04/08/2006 - 3:15 p.m. | *let the damn breeze dry my face*

Good morning. I have a lot of work to do, which is then of course the absolute best time to get really down knee deep in some diary excursions. It wasn�t even that great of a weekend, but I�m coming out of it with such a wholesome feeling, so something must have gone right.

Thursday night I was stuck in the lab, and it was hot and filled with gyros (courtesy Shelly), and I was not really as interested in getting drunk as I thought. However, the decision had been long out of my hands, and the Everclear party � the alcohol, not the band :( � Shelly had been half-planning on turned out to be the same that Moller was hosting and inviting us to, and who can fucking avoid fate like that? Well, me mostly. I was plenty drunk in the end after all, yes, but it left me distracted. By the time I got off work, hung around the auditorium for a bit (hoping that Hillary might be stepping out of there from the concert she�d been ushering, already queuing up that lame Everclear line in the hopes I could casually invite her to the thing), walked home, dropped my stuff off, dug out a belt, painted my face, listened to like four songs, had another drink, and walked out the door to the party, I bumped into Shelly, Spritz, and Omar on their way home. Turns out the party was pretty lame � unless you happened to like dog turds, of which there were copious amounts. I can do without that sort of thing (turds), so I did not feel let down when we walked straight back home.

We sat on the porch for a long time. A long long long long long time. Like �til after 5 long time. Gautam finished his chips and left pretty early, and Spritz came and went as he is wont to do, so mostly it was me and Omar and Shelly. Omar had smoked opium that evening, and it had not left him a better man as a result. In fact, I thought he was downright aggravating � and I�m not talking about the absurd length of time it would take him to close the door (�Guys, should I shut this door?� �Yes, Omar.� Five minute pause. �So wait� do you think I should close the door?�). He started getting all philosophical or something, and that�s fine for some people, but he kept bringing it back to me, and it was annoying. He kept saying that I was funny and all, but that I was �hollow.� I don�t know why that hit so close to home, but it really pissed me off. I mean, I know I�m not hollow � I might make attempts to appear that way, but everybody who knows me thinks I can be downright annoyingly complicated at times. I guess that�s the thing � Omar doesn�t know me that well, and yet he�s making all these snap judgments about me, and I know I shouldn�t care because he is just generally retarded and additionally fucked up on opium, but it still had me seething. And then when he asked what Shelly and I thought of him like five minutes later, well, it was good that he forgot I hadn�t answered because I would have been hard-pressed for kindness at that point.

Oh � and here�s a nice �compliment� from him: �A lot of frat guys would think you guys were losers, but I think you�re really interesting.� Thank you, Omar. �Interesting.� Giant squid are interesting. I am not a giant squid. And I know, I know, I am just looking for ways to dislike him, but that�s just how people are sometimes.

Anyway, we were outside for the longest time, being pelted by rain occasionally, but too sleepy and comfortable to really get up and do anything about it. At least until the sun rose. At that point, I ran around for an hour doing the Happy Man Dance and hacking up fish-like pieces of phlegm around the neighborhood. Shelly had like ten Charley Horses in a row. Clearly, the gods were vengeful. �Do not encroach upon our territory!� �And what territory is that?� �NATUURRRE� I wrote that last bit there at about 6 in the morning. It is fairly well indicative of my mental state at that time. Also how funny I thought the pun �probphlegmatic� was. I was just rolling for that shit.

Exhaustion was the order of the day. Too tired to even read Harry Potter fan fiction (gasp!), I just gaped blindly at the monitor until it was time to go. A run woke me up marginally (Coordinating away messages as I usually do, I altered my path such that it went by Courier there and back, just so I might happen to run into Hillary and Allison and friends as they were coming or going, me looking all sweaty and masculine for once� I am trying to believe in the power of making your own luck (which I hear is what they�re calling stalking these days), but it really only caused me to pass out for 4 hours smelling terribly.

