01/05/2006 - 3:04 a.m. | *you're near perfect, i'm married...and we gotta go*

Even I dread writing this entry. There�s so much minutia that I feel simply needs to be mentioned in the discussion of New Year�s Eve that these two lines I write here just look like a stupid joke.

I woke up in the most horrifying way possible: The sounds of Joe, Will, and Ducky all wailing Journey at the top of their lungs. �She�s just a small town girl / Livin� in a lonely world�� A festering chorus. I thought maybe it would be over, but no, no� Joe, completely unaffected by his near-catatonic state the evening prior, would not shut up about going to a Chinese buffet, and he was attempting to raise the other two to his level of enthusiasm. It was not working, but at least they were all very, very loud. Actually, there had been talk of a Chinese buffet among our little posse the very night before, but I have been dodging that bullet for nearly four years now, and I am not about to stop. But Joe was not about to give up until someone was willing to go, which meant waking everyone contained herein. That worked.

All of us (minus Shelly, still fearful) piled into the station wagon and circled the town, trying to agree on some course of action. Joe found my crossing guard gear and would wave the stop sign at pretty much any car in his visual field, pausing about half a second every time I told him to quit it. With his record, you�d think he�d be a bit more wary around cops, but then again, it would also explain his record. Taffie�s became the obvious choice, and we rushed in the direction of that final circle of hell. Jevon and Yousaf joined soon thereafter, looking like the Unabomber and the ultimate hangover, respectively.

Do you know of Taffie Stacks? I don�t believe you do. I�m not sure if they are the place�s genuine specialty or just in our minds, but that�s what everyone besides me always tends to order. Two eggs on a hamburger on hash browns, coated completely in a blanket of gravy. A gallon�s worth seems like a lowball. Is there cheese, toast in there? I don�t know. But we went around the table and six were ordered, variations only in egg style (and ketchup coating, in Joe�s case). And me with my fishy chicken tenders. Even the waitress (Holly) made fun of me for it. Holly with the strange ass that everyone continued to check out, despite the fact that it was nothing special (and indeed, quite misshapen). So much more testosterone floating around in the air than usual. Ducky pumped 2 bucks into the lottery machine at the door and ended up with 11+ tickets based on the advice of his economist (Will, in the process of a 16 hour major). You gotta spend money to earn money, my friend!

I believe their particular food choice may have been regretted. For the next two to three hours, it was sitting around playing �Katamari� and taking huge dumps in rotations. It sat particularly poor in Will�s belly, causing him to hurl once out back and once more in Ducky�s Saab (an event I sorely regret missing). Ducky, however, was strangely energized by the plate and ran about yelling how we should be doing things, enjoying life, something. So I cleaned the bathroom.

Not that that was particularly enjoyable (especially with Smacko�s piss-coated towels on the floor from the previous evening), but I do derive something sick from it, I guess, listening to some creepy British music if I have it. And I do. There was a bottle of something purple called �KABOOM!� that I sprayed more or less everywhere. And then waited for it to absorb, into the soap scum and my lungs. I attacked with Brillo pads, the texture of which I hate (a necessary evil), and got the thing looking nearly as good as a normal bathroom does when considered dirty. We call that a success in this house. I felt it was my right and duty to break the newly-cleaned bathroom�s cherry, and I thought to myself for the hundredth time that we should just get some damn Tilex. But that�s about as high up on my purchases list as visiting Missy. Hahahah ha ha ha.

I had rejoined the festivities to discover that Ducky had returned with a keg; Joe and Will returned with an airsoft pistol and 6500 tiny green pellets, the contents of which would no doubt be spread all throughout the house by the end of the weekend. I was not far off. We sat idly shooting each other and things, sort of half-watching Spritz�s video gaming (He took to old Katamari better than anybody) until Smacko ran in to tell us that we were all retards. Shelly�s car had broken down by Prospect, and none of us had our phones on hand (There was a specific logic in mine � I had already talked to Missy and did not want to drunkenly answer the phone later on and give myself away). Team Strike Force, go go go!

Joe, Kyle, Ducky, and I drove to meet Shelly and Susan (Susan was here already?? No one tells me jack!), gas in hand because nothing was actually broken besides Shelly�s head. Ducky left with them, and the rest of us went on a journey for a tapper and some cheese fries. We ended up at Steak and Shake, smelling like arsonists, and while we waited for their order to finish, Kyle tried to get a rise out of me by speaking lewdly of the old woman sitting alone at a booth eating spaghetti. Betty Spaghetti, I think he called her, and all night he spoke of fucking that pasta between two plates or the old woman slapping him in the balls with a butter knife. You shall be missed, my dear. Now, fully stocked, our car reeking of a horrible combination of grease and gas, we finally found a place with a tap. 37 bucks, no refunds. And the thing worked like shit, a hundred pumps yielding a pathetic little trickle of Coors Light. I had other plans besides.

