A Love Letter to Having a Day

Dear Having a Day,

Jesus fuck I love having a day.

Requirements for having a day include:

1) totally unplanned
2) probably hungover
3) two or more persons, at least one of which is displaced from their normal residence by at least 500 ft
4) hilarity

It's not necessarily that you are hilarious (although I'm always hilarious, natch) when you're having a day, it's more that, like, when you're having a day, everything is hilarious. Having a day is something we invented. A term we assigned? No, something we Named.

When we have a day we tend to speak in primitive basics: "We are people and we are having a day."

It's never "Hey, can we have a day tomorrow?" It's always "Come play! We are having a day." Sometimes we try to plan it, but whenever we plan we fail.

Sometimes we can see having a day up ahead like a silhouette at sunset, our terrible, inevitable future: "Uh oh, Rassles. We're going to have a day tomorrow aren't we?"

"Yes, Schmee. I'm afraid we might."

Bloomingdale Trail. I found this on the google, I have no idea who took it. Rad though, yeah?

Sometimes having a day is just wandering around petting strangers' dogs, or an impromptu bar crawl in rain, or deciding to get drunk but instead we just sit around watching Back to the Future MST3K-style. Sometimes we go to Chinatown. Sometimes we walk down the street and collect high-fives. Sometimes we accidentally end up at the Circus Museum in Baraboo. Sometimes we hike the Bloomingdale trail, but not anymore because they're turning it into a sensible, three-mile elevated park. Chicago loses its wilderness foot by foot, day by day.

Sometimes we go see a psychic who tells us that throughout our childhood our usually-absent father, with whom we do not get along, had a secret family in Georgia, and because of his sins we are cursed to never find love unless we pay the psychic $45 a week so she can light giant candles and meditate and cleanse us of our misfortune and woe. Sometimes that psychic describes, in detail, our damaging miscarriage (????????WHUUUT??????). She says we have good business sense, we love our job cuz its what we do best, we do not enjoy reading and are not terribly creative. Sometimes that psychic also says that no man will love us because we are too ugly and intimidating (it was 6pm and I smelled like PBR and my soft pants had schnauzers on them) so we might want to consider settling with a woman just so we aren't so lonely anymore. Sometimes psychics are stupid fucking cunts that try ruin our day, but they fail, and do you know why? Because we are having a fucking DAY, that's why.

Nothing can ruin a day. Spending $25 on a shitty tarot card reading is worth it, and plus? Awesome. She did not list a single accurate or recognizable trait of mine. It was like the exact opposite of a psychic, treading water in the toilet of lies. Seriously, did this witch divine vibes from a stranger on the sidewalk? Who was this stranger? Can I meet her? Would we be friends? I doubt it, we have nothing in common, and half of my apartment is books. Also, absent father? You kidding me? My dad worked from home. I saw him every day. Too ugly to be in a relationship with a man? Foolish, fuckeyed, gypsy harpy, your mystic science is stuh-rate up slander.

But none of that matters, because Sara and I were having a day.

Sometimes when we're having a day we buy all of the champagne at CVS and drink on the porch and yell at people on the street so they'll join us in our day. Sometimes we stay in and turn off all the lights and drink bloody marys and watch Buffy. Shooting the shit, being an idiot within the safe confines of your friends.

It occurs to me that the majority of them when I'm having a day, Schmee is there. Well done, Schmee. We are people and we are good at things.

Love,

Rassles


...

This Love Letters series is for true. Click here for the list so far.

A Love Letter to Diner

Dear Diner,

I love you.

Sure, you're sexist. Then again, you take place in 1959. If you weren't sexist, this would be a fantasy, and your strength is your realism. 

If any movie perfectly illustrates the dynamics of friendship without relying on stereotypes, this is it. You can keep your buddy films and your bromances and your coming-of-age. 

Diner is one of the only movies that leaves me with: Yes. This is how friends behave. This is friendship amongst a group of equals.  It's not about heroes and sidekicks or mentors and students or rivals that 'respect' each other.

I think one of the main reasons I identify with Diner so much is because there are (please don't hate me for where I'm headed, here) so fucking few healthy female friendships represented in popular culture. Why is it that female friends are always jealous and backstabby? My friends aren't like that. If I met a person like that, I would just not be friends with them.

Hollywood has very, very, very low expectations of friendship, especially with women. Stories about camaraderie are usually better friendship barometers than stories about friends.  Movies about growing up that are written or directed by a person who is, simultaneously, coming into their own self, are always the best.
 
Diner's success lies in the level of comfort these actors feel around each other, how they ricochet and couple and strain. I don't think I have a single friend I relate to in the exact same way as another. Friendships are fueled by reflection. It's how you respond to each other, the unique phrases you use, how you reminisce...if you reminisce at all. Some friends are for arguing and debates. Some friends need protection. Some give the best advice, some spill out a slow reveal of our similarities or flagrant differences.

