TWENTY TWENTY HINDSIGHT

This year, Thanksgiving is at your house. You thought that your first time hosting a holiday less drink-oriented than Halloween would feel momentous, like buying your first dishwasher or pledging to NPR, but you haven’t actually bought a dishwasher or donated to NPR. Rather, your parents are renovating their kitchen and your brother is with his wife’s family and your sister winters in Des Moines, so your parents come to you. They not only bring the entire contents of their refrigerator—including two heads of past-date lettuce and an unopened jar of mayonnaise—they also bring a full-size charcoal grill and several rolls of toilet paper in case you ran out and were planning on going through the coffee filters first.

Holidays are about getting drunk with people you love either because you want to or because you have to. Over-pouring the Pinot that your parents bought and confessing that it was you who broke the Victrola ten years ago, not the Guatemalan exchange student, is the highlight of any holiday. It is also something you don’t take part in because you don’t drink around your parents. The reason for your familial sobriety is because you made a grand mistake two years ago after your girlfriend found out you cheated on her more than once and more than twice and more even than three times. She was white-washed when she found out, shocked, like the person shared ice cream and washed the dishes with her was a mirage, a stranger, a non-person. You decided then that you are either a fundamentally bad person or an alcoholic. Alcoholism seemed easier to cure than a black soul, so you called your parents in the midst of a metaphysical hangover and told them that you are a drunk, and, not only that, you have been since you were eighteen or maybe twelve or maybe even when you were still a parasite in the mobile home of your mother’s womb.

There are a lot of things you can take back. I no longer love you, I want to move out, Give me back favorite hoodie—who hasn’t said or heard these words? But, I’m an alcoholic is the pinkie swear of confessions, the nickname you can’t seem to shake. And because you never actually stopped drinking, you pretend that you’re comfortably saddled to the wagon around your parents. Your dry liver is an obvious counterfeit when your parents look at your recycling bins when they come up for Thanksgiving, but you attribute the empties to your roommate and they believe you because they want to believe you. The only time your father overtly asks about your drinking is when you’re picking up last minute cranberry sauce at the grocery store and a bartender picking up last minute stuffing yells, Dude! You have to stop walking out on your tab! when he sees you. You tell your dad you drink soda water and eat bar nuts and sometimes forget to pay.

It’s a lie, those glasses of water and handfuls of nuts. You actually spend a lot of time at one bar, your neighborhood bar, an everybody-knows-your-name bar, a bar where wet hounds look up when the door opens, wondering who new people are. Is this sad? Sometimes. Sometimes not. You’ve had exceptionally fun nights at this bar: nights when the shots melt your faceplate and you dance around the pool table and pour beer your head and stumble home, a walk you won’t remember in the morning but you will still wake up happy to be a part of this drunken family. There are also touching moments, like when a rainbow arcs over the sky and everyone walks outside and stands and blinks at the colorful yawn above. Or maybe there’s a hail storm and everyone turns on their stools to look out the windows at the ice splitting windshield and pavement. Despite the occasional monkey barrel nights, however, bar culture is measles for certain aspects of you life, like, for instance, your bank account, which you’ve stopped paying attention to because the daily bar charges make you feel like what you’ve decided that you’re not: an alcoholic.

But can you decide you aren’t an alcoholic? Maybe not. Maybe as soon as those words exit your mouth, they are always and forever true. After your mistaken announcement to your parents, you started thinking about drinking all the time. That is the worst part of thinking you’re an addict: it’s boring. You are always aware of the hour when you would usually go to the bar but are not going to go to the bar, definitely not, unless this coin lands heads up, in which case you will take it as a sign that you should drink. You attended a couple of AA meetings after your mistaken announcement but hearing people talk about booze made you thirsty. Some people say that they aren’t into AA because of the Jesus thing and you agree that putting your problems and fate and your glass in the hands of an invisible man who lives on a cloud pillow makes no sense. Why make yourself feel powerless when getting sober takes power? But you mostly hated the meetings because you didn’t want to be one of the those people. You didn’t want to see yourself in their stories and their sadness and their sobriety. So you kept drinking and if you didn’t drink one night, you woke up elated, not because you were clear-headed and pain-free, but because a sober night deserved a party, and what better way to party than to party?

