Because sunday night was fucking amazing.

I'd gotten an e-mail from Xtian a day or two prior. It was Katie's b-day on sunday and all of us were going to meet at the Vintage to celebrate.

I had jackshit to do. I was game.

7:00pm rolled by and I decided now was a good time to get some food in me to soak up the impending alcohol rush. I decided on Noodles, because I want to make man love to the Srirachi sauce every time. I had the indonesian peanut saute. My current favorite.

With 15 minutes to go, I walked down a few side streets and then to Gorham, past the ghetto wine store and rolling into Vintage at 7:58.

Not a person was there. I guess the dinner plans people hinted at had fallen through. Lucky me I'd given up on them. About 5 minutes later and after I'd opened a tab, Xtian came in. We're compulsive about showing up on time. It was just us for a little while, so we yakked about our vacations, work, blah blah blah. But then people started trickling in: Brian, Alison, Becky, Meg (Dan's roommate), Dan and Katie (fashionably late for Katie's b-day), and Brian and his g/f Heather (the chick I'd forgotten about from the pre-Danmas Dan party I met Hillary at).

I flittered from this conversation to that. The only one that sticks out in my mind was talking to Katie. She seemed more friendly toward me that night than usual. Basically I talked about my preparing a manuscript of my first year project, starting the 2nd project, how much of a pain in the ass it was to train people to do monkey stuff, etc. We commiserated on that count, because she's not even sure the stuff she's doing now will work.

Katie opened the gifts Becky and Alison got her around that time. A talking Napoleon Dynamite pen and a barby tiara set. Dan wore the earrings and necklace, but then downgraded to just the necklace. She looked adorable and was all dimples for awhile.

I was conservatively sipping a brown ale. Some sort of Wisconsin beaver ale. It was shit. I ended up getting a sapphire and tonic and bought Brian a guinness, to get above the minimum tab. Trouble was, around this time, people decided we should go to the Nitty Gritty for free b-day beer. So I slammed mine, Brian slammed his, and we exited. On the way Katie grabbed or punched my arm and asked me what I'd been up to lately. I mentioned Detroit and photography. She asked me if I had a site online. I gave her the addy later in an e-mail, but at the time it was nice and yet odd that she'd talk to me more than passingly.

We all collectively and good naturedly went "what the fuck?!" when we saw the Gritty was closed. 5 seconds later, we were on our way to Wondo's.

Ah Wondo's, home of the giant fishbowls filled with Christ knows what alcohols, liquer coloring, and a porcupine-equipped number of straws. We retired upstairs and took the dartboards hostage. Most people sat or stood around and talked while I played a sub-par and then shitty game. We won the first game on account of Brian being in pimp form. The second game was all Dan's, though, because he's just that cool.

At around this time Hillary texted, asking if Kari was there. She hadn't shown up. But she stayed around in spirit as we bantered via texting. I forget about what, but I think it was related to chicks or something. At a few points Brian looked at me, smiled, and reached to close my phone. "Auriel, brother, Auriel listen to me," he'd say, "She's not dateable, dude. Close the phone, forget about her, we'll get you laid, brother!" Some variation thereof. But I at least wanted to finish what I was texting and say bye. Damn, besides asking me about getting drunk, I can't remember what we talked about.

Speaking of which. I'd helped suck down about three bowls by then. After darts were over I went over by Dan and talked with people. There was a new dude I didn't recognize and Dan's very sexually active and quite nice roommate Danny. I shook hands with the nerdy addition. Brian said the guy shouldn't fuck with me because I was from Watts. I went with it. I don't quite know what it all meant, but eh.

Around this time, Brian decided at this point that I had to get my mack on, approach some women, introduce myself, and practice. I looked at him, said I wasn't so sure. He offered to do the wingman deal with me. I could deal with that. We were poised on the upper deck, and I got some odd encouragement from some male voices I couldn't recognize. Being told I looked "smokin'" with agreeable noises was more funny than encouraging.

So we went over, found a group of two, he approached (yes Hill, I know, but read on later), he said hi, etc. I chimed in and tried talking up one, then the other, but these were some cold bitches. They sorta thawed, but we'd had enough and went back up. We'd been evaluated by Dan, Danny, and the nerdy guy, maybe Becky. According to them we did pretty decent because, at first, they seemed totally unresponsive.

* * *

Second part...well...now, but I figure I should break this up here.

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