All Billy Blue bullshit aside, I had more important things in life to worry about than the mind games and trolls he would bring to whatever bar I was working at this week. About two months ago I entered into what I like to call my quarter-life crisis where I quit my miserable job making eighty cold calls a day at a market research firm so I could avoid jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, to rather spend my days focusing on my writing career while continually kicking myself for ever quitting my job in the fashion industry, and bartending all along the way to pay the bills (which sadly no longer even included basic cable).
About one month into the "post-real job" phase of my quarter-life crisis, between dealing with beyond inebriated Europeans who vomited on each other and non-tipping college kids who called me fat, I quickly grew sick of working full-time in the bar industry. I felt like a vampire, going to bed at 4:00am, waking up at 2:00pm, and wandering from Starbucks to Starbucks on the Upper East Side just so I wasn't stuck in the lonely melancholy of my silent, cableless apartment for hours on end. It was a sad, pathetic version of Twilight, sans the blood and flock of 'tweens following me around.
Not only was my professional career and mental stability at a crossroads, so was my relationship with Alejandro. I felt as if I was crossing Park Avenue but didn't make the light in time, so there I was, standing on the center median with the dying tulips of the summer past, with cars and cabs whizzing by me on each side.
On one side of the avenue I had my friends like Annie Smalls, Jenny Saurs, and Pookie. Annie had just moved into a new apartment with her boyfriend while Jenny and her boyfriend had just bought an apartment together in Hoboken, spending the past month thigh-high in bathroom renovations and the trials and tribulations of picking out a new mattress. Then there was Pookie who was recently engaged, her free time now consumed with wedding dresses, flowers, venues, and one very demanding, soon-to-be mother-in-law.
Conversely, on the opposite side of the street were friends like Emily, who was still recovering from her traumatic Saturday night of bringing home a 5'11'' nameless blonde in a Red Bull and vodka haze. After coming to in the shower with flashbacks of the Stumble Inn and penetration, she found the nameless man face down and naked on her futon. In between a slurred conversation and Emily trying to push the John Doe out the door with his pants still in his hands at 6:30am on Sunday morning, a phone call to Emily's mother back in Wisconsin was somehow placed, and a conversation that a mother should never hear was overheard from an odd 900 miles away.
And then there was me and my relationship with Alejandro smack dab in the middle. Over the few months we'd been dating, we had established the boyfriend-girlfriend titles, the exclusivity, the routines, and more. But between my new lifestyle as a writer/bartender working five nights a week and Alejandro's schedule as a real estate broker with only Saturdays off, I didn't get to see him as much as I used to back in my nine-to-five days. One of us was always tired or hungover or stressed. We enjoyed each other's company, no doubt, but life in general was tough, not to mention the pressures of New York City, the high cost of living, and the even higher cost of stress that came with it all. So last night when a customer berated me for not making his Cosmopolitan with Absolut, although he never specifically ordered Absolut, I had reached my breaking point (and for the record, no straight man should ever order a Cosmopolitan in public, and this man was straight, and therefore deserves a Cosmo made with rubbing alcohol).
So when my shift wrapped up around 12:30am and I called Alejandro only to be sent straight to voicemail as he was out drinking with his friends, all of my pent up anger and frustrations of failed careers, relationships, making rent, and goddamn Cosmopolitans came out in an irate string of BBM's to Alejandro--not one of my finest moments.
I finally received a reply to my relentless messages this morning at 11:17am saying:
Your behavior is ridiculous. I don't want to see you today or tonight. Please respect my decision.
And Alejandro was right. My behavior had been ridiculous and I couldn't take it back. So there I was, stuck in the middle of Park Avenue, alone.
So Happy Halloween, Upper East Side. I'll be the lonely, somewhat slutty Chilean miner at the end of the bar drinking alone...
