The hour badly spent

My plan for academic success was as follows:

Smuggle in some vodka and take a shot every afternoon immediately after my last class of the day. Then begin the homework. When done, take another shot. Or two. I think this shows great foresight on my part. When I got my room assignment and schlepped my suitcases up four floors to 426, I discovered that I had a roommate. NO WAY am I gonna share my liquor with some 20-year-old, I thought, but apparently that won’t be a problem. Aaron is my RA.

No, there will not be any catty "check out his hypocrisy" type of blogging, because that’s lame, and would probably go like "He steadfastly maintains he will only drink Dr. Pepper, but I secretly switched his drink with Diet Dr. Pepper and four out of five times, he couldn’t tell the difference!" But needless to say, I need a new blueprint for academic success. I think I’m going to stash some jack in the Hale Library stacks on the fourth floor, somewhere high up behind some foreign-language tomes, and just take a sip every night I go there to study. And if I don’t actually drink it, I will still be happy just knowing it’s there.

And OF COURSE I am working on that maturity thing.

At 11:42 am today, I was on my way to the barber shop. I had in fact just arrived and was tying up my bicycle (go green!) when a couple of people came out of the shop and looked around, as if making sure everything was okay.

"Day-um, that was a good one," said Tashie, the lady who puts the twists in my hair.

"It felt like this," said another girl, swerving her hips like she was hula-hooping.

This could only mean one thing: the barber shop orgy ended right before I arrived. Wait.

A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 jolted large parts of Southern California late this morning, shaking a wide swath from Ventura County to San Diego and causing minor damage and a few injuries.

The quake rattled buildings in downtown Los Angeles and was felt as far east as Palm Springs. It was centered near Chino Hills, about 30 miles east of Los Angeles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. [source: Los Angeles Times]

All right. Los Angeles just experienced a middle-magnitude quake and I didn’t even feel it.

KCAL-9 News was reporting a 5.8 on the Richter scale.

"That wasn’t no five point eight," said a dude checking his text messages.

Tashie’s husband walked in. "Y’all feel that? That was me." Okay, I guess it’s probably for the best I didn’t "feel that."

Seriously, this would have been the most exciting thing since every second of the Dark Knight and I completely missed it. That wouldn’t have happened if I were at the place where I usually am at 11:42am on Tuesdays: a bar, browbeating a cocktail waitress. "You call this a Manhattan? I said shaken, not stirred!" She picks it up. Earthquake happens. Then I snatch it out of her hand, mumbling that’s more like it, keep ‘em coming.

"You all remember the Northridge quake? I ain’t never seen so many people out in the street that early in the morning," said the texting dude.

I remember the Northridge quake. That winter, rain had been coming down for two weeks straight and finally ceased a few days before January 17, 1994.

At 4:30 that morning the noisy rocking of the house woke me up. My five hundred heaviest books fell off the shelf and onto my bed. At that point, I figured, the worst part’s done, and rolled over back to sleep. Then my mom woke me up and handed me a flashlight. The next day our roof caved in.

 

Back in the here and now, about 20 minutes after today’s quake, the whole thing was filed and forgotten. I was sitting there, bored, while my stylist checked her cellphone. Across the room, some chronic ass was giving a civics lecture to a captive audience — a guy whose hair he was cutting. The news was still going on and on with the camera trained on a seismograph. Someone turned up the radio. "You know one rapper I never liked? Jay-Z," said Tashie. Earthquake or no, I hate it when barbers try to make small talk.

An hour later, the Silver Bullet texted me.

You know what’s funny? When the earthquake started, I immediately went to the hallway doorframe and held on to the tv. Shows you my priorities.

I don’t understand the issue. That’s not "funny." That’s not even unusual. I’ve seen her teevee. It’s flat and it’s big and it’s brand new. She did exactly what any of us would do in the same situation. Natural disasters always bring out our best. That’s why, when I go to Best Buy, I do the exact same thing; wait for an earthquake, then hold on to a TV. In a world that no longer has any use for heroes, I am a legend.

In pretending to be a movie critic, I’ll straight up agree with all the rest of them and say the Joker was every bit the hype we’ve all heard.

Not that you didn’t already know that. In my fair city, the Dark Knight is sold out for the next five days, which means everyone has seen it three times by now. On IMAX.

I went into the theatre thinking, yawn, here he comes, I guess I’d better get ready to be wow’d. I also went to the theatre with this flask that looks like a cellphone, but the "antenna" unscrews and you can pour in vodka. Or whatever you like, which I’m sure will be vodka. It’s even got a belt holster. Anyway. Heath Ledger did not disappoint, delivering a strong presence in every scene, finishing it off with his tics of speech and body language. Solid acting performances all around, along with a plot that kept Batman moving and being amazing, made every minute in that dark theatre fully worth it.

The only thing nobody likes about these movies is Rachel Dawes.

Batman deserves someone with style, with understanding. Katie Holmes made me groan every time she Expressed Disapproval, pursing her lips and doing that thing with her dimples. You just get tired of it. Wouldn’t it be a shame if something were to happen to Rachel Dawes, you think, empathizing with the bad guys (ha ha, spoiler). She was more of a downer than Batman. But you could console yourself, at least, knowing she was pretty. So another groan: finding out that Maggie Fucking Gyllenhaal was going to play this role that was already overbearing, uptight, and hands-down just unappeasable.