The things that I remember about my friends are the parts that were easy, and those are the things I tell the most.  Staying up all night in on the train to New Orleans with Bobbay, shaking creamers because Muffy told us that if you shook a creamer, it would turn into butter. What did we talk about? Shit, I don't know. Buttermakers? I just know it was effortless and rad, and my favorite part of that trip was getting there. One summer I remember drinking around a fire reading passages from erotic novels with CrazyLiz and Phil and Tyler: I remember the nuances ("You know what word I'm not comfortable with? Nuance. It's not a real word" - Modell, Diner) and stress that each of used and how differently we all read the text. Driving around with Schmee in college looking for cigarettes, refusing to buy our own, just having a day. We weren't out of control or fucked up or anything, we were just...us. Sometimes it's the simple lazy times, when no one is faking it, when you're completely at ease and you don't need to work at anything, when you're not trying, when you're just effortlessly idle. But tthings end, and people grow.

Diner takes place just before the minute hand strikes sixties: the world is about to change, to call out the boys' collective narcissism and smash it up. But no matter what, they'll always have the guys at the diner.

Then they're getting married, having kids, starting new jobs and leaving town. But you know that the next time they're together, Modell and Eddie are going to bicker about absolutely anything and everything, Shrevie and Boogie will remain friendly, but tensely competitive, Fenwick will probably be drunk and brilliant and pissing off everyone else.

And it's stories we all know: the universal, gap-mouthed look Eddie gets when he realizes he just lost a pointless argument, but he still keeps arguing because he must, because he is making a goddamn point, and then later on he brushes it off, why so serious?

Seriously, Steve fucking Guttenberg is a goddamn genius in this movie (words that have never, ever been spoken, and technically they still haven't since I typed them, but whatever jerk). As far as I'm concerned his role (Eddie) is one the most well-actualized characters I have ever seen - because we know him, we can tell how he's going to react to anything outside the sphere of Diner because he does such a fucking perfect job reacting to things. I could go on and on and on, but that shit's boring to list and dazzling to watch. I'll let the movie do it.

In a way, I guess, it's about taking shit seriously: my serious business is much more fucking important than your serious business. Nah, just kidding, super sors, we cool?

Maybe it's because, stripped of the question of masculinity and what it means to be a man and all that bullshit (which I could talk about, but don't want to) Diner is really about learning who you are and admitting those faults, and how none of it matters with the people you love. 

Maybe I the reason I love Diner is because it's like...it's like when an old friend gives you a confident a kick in the ass and tells you to fuck off, so you do a round of shots and make fun of each other for five minutes and feel better about the world. 


Love,
Rassles

...

So I guess I have a Love Letters series now.  I mean, I do. Click here for the list so far.

in which I take bites of things

Thirty-one, I think, is going to be copacetic.  Even though it might not seem this way from the last post, birthdays are my very very super favorite thing other than costume parties, puppies, and John McClane, but I decided to keep shit low-key and hyphenated this year:  Bingo at the neighborhood church on Friday, live band karaoke on Saturday, Wu-Tang on Sunday. Hot damn I am awesome, even in my wrinkled old age.

Everyone won Bingo except for me, which sounds about right. I am completely addicted.  At LBK I had to call an ambulance after some twenty-one-year-old cretins beat the shit out of a hapless smoker on the sidewalk in front of the bar.  He looked at them sideways, and they threw him into a parked car and stomped all over him, and then all these people on the street started yelling, "Go back to Wrigleyville!" and they ran away, which is relevant for the following thirty-one reasons:

