04/25/2004 - 4:38 p.m. | you know, i'm movin' ever closer to it

What did I promise? Yeah, what'd I promise, huh? That's right, with my academic career sliding down the toilet like so many messy poops, here I am still, writing for you about what you have no doubt already heard about my life. Unless you're my parents. In which case, get ready for a shock!

Friday was the normal ball of too much work it has grown to be. Crossed the guard and then immediately to the Buckle to sit and wait for Shawn to come and open the gates. He's been a little late before, but 20 minutes had passed, and I was starting to get a little worried (despite everything else I've qualmed, whenever someone is atypically late, I always immediately assume "car accident"), so I did the only thing I could. I took 50 cents, and I popped it in the mechanical cat I was sitting sideways on. Mr. Nate's Wild Ride. While this was happening, a group of old men walked by (the mall powerwalkers, right?) and one of them yells, "Better get ahold of that pussy, son, or you'll be sent packing!!" Because it's like a vagina, see. Hmph. Anyway, turns out that Shawn actually made it in before me and was waiting inside the whole time (damn Dismemberment Plan in the car!), so I just looked like I was grievously late. He said he had to report me to the Buckle home offices. :P

It was a ridiculously slow day for us. After counting, recounting, counting together, and counting again the money in the register, it was back to the crazy organizational tasks I love so much. Sometimes I take huge rounders of shirts and organize them by color, so that it becomes this smooth flow that all the ladies seem to love. Or I made that up. We carry the G-Unit clothing line at our store, right, so I'm working on something when Shawn comes over wearing this simply massive black short-sleeved shirt (down to his knees and past his elbows) with "G-Unit" written on it in Old English and asks, "What do you think?" I swear, I fell over from laughing so hard. Later, I started making a wall of girl's outfits, which I think blew Abercrombie Reject's mind. Despite having started all of a week before her, she's like, "You can do that? You're an expert!" Yes. Go find me some necklaces. But, apparently, she has the charm (or the tenacity - or the lack of shame... take your pick) to actually work a full shift, because they sent me home. Fine by me. You'll miss my organizational skills someday, though.

Keep in mind that I almost surely did something Friday afternoon. I merely do not recall what. Probably picked my butt in time to music, for all I know. After I crossed the guard, I remember, because the, uh, good Disney Channel cartoons start then. And some amount of time was absorbed making another construction paper aminal (squeed! er - octopus!), and I like to think I did more than watch gross videos on Stile, but I have a bad feeling about that.

There has - had - been something on my mind lately, and it was really tearing me up inside, but now that it's been all over and confronted, it hardly seems like it could have been a problem at all. I just don't like secrets, I think. Spritz and I made the wise decision to go out to eat at a "real" restaurant at 7 pm on a Friday night. We started at Applebee's, ran forward and backward through the loop of places, and went back to Applebee's. Their little habit of using cutesy pop culture names to announce when a table is ready is sort of disconcerting. I mean, when I hear "Bluto," I never think, "Time for me to eat... because I am Bluto!" Eh - that didn't go anywhere. We made a game plan, and I made unnoticed passes at the prudish Asian girl sitting a few tables away. She had a Kristen Weberish like quality to her, or as Kyle says, "A lady on the street, and a freak in the bed!" We waited for Kyle and Michelle to get back while I pooped out everything I had just eaten and started construction on a lemur. The lemur is just a little weird, though. Like, it's still sort of cute, but nobody has any idea what it is. "Is it a monkey raccoon?" I don't know if it belongs on the Wall of Cuteness. Avril wouldn't mind him, though. We all had a talk on the roof, and even though it didn't feel like we said anything (and also even though I had to miss Man on Fire, which turned out to be a shitfest supreme!), I feel tons better than I did. I'm totally at peace now.

