03/22/2006 - 5:11 p.m. | from childish double-entendre to inexplicable self-reference

Nothing so comforting as a big bowl of generic Honey Nut Cheerios. We are halfway through spring break now, and I am very sorry to tell you it has not been the week of drunken debauchery I may have led you to believe. No snogging or lines of coke off urinals, whatever. On the plus side, that means a pretty quick entry, no?

Most of Saturday was spent recovering � the men watching basketball, me doing� whatever it is I do up here in my room alone (what is that anyway?) Convinced by advertising, we ordered a square pizza, and it was mediocre and small and expensive. Bad luck. Still, I fostered hope upon hope that somehow the night might turn salvageable. Unfortunately, this was left almost entirely in my incapable hands. As such, the whole evening pretty much ended terrible, terrible. And so, so awkward. At least I was in a good mood, though!

Allison came over, so it was her, me, Gautam, Spritz, Smacko, the latter steadfastly determined to drink himself retarded. He was not to disappoint. We sat around for a long time, thinking, trying to decide what to do, and that old horrible standby came up once again. Dustin�s. Ah, jeez.

So we go over there, and I am still strangely optimistic. �Maybe this will be one of his good parties!� I say to myself. �Maybe there will be one non-gross girl, and I can talk to her, and it will be all worthwhile.� We arrive. It is Dustin, DragginBallZ (The Varnes), Brytne, and maybe Logan, sitting at the dingy kitchen table playing Circle of Death. My friends, it is the saddest thing.

Now, see, part of the reason that we (and myself in particular) always seem so weird to these people is that I come in for like 10 minutes and then scurry out without a word. But listen, there is a reason for that. I never wanted to come in at all, as soon as I learned what kind of a hole we were walking ourselves into. Inevitably, though, I am talked into it, in case things somehow get good allegedly, and we sit there until the offending party too realizes that, yes, we should not be here at all. It�s all very awkward � especially in the case of this evening, for it goes like, enter, sit apart from everyone, wait, break a glass (that was Allison), leave. I wouldn�t particularly like me either.

But whatever, whatever. I rally some troops. Gautam is a bit peaky from the night before, and I convince him that a beer would be the fastest track to recovery. I am still hopeful. We will go to a bar, maybe run into some people we know, maybe meet some new people, something something, end up at a big fun party doing entertaining things that I could not have even conceived of on my own, great night for everyone involved.

Errrrrr�

We end up first at Murphy�s, a real happening spot on any night, but now it has reached critical lows. Smacko won�t go anywhere with a hint of Champaign to it (e.g. dancing, attractive people), though, so it looks like we�re stuck.

Poor Gautam, man. I dunno, I was really feeling for him this night. Like, he did a pretty good job salvaging my St. Patrick�s Day, and I wanted to return the favor on Saturday, but nothing was working in line with me. He didn�t want to drink, so I pretty much had to force him to choke down the one cheap green beer we got him. And then the rest of us were all messed up, which I know had to be annoying to be about. God, especially Smacko. Motherfucker would just not shut up, would not give Gautam any breathing room, just blathering on and on, broken record style, about wanting to get into fights and buy drugs and blah blah blah. Plus, Smacko�s mouth is always strangely susceptible to dyeing, so it�s all green and nasty from the beer, and he�s leaning in all close to Gautam, and I�m like, �Jesus Christ.� I keep apologizing to Gautam, asking him what he would like to do, if he will let me buy him another drink, anything to make his night a bit less of a shit demon. But no, no � he says he�s fine. I cannot possibly believe him. How could anyone be fine in regards to this? I am about the happiest I can be, chemically, and I am just barely fine with it.

And just when I think things could not really get any worse, in comes Lukeman from my creative classes, with one of his friends, and they join us, and we are crossing just too many social barriers now, and it is awk.ward. I don�t dislike the guy or anything, but I don�t particularly like him either, and I don�t believe Allison does either, but we are the connecting forces between the two sides, and blech. Just hellish.

We eventually make some excuse and leave, briefly considering going home, but no, no, there is still some dwindling hope left, so we to the next most depressing spot on the map. Legends. Obviously. And we are sitting around, trying to decide if we want drinks, and I finally realize just how far gone Smacko truly is. As far as I could tell, he was toeing the line of zombie drunkenness, and that is one forest fire I did not want to put out. So, mentally, I cut him off.

Who should come over then but Junior, who invites us over to the pool tables with his crew. And I�ve only just gotten off the phone with Spritz, who says he is on the way with Brytne and Dustin and everybody. And somehow, even knowing what these people are, I still think this might be the savior of the evening. We will all congregate, things will get crazy, some nights don�t even get started until 2 am, etc., etc. So I stand and I wait.