1. fist-fights don't happen there EVER
2. even the bouncer attested to that
3. therefore: Wrigleyville = accurate assumption
4. frat-tastic chads are officially moving in on the bars I frequent
5. I go to certain bars specifically to avoid those guys
6. since hipster fashion is now the preppy norm, there is no way to distinguish elitists from pricks, and previously I engaged both sets differently
7. I'm fairly mediocre-looking, so even when I'm just waiting for a beer and in light conversation, once it becomes evident that I am much more clever than the hipster/chad, it behooves me to determine in advance whether he is going to accuse me of being an uptight bitch (hipsters) or a lesbian (chads), so I can scoff him appropriately.  
8. those are the only "insults" they know
9. (men rarely insult beautiful women to their faces)
10. but this happens to me whenever I say something as simple as "no thanks" or as complex as "no I will not go down on you in the alley behind the dumpster because I am not your roadwhore"
11. when insecure guys come face-to-face with a less-than-beautiful girl who doesn't fawn and giggle over their superior manliness, they get angry because they are obviously doing me a favor by speaking to me in the first place 
12. (50% of guys are very pleasant and not at all douchey)
13. I tend to start a conversation with whoever is next to me as long as they aren't engaged in a conversation themselves just because I like talking to people until they start sucking
14. and it's like, if you all stopped being fucking sexist manbaby-coddlebunnies, maybe you could have a conversation instead of getting angry at me for not buying your bullshit
15. But no, women who don't stroke your ego are controlling bitches.
16. I am sure that ego-stroking has something to do with penises 
17. I will stroke your ego if you deserve it. 
18. (Penis)
19. Mad Libs?
20. So this guy at trivia night (I know, I know, I went to a trivia night last week as well. Who the fuck am I and what have we done with the real Rassles and what's with all the digression [you love it and you find me coy]) who is a friend of a friend was angry that I "took over" trivia night.  
21. His only reasoning for this was the fact that I am awesome at trivia. 
22. Now, if I didn't know the answer to a question, I left it to the table and threw in ideas when no one else knew either. But if I knew the answer then he was all "but HOW do you KNOW that?" even when he didn't know the answer, and I was like, "Why you bitchin, handsome? The Decameron is the Ten Commandments. THAT IS WHAT IT IS. This isn't fucking rocket surgery. No, I don't need to think about it.  I haven't been wrong yet.  No reason to get all testy-twisted.  I accept your answers when you're sure of them. If I was a man, this wouldn't be an issue. We would have fist-bumped, and you probably would have been all, we need to team up all the time bro, no homo."  
23. This is why I don't play trivia with strangers.
24. He proved to be the type of guy that would put his arm around his adorable little blonde girlfriend and say, "Yeah, my brains are rubbing off on her.  She gets cooler every day." I know he's the type because he actually did that.  He actually did that with complete sincerity and without any sense of deprecation or irony, and his girlfriend actually looked proud.   
25. His girlfriend actually answered way more questions than he did, but she did it by consulting him first for his approval. If he didn't like her answer, she wouldn't tell the rest of the team what it was.
26. Then he started ragging on the announcer because he sounded like a 'gay theater guy. it's cool if he's gay, I mean, you know, but do you have to be so obvious?' 
27. DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO OBVIOUSLY STRAIGHT?
28. So then I did that thing where my heart grows a swampland because I don't care how handsome you are anymore.  I don't care that your pouting was kind of adorable.
29. You are now my property, and you will live in the gator-infested swampland of my heart and you will hate it there because you're a pig, and gators eat the fuck out of swine.  I can still feel them inside.  Chomping away.  
30. I need something to fight, I think.
31. whatever, it was my birthday week, I did what I want

So anyway, the LBK band asked that I take a tip jar around the bar for them, and I made Schmee come with me because she's gorgeous and people are always more likely give money to beautiful women (for the record, she is also smart and funny, but Emi is the smart one and I am the funny one and Schmee is the pretty one and that's the way it is, Schmee, so stop complaining). And these guys were mean to Schmee when she was all pretty and approachable-looking, so you know they were assholes.  One of them goes, "I don't have any money, I'm twenty-one.  Plus I give like $90 a month to charity."  And then Schmee said, "so how did you afford that round of shots? Why are you at a bar that charges $5 a beer if you can't cough a dollar up for the band you came to see?"

He could have just said "no" and we would have thanked him and walked away, like we did with the other people in the bar that didn't spend all their time acting like an infected foot.

And then like twenty minutes later they beat the shit out of a guy and I called the cops and an ambulance.  Victim guy was okay.  Oh! and Schmee gave the cops the evidence they needed to catch the gutless bastards that ran away.  Well done, Schmee.

In other news, Wu-Tang is the old-ass Led Zeppelin of hip-hop.  The only one who's got any energy left is Method Man and the rest of them just politely towel each others' foreheads and shout, "Make monay monay, make monay monay monay!" and I'm all, "Dude.  You're like forty" which is what I think about everyone older than I am between the ages of thirty-six and seventy. 

Also, I've started reading US state maps in the bathroom.  I've been collecting them for years (MoLinder and I wallpapered a room once, but they've since been taken down, refolded, and stashed in the bathroom) and since I have no road trips planned, I'm just memorizing them so when I DO go on a road trip I can be all "BOOYAH.  Suck it, GPS."

...

Standing Was Exhausting

Man, I am not allowed to get drunk anymore, because then I send emails like this:

I haVE DEVELOPED THE BAD HABIT OF EMAILIN O=YOU DURING PERIODS OF INOTOXICATION. I ALSO CANNOT PROPERLY NEGATE MY CAPS LOCK. APPARENTLY.

To poor, unsuspecting souls.

More importantly, Furry Vengeance is the same thing as Avatar edited with clips from America's Funniest home videos. Also - no wearable robots with secret swords.

