. after a few minutes she ended up saying she was going to go outside. jeebus, i felt like a big loser after that. so after standing around feeling stupid for awhile and not seeing many of the other people i knew, i tucked tail and headed home.
sunday. ah, sunday. i’ll save it for a later entry.