06/08/2004 - 1:35 a.m. | there had to be an altercation

We never take anything as an omen, because that would be silly, but in between Friday and Saturday, I had a dream that I got shot. Actually, it was part of a recurring series of dreams loosely based on the film Paycheck starring Ben Affleck, except with more black and Mexican people and no Ben Affleck and actually having no connection to the movie at all. Anyway, I was reliving a scenario from this imaginary spin-off that we had already successfully made it through in a past dream, but I kept noticing subtle changes, and all of a sudden, you know, shot in the tummy. It didn't really hurt so bad, and of course I didn't actually die because I don't think you are allowed to die in dreams because otherwise you would die in real life. That's what Nightmare on Elm Street has led me to believe.

If you're looking for a brief summary, here is it: Blah, blah, work, work, stumble, stumble, work, work, stumble. If you're not up for anything longer, stop right here, friend, because we gots work to do. So. This weekend was how I think most weekends should be for college students. Actually, I sort of think it should be how most days are for college students, but I don't think they could survive the test, you know? Let's rewind to the beginning, though, hmm? Prospects for Friday were looking pretty dim, what with Spritz and Jen engrossed in a jigsaw puzzle (aw, wtf) and Kyle off sleeping or playing Infantry or whatever it is exactly that he does with his time. Lisa called a truce, though, and asked if I wanted to come over and do nothing (Here, I am briefly reminded of something unrelated but unpleasant, which I will resume blocking from my consciousness... now). I stuck heavily to the plan, which I think made her nervous, but I really do like having someone I can around be without worrying about conversation. So, what's the point of that, you ask? The point is... we watched Better Off Dead. It's debatable whether Cusack was cuter when younger; moreso whether this was a good movie or not. Common sense says not, but it has so many great moments that it makes even me, Mr. Confident, doubt myself. I dunno what else I did for the evening - talked to the nymphos or stuck my finger up my butt or whatever. It's unimportant. I barely lurched out of bed in time the next day, but the point is that I did, and Dank and I made it to fucking Soul Plane on time. We were seriously hoping we'd be the only ones in the theatre, but apparently there are others with such low standards. Anyway, it was about everything we could hope for. What an awful, awful movie. But, like, you start to worry, you know? I've been working in the candy store, and a lot of obnoxious black people come in, right, but you think - you hope, really - that it's just a bunch of bad eggs or something, that there are plenty of nice black people not yelling and being assholes to everybody around them. And then you see this movie where everyone is so loud and self-centered and mean, and you worry, is this how it really is? Because now I am seeing it both in film and in real life, and it's starting to worry me. This can't be the norm. I have to just be in the wrong environment 'cause, for instance, if I only met white guys from fucking KAMS and the frats, I would have a bad impression there, too, so! Prove me wrong everybody, OK? Arbys, tan, work - that's things. I shouldn't have been late, but the one train to ever cross the diagonal tracks on University set the schedule purposely to fuck me up, I'm sure. Candy store was all well and good - Jane was there and no doubt wondered why I was wearing a tie again. It's all a part of my star player thing - I even suggested that we move the candy racks to clean under them. I'm hilarious. You could probably say I'm a brown noser except I'm all sarcastic and mean. Chikondi was exhausted, and I really do think two people are extraneous there, so I told her she could sleep in the back for a while :P Seriously, I think part of being a good employee is being just enough of a bad employee. And the sound of falling M&M's gives me nightmares. I always think it's little shit kids spilling them all over the floor. Goosebumps. READER BEWARE YOU'RE IN FOR A SCARE. Anyway, thanks to a super tag team of her mopping very poorly and me flying through the books so fast that the numbers should have been wrong (but weren't!), we got out in record time.

Ladies, watch out:

Shoutin Whispers: Hey, I'll give you a dollar if you do something for me.
Shoutin Whispers: It's sort of a challenge though.
mrk r azy11: Well, try me
Shoutin Whispers: Ask a girl out to coffee - any girl.
Shoutin Whispers: Then when she's drinking, ask her, "Do you know what goes well with coffee?"
Shoutin Whispers: And she'll go, "What?"
Shoutin Whispers: And you say, "Cock," and then you CAN'T smile for at least 3 minutes.