Yesterday me and Schmee got drunk at the Cubs game from the lofty confines of a luxury suite. They had shrimp. And I hit random speed-dials on the suite's phone asking, "Is this where we get more beer? No? Thank you." And Schmee was all logical and shit and, "Why don't you call catering?" And I explained that...I don't know what I explained, but I gave her a damn good reason for my decision to call every department but catering.

I also stole the uneaten blocks of cheese from the cheese plate and carried them around in my purse for eight hours while we struggled from bar to bar. I was all spinny. Standing was exhausting.

Neither of us know why we kept on drinking, meeting up with new people at each bar and just telling the same story over and over again (and I'm doing it now) (and then I called to get more beer! and then I put cheese in my purse! and Schmee sat next to the owner of the Brewers! OMG so drunk!).

Whatever. I WRITE BLOG.

...

We Should Feed Canada Some Mrs. Grass Soup, But Only Until They Feel Better About SUCKING SO HARD AT HOCKEY

Scene: Seven friends are seated at the bar at Neighbors (you wish you were there) watching the US/Canada Olympic hockey game. Two are Canadian, the other five are USAmerican, and all of them are awesome. Except for the Canadians (BITCH WHAT I SAID IT, EH?)

(Sidenote: if you are not one of the seven people that was there, you will probably find this post tedious. Deal with it. Have some soup.)

...

"Whatever, look at those helmets! Who fucking designed those, Ed Hardy?" Smith Sister Sav giggles and sips her bloody mary.

"Seriously?" I snap and point at the TV above the bar. "Those masks are awesome. Look at it - that's Uncle Sam beating your Canadian ass with a hockey stick that's on fire. And on the other side? That's an eagle with like, fucking adamantium claws or talons or whatever."

"Do the chickens have large talons?" Schmee mumbles.

"HA! Do the chickens have large talons?"

Smith Sister WJ is whiny. "But our helmets are all classy, with our maple leaves, and they're all shiny and pretty."

"They would be better if they were blue."

"Red, white and blue."

"Or just blue like Sav's lame-ass blue Canadia tattoo." Slinger laughs at himself and drinks his Budweiser like a fucking champ. Like an American champ.

"You know what?" Smith Sister Sav declares, snapping with more hostility than she originally intended. "Why don't you show them your fucking blue sun tattoo?"

Slinger ignores her.

"I fucking hate that thing," Schmee shakes her head, eyes glued on the TV.

I raise my eyebrows at Slinger. "You got a tattoo of a blue sun? I don't wanna sit next to you no more."

"Sometimes people have oddly blue tattoos. What?"

"And sometimes TEAM USA SCHOOLS YOUR ASS AT HOCKEY." High-five.

"What was the rationale behind your blue tattoos, anyway?" I ask.

Smith Sister Sav goes back to her bloody mary, avoiding my eyes. "I don't wanna talk about it. Can we please talk about something else?"

"Sure, let's talk about your back-ass boondock country."

"Which is fake," Schmee chimes.

"Totally fake."

"You know what? Okay, fine, let's hear this. How are we from a fake country?"

"Seriously, I fucking love those helmets!"

Slinger laughs. "Do you guys even have a navy?"

"Of course they do, they're called mounties." Everyone looks at me. "Horses can swim."

"Haven't you seen Wild Hearts Can't Broken?"

"Was that in Canada?" Anway asks.

"No, swimming horses."

"I never liked that movie."

"You're lame."

"You're Canadian."

"Bitch, you know you're jealous."

"I wish I had a queen to cry to."

"Hey," Slinger stretches back, "if we give you Wisconsin, can we have your curling team?"

"They have cheese there, eh?"

The bartender comes over to drop of Smith Sister Sav's burger and fat plate of potato skins for Scott, her armcandy, who never speaks or drinks but he digs into his food with zeal. I look at the pile of dirty napkins and onion ring baskets and empty bottles in front of me and try to drag the bartender's attention with my eyes but it totally doesn't work.

"Please take these empties," I mutter, to no one in general, and slide my bottle onto the rail behind the bar. The bartender ignores me.

"She's never gonna clean it up," Slinger says quietly, annoyed. "It's been sitting there forever."

"I know, I don't want to look at it," I agree. I scowl at an empty bowl of chili.

"She's probably from Canada."

"Most definitely." Even onion rings get rejected. It looks sticky. I should order a water, it's really snowing outside. Bitch. Oh! Patty melts are seven bucks.

I snatch a fry from Smith Sister Sav and smile brilliantly. "See this?" I shove it into my mouth. "Round here in the U.S. of A. we call that manifest destiny."

Sav squints and snarls, "You know who invented those fries, right?"

"Frogs."

