Reddit, how do you feel about your first love?

She was an Air Force kid, it was middle school, and I didn't know it, but our time together had an expiration date. I can't remember how we met. Maybe it was 8th grade English, maybe it was before then. All I know is that she was a quiet, kind of punk-grunge-goth girl in the early 2000's. I was awkward, nerdy, and I didn't have many friends. But I fell hard for this girl, and, unbeknownst to me, she had a bit of a crush on me too.
We talked a bit through middle school. We were friends, but we didn't hang out, if that makes sense. We pretty much only saw each other at school, and if we had classes together, we'd try to sit close to each other. I never asked her out. She was small and pretty, and she had a constant stream of suitors. She'd date a different guy every month, and I didn't want to be part of that endless procession. I knew it wouldn't be good for either of us.

At the end of freshman year of high school she moved to England with her family. I was pretty torn up about it, but I tried to get through it. We would talk. A lot. On AIM, then MSN, we spoke pretty regularly for years. Her father was transferred to Italy and the family went with him. She would talk about living in Italy. She would tell me about her relationships, I would tell her about mine. She would tell me her troubles, including her battle with depression. We would send letters back and forth sometimes. She had beautiful handwriting, and always signed her notes with two x's before her name.

I still have all those letters. She told me I really helped her sometimes, that I pulled her back from depression a number of times. I didn't know any of this, and it made me feel good that I could help her. One day, with nothing to lose, I told her I loved her, really loved her.

She felt the same way, but it was impossible. We both knew this. Nothing would ever come of this. She met a guy and he proposed. I kept talking to her, and I chatted with the dude a couple times, and I tried my best to be happy for them both. Meanwhile my personal relationships were going from bad to worse. I dated other people, but in my heart I knew that she was the one I loved. My love life suffered as a result.
Freshman year of college for me, she breaks it off with her fiance. She finds God and it makes her happy. She says maybe she'll try to move back to the States. Maybe she'll go to a college near mine. In the meantime, she's visiting her aunt and uncle for a while in North Carolina. Maybe I could see her.

Of course I could see her. I had to. Fall break of my freshman year, I drove ten hours in a single sitting to see her and stay with her for three days. When I arrive, it's like she never left. We drive for ice cream in the night. We stay up talking in her aunt and uncle's living room. We take a ferry to a little island where there is a beach and an aquarium. We spend the day there, taking silly pictures. I am nineteen years old, and I am in love, and this moment has been five years in the making. I kiss her at sunset, barefoot on that beach. She bites my lip and laughs playfully. She is a fantastic kisser. She is a foot shorter than me, so I pick her up, feel her feet come free of the waterlogged sand of the surf, and I kiss her again. I tell her for the first time, from my lips to her ears, not through a screen or telephone, that I love her, and she tells me she loves me too.
We never have sex. She's a good Christian now, removed from her wanton days in high school. I kiss her as she snuggles into my chest on the couch and I jokingly ask her to read me a bedtime story, and I fall asleep as she reads from an old copy of Grimm's. She wakes me the next morning with kisses and blueberry pancakes. I'm the happiest I've been in years.

We spend the next day as kids do. We go here and there. We joke around. For a brief moment, we're both in love. She says another friend is coming to visit, on the day I'm leaving. He comes and I go. Before I do, I say my goodbyes, press her against the door of my car, and kiss her one last time. I ask her not to forget how she feels about me. She says, somehow, she doubts she will.

I drive home another ten hours with a light heart. I'm happy, really happy, for the first time in a long time. A relationship is still impossible, but I have some sense of closure. Maybe things can change. Maybe things will get better. I remember at this time we had Myspace. Facebook still wasn't very big, or maybe it wasn't even open to the public yet. Her Myspace has pictures of us both. I look at the pictures at the library computer lab of my university, and I smile.

