02/22/2006 - 5:33 p.m. | "This town is full of monsters! How can you sit there and eat pizza!?"

The 6+ page essay I thought I had to write tonight I in fact do not have to write tonight. Hip-hop-hooray or something. I am trying very hard to stay acquainted with you, diary-uh, as it was pleasing to be back to old form with Saturday night's entry and all.

I knew Tuesday was going to be bad. I can't remember how much of my creative writing class I had described before, but here's the thing: We write these essays, right, hand out a copy to everybody in the class; they read them, and reconvene to basically shit all over you whilst you sit quietly in the back of the room and take notes (You are not allowed to participate or defend yourself). Now, knowing rhet / English majors and the types of pricks they can be - vultures, vultures! - I knew from the start it wasn't going to be sunshine and records. Everyone shits on everybody else as hard as they can, to keep their own self-esteem high while getting sweet, sweet revenge for the comments the other people no doubt made (or will make) about their own work in other go-arounds.

Well, Tuesday my turn had come at last, and I was nervous as fuck. I had always tried to be the one nice person every time we went around, usually starting with compliments and ending with maybe a suggestion or two occasionally. I hoped that someone would try and do the same for me when I was on the chopping block, but just in case, I tried to make a list of everything I thought they would comment on. Also, I got very, very drunk.

It didn't start out that way. I had a nice mug of orange soda and vodka out on the porch, and I was like, "Hm! My stomach is in far fewer knots now!" So I followed it with this weirdass juice and toilet vodka mixture, and I thought, "Wow, I don't give a fuck what anybody thinks now!" Then, just to be safe, I made some sort of hard lemonade in the bathroom of the English Building and realized, "Well, wait! I am right trashed now, aren't I?" I think I hid it pretty well, didn't I?

Anyway, it was the best mistake I ever made, because these fucking kids were brutal. BRUTAL! Maybe in the hotseat I was just much more painfully aware of it than usual, but it seemed less like they were critiquing my writing and more like they were critiquing me as a person. And maybe that's to be expected from a memoir-type class, but what they didn't seem to understand is that the tone I use in a particular piece isn't actually the type of person I always am. Obviously, any voice or tone I use is a sort of shield I use to keep myself detached - I feel like I pretty much have to do that, or I would be an emotional wreck, slitting my wrists all over the page. This is especially true when you consider the topic I was dealing with: The original trip to Kansas to see Missy - which, if you'll recall, ended with my grandfather dying and me rushing the fuck home. Admittedly, maybe I should have waited on this topic a little longer, gotten a little closer to how I felt then, so I could discuss it better, but lord! They made it seem like I was a sociopath. Especially since we warned against making our essays too emotional.

OK, so I had this theory that I think I am sort of right about. I took a break there and went through the written comments everyone had written before class. On the whole, they were about what I expected: people liked my voice, hated my title ("hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"), wanted more detail and dialogue, fewer parenthetical asides, etc. Of course, there was dissent from a few people, but whatever. I can't please everybody.

However, when the professor preludes discussion by flat-out calling me a jerk, how the hell are we supposed to go anywhere but down? Suddenly, instead of the things they wrote, everyone starts picking me apart with the knowledge they gleaned from their Psych 100 notes, and suddenly I am just this horrible self-absorbed untrustworthy shithead, going on about my not letting down my shell, my lack of real emotion and complexity, and how I "can't make a connection with anybody" and on and on and on. I mean, I took it - we aren't allowed to argue - I just sat there, sucking a sucker loudly to voice my distaste for the whole ordeal and waiting for the beating to end. Come to think of it, considering I was "invisible" at the time, I pretty much should have been making rude hand gestures at everyone. "What? What? You can't see me, baby! I'm invisible!"

There were a couple of plusses at least. Two people were brave enough to stand on my side - or at least to give me a little praise in the midst of the firestorm. The nice cute girl Camille had only good things to say about my voice, and the scraggly guy Mike would throw back reassuring smiles to let me know this ass-raping was only literal. He probably saw how distraught I was by the end, because he even told me I did well afterwards. Thank God for a little kindness.

Additionally, no one got my jokes, which I guess is to be expected, but it's still sort of annoying. I didn't mention that Missy and I had met at an Old 97's concert in particular, cheekily insisting that no one would know who they were anyway. Indie cred and all that. Well, apparently that pissed people off, and one particularly irate girl was like, "I wish he had just told us. I bet I know who they are!" So, after they have finished reaming me, professor asks who the band was, by the way. I tell them, blank stares all around. HA! You fuckers! We call this a pyrrhic victory.

