03/02/2006 - 12:15 a.m. | i changed my resolution

I have been reading "Achewood" so long my eyes feel as though they could fall out. I am not reading "Achewood" for some time then.

Let us describe the past 24 hours in literary form.

I could give a shit about your Tuesdays.

I knew it was Tuesday, but I did not know it was that Tuesday. An important Tuesday. For several reasons, one of them including the release of Rhett Miller's apparently really mediocre album. But more will be gotten to.

I do not know if I am only protecting myself from the harsh criticism or what, but I feel I am pretty grounded in my opinions in Creative Nonfiction class. I think I could be a right decent teacher if I wanted to. I always say about the same things in my little comments that the professor does, except we happen to share polar opposite opinions about those very same things. For instance, a girl wrote a thing about herself, and I liked it because she was not very oblique about her emotions. I was able to read between the lines and make some guesses and assumptions, but could I actually assume they were correct? No! But that's how I like it. Writing is a big faker anyway - we all adapt some sort of tone, and no matter how blunt or honest a person pretends to be, they are still using a voice and therefore something of a mask of lies. I think the guesswork is the only thing that makes this sort of writing fun. I don't care about the basic human experience and what we all have in common or whatever. I like figuring people out. I don't know why people turn vague ass poems into goddamn masterpieces, but a person acts like a person and they are getting yelled at.

Anyway, I should have said some of these things to defend poor Tessa as first the professor knocked her for not spelling things out to the retards and then as the class leapt onto the bandwagon. I could be the class rebel, I could, but instead I did not say a word, reminding myself that they do not care when I talk anyway. I could just shrivel right up.

It did not occur to me until pretty late that it was Mardi Gras (or perhaps Bacardi Gras if you are a schill), so I had to get myself prepared in a rapid manner, downing a flask of cheap vodka mixed with lemonade during my sociology lecture. I tried to pay attention during the documentary about British crazy people (It would seem yet another advantage to being British is that you sound a good deal less crazy - even if you are - just with that accent and precise manner of speech), but I kept singing Wilco songs to myself, and I had to get home and download some before the Big Meeting. Also to make more drinks.

I weaved my way to a frat to meet with Dan and Brenna re: our television ads. Apparently I wrote most of these ads, I learned the next day, but I do not really remember, having consumed some meaty beer there followed by a beverage that looked like piss right down to the little bubbles at the top. I was all surprised today in class when we went through the ads. "Who came up with this stuff! It's so awesome!" "You did mostly." "I am a genius." Reduced-Fat Wheat Thins were all I ate that evening. The salt keeps me afloat. Get it? I said humorous things about how ugly some of the people in class are. I assume they are doing it to me in their little groups, except they are probably nice, so not.

I weaved home (Brenna later told how I was almost hit by a car), quite drunk now, and apparently started in on how Shelly's boobs at best were a 3.5 on a ten scale. I said this completely deadpan, I'm told, and hurt her feelings. If this was a joke (and I believe it was), I am reaching all sorts of pinnacles of humor. She had a new boob shirt, you see (or it was new to me), and I had to comment on it. Obviously, when I say you boobs are in nearly the lower third of society, it is actually my covert way of telling you I think you are pretty. Take notes, because this gets rough.

We went out. Did we take the bus? I am too drunk to remember the bus. Not now, I mean. Then. We went to Murphy's first, and beads were acquired (I threw them in the street), and I had Shelly order me a water, finished it, and then promptly ran to the bathroom to vomit. A dude walked in with me at the same time, and I was like, "No way is this man going to need to take a dump." Fate will always make me wrong when it can, though, and he decides to go pee in the stall, meaning I have to puke in the urinal. I pause to consider this. I am all right with it. The puke is a very, very dark olive green. From the Gatorade, you see.

That was another thing I forgot. Thank God for Allison Helm. She met us at the bar and reminded us that Tucker Max was actually going to be at KAMS that night! It is so strange that I did not remember (not really, considering) because the very drink that had made me puke was Tucker's Death Mix: Gatorade, Redbull, vodka. I even made note of it myself that very night! You are slipping, Nathan! Slipping!

