Friday Night Gone Amok

Honestly.

I have just come home, on a Friday night, after going out for what I had hoped was a relaxing dinner and maybe a couple of drinks. That is my fantasy... here is the reality of what happened...

I went to my favourite local restaurant/bar. It is a great spot for a few reasons; it's fun (the owners are engaging, entertaining and make you feel like you are joining them for a drink in their livingroom), it's small so you don't get overwhelmed with sounds or people and it's hip. Very cool, fantastic music, amazing menu and wonderful clientèle. In the past, I have felt that I could go and just hang alone at the bar, maybe order dinner, maybe just a cocktail and enjoy the atmosphere that surrounded me.

I haven't been going much lately and tonight is the perfect example of why not...

I went in because (as I have discussed already) I didn't feel like cooking for one tonight. And as I have also said, they have an amazing menu; I can honestly say I've never had a meal there that I haven't finished with the phrase "this is my new favourite dish here." It's just that good.

But tonight, I sauntered in looking forward to dinner and a cosmopolitan, grabbed a seat and was immediately made aware that my peaceful plans for my Friday dinner were about to go terribly array. An old acquaintance approached me and started up a conversation.

Now, the city that I call home has a very interesting dynamic that I should share in order for this story to convey the appropriate level of discomfort... I have lived here for over 25 years now and I am regularly reminded that I am not "from here." I love my home... Love It! But it is similar to the maritime provinces of my beloved country in that, if you weren't born here, you're not from here. I have had that conversation with many Brantford imports over the years and have heard the same reaction over and over. Weird.

The natural by-product of that kind of close-knit community is that everyone knows everyone, their history, their family tree, who you went to school with, what you wore at graduation and your pet peeves as quoted in the yearbook. So, here I was, on my hoping-to-be-quiet Friday night facing a conversation with an individual who had immediate connections to:

My ex-husband
Past political campaigns I have worked on
Current friends whom I hold dear...

Add to that, he had just broken up with his fiance. You can imagine my hell. Or can you? Trust me... it was hell.

So, in an attempt to make an already-long story short, I had no dinner. I ordered my drink but not dinner (why prolong the agony?) and then one more and came home.

As I left, the owner came up to me and in the sweetest way possible said "I understand why we don't see you as much." No kidding.

Chips and dip for dinner again. Geez.

Thanks for listening... As I've said before, it's always nice to have someone to talk to.

On the lighter side...

When I ventured out on this new life I am now leading, I went through a number of metamorphosises... metamorphoses... hmmm... changes.

Address, naturally. Downsizing, of course. Lifestyle, as any woman facing a newly-single lifestyle will tell you "duh, ya." But the biggest, at least the one that garnered the most comments, was weight loss.

Maybe that's because it's the most obvious, easiest to make light conversation over... It started with simple little "wow, you've lost a lot of weight" to which I initially responded "ya, about 180 lbs but who's counting" ba dum bum. Ha. Some people laughed, some just looked at me with heads cocked to the side wondering how I hid all that weight for so long. But now, two years later, this new reality of who I am, what I look like is starting to be accepted by people with whom I interact. Sort of.

I still get gratuitous comments on what I do or don't order at breakfast, lunch or dinner; sideways glances still come if I go to the washroom after eating any amount of food. And people still feel (as I have mentioned here before) very comfortable in sharing their viewpoints, in this particular instance, on my eating habits.

So I would like to allay their concerns, and yours for that matter. I eat. I eat plenty. I eat badly most of the time, but I do eat. I have found, living this solitary lifestyle, that cooking for one essentially... hmmm, how can I put it???? Well, it sucks. Putting together a gastronomically impressive meal for me to sit back and say to myself, "what a remarkable introduction of saffron into this dish... it has really added to its complexity" to be an anti-climatic experience really. And who wants to wash that many dishes for one person? I can tell you right now, not me. So I either eat out (and being an on-the-road salesperson, that means a lot of drive-throughs... as is evident if you look in the back seat of my car on any given day), or a lot of frozen cardboard sculptures that disguise themselves as meals. Now let me assure you, I am a good cook, a really good one. But it is talent wasted on a meal for one, so I save it for when I am lucky enough to enjoy the company of friends or my boys.

And so, I have lost weight. I'm not sure how. Poor dietary choices (well, I'm guessing that's the most likely answer)? Stress? Lifestyle changes? Living on the third floor of an apartment building with no elevator? Whatever it is, this is who I am now and, really, I have no problem with it.

I am happy, typing away at 11:49 on a Thursday night, eating my chips and dip after a night out with my girlfriends. Yup... I'm feeling pretty good.