A few days later, there is a new picture. It is her and the friend who came to visit, sharing a kiss. I feel something break inside. I remember that at the time, there were no tears. I had a hundred different emotions fighting inside me. I go to lunch as planned with my friend. He notices my face, and he instantly knows something is wrong. I tell him I'll explain if he comes to my apartment later that night, but I can't talk about it then.

He comes by after class. I am already monstrously drunk. I talk a bit about what happened. He understands. I'd already emailed her - probably a mistake, but it turns out she understands how I feel, and she apologizes a couple days later in an email of her own. I accept her apology, but we both know nothing will be the same, that nothing had been the same since I kissed her. She loves me, but it's impossible, beyond impossible. What we want out of life is so different, that it would never really work, no matter how much we loved each other.

She goes back to Italy. She never does go to school in the States. We kind of fall out of contact. We catch up every once in a while, and sometimes it's almost as if she hadn't broken my heart more than once, but it's never the same. She gets married a few years later to a different guy. She invites me to the wedding, but I can't go. First, it's in Italy, and second, I don't know if I could sit through that.

She and her husband move back to the States, to Oklahoma, then to Illinois. She's had two kids now and still looks incredible. She posts pictures of her adorable children and her budding family on Facebook nearly every day. I talk to her incredibly rarely. I'm okay with it now, but sometimes I think back to high school, and talking almost every day, and sometimes I'll think about that day on the beach in North Carolina. I haven't loved anybody like I loved her since, though I've come close a couple times. I know if somebody ever gives me that ache in my heart again, I won't let her slip away.

My house will drink alone every night, feeling empty inside.
But it actually will be empty inside.
It is a house, and nobody lives there.



Don't fall in love with a girl who won't look you in the eye.
Don't kiss a girl who won't ever kiss you first.
Don't hold a girl who won't lean closer.
Don't be a liar, and don't get caught and don't ever admit it.
Is it better to pull back, or to sit still?

night moves

A, it shouldn't bother me this much, and I know I have no right, but it's becoming just like it was with J, and all this business with LB and how it hasn't seemed like she's willing to see me bothers me. I have to be vague and as a result these sentences read like some kind of stream of consciousness nightmare. But the thing is if this all keeps up then there really won't be anything here left for me and I'll have to move on before it all gets to me again and I always have that face, that face that Kelly said seemed like I was missing something.

We've got our problems

I don't feel great today, I guess everything's been slowly catching up to me and it's all hit me today. I've been thinking of J and L, and always wondering what's going on with A and trying to get over it. I realized today that it's been a long time since anybody's worried about me.

And I thought I never would, but I really do kind of miss it. And I sleep with a pistol next to my bed every night but I'm still afraid, because the things I'm scared of can't be scared away.

any time will do

get the fuck over it. another discussion ends with me making her feel bad and myself feel like a villain. she's been hurt before in this exact same situation and I want her to ignore it and of course she cannot. This is selfish of me and I recognize it but damn it we're both going to be hurt, and when she loses me because of this I honestly hope it makes her recognize the fact.

it's hard to love someone.

what can I say to make everything alright? what can I say to make her change her mind?

nothing. nothing except meeting her three years and a lifetime ago.

I'm sorry things turned out this way. I'm so sorry life is this way. I'm so sorry we spend so much of life being apologetic. I've been sorry so much now, that I barely remember what it is to be guiltless.

an outlaw love song

it's been a really long time, drunk blog. that's not to say that I haven't been drunk but rather that I haven't been motivated to post, that I haven't had the urge to spill my heartache onto the internet. I don't know why tonight is different except maybe everything is just threatening to spill over.

so K and I broke up, to my shame. it's another case of it's not you it's me but this time perhaps I was more honest than usual, too honest maybe and after a relationship of lies I couldn't bear to lie to her in the end. I never cheated on her except emotionally I guess, which is the worst kind of cheating and I do honestly feel guilty about it. it's hard to love someone who doesn't love you. I know how it goes.