Gyllenhaal pulled it off so much better than Holmes. Rather than just berate Bruce, now she’s an unwilling collaborator to Bruce Wayne’s exaggerated, foppish persona. Bruce strides into a party with a famous superhottie. And another one. And another one. Gyllenhaal’s lips curl up ever so slightly at the ends — you’ve gotta be looking for it to see it — wryly, smugly. How far will Bruce go to pull this off, she wonders. And so we see Bruce Wayne through Rachel’s eyes; she’s still huffing with indignation, but she remains, like the rest of us, entertained. One might believe, for a second, that there is a side to her that is a bit glib, a bit saucy, that she doesn’t have such a huge metaphorical pole up her behind (insert obvious anal sex joke here, but do it slowly and lovingly, the way I like it).

To boot, it did look pretty cool when she gut-checked the Joker (Ha ha, spoiler).

By slant and inference, you can see Bruce Wayne losing himself in "Batman." There is one part where you see him shirtless, from the back (settle down), and there are some pretty vicious bruises and scars. In fact, when he’s not in costume, he does look skinny, small; and even his face looks a bit dark and hollow, like he spends his nights being rode hard and left wet, and it hurts, but he likes it. He’s not really there until he puts on the cowl. What brings this out is, when he’s Batman, that way he looks at at the camera when someone is telling him something Really Important; his eyes narrow, focusing on the speaker, and he turns his head a few degrees to the side to hear better.

Speaking of which, that thing they did with the eyes — you’ll know what I mean when you see it  (just kidding, they made them glowey. ha ha, spoiler) — was just super kewl.

Everyone knows I’m pretty flakey. Still, my movie-nerd friend, Silver Bullet, made sure to remind me that I had promised to go with her to her sister Erica’s wedding in Palm Springs.

"Sure. Again, when is it?"

"June something."

June something took place last week. Wednesday night we picked up the groom’s brother Donnie and the groom’s brother’s wife Palim from the airport at 11 at night and right away headed to the little resort town.

We got there two hours later, dead tired. Silver Bullet and I checked in; the room was massive. We sat around, amazed at its sheer amazingness. Then we fucked and conked out for the night.

Her phone rang sometime Thursday morning. Erica was perkily inviting us down to the pool for drinks. And swimming, one assumes. We were still groggy and tired, so no. She hung up and we fucked again, which I was almost too sleepy to do at all, and didn’t even have the presence of mind to make her get on top. Thanks for nothing, doggiestyle.

We woke up for real much much later.

"Is it really noon?"

"It’s the curtains. Hotel rooms always make you feel like it’s twilight outside."

Silver Bullet’s phone went off again; sister still bugging us to come outdoors and socialize, so we did. The pool seemed kind of small for a pricey resort in the middle of the desert. This disappointment, however, was mitigated by the open bar and the fact that everyone was dressed to show off as much skin as possible, which I believe is the only upside to California weather.

Donnie ordered me a vodka tonic, then a screwdriver, then another one, which I noticed they made with tequila instead of vodka. Strange, but best to do as the natives do; in Russia, vodka make YOU!

When we were done swimming, Silver Bullet and I walked around in search of a place to eat. The town is really just a big strip mall and everything looks the same. We settled on a Mexican place. The food wasn’t terrific and neither were the margueritas but at least they were big. Evidently I sucked mine down too fast, because when we got back to our room I lost my lunch.

Then I slept.

I woke up hours later, groggy again, but in time to get ready for the ceremony.

"Hey, if you still feel sick you can just hang out in the room during the wedding. I’ll come back afterwards."

"No, I can do this. This is why ya brought me right?" I got dressed and we walked down and across the street to wherever the ceremony was taking place (my memory’s a little tequilic) and took our seats.

So. The wedding happened. Priest, walk down the aisle, speech, kiss, yadda yadda. I’m sure I was supposed to be feeling something — everyone else looks happy and moved or whatever — but I think the tequila was feeling it for me, leaving me to sit around and be bored. When the thing was done everyone walked further up the street, to a bar and grill where reservations had been made. Still bored, I decided the time had come to start shit.

"So, most of your sister’s friends are assholes, right? Which one is the worst?"

"Christina."

"Which one is she?"

"You see the girl back there in the blacknwhite dress? She’s blonde. Yeah, her."

Later on I sat down with the rest of the family — well, the ones who seemed drunk — and asked the same question: which one of Erica’s friends was most turdish? Christina was universally agreed upon as the most vile, smelly turd in the entourage. Awesome! Although I prefer to actually know and associate with gossip targets (it makes the feel gossip much juicier), this was exactly the kind of thing I’d been waiting for! Besides the sex, of course. Sadly, only Silver Bullet was willing to provide a concrete example of said turdism:

"Once I overheard her say something really mean. It was kind of behind my back, but the way she said it, I know she meant me to hear it."

"Well?"

"She said, ‘if I were as fat as Silver Bullet I’d probably kill myself.’"

It doesn’t get much more douchey than that, does it? Silver Bullet is about the nicest girl I know (most of the time); you’d have to be pretty mean to insult her like that — just condescension, no provocation. Maybe Christina should just kill herself anyway.

"Thing is, she used to be really fat. It took time, but I’m pretty sure she only lost that weight from snorting coke."

"Whaddya mean used to be? Also: cocaine is a helluva drug!"

"Are you still drunk?"

"Fuckin tequila. Yes."