Allison and I dance to the White Stripes. It is weird, and I know I am definitely past some sort of line of inebriety myself, as I am suddenly embodying John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, and that is a thing I would never, ever do. Spritz is playing pool with some awful little nugget girl, and they hate each other, I think, but I am not very interested. Smacko is alternately blathering to someone or trying to pick fights, which I am sure will end either way, and Gautam is standing around silently. Poor, poor Gautam.

Allison goes to watch the pool game or something, and Junior starts talking to me. I do not know what it is, man, but he is so weirdly competitive around me. I asked Spritz if he did that around him, and in typical Spritz fashion he was like, �No, Junior thinks I�m a fucking god,� so apparently it�s just me. Spritz thinks Junior sees me as a threat, which I guess would imply an equal, and I really do not get it. I am not good with girls, I do not look all that great, I am not manly or impressive� Maybe it�s the fact that I don�t seem very impressed by those sorts of things, that I coast by on my own weird shit. Maybe it's that which sparks these things. I don�t know. It makes me very curious. Anyway, Junior� like, I�m sure he�d be a very nice guy if he didn�t see us on the apocalyptic warfield or whatever. He invited us to join him, and that was nice and stuff� But he comes over, and he just says the most random things out of nowhere, like he�s trying to be nonchalant but mostly they just come out as an insane non sequiturs. A girl walks by. �Yawn� that�s like the seventh time I�ve gotten �fuck me� eyes tonight.� Or: �Yeah, this undershirt cost me like 45 dollars.� And I do not know how I am properly supposed to respond to these statements. Should I be bending a steel bar in rage? Instead I just use what he says to shit on myself, since I think that might what he�s going for anyway. �Yeah, that horrible little nugget has been eyeing me for a while now, too. I keep an arsenic pill in my pocket just in case.� Or: �I got this shirt from Old Navy. On a gift card. It was pretty sweet. You can spill wine on it, and no one can tell.� I honestly have no idea to deal with people.

Spritz is drunker than I would imagine, for he goes on this insane Highlander thing for like 45 minutes after beating the awful nugget. I guess she was just a biotech the whole time, but he keeps acting like he�s being struck by lightning and stuff. It�s pretty weird. Plus he keeps making unwilling people play pool with him, I guess to keep the runner�s high going.

Dustin and Brytne and everybody arrive eventually, and all things considered they seem to be pretty OK with me. The Varnes was drunk to insanity, so he didn�t care, Dustin was in one of his good spots, and Logan has always seemed pretty nice. I thought Brytne was mad at first, considering she just broke up with Fitz, and somehow that always translates to "anger at random people," but it turns out she was just very, very drunk. She eventually stumbled over to discuss how awful Fitz was, and I am pretty used to that, so it was OK. But she starts in on Michelle, and it�s like, gah, how much power do you think you wield here, sister? Shelly is my roommate and one of my best friends, kind of like the surrogate sister I never had, and I�m supposed to start tearing her down because you�ve suddenly reappeared in my life after months and months of cutting us all off? But I don�t want to start trouble, and I really don�t know about half the accusations she�s making anyway, so I just keep going, �I�m neutral, I�m neutral. I�m like the Swiss� or the Swedes, I can never really remember which. I haven�t heard anything about that,� etc.

Like I said, everyone seemed OK with me. It turns out, however, that none of them are really OK with Allison. Brytne, being the drunkest, spoke up the loudest. �No one really likes her� and how she�s all bitchy and stuff. Now this is all very true. I happen to be on Allison�s good side, so the bitchiness is never aimed at me, but if I step back a bit, I can totally see what they mean. I mean, I don�t love these people, and I find most of the shit they do kind of boring, but at least I�m civil about it. I hold my tongue, act relatively normal, make appropriate conversation and jokes. Allison is not one to mask her displeasure, though, and can be downright rude on occasion. And I know, that�s just Allison, but the problem is, I think the general consensus is that, since she follows me like a puppydog, I must be the one who keeps bringing her around. Ack! Wrong-o. The only time I invite her to do anything is when I think it might drag Hillary into the picture. Mostly it�s Spritz or Shelly or she just shows up on her own. Then she gets drunk, and starts tailing me, spouting poison to anyone she doesn�t particularly like (which includes all of these people), and I am somehow left with the blame. What am I supposed to do about it?

