#lovebuckets

I haven't been out-out in a long time. Outside of the cruise, I don't get much time away from home anymore. Schedules being what they are, it just doesn't happen very often. Yes, I use the excuse to not date. I don't have any time. It really isn't an excuse, actually. I don't have any time. Between working full-time, teaching part-time, and having Weez all the time there is no time. Sure, if the right guy managed to somehow find me I'd find me some time.

I had no time to get m'self purdy for my Girls' Night and really when I do get myself dolled up, I walk away feeling like I wasted a cute outfit and time doing my hair. Besides, this was about my friend and I catching up, not finding a man though I didn't want to look like I had just spent the day running around Hell's Half Acre. So, I threw off the Sketcher boots and threw on some high heeled brown boots; they matched my "Hershey" chocolate graphic t-shirt. I threw my hair up into a messy pony tail, changed into some "dramatic" earnings which have been described as "Pocahontas," reapplied my eyeliner and then threw on a brown fleece to cover it all up. It was freaking cold today! Windy as any day in winter on Lake Erie. My friend and I met at "Mosquito" in Land-O-Lakes. I looked it up on Google. I wasn't disappointed.

Googled. Giggled.

Another friend of mine, Paul Reynolds, was playing at "Mosquito" so it promised to be a good night. Not sure if his FB page is public, but that's how I find out where he's playing. It is how you should find out as well. My girlfriend that I was meeting, she and I generally find ourselves out listening to this guy play. He's good. It just worked out that he was playing early. I only had Weez at Lovee and Ken's house until about 11:00pm. My girlfriend and I had planned on going to a different watering hole, but when I learned Paul was playing, detour. I found Grumpy Napkin Man in the parking lot. I find faces in the most random things. It cracks me up every time.

Someone's boggery napkin looked like a grumpy old man.

My BFF and I sat at the bar with a few cold ones and some fried food. We caught up on life. It has been a while since we got together. What's great about getting together and listening to a live band, besides everything, is that shouting becomes the preferred method of communication. What's awesome about that is when the band all the sudden stops playing and she shouts, "...emotional support..." across the bar. Funny stuff. We asked the guys to give a four count next time.  She and I laughed a lot. We shared mostly stories about relationships because she's in the throws of a divorce and I'm, well, we've already covered that. We discussed the "love bucket." We agreed that there are folks that when you're in-between big relationships or like her, and much like myself when I was going through mine, going through a divorce, fill that bucket. Is it right? Probably not, but when you're separated, the rules, they are grey and blurry. And when you're single, well, sometimes there's just no time for more than flirting... and whatever. We also agreed that sometimes you don't want to dump that bucket though you really should. It generally gets filled with temporary stuff that long term won't work, we've decided. I know the stuff I filled my bucket with when I was separated, prior to my last person, were distractions. Temporary nonsense, in hindsight, that I was using to fill a void. A deep void. Ocean deep. OK, maybe not all were distractions. That's far too sweeping of a generalization. Yes, I'm guilty of those. When I shared with my then family doctor that my now ex-husband and I weren't doing so well 1) he tried to tell me I was depressed (even my ex-husband agreed I wasn't depressed) and 2) he said, "When we're unhappy, we seek happiness. It's human nature to seek happiness." He's been through a few divorces as well. So, yes, we do that. We fill our buckets with stuff that temporarily makes us feel happy. We really just need to dump the bucket. Buuuuuuuut... when it is filled with stuff that at one point made your feel better about feeling bad, it's hard to dump the bucket. Especially when it's good looking and funny.

The Love Bucket Needs to be Dumped.