03/13/2004 - 9:36 a.m. | you wear each as a badge of honor

Hello, friends, fiends, everybody. Let's recap, shall we? Thursday night, we watched Spun, which I coerced Shelly into renting because it's like Requiem on meth, baby! I could totally write those little one-liner reviews they put on movie boxes. I've started playing this new game where I take the last place I was at on IMDB and make links until I get the thing I want to look up. I went from "Boy Meets World" to Spun in about six clicks. I rule possibly. It had a lot of actors I like in it - Brittany Murphy, Jason Schwartzman, etc. - but it was not all that great, although it certainly might sell you on meth. Stay up for two weeks straight, you say? Then I stayed up with some screwdrivers and watched Kyle and Michelle stumble through their work once again and have pretty much the dumbest argument ever.

I didn't have to cross the guard on Friday because the little kids had a day off for some reason (so did all the UIUC engineers... not that I am implying anything), so it was a nice, slow stumble of a day. Had a nice tan, watched more than a few hours of the "Kim Possible" marathon, waited for fucking forever at Wendy's (I mean, launder all the money you want, guys, but you've go to keep up the front, you know?). We watched this movie, L.I.E. (3 moves), which was artful to the extreme. And I don't think it pulled it off well. At least Brian Cox was interesting, and Kyle and Spritz were of course fascinated by the gay pedophelia. OK, I was, too.

It was actually sort of boring there for a while, but somehow I managed to convince Spritz that I was in dire need of a bota bag (wineskin), so we drove out to Wal-mart. $5, man. And apparently holds an entire bottle of wine. And it's pretty cool to keep one hidden on your person, but you shouldn't do that, of course. No. Anyway, in return for our little side adventure, I played Spritz in stupid "Killer Instinct" for a while. I have no idea why he would want to play with me, as he can beat the computer on the hardest setting in one try. I am no computer on hardest setting. I am not even a monkey with a controller glued to his ass. Then again, computers can't moan and whine about how stupid the game is, so maybe that's what gets him off.

So, by some amazing stroke of luck, it looks like I'm able to get out of working tonight. This guy (Ricky... *cough*) asked if anyone wanted to switch our Saturday night IMPE shift for a Sunday night Freer shift. Um, hell yes, I would, so I called immediately. Of course, as you might suspect, I'm sort of a moron and am actually working for some of that shift at IMPE at the same time. Best solution so far would seem to be that I hire Kyle out to fill in for me at Freer for a while. I am so corrupt.

Since we had some time before we would be fashionably late to the parties we would be attending, Spritz and I went to Cowboy Monkey (yes, still a stupid name) to see the band of the girl in my lab, Shakin' Babies. What a weird townie, emo scene. I had no idea what to expect of the band, what with the name and all the guys being dressed up in drag and all the girls in like goth suits or whatever, but they were actually really, really good and cute. They took forever to set up, of course, but apparently they bought the first 50 PBR's for everybody. TYVM. Pabst Blue Ribbon for all. Anyway, besides the usual instruments, they had a keyboard and a clarinet, which Spritz and I assumed were going to suck, but they actually added a lot to their sound. The girl from my lab plays the drums, and she was all weird and bubbly and I would say fairly good at it. They had just a little bit of a They Might Be Giants vibe, but yeah... too bad they started so late 'cause we had to scoot. Maybe I can get a CD or something, though.

