Charming, but single

(Three posts in one day. You should all feel tres blessed.) So, on Friday night I did something I haven't done in months. I stayed out until 4 a.m. This was big for me, as I used to routinely stay out that late or later, but my 9-to-5-having self just hasn't been up to it as of late. I'm old and my bones are creaky and I no longer crave copious amounts of carbs at 4:30 a.m. Sad but true. I picked my little sister up and took her to get sushi early in the evening, as I am the only other sushi eater in the family and I know how much she loves it. (She's 10 years younger than I am, and we're pretty close.) After dinner, I dropped her off and headed out to a comedy club to see a show that my friend had won passes to. It was okay and the comics were kind of funny, but I am not a huge fan of the club. At all. I try to be open-minded, but my snobiness will not permit me to like this club. I only go when coerced or if I reeeeally don't have anything better to do. After the show, we sat around at our table and finished our drinks before making a beeline for the door. We headed across the street to a more acceptable locale, albeit a bar that I have very rarely been to. Inside, there was a main bar, an area with pool and a side room with those big leather couches that look like they're from the 80s, a dance floor and a band. (Sidenote: No one looks sexy sitting on or getting up from those big leather couches from the 80s. You sink down in them, which makes you look like your stomach is huge and then everything shifts up and your body looks all stout because your back isn't straight. And you're supposed to try to hit on people when you look like this. As if.) I almost immediately tripped over B's roomie, who has pretty much taken up residence at this bar, as it is about two blocks from their condo. He was loaded and announced that he had stopped drinking beer altogether and had replaced it with Red Bull. He waved his drink in front of me and I got a strong whiff of Red Bull. That stuff smells gross, although I will say that I love me a vodka and Red Bull every now and again. (Although, I don't think giving an extremely drunk person a way to be hyper is such a good idea.) He was with a friend he'd made at the bar a few weeks ago. My assessment of this guy was that he was painfully shy and drank to break his shyness. (Pretty unsuccessfully, in my opinion.) He looked over to me a few times during the night, but I wasn't going out of my way to have to make conversation with someone. We danced some and had some drinks, before leaving the band room in favor of the somewhat quieter bar area. I had a Blue Moon, which I'd been meaning to try since it showed up on a few menus around town. It reminds me of Hoegaarden, but with a much milder taste. It was very fresh tasting and light, and it had a gorgeous citrus aroma. It would have been better in a chilled glass, but sometimes the bottle is all you've got. I had no idea that it was a Coors beer until today when I Googled it to find out what brewery made it. I just assumed it was a microbrew or something because I've never seen it at any stores and just started to see it in bars. And I am a beer snob, so I feel like I should know about these things. Hmmph. But back to Friday, I was with three couples and I felt a bit like a seventh wheel. We had started out with nine people in our group, but the other two guys had found girls to entertain themselves with. The couples I was with were very inclusive, but after hours of drinking they were all getting touchy feely and flirty in that, "We are so going home and having sex in a hour" way, where the playful foreplay starts at the bar and culminates at home. I finished my beer, gave hugs and kisses and went to go home. It was 1:30 a.m. and I wasn't really tired. I couldn't go to another bar, as bars here can't stay open past 2 a.m. I was feeling a little heady and I wasn't really drunk, so I decided that it wasn't time to go to sleep. I flipped open the phone and scrolled through my contacts, trying to think of someone who wouldn't mind me popping by for a visit at 1:45 in the morning. Of course, the only person who fit that bill was B, who is a notorious night owl and always up to hang out. (Either that or he just can't ever tell me no, which I don't really buy, given our past, um, disagreements.) I don't even know why I even considered going anywhere else. I wanted to see B. We haven't had the opportunity to hang out much, and I miss spending time with him. I miss flirting and dancing and going out. He had no problem with me coming over, so I went to his house, where we caught up and watched the end of "Runaway Jury" before settling on watching the very dark "May," which was possibly too creepy for me to watch at 3 a.m. (I do NOT do scary movies. At all.) I want to see the end of it, just not at night. I drifted to sleep for a few minutes around 3 and woke up when B asked if I was staying the night. I mumbled that I needed to wake up to drive home and eventually did around 3:45. I could have stayed, but I refuse to crash on a couch when I am perfectly capable of getting myself into a bed. B wasn't offering, so I knew my own would have to suffice. (A sidestory: This is funny now, but it wasn't then. Three New Year's Eves ago I got terribly trashed at a party. B was still living with two friends of mine, and they assured me that he would be staying out all night (he bartended until 2 a.m.) and that I could sleep in his bed. Extremely drunk, I curled up in his bed and at 3 a.m. the damn lights come on. He had gone to a party after work and went to leave to go somewhere else when he backed into someone's car and now had to pay to have it fixed. He hadn't even been off of work long enough to have more than a beer or two and he was pissed and wanted to crash. So he walks into his room and he turns on the lights and he finds my drunk ass in some sort of sexy going-out top with my shoes and my pants and bra on the floor. I roll over and mumble something about him waking me up. In my drunkenness, I thought he'd just climb in bed and play along, as if months of refusing to consider being with me and then making out with me and sending me mixed signals didn't matter and he was going to be fooled into cuddling with me. He was a good sport and didn't kick me out immediately, but eventually he was like, "Um, are you going to move to the couch?" I was mortified and made him turn around so I could get dressed and make my way to the living room. He admitted later that had he not been in a terrible mood, he wouldn't have kicked me out of the bed -- but he quickly deflated my ego by adding that he would have slept on the couch himself. Sigh. Bastard.) So I left B's and wondered why I'd even wanted to go in first place. It's as if I still want to chase him or I still haven't completely gotten over the need to hang out with him sometimes. You know how you're over someone, but you're not? You don't actively want them, and you don't feel head-over-heels in love and you don't want to puke every time you see them because they make you giddy and nauseous, but if they were to one day decide that they wanted you, you wouldn't turn them down? I think that's how I feel about B. Not totally healthy, but at least I'm aware of it. As I pulled out into the street, I flipped through tracks on the CD until I landed on Joss Stone's "Right to be Wrong," my personal girl power anthem of the moment. About 20 minutes later I barely made it to my bed before I passed out and woke up several hours later with a pounding head, a dry mouth and smudged mascara on my face. I looked in my bathroom mirror and a scary-tired, matted-haired monster stared back at me. I was sore and cranky all day Saturday. I knew I was too old for all of this.