11/02/2005 - 5:24 a.m. | now i'm certainly fucked

Eh, fuck, I decided it's just my life and eventual future, fuck it. Let's entry it up!

Since I can't seem to keep anything in chronological order for you guys anymore, here is a brief synopsis of where we are. Remember that bitchy entry a few back? About how I was supposed to go out with Hot Michelle, but Spritz was suddenly there, blah blah blah? Well, it turns out I did go after all. And you know what? I hate being right.

If there is one good thing about being paranoid, it's that so very often your fears prove groundless. Of course, in many cases, you never get brave enough to test this conjecture, but trust me. If you do go talk to that girl or ask that person for help or whatever, chances are that the vague awful things you think will happen probably will not. So, like I said, I hate being right.

So, Hot Michelle calls on Spritz's phone, and she tries to coerce me into coming, and I'm... well, if not actually happy to be in the blinding cave of the Seibel Center, at least somewhat content that I am getting some work done, taking the high road, whatever. But then she said something along the lines of, "Spritz said you would never come out, that you were just like that," and I guess something snapped inside. Not a big thing, really, but I guess battle lines were suddenly drawn. You can form any sort of conclusion about me, I don't care what, but I want you to be the one that forms it. If I don't show up for shit, Spritz will just start weaving his tales, about how I'm a flake and how I don't care about people and blah blah blah blah, and no one will ever understand my reasons or my side of the story, and fuck. Maybe I don't want my name besmirched, and maybe that means I have to face some fears.

So I go. And it was so much like I expected that I was actually surprised to be so right. The competition started at the moment of my arrival, and even if I didn't want to, I had to step up, if only to come out with my good name intact. Seriously, guys, you wouldn't believe it, but there was a major battle between Good and Evil right there in Firehaus even as your Sox faced the Whoever They Played.

And maybe I am being melodramatic. I am certainly no Paragon of Virtue, and Spritz is not entirely the twisted human being I so often present him as, but he does function inherently in lies just as I function inherently in truth. That is not to say that I don't distort the truth, that it is not shaped by my own perceptions and opinions, but when you are speaking to me, however I am, if I'm pissy or withdrawn or too loud or whatever, you can at least be assured that it is me, how I'm feeling focused through my personality.

The same cannot be said of Spritz, at least not around certain people. Every move he makes, everything he says and does, is carefully calculated to present a certain image, a certain character, usually in an attempt to charm or manipulate, and he's been switching and changing for so long that I start to worry that there is no person underneath, that it is just this amalgamation of all these parts gleaned from other sources, and that he can no longer find his way home (metaphorically, duh).

This worries me... and at the same time, really pisses me off, because here we are at the stupid bar around all these yelling cretins (who I just know wouldn't give a shit about the White Sox if they were in the World Series), and he keeps calling "seatbacks" with such quickness - as if the idea of me even sitting next to Hot Michelle is just impossible and repugnant, and he's stealing my jokes and my lighter, and he's telling lies, saying I was the one who fucked a fucking FunBop when I was the only one who did not. And when I try to defend myself, to argue for the Truth, he acts like I am the one lying, that I am crazy or drunk. Oh, he is smooth, my friends. So fucking smooth. He has to be. I'm just not normally tossed into the arena with him.

Oh - and let me quickly remind you that we are not actually competing at all. Hot Michelle does not like either of us "in that way," I have a girlfriend, he has two, there should be no problem. But somehow we are on the battlefield none the less, and as I get a little drunk (yay $3.50 glasses of wine), I start pulling game. Not in the standard sense, but I have my wit. I can make my little jokes or observations, say things off the cuff, and sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Spritz is more like a clever parrot, repeating bits of material at the appropriate times. And very many times it works, works well even. But he can't invent anything new, though, which is why people like Kyle and Smacko (and even sometimes me) can dominate him simply through force of real personality.

And yes, I am shitting on Spritz quite hard, and probably all of these same things could be spun around on me, but I was fucking pissed at him right then, and maybe somebody should finally speak up and say that everything is not all right with him, that he is a flim-flam man, caught up in a game - a game he probably hates but still forces himself to play because he doesn't know anything else - and I don't see that leading him anywhere happy ever. So, when you do read this, buddy, consider it your intervention. If you need to punch me in the face, give me a moment to remove my glasses. Thanks.

So, the casual observer in this conflict is one of H. Michelle's Asian friends, that fairly atrocious nerd named Steven or something. He likes soccer, I remember that... Uhhh... Actually, it was sort of cute, because in the middle of this stupid power struggle between me and my boy Spritz, James (or whatever) gave H. Michelle this back-handed comment about how pretty she was, and I was mentally like, "Aww! He deserves her most of all!" But he is ugly and boring, so maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, SOXS won the game, and tequila shots were narrowly averted. Then again, they were replaced by Goldschlager, the cinnamon-flavored, gold-flake-infested boozy hell that so righteously came forth onto Dank's homework so many years ago. On the plus side, it was not the least bit like candy this time around, so my fears that I make get gold fever (hurr hurr), buy a bottle, and start chugging were quickly assuaged. (Sausaged) In fact, downing the gallon bucket they claim is a shot was bad enough. I sat there in silence for several minutes, doing my best to control my body with the mantra "Cash money millionares DON'T PUKE" repeating in my head. I dumped some in my wine. This I do not recommend.