We picked up Spritz's friend Tuling (dry hands, which apparently makes a very big impression on me) and headed back to the apartment so as to walk to the first party, some aerospace nerd thing or something. Actually, at first, we thought it was at the place where we returned the monkey suit, so we kept screaming about that. Gotta love these so-called "manic" periods because then I'll just start talking about anything (e.g. "Ghostwriter" soundtrack) while slapping on some shitty cologne. Spritz and I didn't really know anybody at the party (well, Jess Senning.......), and Tuling ran off to try and get with some moron in what I believe was a brown Umbro shirt (hello, mid-90's), so Spritz and I stood out on the porch by the alcohol and tried not to freeze. Boone's Farm tastes amazingly like strawberry soda. No wonder the hobos love it. Spritz and I mostly giggled about our outcast status, and he occasionally would point to somebody and indentify where their clothes were from. I pointed to this one guy, though, and he had no idea, so we asked. He mumbled something about being from Greece and asked in broken English for a beer. I could barely contain my amusement (and my cries of "OPA!!") until he got back inside. Later, while Spritz went to pee for like the third time, I sat on the couch and listened as the Greek tried to hit on the psychology girl next to me, who kept rubbing her ass against me, which I would consider a mixed signal, at the very least for him. She ended up talking to some Jewish kid, though, and that just seemed weird in my mind. And, of course, pretty much any time we are in a social situation such as this, Spritz and I dance together and sing really loudly, which always garners... well, hatred. More importantly, Spritz talked to the guy who lived there and offered to buy his Super Scope 6 (for the SNES) for $20. Well, $10 in my mind, but ignore my mind. We talked to this one girl Spritz knew from hacking, and we all took turns being loud and trying to get the group of cool dudes lost in their conversation to notice us by saying offensive things. Just that sort of people.

I dunno - for whatever reason, I got a really good vibe off of that party, so Spritz and I were pretty happy in our march to Niket's. Thinking back, I was rather buzzed. Always so much better than being shitfaced. Minus booze breath, which I fear like the devil. Whom I fear very much, see. Anyway, Niket's party was really fun, too. I got in my little spacing off time, and Spritz and I danced a lot, which makes me happy, because then everyone thinks we are superfags - and therefore approachable. For some reason, they had like a five song playlist, one of which was Tom Jones' "Sexbomb," which is so much fun to sing along with. I dunno - acting just a little assinie, doing my little weird, like, 20's dances for brief intervals... it was just fun. And, of course, making fun of people a lot a lot a lot. The little symbol they drew on my hand to signify that I had paid (which, in fact, I had not done) looks like the campus rec logo next to a swastika. Somehow, that seems fitting.

Finally, things are going the way they probably should. I always feel so cruel just approaching girls and smashing my crotch into their rear ends, so this was happily the first time a girl has ever done it to me. I'm pretty sure she (she being Sarah or Sara perhaps) couldn't tell if I was straight or not at first, but she was cute and tiny and not drunk out of her mind (speaking of which, Katie the Drunkoloid was there as well, and yes, she was hammered), and we danced a lot and talked some and some sort of weird conga formed around us. Life of the party, that's me. Spritz threatened to beat me up if I didn't ask for her number, and although no one will ever believe me, I was really gonna anyway. But yes, somehow this worked. I tricked her. Then again, she had a tough time "remembering" her number, so maybe she was just trying to come up with a realistic-looking fake. The whole thing reminded me of a quote from "Boy Meets World," which I guess wouldn't surprise you:

Cory: A girl wrote seven numbers on my hand. What could this possibly mean?
Shawn: It means, call her.
Cory: Shawn, how could I call her when I don't even have her - aaaahh.

'cause, all in all, it was a good night... We had a nice little shiraz/cabernet walk home. We peed on opposite sides of a truck, facing each other. And honestly, I will not lose at gay chicken. Not because I am, in fact, gay, but I am apparently very comfortable and uncaring, which just gets weirder and weirder. We stopped for water, collapsed on the porch, which was very nice, and I flopped on my bed soon after. I had a brilliant plan not to fall asleep before I brushed my teeth and stuff: I would just jingle a bunch of coins in my hand to stay awake. It seems at some point in the evening, I whipped these coins at the wall and crashed.

Up at 9:30 to meet Shelly and her parents for her breakfast/judgement. So like six hours at Perkins. I think we all did pretty well. I am, of course, less topically inclined, but I have my charms, and Mr. Wetzler said I should be a comedian or something. That's right - I can turn it on if I so choose. Of course, we can't entirely avoid our taboos, and somehow the subject of household bombs came up. Oopsie. Did you know I like omelets? I had no idea.

Kyle took me to the post office to get screwed up the butt on package delivery and to pick up my final Avril. 35 posters, 12 on the wall. Not bad, my friend. Not bad at all. Spritz really wanted me to play Nintendo, so I insisted upon Mortal Kombat, the great equalizer... because it's so shitty and random. And indeed it was. And yet, I am still bad at it. But I shouldn't focus on my faults; I should be positive about my gifts. Like the, uh, love. I have other things to do now. OK, that's a lie.