Nic Narrates » ballet http://www.nicnarrates.com Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:39:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 The Whimsy, The Madness, and Me http://www.nicnarrates.com/2009/03/27/the-whimsy-the-madness-and-me/ http://www.nicnarrates.com/2009/03/27/the-whimsy-the-madness-and-me/#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:37:51 +0000 Nic http://nicnarrates.wordpress.com/?p=996 At this stage in the game, I’ll pretty much go anywhere alone. Sometimes my friends are busy or working late (or think March Madness is stupid- GDF, I know you can’t help it). Sometimes plans change, people cancel, or you miss your stop and wind up somewhere you haven’t been before. Sometimes you just really want bay scallops- or at least I do. Sometimes you just let whimsy take you.

I’ll catch a play at Steppenwolf, an in-town musical, the ballet, the CSO, an art exhibit, dinner- whether it’s just Chipotle or Atwood Cafe, a Sunday matinee, even travel to great big cities and far away lands (Dubai, I believe we have a rendezvous). I’ll do it all alone. But I can’t seem to conquer the bar. It’s the one place that remains an enigma to me.  

It’s a curious thing being a single girl alone in a bar. To walk through that door, sit down, order a drink, and then casually linger; I think it takes a sense of bravery that I struggle to posess. It also tends to invite the kind of speculation I’d rather not have tossed in my direction.

Maybe I’m waiting for someone, maybe they’re running late, maybe I’ve been stood up. Maybe I just really needed a drink- maybe it had been that kind of day. Maybe I was trying to meet someone, hoping for maybe something more. Or maybe I just really like college basketball and the TV Gods thought I’d rather see the all-but-foregone conclusion of Villanova whupping Duke rather than Memphis fruitlessly shooting three’s and breaking my heart.

I stayed just long enough to explain this to the bartender who seemed to begin to take an interest beyond merely keeping a drink in front of me. Last year, I found myself having a random conversation with a Ph.D. candidate from NC who was still blowing dry the ink on his divorce papers and seemed keen on my input into the gift he planned to bring home for his four year old daughter. Oh my. Been there. Done that.

I walked home alone that night and again last night, breathing a sigh of relief in the hallway of my apartment as I locked the door. I don’t think the single girl alone in a bar thing will ever come easily to me.

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]]> http://www.nicnarrates.com/2009/03/27/the-whimsy-the-madness-and-me/feed/ 9 One, please. http://www.nicnarrates.com/2007/10/21/one-please/ http://www.nicnarrates.com/2007/10/21/one-please/#comments Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:14:00 +0000 Nic http://nicnarrates.wordpress.com/2007/10/21/one-please/ I am at the ballet, sipping my Cabernet in my pink chiffon and black velvet dress, awaiting the curtain for Giselle. How exquisite! How happy!

After weeks of sitting home, watching my relationship slowly strangled, I decided it was time to go out on a Saturday night. All out. The hair, the nails, the dress, the shoes, the bag. I would even shave my legs! And I would live it up and take cabs and have champagne at intermission!

I realize that under these circumstances most people booze it up and boyfriend bash. But after years of break ups that rebounded with boys and beer, at 27 I choose Ben & Jerry and ballet.

There go the lights- time to down this Cab and take my seat. It begins!

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