Jittery Rant

Yesterday, I took a half-day off from work so I could practice for my audition. Afterwards, I read my homework and came across an interview about how one guy dealt with pre-audition nerves. He said he just went about his day as a regular person, because he noticed he would say things like, "No, I can't have a beer the night before. I've got an audition." And that would start a long list of things he couldn't do until he had gotten to the point where he stayed inside all day long freaking out about the event. It wasn't helpful for him, so he just went about his day-to-day activities. This was awesome to read because I'd been starting my own list of "do-nots" and I was hungry and really wanted to have a beer. So I did.

I went to bar across the street from the University. Let me stress this again, I went to the BAR across the street. They serve some bar food, too, so it answered all my needs. It's the type of place that, before the Clean Air laws, would have been a smoky bar. (Don't even get me started on the stupidity of the Clean Air law fad; smokers are still people and you know if a place is smoky within the first few seconds; don't like it? don't stay and don't work there! But I digress...)

Right, it would have been a smoky bar. They still are a bar, there were many drunk college kids, there is a pool table, there are sports on the t.v.s. It's a bar. So. When I realized that as time progressed, families were coming in and seemed to think it was o.k. to have their many small children running around, I started getting freaked out. I don't go to Chuck E. Cheese's to drink and be beligerant...that's what a bar is for. Bars are not daycare with running, screaming small children.

Bars do not serve family food! When you have to ask the bartender if they have milk and he's not sure, this is not a place to take your kids for dinner. Seriously. What are they going to eat? Hell-fire chicken wings? A basket of fries? Chips and salsa? I'm a grown-up and I know these are tasty-not-good-nutrition foods. So when the bartender asked if I wanted another drink, I said, "No because I'm freaked out that it's bring your kids to the bar nght. I'll just take my check." It's a bar.

When I was in my late teens, I was with Grandma Jam in a casino. While waiting in line to pee, the lady in front of us was saying things like, "Fuck this and fuck that la la la" (she used more nouns that I gave her credit for). There was a lady behind us in line with a 2-year-old who said to lady 1, "Can you please watch your language? There is a small child present." Lady 1 said, "Hey, it's a fucking casino, not a daycare center." Just as you don't move into a nudist colony and complain about people always being naked, and just as you don't move into a house next to an airport and start complaining about noise, if you choose to go somewhere with your kids that isn't kid-friendly, you need to take responsibility.

Anyway, after this highly disturbing evening, I had the most efficient anxiety dream, ever. My anxiety dreams usually involve some long, drawn out feeling of mysterious unsettlement. Last night I had just fallen asleep and the dream was about five seconds straight of me screaming in panic. Nice.

An Erinku:
heater on
growling heat
if portable
I'd carry you around.