I'm Not Mad

The other day my roommates accused me of not having any emotions except for Anger, to which I rebutted that I did have emotions, such as ... Anger ... and Hunger ... and all the others that end in "-ger." I was later informed that Hunger is not an emotion.

I'm not sure why Anger is the only emotion I can fluently express. I was raised by parents who expressed the whole gamut of emotions -- indeed a mother so emotive I don't think she could hold her feelings in if her life depended on it. But Angry is the only emotional state people can readily identify in me.

I wouldn't consider myself a particularly angry person. I feel happy and sad and confused and surprised, as well. I'm predominantly not angry, preferring Contentment or Indifference instead. It just seems like the only feeling that seeps out from underneath this hardened exterior on a regular basis, in any noticeable terms, is a simmering rage.

Sometimes I'm anxious about it, worrying how this has, does, and will affect my friendships and relationships. Though I can't say that this behavior hasn't come without some negative consequences, for the most part it's been tolerated. Not too many people yell at me, and I still have some friends left, so I see no pressing need to change. And if it were the case that I should change this about myself, would I even be able to? Plus, is a Happy McBastard any better than this current version?

My Week as a Social Person

Or How to Make Friends and Influence People with Alcohol

In true McBastard fasion this post is a week late. The week before last I decided to take a tentative step out of the comfortable darkness of my hermitude and venture into the blindingly bright light of social interaction. Aside from the occasional taggings along with my roommates past and present, over the past year I've hardly made an effort to meet new people and make new friends. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I've felt that I may not be making the most of my experience in a new city. The other week, though, I made up for that a little bit.

First up was a date on Tuesday. I guess I have gone on several dates in the past year, so this is nothing new, per se. But, to coin a phrase, one can never go on too many first dates. It was a pretty good date, too, in my opinion. We were just supposed to meet each other after work and get a couple drinks, but it turned into a dinner date. The bad part was that I drank way too much, but the good part was that she did too and didn't seem to notice. I'm hoping to arrange a second date for some time this week, but she just moved into a new place over the weekend, so I don't know how feasible that will be.

Most of the rest of the week was occupied by what the Intarwebs calls a "meetup" in which a group of people who've met online but usually have not met in meatspace get together and apparently drink copious amounts of alcohol. And that's just what we did.

On Thursday, I met up with some other twenty-something bloggers, from the aptly named Twenty-Something Bloggers community, for some Chicago-style pizza. And then we went to a bar and got drunk. On Friday, we skipped the dinner part and went straight to a bar. On Saturday, we met up at a wine tasting, then went to a bar, then went to dinner, and then went to another bar. On Sunday, we stroked our livers gingerly and went to the Pride Parade. Overall, it was a great success. I met some interesting local bloggers as well as a few from the far reaches of the country. Now I've got so many more blogs to read that'll never get bored. They even convinced me to get on Twitter. So now there's a whole new avenue through which I can annoy you, dear readers!

Now I must scurry back into my cave, biding my time until the next event lures me back into the sunlight.