Monday...

Look, the bridge is lower now
Lower now, lower now
It's so low, you'll have to bow
My fair lady
-- London Bridge

I woke up this morning around 7am, fully clothed, and still, completely drunk. The amount of liquor I managed to consume was not outstanding, nor was it out of the ordinary, but I made a few key mistakes that turned a regular Monday night into a completely debaucherous affair.

It all started somewhere around 11am Monday morning, Ananta phoned me at work, and invited me for lunch. By 1pm, I was knocking on her door, and was told to come in. There was a sign that said "panty luncheon" with an arrow on it, directing me to the bedroom, where I found her in her panties, laying in bed with a spread of sushi. I took an extra long lunch. I came back to work, my hair slightly disheveled, and a grin on my face that Remington noticed right away from his desk across from mine.

5pm, and Frannie calls. She can't make up her mind what to wear to the wrap party, and wants me to come over to her place to help her decide. I rush home, put on a sweater, my gray slacks (I love the word slacks) that I had just gotten back from the cleaners, and my best shoes. Within minutes I am boarding the number 4 bus, outbound to the beaches, where Frannie lives with a view of the water. She pours me a glass of gewurtztraminer, my first drink in 8 days, and puts on my favorite xiu xiu album. Frannie proceeds to try on dress after dress, shoe after shoe. Her wardrobe is nothing short of amazing, and highly organized with all her shoes in boxes, and her dresses hung in bags. The wine goes straight to my head as I watch her walk across the floor, and I start to get excited, because for the first time in a long time, I actually can feel something. Lust feels so good, and lord I missed it. But as this is happening, I playback in my head a conversation I had with Leroy earlier in the month, that I am nothing but a pawn in a game, a game that I am playing just as much as Frannie is, but tonight I am losing. It gets worse.

We decide on a retro inspired paisley dress with knee high boots and call a cab to pick us up and take us to Tempest's hi-rise condo overlooking the core of the hometown. The view is amazing, and I am already light headed, not having had anything to eat since lunch. That was mistake number one, if you're gonna drink, you gotta eat something too, but I thought there would be dinner at the wrap party, so I could catch up then. After drinks at Tempest's place we piled into another cab and headed to the party. We arrived early, and it was pretty quiet, but the guest list was set to accommodate 175 people so things were set to pick up, and they did. Within an hour the place was packed, and although there was food being brought about I can't stand eating off a napkin so I declined every time, deciding to go to the bar instead to order double whiskies. Mistake two, and we all know this, don't mix your drinks. By nights end, I had wine, both red and white, whiskey, and gin. A recipe for disaster. Tempest brought Lucy Liu over to meet me and we chatted for awhile then hit the dance floor. I was wasted by this point and it didn't seem at all odd that I was dancing to Queen, Another One Bites the Dust, with one of Charlie's Angels on a Monday night.

Frannie seemed to be spending time with everyone in the place except me, the one who had chosen her outfit, I thought it should account for something. I suppose I had fantasized a romantic evening, she was leaving for Paris in the morning, and I dreamed of us connecting in some way. Months and months of pretending I didn't care was beginning to wear me down. I couldn't stop thinking about xiu xiu and dresses, and the way I had felt back at her apartment. But, those feelings were now mutated by whiskey and wine, turning them into sulkiness and frustration. I decided to pull my usual disappearing act, so I went to the coat check to get my jacket, but my coat check tag was not in my pocket. Not a problem! I announced to the attendant, it's a red leather jacket, oh, yes, there it is thank you very much. I put it on and told Frannie I was leaving, and when she asked me to stay I did. If you tell someone you're leaving, leave, otherwise you just look like a tantrum throwing idiot, just like I did. I stayed a little longer, and then finally left with little protest from Frannie, her indifference was driving me crazy. I got into a cab, and spent the whole time swearing to myself in the back seat. I arrived home, shortly after 1, with plenty of time to sleep things off. As I approached the front door I reached for my keys in the breast pocket of my jacket, but the pocket wasn't there. I looked down at the cuff of my jacket, and realized the buttons were different, my jacket also looked incredibly small, and feminine. I had taken the wrong coat from the coat check.

I ran back to the driver who was still sitting in his cab outside my place, and told him the situation, and that I had to get back to the club in a hurry. The whole way back I imagined walking into a scene of confusion and anger at the coat check. I didn't want to go back at all, but my keys and iPod were in my jacket so just hiding at home was not an option. Luckily the owner of the jacket I had taken hadn't left yet, so I rectified the situation quickly, and was finally free to leave. DId I leave? no. Should I have left? Oh yes. But, no, I decided to go back for a little more silliness. I went to Tempest and told her what happened, she found it highly amusing, and we had a bit of a laugh about it. I was so relieved that I managed to scrape through the incident with little consequence I decided that I might as well have another drink. I found Frannie and explained why I was back and brought her over to the bar where I bought us a round of drinks. We both sat at the bar but Frannie spent most of the time talking to a co-worker of hers, and seemed barely interested that I was giving her one more chance to kiss my pathetic drunken self. Really, how could she resist. As I sat there sipping my Gin in silence I thought of all the times that I had been in this situation with girls. Loaded, with emotions exposed, yet unable to stop the flood of want. I turned to Frannie and said, "ok, cya" and walked out. Making an even more ridiculous exit than the first time I had left wearing a woman's jacket. I am so glad I came back to do it right.

I woke up in the morning, walked to the mirror and was in shock at the sight of my left eye, I had left my contacts in, and somehow the left was folded in half, hanging off my eye, and full of white gunk. I took them out immediately and washed my eyes, but as I stood out in the middle of my apartment in my underwear, looking out the large warehouse windows, into the sunshine of Tuesday, everything was white. It was like I was looking through a piece of wax paper, but lighter. I was late for work, I didn't have time to think about it, I put sunglasses on and grabbed the bus to the office. I Walked into work, and one look at Remington gave him the whole story, and he responded with the same look that he gave me when I walked in from the Panty Luncheon with Ananta.

By late afternoon my eyes returned to normal, I called Frannie and apologized for my behavior, wished her well with London and Paris. Then I made a CD of french avant-garde music, and some london inspired songs, drew an eiffel tower on the disc and sent it by courier on a panic service to her front door with a note that said, "For My Fair Lady"

Will I ever learn?