but then there's the last couple of months which have been spent in some kind of horrible limbo lying to myself, and it feels like it did all those years ago with J, where I was so sure that being in love with someone was enough, that they would be bound to love you back, and that would be enough. but that's how it comes down, I really do think I am in love with A and I have been lying to myself for a year and now when we're honest with each other there are still answers I don't want to hear. Honesty can't always be the best solution. But when I am honest I wonder who she is trying to protect, and I know she's had bad relationships and she's had bad breakups and she knows one day we will be one of those bad breakups

but I am okay with that

maybe I want that bad breakup and the happy times in between and maybe I know that we're perfect for each other and if she would let go we would be crazy about each other and maybe I shouldn't have kissed her at new year's eve. maybe I should have distanced myself from her when I had the chance, before all of a sudden we were spending every day with each other and talking when we weren't and I was slowly slipping into that hole and there was no way out. maybe she was trying not to hurt me but it's impossible, it's inevitable now.

I haven't felt like this in years, she's the first one to make me feel like I did with J, for real, honestly. There was the year of April and Liz and Hayden and it hurt, it really did, but who are we kidding, except for April it didn't mean anything to me, and it was only because she was so good at sneaking back into my life. But we didn't connect like A and I do, the whole reason why K and I broke up, because we didn't connect.

I miss how simple I used to think life was. But really it never has been, has it?

sorry, we're closed

it turns out closure is all it's cracked up to be in hindsight. sorry you feel this way and i'm sorry I feel that way. sorry that i was one way back then and you were another, and when you figured out what you wanted i wasn't part of it, even though the only one who's changed is you. i realized you want me but not me, i'm too messed up or not enough.

little vision come shake me up, shake me up

long time long time indeed, spent so much time drinking drinking drinking, the whole last weekend I spent poisoning myself in the company of pretty girls, a saturday being more honest than I'm accustomed to. mallet's 50th anniversary was a great success for all involved, i believe.

tonight was spent being dishonest, like most nights, but more honest to myself. another chalk mark, another night behind me. Another night imperfect but good enough. another night spent not wanting to leave.

always do i long to lose myself.

it's been a while, a lot of things have been going on, not everything of which I can put onto this blog. I'm updating drunk for the first time in a long time, and it's so unsure, who reads this, and who I want to read this. A lot of things have been coming through facebook these days, seeing that my good friend ryan is finally seeing someone, that's certainly very good for him, and she is very cute indeed.

What else? Nathalie may be getting married, and i am not ready for all my close female friends to be married, and even less so for her. I really do not know how to feel about it. It really only reinforces the idea that I need to find someone myself, but where? I feel too damaged, too messed up by what has come before to be ready for what is to come. So much last year has only fucked me up, made me bitter, bitter of people who perhaps didn't deserve it, but I strongly suspect that they might.

I don't want to suddenly be a christian or a soldier, I don't believe enough in any of it. We all make our own sacrifices. Are they all worth it?

i just need a little diet cola, or maybe just a little lifter puller

too much excitement, too many friends dropping like flies. spent the weekend drunk and exhausted, dehydrated and uncomfortable. ryan came back again and every time it's like nobody ever left, makes me think we'll do this forever. almost made a lot of mistakes going back north, what's the point of going back to people who go back to other people?

makes you realize maybe you were never the first choice, just last one remaining.

i feel so hideously detached, uncaring about everything. i just want to graduate, want to make a clean break. i've exhausted all the possibilities around, and now I need a new place to ruin, need new girls to ruin me.

what am i doing with my life?

something i wrote a long time ago that i think is relevant, that really seems to sum up how i've been feeling recently: why do i spend so much time remembering when you've already forgotten me?

i need a new feeling.

