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A drunk, drunk, drunk thursday..and all the stuff after

2004-10-18 - 8:09 p.m.

So, as opposed to listening to music for ten minutes or diddling around with whatever some such, I figure updating after 4 days makes a damn fine bit of sense.

So...Thursday...sweet, utterly fucking drunk Thursday...

* * *

Thursday: Drinking, Chicken Dance, More Drinking, Ass-Laughing Conversation, More Drinking

It all started around 5pm, where myself (in my usual 30 minutes early way), Xtian and Bryan met near the elevators of the psych building. This was the time and place to be: a convergence point wherein a nexus of alkie-inclined students would bum-rush some unsuspecting bar and wantonly use it.

The minutes passed, though, and while several others came Bryan was surprised. 20 people had emailed back to his "Hey, wanna get drunk after the midterm?" e-mail to the first year class. We're a tight and fairly predictable bunch like that, since stress levels mount from moderate (me) to near suicidal I'd imagine. Finally we decided to head to the Rhed Barn, since apparently that was the default choice if people got lost or late or taken up by aliens.

And so the Rhed Barn we went..and found yet more happy people..and drank..and bitched about how easy and disarming the midterm seemed..and drank..and...yeah, drank more. I went for a Guiness, 18oz Long Island Iced Tea (which pales in comparison to the one's my ex amy's friends made me way back when), and a tequila sunrise with lots of cuervo. I ended up working all of the mini-groups, somehow creating or ending up in my own, then sortof meandering back to the larger groups that'd form up. It was a sea of coversation, breaking and receeding, forming and carrying on the waves of drunken ignomy.

I'd say the highlights were:

1) Finally talking to Allison, the befreckled grad. who'd also worked at Ha'vard. At least I thought that was a decent ice-breaker, even if I knew none of her people. She's apparently interested in depression as well, which gives some room for banter in the future.

2) Mat, the post-doctoral Canadian gentleman who lives up to the 'damn but those Canadians are decent folk!' reputation. We talked about politics and how the more conservative party in Canada is practically more liberal than any one in America. I've always felt like I should have been a diplomat's son, so I enjoy international exchange type talk stuff.

3) Various people saying that I know my shit. Apparently most of my stats study group, except for Jason, call me Ke_pel. This is the author of our stats book. Apparently I 'know everything about the book' and I look like a guy who'd write a textbook. Must be the bushy goatee. Bryan even went so far as to say, "This guy's a fucking genius, man," either while walking to the Rhed Barn or inside it. I know boasting isn't exactly charming, but I was pleased and amused to hear those tossed around. It's..nice to know how others perceive you, I suppose.

And as the Rhed Barn hour dimmed and flickered, there was a murmur about people wanting to eat. I played mini-group courier and got a consensus that everyone thought it was a good idea. So, being unanimous and slightly drunk, we decided to head over to Lebensraum (no, not the actual name). At the time I just thought it was a german bar or something. Bryan had said we could walk there, but the blocks piled on one another and finally half the group decided to catch a bus.

I ran ahead with the walking group, relayed the info, then got into a long conversation with Becky. Now for whatever reason, Becks intrigues me. I'd thought it might have been the really white teeth or the svelt square glasses, but during the talking it seemed as though she had a bouncy, fun-enjoying personality (which are two good reasons I love T and tentatively decided to commit, though it's long-distance). Somehow at one point we saw a theatre kiosk advertising all your typical broadway stuff, and that launched into talk about the Phantom of the Opera showing in January. She was keen on the idea. I said I wasn't sure if I could with work. I got the usual "Oh Daath" look whenever I mention that about any event.

And so we carroused around corners, moved up and down teeny-tiny grades of hilly sidewalks and finally came to Lebensraum.

Holy fuck.

Now I'd seen 'Groundhog Day' and was impressed by the scene with german lasses carrying giant steins of beer. There was none of that here, but everyone was having a good time. Everyone. Up on stage was some fat middle aged dude with a real german accent on vocals and accordian, some old geezer accompanying him on drums. It was old school Oompa, really old school. Made me giggle my ass off just listening to it; it had an infectious beat.

Eventually we got seated at a giant table and looked over the menu. We'd all failed to realize just how fucking unbelievably expensive most of the stuff was--but the beer was cheap, and the few of us who wanted to go elsewhere to eat first just decided to stock up on free popcorn and cheap pretzels.

And so with enough carbs to kill an Atkins dieter, along with even more in the form of some pints of german beer, we received an unexpected gift:

We got our first boot. Let me explain the boot. The boot is a tall, 64oz. glass in the shape of a giant boot. When one orders a boot, it is passed around the table to one person at a time and flicked by the drinker, who then drinks and passes it down. If you are the second to last person to finish the boot, you pay for the next one. If you spill any on yourself (which around the heel portion can get tricky), you pay for the next one.