Incidentally, I missed quite an adventure as a result of stupid work. Okay, so we�re finally done with the stupid Postal Vault stuff, right? So the business-side people spent like three days sleepless, getting together our plans book � a summary of our overall strategy and execution, with examples. They finished at about the last possible minute, printed the fuckers, and had them shipped overnight to the proper place (Santa Claus, Indiana, if you can believe). Problem is, the lack of sleep got to them, and they made a fucking HUGE typo � or rather, a whole series of them. The plans book has a page devoted to each of the ten target markets � each city supposedly at greatest risk for identity theft � and specifics were listed for them in terms of promotions, events, ads, whatever. Problem is, for Sacramento, all of the information was about San Diego. Huuuuuge fuck-up. Probably could cost us the entire contest. The thing is, all of the business-side people were too burnt out and insane to actually give a rat�s ass about the thing anymore, leading us to good old Dan from my creative class. In the smallest amount of time possible, he had some poor journ student fix the incorrect pages, took said pages and had them reprinted all pretty at Kinkos, and as I last heard, was planning on leaving town at like 5 in the morning to make the 5 hour journey to Santa Claus to beat the batch of incorrect books arriving at roughly the same time. He invited me along, and I would have given anything to be a part so silly. I wonder if he made it.

UPDATE: Turns out the competition people require any deliveries to be made by some sort of official package or courier service, tossing the roadtrip plan out. Instead, they decided to reprint and rebind the books in their entirety at Kinkos (with all remaining errors corrected) and have them shipped same-day to Santa Claus. Thing is, for same-day shipping, you�ve got to be like a FedEx demigod � 20 packages shipped a month for the last 7 years, is that I heard � so there was a frantic search to find someone�s dad or uncle or whoever might actually have this shit. They did, eventually, and everything got printed and shipped, and we are still in the running. And all for the low, low cost of something like 1,200 dollars. I have no idea where that money came from. I am fearfully expecting a bill to appear in my mailbox at some point. God willing, identity thieves will snatch it.

I woke rather depressed and not really interested in moving or drinking or doing much of anything besides reading in bed. I was comforted, strangely enough, by Missy Barmann. Well, perhaps that isn�t so strange at all, but it sure does make me feel guilty. Break the poor girl�s heart, and she�s still trying to tell you specifically why you�re so awesome so you aren�t so down in the dumps. I wish I could have been more in love with you, girl, because I certainly fucked that one up. Missy was in Lawrence comforting her best friend Tracy, who had just broken up with her own boyfriend� except they�d been together like 7 years. Pretty much they were everyone�s sure bet for marital success, and now it�s Dumptown. Really leaves you with a lot of hope for love, does it not? My sources of inspiration just keep dwindling and dwindling.

I was trying to be firm � �I do not feel like going out tonight� � but of course you know by now how easily I am coerced. Gautam�s thesis was finished, and we pretty much had to go out and celebrate, didn�t we? Yes, I suppose so. Pass the gin.

I downed way too much of the poison way too fast, but it actually worked out in my favor. I was so sure it was just going to enhance my crumminess and leave me weeping and running off into the night, but I was downright jovial all things considered.

Omar was in charge of the evening somehow and pretty much would not shut up about all of us going to C.O.�s. Have I mentioned he has connections there before? I may have, but I�ll say it again. He could get us in as V.I.P.s, which is just about the silliest thing I ever heard of. Us. Important. There. Nonsense.

[Many days have passed. I am in the lab again and am bored to tears and my stomach is attempting to consume itself for lack of chips. Any madness in the writing will be attributed to such. Any typos are pretty much standard procedure and will be pointed out to me in time.]

Anyway, it was supposed to be Gautam�s night, but he�s too nice of a guy to shoot anyone�s plan down, even if the guy is Omar and the plan is C.O.�s. So we make our way there, I guess, and suddenly I was pretty well drunk. Or deaf. Or some combination of the two. I could not hear things very well all night, but I might have actually preferred it that way. Thank God Gautam got a call from some of his friends at Legends. I mean, I pretty much hate that place too, but there it is a hatred of boredom and the other is a hatred of getting one�s face pounded in and getting covered by the random body fluids I always imagine flying through the air like confetti. Semen looks very little like confetti, but there you go.

I believe I was drunkest at Legends, because it is there I remember the least. I remember Allison and I talked about advertising, because she boxes me into a corner like that when she is drunk, and I also vaguely remember Jevon being hammered and just smashing beer bottles on the floor next to him. This was only mildly interesting to me at the time, but apparently lots of other people were pretty up in arms about it.