The last time we met: one day before I left for Los Angeles. A spring afternoon, in her car. I reached over to hug her bye.

"Don’t try to cop a feel."

I wasn’t. Really. But I probably should have.

This may have been the last time we would ever see each other, and really this was all we had to say to each other?

Really?

When I first met her, it seemed as though I could tell her anything. Anything.

Months later, showing her my favorite movie, she buried her face under a blanket and started crying and we could barely talk about it.

After that, we only spoke to each other in this flat, burnt-out tone. Around her, conversation was weird, alien, like we were really only just gesturing to each other in a dark room. She told me I was always trying to figure her out. And she was right. I just wanted to reach her. Why was it so difficult?

One morning I woke up in her bed. Fully clothed.

I had drunk A LOT the night before and my head felt like someone parked an Oldsmobile inside it.

Right then, I had to go. I hadn’t meant to pass out there in the first place. I needed some water and I needed it to taste like aspirin and I needed to go, and I needed all this very badly. But her hair was also right there in my face. Smelling not like chemicals or cleanliness but like her, fresh and sweet. I couldn’t move. Not yet. Even though I had to go, even though I knew that everything would be spoiled when she woke up, and I knw that this was the best it would ever get, and for the rest of the day I would both just go back to being in pain all the time and talking to her like.

It struck me, that morning, that this feeling of unnamed, dreary, half-hidden pain, illuminated this morning by sunlight and hangover, is actually always there. That it might in fact be the reason this thing between me and her, whatever it is, always feels so difficult.

And if I was ever going to cop a feel, that would have been the moment.

In the process of reviewing Dancing at Lughnasa, I noted that one of the sisters was hot. "Hottest," in fact. I hear the actress’ significant other flew into a rage and and wanted to go all Hulk-smashey on The Hour Badly Spent. Well, where I come from, we distinguish between idly admiring a girl for her looks, complimenting her on a sort of striking beauty which is glaringly obvious to everyone anyway, and actually hitting on her.

These subtle nuances are apparently lost on Kansans. Fine; since I have no way of actually knowing who’s boinking whom, I take back the compliment. Everybody in the theatre department is ugly. And not just ugly, but extremely ultrahideous. And not just extremely ultrahideous, but so miserably appallingly haggard that the mere sight of any of you makes me want to repent of my sins and bathe my eyes in battery acid.

Glad I got that off my chest. So what did you think of Mud, River, Stone? I don’t remember too much of it, because I’m not drunk like I was when I saw the play way back in February, but I remember liking it.

In it, a bunch of richly-storied characters, starting with an annoying NYC black couple (they were from NY, right? I hardly remember), were thrown together at a quaint off-the-beaten-path South Africa hotel. Bells and alarms started going off the moment the couple stepped on stage, because I used to watch Friends, a show that proved there are no black people in New York.

Immediately, Sarah Bradley starts bitching because she can’t charge her iPod or something. Which was awesome. My favorite frenemy - Ama Cyllah’s actress - agreed.

My Hair Thinks Its Famous: What did you think of Sarah?
The Hour Badly Spent:        So persistently snotty. So relentlessly catty. Exactly what I look for in a girl.
My Hair Thinks Its Famous: I know. She acts like that in real life too. Isn’t she hot!
The Hour Badly Spent:        Yes!
[Ed. note: I meant no, because as we just established, everyone’s too fugly].
My Hair Thinks Its Famous: You should get her number.
The Hour Badly Spent:        You kidding? Actresses are scary. And I’m not that drunk yet.

Mr. Blake, an affable Englishman — wait, no, a white African with a British accent — wait, no, leader of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — translates the spit of the country that raised him into a wise, pithy sort of polish. "There is no telephone, no running water, not even a road. Just perfect martinis," he once said (a note on martinis: they are all perfect). Blake is graceful whether he is being conciliatory or aggressive; in fact, his confrontations often move the plot along when it veers into stagnation.

Left stranded at the hotel as part of a peacekeeping envoy, Simone Frick stammered through her part like a mouse talking her way out of a tiger pit. Her crisp uniform and radiant, hyperblonde hair underscored how out-of-place the character felt. Silly Ms. Frick! When you visit a war zone, you’ve gotta do like I do, and walk up in there like you fucking own the joint. You’d be surprised at how far a pimp roll will take you, literally and metaphorically.

There were other actors too. Whatever. Eventually, cabin fever really sets in. Everyone starts to get kinda livejournalley; going through all their character histories, their oedipal issues, proving how "African" they truly are or something. We are given an education that, however self-indulgent, is also insightful and unromanticized. Then someone shoots someone else, and he pretty much deserves it for taking hostages and being a chronic ass. Oh Mr. Blake, why couldn’t you take me too?

The Poetess recently gave voice to the existential horror of attending an informal gathering of English professors: "I’m not smart enough."

Well, yes you are, and that’s really no big deal. English professors are just like the rest of us. Nobody comes to a party to be outsmarted. They just want you to listen to them, get their jokes, seek explanations for what you don’t understand, and squeeze their asses when no one else is looking (Professor Dodd will use colourful pants to indicate her receptivity. But do not try this with the Saucy Aussie. I saw her first!).

Your best strategy is to figure out what everybody thinks of everybody else, which you can use for leverage when you ascend to the top of a multinational crime syndicate. This exercise is all about self-effacement. You are not here to show off your resplendent panoply of grace and charm. And if you have enough grace and charm to impress the English professors then I hate you already.