And that's where the madness started. That boot was replaced by another, and another, and another from a table full of beer-saavy young men who wanted to cream our half guy and half girl group. Oh but we gave those bastards a good run in. At this time I was toasty and we all got into Greek mode, with me chanting shit like "Psych! Psych! Psych!" and people banging on shit and generally making debauched asses of themselves. Many people got very friendly and huggy and such. I distinctly remembering hugging Becks and thinking, "My God, you can be that thin? Holy shit there's nothing there!" A goodly reason why I date not such women folk.

Naturally we lost the beer race, though Bryan (our self-proclaimed alcoholic) gave it all his best. Funny enough, now that I think about it, he was rather friendly to me throughout the night. Noone was outrightly rude, but Memphis Jen and a few others were kinda distant in general.

After..I think another boot...and finishing my 2nd pint...all of the sudden Xtian was dancing beside the band with one of the female grads. The accordian dude calmly sang into the microphone despite the beer around him, on occasion switching to the "Ziggy zoggy, ziggy zoggy, oi oi oi" portion of drunken audience karaoke. You'd have to have seen The Man Show or been in a german bar to get it. Naturally the lot of us belted it like drunk pirates.

So imagine my surprise when they play the chicken dance, of all things. All of the sudden one of our stats. study group people, Katie, looks at me from down the table, flashes me her full-dimple smile and says "Come on!" I'm so drunk at this point that this sounds like a fabulous idea. And so with her leading me by the hand, we descended into the mad fray of chicken people. Having never done the chicken dance while moderately drunk off my ass, I fared (according to Katie) pretty well.

So there might have been another boot or two..or I might have forgotten to put one in there..but after awhile the group decided to head to greener pastures. We'd lost some people here and there, but a core group of us who knew one another well had remained. I'd decided to walk with Xtian and Carolyn over to wherever we'd agree to meet.

You know how when you're really drunk, yet you can still walk alright, and this somehow makes you feel really proud of yourself? We were doing that and talking about all sorts of amusing shit I can't remember. I was laughing my ass off left, right and sideways, man (or woman).

Eventually we tried to get into some exclusive bar/dance club, but most of us thought that was ass. Then we tried a karaoke bar, where for whatever reason Katie wanted to hear me sing with her, Xtian, and someone else I can't recall.

The lot of us decided that was no good either, so we finally ended up at a Cuban sortof tropical thing bar. By then it was me, Xtian the mad dancing fool, Katie the dimpled one, Mat the Canadian, Moloney (Indian or Pakistani, one of those two), Bryan the self-professed alcoholic. Naturally we drank more, but we were still at Lebensraum level.

This was our personal closeness stage of the evening. Moloney or someone had asked me if I were single. I said something vague, I guess, because they were pressing me for details. I just smiled and drunkedly pitched my attention to another conversation. It was during all of this that Mat and Katie got into her dating situation, and how if she were not 'taken' that he'd want to pursue her. At first she was like 'yeah, whatever', but this seemed to cause her some concern as the minutes passed. She looked over to Xtian--who seems to be good friends with her--as if to ask for support. She developed one of those "I just don't know" sorts of faces, the kind of confused look where you begin to feel as if what you'd been wanting may not be it. I felt sympathy, but we're acquaintances and I didn't feel it was my place.

I was the first one to leave the cuban bar thingy, on account of it was getting late and I was starting to feel not so hot. Everyone wished me well and I took the long, long, loooooooooong walk back home. Oh sure it was only 7-8 blocks maybe, but damn it was long. I ended up 'hic'ing myself to sleep.

I can't remember a night where I was so happy and completely care-free.

* * *

Friday-Monday

Xtian had invited people to some graduate council bash that was being held on saturday, but I was too busy doing stats homework to care.

Basically my time between Drunk Night and now has been reading articles, stats, and reading stats. I'm thinking I get my stats midterm back tomorrow, and that kinda scares me some. Thankfully we don't have an emotions class this week. Not so thankfully, the 15 page paper for it is due Nov 2nd.

About that paper. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I brought up exactly what the prof. meant by proposing an original experiment looking at emotion. I asked him if he strictly meant emotion (which researchers suggest are just those sudden bursts of feeling you get). He said it could be broadly taken. I mentioned my area and if that'd fly. He said 'sure, you can do psychopathology'.

This works out extremely well in my favor. Y'see, I can read articles for doing this paper..and at the same time I'm reading those very same articles to mesh together the specifics on my first year project.

Two birds with one stone. I'm particularly proud of that bit of finaggling.

Still, it's a bitch keeping up with everything. This stats chapter is hard to wade through, and I've still got half of it left..along with some more reading I want to do.

I'll get it all done in time, no question. Still, with me starting to learn some lab techniques this week for doing molecular biology stuff, it could get kinda tight.

But regardless: that drunk thursday was just what all of us needed, and I'll carry it with me like a jug of sake.

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