The next hour or so, the early hours as the first guests arrived, were spent making stupid runs and desperately trying to get a hold of the delicious dips Shelly and Susan were preparing. The first trip was my own, and I made it a point to ask everyone I could find, �Do you need anything? Because I�m never going out again.� No, no, everyone was fine, Ducky had bought his rum and juice (count it!). So I got my corkscrew and shit, ran by Lukeman, got back home. �Hey, we need champagne!� �Let�s send Nate!� �Yes! Let us!� Well, fuck. Ate least I got another damned bite of that dip. So Kyle and I rolled back out to the liquor store, after I had firmly told him I would not go alone, whatever stupid tip he tried to give me (in this case a five dollar Subway gift certificate that would expire in exactly 5 and a half hours). We got the shit, for him and Smacko and Ducky (plus his rum plus his Huber plus his Hamm�s plus the keg), adding a pint of Rich & Rare whiskey to the pile for some reason. �Gotta get a little R&R,� Kyle winked. Very well. I suppose we must. I finally got him his Christmas present, by the way. A bottle of Evan Williams brand eggnog. Enjoy! I am also now the proud owner of a County Marker Max Savers card. I feel like I just joined the Klan.

The party was hardly in full swing when we arrived back, half the people watching the Magic Bullet infomercial, the other half watching Madden �06 in the other room, Will dead on the couch, firing the gun at random. Dale was going to be there, as I hope I mentioned (and most of his awful friends), as well as his black girlfriend. Or half-black girlfriend. I dunno! She had dreads and was pretty! The point mainly is that we suddenly could not use the N-word as freely as we were accustomed to. Kyle and I made plans to deliberately call each other honkies all night, so as to stay reminded. As far as I can tell, we failed miserably as a group. Will was yelling it all over in Taboo (and probably much more besides) and Spritz screamed it in the middle of Madden, leading to a very, very awkward silence. Even Dank mentioned someone�s �black ass.� And it�s not like Smacko gave a fuck about it at all. I actually might have come through unscathed, but certainly not by association. The two of them left surprisingly early, as she suddenly did not feel well. Investigation to follow.

My plan was as follows: Get real, real drunk real, real early, so that by the time everyone else was getting hosed and needing help, I would be available to assist them (without any detriment to my own enjoyment of the evening). The plan worked quite well, actually, although perhaps a bit too well at first, as I laid here on the bed in agony, waiting for my stomach to calm the fuck down, and screaming some truly awful music. No one noticed. I was gone for a while, but I specifically remember lurching my way over to the mirror and staring at myself, very seriously contemplating something grave. It was thankful there were no clippers around. Specifically, I decided I would look good (and somehow Irish) if I were to shave my head. Not like bald short � shaved like Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting probably. I thought it was fucking perfect, and it would finally make me cool, but we all know that was a pipe dream. More on that later. But, what is it with me and drastic hair removal when I am drunk? Just curious, Lord.

I sobered up� enough to come downstairs and sort of join in on the Taboo festivities. There was some giant shaved head guy (speak of the devil!) I kept thinking I knew, but apparently I did not. He told me he hated me, and I did not understand. I was not nearly cohesive enough to play on a team (or read cards), so I came in as designated guesser for both teams (Team Boobs and Team Name, specifically), although the biggest advantage went to people like Kyle, who practically entered in a mind meld with me on getting answers. Actually, come to think of it, I was still really gone.

The game eventually fizzled, and Susan and I ended up on the couch. We had gotten on really well the last time she was here, but things had been weird thus far (I blame not actually having said hi to her� plus the whole unmedicated awkwardness thing). Luckily, we snapped right back into place in no time, flipping through the awful radio stations on TV, trying to find something decent. We eventually formed our own little insane two person dance party, her teaching me the invaluable dance that the Muppets apparently do. It�s difficult to explain (no it isn�t), but it�s like a modified shimmy, far less likely to be sexy than to hit someone in the face. We were excessive, and I loved it.

I remember taking the piece of cardboard used for scoring in Taboo and writing �palm trees� on it in Sharpie. Susan told me to change �trees� to �olive,� and I did not get it until I found the thing on the floor two days later. So I wasn�t better yet. Nothing heals like leaping around to Will Smith, though, so I tumbled over to Spritz�s computer multiple times to assemble something of a playlist. It was pretty sucky, but everyone was too drunk to care. Except Dank, and he wasn�t making requests anyway.