I'm already making plans. Well, just the one there... and those for my interview at HOT TOPIC!!! Yeah, got the call today, and now I have three days to learn how to make realistic-looking clip-on piercings. Dank says the one for my clit is most important of all, causing an entirely new set of problems. I know, I should probably get a better hobby than faking job interviews, but I really, really like this one. And, of course, it's all training me for me to become a better character actor. I'm really excited about the backwards preparation for this one. I'll wear a mix of black and brightly-colored clothing with all of my Avril accessories, draw on a tattoo or something maybe, and who knows? Maybe this will finally push me over the edge so's I get that navel piercing! I don't care how gay that is; I want one! And maybe a little nose stud. What is wrong with me, dear?

I got home, all Shins'd up and ready to party, which was actually gonna happen for once. Shelly was in town with Waterloo friends Whitney and Susan (Incidentally, guys, if you need me to... hmmm... edit anything out, you just let me know, OK?), and we were all gonna head over to ... OK, I dunno what that was that we went to. Or who even hosted it. That's what I love, guys. That is what I love. I went to so many strange places that I did not belong in. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. While everyone else started gettin' their game on, Kyle and I rode over to Dank's to borrow some of Yousaf's Gem Clear 190 Proof Grain Alcohol (a.k.a. "Gem Cleaner" by Shelly & Co., a.k.a. "Mem Clear" by Kyle - you can probably all guess why) and stayed to talk for a while. Dank is definitely in my top 5 favorite people :D although Morbid Curiosity makes me wonder what he'd be like smashed, so I do wish he'd come along with us sometimes. When we got back, the drunkenness was already in high gear. Good old alcohol just doesn't do it for me, so why go through the stupid physical effects with none of the mental ones? I sippied little - it seems only fitting for my primary role as recorder / half-assed caregiver. Besides, at least one of the six of us should have a complete timeline of the evening, right? Everyone only remembers to take pictures at the start of the evening when people are still all happy and coherent; I think we need more towards the end, with the drunken misery and rage and puking and all. A more complete picture, if you will. I assume Shelly will have some stuff posted soon (two weeks, tops).

As always, most of the evening was spent on trying to locate and/or keep together the members of our party, preventing unauthorized PDA when possible. Firstly, there was an almost immediate pairing off. I mean, obviously Kyle and Shelly were to be merged, and Spritz and Whitney are both Slytherins, so that's pretty well explained. Poor Susan, however. I dunno, man. All weekend I couldn't decide if she just hated my fucking guts. I mean, she's very sarcastic - and that is a superb quality for a person to have, an EXCELLENT one even, especially if they don't talk about it all the damn time and put it in their damn HotOrNot profile or whatever ("Oh my God, guys! I'm soooooo sarcastic and witty! And great at B.S.ing!!" Fucking jakdshfjlkahdlfj), which she didn't, so great - and maybe I was slow on the uptake or whatever, but I could not get a clear vibe, so I tried to take her taps and high fives at face value. I'm friendly, if not always the smartest stone in the bucket. And I make up fake idioms.