So don’t name-drop, like I did with Princess Glitter Bunny ("Oh of course I know what you’re talking about. Unlike the other undergrads, I’ve read Derrida! Har har har!") That’s just wankerish. Rather, just ask questions. Find an old man, with a bow tie and bushy eyebrows, who is already drunk. He is the best place to start. He is a font of experience, good humor, and as a bonus, he is actually kind of awesome. Ask about what he’s written, what he likes to read — Milton, apparently — where he’s travelled, etc. Let him do the work. He’s just itching to unload some jovial backstabbey nugget about one of his peers. Just wait. I promise it will be funny. You should also probably try to make yourself as drunk as he is.

Do not sit next to Rhymes With Flan. You did not dress well enough for that, and this fact will gnaw at you every second you are there. She is tall, slender, blonde, stylish, and her diction is flawless. If she were your age, she’d be a wholesome sorority frenemy. You, by contrast, mumble and stutter (which is partly why you’re listening and not talking); your sartorial contribution is a wrinkled green docent shirt your ex gave you seven years ago. You wore it today because you really don’t have a windbreaker, but next to Rhymes With Flan, you look like you’re homeless.

Eventually, something underminerey like this will happen:

The Hour Badly Spent:  Do you mind if I smoke?
Rhymes With Flan:       Oh. Please, don’t. Ew [shudders].
The Hour Badly Spent:  Oh, okay.
Rhymes With Flan:       Yech.

If you closed your eyes, drifted away for a second, and paid attention not to what you actually heard but rather what you thought you heard, you’ll realize that the terminal "yech" was not directed at your cancer stick. It was directed at you.

 

You’ll see the Perverted Shakespeare Professor. In class, he’s so upbeat, almost cheerleaderey; this evening, long after class, he might seem somehow jaded and weary. We suspect the production of ‘Tis Pitty Shee’s A Whore must have been stressful, what with all the preparations being made during those weeks after spring break where everybody goes through a ceaseless gauntlet of exams and term papers and projects. That is why the cast only met for their first full rehearsal a day before curtain time.

I don’t know shit about Jacobean drama. Or any type of drama, for that matter. But I’ll talk about it anyway. The performance — Saturday night, wish you were there! — was fun and celebratory, and slightly campy; just like the Professor conducts his classes, except with slightly more incest. My favorite actor was the Roman soldier: his uniform was a polo shirt with some pinned-on medals.

You might hear about studentfucking. Kind of interesting, but it’s really to be expected, and it’s only juicy if you actually know either of the parties involved, which you don’t, because you don’t know anybody, which is why you’re drinking with English professors on Thursday night and the following Friday afternoon. So put the hearsay out of your mind, because (A) you don’t want to get anyone fired, and (B) you’re not an earnest do-goodey cockblocker. Also: don’t shout out "studentfucker!" in the middle of a lecture (Sorry about that! It was noisy! How was I supposed to know the dean would hear me?).

You might also hear of dumb stuff the students have said — about ethnic minorities and such. It won’t be so bad. All the real wingnuts either go into engineering or polisci. Don’t worry about who, exactly, said what; there’s a good chance you’ll find out soon enough who this person is, based on your ability to stereotype better than she can (a gender neutral pronoun would be really nice right about now!). She will get a column in the Collegian. She will bring guns to class. She will run for student government. She will meet a soldier who will love her for her "values," and they will marry young and have lots of little douchebags, who will attend K-State.

You, however, will not find love. You will find rum, which is just a different kind of love.

Speaking of which, in time, the Most Annoying English-Major Couple will make an appearance. They really are cute together. They will sit next to each other, of course; bemusedly chatting about their plans for the future. They will lightly stroke each others’ arms, but not excessively; they will smile at each others’ literary puns, but not excessively; and one of them will drink. Excessively. And that is the real secret to shmoozing with people who have more intelligence, class, and wit than you.

 

I thought I had a rough night (thanks for nothing, O’Malley’s barkeep), but when I woke up this morning and stumbled outside to finish my whore’s breakfast, this rancid douchebag was just lying there, obviously trying to one-up me. Whatever, dead bird. I’ve still got finals; top that! Guess what’s for lunch at Kramer today? Hint: they just lost their supply of sparrow-pee, so they probably won’t serve anything that goes with their signature sparrow-pee sauce.

Few things are more awkward than when a girl brings her friends with her on a date. Like backup in case the evening goes south, and the guy knows it. Saturday night I got to be one of those judgemental cockblockers; Ariana was meeting a soldier for drinks at Mae’s, and she invited everyone along with her.

As soon as I went down the stairs, I was greeted by a bunch of reporters in red T-Shirts. The Collegionnaires were pubcrawling tonight! "Hey, come with us across the street to Pat’s" said Brett King. Hey Brett & Co., just because I may have, on occasion, posted a few unflattering comments about  a tiny portion of your writings, this does not mean we can’t be friends, right?

They looked like they were having fun. And I did want to go with them, badly. Nevertheless, I had made a promise to Ariana. You know that I’m like the least manly person you know? That’s true, but it’d be great to have you there anyway. Besides, I really want you to meet him. By the time I showed up (an hour fashionably late), everyone was already drunk and surprisingly huggy - Ariana (felt good!), Cate (felt good!), Carolyn (felt good!), Cherry (slightly awkward!).

