face up and challenge all

Tired. Hungry. It's been an eventful few days I think, been to a couple parties, met a couple people. There's not really much to say that that effect. I had some trouble getting on the internet at all, and in case the timestamp is wrong, it is now 4:19 AM, so I'm not really up to anything. I've been thinking lately of the frigid north, of a bar where you can hear the blues and jazz without stepping outside. So tonight was Hank's birthday, and that youngin had a pretty decent party with a few decent people showing up.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the lives we lead. It seems like you know what you're doing, and that's something I wish I knew.

Let's tell another drunk story.

One one of my birthdays, I had a few friends over at my house. One of them brought some 151 proof rum, and another one thought it would be cool to have a flaming shot of it. Okay I thought, so I turned off the lights and lit this dude's shot, so we could all watch the blue flames dancing in the glass. Then we said 'hey man, maybe you should blow that out, nobody takes the shot when it's still on fire.'

He said it was okay. Whatever, I thought, and let him do it. The guy misses his mouth and pours a river of blue flame down his chest. Since the lights were off, we could see the trail of fire and alcohol flowing down his chest, and right after this he ran outside and puked in my hedges.

That's when I banned him forever from my house.

Other thoughts: We always seem to make a scene when we go out to eat, and I love it. We bring some sort of joy into the lives of the people who see us, and that's something beautiful and true. I hope everything works out.

we don't live here anymore

It's been an interesting couple of days. Went to Birmingham last night for a concert, had a good time there. It's been good to see what sometimes things do turn out okay. While I was in the Ham, Bexxx put a couple temporary tattoos on me, a Lovebirds one on my wrist (which is awesome) and a shark on my bicep (which makes me feel like a tool). It's okay though. Today I somehow managed to cut myself in two different ways - first by beefing it over a fence, which cut open my fingers, and second by somehow cutting a line into my wrist like I'm trying to commit suicide - no idea how this one turned up but I'm bleeding all the same. Today I went and fed the ducks at school with Holly, and I remembered how much those filthy birds managed to be cute and disgusting at the same time. It makes you wonder how they get along without people to feed them.

This shark tattoo makes me feel like a total fucking tool. I think I want a Corduroy tattoo somewhere. Anybody remember that book? It was my favorite children's book consisting of 100 words or less.

I've decided I should tell stories of my drunkenness on this blog, as it is only proper. I'll begin with my earliest memory of it. A couple weeks after I started college, when I was but a wee freshman, a couple guys named John and Tony threw a party to introduce the young'ins to boozin', and they had hunch punch. It was my first taste of that vile liquid, and my only memories of the party consist of my throwing up over their balcony, then vomiting on my hands and knees in the parking lot. After that, I threw up a little bit out of my friend's car window, and then a large redheaded man named Parker carried me into my dorm and threw me into bed, where I proceeded to throw up some more.

A couple weeks after this, the girl across the hall saw me and asked me if I was the one she saw being carried into the dorm a while back. She happened to be in my English class, so what could I say but "yeah, a large redheaded man dragged my carcass into my room the other day, where I proceeded to strip down and go to bed in my roommate's bed, and not realize it until he walked in and finally went 'man what the hell'?" Sure, that's what happened.

I can't wait till next year, I am going to be that party.

Now though, I'm kind of tired of my skinned knuckles and my uncertainty. I miss the game we used to play.

I think my drinking stories are better when I tell them in person, en voce if you wish. I guess we'll find out for sure next time when I tell another one. Right now I just remembered how happy I was in that picture you have of me, how my smile was unfeigned and true, and how lucky I felt to be in that moment.

I also remembered how I promised you I'd link you to this blog if I ever made a funny entry, and I guess that is the closest I'll get. Maybe I'll write another funny drunk story for you, but I think I told you all my funny drunk stories that one time on our date, when I was trying to be heartwarming and hilarious. Did it work? Hard to tell.

Hard to tell. Drunk blogs are still terrible ideas.

We threw our shoes into the ocean

I'm trying to be witty and nice and okay, and I guess I am. It doesn't really bother me much anymore, only when I let it, or when I want it to. I've been trying not to let it bother me that I have to double take when I see your name, because I don't recognize you anymore. I've been trying to let it be okay that it doesn't really bother me to talk to you anymore. Nothing's been put "into perspective" but I am reminded of how much things have changed, of how much I pretended, or still pretend.