We skipped our way to the party, talking to passersby as one only can in this sort of state. Kyle would get down on one knee occasionally to chug some more of his whatever. Shelly found this so amusing that she fell over, which is not such a great idea in a skirt. The party... probably wasn't very good, but I knew enough people that it seemed fun, and everyone else was far too out there to even think about caring. After I yelled at a sufficient number of people about who were wearing clothes from the Buckle, we all started spreading apart, to places and things I am not entirely sure I should speculate about. But, what fun is that, right? Kyle and Shelly were mostly out in the urine-soaked grass ("dew"-soaked!), I think, although they never bothered to tell us that. She would occasionally emerge to rub asses with me or to playfully grab boobs back and forth with Susan. Spritz was like some sort of homing missile, rotating about and hitting on usually whatever passed by. Whitney mostly sat alone and deflected Spritz and other missiles like him, which I thought was sort of funny. "Grunt, I am guy you vaguely know from Springfield." "Interesting, now die." When she looked sad, I would come over and say hello, but what the fuck do I know? I'm just glad we went through this thirty minute process to try and hear her ring tone; otherwise, she might still be off in Wisconsin. Susan got involved in this game of Tippy Cups; I was her cheerleader. Her opponent and eventual life partner for the evening was Scott/Steve/Dan/Mike/OtherRandomGuy'sName. Actually, I know that his name was Scott; it was a lot funnier that she couldn't seem to remember. Anyway, as her sort of last line of common sense, I led her (and Scott, in which became a common element of the evening) inside. And that was when the Erotic Dice came into play. Actually, pardon - Erotic Die. We just had the one with verbs on it - we didn't know what we were supposed to be kiss/hug/suck/lick-ing. Anyway, it was all pretty hilarious - I think I may have been licked, but then "Scott" made his move, and it was all over for our little Susan. She was deep in the throes of love... OK, not love, obviously. And actually, I sort of hesitate to call it "lust" even because any time she caught my eye, she gave me this pathetic sort of freaked out "help-me-what-am-I-doing-with-this-fellow" look. Although I was hoping it was from his double chin and the half-unbuttoned shirt, the embarrassment might mostly have been the fact I gave her a shocked little tee-hee look every time I saw her looking. I am a supportive friend. Since she was busy stumbling out of bathrooms and broom closets for the rest of the night ("10 more minutes!"), I changed gears. For whatever reason, as soon as I came in, this redhead introduced herself to me, and then throughout the night, I would quiz her. "Hey, Kelly! Who am I?" Yeah, her answers got less accurate with time, and by the time I made it to her, conversation besides, "More keg" seemed beyond her grasp. Four of us locked ourselves in the bathroom, and I made the very stupid decision to point out the can of Equate shaving cream by the tub. No, I'm not the one who fucks up your apartment; I am the enabler of those who do. Cream of the crop. Elliott showed up later - joy - with Frankie - JOY!! - who has totally grown into a man. Like, he was always cute, but now he's turning hot. I didn't get to talk to him long, but hopefully he can take a break from Baker's Square to visit sometime this summer! I want to see girls hit on him, please. He said I reminded him of New York with my vintage t-shirt and tight jeans. Then my mission is accomplished. Add a few more points to the Hipster scale, you dodgy fuck.

I know, you guys trying to find out about your lost evening are probably disappointed, but I really didn't see too much of you. Whitney seemed distant. Spritz was smoking, talking to this girl in a Stanford t-shirt (not from Stanford, though, huh?!) who reminded me of a cartoon caricature of an Asian person, and getting chased down by people for calling then fags. Kyle burst onto the dance floor in an explosion of amazing (Imagine "Sweet Home Alabama" blaring while Kyle is alone in the center of the room, knees slightly bent, arms up in triumph, occasionally mashing them forward in sort of a butterfly press dance, yelling, "ONLY DRUNK GUY ON THE DANCE FLOOR ONLY DRUNK GUY ON THE DANCE FLOOR!" And then he falls). Shelly handed out friendly kisses to the world. Susan losing the argument between hormones and her brain. And everybody had a good time, except for the livers.