Recovery programs talk about addiction as a disease, but you know it’s less the flu and more your inability to recognize your own humanness, to recognize that you are a living being who will someday be a dying being and then someday be a non-being, just scattered cells and quiet atoms. This is what addicts don’t accept: their own unshakable death. This surprising considering that they see the symptoms of physical demise when they wake up cloudy and heavy. It’s not just their hands that shake, it’s their brains, a Parksonian tremor that slows after the first fifteen minutes of happy hour and stops when happy hour has past but they’re still at the bar. This is why you don’t drink in front of your parents. You don’t have that tremor but you can’t take it back.

Your Thanksgiving might have been small—just you and your parents, equal parts Perrier and Pinot—and the turkey might have been grilled, but you still said your blessings and recited your thanks. To good friends and good health and good luck. Afterward, you wonder if you will toast with sparkling grape juice at every Thanksgiving. Will you never again get drunk at a family reunion, one aunt passed out in a lawn chair, another dancing a little too sexy, a grandfather lost in his glass? Or will you someday know, really know, that is wasn’t true, that you were never an alcoholic, the tremors were imaginary, that it wasn’t a disease, it was a mistake. Maybe after you buy the dishwasher and donate to NPR, you will be able to tell your parents this, and maybe the next time Thanksgiving is at your house you will hold your glass in your hand, lift it to your mouth, and toast to friends and to health and to luck and to parents who bring their grill and their toilet paper and their belief in you.

After the recent death rattle of my early twenties, four of my homies convinced me that a weekend in Stumpy Point, North Carolina was the necessary panacea for the most metaphysical of physical hangovers: birthdays. Not that the end of youth didn’t make for a good party. The highlight of my 26th birthday was getting a tumble-down-table-dance from a new friend/future lover. My two dominant alleles—gayism and exhibitionism—where satisfied by this loving act, but the best part came when the DJ yelled: Lesbians in the house!!! into the mic. The reaction of the fags on the dance floor—twirling and clapping and piercing eardrums as only a gaggle of twinks can do—convinced me that all the tales you hear about gangs of fags and faggettes roaming Vaseline Alleys across the country flagging pink and camo and cutting each other with sharpened dildos is just more wash hogging by the heterosexist lobby, Straights for the Impediment of Same Sex Sex (SISSS). I’ve never loved gay boys as much as I did that night.

However, as much as I love (WANT. NEED.) table dances and ministration of all circles and squares, the birthday/birth week/birth month celebration thing is too many hand claps for me. There’s the day of, the weekend before and/or after, the dinner with friends, the dinner with family, and the 475 Facebook wall posts (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!) that clog your in-box. Not that I’m bitter—in fact, after the tumble-down-table-dance, the second bday highlight was the highly competitive Facebook wall war with my twin sister, which I won by a narrow six HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! testimonials (109 to 103), despite her friends posting multiple times, which is obviously in poor taste and antithetical to the whole spirit of the Happy Birthday Wall War. The Five Girls, One Pup: Stumpy Point Edition trip came at just the right time.

The special blend of five mostly-adult ladies and one non-adult French Bulldog in a single-serving vehicle for four hours seems like a great opportunity to pass on destruction and distress.  And it was! Kidding. The drive to Stumpy Point, NC was smooth enough despite getting out of Orange County a predictable three hours after our Decided Upon Departure Time. And there was a small incident at a Kangaroo Station.