We walk to KAMS and I am yelling things and there is talk that I will probably have my face caved in. I try to cool my jets. At the bar, I hand Tony Wong my ID and give his sister my four dollars or whatever. We patrol the bar and see Mr. Max himself. We will not actually talk to him, as he would not like us anyway, but he looks pretty chubby and childlike and it feels good that there is hope that such a man could get so many women when I am not nearly so portly. A little bit, though. Perhaps it spurned me on later.

We wander down to the basement for debasement, but it is closed and clearly now only a room for date rape. Back upstairs, I think perhaps we are leaving when I am grabbed, of all people, by Luke LiManni. If you do not know who that is, that's OK, because I do not really so much either. He is an advertising major, however - actually one of the four chairs of the NSAC committee that we have to deal with for the stupid post office box thing. He is the only I really know - we had class together a couple times - and he is like the friendliest person ever, even more so when he is drinking. Actually, all of the NSAC people are there, wearing silly hats. So Luke grabs me like, "What's up, man!" He is so excited to see me. "You have to check out this band, man! They are a funk band!" He is right. They have horns and all. "We have to dance to this band, man!" he says and starts to dance. I am compelled to join in. He is just that nice of a guy.

All of my friends have disappeared, and it was me dancing and watching some white dude play a trumpet when Shelly returns. "Hillary and some people are here," she says. Oh great, I think. Another opportunity to right embarrass myself. You have not heard of the previous instance. It is still being written. It was embarrassing, however. Be assured.

So Hillary and Jasmine and Allison come over to join us and Gautam and Shelly are there as well. Right when the funk band stops, too! Damn it! KAMS is playing some right turd of music, and we make faces at the men through the DJ window. Turn. It. Off. We say. Thumbs down. But there is an awkward circle of dancing and chit chat and all. And Hillary is dancing directly in front of my, breaking the circle, and I think, maybe this is a good thing, so I try to dance with her, but she is clearly not into it, and I think, this was a bad, bad thing. I'm so sorry, Hillary. I did not mean to violate your space like that.

It makes me pretty sad to be wrong, you know that? Like, before the gay bar incident, there was not a problem because it was just a tiny crush. But once I thought it was possibly reciprocated, it became a much larger crush, and I am sort of creepy when it comes to such things, they will not get out of my head, and now it is very clear that she was not interested at that time, only drunk, as was the case in past incidents. Obviously, then, I need to back the fuck off (or wait until she is similarly intoxicated), but it is not so easy because, as I mentioned, I am so creepy. For instance, she currently has an away message up:

"i was at C.O.'s yesterday, which is unusual since i hate C.O's and of course my baby is there tonight...life is not fair"

and it makes me so angry my stomach is shredding itself. I do not even know this girl. WHO IS THIS BABY, though. My only hope is that I once had an insane bizarre-o crush on Allison Helm, was rejected by her, ignored her, and now she is in love with me and I don't care. That is a sad thing when that is your hope.

We stayed for a while longer. Shelly pointed out that she does not particular like it when girls dance on each other for attention. Allison does it sometimes. I had to agree, although that is not very red-blooded male of me. Also, Luke came back several times to have talks with me, one where he introduced me to the balding guy Peter bitched at ("This kid is going to be a fucking star in the industry," he says. Have you seen my work actually? Any of you?) and then to ask my opinion of his silly hat. "What do you think of this hat, man? Some guy said [something desparaging I forget the specifics]." "We will kill this man, Lucas. The beer garden walls will run with his blood." "Haha, no. I just wondered if you liked it." "I fucking love that hat, man. I will try to buy it off you tomorrow." "OK, great!" It would seem that Jasmine actually knows Luke from her hometown, so I kept trying to shove them together, as they are both very, very good-looking people.

We left soon thereafter (O God, Cat Stevens - Yusef Islam - just burst forth from the nether regions of somewhere. Sing that one that makes me cry about the the dad and his son. Not "Cat's in the Cradle," you ingnant fucks) and took some bus home. I was drunk and angry. Did I manage to conceal this? There was talk of Unofficial on Friday and how Hillary had to work at Hollister. I told her she should get drunk, but she said she had to drive. I really wanted to offer to give her rides to and from work, but I realized yet again that I do not know her and that this would just come off as creepy and not friendly at all. I held my tongue.