Friday, October 29, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Game Day
I woke up on Sunday morning back to feeling warm and fuzzy about Alejandro with my overly premature thoughts of what a wonderful boyfriend he would turn out to be, albeit one week into our courtship. But visions of feeding each other ice cream while watching romantic comedies and frolicking on the beaches of Spain aside, it was Sunday Funday and I was forced to immerse myself from my mound of blankets and pillows deep inside my cozy cave of a bedroom in the Love Shack and head to Tin Lizzie for a day of football, beer towers, flip cup, and dance parties.
As I was behind the bar stocking cups, limes, straws, ice, and any other item a bar could possibly need for a twelve hour day of serving keg after keg of Bud Light and bottle after bottle of Jameson, a familiar couple walked up to the bar and ordered a bucket of beers. I eyed them up and down as they returned my stare, racking my brain as to why they looked so familiar. Had I worked with this woman in my prior professional life in the fashion industry? Had they been customers at one of the many bars I had slung drinks at around the neighborhood? Or had I accidentally made out with this man one drunken night before (or while) he had put that huge rock on his girlfriend's finger and soon that bucket of Bud Lights that I had just handed over would be analyzed in a crime scene lab in the "UES Girl Slain by Beer Bottle" investigation?
And then from my fuzziest of fuzz memories, I finally placed these two patrons' faces. It was Billy Blue's brother and fiance who lived in Connecticut and whom I had met almost a year prior at their sister's wedding. Of all the hundreds of bars on the island of Manhattan, if this couple had come all the way from Connecticut to watch a little Sunday football at the one bar I was working at, it could only mean one thing--Billy Blue wasn't far behind them.
After an awkward re-introduction, it was confirmed that Billy Blue was in fact on his way. And then his brother asked, "So did you ever see much of Billy after the wedding? It seemed like you two had a great time together."
"Oh yeah, we saw each other a few times after that," I said casually, trying to hide the look of shock and confusion on my face.
Billy clearly hadn't kept his family in the loop that we had ended up dating after the wedding for several months, but then again, why would he considering he had also been dating at least one other woman during our time together. This two-timing was confirmed one day last winter when a woman named Jenny emailed me, stating:
Apparently "Billy Blue" is "Billy Two"! I also got the same invite to his sister's wedding, the same date at Pio Pio, etc. I saw him during the same time span, which is sickening, but true. He name dropped your site more than once in an attempt to get me to read it.
I never wrote back to Jenny, but I hoped that she had moved on to bigger (yes, in that region) and better (yep, that too) men as I had. No woman, aside from serial killers and baby shakers, deserved a cheating man.
And as predicted, not twenty minutes later did Billy Blue saunter into the bar with his latest lady in tow.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Billy Blue." I said, forcing an unheartfelt smile as he saddled up to the bar, notably without his new girlfriend.
"What? No kiss on the cheek hello?" he impishly asked.
"What? No introduction?" I shot back, gesturing at his girlfriend who was eyeing us from her bar stool at his brother's table.
"Isn't this crazy!? Of all the bars in Manhattan we came to the one you were working at!" he smiled coyly and looked around, as if this were some chance encounter. But that twinkle in his eye that I used to see no longer shone, and that mischievous smile of his was now just plain obnoxious.
"What can I get you to drink?" I asked, rolling my eyes and ignoring his last comment, as I clearly did not believe that he had come to Tin Lizzie unintentionally.
Eventually, after Billy realized that I had no interest in continuing with his little mind games, or even a conversation for that matter, he headed back to the table to join his brother, girlfriend, and company. He never returned to the bar that day to order another round, but instead sent someone else from his group (aside from the girlfriend) each time. Finally, in due all-day-drinking course, with no further communication between the two of us, Billy and his girlfriend staggered out of the bar without a goodbye or a tip. And for the first time in my bartending life, I could honestly say that that was one drunk man's money I did not want.
Ironically enough, the NYPD motto is "Faithful Unto Death" and I could only hope for Billy Blue's new Sue that he would carry out that maxim both on the streets and in the bedroom this time around. But until my next Blue encounter, whether it be via text or being tracked down wherever I was bartending, I had much more important things to worry about, such as my outfit for tonight's KY Jelly wrestling match at Saloon. Here's to love and lubrication, Upper East Siders...