It seemed like we were there an awful long time, but the bars weren't even closed by the time we started heading out. For those of you who tell time by means other than that of the opening and closing times of the bars, this is roughly before 2 am. It took quite a while to gather up everybody up for the trip home - the hostess was starting to clean up and hide valuable things that she did not want stolen by Kyle on his way out (He already had tried to grab a handle of Bacardi from the freezer). Five of us made it out - Me, Spritz, Whitney, Susan, and "Scott." Yes, you just think about what I said. He's coming along. We sort of figured Kyle and Shelly had already left, so we took off without them. There was a bathroom break at IHOP with me and "Scott" outside alone. Yeah, that's not odd. "So, guess you'll be following us for the rest of the evening, huh?" "I'm from the Ukraine!" "So that's why your last name is lacking in vowels!" I do have this unfortunate habit of remembering all the answers to those little bullshit questions you ask whenever you drunkenly meet someone. "Hey, your name is Katrina, and you are a Sports Manager major!" Hey - hold on: Is it Ukraine or the Ukraine? Because I like the latter a ton better, and I'm going to keep saying it either way. So shut up. We made it to around the MATSE building when a unique combination of me calling her a whore and a phone call from some other Nathan made Whitney run off into the night with Susan and "Scott" close behind. Now, don't listen to Whitney - a very small percentage of the decision was based on the "whore" thing, I'm sure. I guess that really offended her at the time, but you've got to look at me as a person. I am one of the most non-threatening, cautious, polite people in the world - the guy every girl means when she says she wants a sensitive man. However, I am going to swear at you all the time, and you can't take that seriously - because I'm certainly not. I think I might have called my mom a whore once. So deal. Anyway, I stood thinking about it for a moment and then stayed with Spritz, who was collapsed on the sidewalk in one of the worst states I have seen him in. We don't need him arrested. So what if the girls had no idea where they were, and they were with this weird stalker guy who was just clinging to us? Gotta stay loyal. Accent clicks on. "Walk straight," I said. Cops were everywhere.

Either Kyle or Shelly finally called back (I know, not answering the phone during a passionate lovemaking session is romantic, but it does make things a little hard on everyone else), and we planned on meeting them at Jimmy John's in a few. As we started walking back towards Campustowne ("Grate," I said, pointing to a sewer... I thought it was funny), we got summoned by this chick standing outside Green Street Towers - Justin's former home, Jen's future - who asked if we wanted to go up for a keg. "Fuck beer," we said, "But we'll still go up anyway!" Curiouser and curiouser. I just think it's so odd to end up in these places. Anyway, the party was lame and emptying out, but we started chatting up the two remaining girls and this guy who I thought looked like Eddie Prinze, Jr. We managed to convince them that I was indeed from Scotland, and I played with an awesome bike bell / compass that I would have taken had it not been so securely fastened down. We didn't stay long and rode down in the crowded elevator that Spritz had peed in only moments before. "Watch the puddle," I said. No one seemed to care. We met the Wonder Twins, got samiches, and ate them in front of the Alma Mater. It seemed way too early for me, and we were missing 2 - no, 3 - of our party, so we started trying to find Susan and Whitney. Accent clicks off. Like I said, glad I had Whitney's number, or the search would have been a lot harder. Even still, it took a long time to get a clear answer as to where they were. Off to Fourth and Springfield, and I was awfully happy that I have these three particular friends and roommates and for once, actually told them so. We're just a good little group, and I wish we went on more adventures like that. Shelly dropped Kyle's sandwich on the ground and was all sad that she had to switch with him. "I think I heard the ham flop," she said. Then, in an almost-obsessive move to show off her skivvies, she tried to climb a fence, but we led her off in a safer direction.

Even upon arriving at Fourth and Springfield, there were a lot of places they could still be hiding, so it was a lucky thing that they spotted us and called down from some balcony. Then a very claustrophobic search through the hallways of this apartment building to try and actually find where they were coming from. I know, I should stop saying it, but the little details are just so weird in my mind, and I fucking love them! There was a big construction sign on the ground, but someone had altered it to say "ROAD HEAD," and you just wonder, "Who does that?! Where the hell am I?!" So! We finally meet up with Susan and "Scott," and they take us up to what I guess is this other Nathan's apartment, and none of us know anybody who lives there at all now. Actually, scratch that - I think Spritz knew the girl from physics. But! They were watching that documentary about kids' spelling bees, I think, and Shelly had to poop, and Susan put on a helmet and was bashing her head on each of the bars both up and down the metal spiral staircase, and Whitney was in some room with the door shut, so the rest of us went out to the balcony to look down on Springfield from the third floor. What an eerie feeling. We hassle Whitney through the outside windows enough that I guess she is convinced to come out. A couple more bathroom breaks, another attempt by Kyle to steal some shit (This time a can of peas belonging to one of these strangers), and finally we were a complete six again. Er - seven. There's a funny testament to how I isolate myself, isn't it? We started off in pairs, and this stranger was actually added to the group so that I might become the proverbial third wheel once again. Where am I going with this? Ah, yes - Self-Pity Land.