Our party split suddenly and violently after the first beer or so. Spritz stayed at Legends all night, I think, with Brytne and some of that crew. And obviously, because Brytne was there and in some sort of ass-pounding mood, Shelly and I took off into the night. Gautam joined us, I remembered eventually. Jevon and Omar went to C.O.�s, V.I.P.-style, but were most likely too drunk to remember it. I don�t remember what Allison did, and I feel bad because I used to care so much what Allison did. Was there someone else? Fuck, gin really works a number on me, man, and in my mind everyone was as drunk as I was, so I have no idea how we actually managed to find the Urbana house party in question. I remember Gautam ran into Angela Campbell on the bus on the ride there, and I remember thinking, �What power does this man hold over the woman of Asia and Pan-Asia?� He is good-looking and all, but he is not what I would call a riveting conversationalist. We stopped to play on a swing, and there I feel for certain there was somebody in our group I am not counting. Sorry, there, possible hallucination, possible easily-forgotten acquaintance.

The party was quasi-interesting, but only because I was so drunk that near everything was interesting. Lukeman was there, drinking shitty vodka out of a flask mere hours before we were supposed to be shooting our commercial. We apparently gave Brenna a call and left a voicemail that was more or less us screaming. I had apparently coalesced a tiny watermelon sucker from nowhere, and I kept alternating it and the warm Keystone Light Shelly had stolen from the fridge for me. Neither were improved by this method. I was just amused I had a sucker.

Better still, Andrea showed up with her Mexican gerbil-lookin� boyfriend D.J. Now, despite Shelly�s proddings, I would have been perfectly content to avoid her the whole evening, but luckily she came up to me. It was nice talking to her, although admittedly I do not know if this is because I still like her or because I am so much, much more charming and better-looking than her current boyfriend. I don�t think he said two words the whole night, and meanwhile I had her just rolling with� well, whatever I had to say at the time. In fact, I did not even know that he was with her until like 10, 15 minutes into our conversation. Up �til then, I�d had half a mind to try and get with her, although again� for the self-esteem or for the experience? I have no answer. But, you know, I don�t really want to make a cuckold out of anyone, but it just felt good that the pretty girl thought I was so, so awesome and that her own boyfriend was like a shining dog turd in comparison.

I eventually felt guilty for hogging her from hamster face, so I went off to find Shelly, who had quietly disappeared early on so as to not disrupt my game. Good old Shelly. She, meanwhile, had met like 13, 14 guys all with B names. I believe she attempted to make introductions, and they were just silly, silly. Bradley, Bob, Bailey, Barnabus, Benji, Backwash, Barndance, Biff, something something. Mostly Shelly was in hysterics about these two shitty Valentine�s Day bears with half-burnt faces and torsos. Clearly, we were both pretty drunk and left not long after.

When we got home, Omar had commandeered the couch but was taking up only like a third of it, leaving us to cram onto the loveseat and listen to the blaring jazz he had somehow managed to conjure from our television. We woke up the next day to �Wildboyz� and Wild Berry Toaster Strudel (the only one featuring blue frosting, I might add) and did not move for many, many hours for fear of angering the hangover gods. They were appeased enough with our wasted lives, I guess, for they deemed us worthy of a rare boon. Andy calls around 2:30: �Can we set our trampoline up in your backyard?� Um, yes?

Andy summons some of his mutant troll army (He can form them so easily!), and they clumsily mash metal parts together until there is a dangerous jumping device in our yard. Yes, I suppose I will trust these ugly men with my life. Anyway, it is another of Andy�s brilliant schemes: It seems Wal-mart has a 90-day return policy, so he decided to go with the same policy I use on textbooks and �rent� the damn thing with a ridiculously-high deposit fee (180 bucks, to be precise). Of course, I�m not sure how happy Wal-mart will be to take it back when it returns in three months covered in puke and bird shit and stinky foot smell, but whatever, it�s not my damn money.