The most noticeable side effect of my medication is that alcohol never has really had an effect on me. OK, no doubt, physical effects do remain (Blech! There goes Dank's homework!), but through it all, I've always been really clear-headed and coherent. Inhibition remains intact. BORING. But, like the saying goes, God never closes a door without opening a window, and the window for me turns out to be cough syrup. Well, more specifically, dextromethorphan (DXM). Yes! Like the rapper, but dyslexic! Anyway, I know, certainly doesn't sound safe, but I never jump into these things half-assed. I read through nearly the entirety of this huge, meticulous FAQ (except the details of the chemistry stuff, which I wouldn't understand anyway) and decided that if I weren't a moron about it, this could be a lot better for me than drinking. I mean, yes, in huge quantaties, this stuff can do nasty things to you, but that can be said of almost everything (po-ta-toes), and I've always had quite a lot of self-control. It's not addicting,and I will never do this more than a few times a month. Compared to drinking, it's cheaper, I don't have to imbibe something nasty (comes in pill form now!), I've experienced no bad or unexpected side or after effects, and it actually works. This is not rationalization; I'm just explaining why I decided this was worth my time, even if it is a little strange of me.

OK, with that out of the way, let's carry on. We decided that we all definitely wanted to do something, so while Spritz used his connections to the best of his means, I decided to make this drink I'd read about in the old Booze News (yes, here on campus, there is a newspaper devoted entirely to drinking). It sounded like a nasty combination of stuff - a shot each of vodka, gin, rum, triple sec, and blue curacao along with some Sprite - but the description said it went down easy. Yeah, easy like horse pills. Possibly the worst thing ever - the various ingredients didn't cancel each other out; they just stacked onto the pile of ass. When in doubt, just go even more college, though, so we poured it into a mixing bowl with some iced tea and fruit juice concentrate and had ourselves a scorpion bowl. In case you've never had the pleasure, my dears, a scorpion bowl is just this big vat of leftover shit you mix together. Everyone gets a straw and you all try to suck it down as fast as you can. Appropriately named, as it is like being stung in the face with poison several dozen times. Having already determined that I would trip the lights fantastic rather than drink (and also knowing that they'd never let me out of it), I did some fairly excellent faking and pretended like I was going at it myself. Four college kids sucking down this disgusting brownish fluid out of a mixing bowl on the kitchen floor. And you doubt that life is a comedy.

That done, we took a bus ride across campus with the sole purpose of trying some of Gautum's sake. Everyone was being a total wuss about it ("Let's mix it with Pepsi!" Aw, what the fuck?!) until I tried a sip and pointed out it was just like really bad wine (a territory I am familiar with). That done, we headed back to Michelle's for some of Spritz's trickery (and because Shelly had to be all girl on us - "We can't go out unless an appropriate percentage of my boobs are showing!" Yes, ma'am!). That damn "Champagne of Beers" just keeps popping up in our lives, possibly because you are all gross fucks, but that's just a theory. Elliott and a Bash joined our party for a while, which was just off, but they didn't stay long. Back to our building to visit Rahul in what should have been our apartment this year, to sit and learn about an actual real party we needed to go to. While everyone else got ready (guess what this is code for!), I began what soon became my schtick for the evening; that is, telling everyone that I was going on a psychadelic adventure through time. "Hello, Grover Cleveland!" I cried. "Don't worry about not winning that second election! You'll be the only president with 2 nonconsecutive terms, which means people will actually remember you!" "But what about efforts in tax reform?!" Sorry, dude. And later, when Kyle started chasing a bunny, which he is apt to do, drunk or sober, I joined in, yelling, "I can see your every move before it happens, rabbit! Just give up now!" Also, unlike a certain everyone else, I don't get winded from five minutes of running. Along the way, we ran into what I can only describe as a second degree Hasidic Jew. He was really sweet. Rabbi Cute, Kyle says. He asked us if we'd seen his friend (we hadn't) and then ran up later to tell us that some guy appeared to be breaking into a house and asked if he could use a phone. Turns out the theoretical thief was just some guy trying to stealthily drop off some gifts for his girlfriend, which is also adorable. Urbana is so much better than Champaign.

Oh, good. It is almost 1. Just as I had feared.

It could be because the 'XM (my street name for it!) started kicking in at last, but I thought it was a fairly awesome party when we got there. I'm not sure even who was throwing it - I sort of assumed music students, because I thought I kept seeing shirts with the word "trombone" on them - but nearly every person Shelly knows on campus showed up. I spoke with a lisp with some more than others. :| I didn't go inside at first, instead opting to talk with Priscilla, this weirdly aggressive little Chinese girl with some glowsticks. I don't know if your idea of flirting is calling me gay and/or a wuss, but it's only funny when I do it. This remains true of most things. My new favorite thing to do during a lull in the conversation is to talk about women's jeans. "So, what do you have on there? Oh... Hmmm... I think you would totally love the Silver Brazils. Low rise, boot cut, button fly. You should totally come in for a fitting!" My stock continues to rise!! There was another girl who was trying to hate me, but I don't think she entirely could because I was trying so darn hard :P If I had to wager a guess why, though, it would have to be that I pointed (well, started yelling and waving my arms) when I noticed that the little glowstick that she had had in her mouth and then dropped on the gross gravel somehow ended up back in her mouth five minutes later. The truth must be told. Or it is more fun for me when it is.