we're old enough to hurt feelings now

been so long, never did update all year, not even drunk but i feel like i should be so this should count. there's nowhere else for me to write this up, didn't want to put something that wasn't remotely literary on the other blog, too much to say to write it up in the notebooks. spent the day listening to the hold steady's new album, which is sad and sweet in a different way. it's been so much to think about lately, so much going on, school troubles and sweet and dangerous girls, so many i won't see again and feel like i don't know well enough, never did, never will

too late, always has been

because we all make our mistakes and we learn our lessons; or we don't, in which case we must repeat them, repeat until we learn. learn not to put too much of yourself out there, learn to be hard and quiet and to try your best not to look past the people right there, don't get that sad and faraway look in your eyes. there's too much to get down about, there are other things to appreciate.

appreciate the small things in life: driving barefoot, getting monstrously intoxicated with people you like and nobody else. spend a day doing nothing, go to bed, do the same thing the next day. try out lucid dreaming. succeed. fail. immediately enter sleep paralysis. smile to yourself when you pick your lover's hair out of your own, tangled up in there from when you were tangled up with her. she's gone, but some things remain. hope that maybe you remain with her because, given the choice, you would have remained with her.

make your choices, give them to others. give her the same choice you give everyone else: i'll be yours till the bruises fade; and an invitation for her to do her worst. how hard she tries tells you all you need to know. think too much about love, how it's been the only thing that's ever seemed important. miss your friends who are long gone, wonder if they'll ever come back. think about going yourself.

remember how soft she was. try not to wonder if her eyes have gotten harder. think about the reasons she left, and realize how many of those reasons were you, but remember how many weren't your fault. think about a pretty, pretty waitress in chicago, and the best hamburger you ever had in your life. but these things aren't important. never have been. never will be.

concentrate on your life and where it should be. those things were never important, never will be, but they're all that's ever mattered.

Look out, you rock n' rollers

Back to school, back to all that entails, the apathy and boredom, the longing, all the commiseration, the mistakes and the drinking, drinking, drinking. Ryan Spain blew back into town in the rain, and we set off once again on that self-destructive road to oblivion. This weekend obviously we were too intoxicated for me to do much writing but now I am going to change that.

Drinking story, to be mixed with an account of the weekend.

So Friday Ryan and I set out to complete the Trifecta, that is, a flask of liquor, a bottle of wine, and a sixpack of beer each. Well we didn't quite make it, as after the wine (which we drank far too quickly) we both started throwing up, and though I don't remember much of this (Matt had to recount most of it for me) I do remember that I threw up for practically forever, and was in no shape to continue, though Ryan wanted to. I ended up having to wash my sheets, and I managed to forget about them and ask matt five times where they were, five minutes or so passing between each inquiry. I then managed to make my bed, though I don't remember doing it, but I definitely put the sheets on upside down. We may try again next week, and be more careful in our pacing. Friday was a lot of fun otherwise, as I hadn't been that drunk in a long time.

Yet the highlight (lowlight?) of the weekend was last night, at Mallet's long-awaited Pirate Party, where Brian did his best to get me stupid drunk and for the most part succeeded, and I had to fight down the bile towards the end of the evening but mainly kept it together. I had to try not to throw up, either. Seeing some people just makes it hard, wondering where things went wrong, realizing that it was me, always has been, always was me who fucked it up. I was reminded of when I was leaving, going back home, and she kissed me hard and I promised to be hers until the bruises faded.

And even though it was just a couple little marks, there was still a genuine sense of loss when they were gone.

Neglect

So I've been neglecting this blog, but this is for several reasons. School's back in session, and lately I've also found it harder and harder to get drunk. Sometimes the company we keep makes things difficult. I spent yesterday drowning myself in rum, and while I had an amusing moment this morning where I couldn't remember what I did for a few minutes, it all came back to me. Almost a fifth of rum will do that to a man. I broke my flask too, busted the weld on it.

There's really not that much to say right now. Maybe I'll be drunk and wordy later.

Sorry. I wonder how much of life we spend being apologetic.

These nachos were simultaneously a great and terrible idea.