As I was behind the bar stocking cups, limes, straws, ice, and any other item a bar could possibly need for a twelve hour day of serving keg after keg of Bud Light and bottle after bottle of Jameson, a familiar couple walked up to the bar and ordered a bucket of beers. I eyed them up and down as they returned my stare, racking my brain as to why they looked so familiar. Had I worked with this woman in my prior professional life in the fashion industry? Had they been customers at one of the many bars I had slung drinks at around the neighborhood? Or had I accidentally made out with this man one drunken night before (or while) he had put that huge rock on his girlfriend's finger and soon that bucket of Bud Lights that I had just handed over would be analyzed in a crime scene lab in the "UES Girl Slain by Beer Bottle" investigation?
And then from my fuzziest of fuzz memories, I finally placed these two patrons' faces. It was Billy Blue's brother and fiance who lived in Connecticut and whom I had met almost a year prior at their sister's wedding. Of all the hundreds of bars on the island of Manhattan, if this couple had come all the way from Connecticut to watch a little Sunday football at the one bar I was working at, it could only mean one thing--Billy Blue wasn't far behind them.
After an awkward re-introduction, it was confirmed that Billy Blue was in fact on his way. And then his brother asked, "So did you ever see much of Billy after the wedding? It seemed like you two had a great time together."
"Oh yeah, we saw each other a few times after that," I said casually, trying to hide the look of shock and confusion on my face.
Billy clearly hadn't kept his family in the loop that we had ended up dating after the wedding for several months, but then again, why would he considering he had also been dating at least one other woman during our time together. This two-timing was confirmed one day last winter when a woman named Jenny emailed me, stating:
Apparently "Billy Blue" is "Billy Two"! I also got the same invite to his sister's wedding, the same date at Pio Pio, etc. I saw him during the same time span, which is sickening, but true. He name dropped your site more than once in an attempt to get me to read it.
I never wrote back to Jenny, but I hoped that she had moved on to bigger (yes, in that region) and better (yep, that too) men as I had. No woman, aside from serial killers and baby shakers, deserved a cheating man.
And as predicted, not twenty minutes later did Billy Blue saunter into the bar with his latest lady in tow.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Billy Blue." I said, forcing an unheartfelt smile as he saddled up to the bar, notably without his new girlfriend.
"What? No kiss on the cheek hello?" he impishly asked.
"What? No introduction?" I shot back, gesturing at his girlfriend who was eyeing us from her bar stool at his brother's table.
"Isn't this crazy!? Of all the bars in Manhattan we came to the one you were working at!" he smiled coyly and looked around, as if this were some chance encounter. But that twinkle in his eye that I used to see no longer shone, and that mischievous smile of his was now just plain obnoxious.
"What can I get you to drink?" I asked, rolling my eyes and ignoring his last comment, as I clearly did not believe that he had come to Tin Lizzie unintentionally.
Eventually, after Billy realized that I had no interest in continuing with his little mind games, or even a conversation for that matter, he headed back to the table to join his brother, girlfriend, and company. He never returned to the bar that day to order another round, but instead sent someone else from his group (aside from the girlfriend) each time. Finally, in due all-day-drinking course, with no further communication between the two of us, Billy and his girlfriend staggered out of the bar without a goodbye or a tip. And for the first time in my bartending life, I could honestly say that that was one drunk man's money I did not want.
Ironically enough, the NYPD motto is "Faithful Unto Death" and I could only hope for Billy Blue's new Sue that he would carry out that maxim both on the streets and in the bedroom this time around. But until my next Blue encounter, whether it be via text or being tracked down wherever I was bartending, I had much more important things to worry about, such as my outfit for tonight's KY Jelly wrestling match at Saloon. Here's to love and lubrication, Upper East Siders...
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