Here’s what happened: we pre-payed $25 in regular unleaded petrol, but when we tried to pump said $25 of regular unleaded petrol, the bitch didn’t work. Erin and I went inside the Kangaroo pouch to be like, “WTF, Kanagroo Counter Man?,” at which point it was discovered that he alloted our $25 to another pump. We may or may not have given him the wrong pump number, but, shit, we all make mistakes The point is, “GIMME MY GAS, COUNTER MAN!!!.” The Kangaroo Counter Man and Manageress, however, weren’t so much of the diplomatic elk.  As we’ve seen from recent and ancient history, disputes over money and/or petrol can be hot as Tejas football season. In this instance, we were America and the Kangaroo was Iran. We were like, “We want our motherfucking pertrol, and, no, we’re not giving you any Got Damn dollar bills.” Kanagroo was all, “Bish, plz. You’re gonna have to bomb my ass before we give up this black gold.” The sitch escalated when Erin pulled her phone out of her pocket to call the po-lice and the well-meaning but blond co-ed behind us said, “Don’t call the cops. They’re probably illegal.” At this point, Kangarro Manageress kicked us out. Thankfully, at least one of the troupe (not me) has good sense and a calming demeanor and she managed to pacify all. I don’t know who had to sacrifice job and/or money to get rid of us, but we left with our gas and our money. Four nationalities were represented in this conflict, and, as always, white won in the end. Unfortunate metaphor, yes, but we all know that until Kim Jong Ill steals our buying power and/or heavy arms, America is Sarah Palin before she opens her mouth.

The rest of the weekend was nice and peace-ridden. We sat on the wine and drank the beach. Cell service was limited so when we finally left the island I was greeted by a dozen texts from Mazog (e.g. “whr r u? y u no txt bk? u ok? ♥ “), but wi-fi at the house was hot and fast so we didn’t have to neglect Facebook (“STATUS UPDATES, YA’LL!!! GET IN LINE!!!”). Also, the shower had not one but NINE shower heads, which made me alternately thrilled and junk-hurt that, besides the unfortunate thing in the county jail last fall, I haven’t showered duo-style since Spring Break 2005.  I also learned a valuable lesson: before you bidet, adjust the water temp.  Hot water is only hotter when it’s sailing into your digestive system. Believe.

*All photos by people other than me whose names may or maybe not rhyme with Lady Mantranny, Barren Cashews, and Felony Cupboard.  I’d give them proper credit but I doubt anyone wants this blog to pop up when potential employers/bail bondsmen Goodle them.

I’m emotionally and mentally peach fuzz and cannot make decisions for myself beyond who to hit on, so it’s helpful to have a twin sister willing to advise me on such matters as What To Have For Lunch, Should I Wear My White Vee Or My Blue Vee, and Is It Cool To Lie On My Resume?  I’m generally willing to listen to her, but the resume thing, which she recommends against, just isn’t possible.  As I mentioned in a previous post, my resume is long and thin, like Tyra in 1996, but without a rib cage.  I’ve had 26 jobs since entering the work force ten years ago, which averages to 2.6 a year, and although this may be slightly higher than average, I don’t think it’s wholly unacceptable.

Unfortunately, the 23 jobs don’t account for the long periods of unemployment in between.  In Portland, for instance, I was hired to “manage” a coffee shack.—which actually was a shack, but a Range Rover and surgeon’s salary shack, with maple counters and track lighting and a $10,000 espresso machine.  The first sign that this might not have been the most busty business plan was that I wrecked my bike on the way to the interview and showed up with elbows and knees painted in fresh blood.  And they still hired me.  Also, the company was called Java Sutra and the main selling point was that the coffee was infused with an Andean aphrodisiac called maca, which, according to God-like Wikipedia, “was eaten by Inca imperial warriors before battles. Their legendary strength was allegedly imparted by the preparatory consumption of copious amounts of maca, fueling formidable warriors. After a city was conquered, the women had to be protected from the Inca warriors, as they became ambitiously virile from eating such quantities of maca.”  Good in theory, right?  But do you really want blue balls with your morning hotdish?  We were in business for three months.

