I HAVE REDEEMED MYSELF! - Halloweekend

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you might recall this post about when I freaked out on SexyFace as he drove me through Rock Creek Park...

What you don't know is that there's more to the story.

While he did take me back to my place it was not prior to him taking me back to his place for some hard-core making out.

So there we are - in this well appointed one bedroom apartment making out on the couch when....

The kamikazes started to avenge their quick demise into my digestive system and return... with a vengeance. I literally stopped kissing him, put one finger in front of my mouth and said, "where's your bathroom?" He pointed. I ran.

5 milliseconds later I'm puking in his toilet. For the next 2 hours our hard-core make out session turned into him sitting on the floor with me while I puked into the toilet every 30 minutes while bleeding on his bath mat, because somewhere in between making out and the bathroom I had cut my leg.

Oh. Yeah.

I killed my bar.
I not only could not return to my favorite alcoholic establishment for a YEAR. The sheer embarrassment from everything that happened literally paralyzed me whenever someone suggested we go to his bar.

The following summer when I finally returned to the bar, I went up to him praying that the faces would have blended together with all the other girls he's been with, and he wouldn't remember me.

Nope.

I order my drink, hand him the cash, and he turns around (here I am thinking, "HALLELUJAH He doesn't remember me!").

He stops. Cash still in hand, he slowly turns back to look at me, smirks, and while shaking his head says, "Lo-fucking-Ro. How have you been? How was Texas? What's it been... seriously like a year since I saw you last."

So not only did he remember who I was and where I was from. He remembered when he last saw me.

Every moment in that bar since then, I have felt a little embarrassed. If it hadn't have been so fun, and my friends didn't love it, I wouldn't go there. So I fought my shame and bit the bullet. I refused to get my drinks from him after that. I couldn't. I just felt blind sided with shame, but as the months went by, he'd stop me when I'd walk by his bar to make sure I was o.k. and if I needed anything or if anyone was bothering me.

Cut to this weekend.

Friday night in honor of the holiday weekend my friends and I dressed up and hit the Page, because Sign of the Whale can just be too overwhelming (or underwhelming) when you're not plastered.

Somewhere in between my free drinks, a horrible accident to my uncle which I found out about on my way out the door, and the lack of enthusiasm of the night in general because it was so cold, and people weren't really out I started to feel sad. Then my ex, Can-Can Boy texted me at midnight (what kind of guy with a fiance texts a girl he used to love at midnight on a weekend?) The constant rejection of the guys at the Page then hit me full force. On top of that my Bartender disappeared and everyone knows what that means (back alley - sexytime) and I just couldn't handle it anymore.

The waterworks exploded. I stood in the hallway with my phone texting until Hoss came by and let me sit in the dining room in a far corner to gain my composure. I never did. Every new text from him reaffirmed my fears that I will never have another man love me again. It reaffirmed my fear of being abandoned and replaced. And it just hit home the fact that since I've gained weight post college, my body is not where I want it to be and my lack-luster approach to exercise doesn't cut it.

New Text.
Cry.

New Text.
Sob.

New Text.
Cry.

New Text.
Sob.

I was that girl. The girl no one wants to be around at parties, because the pity party she throws herself is more epic than the one around her. I knew it was bad when not only did a bartender I did not know come over to make sure I was ok, but when the barback kicked out a few other groups of people sitting in the dining area, he looked at my tear soaked face and walked away - letting me stay (side note - Make Up for Ever's Aqua collection, didn't smudge or run at all, during this. literally stayed perfect around my eyes.)

Sam and Zoya managed to calm me down, and I went home with Sam to a world full of pizza and girl talk.

The next night I knew that if I started throwing a pity party it was going to be one long downhill spiral of regret and disallusionment. And I knew that if I started bawling at the bars for two nights in a row, my girls - probably would have been a little pissed off that I messed up their night..... again.

So when we went to Nightmare on M St. the next day - I knew I had to get my party on, and I had to get my party on HARD.



The night was a resounding success on all accounts, starting with (1) No Pity Party - (2) No Puking - (3) I set a goal for myself and achieved it.


