02/16/2006 - 8:11 p.m. | there is pressure on my eyes, hours left

It was 2:30 last night. I was finishing up writing some comments on the next day's essays, when Smacko IMs me. The tragic comedy that is his life has begun to repeat himself. I can't remember if I actually screened this shit out before or not, but whatever. Like 6 people read this thing, and I doubt any of you will be phoning the police. So we'll recap: At New Year's, some dudes on a balcony yelled down drunken insults at Smacko and his friends from home. They came to our place to plot drunken revenge, fighting possibly, but more certainly the dead reckoning that is throwing a rock through a window. Property damage - that's the way karma likes it.

Well, surprisingly enough, a remarkable situation has unfolded: Smacko, walking by the building across the street from the original one, with different friends from home, is insulted by another group of inebriated balcony-dwellers, and similar revenge is concocted. He is telling me this, and I thinking very seriously of joining him. WHY Why. That's a good question, actually.

Perhaps it is my constantly-faltering foothold on masculinity.
Maybe I need to reaffirm something.
Maybe I want to see what a fight is actually like (although my plan mostly centers on wildly waving the machete around and acting like I'm on angel dust).
Maybe I feel these boys need a voice of reason (or at least a chaperone).
Maybe I want to help.
Maybe I just want something to write about. Yep, that's it.

So, Smacko and his friends eventually come in to go over the plan for what must be the umpteenth time, considering how many times I myself heard it just in the time it took to finish their beers. Names sort of escape me, but I think there was Evans, who seemed like he'd be pretty cool if he wasn't bombed out of his gourd, waving a hammer around, and Jason, possibly a Marine, and definitely either retarded or drunk to the point of retardation. We'll assume the latter, and admittedly I was pretty confused by black person voice. He started rapping a couple times, and his drunken rapping black person voice is something like my retarded person voice. So, like I said, confusion. Anyway, they were quasi-impressed with this complete stranger who volunteered to join their vengeance army, big black knife in hand. As Jason continued to give me combat advice* and Evans repeats frequently the tale of the crazy vet they encountered at Legends, I give the surprisingly sober Smacko a look. "You've assembled quite a crew here."

*Combat advice:
Jason points to my machete - "Do you know about killing points?"
"I don't think I'm actually going to use this thing, man. It's more the threat of it, you know?"
"Don't hit them in the thigh. There are arteries there. They won't ever stop bleeding."
"Seriously, though, I'm only going to pull it out if shit goes sour."
"Yeah, just aim for the torso. Or the back of the head. There are bones there that will prevent them from dying."
"... Will do!"

Beers are eventually finished, supplies are gathered (including two (2) bricks, one (1) typed note that says something about lube I think, and Ducky's vomit-covered "DRINK 'TILL SHE'S CUTE" hat, which Jason wears at a jaunty angle. I neglect to mention the vomit), and we head in the direction of the place, going over the plan a few times more, just in case (Jason really did not seem to get it. "So we're going to fuck these guys up, right?" "No, Jason. We are going to throw a brick - two bricks - through their window and then get the fuck out of town." "But we'll probably end up fighting them?" "Uh... Yes. Probably we will...."). They are hilariously preoccupied with fingerprints, wiping off the bricks in case the Shampoo-Banana 5-0 somehow track our DNAs or some such. Our progress is impededed by the fact that no one remembers exactly where this building is, so we wander around, me kind of scoping things out.

Once our target has been acquired, an escape route plotted, and the plan explained painstakingly one last time to Jason ("No! Dude! Seriously, just wait here!"), Smacko and Evans move into action. The least involved, I keep lookout and quickly wonder what could possibly be taking them so long. A rock through a window is about the most straightforward thing I can think of. Of course, there had been the notion in the back of my mind the whole time that maybe this apartment complex would not have windows on the inside like the other one did, but I know enough not to shit on this sort of excursion. It becomes clear that I am right, though, and after some half-hearted attempts to bash the offending balconiers' doorhandle off with the brick, we run down the street to regroup on this weird balcony patio thing at an apartment building a block over. Thieves' paradise, by the way. Unlocked bikes, a toilet, a backboard, PVC pipe (!!!). Remind me the next time I'm drunk to make a visit.