Getting laid off didn’t really bother me both because I’d been fired from so many jobs already that it seemed like a backhanded compliment, and unemployment insurance left me time to do whatever I pleased.  What I pleased was ride my bike and do crosswords and invest the dole in liver damage.  At the end of happy hour, I would run home to shower off the smell of booze and smoke, clean my house like an Ecudorian line cook, and pull out job applications or my GRE study guide so it looked like I had a productive day when my girlfriend got home from actually having a productive day.

I eventually found a job scooping gelato for wailing, syrupy seven-year-olds and their attractive but totally un-fantasystic mothers, but this only lasted for a month or so before I some Real Bad Shit happened, which I’m not going to get into cause it’ll take the time I’d like to spend catching up on LiLo and Sam, but I will tell you that as soon as you are punched in the face by a partner, you become a victim, which is sort of like Catholics and their We’ll Forget About The Condoms For A Small Donation rule: convenient.

This isn’t to say that my entire life in Portland was full of booze and memory loss (although most of it was).  I also interned at a gay rights non-profit, where I spent most of my time taking walks along with river with the bear accountant with the rocket ship tattoo and testing my gaydar on the bike messengers who worked in the building.  The one time I went to Friday happy hour with the staff, I got so drunk that I told the outreach coordinator’s husband that he should get a manicure cause his hands were seriously calloused before realizing he was in a wheelchair and his hands were constantly pushing rubber.  Actually, I already knew he was in a wheelchair, but I said it anyway.  And when my girlfriend came to pick me up, I was like, “Babe.  You’re tired.  Just go home. I’ll get a ride in time for dinner. I love you.,” so I could smoke cigarettes without judgment.  I later rode home with my boss, who started crying in the car because she had gotten divorced approximately six minutes before, and I was all, “Hey, let’s party! I’ve got Adderall in my bag!”  The non-profit and I went our separate ways soon after—they to make political strides and me to another four internships, seven jobs, and zero references.

Dear Pabst Blue Ribbon,

We’ve been together a long time, you and I. It’s been almost seven years since that first date but I remember it like it was lunch this afternoon—standing in a patch of sunlight in cut-offs and flip-flops, feeling so good, so right, and wondering why we’d never met before.

We’ve had some crazy times. Remember when we spent three hours in the ER last summer after falling off our bike on the way back from a birthday party? And how we gave the ambulance driver our ex’s name and address instead of our own and later called the nurse a cunt before stumbling out of the bright lights and into the heavy night air? And how we got lost on our way home in that vast and empty city they call a medical complex. We tried to hitch-hike back to town but no one would pick us up, maybe because it was three a.m. and there were leaves in our hair and our pants were ripped and we were wearing a neck brace. We cuddled on the sidewalk that night, sleeping soundly until a kindly bus driver picked us up drove us to our front door.

And remember a few months later when was climbed a tree and jumped over a barbed-wire fence and crossed a construction site the size of Ground Zero with a pretty girl to that most romantic of places: an eleven story crane? We climbed that crane, you and me and the pretty girl, ignoring the neurons firing in our brain, whispering, don’t do it, don’t do it, as cops circled the neighborhood below.

There have many nights as special as those, my friend: averted disaster, near arrest, decisions regretted. Was it a mistake to quit our job from the bathroom of a bar four hours before our shift started? No, no it was not. You’ve been always there for me, waiting patiently at five o’clock, in a way a job can never be. Chilled, that is, and in a can.

I stuck by you while everyone else cut carbs or switched to micro-brews or joined AA. I sat beside you on bar stools and listened, really listened, to you bitch about your inevitable dethroning. What would be the next beer of food-stamping hipsters around the country? Would it be Hamm’s, you worried, or maybe High Life? And when you ruined my chances with the graphic designer from Philly, the one who didn’t think it was a good idea to ride a shopping cart home, I didn’t mention that you haven’t won a blue ribbon since 1893. Friends don’t do that, no matter how annoyed we are that our last girlfriend left us because we make more money from bottle-deposits than from a paycheck.

The two of us have been through it all, can in hand.