My God, everyone loves a trampoline (or, as Shelly typo�d at some point, �tramponline� � sounds like a pretty good porn site to me). I mean, Andy is Jesus on it, that isn�t surprising � my theory is that his whole world is normally like walking on a trampoline, so this is hardly any big adjustment for him � but it�s so weird how this silly thing brings out the kid in everyone. I mean, like Gautam � Gautam, one of the most serious, subdued individuals I know � just fucking loves the thing. Won�t stay off it, has the biggest, silliest grin on his face as he flies around. It�s actually sort of cute, that we�re all nearing adulthood now, and yet this thing makes us happier than any notion of a good job or a happy marriage. Someone explain that to me.

With no parents around, we finally had a trampoline free of that annoying �adult supervision� we�d been facing our whole lives. Finally, a chance to do all the stupid shit we want � flips and 5-way jumps and flying leaps off the garage and rings of fire and on and on and on. It must be noted that I am a fairly horrible trampoliner � no balance, so I�m always tumbling down to the fetal position (or dramatically to my knees when it is off the garage), no weight to heave myself or anyone else around, no real desire to do anything �cool� besides jumping up and down, straight-legged. I am, however, surprisingly good at �Crack the Egg� � or, as it should be more properly-titled, �Sustain Major Spinal Cord Injuries.� Pretty much I will stay in that little ball until someone actually steps on my face � which does admittedly happen a fair amount.

Shelly and I watched Shaolin Soccer, which was kind of fun and weird, but not nearly as much of either as I had prepared for. I did like the dance number of ugly people. It was supposed to be a night of frat parties (I was talking to Brian online both nights about my plans, and I got all defensive � �I swear, man, we�re not normally like this!�), but pretty much that got chucked to the side with the possibility of more trampoline. It was me and Shelly and Gautam and Omar with a hilarious cameo by Smacko here and there, as he did the craziest dance while jumping around in a cape, and we jumped and we rested and we jumped some more and Omar forced us to listen to Bob Marley (�Buffalo Soldier� was stuck in my head for three days following). lol, I think Smacko had some hickeys, lol

We eventually tried to get our shit together and be normal college students. I resumed pouring gin down my throat, and Omar played some of his 18 million Dave Matthews live bootlegs. I made the mistake of intimating that I had once enjoyed the band a fair amount in my lifetime, and now the boy swarms on me at certain periods, all �Dude, have you heard the 3.5.17 Red Rocks version of �Warehouse� with the �Passion� opening?� No, but I�m guessing I will now, huh.

Smacko was there with us for a while there, and he bought some fucking interesting beer at the liquor store. A 30 pack of LaCrosse Light, a beer world-renowned for the following 3 qualities: 1) being made with water - says it right there on the can! 2) being naturally carbonated, 3) being "fully krausened." Now, none of us actually know what being "krausened" actually entails (the whole of the internet holds no answers), but I can pretty much assure you that most other beers are half-krausened or less and you do not want that shit.

It seemed we were all mildly indifferent to the evening, but we made it out and to the closest party, plan being to get a bit more unlaced there, then head to the frats possibly, see what terrible bands were left playing. Problem is, place was completely dry � not dry as in �can�t have it,� but dry as in �done run out� � and suddenly the whole evening seemed that much more of an obstacle. While Shelly wandered around, trying to dig a drop of something out of this or that shadowy corner, I stood by and silently watched Omar in his element. My God, to be fucking popular. The man could seriously not walk two feet without being assaulted by another group of people who would shout his name in what can only be described as exultant joy. I mean, fucking everyone knew him, and from the way they acted, he was pretty much their lord and savior. As I watched this time and time again, several questions ran through my mind:

1) Why can�t I ever be that happy to see him?
2) If he�s this popular, why does he spend all his time at our house of nerds?
3) How can he stand everyone being so fucking jolly to him?

The last one in particular had me thinking. I mean, OK. When you run into a person you know and they are excited to see you, that is kind of a good feeling, right? But to have it happen again and again, to where you can�t get a free moment, the whole thing kind of loses its thrill, does it not? I expect it�s why famous people become jaded, because they get tired of the whole thing and miss being normal and faceless. But, as if it weren�t readily apparent enough, Omar and I are very different people, and I guess he likes that sort of thing. The old question of quantity versus quality, perhaps. Although, as always, I may just be bitter.