I spent an hour or so floating between Ariana, Ariana’s date, and Carolyn, who was kind of down because the football player she was seeing got mad at her for no apparent reason and slammed a door on her foot. That’s a definite no-no. He’s supposed to do that to the other team’s girlfriends!

When the soldier went to the bathroom, Ariana turned to me. You’re not trying to get with Carolyn are you?

Probably not, I said, drinking something that was in front of me. I’m not really in a flirty mood, and besides, my type looks and sounds much more like Ariana (reddish hair!) than Carolyn (skinny & blonde).

And then she hugged me again. Why is she so huggy tonight?

So how are you, The Hour Badly Spent? Her vowels are normally long anyway. Tonight all her small talk comes out like singing.
Super!
You know you can talk to me.
About what?
About anything. I search out her eyes. Maybe she really does want to get to know the real me.
How drunk are you?

By this time, Cherry had surrounded herself with guys, all of them much older and taller than her. One of them was like 50. Looking at her daddy issues on display from across the bar, I couldn’t help but feel cold and dark inside, like I was watching a puppy in a ritual sacrifice, except I can’t tell who’s the puppy and who’s the knife-wielding priest, who exactly is fucking whom, and maybe they are all victims with no predators or maybe they are all predators with no victims or maybe it’s just extreeemely creepy seeing some kid with old guys floating around her like stormclouds. If they’re going to swarm and compete to stroke this girl’s ego, why not just put their dicks on a chessboard? That’s a game I could play, because I get erect in an L-pattern.

At any rate, I settled into a booth, just sort of fading into the scenery. Ariana’s talking to her date. Carolyn left a while ago. Cherry’s doing whatever it is she does with clusters of older guys. I could sit here forever. I could also just go.

So I did.

Outside I tried to catch up with the Collegiannaires. How sick is it that although they’re snotty red-staters I really wanted to drink with them? The streets were full of people, cigarette butts, and vomit. There were purple T-shirts. Baseball caps. Girls with short skirts, long legs. Douchebag guys with their douchebag friends. A girl, frantically crying and pleading to an annoyed cop; her friend being responsible, "Christina, settle down. He’s not gonna do anything." No journalists. Starting with Pat’s, I went from bar to bar (the back of O’Malley’s smelled like gin and semen), skipping the ones with cover charges, peering through and around girls with impossibly clear skin, wriggling around more baseball caps, more short skirts, more long legs, more purple tees. Still no reporters. I went back into Mae’s and told Ariana that I was heading home.

The Poetess tries to peek at my diary journal every time I’m out with her. Thursday night I finally just said what the fuck and handed it over for inspection.

"I won’t judge you for anything I find in here." Not that it’s human nature or anything.

So, as she paged through, I felt the nerves and vessels under my skin getting all twisty. I drummed my fingers on the table. I fidgeted with my beard. I wiggled my leg up and down, insanely fast, like a meth-addled hummingbird. I noticed she was lingering on one page.

"Find something interesting?"

"It’s kind of sad."

The passage under scrutiny: I’m an optical illusion. That’s my secret. Look away and I disappear. Turn off the light and I don’t exist.

Breaking: when no one’s looking, I write reams of angsty, self-indulgent prattle. I’ve also apparently jotted down fragments of Pablo Neruda poetry. And that is definitely the worst of it what was in there (the prattle, not the Pablo). No sordid PILF fantasies (none that I’ve written down, anyway). No shocking gossip. No chronicling private embarrassing habits (I masturbate. A LOT). Am I really so dull that I have nothing to hide? Apparently so.

Therefore, the next night, chain-smoking at a party with Ariana and the usual frenemies, when Limitless Are Leaves asked about taking a peek through the big black book of secrets, I had no objection. And when Brandon, too, wanted to see it, I didn’t mind, although he did sort of seem like he was actually studying it and not just surfing pages.

The party room was so full of Swear Not By The Moon’s laughter that it spilled out through the windows and into the parking lot where the smokers were hanging out. Did she do coke again? No, she’s just always like that. Maybe she’s always high on coke.

I honestly think she is always high. Coke — so I hear, mind you — makes you feel hyper and really important, a perfect party drug. Swear Not By The Moon is a party girl. She’s got the look: annoyingly thin and blonde. She is sometimes fun but she also kind of sneers at you when you talk to her. She powerless to curb her ways. Because of the drugs, you see. Although I’m probably just mad because she never offers me any.

I and Limitless Are Leaves really only came to drink, not to party, so we sort of kept to ourselves and our vodka and let the cool kids do their thing (which, again, may or may not have been coke). It’s a good thing I was really drunk. It’s the only way to deal with certain situations and certain people. Or in my case, all situations and all people. It also somewhat explains why she and I ended up making out on the floor.

English Department Head Elizabeth Dodd hosted a soiree after memoirist Allison Wallace’s Friday reading. "You’re all invited!" she told the entire population of Stuni’s Little Hall that afternoon.

This was it! My entire time here I’d been sweating for a chance to hobnob with grown-up English nerds, perhaps even put names to the faces I keep running into at the English majorey events just like this one. At last, the Bard answered my prayers.