After a few moments of intense silence, where I'm sure everyone was just trying to sit there and think of proper banter, Anway speaks up. "You know, every Olympics I always want your people to wear Canadian tuxedos, and it never fucking happens," he muses.

"Agreed, that's horseshit."

"Oh, but it could happen, now they have those pajamas that look like jeans."

"Like the snowboarding team."

"Like the snowboarding team." Echoes all around. "Exactly."

"You guys are a bunch of fucking Denim Dans," I yell, and slump back into my beer. Chair. Beer.

The bartender comes over and clears all the nastiness away and I ask for a water.

"Nothing is more bad ass than that helmet, I swear to fucking god."

"What's the Canadian tuxedo?" both Smith Sisters ask, glancing down at their own red-and-white-maple-leafed-Canadiawear which isn't nearly as cool as our Americanwear.

"Are you fucking serious? You don't know your own home jersey?"

"All demin, head-to-toe," me and Anway explain. Perfect unison.

I swivel toward him. "Fucking jinx, bitch."

"The Canadian Tuxedo."

"How is that the Canadian Tuxedo?"

"I don't know. Because all Canadians live in Trailer Parks and weave their own Levi's."

"Have they discovered fire in Canada?"

Schmee's on it like Team USA on ice. "No, we brought it to them with the Olympic torch."

"Speaking of which," Smith Sister WJ adds, "I think Uncle Sam is holding the torch on the goalie mask."

"I like a flaming hockey stick better," I snap, "Because the Canadians are all 'fire bad!' and they totally run away."

"Okay, Ross, that was a bad one."

"Sor." I feel shamed. "Whatever, that doesn't change the fact that you're gonna get housed."

"You know what? I don't have to listen to this," Smith Sister Sav says. "This game doesn't even count anyway." She pops her maple-leaf jacket collar in frustration and furiously hides behind a copy of Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul.

Seriously. That happened. She pulled it out of her purse.

And then we all laughed like we were in a movie or something.

...

Aphoristic Truths

We have some universal aphorisms among the Circus circle of friends. For the most part, they are ironclad, disciplinary facts, untouchable truths that none of us will dispute. Things like "M.E. is a tool" and "Lance is a douchebag" and "Steve Status is not a douchebag" and "Schmee has very nice boobs" and "Rassles is the chillest and the illest piece of sweetness around and she deserves all of our respect and cashmoney." *

But here's the crazy shit: Steve Status was kind of a douchebag this weekend at Novo's birthday. It's like my entire belief system is crumbling all around me. He was even wearing one of those button up Dude Shirts with like the strategically swirly silver designs, and he put gel in his hair.

Schmee informed me that Status has always been kind of a douchebag. Touche.

This isn't fucking Scrote-lympics, Status. I understand that we do not hang out very often, but I'm disappointed in you.

So, Status: next time Jackson decides to kick holes in the Hyatt walls and piss down the hallway, LET THE COPS TAKE HIM AWAY. We don't want that guy around anyway, because he does dirtbag shit (like kicking holes in walls and pissing in hallways). That's why we always say "Jackson is a fucking dirtbag" and I get mad when he stands next to me.

We're not in college. This isn't fucking Nam. Sure, in a Deadliest Warrior Stand-Off between Status and Jackson...I'd like to say Status would emerge victorious, even though I get the feeling that Status is lead by self-appointed drunken chivalry that borders on tricky dickhead, and I don't like that. But Jackson is a dirty dirty dirtbag, beyond redemption, always creeping through that existential void of charmless scumbaggery.

Also: Stop asking me for advice on your love lives, guys. It's not my fault Stablin's best game is howling "baby" at hoodrats and rocking an unbuttoned shirt exposing his pasty-ass chest. Status, if your girlfriend of four months is cheating on you with other girls and you're uncomfortable with it you should ask her to stop or break up with her, even though it was cool at first. Lance, yes, you are a douchebag. Especially with your shirt off. Stop dry humping people in their sleep. No, I do not want to see whatever you're hiding beneath the sheets, go back to taking advantage of unfortunate young coeds.

I haven't seen them in nearly two years, and nothing has changed. It's still, "Dude, Ross, I need to talk to you about something, I'm so glad you're here. Moe licked my nipple. What do I do about that?"

Still, I'm glad I got to hang out two weeks in a row. There are few things better than people who are genuinely happy to see you. I miss those guys.

...

* In retrospect, I could have some of those words jumbled and/or erroneous in that last statement. In fact, I'm pretty sure I just made that up off the top of my head. It's alarmingly accurate in its elegance and simplicity, agreed? I propose, to all that are involved in making such decisions, that we change the current gospel that everyone says about me to whatever I typed up there.

I know what you're all going to say, though. Because it's the same thing you always goddamn say.