So, let's talk about something else for a bit. I learned today that one of my classmates from my year in high school is going to be teaching freshman english at my old high school! It's super odd. She's my age, and here she is with a real job, a real job you associate with older people until you realize that when you were that age, when you were 14 or 15, people my age WERE 'older', they were that age where they could be doing this sort of thing. They were young, impressionable, freshly married, with brand new liberal arts degrees and they thought it could be enough.

I guess that's one of the most beautiful lies we can tell ourselves, that it will be enough, that it will be okay.

If it doesn't hurt anymore, then it's okay, right?

There's that mental equivalent of picking at it, how your mom told you not to do that, or you'd leave a scar. I guess she was right.

Maybe I realized that tearing myself up about it didn't accomplish anything, and that no matter how much I thought about you, you still lived your own life, you still followed your own heart, and you still were your own person. I knew I couldn't change that then, and I know it now. I especially know it now. I guess all I can manage to do for my own dumb self is be okay, really okay, and mean it. I can be there for you and I really am happy you're happy, really and truly, and I mean it with all my heart, even things you know I'm lying about, at least I lied and that means I tried.

I never drank as easily as when it was because of you. That was only once but I still remember it, no matter how hard I tried not to.

In the end though, here's what I'm trying to say. I'm okay, I really am. I'm over it, as much as someone can be under the circumstances. I still love you dearly as one of my friends, as someone who knows me better than almost anyone else. I know I haven't been there for you as often as I could be, but I hope that you will be there for me.

I hope that my dear friends know how much I love them, and that I mean it like I did all those years ago with you, and you alone remember what I meant in those years, when I couldn't say it, couldn't admit it out loud unless I truly meant it. I say it out loud a lot more now, but I admit it exactly as often as I used to.

All I need is a distraction, the first person to make me forget will be the last person I remember.

Don't want to be second best

So it's been a while I guess, as the ever-lovely Meghan pointed out this afternoon - maybe I've been neglecting my duties - drinking myself into an early grave but entertaining those few who follow this blog in the process. I'm in that awkward stage of intoxication where I'm not really sure how drunk I am, but I strongly suspect it's not really that drunk. I managed to drive home I guess, and I managed to call Nathalie and joke around with her reasonably well, so I'm feeling pretty good about myself.

And I guess the greatest triumph is that I am here and in fact, not dead in a ditch, no matter what anybody may wish.

I probably shouldn't have come out at all tonight, seeing as how the LSAT is less than three days away, and I am woefully underprepared, but it was Tricia's birthday I guess and while I may not have had an obligation I guess I just wanted to come out, to see some people, to drink and smoke and continue my slow slow death, like all the slow deaths that came before and never quite managed to catch.

So I guess there's that. I can talk all I want about friends and drink but it won't really change anything. I'm not sure what I want to talk about but I really want to change something tonight, I really want to make a difference. But there's nothing really to change, nothing really to say except I can talk all I want about drinking games and ex girlfriends and girl friends and hash browns and Waffle House and the fact that if you laugh at a historical joke, a really really obscure one, I just might love you forever.

Holly was right, I do need a vacation. After this test I am going to skip town and maybe I'll end up in the Gulf where I think I belong, drinking myself into a stupor like I want to be. Maybe lately I've been trapped by all of this fear.

Oh: the Waters in the daytime, while not quite as creepy, are just kind of disappointing. It looks like an abandoned seaside town in the daytime, cause all the houses are built with siding, and it's all dirty and makes the place look not like a haunted skullsoleum but more like a tourist town that's out of season. Waterscape, my other usual creepy standby, also now has a house in it, and something that looks like a bus stop.

My creepy pike road neighborhoods are all growing up! Sniff.

I should probably go to bed. I don't know what I'm talking about but I do know what I want to ramble about, and as usual it's nothing good.

I guess there's not much to do but just going to leave me to myself. I've been doing this too much lately. I do need a break, and maybe a taste of the ocean would do the trick.