I headed inside, and I must tell you, the music was simply amazing. They had a pretty cool DJ, who would occasionally sneak in stuff like the Backstreet Boys' "Everybody," and I was definitely "feelin' this" by that point. I started dancing, hardly of my own volition, hardly even with other people. Swimming in it is more like it. Seriously, though, as I continue to mention, things are so much happier now that they are out in the open. Kyle even dances now! Occasionally, the floors would look a little trippy, but I think that only added to the excitement. We were having a discussion on The Eye earlier, and sometimes I do sense It from girls who are drunk enough to not notice all that could be called flawed on my person, but I have this unwholesome urge to respond with The People's Eyebrow. And that could only lead to The People's Elbow (a.k.a. "disaster"). Or a punch in the vagina during a keg stand. Seriously, though, I've always had bad feelings. I don't like where anything could lead. Ever. Instead, I like to play this fun little game. So, I dance alone, right? OK, so this girl will look interested, so I will head over in her general direction, she in mine. We will dance within a foot of each other all night. I will never say a word, only occasionally laughing at how cool I am. If she makes the first move, it's all over. I'll talk, dance with her, whatever. But, they never do. They keep waiting for me, and I never will, and eventually some other gross guy sucks them in, and I laugh and laugh, and occasionally get close enough to the girl and this new gross-o and kind of lead her away for a while, just because I can. The cycle repeats. I am a tease, and you all deserve it. I also oh-so-stealthily stole a sign. "NO SEX ANYWHERE" Photocopy, place everywhere, enjoy.

After the oddly awkward "American Pie" parody about beer and "Closing Time" (with shouts in the background, "GET THE FUCK OUT! OUT!!!"), we were back on the streets, and I had too much energy. I wanted to dance more, to talk to people, something. I'm not sure - everything just seemed so happy and picturesque. Kyle, Michelle, and I were sitting just outside Shelly's parking garage, and the yellow light and the shadows made everything look amazing, and I was trying to establish some solid "third wheel" rules, because I am very businesslike. We went inside for a moment. Imran was there and Shelly's roommates, and I followed the conversation... and... didn't follow the conversation at the same time. Such is dissociation. It's like I have this little Nate robot that I'm controlling, but the real me is inside of that seeing what mischief I get myself into. Sort of. We walked home, and the three of us all crashed sideways on my bed in the fetal position, and I remembered why they are my best friends, and I was pretty happy about it.

Woke up the next day with lots of time to spare for work, and it turns out they shafted me again. OK! Enough of that now! How am I supposed to sell your jeans if you don't bring me in to sell your jeans! Still, it was good in several ways. First, I had been afraid I was going to miss the Shakin' Babies EP release show, and that does just not sit well with me. Second, Lisa had been hassling me to come to the Ebertfest with her and Matt to see what looked like an awesome documentary about pet cemeteries (I almost spelled it like that damn Stephen King novel) and now I could actually go - even if I couldn't shower. Unfortunately, with the rain and the line and the lack of parking, we kind of got shafted on that. Instead, we were gonna go and get something to eat. Matt and I were pretty much starving, but Lisa, our little vegetarian potatohead, was being awfully picky, so it took us about an hour to find a place. "I dunno, guys... pretty expensive for a Chinese buffet..." AIEEEE! Finally, we went to Chili's. I missed Matt a lot. He was drinking his soda in the smallest sips possible. I was like, "Uh, you know refills are free, right?" at which point he more or less just started pouring them down his throat, on his face, etc. And it's nice to be with people who are bigger music snobs than me, just as a little reminder. I can't even read Pitchfork anymore. Oh - and Lisa and I had our big arm wrestling match. I creamed her. HA! Take that, women's lib!

I am going to do a covert documentary on LARPing, hopefully this Memorial Day weekend. All assuming I ever do start writing this research paper in the back of my mind.