The rumor was Drew's Pizza, which I was very insistent on, but not for the right reasons and was actually very happy to get out, chucking newspapers as we went. Shelly found me a pretty adequate walking stick, and I learned of the insults I had made to her bosom. I tried to rectify these, saying she was a 6.9, but I am indeed worried the damage has been done. There were also threats about the telling of my own inadequacies, and we know I could not stand to hear of them. I was dangerously close to revealing other things that I would just as soon not because that would make a weird dynamic to say the least. Michelle said she was impressed I had been so aggressive, but I said it was all for naught and threw down a bunch of fuckwards. Poor Gautam. What did he think through all of this?

As Shelly made mac and cheese, I collapsed on the kitchen floor, absolutely determined to sleep there for the night. I just needed to be a little emo, to have an Experience, is all, but Shelly was not for this. I was led to a couch eventually, and this was quite disturbing at 6:27 the next morning when I awoke to the most horrifying cartoon children I have ever seen. They are cartoons, gentlemen; why would you make them so appallingly ugly? They could look like anything, but instead they are all kind of these fucking mongoloid children with dented skulls and purple teeth and green and blue tongues. It was an angry awakening.

My stomach made protest for much of the morning, as I put on a nice shirt to try and make myself feel better. Did it work? I met with Dan and Brenna again to soberly put together some more ads. We were in no hurry. Dan gave me a snack sized bag of Cheetohs Puffs. He is a gentleman and a scholar, and I let him know. Few men would give up their snack bags to a lonely citizen. In class, we learned more of the up-fuckery of the NSAC committee I had danced with only the evening prior. Embarrassing typographical error: Median income of our target - not 35,000 but 135,000. That is the sort of thing that makes a difference. Apparently people like the TV spots - grownups and all - which is pretty nice considering I pretty much wrote a lot of them. Forgive my pride, but it comes along so rarely. Even now I am thinking about my stomach and how it is not as slender as it could be and how I could probably run now and only suffer small chances of being shanked. There is talk of a road trip up to Michigan for the NSAC judging. I think it would be the best place ever to be drunk, followed by a trip down to Dallas to burn down Postal Vault, Inc. if they do not place us in first (It turns out they are a Christian company, so my joke about the prostitute blessing people with holy water - "Body of Christ, body of Christ" - might not fly so well). Somebody said something about "hard-hitting mail bits" and that was very funny for the time. Meanwhile, Brenna has given up swearing AND being negative AND making fun of people for Lent, so I have made it my person mission to point out whenever she flubs on one of these. Hint: A lot.

Other things happened. Shelly wanted to make some curry, so we traversed the town with Smacko, hunting down fish sauce and the similar. While at the ethnic food store, Smacko pointed out these hollowed-out gourd cups used for drinking this insanity tea. "Yerba mate." He ended up buying a kilogram of it, and we both got the gourd cups and fancy bong straws to drink it through. The accented man who ran the cash register asked if we were going to party. We took this as a good sign. Yerba mate turns you gay against your will.

The curry was all right, the hell tea was that precisely. There is a whole ritual to it, one we might not have followed entirely, angering the Argentinian gods of beverage consumption. What you do is fill the gourd over halfway up with the tiny green flakes of yerba mate, making sure to coat the mucas innards entirely. You sort of tilt the gourd such that the leaves settle on one side, then fill it with cold water to make a paste, followed by hot water to make a tea. The special straw is supposed to function as a strainer, letting the brew through without all the nasty flakes. Needless to say, it was a grand failure. We both had nasty mouthfuls of salad, and this was not the most pleasant tasting salad either. It tasted like a rough combination of grass, salvia, and arugula - very, very bitter - and as Smacko and I choked down gourd after gourd of it, we were not getting the crazy high we had been quite expecting. Then again, I have quite a bit of energy right now, I am all sweating, and this entry here is following a rather peculiar language at times, so maybe it is going somewhere. Then again, maybe I am pulling a Jason Kahn. Regardless, we will not give up so easily. Hopefully, about ten mugs of this stuff will preceed every night of drinking we have henceforth. That will make for some grand old vomit.