We’ve only gotten closer with time. What started casually—on the weekends, maybe the occasional happy hour—has become a marriage of sorts. And, like all marriages, ours is not without its flaws. There was inauguration night, for instance, when you unintentionally tripped me on the way home from the bar. I know it wasn’t your fault—you were just fooling around, being silly—and I forgave you just as soon as I spit out my front tooth. So, yes, you’ve gotten me into a little trouble from time to time, but I know it’s not because you are devious, it’s because you love to have fun. There was Christmas morning, for example, when we woke up in our professor’s bed with her son knocking on the door to see what Santa brought. And there was that time we passed out in the neighbor’s yard and then told her that we were star-gazing and that she really didn’t need to call the cops but we would really appreciate bus fare. And years ago, there was that redheaded guy whose name we can’t remember but who taught us that men, even attractive men, can grow hair on their butts. That was a good lesson, wasn’t it? One that changed our life and sexual orientation forever.

The thing is, Pabst, we are growing apart. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. You no longer take up space in the fridge. And I can barely afford you anymore. It’s the recession. And my liver.

It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s that I’m afraid of you.

There. I said it. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me when you pushed me into the bushes after the  Michael Jackson dance party and when you woke me up in the middle of the night and made me stick my finger down my own esophagus—but it’s not funny anymore.

And it’s not just me—my friends are concerned. They think we’re spending too much time together. They say they miss the old me. The me who answered text messages that weren’t regarding happy hour. The me who could be trusted with keys, who didn’t need to be walked home, who paid her phone bill, who didn’t hit on their exes, the me who who didn’t call them crying in the middle of the night. In short, they miss the me who didn’t embarrass them. Sure, they’ll also miss that special category of stories called “You Won’t Believe What I Did Last Night,” but they won’t miss hearing those stories over and over. I’m sorry, but they don’t want me to take you to brunch anymore.

I’ve changed as well. I’ve been spending more time in our favorite chair with Netflix and hot tea. I’m been thinking about possibly getting a job someday. I bought running shoes. It’s not that I haven’t been thinking about you, because I have. But I need distance. We need a real break, not just like when we have a fever or when our parents visit.

I will never forget you, PBR. I will think of you every time I look at the boat tattoo on my left arm and the heart-shaped scar on my right shoulder. I will think of you every time I see the women we have loved and left. I will think of you at kickball in the Spring and at the pool in Summer and on Halloween night and Christmas morning and hot days and rainy days and snow days and every afternoon that the sun shines or that the sun doesn’t shine.

I’m not saying it’s forever. I might come crawling back in a month or a year or the next time it seems easier to be with you than to go running. But until then, please, stop calling and stop texting and stop dropping by just because you were in the neighborhood.

Yours always, but not right now.

We need to talk, Empty Fridge. It’s not that I don’t trust you; it’s that I’m concerned. You obviously have not been taking care of yourself. What happened to the whole grains and the soy protein and the yeast infection-preventing acidophiles of yesteryear? You used to drink blue-green algae for fucks sake!

I’m glad to see you’re drinking filtered water, but that bowl in the back is empty isn’t it? Don’t lie. I know you put it there to make us think that you ate a salad last night. But here’s the thing, Empty Fridge: everyone knows salad doesn’t keep. And you didn’t even bother to close the bag of Easter-themed M&Ms? It’s not even Easter yet.

Hey, what’s that? NEW CASTLE??? You are way too old for that, Empty Fridge. College freshman drink New Castle because they think it’s a good beer just because it comes from some industrial shithole in the UK. Well, Empty Fridge, it’s not good beer. It’s beer with honey in it. It’s beer for people who do not drink beer. You would drink Smirnoff Ice if you could, wouldn’t you?

Is that what the orange juice is for, Empty Fridge? For your girlypuss mixed drinks? Oh god. It’s orange juice from Teeter. There’s a co-op next door to Teeter, isn’t there, Empty Fridge? The only reason to go to Teeter is for frozen pizza and Doritos on your way back from the bar at 2:30 in the morning, both of which you will eat with the Bartles & Jaymes hidden in your toilet tank, a storage place that both fools your girlfriend into thinking you don’t drink at home anymore and keeps said Bartles & Jaymes chilled.

