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The Dan, Dan, Meg party o' October

2005-10-20 - 4:47 p.m.

Yay for time to breathe.

Right. So where was I in chronicling this shindig?

Ahh. Last saturday. Somehow being a week behind just seems to fall outta my pockets.

- - -

So back when an older generation of dust mites roamed the earth, I'd been studying for the first stats exam, grading some papers, and generally needed a break. I figured, "Auriel, you've done read through your notes once, son. Get your ass out and drunk." And lo, I agreed.

This was over at the Dan, Dan, and Meg house, only 15 minutes away by foot from the psych building. So I left all my stuff in my 13 person office and headed over. I noticed Xtian across the way dressed in black and looking mighty determined. He was the DJ that njice, and I guess he was getting his game-face on. Hell if I know. So I walked behind him without notice for awhile and admired the moon.

When I came in, naturally, no one but me and Xtian had yet shown up. I come to parties on time for some odd reason. I guess I'm universally punctual.

So rather than bore the crap out of you with a trivial thing like time, I'm gonna do the highlights business:

*Brian was in full effect. He hadn't brought Abby, his girlfriend, along...and my word but that man packs away the beer. He'd whipped out his beer bong not before long, and the party officially began then. Dan did several, Brian did several several, and people periodically took hits from the thing long into the morning. Brian kept joshin' me to snarf some brew all fast-like, but I have too much pride to snort a can of cheap beer into me in under 4 seconds. I'm a sipping social drinker. Plus I like liquor.

*Speaking of which, Dan introduced me to black rum. Oh what a sweet, sweet bitch that is. A more smooth, mellow, but equally potent version of Captain Morgan, this stuff made for a sophisticated rum and coke. And several rum and cokes there were, oh yes.

*Shortly after the first few drinks, Brian, Dan, the other Dan ("downstairs danny"), and an eager jewish post-doc dude went upstairs, into a small room next to the main bedroom, and busted out a pipe and...well, you can guess.

Now, the last time I'd done such a thing was back in my...fuck...junior year of college? With Omega Kate, the devilishly calm punk Phil and myself out on the soccer fields at midnight something--over at 'Mt. Obie' (a 15ft hill) I think. I figured it'd been long enough and hey, what the fuck. The pipe was passed. Round and round it went, and way the fuck high Brian and Dan got. Goddamn but they were toked the fuck out. Post-Doc was getting mighty high too. Me? Barely anything. Half a dozen hits and I felt the same. Later on that night, I tried another half dozen. It was good shit, but I felt more or less the same way when I've meditated.

But the take-home message: 3 out of 4 men left that room wondering if they could socialize effectively. We all gathered in a group to seriously discuss this--laying on a bed, of course, except for me the standing one.

*I got to talking with a ravishingly interesting woman who I think is one of Katie's roommates. Now, I get absolutely no play around these parts. None. I figure I barely have the time to look after my concerns that flirting just doesn't make sense....um...that and I do not feel comfortable approaching a woman I don't know.

But somehow we got to talking, and being the amusing witty motherfucker I am, we joked, we kibitzed, blah blah blah. Obvious flirting; even I could recognize that just by the size of her pupils alone. I'm thinking, "well this was unexpected." And so after a good talk, I sooner than later find out she's married. And her husband is at the party, that thick black-shirted aryan chap with the none too talkative demeanor.

Yeah, I was disappointed. On the other hand, though, apparently I still have some game.

Friends have suggested I steer clear of that one. But given the smile she shot me when she was leaving, and the comment of how nice it'd be to see me at this coming PVC/Leather/Lace party on saturday...well...let's say I won't jump over or into the fire, but why not warm your hands if you've got the opportunity?

Ah come on, I can harmlessly flirt; I'm a committed bachelor. Not institutionalized, but committed.

*After awhile we got down to more or less the usual core group of party-go'ers. Funny enough that includes me. So what with repeating sounds and thumping bass, the basement was cranking out Xtian tunes a-plenty. And I thought fuck it, every one else is dancing, I'm vaguely drunk, I'll dance too. Apparently everyone was damned impressed when I started singing along with 'love shack' by the B52's. Fuck 'rock lobster' with a rusted metal wang; the shack is where it's at. And I didn't make a raging ass of myself. Becky was mightily drunk and quite physical as usual, although her and Xtian have some underlying 'if I didn't have a boyfriend we'd be making out right now' chemistry. Still, I got to twirl her around some...and fortunately didn't fuck that up too badly. I can sway, I'm white, I know not this straight then curved arm twirl thing except for in movies.

*Sometime after this, the jewish post-doc guy and I sat down on one of the first floor couches and started talking about mysticism. It all started with him asking me my middle name. I don't give it out for various reasons, but he obviously wasn't a mage or anything so what the fuck. He seemed surprised and greatly amused by this, quite possibly because he was really fucked up. He asked me to explain my background, I did, and that's when the flood gates partly parted.

See, anyone with a remote interest in spirituality usually thinks I'm a font of ass-crazy interesting. That's interesting as a noun. The guy wasn't an exception and asked me if I'd read the Zohar. I'd heard about it, but hadn't read it. He thought I could make better sense of it than he, and he invited me to read it in his kitchen some time. I think that was after I mentioned the whole studying Qabbalah bit.

Then we got into why I'd originally decided on psychology. And I figured why not tell the truth. So I did: I originally wanted to find some means of analyzing spiritual or God-touched experiences within the brains of the faithful. I wanted to see what components were truly different in zen buddhist monks, people who claimed to have experienced a miracle, or just what happens during the act of prayer. In essence, I wanted to see if I could find objective, other unexplainable phenomenon that would suggest there is some sort of force of some kind that people might think of as God.

The guy seemed fascinated by this. He asked me why I'd decided to change to what I do now, which is inflammation, mental disorders, and withdrawal behaviors. I honestly told him that I couldn't start a career on such a controversial topic, that it might be something worth pursuing years down the line when I didn't need to be so hard-nosed, so White Man Science World-View. You know, where everything is explained by conventionally perceivable or measurable phenomena. This is a scientist talking, but I ain't a normal scientist.

So basically we ended the conversation at some point.

I later saw him sitting on a couch downstairs, stoned out of his gourd, talking to one of the first years, that blonde heavy chick with the neuroscience smarts.

- - -

The aftermath, well, I described that two posts back.

- - -

That ain't all of what's happened lately, but I gotta go and eat something. Otherwise my stomach will hold me at gun-point and start gurgling in German about seizing food for the father land.

It's my stomach, don't ask me.

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