If Kyle's fingerprints are now on police file, I have a good idea why. Briefly separated again ("Fuck!" - Spritz and Whitney took the stairs instead of the elevator, and then while we waited for them, Kyle and Shelly got bored and ran off to the parking garage), Kyle all of a sudden runs back and starts repeating to me, "OK, so it wasn't me that did it, but you have to come see this." Turns out someone broke into a car (with Spiderman seat covers!) down in the garage - smashed the window and everything. So, we're looking, and Genius decides he might as well check for a score himself and starts feeling up everything in the car. Fuck. Now Big Brother is surely onto us.

We make the trek home, and I am mostly pensive as is typically the case at these times, but as we get closer, we start to discuss what's going down with this "Scott" character. Surely he does not think he will be staying with us tonight, does he? Bastard'll steal our VCR, he will! He follows Susan all the way to our door, and then they start to say their goodbyes (And I quote: "Slurp, slurp") while the rest of us head upstairs. Wonder Twins to bed, Slytherins to the roof (Funniest look ever, by the way), and I to the VH1, spacing at music videos and thinking about whether or not I'm a failure as a man. Decided it's a draw 'cause I don't care too much. Susan comes up, and everyone starts getting ready for bed - we brush our teeth, and I laugh because she is a disgusting monster getting toothpaste all over herself. And also I am repeatedly kicking her in the ass. Why am I so forcibly reminded of Quasimodo?

Well, that's the one day. Moving on to the second! While everyone else ran out to lunch, I had to get ready for work because I am such a responsible human bean. Today was my first day training Jennifer, Plain and Tall. You'd think she'd at least not be timid then, but nope - she was. Whisper, "I'm in the army." OH. Fine, I'll just ramble on about me and the dumb things I do here if you aren't going to answer my questions to my satisfaction. I am gradually learning how to make conversation. It sucks, and I hate it, but I guess it is a more necessary skill - unlike, say, tarot cards or being nice. It's also funny because Jane apparently told her, "Just do everything like Nate does, and you'll be fine" so I giggle as I'm teaching how to cheat on cleaning the bin lids ('cause she was slow as fuck) and showing her the stupid games I invented and giving her samples of whatever. Oops. Yousaf also said that I look like a manager - just not the respectable kind. I think I could agree to that, at least. I strive to achieve Shawn levels of coolness. I just hope I'm not trying too hard. And right now I could really go for some coffee - fresh (or at least as close as we can get around here), black, and one of those shitty flavored kinds is preferable.

I got off of work just in time to meet everybody leaving for McDonald's. Goody. Did somebody say stomach pump? Just let me sing, and I don't care if you don't like it. I am still noting a conflicting image from the new, healthier Mickey D's. Yes, there is the adult Happy Meal with the salad and water and pedometer, but there is also the six foot high sign that says "SUPER SIZE ME" in giant letters with this huge picture of a pile of salty, greasy fries. Some choice, fellows. Kyle and Spritz had, uh, practice (I am going to make them letterman jackets for Infantry, I think) while the rest of us sat in the living room watching, dunno, "Cops" and doing each other's hair. Shelly attempted to draw me, and though it isn't quite there, it's the closest thing I've seen. Needs more ugly, says I. Later, the four of us went to see Harry Potter. I was less distracted by the plot holes this time around, although Shelly pointed out a huge one at the very beginning. All other things besides, it definitely is the best so far. Afterwards, Susan confessed that heaven is an El Camino, and we hit up Baskin-Robbins for some ice cream. I promptly knocked the scoop off of my cone - another success for the Walsh clan! I like to think they're keeping a tally somewhere. "So, what are we going to do for the rest of the night?" they ask. I'd hate to say it, but famous last words.