And immediately after eating the frozen pizza—which you may or may not top with extra oregano and the aforementioned Doritos—you will take a burning shower to remove the smell of cigarettes from your hair and extremities because you quit smoking six months ago but Just Couldn’t Resist at the bar tonight. Also, you forget to use soap. This shower will last a while, Empty Fridge. It will last until you have depleted the entire building’s supply of hot water and you wake up in the tub shivering and still reeking of Pall Malls.

And then, Empty Fridge, you will pass out naked and wet on your Wal-Mart futon until you are unexpectedly woken by your 7:30 alarm, already running late for your job at the nursery. Not the plant nursery, Empty Fridge. The baby nursery. The nursery where those pygmy humans you love so much hang out while their parents are earning six figures and thinking about the secretary’s legs.

You don’t have to hide anymore, Empty Fridge. The truth is out.

Let me guess: you moved to Portland six months ago after graduating from Smith with a degree in queer studies. You haven’t found a job yet, but you’re not sweating it because volunteering at Reading Frenzy for three hours a week totally counts. Your rental is down the street from Carrie Brownstein but you never even bother her when you’re walking your dog Milk. I mean, fame’s just a construct, right?

You plan on using those rotten bananas in the freezer to make banana bread at the next potluck. Last year it would have been vegan, but now you’ll probably throw some bacon in. You’re on the microbrew train even though sometimes you just want a fucking Corona Light. You’ve recently switched from Camel Lights to American Spirit Yellows to Bali Shag, but you totally support smoking bans. You don’t really know too many dudes, but you kind of wish you were one cause the Willy Nelson/Stonewall Jackson/Devendra Banhart look is so hot right now and it’s just not fucking fair that facial hair just isn’t part of your DNA.  Part of you regrets your Banksy tatt, but it’s cool because it marks a time in your life, you know?

You really, really want to be in Do & Don’ts, which is a secret, but not as bad as you want to move to Montreal, which is not a secret. You bought a keffiyeh seven months ago but haven’t put it on it since Rachel Ray wore one in a Dunkin Doughnuts commercial.  SXSW was way more manageable this year since you finally got an iPhone.

You totally cried on election night.

I did this Q & A thing with a DC blogger yesterday. It brought up up some unpleasant memories (No. 6) and forced me to contemplate my cultural identity (No. 3) as well as our crisis du jour (No. 1)….

Small Talk!

Whew, what a weekend. I. Am. Exhausted.

On Friday night the Golden Girdles—a recently-birthed and rather attractive collaborative—hosted their first event at 506. The show was a competition wherein nine local acts wrote and performed a song based on their interpretation of another genre. A metal band, for instance, might write a Christian rock song and perform it in front of a hand-woven tapestry of Rick Warren’s face, although this didn’t happen for some reason. The show included a panel of judges lacking only a semi-conscious Paula Abdul telling everyone how pretty they looked and questioning whether she is human or pumpkin.

My friends Whit and Jill asked me if I’d like to help with their project. As an attention-seeking wanna-be star-fucker, the thought of being on stage in the company of two incredible musicians almost made me wet myself. Do I want to perform in a packed club wearing a short dress and David Bowie cheeks? YES. Do I want to birth iPods out of an anatomically- correct silver vagina? YES. Do I want to suck the coattails of what is sure to be a winning act? YES.

The whole act was so outside-the-box (and by that, I mean “inside”) that it’s stupid hard to describe. Basically, Whit and Jill (aka Ram Rom) wrote a New Wave song set in the late ’70s/early 2080s about machines (WE NEED MORE MACHINES! WE NEED MORE MACHINES!) and wore computers on their heads. My role was mid-wife to the afore mentioned anatomically-correct silver vagina and it’s googly-eyed iPod babies. Amazing.

