A Little Different Sunlight
October 28th, 2006.
Previously…
So, after getting used to being back home I learned several important things. First, Orlando is not at all the same place that I left a mere 3 months ago. Cranes and construction everywhere. There’s still the parking problem, but it’s not that ridiculous anymore. Second, everyone and everything are more or less in the same place. There are changes, but nothing really big. Ybors Martini Bar (my favorite haunt for the past 5 years) closed down in my absence. I’d call that big. Well, Annie’s leaving town. So that’s big. Keri’s gone off to Seattle. That’s big too. Oh, never mind. I was wrong about that
At least my good friends Super Jenn, Lu, Red, and Sabrina were still around.
And lastly, getting used to being back wasn’t easy. There was the jet lag. The being back to the big bad real world. How much I missed my brother. Those things didn’t make any of coming home easy. And I still missed the road, bumping into amazing people and potentially fantastic situations every day. Back to the ordinary life.
As for me, I was still the same. More or less. The only thing that changed was my outlook on everything. A little less hedonism, a little more responsibility. My desire to be astonished was still there. No big changes? Maybe I was indeed wrong about that.
And now…
My family was having a party of sorts while I was getting ready to go out. It was mostly the adults (funny how no matter what age I get, I still refer to my mum, stepfather, aunts, and uncles as the adults), along with James, Lisa, Val, and Holvens, as well as the kids, Ciara, Camryn, and Aiden. Holvens was pretty funny and brutal. He put on a Jason hockey mask and scared the hell out of Ciara, who ran away to the bathroom in terror. It was awesome, in a sadistic way. I made my obligatory appearance after getting dressed, and hit the road.
Saturday night. Lots of folks around in all manner of costumes. I remember someone on the radio talking about how Halloween had slowly drifted away from a kids’ holiday or harvest festival and was now hijacked by the adults, with their naughty nurse outfits and such. Maybe he was right. But thinking about how the world was lately, why wouldn’t the adults want to have any fun? Besides, it was indeed fun to watch. Unfortunately I was watching the fun from my car, happily stuck looking for a parking spot. I ended up on the far side of Lake Eola. It was going to be a long walk to I-Bar.
I-Bar wasn’t crowded yet, thankfully. I ran into the usual suspects, and we looked at all of the wild outfits. Tim and Genevieve did the Hawaiian thing, and I even saw Colin, dressed up like Borat, complete with the moustache. I spent a bit of time talking to Daniel and the soon to be departed Annie, as well as Jon. There was lots of dancing in the Pit, which was fine any day. I stomped to my heart’s content, or as much as my back could take.
Julz told me about an afterparty, and gave me a ride to my car. That saved me a lot of trouble. I followed her to an apartment complex on the south side of town. Super Jenn, Kyle, and Angel were there, as well as some people who I hadn’t met before. They were nice hosts, and even tried to mix me what appeared to be vodka and something unidentifiable. Good folks they were. I stuck to making my own drink. Vodka does very bad things to me; let’s just leave it at that.
Jenn and I talked about how much we missed Keri, and about some other developments around us. Kyle was mostly comatose for the duration, which was funny in its own right. It was getting late, and I made the long drive home. I got lost on the way back, which perfectly illustrated my lack of knowledge of Orlando south of Colonial Drive. Not my part of town, and I didn’t know a lot of people who lived there. It turned out that I took the roundabout way home, but made it nonetheless.
October 29th, 2006. Since I got home so early in the morning, I wasn’t awake till sometime in the late afternoon. The house was happily empty, so I pumped some loud music through the house. Lots of Morrissey, lots of the Cure, and a whole lot of Bebel Gilberto. Fortunately, my mum made me a plate of the dinner from the party, so leftovers were perfect. It was times like this I could relax, and not worry about the world around me. Everything was quiet. And I was a fan of the quiet at that moment.
The grogginess from the lack of sleep had vanished hours later, and it was time to get out of the house, just out of boredom. That, and the fact that my mum was trying to drag me into some family drama that I wanted no part of. I love my family to death, but I don’t get too deeply involved in what they get involved in, due to the fact that I also love my sanity. A quick shower, and a look in the closet for something presentable, and off to the road it was.
It was I-Bar for me again. I hadn’t gone out on both nights of the weekend in a long while. Saturday was usually the “stay home and pop a DVD in” night, but the whole Halloween situation changed things. I ran into Craig, who seemed like he was recovering from a post party exhaustion. We were in the same boat. Super Jenn and I talked about the night before, and talked about a potential road trip to visit Keri. I wasn’t sure I could get a flight in time, as the paperwork was a pain. But I’d try. She did hook me up with a temporary job at Carlucci’s, and I needed money on all fronts.
Paul was running back and forth between Back Booth and I-Bar, so I probably saw him once, before he went to a concert (I want to say it was Man & Machines, but I can’t remember). It was a chilled out night, with a laid back crowd. The bar became my new perch, as I looked at the crowd from above like I always did, with Holly for occasional conversation.
Maybe this weekend proved I really couldn’t do the party thing anymore. Maybe I was getting too for that whole thing. That couldn’t it though. I wasn’t that old. If 40 was the new 30, then 30 was the new 20. That was a positive way of looking at it. But in reality maybe I was bored of the loud club scene. I was having plenty of out-of-club experiences, and wanted more. I always say that everyone has one good story to tell. Couldn’t hear much in a club. It was time to expand my horizons even further.
Next: Halloween night isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, as we ask ourselves, what happened to the children? Plus, my sister Gina drops a line for the first time in a long while. More changes abound, as getting used to Orlando isn’t as easy as it appears to be.