"Shut up, Rassles. You don't know anything."

...

Oh, and for the record: Jackson is not my friend. He didn't go to school with me. He's a tag-a-long: A friend of a friend who has nothing better to do than piss everyone off.

...

Schmee

Everyone who doesn't know me in real life and doesn't give a shit about this has to deal with it for one more day, because Schmee is last, but certainly not least. She's got a lot to say. Most likely because out of all of my friends, we've probably had the most adventures together.


By the way, there is a higher probability of me giving up drinking than finding pictures of Schmee, "The Homewrecker," where she is (a) not hugging someone (b) not making "sex face" or (c) not hammered.



LYLAS! (yeah, we do that. Shut up.) Here's what she's got to say (and like I said, there is a lot):

I’ve decided to follow Ammo’s lead and do a list of Top However Many Memories I Can Think Of Involving Rassles. Well, that’s how it’s going to start at least. Chances are this blog will be all over the place. Deal with it.

COLLEGE

1.  The time we drove around for hours smoking cigarettes to “Freebird” and then changing the lyrics to make up our own song about cigarettes. It went something like…"Man, I neeeeed a ciga- reeeeeee-eeeeeeeette. OhhhhOh ciga-reeeeeeeee-eeeeeeeeeette" Don’t lie. You all just tried to sing it in your head and it was magical….

2.  The time we sang “Tiny Dancer” at the Bullpen and we made up dance moves. Then we realized the song is about 10 minutes long and we looked like idiots. Lame.

3.  The time the Bullpen got raided because there was a wet t-shirt contest (which Emi won even with a blue t-shirt on. What a hooker.)  and I had to hide in the bathroom because I wasn’t 21 yet. Rassles brought me beer and talked to me over the stall until the cops had cleared out. That’s when I knew I had a true friend…   

4.  The time Fraya and I showed up at The Shithole (Rassles’ house her senior year of college…name is self explanatory) after about 14 hours of drinking (damn, the OZO’s and their Octoberfest) desperately needing help from Rassles because I had taken a nasty spill (YEAH parentheses) and hit my head on the curb. Instead of helping me she broke out the video camera and got footage of me trying to have a conversation with the tomato in my Wendy’s hamburger. Could we say life-ruiner???

5.  The time we had a massive flippy cup tournament at The Shithole, filled with team chanting and everything. The sad part is that nobody can remember whose team won because we were all so hammered. It was definitely either mine or Rassles’ team though.

6.  The morning/afternoon after the flippy cup tournament when we tried to solve The Mystery of the Inflatable Snowman. Afkjls;dfklaskdl. That deserves a blog all to itself. Git er done Ross.

7.  Later that same day when I got home and checked my messages I had one from Rassles that said, verbatim, “I was fuckin HAMMERED last night. HAM—MURRED. I puked. And it looked like thousand island dressing…

8.  Another one of the many times Rassles’ broke out the video camera was after a drunken night at the Bullpen when everyone that was at the bar came back to The Shithole (Are we noticing a pattern here?) and people started taking turns sledding down the stairs in a laundry basket….Classic.

9.  One of our many movie nights, which were basically just an excuse for us not to do homework, she brought over the movie Secretary insisting that it would be great because she loves James Spader. So we watched it, blushing and laughing awkwardly throughout. “Cream potatoes! Four peas! ….edward!!!”

10. The time Rassles came back to Augie for my 21^st birthday and she recorded every drink/shot I had on a piece of cardboard from a Coors light box. And when I puked after the 20^th one (first and only time I’ve ever puked from drinking and only the second time I’ve ever puked in my life. I know, I rule.) we went back to Bobbay’s house where I was forced to take a hit of weed as my 21^st “drink/shot”. Then we proceeded to watch the “you got a fuckin dart in your neck!” part from Old School about 10 times…while laughing uncontrollably of course. I feel tired.

11. The countless hours we spent with the Animal Book taking the quiz for ourselves, and for others, over and over and over again. And the fact that she still talks to me even though I’m a sea lion who supposedly “has conversations that lack substance and logical grounding.”  ARH,ARH,ARH. Life ruined again.

12. COLLEGE… NO PARENTS… BURRRRRR

LBK

One of the first times Rassles ever went to Live Band Karaoke she was with Emi. Sadly, I was not there. But I did get quite the phone call from a pissed off Rassles in the middle of the night. The conversation went a little like this….

SCHMEE - What the hell happened? Why are you so mad?

RASSLES - Fucking Emi makes me come out to fuckin live band with her and then leaves me in the fuckin corner by myself all night while she makes out with some fuckin random girl.

(keep in mind, these are the days before Emi was a full blown lez. As far as we knew she still dated dudes but just made out with our lesbian friend Kate from time to time. Oh how things have changed…)

Cont.

