Blue Valentine

I'm sitting in the car on the way home from helping out at the restaurant. Yet again, life's strange sense oh humour rears its deformed head and reminds me just how dangerous it is to my emotional stability to allow my mind to wander.

The radio is on and in light of the auspicious day that it is, love songs and slow songs and OLD songs are being played. I would have preferred some serious hard rock at the time. Those slowies are much to conducive to a wandering mind's agenda.

Started out easily enough. Went to school, had to carry some extra books, struggled with my load for the rest of the school day. Flowers were sent every which way to every other person in light of V day. Ironically, the daisies that were Christened "Charity Flowers", because the costs were going to charity, were miserable and withered, a.k.a. they were dying. The flowers I ordered for the few people I thought to buy for were delivered and I've done my good deed for the month.

Came home somewhat miserable (I truly despise these PMS induced moodswings) and suffered a backache. Just another week.

Mum comes home; I'm chartered off to help in the restaurant. I'm zoned out and tired (another side effect of PMS and just plain, old fashioned lack of sleep) and not in one of those "I'll smile for the blasted customers" mood.

One cheapass table who keep ordering cheapass beer leaves. Oh, but no! One stray lingers behind. It is very obvious that the guy is drunk. Surprisingly though, he's sober enough that his conversations do make sense... on a certain level. And he seems well enough informed about the world.

Being behind the bar, and with my mother off doing her usual PR jazz, he's stuck with no company and decides to honour me with the role of "conversationalist". Oh joy... Now, it wasn't all that bad at the beginning save for the rather drunk and slightly perverted looks this fourty-seven year old fool is giving to anything female (he mentioned his age somewhere along the way). Then it started getting just a tad confusing. And then proceeded to just plain inappropriateness.

I pride myself on being relatively open minded to things. I don't quite care that people in China are eating Deus knows what, or that certain cultures have certain customs that are just plain ODD. I don't approve of male chauvanists, but I won't lash out unnecessarily. I've even talked to Ken about bra sizes and the different types of bras! Even about BDSM. No, not perverted stuff! Just the oddness of it all. I do NOT blush when faced with shounen or shoujo-ai, nor the hardcore yaoi/yuri. I am, however, opposed to outright rudeness, i.e. my state of virginity mentioned to my face is OUT OF THE BLEEDING QUESTION.

You can imagine that I stuck to the far end of the bar from then on. It was either that, or the inability to hide my disdain for a customer.

I bugged my mother to take me home. Fine, into the car we go. The dungu is following us to Plaza for more drinks. It seems my mother has found herself a drinking buddy!

When I enter the car, I make a heartfelt comment. "I hate drunks..."

"Well, sometimes people have reasons to be drunk," she replies.

"I really can't care right now. I still hate drunks," I retort.

She goes, "The you hate your mother."

Well... I kept silent. But yes, there are times I strongly dislike her. Particularly when she's drunk, and has gotten drunk for a reason. Those mainly consists of fights with U. Zek and is followed with the side dish of him leaving the house, and she locking herself in her room for a week with whatever liquour is at hand. Which leaves me floundering about for the duration of the time with no legal adults to look to and this unsettling feeling of not having a home. It isn't a pleasant feeling. No one likes feeling insecure or vulnerable and I do not like seeing the people who are supposed to be my "sturdy and reliable rocks" go all bamboo shoot on me. Yes, I am aware of the fact that they are human and are liable to mistakes, but that doesn't change the way I feel. Trying to change that is like saying a rich guy doesn't have the right to feel miserable.

Every experience I have had with a drunk has been unpleasant. Violent, crazed mad hatters driving sans the hat, unreliable and having a myriad of negative emotions. So, sorry if I disappoint all ye people who are from close knit families, but I do loathe even my family members, and ESPECIALLY my family members when they are drunk.

Perhaps I'll become a drunk in the future as well. Perhaps I'll try justifying such dunderheaded actions with dunderheaded reasons. But for now, I still hate drunks.

That's also perhaps one of the reasons I fear growing up so much. The unknown and the fear of becoming what I despise so much. Perhaps that's why I don't look forward to marriage like others do. At least then, I wouldn't have to worry about disapponting any spouses or children. All I'd have to worry about in all my spinster-hood glory would be what television programme I should watch and whether I should get more than one cat.

It's strange really. For such a widely celebrated day, I seem to be getting some serious backlash. To whoever is out there bored enough to read this pathetic excuse of whining: If you know me in person and if you ever see me get drunk for menial reasons anytime in the future, I give my blessings and permission to snap me out of it. Use a blowhorn, shove me into a closet, dump cold water over my head, you can even feed me escargo! I do not want to be a disappointment to myself.