I remember speaking to Susan about the ramifications of her being the messiah when Allison and her friends came in, all dolled up in cocktail dresses and shit. A difficult game is to be played, wherein I must not hurt Susan�s feelings by running off, and greet Allison�s party with eagerness (as I am their most familiar host, I suppose), but not with too much eagerness, as there is a drunk Allison, and that is a slippery slope. I succeeded OK, I guess, politely saying hellos and then promptly sprinting off� except I know for a fact that I later told her at one point that Missy and I were �on a break,� evidently hoping that somehow the information would trickle back to Hillary. It was a stupid, stupid plan.

Things are foggy here, but I hung around with Dank and tried to avoid people snapping pictures. I continually changed songs. Then someone passed on that Jasmine was sick, so I led her up to my room to crash for a while. Allison followed shortly thereafter. Smacko, arriving from the drunken ether, grabbed me and said something like, �Hey man, I stole these shoes.� �What? You stole those shoes?� �Come outside, I�ll tell you about it!� But this was all a clever trick apparently, because he grabbed me outside and leaned in close to tell me (as I heard through the slurs) that he had finally stopped going back and forth over Allison and was going to give it a go. All well and good, I suppose, but I seriously doubt it could help he ended up with Big Boobs less than half an hour later. Was she even there that night?

I remember Shelly and I got into a bit of a spat, wherein she wanted Dick Clark�s New Years Rockin� Eve on (at maximum possible volume) and I wanted anything but. She won out, though, despite her ridiculous notion that when the ball was dropped, it would physically crash into some shit and explode. Into a million shards of glass, killing thousands.

Still, I can�t complain, as it was about the closest I got to Hillary ever. All of her friends gone (Allison and Jasmine collapsed, Mel in the kitchen with massive boy problems and backfat), she kind of lurked awkwardly on the edge of the couch next to me. Now, despite all my bizarre pining, I�ve never had the courage to actually speak to the girl more than a handful of times. This was one of them. At least a little bit. So, final countdown approaches, five minutes left, three, two, and Hillary kind of keeps wandering back to my general area� right up until the last minute of the countdown, when she is awfully, awfully close to me. We start throwing each other glances (I swear, I swear, this is truth), and the frightening notion occurs to me that she might be sticking near me for the kiss at midnight. Of course, she could just be next to me because I am right in front of the TV, but it certainly doesn�t feel that way. So, as the countdown ticks off, I start weighing my options. Is this right? Am I making a correct assumption here? How will I play this off? Should I ask before I do it? Things seem good � no Allison around to make things horrible, she seems to be moving closer all the time, a nice little holiday excuse � but I am nervous and equally sure that I could be wrong as I could be right. In perfect Nate fashion, scenarios form in my head. �And that was the night I first kissed your mother.� �And that�s how I ended up here in Sing-Sing.� Haha, I�m so drunk and awesome. So, we�re in the final ten � people are yelling, I�m barely noticing � and I decide that if she holds my gaze when we got to zero, I�m going for it. Three, two, one � there is the yelling and shit, and here it is. Go time. And right then Susan storms right up next to me, dragging Will, saying that I have to kiss him because it is New Year�s and she is Jesus Christ, our lord and savior. By the time I get the fuck away from them, two minutes (and any possible moment) have passed. Hillary has rotated behind me, and I still think (hope) it is possible until I see how absolutely freakin� wasted she is. Ack! Nevermind, nevermind! All a fluke! A drunken fluke! At best! Thank God I have no game.

There went the last of my inebriety. It�s my superpower � as soon as I see drunk people in need, I sober right the fuck up and become a cattle wrangler. Mel has left to deal with her boy shit, but that leaves me and Hillary to deal with Allison and Jas, and my partner is in no steady shape herself. Tumbled down the stairs, in fact� but it gives me an excuse to help her around and keep her supported. Sigh, her waist fit like perfectly next to mine, and though her hands were dry as hell, it felt good that she took mine with hers as we navigated the warzone. I know, my good Samaritanism is only a thin veil for the tent I would like to pitch, but at least my intentions were sort of good, right? We checked on the two lushes in my room, and I led her around as she tried to get her shit together. Like me, her parents called at midnight, but she was in no shape to try and talk to them at that exact moment. I sat with her as we watched some shit on TV, and I was this close to using my long-prepared little speech about getting to know her better. But no, no� I have decided that I am better than this. No, not the Missy thing � that was still far the fuck back in my mind. But I owe it to everyone to wait until Smacko and Allison finally get together before I start messing things up further. Speaking of the future happy couple, at Smacko�s request, no doubt, Shelly came over to talk to Hillary to ascertain Allison�s feelings towards our boy Kevin. Perhaps I should have known it was my cue to get the fuck away for a bit, but this was the closest I got to her in forever, and I wasn�t exactly ready to give it up. Details remain sketchy, and we might have revealed more than we learned, but at least there�s hope, right? Always hope�

Oh! Incidentally, I was almost entirely too enamored to notice, but during the final part of the countdown, Jevon decided to bring in the new year with a bang (or a crash) and more or less elbow-dropped the bar, destroying pretty much every piece of glass on it. Champagne flutes, vases, liquor bottles � it all exploded in a blaze of glory. It also occurs to me that he had broken our porch bulb that evening, shooting it with the airsoft gun. Someone needs to inform that boy that it was New Year�s Eve, not New Glasses Eve.

It eventually became clear that Hillary was too drunk to go on, but also unwilling to abandon her friends, so the two of us went upstairs to gather them and get them home. Slow process, that, as Allison had apparently strewn her possessions across the house in the hour or so she had been there. I dug up what I could and tried to keep everyone congregated on the grass for the trek home. We got on our way, me slowly leading the other four (There was another girl with them, but she was too pretty to remember). I was still kind of half-hoping for some luck, maybe the chance to walk Hillary back to her door. Just the door, I swear. No sinning! But of course Allison latched onto my arm (as she is wont to do) and would not let go. I suppose I could have flailed my arms until she was shaken off, but that just seems rude, doesn�t it? See, it�s that sort of thing still in the way. If Smacko were latched onto her arm, I would be free to prance armless amongst whomever I so chose. As it is, wahh-wahhhhh.

There was the drop off. In my haste to get everyone together, I had forgotten my coat. I somehow ended up wearing Katie Mackenzie�s (she was passed out sick in Spritz�s room) on the way there. I left it with Allison, but she (ever the Jewish matron) would not let me leave without some sort of jacket, in this case some crazy giant heavy peacoat all covered in bright green reflective lines. Money. �No, seriously, Allison. It�s not cold out at all!� �WEAR IT!� Fair enough.

Before I�d left, Susan and Michelle has mentioned maybe going to The Office, so I took a chance and decided to meet them there, sprinting across Urbana in the darkness. I decided it was a good way to start the new year. I was almost surely singing something.

I arrive at the bar, and it is quite unlike I have ever seen it before. Filled with people, for one, and there is actually a whole dancefloor thing set up� with people dancing on it! This is where I find Susan and Michelle, and we all flail around for a while. Susan, in her unique habit of attracting the most awful losers while in town, gets the attention of this guy who calls himself Panama (real name Phil), this motherfucker all dressed in white cotton with a goddamn stupid old person hat doing all these retard dances all up and down the floor. Brother reminds me of Screech if I�m gonna be honest. She fluctuates between dancing with him (making horrified faces at the rest of us when it is safe to do so) and trying to get the fuck away or pulling one of us over to try and rescue her. Ducky, Will, and Joe show up, the latter only rising to take a dance lesson from this chubby old Mexican lady. Oh, Joe � if I could only understand your ways. Anyway, we all dance and rotate around quite a bit � Ducky and I take turns with Shelly, although she and I share a little more rhythm perhaps � and we all look at the other girls there and wonder how to approach them. Steve Bauer and Frankie, lost members of the past, appear out of almost nowhere and are suddenly sharing the floor with us, and I am way too happy and giggly to seem straight at all probably. The girls there are not fantastic, but two OK ones pull up in front of me and Frank while we stand by. I go, �We doin� this?� He goes, �You mean go up to them? I�ve never done this before.� Me neither, man, and we don�t ever fucking do it either. Confidence is the key, but I need a locksmith, motherfucker � or at least some reasonable hypnosis tapes.

Susan is making Shelly drink a bit excessively, and by the time they come back from car bombs, Shelly is now completely fucking gone, tumbling over all smiley on the stage. We keep her up because we must and rock out together in a big stupid circle, wailing to some Mr. Big and kind of leaping about aimlessly. The DJ spun some right shit, but at least he got the closer right. Ducky convinces Susan to do a carbomb, and suddenly she is right fucked, too. She gets a picture of her kissing Panama, who immediately follows by asking her if she is making fun of him. She says yes and takes the fuck off. We join her as quickly as possible.