I try to argue that she isn�t as bad as all that, but of course Allison picks about the worst time to pop up and join the table with me, Logan, Dustin, and Brytne. They are talking about sports or something, and I am listening in politely, asking OK questions and stuff, and Allison plops down and decides to be belligerent. She actually even warns me a little ahead of time, saying she�s about to �get on her high horse and fuck with these people,� and I am like, �No, Allison, please no,� but soon enough she is yelling about racism and sports and God knows what else because it didn�t make a damn bit of sense in regards to what they were actually talking about or to the English language in general really, and everyone is sort of pissed and giving me looks like this is somehow my doing until finally I just go, �Shut up, Allison. Christ.� She gets all mopey and walks away� pretty much into the arms of Spritz, eventually leading to our next close call of the evening.

We head home finally, with the usual stop for a mediocre sandwich and stolen chips. Gautam and Smacko walk together, polar opposites in terms of sobriety (among other things), and I resist the urge to apologize to the former like a dozen more times. Spritz is pretty lit up himself, and we amuse ourselves on the way home talking about this one episode of �Star Trek� where Worf appears to have have braces and makes about the stupidest face ever. Allison walks up occasionally to put her arm around Spritz, I think finally having learned that I will try to weasel away from her just as soon as I can if she tries the same on me. We arrive home, Gautam turns on some �Scrubs,� Spritz and Allison cuddle up, and Smacko pulls out the rest of his forty from the fridge; it has turned to slush in the time since we left. The last thing Smacko needs is another 20 ounces of malt liquor, but I will not be the one to tell him this. Plus, when he�s drinking, he can�t be talking nonstop about our plans for the summer � growing mushrooms and doing LSA, allegedly. My pity for poor Gautam continues. He just wants to watch this good show without a man yelling. Smacko leaves eventually, but not before Allison and Spritz head up to bed together. �Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god,� I think to myself as the consequences of this fully sink in. If they fuck, results are going to be awkward as hell, and though I�d actually be interested in seeing them, I still do not think it�s a good idea. However, we never invented a codeword for this sort of thing, so I just have to look on and hope that their drunken judgment will hold out. Oh Christ oh Christ oh Christ.

I go up to bed and Smacko propositions that I come over and do some bumps with him. Oh yes please. You were glorious for so much of the night. Let�s drag that out another twelve hours. Yikes.

On the plus side, Allison and Spritz did not fuck. We have also since invented a codeword to warn a comrade that he might be making a sexual faux pas. We call it a Ruth Nelson. Keep it in mind, gentlemen. It may save you from the shamiest of walks.

OK, the rest of the week should go fast, descriptively. About the most interesting thing I did on Sunday was watching all of Vh1�s �100 Most Shocking Moments in Rock and Roll.� Which is to say, not interesting at all. 5 hours of inane bits of music history, and not one of them shocked me in the least. Sly Stone got married at Madison Square Garden during his concert, you say? Lordy, now I must change these dungarees, for they are all soiled with the fecal matter of a shocked man!

Monday I spent all day cleaning my room. It was hell; all the dust I stirred up, plus my lingering illness, turned me into a snotty, sneezing mess, but oh the glory that is this place now. I could actually bring a person here now, and not feel shamed. Which of course was sort of my intention the whole time. Sigh. We made plans to go to the stripclub, but most people flaked (myself included), and Spritz went to watch The Varnes do a fashion show instead. Yike.

At some point this week I had really planned on going to see Justin down in Edwardsville, but unfortunately I had a cable bill to pay (I�m getting far too adept at knowing at which point they�ll actually shut off service), leaving me with like 10 dollars to get down there and back. Allegedly, I could be at Beckman, filing, or the Psych Building, transcribing, but pretty much I�m less motivated to do those than anything.

Tuesday Allison and I helped Spritz on his advertising homework, (she because she wanted to, me because I ate the Pop Tart that was allegedly his inspiration), then hit the mall for no reason, and Spritz and I sat around bored, until he pulled out �Age of Empires II.� We�ve been playing for like the last two days, (as far as I can tell, he skipped a job interview for it), me always trying to make war elephants do something besides be slow and suck. Attacking will elephants is the best idea man has ever produced. I have never played this sort of game before and am vastly amused by the fact that the little people have to listen to me. "You there, go chop that tree down and give me the wood.� And the little fucker does it! That is hard work! I don�t think I would chop down a tree for anybody, at least not without a chainsaw and a blowjob, but these little dudes will follow the most ludicrous orders. �Run to your violent death by arrows!� Okey dokey! Poor little fools.

Hm. Maybe tomorrow I will get productive. Then again, maybe I won�t.