A Tale From My Trainwreck Period
Or the time I drank basically a full bottle of wine by myself and made A LOT of interesting choices.
Here’s one I haven’t told you yet. It’s about the night when a guy I genuinely liked broke up with me over the phone after standing me up like a total fucking coward.
It’s also about how I took this call while I was waiting for him at the wine bar on SE Stark Street where we were supposed to meet, and after hearing his whiny bullshit excuse about why he couldn’t be with me any longer, I decided that since I was already looking extremely hot in my black-and-white polka dot dress, stockings and red heels, I would drink away my sorrows solo and potentially find someone less whiny to bang out of spite.
Why should the evening be a total loss? I got dumped. I wasn’t dead, just a little scorned. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that I could seduce an attractive and somewhat interesting substitute for the guy I was planning on taking home that night. But first, wine.
I approached the bar where I had been a patron many times previously. The bartender recognized me and nodded a hello. “What would you like tonight?” I ordered an entire bottle of their ENSO Red wine, which is a blend of Zinfandel and something else that doesn’t matter at all because, in the end, I hardly tasted this wine. It was merely a tool to get me where I wanted to go.
He put the bottle down between us. “How many glasses?” the bartender asked, clearing expecting me to say two, as he was already starting to retrieve at least that many from underneath the counter. “One,” I said while staring him dead in the eyes. He lifted an eyebrow, slid a single glass across the bar and nodded again when I chirped “thanks!” in a too-bright tone for someone planning to sad-drink a lot of red wine by herself.
Except, I wasn’t sad. I was a little blue at the beginning of this journey, but now, I had wine and a table to myself outside on a warmish autumn evening. Besides, things were just getting interesting. I was about a glass and a half into my oblivion when I started making friends. Exactly zero people who passed by my street-side table could stop themselves from talking to me. And by people, I mean men. It was all dudes strolling about in the dark, walking their dogs, asking me if I was drinking an entire bottle of wine by myself.
There were several opportunities for me to turn my life around that night. Maybe instead of gleefully exclaiming, “I AM drinking an entire bottle of wine by myself,” I might have felt some shame or awkwardness or self-awareness, but I didn’t feel any of those things. I did not give a fuck.
For the first time since I started dating the guy who was dark and interesting but annoyingly shifty about what he wanted from our dalliance, I was having a great time. I wasn’t thinking about the ex at all. Sure, I had hoped he was going to be The One, but he wasn’t. His loss.
By this time, I’d made plenty of friends. Some sat and chatted for a bit before continuing on their way. Some grabbed a glass of wine to join me. Eventually, I invited a guy who’d been watching my self-destruction in real time for a while to share some of the bottle. I hadn’t eaten much in the anticipation of being on a date where alcohol led to sex and, eventually, food (or vice versa), so I was a good bit sloshed. There was plenty of red to go around.
This is where things started to take a turn. I’d been talking to J. for a bit now, and it was becoming clearer and clearer even in my increasingly foggy state that he didn’t really have a…home, per se. He was a bit of a nomad traveling around, and he was planning to stay with a friend who lived on a farm outside of town, but most recently, he had been primarily living out of his car.
He was a nice guy, pretty handsome, clean enough in the Portland sense. I hesitate to call him unhoused or homeless because that has a certain connotation, and I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to describe him that way. But his friend lived quite a ways away, and I could tell that he was hoping I would take him back to my home, which I was really trying my best not to do.
And that was mostly because I was actually trying to take the bartender home. J. and I had moved inside, and it was right around closing time. I’d made my intentions clear with the bartender, who was down, but now, I was having a hard time losing J. He was cock blocking me, which seemed uncool given the main reason I wasn’t going to let him come home with me was that I was deeply afraid that he would never leave. I was not about to have a roommate in my lady apartment.
I was, however, running out of time to close the deal. The bartender, whose name I don’t even know if I ever knew, was beginning to shut down the bar and clean up. I was with J. at said bar. One of the closing tasks was blowing out the candles throughout the space. In my inebriated state, I decided that I would sexily blow out one of the candles. I’m not sure why I thought this was a good idea, but hey, what could go wrong?
I leaned in, and while I assume I was channeling Marilyn Monroe sweetly, breathily extinguishing the flames of JFK’s lit birthday cake, I did not achieve that. I blew too hard and sent hot wax all over the bar and all over my stupid face.
Now, for someone who wasn’t completely toasted, this would have been horrifying and perhaps painful. J. was fully horrified on my behalf. I was not. I thought this was HILARIOUS. I laughed hysterically as I rushed to the bathroom to try to clean white wax off my forehead and cheeks and nose and chin.
I had officially been there too long. The bartender was now smoking with a friend, and I still could not get rid of J. I waved goodbye and walked out of the winery, finally OK with the idea of going home alone. I left J. on the sidewalk, telling him for the millionth time that he absolutely could not come home with me, but that I would give him my number and we could meet for coffee some time.
Then, I did what all heroes do at the end of a semi-successful night of solo drunken debauchery: I took off my red heels and ran the four blocks home to my apartment, bare feet covered by thick stockings, and called my friend with benefits that we were back on, baby, before passing out wearing all of my remaining clothes.
Now, this story is messy and embarrassing, but I’m telling it because I think it’s important to acknowledge that we’re all a little messy and embarrassing at times. If you met me after I met R., this story might be somewhat shocking to you. It might be even more jarring if I tell you that this happened approximately six weeks before I met the man I’d eventually marry. I was still a fairly messy by the time we matched on Bumble, but I eventually found my way.
Ultimately, I don’t regret any of the moments I spent being a trainwreck. I think it would be hard to be as settled as I feel now if I never had any stories like this one. I used to experience deep shame about memories like this one, but what’s the point in that? I can’t change my actions. No one got hurt (not even me, apparently). And I only had to avoid that wine bar for like seven months before I was brave enough to go back with R. and ask the same nameless bartender for a bottle of wine and two glasses this time thank you very much.
With pleasure,
Yes, Misstrix
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