A few weeks spent living, spending, living and spending far beyond my means but being something close to happy, a few days doing nothing I regret in Nashville, eating antelope in a whiskey blackberry sauce, sucking down cuba libres like there was no tomorrow, listening to music, spending time with friends I don't see enough, sitting on a riverboat, letting Tennessee wash my worries away.

Then back home again, long enough to touch base, before I was off again to the nation's capital, to Washington DC and an old friend I just met. Four days of letting myself ride the bitterness, of nostalgia and adventure, of finally getting down to living, being who I want to be, having all that pressure to be interesting but realizing that the best plan was just being myself, letting the self confidence my lovers gave me show through, being nice and dangerous, unapologetic.

A selection from my journal, the day I landed: "The life of the summer dead had begun to weigh heavy on me, and all this uncertainty has left me wanting more. I'm excited, exhilarated, accelerated, need need need to do something go somewhere be someone, I need to kiss every girl I love, need to be needed, want every love to be returned equally, exactly."

All this time spent regretting everything and nothing, all those things undone, words unsaid, all those things I can never say or do now, because it's too late, always has been.

I've resolved to be more, I've decided I am tired of being cut down, and the only thing standing between what I want and me is myself.

I really am relieved that she was like an old friend I just met, reminding me so much of her best friend, who when I saw her again that day all those years ago, it was like she never left, like all the years never happened.

Scribbled this on the plane:
Finally heading home
With some brand new tales
Got the sun at my back
The wind in my sails
I'd grown too old in my wandering days
Maybe it's not too late to change my ways

DC was an adventure, days of adventure, a nonstop whirlwind of expectations and danger and mystery, of realizing once again that I'd made a mistake, that I'd fallen a little bit in love with another forbidden fruit, recognizing that it wasn't because of who she knew but who she is, and how twisted the former would have been. I always leave a little bit of myself behind, wondering if you worry about me.

Kelly you were right, and you weren't the first to see it, everybody I've been close to has seen the sadness, the result of getting my heart shattered as you put it, telling me I needed to find a girl who won't leave or be left. It's because it's always been the same, I've always been irresistibly attracted to the same kind of person, because I am always leaving or being left. You're a wise girl, and I hope it is not another eight years before I see you again. Come to think of it, there are so many wise girls I have not seen in years, and I wish that weren't so. With few exceptions, I am closest to those who are furthest away.

As much as I try to hide it, the sadness, the bitterness, it's always the same, I get quiet, I look off into space, and you know something's wrong, I'm somewhere else now. Before then, after, those long spaces of quietness, I look at you and I smile and I really and truly enjoy you. She thought I was so deadpan but the truth is there is so much love, and I always try to hold on, never let go.

I long to lose myself again in the lips and embraces of my lovers. Always trying to light that fire. And here I am, swearing I won't go, wishing I could stay, anything to keep from moving on, from falling to the wayside, trying to remain first in your heart.

I'm realizing how far we've come since we were thirteen, how much has changed, how much we've grown up, how much we have changed, how much this place was meant for living and then for moving out, how much we needed our wising up, our growing up, our growing apart.

So here I am, leaving, being left, another day to cut me down, thinking maybe my heart is giving up on all this abuse. I miss you all. I always have. I always will. And I've never really blamed you. I'm always dreaming that you could be mine, and I could be yours, and really mean it.

I've seen the cruel and hard, and I've seen them hard on you

Another few days spent out of stasis, living in the half-life of the Tuscaloosa summer dead, another few days spent drinking and sleeping on the floor and trying not to let the night get to me. I'm not drunk right now but I am hungover so let's let this still count, ok? I've been hungover for days, waking up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, the last vestiges of a truly intense nightmare fleeing my memory, and all I can think of is I wish you were here, because maybe I'd sleep better with somebody to hold.

Another couple of nights spent making promises I can't keep, can't remember to remember to keep, even simple things out of reach. Trying to drink and occupy my time and try not to worry too much, erasing my memory with Irish Car Bombs and waking up on the floor again, another morning after with the sun streaming in the windows and wondering how I made it home alive again.