The drinking started off very slow, in part due to Kyle and I running out to actually get some stuff to mix with. And like 12 boxes of Tic Tacs. We were going to go for tacos, but apparently I pointed out a little too loudly that the black people were having a party in the parking lot, and Kyle got scared and fled. Actually, things seemed to be easy going for quite a long time (except for Shelly's incessant, loud burping to get herself psyched), really, but I guess the genius of Gem Clear is how it sneaks up on you. We were listening to Maroon 5 over muted TV, and the next minute were all up and dancing and being total asshats. OK, even I am a little fuzzy here - we took some pictures (Again, see Shelly's) and were jumping about or making more drinks or whatever when someone came pounding on the door. Mature adults that we are, we all took off running in separate directions and hid ourselves in various bedrooms and closests. I guess someone did eventually come out to answer the door; turns out it for once it was a pissed off upstairs neighbor. Doesn't entirely make sense, but we tried to pipe down... for about ten minutes. Then, as testament to the fact that even the simplest tasks take forever when drowning your sorrows, I tried to get the internet to work for Susan and practically started crying. My problem skills were sub-primate, I do believe. Meanwhile, Shelly in a wise move to wear a) the shortest shorts ever and b) no underwear, we pretty much flashing her vag to everyone in sight. Although she declined to comment, she was later heard - hell, not just heard, recorded - claiming, "I can take four fingers." Onlookers were aghast.

For quite a while there, I was totally getting an art school vibe from the whole situation, so I decided to do the proper thing and get out the video camera. You know, affluent teenagers wasting their lives and talking about nothing. Grainy picture, low light. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Although the most pretentious thing to do would be to leave it untitled, it seems fitting to call it "The Scorpion Bowl," as it was the focal point of the piece. Checking on the empties in the kitchen, last night's mix would appear to have contained triple sec, blue curaco, peppermint schnapps, extra dry gin, amaretto, and raspberry vodka, as well as a great deal of tequila to make it truly awful. As for flavor, it was roughly somewhere around hell and forced Kyle to ask, "Where did the grape come from? We didn't have any grape." I fell in love with the little star formation their heads made each time they bent down to drink, Kyle and Spritz screaming at them to choke down more. Conversation was pretty much nonstop, but even upon reviewing the footage I'm not sure I could describe it for you. But it is an important lesson about how one can function in society: If everyone always talked, no matter what - if they always just said something to which another person said something back, no matter how silly or pointless - life would be nonstop excitement. Speaking of nonstop, the bowl never seemed to end, and no matter how long they sucked or how many times they dipped back down, the level shrank no lower. It took them over an hour (with a break) for them to get all the way through. This was still at the happy point of the evening. "HOLES UNITE" was the rallying toast of the girls. Finally, feminism is where it should be.