SCHMEE -  Well that’s interes—

RASSLES - (Interrupting) It’s fucking bullshit!  I had to sit there while every dude at the bar came up to me asking if they were my friends and what their deal was. And the---

(M.E. steals the phone from her)

M.E. - (wasted) Duuuude. This girl was HOT. She was SO hot. And oh my god SUCH a good kisser.

SCHMEE - Nice job, M.E. Work it.

RASSLES - (from the background) Whatever the girl didn't even have a fucking bra on. I fucking hate you, M.E.

Who was the random girl, you ask? Well, it was our soon to be Whore Captain...Captain Ammo herself. And so began the debauchery that is LBK. It was an era that consisted of theme nights, good singing, bad singing, whore chants, LOTS of liquor, and blacking out. I would try and list some good memories but they were all pretty damn good. Well, that, and the fact that all the blacking out would make for quite a few holes in the stories...Damn those soco lime shots.


POST COLLEGE/NOT LBK BUT STILL KARAOKE

There was a period of time where Rassles, M.E., and I took our karaoke obsession to a whole new level by finding almost every dive bar in the burbs that had karaoke and pretty much becoming regulars. I mean, we actually drove around with the Karaoke Nite Life newspaper in our cars in case we absolutely needed karaoke and it was an off night at our regular bars. Talk about obsessed. Anyway, this is the time period in which some of these memories took place.

The many times we went to Rory's and got free pitchers and shots until after the bar time because the owner was obsessed with me, almost to a creepy degree. He had a girlfriend of course, because this was when I was an unintentional Homewrecker. Oh, and Rassles bought him a hat he wanted once which got us even more free booze. Sweet. In the end we found out they shut the bar down because he was arrested for sexually assaulting some chick after hours. What a classy establishment that was.

The time we went to a bar in the middle of nowhere because M.E. wanted to enter the karaoke rap contest. I sang my first song, tripped over the microphone cord and fell off the stage. a;ljks;kdjf "I'm gonna start calling you the One Beer Wonder...hehe" (Quote from the douchebag DJ that was in love with Rassles and comments like that being the reason she wanted nothing to do with him).

Then me and Rassles ended up at some random dude's apartment (Rassles kept calling him Beaches so we never figured out his real name) where we smoked a bunch of pot and watch Vanilla Sky. At about 7 in the morning we got a taste for McDonald's breakfast and had to eat our food in front of a bunch of people wearing business suits who were on the way to work. Gotta love going out on weekdays. That was probably the weirdest night of my life...

All the nights doing karaoke at Where Else? cuz Where Else? would we go?

Being in love with the old man who sang Sinatra at Sponge Reef.


RANDOM MEMORIES OF, OR WITH YOU THAT MAKE ME LAUGH

The time you slept over at my house in my sister's room and when I woke up you were watching Hook and playing with Tarot cards, hung over as hell.

The time we left Goldies (bar that sells dollar PBR's and lets you play old school Nintendo...Best. Bar. Ever.) and you baffed black bile in your hand...And then stared at it for about 2 minutes before cleaning it off on your shirt. Stop drinking whiskey!

Every Pub Chugga Chugga Choo Choo. Especially the first one where Miles Long did magic tricks and pulled a gerbil out of your boobs. HAH. Everyone better be coming to PCCCC 6 on Saturday!

The time we dominated at flippy cup. Which time do you ask? You're right. I should be more specific because we always dominate. the time when Flips McGee and the Cup Killers got 3rd place out of 40 teams in Chicago, and got everybody at McFaddens to chant, "Bull-shit" because we so obviously won that round. That referee was a dumb bitch.

All the nights we made stroganoff and watched Coupling. "Ohhh, Jeffrey..."

All the times we've dominated the jukebox and made people listen to Chicago and Foreigner.

The time we dressed up as the Ghostbusters for Halloween and you made awesome proton packs for us out of Carson Pirie Scott boxes. And then, you had a giant pink care bear tell you that "he's hit a girl before and he'd do it again." All because we kicked his ass in flippy cup.

Alright, I'm gonna cut myself off right there because this is becoming the longest blog on earth. I've been slaving over it for 3 days. And now I have to go back and edit the shit out of it to make sure I'm satisfied. This is why I do not blog. It stresses me out. And I feel like I'm doing homework.

In closing, I would just like to say thank you, Rassles. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for always being there. Thank you for introducing me to my boyfriend, and Orazio's, and The Can, and Neighbors, and all of your Ville friends. And thank you for not getting mad that I hang out with all those people, all those places more than you do. Oh wait, you do get mad about that. Most of all, thank you for being you, because without you, I would not be the person I am today. I hope you think your present is blog-tastic and you have a Happy Biffy Baffy Birthday.

