highest of highs, lowest of lows

the past two days have both rocked and sucked. mightily. first off, yays to the dems, even though 1. bush is a lame duck and 2. i actually voted republican in the cook county board prez race, and the lousy democratic machine still came out on top. we'll see how all that goes. but anyway.

thursday one of our guys from a satellite office came into town, so we went out to dinner that night, to scoozi. pre-dinner, i went furniture shopping with the only female bond salesman (saleswoman? saleslady? salesperson?) at our firm. she was scoping chairs for her domicile. that was cool.. if i'd gone downstairs and drank at the bar instead, god knows how much more fucked up i would have been. dinner was ok - they made a good cream of asparagus soup - and i had a few drinks during the proceedings. our oldest guy talked my freakin' ear off until we mixed up the tables a bit. i landed in the thick of the younger, testosterone-laden, shit-talking crowd. much beer was consumed (by them, not me) and many threats were made. gotta love the irish.

we ended up going to coyote ugly. i didn't even know they had a fucking coyote ugly in chicago, but there we were. they had the louisville vs. rutgers game on tv; all the guys were standing drooling at the game instead of the chicks at first. there was really only one that was like, whoa, that chick's hot. she had a ginormous rack. our young stud sales assistant PJ kinda sorta wanted to ask her about the authenticity of said rack.. and she just said, 'they cost a lot.' done and done. she gave me my first shot of the night, after i guessed one of the girls' favorite bands right. i didn't get to pick the shot. i think she mentioned a 'jose' and a 'cuervo' somewhere. follow that up with a round of jager shots.. and then a round of tequila for the boys and a soco & lime for pia and me.. all the time wondering if my pasta was gonna stay put. (it did.) it was weird.. last night in the throes of my drunkenness among seasoned men, i realized you can be an asshole and still be a good guy. weird how that stuff works.

the thing about my work is, even if you get rip roaring drunk the night before and stay out till 3, you come in at your usual time, which for me is like 6:45. there's zero sympathy for guys who take the day off and constant ridicule for those who get in late. enter me at 7 am the next morning, shaky, bleary, nauseous, but there. that's what counts. everybody was there with me, but i don't drink that much and i hardly ever drink that much. i didn't have a headache, but this feeling of surly urpiness and mood swings wouldn't go away. and what's even better than being hungover at work for ten hours? oh, having a former coworker drop by with her three kids unannounced. i'm not fond of the woman, either. luckily she has a severe fish allergy, so when lunch showed up, she scrammed.. but not before she borrowed my bathroom key and made one of her filthy urchins give it back to me. i hate when parents do that. it's not cute, it's annoying, they're getting child germs all over my stuff, fucking stop it.

what dampened the whole day was knowing i was going out to dinner/drinks again tonight, this time with my chicagoist peeps at zapatista. i told myself no drinks - i didn't even have much of an appetite - but a pumpkin margarita was unpassupable. and the sesame encrusted ahi tuna filet, with mexican rice and sauteed spinach? to. die. for. fanfuckintastic. i had to cut the evening short, however.. i must check on the welfare of my kitty tomorrow and i need some serious rest. must drag my decadent self into bed.