We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program...

...to bring you this...

OK.  Last Friday, I tied one on.  No, I mean it; I REALLY tied one on. 

I'd like to say that it was an accident, that I didn't fully intend to drink myself into a good drunk, but...I did.  It was the first after work Friday of the school year and a bunch of us were ready to share our first Friday happy hour at our favorite hangout.  For me, it would have been the first drink I'd had since school let out on June 24th.  Further, it was going to be our favorite bartender's last shift at the bar before she moved on to bigger and better things.  For the sake of her, I will refer to her only as "X"...and no, that's not one of her initials.

Now...I need to explain a few things before I get on to the behavior that would get me in some serious trouble had my mother ever found out. 

Remember when I asked "When is a date just a date and not a DATE?"  OK, well, when I created the "Women!" post, I was talking about a dinner that I'd had with "X".  At the time, I didn't know she had a boyfriend, that they were, at the time, broken up, that she is "bi" and that I was, am, very much her "type".  Because I'm an idiot. 

Since then, she and I have managed to cultivate a strange little friendship.  I'm not sure what it is and I'm not sure I want to reveal too much about it here.  I'm kind of ambivalent about her, as she is considerably younger than I and there is kind of a gulf between 20s and 40s.  Anyway, we hang out now and again.  She's prepared several meals for me, spent the night at my house--not in bed with me--gone to several movies with me...I mean, it's a friendship...right? 

Anyway, on Friday, she stuck around after her shift was over to hang out with us and have a few drinks.  I ended up kissing a former co-worker and then dropping my pants in the bathroom because she wanted to see the tattoo on my thigh, making out with a very effeminate black man who insists he's straight and getting good and solidly drunk.

When the evening (morning) finally came to a close (opened up), "X" and I hugged good bye and made our way out of the bar.  I walked out the door with her friend while she lingered over a few more minutes of goodbye-ing.  As the friend and I bid our farewells, I turned away to go to my car.  Halfway between the bar and my Jeep, I heard, "Andrea!  Don't you dare leave without saying goodbye to me again!" 

Can I just say?  Nothing stops me in my tracks faster than hearing somebody use my first name.  All day at work, people call me either "Miss" or by my last name only.  And, as I've been teaching for almost 15 years, my first name is almost a distant memory to me...unless my mother is saying, "Andrea, what is the matter with you?" in that exasperated way she does when she finds out that I've gotten another tattoo...or bought a motorcycle.  ANYWAY!

So, I turned to see "X" walking toward me and stopped to hug her a second goodbye.

Dammit.

As her one hand was otherwise engaged, she hugged me single-armed around the waist.  I hugged her the second goodbye and went to step out of the hug.  Only, she didn't.  She kept her arm around my waist holding me to her.  In the spilt second of looking her square in the face, I decided that I would, what the fuck, kiss her.

So I did.

It was a brief kiss on the lips that I thought would break the hug.  And it did, sorta.  But not before she kissed me twice more.

Now, lemme make something clear.  THERE WAS NO TONGUE INVOLVED!  This was not a makeout session, it was three simple, on the lips kisses that were a period on the sentence of the evening.  Period.  Not exclamation point, period.

The next morning, she invited me to brunch and it was back to business as usual.  A hug hello, a hug goodbye and food, coffee and cigarettes in between.

And now I don't know where I am.

On the one hand, boner effin' move.  I shouldn't have kissed her...she is otherwise (though fucked upedly) spoken for, she is significantly younger than I and I am in NO place that even wants to resemble being in a relationship.  Not to mention, that I gave up "hand" in having kissed her first.

On the other hand, I REALLY want to kiss her again.  It's been a really long time since I've been in a position where I've wanted to kiss someone (someday I'll tell you all about my last, really fucked up relationship) and, while there were no earthquakes or fireworks, it was really effin' nice to kiss someone in a (semi) intimate way.

I can't get this out of my head.  It's been almost a week now and it's been almost a paying tenant in my brain. 

So, here I sit...putting it out there in your hands.....