Outside, we wait for a bit, Ducky hitting on some fat chick, Susan giving Panama even more shit as he walks out (He gave his hat to some random bitch at the end of the night � oh no, Panama! What will you do without your classic trademark?!), Shelly leaning on the wall and dropping her water. We finally decide to wait no longer and head home, but Shelly is now very, very drunk. And speaking Spanish. She keeps trying to say a sentence starting with �actualmente� but can�t seem to walk and think at the same time, causing her to tumble over in various places (traffic medians and such) every she tries again. �Actualmente, yo estoy muy � � Collapse. Hauled back up. Stumble forward. �Actualmente, me gusta los � � Collapse. Repeat once again. It was like the word was cursed or something, but it had me in hysterics. I help keep her up as we make our way home; she in turn helps us both tumble into a nice muddy ditch. The one nice thing about drunk Shelly is that she makes me not feel quite so lonely at the end of an evening like this.

We get home, and Susan is suddenly very businesslike. I had actually been sort of worried about having to turn her down at the end of the night, and even Ducky thought he had a shot at her, but we had both been misled. Apparently her giant ex-football player of a pseudo-boyfriend was actually driving over from Peoria that evening, such that they could get a hotel room and have sex therein. This would become the stuff of constant mockery later on, but for now, we let her try and find a room last minute while Shelly sat at Kyle�s desk and cackled at the notion of barfing in the plastic cover for his DVD-R spindle. �This is perfect for puking hahahhahahaha!� Good one, Shelly. Then I made the mistake of telling her about Fitz�s blog and his recently revamped entry, less about Kyle�s dong now and more about his alleged suicidal tendencies. I don�t believe it was anymore than the last of the awful emo phase getting out of his veins (HIS SLIT VEINS LOL� DOWN THE HIGHWAY NOT ACROSS THE STREET etc), but like any drunk girl is going to listen to anything I have to say. So she�s bawling now, and of course Kyle doesn�t really want to talk about this, so Shelly and Susan retire to the bathroom for the first of many weird 20 minute girl talk sessions in there. It�s so strange � I never see Shelly around other girls that are actually her friends. I forget she can actually be like that � all whispering and giggly and stupid. The party was entirely thinned out but for some Madden players. I stop to listen for a while to one of Smacko�s friends, who, exiled from Smacko�s apartment (although we did not know by Big Boobs at this point), punched a fucking bum in the face over some One World Pizza. Which they loved apparently. Punching a bum is fine by my book, great even, but loving One World is about the most fucked up thing I have ever heard of.

Susan is very impatient, waiting for her lovah (as she continually refers to him), so we opt to kill time and get some Taco Bell, me, her, and Ducky. It�s closed, sadly, so we ended up at Steak and Shake, my second time in less than 12 hours. Yes, yes � I had quite sobered up enough to drive, thank you. We get there and Ducky and I begin drilling her on the previously unmentioned boyfriend-like man (although Panama pops up here and there as well). Unfortunately for her, the drunken exaggerations in her description (6 ft tall, 400 pounds) lead us to think less of a football player and more of a dirigible. Then when she oddly wouldn�t reveal his name, Ducky decides on the lamest one he can think of, leading us to a very succinct Sumo Lloyd when combined. We pry her for information, mocking her mercilessly along the way, and she is more or less required to keep quiet as half the fucking Urbana police force comes into the place like five minutes into our meal and keeps throwing us looks. We ask her, what kind of man is alone and sober on New Year�s Eve and willing to drive over an hour to bang some chick (None of us had an illusions about the point of this endeavor) at four in the morning? Some girls might call it romantic, but there is also something downright creepy about it, too. Susan is quite foul-mouthed at this point and also quite disgusting, mixing oyster crackers into her coleslaw to form a foul paste, which she downs with little-to-no trepidation. Dripping onions down her face. Glorious, glorious. It is one weird little meal, but Ducky pays for my milkshake, which was pretty awesome, and some guy starts talking to him about Wolverine, which is of course absolutely surreal. I like our weird little nights.

We arrive home and everyone is passed out, Joe snoring like a percolator. Sumo Lloyd calls for directions, and I am not allowed on the line for fear I would refer to him by name. We are not even allowed to see him when he comes to get her (I surmise he drives a Geo Metro, leaning heavily on one side due to his massive sumo stature), which just goes to show the good sort of impression we make on people. Susan leaves. Did Shelly puke? It is a mystery. Ducky crashes on the couch in Gautam�s room, Will having won the bed for a change, and I lie down in here. The thing is, I was looking at the robot suit that night (it is facing the bed), and I swear that one eye was blinking, which would mean the damn thing has been on since Halloween. Was I hallucinating? It had me creeped the fuck out. Good new year.