It's been nearly 2 1/2 years since the let-me-puke-for-2-hours-when-we-should-be-making-out incident occurred, and I have always harbored these still horribly intense feelings of "OMYGODHE'SSOFRIGGIN'HOT" for SexyFace. Seriously, he's Adonis. If you follow my twitter you might recall a tweet from Thursday, where I mentioned something about just wanting to grab him and tell him how attractive I find him.

My girls Sam and Norma have constantly insisted that I need to just stomp up to him and say "HEY I'm Sexy! You're Sexy! Let's be Sexy together!" (or something like that - Norma would never say something like that - Sam might, but you get the drift).

But inside all this bravado and social butterfly nature, I'm a horribly shy individual. Doing that would just completely turn me into Pity Party Pat if he rejected me. So I didn't.

BUT... Here's where it get's good.

Enter Halloween. The one night of the year where the spirits (alcoholic ones) converge to make mischief happen...

After bouncing around his bar all night getting drinks from all the bartenders aside from him, he pointed it out.

"Why don't you ever ask me for a drink?"
"Because I dont like bothering you."
"Ask me."
"Can I have a rum and coke?"
"No, go away kid ya bother me!"

My face said it all, so...

We started talking... and

As it turns out... he's noticed me, every single time I've been in his bar since I first returned last July... He noticed which bartenders I like more than him because I always give them kisses on the cheek (of which he is actually jealous...) and because I bought my alcoholic beverages from them. And he noticed who I came with. How often I came there. And every outfit I'd worn to the bar since (seriously he started listing them from my hot blue halter to the recent rash of wearing ties as belts - his favorite is anytime I pull out my cognac leather jacket).

He finally made my rum and coke, and since I had a few drops (gallons) of liquid encouragement (and because he admitted he was jealous of Murph and Ali) I kissed him on the cheek after he handed it to me.

His face turned bright red.

It was at this point in time that I announced to Sam, "I am going to redeem myself tonight. I am going to make out with SexyFace and it's going to be epic." She of course smiled & nodded appropriately, but I believe some part of her didn't believe me, because after my recent rash of calling out DIBS and then never capitalizing on my desires - my goal to finish ratio is very low.

After awhile the bar hit its plateau, and I was grabbing a drink from Ali - when SexyFace stopped to talk briefly, before walking away to make an actual paying customer his drink. I called him back over, kissed him on the other cheek and smiled - He blushed, and I darted off into the crowd.

As the night wore on, the DJ announced last call so I found my friends by his bar taking a round of tequila, I had long since switched over to water, because my buzz was getting more saucy and less buzzy (and remember I did NOT want to be puking). I looked-on as they did the shot, and Sexyface called out, "You can't have any."
"Not that I wanted one, but why not?"
"It's not for you."

I crossed the floor to his corner and looked at him under my eyelashes with a sly smirk, while he shook his shaker thingy with all his might.

"Why not?"
He set out two shot glasses in front of me and smiled while pouring the liquid from that shaker thingy into the plastic cups.
"Because you're too classy for tequila. You, LoRo, are a top shelf vodka-kamikaze kind of girl."

He then handed me one of the cups and took one for himself before downing it and kissing me on the cheek.
"Say what, why don't you wait here, and we'll go talk for a few."

Match. Set. Point.

I sent my friends away (I think... I'm tipsy at this point in time, so everything after involving texting and anything really that was not SexyFace is kind of pushed out of my mind - However the next morning Sam did show me a series of text which began with if I die, SexyFace did it).

He pulled me back into the depths of the ober secret conference room, and we started to talk, which digressed into me. (1) NOT PUKING. (2) Redeeming myself, which then digressed into me actually sleeping in the conference room until 5 a.m, which is when he closed out all his tabs, counted tips, dealt with work drama-llama. He came back upstairs and awoke me with a kiss, a-la Sleeping Beauty. He slid onto the conference table with me and wrapped me in his arms, his big, pale, burly-man arms.

As he pulled away from a kiss, he eyed me, "What do you think of my beard? Does it bother you? Do you like it?"

I slid my hand across his face and looked at his beard and then up into his eyes...

"It looks great on you," (Oh-wow, honey you have no idea how good it looks on you).

We had a great chat. We had a great night.

Sometimes the luck of the night is all in the luck of the draw.

Between sobbing the night before in the Page and my year and a half long stint of constant embarrassment, I have officially redeemed myself, and fuck if I'm not proud!