10/01/2005 - 4:44 p.m. | i'm so down you could call it a syndrome

Morning, guys. Yeah, it's 3, but it's morning somewhere. Mourning somewhere.

I hesitate to call last night a success. We didn't do anything particularly interesting, didn't go anywhere, see anyone new... but I was so buried in substances that this was all practically acceptable to me.

Lord, this is the second night I went out, and I still need to summarize the first, plus last Saturday, plus some other stuff I wrote in between. Fuck my time consuming hobby.

Of course, I'm secretly worried that I won't consider any night a success until I manage to meet an attractive young lady, charm and astound her, and bring her back to my lair, where I'll stick my dong in her, etc., and lord knows we won't be having any "successful nights" for a long, long, long, long time.

The night got off to a slow start (then a slow middle, then a slow end, but I digress) with me taking a nap for like three hours. I stumbled down to watch Holes for 45 minutes, showered, and then got supplies for the evening. It gradually dawned on me that I had not eaten anything throughout the day, so I made some more pasta. It is sad when my cooking is only facilitated to keep my drunk ass unhospitalized.

Also, everyone loves to piss my ass off. We were at County Market, and I convinced Kyle to get the little pint flask of Ole Grand Dad whiskey bourbon hell whatever. He did, but then everyone comes home and tells him how brilliant he is.

So, I went up to my room to pregame (yell songs, find someone to talk to on AIM, more fucking Freecell). I called Missy and made it a point to be remarkably civil. We have not talked for a while, and I did not want to make the same mistake as last time - even if I am still really confused about how I feel regarding her kissing incident. How do I know she just won't get drunk and kiss some guy every time she's pissed at me, which, I must add, is quite often? Lord, I love how my stupid little life somehow manages to be confusing.

And when I came downstairs, I was very, very drunk. And just as equally happy, which was startling. I sat in a bin in the bathroom for a while (on Shelly's tampons) and then went back upstairs to try and coerce H. Michelle into joining our evening. Sure, she's probably not interested, but she's probably not drunk normally either! This was the same logic I applied when contacting her: Not something I'd normally do, but then, not normally do I just want to fucking hug everybody.

I'm not sure the timeline I have is exactly right, but we stick with it to avoid major mistakes. I was hurtling through the C/T continuum, you know.

Anyway, in my little schedule of drunken events, it was about time for my bike ride, so I rode over to H. Michelle's place for ... any number of unsubstantiated reasons I can't seem to put my finger on. Try and convince her to join our hell evening, make her feel better about some boy problem she has (that I�m being told of her boy problems while barely knowing her is a good sign that she thinks of me as another one of her gay friends), lord knows what else was lurking in my sinister brain. She came to the door, though, and did not invite me in, which made me feel like a very bad, untrustworthy person, so I got the fuck out as soon as was socially acceptable. Still, the chemicals were still far outranking the emo, so I rode back no-handed in fairly good spirits.

Our plans for the evening were so, so mediocre that if I could have seceded and formed a new partying faction, I would have. But, as you know, I have no balls and no sway over what happens in my social circle, so there I�ll be, jovial and bored! We were going to far west downtown Champaign (like, by the Housing Authority � on foot!) to see the half-okay band of some guy our three GE�s sort of vaguely know. Oh, glorious. Glorious! I was happy now, but clearly this was not going to be enough to get us through the evening.

Luckily, as I may have mentioned, Smacko found some very good, very expensive pot from somebody and � if he�s drunk enough � he will probably offer some to me. This was the final key to the chemical puzzle. All five of us (Shelly, Kyle, Spritz, Smacko, me) sitting around in Smacko�s bathroom � the two of us passing the pipe, the other three hotboxing like motherfuckers. It was good stuff. Perhaps a little too good. If I recall, I said something along the lines of, �The room is spinning, but it�s OK because we�re friends!� Pause. �Like the show, �Friends!�� Confused laughter all around. I started a tally of the number of foul foreign substances in my system and came up with seven (six if you actually looked at how many fingers I held up � lord).

Six substances, huh? Yeah, finally about ready to call Julie then! Another grand plan, Nate. She was unavailable, but I did leave a voicemail, the contents of which do sort of elude me. I hope I was speaking in tongues by then.

We dispersed briefly for more drinks and to pee off Smacko�s balcony and someone threw some change down on me (Remind me to go grab that shortly) while I did a series of zombie dances, impressing passerby.

Certainly about here we were on our way to Champaign. I say this because I can remember little else of our time at home. Wait, scratch that. I walked inside to find Kyle wailing to Weezer, Shelly walked inside to find me and Kyle wailing to Weezer, Smacko walked inside� until we were all dancing around with the doors open, screaming songs that remind me so much of freshman year, leaping around like idiots with the volume so high as to make songs unrecognizable. It was pretty great.

