Thursday, June 16, 2016

Loring Park Episode #60: May I Leave The Stage Now?



This episode begins at The Depot hotel, where my friend Julie, her boyfriend, and others and I went to IGNITE, a semi-annual event in which speakers get five minutes to talk about a topic close to their hearts. I learned about living on houseboats, endangered tigers, grief, the need for more women in STEM-related businesses, and the difference between racism and bias. I felt so smart! It was sponsored by SURLY beer, and I picked the lightest one. They also had food trucks and I had a delicious taco courtesy of Stanley's.

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We have so much to talk about! So I'm going through this identity crisis, right? In which I realize that I was never all that good-looking to begin with, but any good looks I did have are, like ... gone. And that's okay. It's what aging is.

"You're not fat," Reid said to me. Reid told me that 35 is the happiest he has ever been because he stopped giving a shit. "You're filling out. You're looking, like, y'know, a thirty-year-old should look like."

Should a 30-year-old still be at the bar? People look at you much differently, and by that I mean they don't really look at you. There is one older man who hates me for some reason. I have no idea why. He walked by me once and brusquely said "Go eat something", and I was feeling fat so I took it as a compliment.

I haven't even entertained the thought of dating since that moment when everything shattered all at once, and that was well over a year ago. For a while I had a crush on Sven, the 20-year-old go-go boy, because it was safe and harmless. Or so I thought.

We have all been going to bingo on Wednesdays lately because at the '90s, it has been at the 60 number threshold FOREVER (bingo queens will know what I'm talking about). I like going because now I have my own postcards for the Sunday night show.