I can see what turns rhet majors into the demons they are. One trouncing like this, and I am ready to go back in there and crap all over everybody. I have been holding way the hell back and feel like I could launch some particular crippling junk if I were ever so inclined. But no, no. We won't stoop to their level. We'll just try and improve. Of course, I don't really know how to fucking do that either, now do I? It's a good thing that essay isn't due tomorrow, because right now it would either be 30 pages of emo angst about this experience or a fucking bomb dropped on how ugly and stupid and awful every one of them is. How's that for some real life emotion, you cunts? Yeah, gotta start using that word in there, too.

Anyway, I was very clearly distressed, but it was buried somewhere under a pint of vodka, and I went back home to wail alone, drunk, in the middle of the afternoon. The silliness of the situation was not lost on my even then. I slept off most of it in my sociology lecture and came home with what felt like a little tiny hangover� only to begin drinking again.

Not my idea. OK, no, it actually was this time - earlier in the day, when I still felt happiness - but I probably would not have gone through with it but for my devoted friends. Shelly made me some terrible ass drink called �PROGRAMS� (Diet Coke + white rum + grenadine = rancid trash in your mouth), and no doubt through her proddings, Spritz attempted to invite Hillary (and such) out along with us. It�s a pretty good support group I have � Shelly, interested in cheering me and getting me out of relationshipwreck, and Spritz, ballsy enough to just speak to girls like they were actual people or something. Well, I appreciate the efforts, guys (There was a similar attempt to lure me to St. Louis for Mardi Gras with them this weekend� Admittedly, it would probably have worked), but I grow paranoid that my presence behind the scenes is too obvious. It just comes off as desperate and pathetic, and while I am these things and more (See above!), it is my job to reveal them on my own. Or just curl up into a ball of shyness and die. Whichever.

We did get Allison as a part of the deal, but as I was a little wary of her since our last encounter, I think I unconsciously kept my distance. Gautam, Spritz, Shelly, Allison, and I met Dustin at Murphy�s (It was Dan�s birthday apparently); it was pretty fucking dead. I had a bowl of chili. We played some drinking games, including this new one Shelly was a little overeager to show us. As punishment, we ganged up on her as much as possible and got her quite trashed, until she was stumbling around and getting hit on by 29 year olds. Allison tried to throw the box of cards at some guy�s leering butt crack.

In the midst of the card games, Spritz disappeared for over an hour, coming back to explain that he�d run to get some smokes, received a phone call from a guy in his Greek Civ class, learned there was a paper due in 45 minutes, caught a fortuitous passing bus, banged out the paper at breakneck pace, and came back. Did you guys ever read �The Boy Who Cried Wolf�? This story is just far-fetched enough to seem like one of Spritz�s just �far-fetched enough to be true� lies, and I don�t think I can be convinced otherwise. Clearly, some Asian girl, somewhere, was fucked. By his dong.

Shelly decided she wanted to dance, so we all headed to Firehaus for 80�s night. Unfortunately, even fewer people were there than last time, the music was balls (No Toto?! No Paul Simon?!) and our weak efforts were booed even by our own friends. Weak, guys. Weak. Shelly and I took off for a while, touring the other bars in hopes of finding a dance haven elsewhere. One live band, two places charging cover, and a three ton fucking Beluga whale in the smallest tube top ever, and we were right back again at Firehaus, just as our friends were on the way out.

We moved on to Legends, which was deader than I�ve ever seen a thing. Our group�s entrance nearly tripled the number of people there in total. There was little to do besides drink and con the waitstaff out of dollars for the jukebox, which we did. Liberally. More awkward dancing was tried, and found guilty. Everyone got fucked tuna fish sandwiches at Jimmy John�s (ya�nasties), a drunken coworker stumbled over to kiss me on the cheek, and Spritz and I ate our BBQ chips out in the cold, reveling in the sin. A girl in argyle and sweatpants came roaring out into the street, screaming Paul Simon. It would seem we missed him.

We walked to wait for the bus, and somehow I enraged Dustin, who ended up tackling me on a cement bunch, squeezing me in an effort to break my ribs or something. I honestly have no idea what I did. Shelly had this silly wooden ring, and I said something retarded about being a spry wood nymph, and he just charged. Spritz, cool under pressure, poked him in the butthole with his thumb. He eventually got off me and rode back home, silent and sullen. Confused looks were exchanged at his departure.

See? This is the thing I don�t understand about Dustin. Sometimes we seem cool, and then out of nowhere he is slamming the full force of his bulk into my chest over and over and over. Shelly told me her theory today, that because he is all big and masculine, and because I am so clearly, clearly not, that he thinks I should be respecting him, maybe even envying him. The fact that I do not, that I dump on him as much as anyone else, and seem sort of all right with myself, might mean that he is the one angry and insecure and jealous. My theory is that he�s a fucking idiot.

I�m hoping some confidence will come back soon, but that seems to imply I think I had confidence at an earlier point in time. I am worried about so many things these days. I will be sure to tell them to you, soon as I drop my emotionless, able-to-make-connections-with-anybody-less mask.