Twelve: Wherever I lay my head

I stared into the cold, hazy, quivering, glassy blue eyes in the mirror. My face wore a wan expression: still, colourless. I tried to ask my reflection if I felt okay, or if I had gone horribly wrong somehow the night before.

Saturday hadn't been much of a day. My main task for the day was the post office. At 11:30 I was the first one up, but I dallied around a while. Eventually I got the Christmas Card my dad had asked us to send Grandad and stuck it in my jacket pocket. "You know," Eric said, "You can just go to the corner store and mail it there. They send stamps." I didn't want to. A lot of the time, I'm a curious fellow who will do less convenient things because they amuse him. I wanted to listen to my only podcast - Wrestlecrap Radio - grab a cup of coffee, and then swing by the post office at the pharmacy. So that's what I did.

On my way up to the post office, Tim's cup in my hand, when I realized I had to visit the lavatory. Fortunately, I was well-acquainted with the medical building in which the pharmacy was situated, and comfortable using the facilities therein. I went in the main entrance and thought "Gee, how stupid would I feel if I pushed the elevator button and waited for twenty minutes, having to go, and then realized they turned the elevators off on weekends?" Well I didn't know why they didn't just have washrooms on the main floor, but they didn't, so shucks, better roll with it.

I felt like I was being sneaky as I found the stairwell access to the basement. There was no loo on that floor either, so I passed by "Hazardous Materials" rooms, under half-level fluorescent lights, (that is, every other one was off,) thinking I'd just wandered into a crappy American remake of a Japanese horror movie. I took the stairs up to the second floor, making damn sure that the lock was not in effect on either side. I didn't want to be stuck in this building - I felt like I wasn't even supposed to be there, but told myself if I wasn't welcome, they would have locked the damn doors!

As I finished up my work in the restroom, I heard what sounded like footsteps or doors opening and closing. I paused a moment and then carefully made my way to the door. Was it security? Was I in trouble? No, I reasoned... I was in a public building using a public toilet. I wasn't damn well gonna get busted for that!

I crept out of the door and found nobody. All I heard was the churning elevators. I'll be damned, they were active. So I went down and, after buying a stamp from the pretty counter girl with dreadlocks (and I don't usually go for dreads on white chicks,) handed it off to her and went home.

The afternoon died slowly, into a weird meatloaf-like dinner mom made us. I waited until 8:00 and then stalled longer. I was to go out but figured I oughtta at least hang back a while and take it easy. I shot for 8:30 and headed for Cary's.

I arrived just in time to see a SUV pull up and a few figures pile out. I headed in with Connor, Adam and Emma to find Cary fussing over a plate of segmented Clementine and bronies while Lauren looked on. He's looking more and more like his mother as he pulls bruschetta from the oven and muses that he wasn't expecting people to actually show up at 8:30. I actually kinda wished I'd been able to show up earlier and just hang out with those two, particularly as I didn't actually talk to Lauren much until I was beyond the point of enlightening conversation, and felt kinda bad. In any case the six us of sat around shooting the breeze, discussing who might come and why they might not, things being somehow still awkward between certain people. Things I don't completely understand have driven a wedge, apparently an irreparable one, between some of our closer friends. We also ragged on Emma for leaving, being a "party slut."

Eventually, people started trickling in, mostly Chris' friends asking where he was; playing big band music for an old folks' home. CB sauntered in with a $9 bottle of white wine and proceeded to drink directly from the bottle until Cary got him a glass. The usual girls also came by although many of them left to see Sweeny Todd, which actually annoyed Cary as far as I interpreted. The night wore on and I dove into the gin.

Things started going by the time Cary's parents showed up with Chris in tow (there must've been some other way to word that, but it is what it is.) I talked with Chris and Pat about the play I had halped them write, about about the Christmas assembly, comparing their effort to ours two years ago, saying nothing could have been worse, although we had all done our best and got some laughs, it was decided what sunk us, in addition to the constant threat of Fedurco coming down on us, was the influx of people who just weren't funny, especially the ruined ending where we swerved the audience out of the expected "12 Days of White Oaks" song, which was the idea - nay, demand - of one very particular voice in that scene. Bitch.

The night began to get hazy when I was talking to Janessa. I was still standing and had my wits about me and we actually had probably the longest and most in-depth conversation we'd ever had. I wish I could remember what it was about, but as I recall it was mostly about school and a wide variety of tangents. She was a sport for at least indulging me, letting me test my coherence. Linda insistently hyped up Yeats, a favourite poet of hers, as I attempted to downplay the first half of "Reading and Writing Poetry." At one point, CB and I briefly resumed a long-running conversation on wrestling deaths, which caused eyes to glaze over from lack of interest. I've been reading the Hitman's biography.

