"I put on women's clothing and hang around in bars"

Yesterday was a high ~70F and I didn't wear my blazer even in the office and felt too warm outside wearing my green Limited shirt, so today with a predicted high ~80 I wore the second-lightest shirt I own -- the white short-sleeved blouse (which makes me think of evening massage classes last summer). As we were walking back from lunch, Mary Alice noticed the back of my shirt (which has all this pleating, making it much fancier than the front, which is very basic) and complimented me on it and Eric said something about me being dressed up today, to which I responded, "What, because most days I come to work wearing sports t-shirts?" because I always try to dress nicely (professional environment and all -- and I was realizing yesterday that dressing professionally has come to really appeal to me because it's a visual statement that I belong, counteracting the fact that I look younger than I am and thus often feel out of place, exacerbated by my social awkwardness) and I actually usually feel under-dressed around people like Nicole and Alyssa (who's wearing a skirt and hotass boots today, btw). He clarified that it's an actual blouse as opposed to just a nice shirt, which is true. I said finding a button-up shirt that fits is a challenge [Mary Alice and I had complained earlier about side-zip pants/skirts] and he agreeably said something about how in such shirts I might look like a butch dyke. "I so couldn't pull off butch dyke," I said in surprise; "Wish I could, though; that would be hot." To which Mary Alice looked a little taken aback and said something like, "Well all right then." Given that I'm usually the one who's with her with the sex jokes and we were discussing terminology around trans issues the other day and I'm moderately vocal about "Yeah, I'd do her/him" when we're watching tv during lunch, I was sort of surprised. But, um, yeah, it is no surprise that Eric has a flawed understanding of butch dyke but still ... my hair is about to my chin (and I do actually wanna get it cut shorter, but in some sort of femmey/boring style, rather than butch) and I just ... those of you who have met me in meatspace can attest to the fact that I am so far from looking butch dyke or ever being able to pull that off.

Wow, the week is over already.

Went to the second night of [the 9th annual!] NHS' student-written-and-directed one-act plays tonight.  I thought they were really weak, which made me sad.  I don't think I've been since I graduated, since I was always still at school.  I just remember a couple really powerful ones from when I was at NHS and had these expectations.
They also had a bunch of improv, which made me think of the SIKOS.  (And dude, improv that requires audience participation?  Not a good idea.)  Gotta say, I hearted the Channel Changer one, though.

My father pointed out that there were very few female performers, in striking contrast to my years at Norwood when the performers were almost all women.

Flist fails at reading comprehension/audience participation.  [I posted after a lunch, so it was a bit early to be hitting the tequila, and I got one comment.]

My mom busted open the second bottle of Riesling from Easter -- Covey Run (Columbia Valley, 2004).  I think it's drier and less flavorful than the one we had at Easter.

the_red_shoes just made a great post about alcoholism spurred by the Pat Kennedy thing.  She's written a lot about alcoholism (and about addiction more generally) and I'm definitely learning a lot.  One thing that surprised me was:

I remember reading a study once saying that people who'd tried to quit smoking numerous times were actually more successful than people who tried to quit say, once or twice -- they were more familiar with the symptoms of withdrawal, for one thing, and knew better how to deal with them, and every time they quit, whether or not they returned to smoking, was actually almost like time counting towards when they were able to quit for good. They might've psychologically felt defeat at relapsing a number of times, but physiologically they were actually doing the right thing.

She says a lot of other smart things, so go read.