Dodd lives in a tasteful house a westward hike away from campus. The get-together was everything I’d hoped for! There were little sandwiches! There was chocolate cake! There was Tanya Gonzalez! There was Jen Roberts! There was Anne Longmuir! There was Imad Rahman! There was Donna Potts (I haven’t finished the reading for her class! Don’t tell her)! There was Chris Kennedy (I was especially pleased about this because he was the only other person wearing a T-shirt)! There were avuncular gentlemen in red bow ties! There was booze! It was Elizabeth Dodd’s booze! I drank Elizabeth Dodd’s booze!

The professors were lively and full of good humor and wit. Why doesn’t it rub off on the undergrads? With that puzzle in mind, I stepped outside for a cigarette with Erica Hateley, who had an important question for me.

Do you find this entire town really, really racist?

Yeah.

I was afraid I was the only one who saw Kansas that way.

Nah. It’s weird how they all think they’re not, too. I come from a big city and even when you find someone who’s full of prejudice, it just doesn’t have the kind of legitimacy it carries in a small town. I spent most of last semester really pissed about it, but I eventually met some other minorities here. Someone took me aside and reminded me that I’m in fucking Kansas.

On a search for a wine glass — umm, and a bottle — I found myself shoulder-to-shoulder with guest of honor herself, Memoriste Allison Wallace, who offered servicey advice for interacting with my undergraduate peers:

You can talk to a sophomore, but you can’t say much.

I’m gonna run home and write that down.

Don’t quote me! I didn’t say that.

Oh, actually I was going to take credit for it anyway.

I see! You’ve got a great writing career ahead of you.

Yeah, speaking of that: James Frey? JT Leroy? Margaret Seltzer? Is this really a new thing, or is it possible that people have been fudging memoirs for as long as we’ve been writing them?

Nowadays we talk about people writing a memoir. It used to be that people wrote their memoirs. A hundred years ago it meant that, near the end of your life, you’d sit down and do it, and there was a sort of gallantry about it. Today you can look for one on, say, Britney Spears or someone like that. It’s not about your life; it’s just a slice of your life. This is a new thing. The conventions for it are only recently being written. And so the people running out and sensationalizing these fake stories are breaking this brand new etiquette that they created.

There you have it. Lesson: Mrs. Dodd’s nose gets really really red in the presence of other authors. Also: spend time with convivial, intelligent grown-ups and you’ll actually learn something new. Parties are the new required reading!

 

I met up with Cate, Carolyn, Jordan, Cherry, and Johnny (an old guy dressed up like a vampire) at Rusty’s for Cate’s 21st birthday. Over the course of three Captain Cokes I figured out exactly what it is about this whole clusterfuck of Thursday-night undergrad social interaction that makes me so suicidal.

Seeing all these kids so effortlessly happy and in-tune with each other, I can’t help but self-indulgently compare it to my own inner turmoil. Their enforced shallowness, the terse, hollow exchanges, their hypercasual "hey good times, see ya around," sending me into stifled palpitations of last-call blues as I attempt various ploys at securing a future reunion, and I come off looking half-insane. The whole shin-dig starts to feel sort of like going to church; you came here wanting to belong, to be accepted for your flaws and whatnot, but they keep making you sing these damn hymms you don’t even know and you just fumble trying to keep up, choking your ability to be honest with yourself or anyone else around you in this chapel of mirth, and you’re no better off than when you first walked in the door.

Also, you probably still had steam to blow off from that nerve-wracking Thursday screenwriting that makes you feel stabby.

[update: an anonymous tipster informs me that "grad students are worse then undergrads because they’re all neurotically self-absorbed." Great, now there really is nothing to look forward to. Except, of course, church. Party on].

In "Hopped up: Mixing energy drinks, alcohol common despite health risks" - a thorough, nuanced article in today’s Collegian, Jonathan Garten provides the recipe for a Jager Bomb (Jagermeister, Red Bull) and then, bafflingly, warns us not to drink it!

"Energy drink cocktails…can cause a lower perception of intoxication, heart complications, and dehydration."

According to Dr. Priyantha Ranaweera, cardiologist at Mercy Regional, "mixing energy drinks and alcohol can cause people to drink for a longer period of time than they normally would. The caffeine in a can of Red Bull or Monster could offset drowsiness brought on by drinking alcohol."

What - you expected some smartass commentary? I’m taking notes! Please doctor, continue:

"It doesn’t make sense for people to mix alchohol and energy drinks," Ranaweera said, apparently unaware that she just explained it.

"I mean, how far are they willing to go to get drunk?" she ponders.

One presumes this question to be rhetorical; but really, in these trying times, I find it takes more effort to be sober.

What is it about Thursdays that, by early evening, right as screenwriting class ends, makes me feel hollow, torpid, and dissatisfied?

First thing: one more hour of Spanish this week. It’s actually not so bad - Ms. Diaz is much more simpatica than she seems; but last semester’s god-awful class left a bad taste in my mouth and I’m probably just still just still dry-heaving it.

Second thing: the few people I do know here tend to become scarce all weekend, and there are no new episodes of anything on the tubez, leaving me with nothing to do except write.

Except I can’t, because (third thing) by now I just feel cold and dead inside; no imagination, no oomph, so I end up basically napping from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. Then Sunday night I scramble to finish the homework I put off.

This list is on my mind, halfway through a gin & tonic - extra lime - when the Communist Spy sends me a text.

If you’re not doing anything right now you should join us at Kathouse.