I wandered around the room attempting to converse with as many people as I could manage before drowning in Gin and 7Up. A lot of the time I found myself lost ,out of place and mystified. Sometimes there's just no room for me, and though I feel far more welcome now than I did years ago, I might never truly escape my awkward nature. I sat, trying to tiptoe the line of sobriety (not successfully, mind,) and keeping track of other peoples' conversations in hopes that I might be drawn in. For some of the night I'd feel lousy, and then find a place and feel okay before feeling lame again. The pattern repeated.

There was a mass exodus sometime around 1:30. Not needing a ride home, I vowed to stay "as late as I was humanly welcome." The Ferguson bros and I hung around a while, back to shootin' the shit and passing the Wii GH3 guitar around. I did surprisingly well for someone who was admittedly half in the bag (or as Cary put it, "half out of the bag." Or maybe that was Chris) and whose performances are historically inconsistent. After Chris' 2:05 alarm they decided it was time for bed and I staggered home with the notion Cary wanted to do something for New Years, but didn't know what yet.

I sat on the computer a while before unthinkingly going upstairs and ploughing into bed, gulping down as much water as I could muster. I'm no fool but I'm not brilliant.

I woke up a few times throughout the night and morning. Mom and Tim were stomping around, which I couldn't believe. They couldn't have known but I thought it was really inconsiderate (as if they had any idea!) I drifted in and out of sleep feverishly. Around 10:30 I could pretend to rest no longer, although I felt like I'd been kicked by a horse. My stomach was dry and putrid and rumbling. I walked across the hall to the washroom and looked my bleary self in the eye. I couldn't decide if I needed to vomit, eat, or use the toilet. I tried the first, but it didn't take. I stood up confidently, knowing that my streak was intact, at least since Nov 1.

I still felt ill, though, when I was in the shower. I got out and hunched down again, reaching deep down into the dry heaves. I felt like the night of the second Earnest performance, when I drank tainted iced tea and spent the night trying to eject every drop of liquid from my guts. Not particularly pleasant. In the end nothing more than spittle came out, you'll all be happy to know. Or grossed out. Whatever.

I was still hunched over and contemplating my health when Eric got up. We watched a little bit of reality TV when it was decided we had to polish off our Christmas shopping. We walked down to the mall, in the light icy drizzle. I was feeling more alive by this point, so we got lunch. I was pleased to find that the girl at Mr. Sub still remembers my topping, even though I don't go there too often anymore. Of course, I've been getting almost the same sandwich, without much variation, since I was in Grade 9. As we ate, Eric and I reminisced about old Christmases.

We picked up some small items from Sears and eventually found ourselves at the Body Shoppe. Now, there are some very pretty girls working there, and I didn't want to seem like I knew too much about what they sell, but we did have to get in and out in a bit of a hurry.

I finished off the Hitman book. He had a very interesting career, filled with great highs and unfathomable lows compared to most. But the thing is, no matter what happens, nothing will ever truly tarnish the legend of the Hitman. He was a true mensch, as they say in Yiddish, an honest, hard-working, determined individual who never got by on anything but his natural talent and brains. and he was beset upon by a supersized dysfunctional family, forces of jealousy and frustration, and a changing world without much room for his never say die attitude. After his unceremonious exit from the WWF, he had a lackluster tenure with WCW for 3 years or so before it sank and he was forced to retire due to injuries sustained while there. But there is nothing to tarnish the story of his long, powerful climb to the top, not even the quick plummetting of his fortunes. History won't look to kindly on his rivals: Shawn Michaels, Paul "Triple H" Levesque, Kevin Nash. No matter what they did in the ring (and as far as talent goes, that's in descending order,) or what they meant for business, their legacies will always, always, always be tarnished by the truths about their characters, their attitudes, their actions. no matter how they attempt to deny, atone or justify their sins, they will always be haunted. I think that eats away at Michaels moreso than the others. In the years since Survivor Series 1997, he has done everything he could to make Bret look like the bad guy, or at least to make himself not look like it, but there's not a leg to stand on. And the fact that he let his own insecurities and unprofessionalism get in the way of business will be forever linked to his name. And I think that's a far worse fate than Bret, who left undignified, but lives on in the minds of fans as a legend. Because in the end, all we have are our memories.

I wasn't planning to write all that... I don't write about wrestling too much here, even though a lot of the time it's all my brothers and I talk about, but I did feel the urge to weigh in, to put something in writing.

Tomorrow's Christmas eve. I haven't done much of what I promised myself I would, but maybe it's all good.

Try not to let yourself get caught up in any of that funky kicks going down in the city.

And do keep on rockin'
-SAW