First and foremost… Yes, Ed, just standing at the door of GSpot at midnight and asking me where I got those Harry Potter glasses can get you mentioned on my blog.

Next… Yes, Privacy Shattered Sharon, sometimes the blog is about nothing more or less than me being a big old gossip; and, thank you for explaining to Raffine’s Thomas what “redoubtable” means.

As I write this, I’m finishing my first 24 hours on the nicotine patch and without the nasty tobacco I love and worship and crave and adore. I feel like having a funeral for my cigarets. boo hoo. I really am being a baby about this, it’s making me want to have a temper tantrum and to throw myself onto my bed weeping. Besides everything else, I’m catching cold.

I’ll buck up and quit whining for a moment to tell about Friday evening.

A goodly number of us, as always, gathered on the Paseo about 5 p.m. for drinks and banter. The smokers were very good about cutting me slack as I was six hours into abstinence at the time. Can’t tell you what we discussed since I was too focused on not smoking, but it seemed congenial. One of the things about this deal is that I’m very restless and can’t stay still or pay attention. I do recall that we got updates on Bob O’s scooter wreck and none of knew until just now that he’d been in the hospital for several days since Thanksgiving. It interrupted his visit from his internet St. Louis girlfriend. Man, what a bummer! Scooter wrecked, arm broken and lovelife thwarted. Triple whammy. Despite my self involvement, one thing no one could ignore was the bright pink furry Ug boots worn by Babs to set off a denim and fur outfit. YIKES!!! We just thought Bob O had the flashiest footwear in town, but we were dead wrong.

We left Galileo’s and went on the Paseo First Friday gallery walk with the especial destination of the SuzArt show across the street at ArtSpice. While the show itself seemed a little disorganized, the only thing that counts with me is the work and SuzArt has some encaustics with Asian (Japanese?) writing collaged on three small blocks that knocked me out. I also liked one oil painting piece in the window and a Lynn Barnett Sparks piece. Three really good pieces in one show is a success for me. The rest of the gallery walk seemed well attended and I think there’s a bit of a critical mass building up to make that First Friday notion a success.

Walking out, we saw our Lebanese friend in hat and bright red lipstick. “You look quite sophisticated,” she was told. “I was born sophisticated,” she replied with a tone that was applauded by part of the group and made others simply groan.

We made our way down to JRB Gallery on Walker, where I liked the deep rust and yellowed cream work “Relinquish” by James Smith and the keyboard and vocals of Heather Nelson providing the ambience. I think Joy Reed is doing a gangbusters job with that gallery.

(I WANT A DAMN CIGARET!!!! AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!)

About 6 or 8 of us went to dinner at Adobe Grill, the best of the hispanic food in town as far as I’m concerned, and cussed and discussed the art and artists and each other with jocularity. The biggest part of the crowd decided on a Friday movie at PennSq, but I had other plans.

I met up with the Elastic Cafe folks in Bricktown. Madness. Utter madness. Hornets game meant that event parking was $10 instead of the usual $5 and the whole of Bricktown was covered up in the usual yahoos plus the sports yahoos. What was I thinking? Things got worse from there. We were supposed to meet at Toby Keith’s for dinner at 8:30 p.m., but that didn’t happen. There was some kind of mixup about getting a table for 30 (?!?), so the lovely Juliet changed plans and decided to have dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse and just drinks later at Toby Keith’s, but not everybody got her text messages and the 30 invitees from Elastic Cafe were strung out all over the place and no one got it right blahblahblogblah!!! Lots of interesting people anyway. I enjoyed Esther, the model and medical student — it doesn’t seem fair that one woman could be beautiful enough to model and be smart enough to be a doctor, but there you have it, all in one horse riding package. Also met an interesting woman who made sure I knew she was married (LOL) who tried to help me stop being so wound up over smoking by doing a little accupressure on my left palm. Later, I’d meet an aromatherapist and masseusse who covered me in some unguent oil (I had to smear some on my belly button fer goodness sake) that was supposed to calm me. Maybe it did, but it was hard to tell since I was surrounded by models and being rubbed, kissed and taken out to the floor dancing. The Wise Guys were the band at Toby Keith’s and I know some of the guys, even practiced law with one of them. The band was fronted by Randy, the Norman Nobody/Edmond Somebody, and he’s one of Elastic Cafe’s models and the reason we were there. Did I mention that I thought the bar itself was crap? Just me, I suppose, but it’s a big barn of a place and I kind of just don’t get it.

I struggled to get out of Bricktown about midnight and went to the Paseo, where I saw Ed at the door of the G Spot. El Matador was playing. Interesting contrast with The Wise Guys. Wise Guys were doing a lot of Beatles covers and El Matador was doing covers of Sting and The Police. Much more intimate crowd than Bricktown and I like being able to walk in and be known and have “my” drink waiting for me without asking. Went next door to Isis and saw my hero, MH, in his black leather jacket being cool; Christian the bartender and Latin teacher who, as usual, was with a gorgeous woman (she was so good looking that I couldn’t hear Christian tell me her name; I was enchanted); and Jasmine (no, not THAT Jasmine, another Jasmine) who was having her 22d birthday. Craig was lighting chunks of flavored tobacco for the waterpipes and the mood and flow was aces. However, I was feeling worse and worse with this cold and, again, restless without cigarets around the tobacco users, and went home alone around 1 a.m.

My patch is itching my left arm and I WANT A CIGARET!!!!!!!!! I’m quitting here for now.

G’nite and Sweet Dreams