Our plans foiled, we made our way back home. There may have been talk of more drinking and rallying back out again, but I assume we all knew it was lost by this point. We closed the evening with a bit of drunken trampolining � an interesting experience, especially if you try a flip � and I pointed out every star I saw, an event Shelly has not stopped mocking me for even a week later. Omar turned on some more Dave, and we just sort of reclined in a drunken haze. I closed my eyes at one point, and it was 1:30. When I opened them, it was 3:15, and I was very confused. It didn�t feel like I�d slept an hour. So I started freaking out and running around the house, checking clocks, finally realizing that it was Daylight Savings. My God, what a mindfuck when you haven�t been warned for such a thing.

We were finally settling down, nearing 4 technically, when who should burst in but a very belligerent Allison Helm, hellbent on using our tramponline. So, yes, once more we burst forth onto the field of folly, and my god was Allison drunk. She was this feisty little cannonball, falling over constantly and just flying around at top speed, pretty much knocking the rest of us over and rolling around. It was sort of cute how she kept going, �boing!� though. Anyway, she said she had to take a pee or something and ran off, completely disappearing for the rest of the night. Shelly and I eventually noticed her long absence and tried tracking her down, but everyone was asleep when we came in, so we had no clues. It turns out she had just run around enraging our friends and neighbors (namely Smacko and Omar� Omar, who would probably give Hitler at least half a chance, was like, �God, I fucking hate that Allison girl!� the next day) and gone home, but we didn�t know that and continued spamming her phone all night long. We figured the hail storm probably woke her up if she was collapsed in a ditch.

There was a tornado Sunday night, and I have been blamed for it. It was so nice and sunny and warm during the day, but we were all out on the trampoline that evening, and it had turned sort of cloudly, so I just started cursing God, telling Him to stop being so wishy-washy with the overcast weather and to just bring a hurricane already. I told Him I didn�t think He had the balls. Well, what do you know? Pretty soon it starts raining a little bit and soon after that the TV weather people are just being insanely alarmist. �Get inside shelter now! Stay there! Don�t move! You�re fucked! Get away from all electronic devices! Drop that cell phone now, son! Fuck, this TV is an electronic device! What are you doing? Run! Armageddon, motherfuckers! The fiery whirlwind approacheth!� Well, fuck. them. I love a good storm, and it�s nice to pretend I�m brave enough to face death, so I go out on the porch and coerce my seriously concerned friends and roommates out there as well. Cars are just flying down the street and trees are dancing and the sky is red. Is it raining sideways? Possibly. I keep waiting for the sound of the train I am supposed to here. They are not pleased and keep insisting that we should hide with Grandpa Squirrel or that that tree is going to fall on us or that that wobbling stop sign is going to come loose and chop off our fingers and brains. Thank God the equally fearless Smacko came over. He put on his cape, and I got some dramatic shots fighting the storm like some sort of new god. There is a picture of me, as well, and I swear, no man has ever been so happy to be caught in a tornado. That is my dubious honor.

Turns out the storm was lame, at least by our part of town, all short and ineffectual. Oh, some branches. Lordy, lordy, the sky is falling. I guess in Champaign, though, some people got hit pretty hard. They lost power for like two days, and the car wash on University was destroyed. OH NOT THE CAR WASH WHYYYY Meanwhile, my ad professor hid in his bathroom, 9 beers stored in his toilet tank. He was ready. I wanted to lose a limb, man! That would almost certainly mean I would not have to do tomorrow�s homework. We continued to sit and watch the rain, further delaying the inevitable, and eventually went out for ice cream. We came back with Lunchables, which is about as far away as one can get from ice cream, little round circles of turkey and all, and had us an elegant dinner party. Those little bits of nasty were so fucking hard to choke down, I can�t even believe it. It did not help them stay down when later we discussed the process of making circles from a decidedly unround thing like a turkey. The best solution was just a long turkey tube, gliding down a conveyor belt, being chopped to bits. I want to visit that factory someday and crotch on that conveyor belt, letting that tube slide straight down my esophagus and all the way out my colon. You know you do, too.