OK, now we were on our way to Champaign. We walked. Lord, why would we ever walk? But we did. And, well, I was still plenty gone at this point, so we proceeded in our little army, Shelly prodding me to sing one 90�s song after another. Sad that, considering my condition, I was still the only one who could start most of that shit from memory. And NO ONE knew fucking WHITE TOWN. WHAT THE FUCK!

Also, we had a pretty great encounter, wherein some dude made fun of us for singing, calling us gay. Kyle yelled back something to the effect of, �Oh, that�s right. I forgot how everyone in this town is fucking horrible!� but far less eloquent even than that, as he was very drunk and stumbling on his words. It was impressive nonetheless.

What a long fucking walk. And what a mediocre fucking reward for getting there. Pay three bucks to see some snoozer of a jam band (that was redundant). Luckily, Gautum paid (indirectly), and Kyle had smuggled in his flask of Evan Williams, which I downed most of. Another bad sign, when Evan is tasting only moderately foul. The setup was fairly nice, which those cool fiery heat lamps and lots of people in fake mustaches (was the girl one even alluring? oh, it�s too tough to tell!), but I was so not in the mood. Shelly yelled for them to play more songs, trying to support her friend, and I wanted to strangle her. �What! Why!�

It ended, but then, so had my buzz for the rest of the evening. See, I�ve got a theory about that. Those six things in my body were like six different people pulling on a rubber band � eventually it�s going to slip and immediately snap back to original form (or break completely apart, but we�ve been lucky so far!). So all of a sudden I�m pretty down � not depressed and certainly not feeling it, but it was far more mellow and not hiding the fact that the evening had sucked balls.

Because we knew the band (sort of), we felt we were allowed on-stage. Shelly and I sneaked past this fence into some crazy back alley, trying to find something of note. Shelly tried doors (awfully mischievous of her!) until she found this huge fucking cold storage room filled with all these different kegs and bottles of beer and shit). She guarded while I grabbed something, and then we both ran to grab Smacko. I pulled him aside and then led him to the door. �I am planting the seed of sin,� I said and pulled the door open. �I have to go.� Strangely, he ran straight for the same product as I did � this crazy ale from Belgium, GULDEN DRAAK � but he loaded up on some other shit, all of which later turned out to be very nasty and very, very strong. Twice the alcohol content of your normal beer, all tasting of luncheon meats and darkness.

Incidentally, I wore Wrangler jeans to seem more like a gay cowboy, and two people (girls even!) noted how good I smelled over the course of the evening. Of course, that could imply that I am lacking in asthetics, but I can deal with that. Nearly.

We�d done about all we could, though, so I think the plan was to take off, me, Shelly, and Smacko. We all had to pee, though, and everything was closed or charging cover, so we ended up right back where we started. Smacko and I could not take the waiting, so we peed at the offices of The News-Gazette (Some lady yelled at him from somewhere, �Could you find another place to do that?!�) and then managed to take a crazy looping bus that took us straight home.

Still, it was early, and we were uninspired. We had thoughts to go bother Allison, but supposedly her half-boyfriend all annoyance Mike was in town. We went anyway. Smacko finally alluded to feelings he may have for her, so now I am dedicated to this mission in the fullest. (Kyle is as well apparently. He phoned Allison sometime during his stumblings home. �Is Mike there?� �Yes.� �Are you on speakerphone?� �No.� �Mike�s a fucking douche.� Good old Kyle � what ham-fisted attempt won�t he make to get one of his friends laid?) Anyway, we pounded in and sat there for a while until it was obvious that Mike was there, at which point we ran out. I can�t put my finger on it, but he�s a shithead, and I was just in the process of saying so when he popped out the door to ask me sometime. Excellent time there, Jesus. He�d asked me how I was (I was sort of surprised he remembered me, but I guess it is good gameplay to identify the greatest threats to one�s solidarity� me and Smacko?????) and Allison had been bitching him out about being a dick. Yes, he sort of asked the question like a dick, but I did not want to get involved. We carried on to Jimmy John�s, which I did not want, and then to the gas station, which I also did not want. Smacko kept chanting that I should deep throat my ice cream bar while he himself downed handfuls of beef jerky crumbs from the little chaw case he bought. He stopped to comment on how utterly appealing we were, which I thought was a riot.

Another evening alone and sleepless. At least I wasn�t Dank, though. The rest of our party, having missed the bus (OH!) walked over to Dank�s place and proceeded to annoy him for the next lord knows how many hours. If I felt confident enough to drive, I would have rescued them (and him), but I sort of collapsed in misery after a while. I am such � an alienated youth.

Pbbbt.