The scorpion bowl is a game in the very loosest sense of the term. You try to drink more than everybody without really having any sure idea whatsoever. It is in this way that everyone both wins and loses every single time. Anyhow, it seems that Shelly pissed off the wrong deity, because when she started repeatedly claiming that she had won the scorpion bowl, It decided that she would have to taste the fresh fruit burst twice as many times as everybody. And she's like me - she's not one to try and fight the vomit. We understand that it is the natural course of things that we retch our guts out, and I can say with certainty that she was almost looking forward to this outcome. And thus began the hours long Puke-a-thon, which I guess is still not quite over because she blew chowder again in between sno cones at work this afternoon. Single locations and containers will hold neither me nor my vomit! Whitney kind of floated around for a while before passing out in a stupor. Spritz did much the same, ending up far worse for wear, I think. Susan, however, is an amazing little trooper, so she seemed reasonably good for the whole of evening - or, as good as one who continues taking pulls of Beefeater is ever going to be. When Whitney was in here with us, the three of us started playing this absolutely stupid game called Cuddle Party where we just hugged and rolled all over each other for a few minutes. It made God damn sense at the time, all right? Then we took a peek out the window just in time to see Spritz out the other side, puking all down the roof (Interesting side note: If you take a look right now, you can actually tell that he had eaten sun-dried tomatoes that evening). There was about the half-second of sympathy ("Eh - sucks for him") before our attention turned to the hula hoop half-sticking out of my closet. Again, the complexity of removing it from the closet was far beyond us, but we did eventually wrench it free and headed out at 3, 4, whenever to give it a shot. She was no great shakes, but it turns out that my One True Gift continues to function no matter how trashed I may be. Without even thinking about it, I could drop to my knees and even run without the hula hoop even losing a spin. Shut up, I can be proud of this. We heard some people coming, and we thought, "What the fuck other sort of weirdo would be out here right now?" so we quickly tried hiding behind pillars, cartoon-style. Then, having quickly decided on one another's fake names (I was Ryan, she was Sharon), we ran after them, me still hooping just to fuck with their heads a little. Two guys: One was named Maxwell and seemed determined only to say the word "maxim" over and over again as he rode in circles around us on his smallish bike. The other was Joseph - he had a flashlight for no clear reason and a shirt that said "XXL" on it in purple, and I'm not sure what else. I asked him about his technicolor dreamcoat, and he scoffed. They probably could have killed us, but I think we charmed and/or scared them just enough that they didn't stay for too long.

After a brief stop inside to see how everyone else was doing in their misery (Shelly now sobbing into a trash can - If I didn't know that she did that every time she drank, I would be a little less boisterously amused), Susan and I made our way over to the gas stations in a difficult search for pepperoni pizza Combos. OK, I didn't want those chemical-ridden fucks, but it didn't seem the time to let anyone go anywhere alone. We made very slow progress and then we accidentally tracked mud all over the freshly-mopped floor at the Amoco. I was very apologetic to Tony (whose name I was sure was Ben the last I saw him); I even volunteered to remop it, having acquired some decent experience myself. "Nope," he says. "It doesn't matter when I mop it... Midnight, 5 o'clock, 3:30... Someone always comes in to walk on it." Again, another beaten man. I can't let this happen to me. When we got back and started microwaving the salsa con queso for the chips we bought (apparently someone has the same drunken cravings as I do), it energized Whitney and the long-absent Kyle long enough to get them to collapse on the gross kitchen floor with us. Ah, the lure of fake plastic cheese. We ate for a long, long time, occasionally sending someone into the bathroom to check on Shelly. When she had successfully vomited out most of her major organs, we all began to get ready for bed. The task of trying to make the video camera play sound so that we could watch the evening's efforts was far beyond me, so Susan, Whitney, and I all collapsed on my bed for their good 4 hours of rest. Apparently it took them all of two days to realize that I am the safest, most nonthreatening motherfucker in the world. Either that or they were just that drunk and desperate not to sleep on a couch or chair of the floor. We had one more round of Cuddle Party before sleep, and it broke my stupid watch. Letter for you now, Fossil.

I guess they got up on their own and made it home all right and everything, and all before any of us had awoken, I'm sure. Y'all come back now, y'hear? I've been working on this pretty much all day long, my epic. Spritz and I went out for our usual hangover tacos and then sat around watching so, so much VH1. Perfect station, that. My weapon of choice for today was very stupid, stupid quotes from Beyonce in the ad for their "Rock Bodies" special premiering tonight. "Oh, lord - it's booty time, it's booty time." "Get it tight, get it right!" I'm glad he hates her as much as I do. Dank and I tried playing a game for a while, and I ate whatever I could reach, which isn't a lot but I'm still functional, right? I am just very, very glad that I did not have work today. OK, guys! Finally done! Love ya!