On the ride back, we listened to WEFT, the public radio station Lis and I were on-again, off-again gonna do a show for. If you are in the area, you should totally listen to the Old Timer's Country Jamboree from 5 - 8 pretty much everyday (90.1 FM). It's just this crazy, cute old guy who calls himself the Old Timer and plays this really hardcore old school bluegrass stuff on these old scratchy tapes and records and has enough catchphrases to turn his show into a decent drinking game. One for every "by golly," one for "and everything like that," three for the latter twice in the space of 30 seconds or less. But yeah, cute old bluegrass music is really fun! They sang songs about sassafras, for God's sake! Now there's a genre people can respect.

The night started early. Out to get my, er, fix and shower, then Spritz and I picked up Dank, and we went to Nargile (the hookah bar!) to go hear the Shakin' Babies. I checked the calendar like three times and called Yousaf once we got there just to make sure it did actually say they were supposed to start at 8. The place was absolutely dead. The instruments weren't even set up. After some deliberation, we walked to the slowest Thai place ever, which I guess was fortunate because we got back to Nargile at nearly 10, and they still hadn't started yet. Spritz and Dank got food, and I would have tried the Thai dessert of the day, but they hate whitey, I guess. The chick who used to work at the Vietnamese place is there now, but she's getting a little beer-sluttish, and the texture of the tummy really does haunt my dreams at night. Curds and whey. All along, I thought I was being fairly smooth. I was wrong. So it goes. And the worms are screwed whenever it rains. I ran to the bathroom and someone wrote, "Ahhh, suck my big fat dick!" on the wall. Intrigued, I decided to see what other gems were written on the stalls. Most were pretty standard, but I was impressed with whoever took the time to carve "FART CUM" next to them while they shat. Once again, we really didn't have all that much time to stick around and listen to the Babies, but they were so awesome and cute that next time I'm going to make it a point to stay for all of it. I e-mailed the girl in my class to bring an EP because they weren't giving them out 'til the end. Hope I get one! But yeah, dancin' and the fat guitar player who we all thought died coked up in the bathroom and the one guy with the gay vest who thought I was insulting him. Life is very, very good.

Came back to sit here and trip for a while, listenin' to my little country songs and all. I called Andrea, and she called me, and eventually Kyle, Shelly, and I ran out to grab her at the IUB because it was raining, and who wants to go through that? She was shy for a little while, mostly because we impose a pretty horrifying picture, screaming our Old 97's at the top of lungs. We came back here for a bit, which is incredibly embarrassing for the three of us (at least I think) because our apartment is an utter shitheap, especially to the uninitiated. It's like all the closets and shit just vomit out garbage. While everyone else pregamed a bit (and Kyle ate old canned beef), I think Andrea tried to cope with the fact that her new friend Nate has some weird, girly crap in his room. Then we started doodling a little, which evolved into this very important contest where we decided to see who of all of us could draw the best cat. I think we were all winners and meant to take the sheet along with us to the party for some more liberal judging, but God knows how it slipped my mind, hmm? We had some time before the bus came, so Kyle, Shelly, Andrea, and I ran out to Kyle's car to wail some Sister Hazel. Andie (my sneaky plan is to eventually call her Andie) started to understand after a while and joined in without qualms this time. How many other college students do that, huh? None of the cool ones, I bet!