I'm ready, finally ready, I think, take a deep breath and jump in with both feet, to be you and me. Lately I've been thinking a lot about these things and how cute those kids are together and how love gets into our lives and messes us up, how we were regular people once, with regular people dreams and then those changed to be a big house, sixteen cats, enough room for everything we ever wanted. I've been thinking of being that right blend of nice and dangerous, and I started again because you can't be too perfect, you need something to disapprove of, because people need fixing. These past few days I've spent sitting in a half-empty apartment, trying not to succumb to the fear, staring into space and knowing I'm wasting all my time but unable to stop.

And so all I can do is talk about it, I guess.

Time for a drunk story. Yesterday, I was very hungover when michael decided it might be a good idea to pour everclear on an open candle. Well you know that scene in Joe Dirt when the oil-covered guy pees on a fire? The flame shoots up his pee stream and immolates him. Well, it was basically like that. The fire shot up the alcohol stream into the bottle, where it turned the fumes inside into a fireball, shooting burning everclear out of the bottle all over the floor and walls. We watched the burning puddles for a good couple of seconds before michael realized that he was on fire and began to furiously pat it all out. I got up and walked into the kitchen, got a glass of water, sighed, and poured it on the fire like this was an everyday occurrence.

Maybe it should be, it was definitely one of the more interesting things I've seen all year. At least these sorts of problems have actual solutions.

If I'm not the only one, I at least want to feel like I am. I'd try my best to do the same.

DIIIIIIIIIIIICKS

So last night was my birthday. Actually 2 nights ago was my birthday, when we went to celebrate it at midnight. The great thing about that is, you get drunk, you go to sleep, you wake up, and it's still your birthday. I can't really remember too much about my birthday except that I woke up and tasted jager and cigarettes. I didn't even have jager.

I didn't have a sense of balance today. That was pretty great, especially the part where I beefed it in the hallway outside my room and lay on the floor for a while. It's been an interesting couple of days. Apparently last night I ninja kicked open the door to the Downtown Pub and yelled DIIIIIICKS just in time for like 9 people to see me. I don't really remember any of this. I do remember talking to Dr. Eby about life, the future, and how much I appreciate his son. I remember paying too much for crappy Dr. Peppers. I kind of remember the 40 oz margarita. I remember the fine people who were present.

All in all, even though I didn't die, I think it was a good birthday. Even if I think it was the very moment I became old, where I wondered if 2 in the afternoon was too early to start drinking.

No Country For Bad Movies

So let's talk about something else for a change. Today was interesting, spent it with Ashley and Drew getting melted at the zoo, then drinking a bit and smoking hookah with them and the wujciks, where we tried to figure out some new names for matt and I's apartment. I'm feeling good about The Abattoir, he likes The League of Bad Decisions.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about No Country For Old Men. Maybe this is dated, but I think by now most people have seen the movie. Anyway, so it won Best Picture a couple years ago, but why? The movie is utter shit. If you've seen it, and enjoyed it, watch it again. This time, try to justify logically everything in the movie. If you still don't see a problem, ask yourself this simple question: Why didn't Llewelyn leave the state?

Maybe he did leave the state. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. That's okay. Why didn't he leave the country? This is the single biggest hole in the movie. Why didn't he leave? Let's think about it.

1. He found over 2 million dollars. This is a lot of money. This is important in a second.
2. He dragged it out of the hands of a dying guy, surrounded by more corpses. This was his first sign that this money was fucking trouble, and this is important too.
3. He sent his wife away, realizing that the money was trouble, and that they were in terrible danger.
4. Despite this, he STAYS in the state. We're coming back to the money now. He has 2 million dollars in stolen money. It is in CASH. He has a truck. It would be a simple matter to buy a plane ticket, or just hop in his truck, and leave. As far as he knows, nobody knows he himself has the money (and beyond that, at first, nobody DOES know). Therefore, nobody could track HIM. If he left, that would be that.
5. It's not like he had a lot keeping him around. He lived in a trailer. He sent his wife away. He knew people were looking for the money.
6. Hell, why didn't he even take it out of the bag?
7. The hitman tracked the money not with some fancy gps device, but a thing that beeper more the closer he got. With this electronic version of "hot and cold," there was literally no way the dude could have found him if he did something as simple as not driving just ten miles down the highway and sitting in a hotel for three days.

