*yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn*

Okay. What a sucker I am. What a sleepy sucker I am...For live music and for Chris.

Last night (Thursday) after work I was supposed to take Chris back home (about an hour drive) and then go home and get some sleep. My usual Wednesday night ritual left me with about 3 hours that night. Some friends were getting together at a local bar and asked me to stop by. I figured we could stop on our way out of town, have a drink or two, and then head on down the road. We stopped in, we had our drinks, and then...I saw the guy tuning his acoustic guitar on the little stage in the corner. What's this? Live music? Memory fog gives way to the fact that this bar has live music every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. In fact, faithful blog readers, if you will recall the band Soma that I first began cutting my "late night/early morning" teeth on back in my very early blogging days - I first saw them at this very bar on a Thursday night.

The band was only two guys - one with an acoustic and the other an electric bass (The bass player switched from the bass to an acoustic as well during the 3rd set). They are Pete and Sam and they are GREAT. I definitely recommend that you check out their website and listen to the Pete and Sam demo - little snippits of many of the songs that they played last night. Their setlist was amazing - old and new, fast and slow. Just awesome! They weren't afraid to play around and have a little fun - even with the lyrics. I'm a lyric fanatic so listening to the words I caught some apropos little lyric changes and Sam even worked my very own name into a song. I loved it. As many little rockers that I dated in high school and as many live bands as I've gotten to know and seen over the years no one has ever mentioned my name in a mic. I girled out - giggled and blushed. Sam is the bass player, and I am definitely a sucker for a guy with a bass - but after that I was definitely digging him! It was the highlight of the night!

The band played on and the hours grew long...and it became pretty clear that if Chris and I were going to make it down south in time for his curfew we were going to have to cut bait. I was really sleepy as it was and my logical mind was telling me that I needed to do the right thing, get home, and get some sleep. Then Chris said what my whimsical mind was pushing all along...why don't we just stay to hear the band finish up and get up early the next morning and I can take him home before work in the morning? My logical mind and my tired eyes are screaming about how little time that leaves for sleep between the bar closing at 2 and having to be on the road by 5:30 to get me back to work on time. But in the end...my love for live music and Chris's puppy dog eyes won out and we stayed.

I'm glad that we did - the band was just great. But, boy, am I paying for it today! I figure at max I've gotten 6 hours of sleep in the last 2 days. It was all I could do to stay on the road for that hour and a half drive back up north to work. I ran onto the shoulder a couple of times when my eyelids were simply too heavy to raise - but I made it. Now I'm just counting the minutes to 5 when I get to go home and take a nap before getting up to go out again... sigh...

As much as I hate to admit it, I really think I was sleepy enough last night that my logical mind would have taken over and put myself to bed if left to my own devices. But Chris's influence definitely put me over the edge of reason. I still wonder from time to time if there isn't a tiny seed of inappropriate emotion stashed away in me for him. Sometimes I get scared. My "Keeping Chris Casual" plan seems to run so smoothly - but are there hidden mechanical issues that will knock it off the track without warning one day? Is there a tragic wreck in my future? Only time will tell, I suppose. I'm not going to let the chance of a hurt in the future ruin my good time today. What will be, will be.

Today - here's to getting some farking SLEEP!
Darbi