lessons learned

I may have to think of a new nickname.  "Mellow" seems, with increasing frequency, to be an inappropriate component for my appellation.

I handed off the pager to my coworker today, so I decided to shake up my schedule with a trip to the 19 Bar downtown to drink a few beers and maybe talk with a few people.  I got home, dumped my badge and security card, walked out to the bus stop, and rode to downtown Minneapolis.  I unexpectedly met a few people at the 19 that I already knew and I talked with them during the evening, while another person I knew appeared to be avoiding me although I twice tried to talk to him.  *unknowing shrug*  I watched people arrive with some people but flirt with other people who weren't the people they arrived with.  Afterwards, I went back home.

The evening reminded me of two things that I already realized, but I guess sometimes the universe needs to bitch slap you into submitting to certain truths.

1. Alcohol is a depressant.
2. Mass transit in Minnesota sucks gangrenous horse balls.

I waited 65 minutes alone in subzero (Fahrenheit) windchill with ice crystals sporadically landing in my face for a bus ride that took 35 minutes to bring me back home.  It might make a good story for a single guy to leave a bar and experience an evening like that, but when it's really your life then it just plain bites.  It would help to come home to a cat that wants to cuddle, but T'Reese is no such cat.  She has her rare moments, but my bad evening is in her opinion no excuse for cuddling.

I'm hungry, I'm cold, and I'm some variety of unhappy that I can't even identify at the moment.  Still, the evening taught me two important lessons.

1. I'd rather live my life (yes, even this life) alone than with the wrong person.
2. My 1957 pocket guide to "Rocks and Minerals" that I brought with me to read on the bus explained that opal is just quartz with 3-9% water added to it.

So the night wasn't a total waste.