1:00 AM: The Unsophisticated

I woke up this morning feeling queasy and unpleasant.

It sounds stupid, at 23 years old, to feel some pleasure with having nearly drank myself into oblivion. I should prize being able to hold my liquor and be ashamed of my bodily functions. But last night at 2 AM, as I hunched over the toilet wheezing up the contents of my stomach (at this point, mostly gin and 7up) I felt a sweet euphoric sensation, a catharsis for the night. Literally getting it all out of my system.

It was Chris Ferg's goodbye party. He'll be spending the summer in Europe, one of many friends who simply will not be around over the next few months. I've gotten very used to going long periods of time without seeing certain people, and I've gotten very good at making up for it when I can.

The day was unremarkable. I worked early, which was a bummer, but it was a short 4-hour shift. I hauled a box of books home from the mall, $2 worth of kids' books and activities at 10 cents apiece donated to the Coles Love of Reading fund. It was my mistake to attempt this without any sort of transportation. Some problems you make yourself.

I arrived fashionably late for the Goodbye party, strolling in the door at 9 after getting a call from Pat wondering where I was. For parties where I don't need a ride over, I tend to delay leaving because I don't like just showing up early because I'm awkward like that.

The party was mainly just a large group of people, the usual Chris Ferg-related suspects, sitting in a circle in the living room. I started in on the Gin and 7up and started to make the rounds, talking plays and old times with Cary, (at one point reading aloud a text he sent me at 5 in the morning back in December when we went to Denny's) and going on various subjects with CB, Pat, Chris and Ryan. At one point, I was describing to Ryan an incident that happened at work some weeks ago with a female customer, and as I was using some self-consciously flowery adjectives to describe her (she had "honey in her voice,") the room went silent, which is always nice.

By the time I got around to Lauren, whom I so rarely see, I was absolutely soused. Cary once spoke to me of various levels of drunkenness; "Handsy drunk," "belligerent drunk," etc. By the time I got to Lauren, I was "Fake British Accent" drunk (a very sad level indeed) and heading toward "Expounding on the nature of creativity" drunk. Lauren and I actually spoke at length, moreso than I think we have in years, which is a shame since I can barely much of the content of the conversation, although we did talk about my childhood friendship with her brother. With some of the other various partygoers, I did routines about the finer points of gin, and of course there was a mandatory group conversation about LOST.

As it got later, the party dispersed. Half the crew wanted to go to Montclair (for what I don't know) but Lauren, Tyler and I skipped that and went to Sixth Line Pub. I was well past the waterline of drunkenness at this point. I was "barely vertical" drunk. I stupidly bought another drink, then smartly declined to drink it.

We talked on and on and on about writing and I'm not sure I said anything that made sense, but I didn't do a ton of the talking. Whenever I'm drunk I attempt to summarize my short story collection concept to anybody who will listen. That's not true, but it has happened more than once (at the Half-Past afterparty, where a nice girl made the mistake of pursuing that line of inquisition.) I also described the situation with my romantic life, but since I was so drunk you can't take what I was saying at face value because I have a habit of blurring the facts to be more a reflection of desire than of actuality. That isn't to say there's no truth in what I was saying, just that it's not a hard and fast truth. More of a subjective, possible one. I live in a Tim O'Brien book.

The conversation was rather engaging, especially since it mainly served as mental stimulation to keep me from vomiting until I could do so alone. I consider it a private matter. Everyone who drinks with me knows I'm prone to fits of stomach upheaval. It's not even a little bit of a secret. Sometimes it comes early in the night due to social awkwardness, and sometimes it comes late due to over-indulgence. The latter, which this was, has a preferable cause but a more crushing aftermath, since I then have to go to bed.

So I said my goodbyes and walked home, got in the door, started to drink water, popped a Tylenol, and promptly started retching in the washroom. Oh, the humanity -- but of a private nature.

Like I said, I acknowledge and even celebrate the fact that I do it. I can't help it, but I'm good about it, I always clean up, I never throw up anyplace that leaves damage. I'm responsible. But if someone were to be with me when I was doing it, I'd feel embarrassed, weak. It's one thing for me to be weak, but I'm not keen on others getting a look at just how weak I am.

So the next morning I still felt ill, and it was hours before I was back to 100%. I wouldn't describe it as a hangover, since a hangover is usually defined by a headache of some kind and I don't tend to get those.

I had to mow the lawn today, which sucked because a spring of neglect had left it rather wild out there and it took me about half the job (and several blown fuses from overtasking the mower) to realize the problem could be remedied by raising the height of the blade. So I ended up with an uneven, but complete job.

Still no weedwhacker though.

Despite my fits of productivity, I still have a lot of work to do. But I managed to get a lot out there in a short period of time, so I'm not stressing about it. I wrote enough that my dreams became less vivid scenarios and more vague feelings. I wake up in the morning knowing I dreamed, but not having come up with anything worth remembering, which means my creative energies are sufficiently being used.

I still have a big webcomic in mind, but my artist suggested we try something smaller, which I agree is an important test. If we work well on it, we can go on to the big epic project. Better than committing to something that won't work out in the long run.

As I was telling people, you know, I have no complaints right now, which is rare. Not everything's perfect, in fact, nothing's perfect and I wouldn't want it to be. Everything is ideally imperfect in my world. All the imperfections are right. Nothing is tragic. Everything is real.

How long can I keep this up?

Let's just keep no rockin'
-Scott