Cigarette in hand, I pound down the drink, dash out the door, and am at the Kathouse in five. I’ve never been here before. The Communist Spy and her cadre of five other girls - Darcy, Leshia, Maureen, Katie, someone else, and a Gentleman who Travels With Katie - are here to see a band. Of the six girls in the group, 9,340 of them have hooked up with someone in the band. The Spy motions for me to take the corner seat, next to her.

"Took you a while."

"I was at Auntie Mae’s."

"You smell like Auntie Mae’s." (In Kansas you can still smoke indoors and Mae’s has a basement, which, aside from the absurdly cheap drinks, is why I like it there).

While I’m waiting for a drink the guitars fire up. It’s funny; all week long, you think to yourself how badly you just need company; the violent jolt of social contact might inspire "emotions," "longing," "happiness," or something. How going day after day with this feeling of isolation makes you feel like a dismal failure; that you should just get out more and be around people.

But then on Thursday night you find yourself in a big dark room, resenting the three-dollar cover charge, the band working the crowd with skill and confidence sharply reminding you that you’re about 3,000 years old, the dizzying pockets of sparse lamp light, the watered-down drinks, the throng of blondes fenced around the barkeep like tube-topped Vikings laying siege to the coast. And the barmaids who ignore you. All of it just grates inexplicably on your nerves. You can fake it for a while; ten, maybe fifteen minutes, before you have no choice but to slink away, find the exit, and disappear into Friday morning.

Another Collegian columnist recently decried lazy Facebooking young adults as the corrosion that will soon make all of society crumble.

"We could spend our money in better ways," said Mark Wampler. We just need the vision to see those ways — clothes for the homeless, food for the poor and child support for single parents are just a few ideas." Guess he didn’t read Monday’s front-page story about students volunteering in New Orleans, building houses and taking care of stray animals. Seriously, how could you miss it? There was a photo of a hot chick with a newly-adopted dog right with the article. But I digress.

"How many people have "drinking" (probably not bottled water)…as one of their Facebook.com hobbies?"
As far as I know, alcohol predates writing and even Facebook as a staple of civilization. For a good reason: drinking is and has always been the best defense against self-important judgementalism.

At least Mark is doing his part to stem the tide of cultural decay. He sculpts figures out of chicken nuggets! Maybe he even does it while the poor press against the window and look on! And that’s not all! "You might have seen my friends and me a couple Saturdays ago, handing out ‘green party water’ and green cookies in Aggieville. We had a lot of fun trying to be creative by hanging out with people who we felt weren’t making the most imaginative choices with their lives. The most common resonse we got was, ‘Wow, it’s so cool you guys are doing this."

When I think of someone who just met me two seconds ago me passing judgement on my unimaginative life choices, I know without a doubt that person must be the absolute coolest! Thank you for emitting your artistic farts among the peasants, instead of hording them away in the newsroom. They smell baroque, pregnant with technique and dadaism, twinkling like fresh shrapnel on a summer afternoon. They are like nothing we’ve ever experienced before.

Drinking age should span all college students. At first, I thought Aubree Casper’s op-ed piece would be shameless, thoughtless cheerleading for the cause of under-21 drinking. But she presented a persuasive, carefully researched argument, backed up by figures (plus, she’s kind of hot): the presence of a university brings people to town; if you allow more people to drink (responsibly), you could also tax their purchases and give some of that money back to the school. That way, everyone’s happy and everyone’s drunk, which makes them happier. We all win! Next round’s on you!

Aubree, I’m sure an intelligent, pretty columnist like you has no trouble obtaining cocktails when the moment is right. However, if you find yourself in dire straits, just, umm, leave me a blog comment. We’ll work something out.

On a related note, what’s with all the cute, smart women writing columns today? The Collegian is kind of making me wet. Thank goodness my martini’s still dry. If the paper hadn’t printed another preachy, unoriginal Blake Osborn column ("As college students we should heed the thrifty admonitions of older generations and not get tangled in the spending spiral that drains so many accounts"), I’d take this as a sign of the end times.

 

 

 To recap:

I drank a lot.

"Movies" were "viewed."

I borrowed my friend’s car and managed to avoid a moving violation.

I played rock band for the first time and was not impressed.

I hit the bars! Then I hit them again.

I quit smoking. Then I quit nonsmoking.

I had a blog smackdown! It was even more boring than it sounds.

I read some of Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay, and it’s pretty good. I didn’t get around to reading Twilight. Don’t tell Heather.

I revealed the presence of this awesome blog for the viewing pleasure of the teeming masses. The masses said "meh," then went back to listening to pop music and making out with each other.

And now, my hair looks different.

Over spring break, I drank at John’s house every night until Thursday. On Thursday Woody suggested we drink at the bars in downtown Long Beach, and I offered no protest.

Hours later, while Woody sat passed out, face down at a table in Dubliner’s Irish Pub, John and I scrutinized a nearby hipster.

“You don’t understand, John. That’s exactly my type. The dark-framed glasses; the no-nonsense bangs; the cherry-red lipstick; the heels; the arm tattoos; the leg tattoos; the skirt. Oh god, that skirt. On a related note, holy fuck, am I drunk, or is that is a nice pair of legs?”

“Yes to both of those, man.”

“Like, if she and I were to ever have sex, upon climax, the semen would stream out of me for hours and hours until finally there was nothing left of me.”

“I get the idea. Thanks for the visual. But what do you make of the unceasing swarm of dudes around her?”