The plan has been modified as such to the far riskier, even stupider version whereupon they stand on Green St. proper under these balconies, tossing new objects (a car's jack, a frying pan) over the balcony and through the window. Having examined these balconies, how high the railings are, and the crazy ass angle one would have to throw at, I'm fairly certain reaching window-smashin' velocity is not within the realm of reason. But I clam up, and we start to make our way back.

Oh snap! Rollers!

(Jason gets the hiccups. HYUCK "I want some pancakes" HYUCK "I want some pancakes" HYUCK "I want some pancakes" Holy lord, he's gone and blown a fuse)

Luckily, the pigs are a block away, hassling some poor underaged drunk kids, no doubt, but it certainly seems prudent that we wait on the chucking until they are gone.

You know, fuck prudence. Things are tossed before I have a chance to react, and while there are some satisfying *thonk*s, the windows remain whole. We take off. Evans punches the side mirror off a car. Theoretically, it could be the balcony guys' car. I would not take those odds, however.

Having done all we could in one evening (Well, honestly, I had several other plans in queue, but let's not press our luck), we start on the path home. I suppose I would have been in line with some sort of pancake celebration myself, but they retreat to Smacko's, and I have a feeling it is Guys Only.

Perhaps supercharged from the adrenaline, I am hit hard with insomnia. I just finished this book, The Know-It-All, a memoir about this guy who read an entire encyclopedia. He and I had something in common: this unholy desire to spit facts out at anyone who'll listen. Nevermind if the facts are boring and useless, nevermind if it makes me sound like a pretentious prick - the desire remains. Anyway, my point is that technically, I was hit hard with hyposomnia. Insomnia entails no sleep, whereas hyposomnia is just a small amount of it, 90 minutes in my case. But no one uses that fucking word, and it makes me seem like a douchebag if I'm trying to do so. And yet. The desire remains.

Anyway, I couldn't sleep, and I laid there thinking about how much I need to get some. And then came the notion (no doubt a foregone conclusion in your minds, but surprisingly new to me) that were I ever to successfully cheat on Missy, I would be wracked with guilt and would probably just end up in an even more crippling relationship with whatever ham beast I had finally seduced. We don't like thinking thoughts like that. Maybe that is why we couldn't sleep.

Just enough, though, to make a truly fine mix of madness. There was some generic-ass box of tampons splayed all over Green St., and I just laughed and laughed. (UPDATE: Apparently they are the result of Smacko & co.'s late night Walgreen's dumpster diving. Yes) And then, at a thankfully short day at Beckman, I was shredding some files, and obviously I could not help but read them. Apparently it was all the paperwork from a job hunt for a computer person a while back, and I read some cover letters. Although I was duly impressed with Jeffery S. Burton's closing line - "I would find it an honor to work where the internet was born" (you douchebag) - it is this e-mail that won my heart and soul:

Attached is my resume. I am currently at the South Pole until Nov 1st.

Thank you
Bill

That is the coolest thing I have ever seen. No fucking explanation. Here is my resume, I am in Antarctica, fucking deal with it. I might make it the signature of all my e-mails it's so badass.

Granted some rare Thursday morning free time, I should have been trying to rebuild my sleep cycles, but no, no. Instead I spent three hours working on my pet project, a painstaking transcription of Wizard People, Dear Readers that I honestly have no reason to work on, other than it prevents from doing other things (like this diary, say). No one is going to want to read it, and everyone in the house probably fucking hates me for listening to the same 30 seconds of that man's horrible voice over and over, trying to get inflection and phrasing down right, but I guess that's exactly what makes it a pet project.

On the plus side, bitchy creative writing professor was much nicer the second time around, even if he did not enjoy the title of my second piece ("hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"). We had to write about our bodies, and I got him to say, "Good grief, Walsh" on several occasions. Tee hee. "Walsh."