And we won. Or, I should say, they won and I’m reaping the benefits of their genuii. When Whit and Jill were accepting the award on stage I was holding the silver vagina. It was still wet from the spray paint and all I could think to say was, “This is one sticky vagina.” Into the mic. Also, we won a $100 bar tab at our neighborhood drinking trough. YES.

Later that night, two besties slept on a deflated air mattress in the freezing spare room where I keep my dirty laundry, the keepsakes of failed relationships that I don’t want to look at but can’t burn because of drought regulations, and the creepy baby calendar I got for Christmas. I, however, was nicely heated the company of a new friend across the hall. The two unfortunate palsies in the next room may have been miserable for most of the night but they had the pleasant occasion to sleep with Cozy, my beloved teddy bear. They thanked me for this the next day, like, hey, even though you made us sleep on a deflated air mattress in your freezing spare room where you keep shit you don’t want to look it, it was pretty nice that you let us sleep with Cozy. Thanks, boo.

When recounting this to mutual friends the next day, another friend (we’ll call this one “Clare”) informed our sleep-deprived peeps that she knew perfectly well why I wanted them to sleep with Cozy and that it was not out of generosity. No, “Clare” told them, I wanted them to take the bear because I always banish Cozy from the room when entertaining guests. The thought of my beloved teddy witnessing the depraved acts of a species that can construct miniature polar bears out of mere stitching and love but engage in some bizarre shirtless wrestling is too much. Best to spare the bear.

And this was when I realized that I am way too TMI with my pals.

Great weekend, people. Keep up the good work.

shannon: drugs can fuel a dead relationship for like, ever
me: FOREVER
drugs save romance
shannon: it’s true
drugs create romance out of sheer nothing a lot of times
me: girls like flowers but they love drugs
shannon: i like drugs with flowers please
tucked inside the card
shows true love
me: that’s what i’ll give you for valentines day. roses and qualludes
shannon: nothing says i love you like narcotics
um YES PLZ
they dont even make qualludes anymore
me: TRADEGY
shannon: my mom is sad about that fact to this very day
me: maybe we should go to goodwill and look in pant pockets
maybe someone forgot about a couple
shannon: omg that’s actually a great idea
i found $10 once

This year started out with so much promise. Instead of stressing about who I was going to kiss for the first half of New Year’s Eve, I decided to take the pressure off and kiss everybody. That was fun. And instead of waking up New Year’s Day beside someone I only marginally know and/or like, I spent the morning in bed with two of my besties, watching what happens with 30-year-olds O.D. on sugar. The rest of the day was also very pleasant—I went to a beautiful house with beautiful people and drank beautiful Bloody Marys. A week later I made out with Lindsay Lohan on the top of Aspen Mountain. I’ve cooled relations with my old friend PBR (due to lingering sickness, but still). I’ve diligently attended all of my classes (lie). I got my guvment $$$. I discovered Firefly Vodka. A promising year, no?

And then Barack Obama had to ruin it all. I mean, WTF, man? First the Rick Warren thing and now this? Look, Barack, you might think a busted face builds character, but I personally enjoy possessing all my teeth. They don’t have to be pristine. They don’t even have to be pearly white. But they do have to exist, preferably in my mouth rather than the side of N. Greensboro St.

I know the inauguration was important and all, but bars opening at 11:30 in the morning on a fucking snow day is NEVER A GOOD IDEA.

This is what happens:

I look like a snaggle-toothed Charlin Chaplin. Good thing I’ve declared 2009 The Year of Celibacy. Fuck, the only way I’ll make out until this shit heals is at a herpes convention.

P.S. The really amazing thing about tripping over my own feet and cutting my precious mandibular accessory in half is that the palms of my hands went entirely unscathed. Meaning, I didn’t even try to break my fall. Bone helmets deserve more than this.

P.P.S. I’m still laughing about Rick Warren pronouncing the Obama daughters’ names like they’re so African they need special inflection. MaLIAAH. SahSHAA.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii5pKCZWlnQ&hl=en&fs=1]