Sallyacious

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February 23, 2008

Girls' Night In

I took a breather from the festival last night (I KNOW, I even had access to free floor tickets again, but I was so tired I almost fell asleep on the couch when Dave and I got home from work--having grabbed dinner on the way). And since I once again could find NOBODY to go with me, and because I'd kind of already made plans to go out with a friend, I opted to not get the tix.

Instead, because she couldn't get a sitter, I bought a bottle of wine and a couple of bags of M&Ms and toddled down the hill to her house. It was a fairly quick toddle, given the steepness of the hill and the coldness of the air. Brisk, both in temperature and pace.

So instead of listening to live jazz and almost falling asleep in my hard metal chair, I listened to the gentle pinging of the Wii her daughter and her friend had been playing with, drank red wine, ate peanut M&Ms and had a lovely conversation with two other women that covered topics from performance art to writing to Britney Spears to teaching to living abroad to the issues facing our various acquaintances to the shootings last spring to female genital mutilation to Disassociative Identity Disorder. Seriously. I love talking with smart people who are just curious about life, and they are.

So there we sat, three women drinking wine out of coffee cups; a playwright, an actor and a writer who's just discovered she also wants to be a sculptor. (Because, as she said, if you're going to poor anyway, you might as well do as many interesting things as possible.) The stuff she's doing sounds really cool, and now I'm wondering if there's any way I might be able to squeeze that class into my schedule next fall. Because what with teaching at least four and possibly five classes, plus assisting with another one, I'll have absolutely nothing to do with my time.

And then the writer/sculptor left, murmuring something about midnight, and we segued into talking about how you just can't win in this society if you're a woman. I'm selfish for choosing to have no children, and my lovely friend is a whore for being a single mother. And yet, we're both just women who are trying to life the richest lives possible, while facing the issues all human beings have to face if they live long enough. Trying to simultaneously be responsible to the people we love, dodge the curveballs and be true to ourselves.

And then my phone rang. It was Dave, telling me it was 10 til 1 and did I want a ride home because it was one o'clock in the morning. What a wonderful husband I have. He came and got me so I wouldn't have to walk home in the dark in the wee hours.

Posted by sally at February 23, 2008 12:08 PM

Comments

Posted by: fire4hairlady at February 23, 2008 05:18 PM

Posted by: Sallyacious at February 24, 2008 12:46 PM

Posted by: inlandempiregirl at February 25, 2008 05:41 PM

Posted by: Sallyacious at February 26, 2008 08:32 AM

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