That foul task completed, we hit the streets briefly to see what the other goons were up to. Unfortunately, the police were quite in command of the situation. Guy climbs up on a pole, police yell, guy listens, climbs down. What the fuck? I started yelling, trying to remind people that we were in fact a mob, that there were many more of us than them and that therefore we could do what we pleased, but no one listened (or else everyone fears tear gas... pussies). Instead I gave high tens and yelled, "BASEBALL!!!" We saw Hillary on the way to Legends, and I had an odd compulsion to touch her nose. This I resisted, for I do not think she even knows I exist, let alone my nose-touching intentions.

There was more drinking. A lot more drinking. I had fear on tequila night, which might have kept me cautious (and therefore sober) in the long run, but this evening would not be like that. I had received $60 in cash from the stupid car place and was sure as fuck going to waste it all giving myself lesions of the liver. Brytne and "Junior" showed up. I do not know who this "Junior" is, but he looks like a shithead, so I don't trust him. This was quickly confirmed when he intimated I might have a small penis for being so cliched as to not support sports teams. Then again, he made the same joke earlier using a Simpsons reference, followed by a tiny penis joke for me, and those are about as cliched as things get. I should have told him this, but I was a little drunk, so mostly I just gave him a number in inches and tossed some more beer confetti in H. Michelle's hair. She was drunk and spiralling down quickly, but we had our brief moment of fun where we stormed some barcrawl's moshpit and danced to "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy." You stupid fucks.

The war between the Lord of Deceit and myself finally reached a head at some point here. Passive-aggressive and petty, I guess, I took Spritz's last cigarette out of the pack, snapped it, and tossed it on the floor. I have no good reasons for that. When he began to question and/or threaten me, I continued to feign innocence and/or confusion, somehow leading to an interesting non-sequitur. "You told her I fooled around with Angie Weiss!" "Her" being Hot Michelle, "Angie Weiss" being a butter troll from IMSA I used to specifically refer to as Viking. Have I gone over this before? I forget. Anyway, when I knew this girl, she was huge with red hair and freckles. Pretty much the worst any one person could be. Spritz said she has improved, but that remains to be seen, as I don't trust his taste in women, especially when he is almost surely justifying to himself the fact he got a BJ from her. Anyway, I gave the only response possible. "You did fool around with Angie Weiss" and somehow the matter was settled. By which I mean Hot Michelle was too drunk at this point and left, allowing Spritz to return to a semi-natural state. Thank God.

Missy always says to me, when I explain how I have to go out drinking, how I don't really have to do anything I don't want to, but she is not drinking buddies with this particular set of friends. I was happy finishing this one last nasty beer and heading home, but no. A round of lemon drops. Then another beer. Then another round of lemon drops. Most of this was on Brytne. I would refuse, and they would just order and put it in front of me anyway. And who am I to resist this foul liquid? Even if I try to push it away, they just slap my hand and shove the drink back towards me. Oh, who am I kidding, I love the pain as much as anything.

Anyway, with our reason for being there suddenly gone, Spritz and I were well ready to return home, but first there was the matter of a suddenly very drunk Brytne to contend with. Girl hasn't had sauce in a time, it seems, so she is 0 - 60 very fast, and we have to get her immobile ass home as quick as possible. This is not aided by the fact that she no longer remembers where she lives, and we have no idea ourselves. We do make it, though (with numerous calls to her roommate), and dump her unceremoniously on the floor as we try to get the fuck out. None of that for her, though! She wants Perkins, and as I am somehow deemed the responsible one in these sorts of situations (never mind that the room is doing somersaults for me as well), I am the one supposed to drive us there in her car. Nothing doing, I say, but she eventually scrawls a check for $20 and tosses it in my direction ("SEX" cleverly noted in the memo portion).

Well, there you go. In case you were wondering how much it takes for me to endanger the lives of myself, two others, and countless pedestrians and fellow travellers, you now have your answer. Twenty bucks. I am not a tough sell. It is still fifty bucks for a blowjob, however.

We made it, though, there and back, and the biggest accident I had was spilling a good portion of au jus on my fucking pants. I order the weirdest fucking things sometimes. I can't remember a word of what we said, but Brytne sobered up, thank God, and Spritz stole an entire cherry pie on our way out the door. After dropping her off, the two of us walked home, friends again (thankfully), and I collapsed up here, having dreams about water over and over - until a particularly vivid one about dying of thirst in the desert roused me and forced me into the bathroom for six or seven glasses. I was thankfully unhangover. A Christmas miracle!