Life of the party

My friend Britainy called me this evening to ask if I wanted to go listen to a Reggae band at an Irish Bar tonight. An old high school acquaintance had invited her on MySpace.

I said sure.

We walk in the bar, and I see 5 people I know. Turns out, one of the singers in the band was a friend of my brother's and I met him at the wedding reception last weekend. There were a whole bunch of other people I'd met at the wedding at the bar tonight as well. I ended up introducing Britainy to everyone, even though she was the one with the contact and the invitation!

I should explain that my brother commit suicide 5 years ago this month. While it was tragic, it's become my reality and almost normal for me. Sometimes I'm sad about it, but much more often I'm happy to talk about him and recount memories.

So then Britainy and I are sitting at the bar, and a guy walks up to me: "Are you Andy's sister? I'm Tony." I finished chewing my mozzarella stick and told him yes, gave him a hug, and asked how he was doing. Tony was a friend of my brother's way back in middle school. I haven't seen this guy in easily 8 years. So the rest of the evening is similar: "Hi, I'm L.., Andy's sister." "Oh yeah, I knew Andy, I knew him from........"

And this is where the stories get interesting. I've always been a straight-laced goody two shoes, whereas my brother was not. When I was a senior in high school and he was 20, he invited a "few" friends over to "hang out" while my parents were gone on vacation. You can imagine the mayhem that ensued. I stayed away with a friend because my brother had sworn me to secrecy, but I also didn't want to have anything to do with it. (My parents later pointed out that I could have called them, but Andy wanted me to be cool, so I tried to be cool. Besides, I told him a million times the party wasn't a good idea). I think the police came twice. When I got home the next day, the garage reeked of pot. Happily, nothing really got damaged and nothing was taken from the house. Andy decided there was no way he could really hide all the beer caps in the yard from my parents, so he called and told them what had happened while they were driving home (they were not happy, let me tell you). A whole bunch of the guys I saw at the bar tonight met him at that party.

Well, the point of this is just that now I'm introduced as Andy's sister, and these pot-smoking, garage band playing, beer drinking guys that would never ever talk to me (and to whom I probably wouldn't talk) are really nice to me and give me hugs and are glad to see me. It's neat and I like seeing his friends, but sometimes it's a little surreal. Not to mention that 90% of these guys I'd never met before he died. I've become a long-lost friend.

My voice is hoarse from trying to talk over the music, and I stink because I went outside to the patio area where all the smokers are forced to congregate since they can't smoke inside. I thought I was going deaf for a while when we stayed in front of the speakers for too long, but luckily there's no ringing.

At the end of the evening a friend of a friend tried to buy a drink for Britainy (and then for me), and he turned out to be a nice by kooky guy. He said he really liked our shoes. Some other guy wandered over and we started chatting. For want to introduce the fact that I don't normally live here (just under extenuating circumstances), I said I lived in France. He eventually started talking about how it was dumb to go to any other country because the people were just going to be angry at you because you didn't speak their language. I tried to gently counter his argument by saying there were lots of beautiful things to see in other countries, like beaches and mountains, but his response was "Well, we've got Hawaii." I left to pay my tab. What a dumb ass.

I'm proud of myself for having gone out. I'm not usually a bar scene kind of person, and it doesn't help that I start thinking about how much cheaper the drink would be if I bought it at the grocery store. B's not a big bar/club scene person either, so we're happy to stay home and play Mario Party 6 with self-mixed vodkas and juice. If Britainy and I go out again, I don't think we'll be able to top tonight. Isn't it great going somewhere and knowing lots of people?!