“It does kind of take me back to a dark, lonely, miserable place. Remind me, what was that called?”

“Prom.”

“Right. I don’t think I like her so much any more.”

Since I haven’t blogged in a few days, that chart shall serve as a benchmark while I recap the week:

Monday: really don’t remember much, except for a couple of bloody marys. That is not a euphemism.

Wednesday: I made a new friend! A supercute 28-year old redheaded geek girl. No, not that supercute 28-year-old redheaded geek girl. Come to think of it, "romp" makes the whole thing sound way more sordid than it really was, which entailed going to Auntie May’s for happy hour, where we bought each other beers and made small talk. Then we walked around for a little bit. The great big city’s a wonderous toy, just made for a girl and boy. We turned Manhattan into an isle of joy! Okay, she walked me to the Digital Shelf, where we drooled over the anime section. One day she will appreciate Ranma 1/2 as much as I do. One day.

Later, I called the Poetess to tell her I made a new friend. She was feeling blue, and wanted company, so I obliged. I drank her box wine and had a long talk with her about the true meaning of friendship. As it turns out, hippies can love after all! Before I left, she let me have one of her uppers.

Friday: I asked Arianna to go a semi-formal dance put on by the Association of Residence Halls. It was held in the Union Ballroom, which is a pretty big place. Because of that, I was expecting to wall-to-wall hotties gyrating in slinky, knee-length dresses. So OF COURSE we arrive and it’s like 15 kids, awkwardly twisting around to the Spice Girls. No, we are not leaving, I told Arianna. She wore these incredibly pointy black shoes that mangled her feet and made movement difficult, but looked terrific. I was deeply moved by her suffering. She and I sat in the back of the room, not-so-silently judging everyone, and talked about the ungodly horror of high school dances, while waiting for the D.J. to play something slow and romantic because that’s why you go to dances in the first place. It didn’t happen, so after an hour, we left to hit up a better party. And OF COURSE as we were gathering our coats and our purses and our, ahem, man-purses, the Old Man Controlling Everything We Hear finally put on a slow number. I might have been able to talk Arianna into staying for three more minutes, but it was a country song, and by then my heart just wasn’t in it.

I had never been to the casa de supernerdy English Major Jimbo; so when I got to his basement, which had a bar and a bigscreen TV and and a bunch of geeks talking about Baldur’s friggin’ Gate and a wall full of action figures and computer circuitboards and a ceiling plastered with movie posters, I didn’t know whether to love Jimbo for having an awesome place, hate Jimbo for having an awesome place, or hate myself for loving Jimbo for having an awesome place, and the whole thing got even more confusing and beautiful after I pulled out the bottle of cheap whiskey I brought.

I met lots of new people, most notably a blonde girl from the theater department, who I thought was cute and intelligent. She was the lead actress in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, wherein she did this amazing thing with her voice that made her sound like a domineering 1930s WASP. She got bonus points when I found out Cherry hates her. Nevertheless, I am definitely leaving that one alone. Actresses are terrifying.

Saturday was Fake Patty’s Day in Manhattan. The real St. Patrick’s day falls during K-State’s spring break, so Aggieville celebrates it a week early while students are still in town. I fully intended to start the pubcrawl at 9 in the morning, when the bars open, but I was too hung over. I ended up lounging around all day long, then, at midnight, crashing a get-together at Madeline’s in celebration of the coming-to-town of her childhood friend Megan, who has apparently developed into a cute, aloof hipster.

A moment after I arrived, Jenna, Maddie’s awesome roommate; Jenna’s boyfriend Graham, who is also awesome, and Megan, decided to hit the bars. Despite the fantasticity of Jenna and Graham, along with my typically asinine outbursts of wit, we were unable to stop Megan from sitting around, pouting, and looking bored. Thankfully she left and returned to Madeline’s place on her own, before she completely killed my buzz and ruined my life.

I was invited to the Sexy Communist Spy’s roommate’s birthday bash (in Russia, Party throw YOU!). This one had a theme: "thug party," which meant there were a bunch of dry-humping, ass-smacking, half-drunk, red-state 22-year-olds dressed like Missy Elliot. True to form, I showed up late wearing my Super Mario Strikers jersey (I fucking represent!), a pick in my hair, and I threw up lots of gang signs (I don’t actually know any gang signs). K-fed came by too.

An hour after I got there, the party died down. Umm, it wasn’t my fault. This time. Birthday girl was still juiced and wanted to hit the bars, so we did just that (in Russia, bars hit YOU!). I danced and barhopped and met a super-superhot townie and got to mackin’ to this bitch named Sadie (Sadie!) and generally made merry while Birthday Girl zigzagged from table to table, friend to friend, stranger to stranger, nizzle to nizzle, so proud to have people watch her turn 22, but she was also - I dunno - pretty stressed out?

It was obvs she missed her boyfriend pretty badly and no one in these bars could have possibly made up for that. I wanted to tell her to stop, be cool, roll down the street smoking endo sipping on gin and juice, laid back; just chillax and enjoy yourself. It’s YOUR birthday! Tha homies are supposed to come to YOU! But she never really got the chance, because not five minutes after I inhaled the sandwich she got me on her maxed-out Visa, as she dashed off to say hi to a familiar face 10 yards away, she tripped, fell, and busted her lip. While she sat there, crying, bleeding, and ashamed, I promptly revoked her pimp card.