And then mom said, "Have a good night at the bar, dear."

November has been pretty insane. Out of the 14 days that have passed this month, I've only been sober for about 4 of them. The D.C. trip was a giant soup bowl of boring sessions and beer- yes, I drink beer now she said proudly. And this weekend was D.C. minus the sessions and plus an endearing acoustic rendition of Baby Got Back. I'm still recovering. It's all fun and games until you lose your ability to make smart decisions. If you're luck this just means you order a spinach omelet instead of the Belgian waffle from IHOP at 2 a.m. If you're not, it could mean waking up naked in a strange bed staring at a box of unused condoms. Luckily, none of these happened to me. My waffle was great...I think. But, my point remains that things totally could have went left for me, especially this past Saturday night.

Opening myself to men outside of my race has really been a learning experience. Now, I walk into a bar and instead of automatically scanning the room for color, I now notice the white and latino faces eagerly awaiting to make eye contact with me. This has been a gift and a curse. Now it's not just the brothers I have to shoot down, but I now have to come up with nice ways to say I'm not interested but you can still buy me a drink to all the dudes, and hombres as well. *whew* It's tiring, lol. Anyway, this is totally relevant to what happened Saturday night. So I walk into this bar with about 5 other girls. Me and my new BFF Nina were the only brown girls in the crew. Anyway, instinctively I assess that there are no black guys in the bar. The old me would have just drug Nina to a comfortable spot in the corner for some downtime and girl talk. I would have just assumed that this wasn't our kind of spot and that none of the guys in there were checking for us and that was fine because I wasn't checking for them. Instead, with my new found lack of color-blindness, I immediately noticed several smiles, winks, and nervous glances sent my way. One nicely built baldie stood out in particular. Nina had her pick of the cutest guys as well. After my fifth free shot, I heard a friend say, "So did we have to bring the best looking black girls we knew?!" I was flattered- mostly because I talk a lot of shit, but honestly I have never considered myself to be one of the pretty girls. *cue the violins* But, I also caught a  glimpse of how white girls must feel when every black girl in the rooms shoots them a side eye just because a couple of cute black guys are chatting them up. While some of them may do it to get a rise out of us, if they're like me, they're just engaging and having some fun. Anyway, I digress... let's continue.

So, me and Nina are at the bar taking shots and talking shit when our group decides it's time to go. We gladly get up to leave when Stone Cold Steve Austin decides he's not ready for me to leave. He grabs me around my waist, pulls me to him and tells my friend that I'm a grown ass woman and I don't have to go anywhere until I'm ready. So, I spin around, tell him he's a stranger and that I'm leaving. It's then that he pulls his wallet out of MY pocket and tells me since when do I keep stranger's wallets in my pocket. Apparently, he'd put it in their earlier to prove to me that he was trustworthy...if that makes any sense.

Anyway, the night ended with my friend slapping him after he tried to put his hands down MY pants... *deep sigh*

And for this reason, I say parents should really encourage their kids to drink in college. I didn't drink in college. If I had, I would have already had this and other embarrassing alcohol related experiences and been better prepared. I would have already learned to beware of men in Ed Hardy tees bearing shots. This also wouldn't have happened that night if I still had a ban on white men. So to Enlightenment I say, um, thank you?? But instead, as a 26 year old professional, I was involved in a situation in which the bartender had to threaten to takeout her bat.

...And all I could think the next night when I was finally sober was damn, I'm too old for this shit.

Minus the minor sexual assault and hangover, I had a freakin' blast!

Happy Monday. And if this isn't a "growin' up is hard" story, I don't know what is...

XOXO