Here's the thing. The first thing any rational person would have done after finding the money is count it. Hide it. Maybe put it in a different damn bag. Then skip town. Especially if you had a crappy life in a trailer. Especially if you KNEW the money was dangerous enough to send your wife away. Therefore we can only conclude that the main character was, in fact, mentally retarded. In this case, the whole movie is a case of "look what happens to people who totally have it coming" and is a wankfest over the hitman character, who is a "badass" despite doing things that make absolutely no goddamn sense for no reason. The coin flip game? What? Why? What did that establish? That he's a sociopath? That's cool, we knew that already cause he kills people for money. And what did Tommy Lee Jones even do? If I remember right all he did was find the guy who found the money at the very end, dead in his hotel room, and say "oh well that bitch totally deserved it" and then eat a donut.

No Country For Old Men blows.

When anything that's anything becomes nothing, that's everything

It's been an eventful couple of days I guess. Where to start, since the last time I wrote? I've been bombing out my future. I don't know where I'm going anymore, and it's just a horrible feeling, being powerless. It's awful, wanting to do something, and not being able to, knowing that you were the one who messed it up. I didn't work hard enough, as ever. It was Nathalie who said, girls like to be pursued, and she teased me, for refusing to play the game. It's that way for everything in my life I guess. Post-graduate studies, girls, whatever. Anything, everything.

I'm not quite drunk. I guess just enough to appreciate my waking hangover. Guess I shouldn't have been hitting the sauce so hard earlier today. I've already thrown up, a few minutes of vomiting straight acid and beer behind a Steak-Out dumpster. I guess the easiest way to recount the days is to start with today and work backwards. Today we went on an adventure. Actually, it started that way and quickly progressed as we got lost, so I had to upgrade it to an Odyssey. Anyway we finally reached our Ithaca; the Cahaba River, a languid and memoryless body of water, perfect for a day of drinking. Inner tubes, beer, fireworks combined to make a decent fourth of july, better than last year at least, which I will recount as my requisite drunk story soon. But the Cahaba was treacherous, and I got pretty damn cut up. Also swallowed some disgusting river water. I'm not proud of what I did. Ups of the trip: the absolutely awesome dogs the owners had, the rope swing over the water, an inner tube holding an assload of beer.

Before I forget: the fourth of july story from last year. Montgomery has an annual fourth of july fireworks display and we thought it would be fun to go to it, so me and trevor and meghan and grace decided to grill up some burgers, drink a bit, and go see em. It started out well until I got to grace's dad's house and, seeing that nobody was there yet except for her, decided to get started. Bad idea. A bottle of peppermint schnapps, three hours of puking and a couple of adorable kittens playing in my shoes later, I stumbled out of the bathroom and asked if I missed the fireworks. Guess I didn't, since it was barely 8 o'clock. I somehow crammed an entire night of drinking and puking into about three hours. Oh well, it happens. There's a picture of me cross-legged and passed out in the bathroom on trevor's phone somewhere.

What else? Not much. Beyond the drinking, and the powerlessness, I've been spending some time with some pretty girls and some cool dudes. There's been a really nice cat hanging around the apartment at 3 in the morning. I've spent a couple days just lying around in bed. I've spent a week doing nothing I regret. I love it. I'd almost forgotten about responsibilities, about life. Not that I would have done anything about it. I guess I'm just that way. I need to figure out what's going on with my life.

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.