It was raining on and off, so things weren't quite as miserable as they could have been. Took the bus to Triangle (the nerd frat!), and I guess the infamous Red Hot Valentines were playing, but I was less than pleased that they were doing so, because they were kind of awful, I thought. No scream, please. Dance dance. Speaking of which, once the dance music started (and everyone had fallen ass backwards into enough "SWAMPWATER" - what a gross name for the jungle juice substitute), you could totally tell these people were engineers. One really tall guy was hilariously spastic and serious about himself as a dancer, and that's about as good of a combination as one can get. Yes! More back shoulder spins! Please! For all my whining and excuses and otherwise, though, it was really nice to have somebody to dance with. Everyone else was sort of paired off, so I was glad I didn't have to be a third wheel this time. It gets a little sad, doesn't it? Also, honestly, the... er... natural reactions of dancing are embarrassing enough when it's someone who likes you. I can't imagine how girls deal with it. Andie no doubt thinks that I am sort of a spaz myself, but if you're going to do all right in this world, you can only take yourself about 50% seriously and then go nuts with the other half. Then people won't know where you're coming from!! We started having this sort of contest with this other couple about who could go lower, but nobody can fuck with my perch. Then I started doing this crazy spider dance down there, and I'm sure everyone's respect was won. "What a bizarre primate freak!!" Anyway, I had a lot of fun! It actually was a pretty lousy party, and my buzz was fading, but I had someone interesting to talk to and make fun of people with and fall asleep against. There was Low Boobs and Shirtless Formerly Ripped Guy With Bizarre Slight Beer Belly and The Guy Who Would Come Up to Sleeping Couples and Yell "OKAAY!" Like Lil John And Then Ask For A High Five Like He'd Done a Good Job. I gave him one. One poor little Asian guy sat alone in his flannel shirt with his beer and looked so out of place. "What am I doing here? Where are the angles?" "There are no angles, man! Only drinking!" "The... derivative of drinking?" And, of course, God bless the drunk guy who kept coming up and begging us to make out. We never quite understood his reasons ("Come on! Just 10 seconds!"), and we sure as hell weren't going along with his wishes. Ooh - here's another good one: So, we were both really thirsty after dancing, so I asked the bar guy if I could have a glass of water. This is a lot harder to get than alcohol, I guess. Like, when we came into the party, the guy at the door was like, "Are you 21?" I was like, "Naw, man." He's like, "Well, you look it," and gave me the stupid tape marker. Anyway, I went up to the bar and asked for water. The guy's like, "Well, I shouldn't give it to you, but if you let me break a finger, I will." Since I can't seem to back down from any challenge like this (e.g. Gay Chicken), I laid out my pinkie for him. He grabbed an ice mallet and WHACK. Ouch. Least I got the damn water. Even if it did have 2 fish flakes in it. And joke's on him - I can still move the bastard!

Eric Sutton knows more about me than anyone else in the world.

We left the party around 3. Kyle and Shelly had supposedly left 10 minutes earlier, but they were still out dancing when we left. Then they took the bus while we walked (long way over Krannert, too), and we still ended up at the gas station minutes in front of them. Andie apparently has a hilarious taste for styrofoamy Hostess sugar buns or something, and while she was deciding, I noticed a guy in a wheelchair trying to get into the bathroom but having trouble keeping the door open and rolling in, so I held it for him. By the time Kyle and Shelly got there, they saw the bathroom door opening and closing wildly, with a hand occasionally jutting out. Kyle immediately assumed he was out for brains and left him to his own devices. We have different theories about the world, Kyle and I.

Turns out Andrea is the only other person around who will willingly play "Mortal Kombat," so we both mashed buttons for a while. Super Drunken Spritz stumbled out of his room and still managed to own us, all the time whining about his "Killer Instinct" skillz. We finally allowed him to play, which is more or less like watching paint dry (worse graphics) until he let us have our "Bubble Bobble." Damn that music is annoying. Even compared to Sean Paul, who has taken up recent lodging in my brain. Andie and I even tried to sing as we walked home to kill it, but he come out today - hungover and incoherent as always. We crashed on the couch together for a while, but I had to run off and pee, and there wasn't much room for both of us anyway. I would've invited her to sleep on the bed (No, not with me, shithouse!), but she didn't seem likely to rouse, so I grabbed her some blankets and crashed myself.

Now, so, so, so many hours later, and where am I? Well, at least this crazy diary entry is nearly done with. I woke Andrea up this morning, and she told me about how she and her friends came up with all these crazy car games. Like, most people know "Slug Bug" and junk, but they got awfully creative, to the point of exhaustion, some might say. "Grand Marquis, look at me!" "Pontiac Sundance, take off your pants." I started to make fun of her, like, pretty soon, you'd just do it for every car on the road, and she said, "Well, we did have 'truck fuck' and 'car dee har har.'" Oh, man. I drove her home, came back listening to some happy music, and I have been screwing myself over ever since. Been writing this forever, of course, but Hungover Spritz (Notice how I always name him like action figures?) and I got lunch and then watched at least 90 minutes of the Disney Channel. And now, with still 10 pages to write, work to still (theoretically) go to, and the very good chance that I will still end up at bingo, I guess I will end this here. Until, at least, I inevitably remember the 30 or so tiny details I forgot to mention and have to quickly edit in before you are the wiser.