Love,

Schmee

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Horology

There are certain fundamental units that I naturally take issue with, because although they're supposed to be natural physical constants, I can't seem to adhere to their rules. I know they're there, always. I pay attention. But for some reason, these quantifiable physical laws just crumble when I'm around, despite how much I pay attention.

I mean, Time? Energy? Fuck that. And don't even get me started on torque and momentum, because sometimes I have this like, crazy super strength, and sometimes I can't lift my coffee without help. They change around me, they don't work congruently with their natural affairs, because I'm there. It would be way cooler if they could be manipulated, like with my hands or my brain, but that's just not happening.

It's because I'm not good at things.

For example:

I've never had many clocks. This is odd, because one of my goals in life is to make a clock. From scratch. Not that I want to you know, mold my own rack and pinion. I just want to put it together. Chances are I'll wind it to suit whatever measurement of time I see fit. Fuck minutes and seconds.

But I don't think I've ever purchased a timepiece in my entire life. All of the clocks in my apartment are on gadgets which require some form of space measurement to function: my phone, the DVD player. Cable. I don't have a microwave, so no clock there, and the old balls oven is timerless.

But MoLinder's got some clocks, so I don't always have to look out the window and guess if the Daily Show is about to start by stargazing. And Xtine left one clock after she moved out. That works for me.

But Xtine, your old clock, you know the one above the entryway? That one? I've ruined it. Officially.

That clock transcends the space-time continuum.

On Black Wednesday, it was 9:14 all day long. By Friday it was 9:17, and then on Saturday it jumped ahead to ten-ish.

But this past Tuesday, the damn thing accelerated to impossible speeds, doubling the velocity of how we, as humans, measure the quantity of fourth-dimensional space between occurrences. During the span of one hour of human time, that clock said, fuck it. Two hours. Take that, Time. It's 11:07 when I say it is.

I will never change the batteries on that thing. Studying it has to be the first step towards my future as a horologist.

And that's not the study of whores.

Stop laughing, Schmee.

...

Montage a la Me

So Ginny over at Praying To Darwin did this flickr thing, and you know what? Me too. I am a follower. I follow. I even started this blog off with a sentence frighteningly similar to the opening sentence of her blog.

Basically, go to flickr. Type the answer to each question in the search engine, and choose an image from that first page of results and paste it onto the corresponding number on this mosaic thing.


And this is my photo survey. Which is neat.<

What is your first name?
What is your favorite food?
What high school did you attend?
What is your favorite color?
Who is your celebrity crush?
What is your favorite drink?
Where would you go on your dream vacation?
What is your favorite desert?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
What do you love most in life?
Choose one word to describe you.
Your blog’s name?



And now, for what these photos reveal about me.


What is your first name? Irrelevant. I'm assuming that this is a picture of a seal on a beach in July. But seriously? Check it out. Pink sun. Like the dream, which I'm not going to link again. No, fuck that, I'm linking. Nutsy cuckoo.

What is your favorite food? Swordfish. Thought I was going to say garlic, didn't you? It was close. Runners up are garlic, peanutbutter, stroganoff, and burgers from Kuma's.

What high school did you attend? Naperville Central. This yellow billowy guy has nothing to do with high school and everything to do with the fact that CrazyLiz thinks towers billow.

What is your favorite color? Green.

Who is your celebrity crush? Jack Nicholson. This was hard. I mean, Seth Green? Clive Owen? Bruce Willis? Elliot Gould in 1973? Jeff Bridges in 1988? Christian Bale? Seth Green seems out of place in there, I know. But I've had a crush on him since, like, 1997.

What is your favorite drink? PBR. Does it taste the best? No. Is it cheap as fuck? Yes. Does it make you invincible? No. Does it make you think you are invincible? Yes.

Where would you go on your dream vacation? Finland. Australia, Egypt, and China are right behind, but right now it's Finland.


What is your favorite desert? carrot cake

What do you want to be when you grow up? A superhero. But now I want to marry that guy.

What do you love most in life? Laughter. The seal is happy. Yay seal. Two seals today...I should call Schmee. Her conversations lack substance and logical grounding.

Choose one word to describe you. Indecisive. You have no idea how long it took me to decide on that word.

Your blog’s name? I used my name...Rassles. This dog = rasslin'.

..

Imitation = Flattery

I'm good at imitating. With friends, especially.* So good, in fact, I don't even realize I'm slowly and surely becoming all of them. And that's kind of a bad thing, but only to other people.

1. I notice myself cock my head and wrinkle my eyebrows when I suspect foul play, in an explicitly rooster-like fashion. Gyna, that's your fault. Okay, pretend I'm Gob. Caw-cacaw.

2. Lying is getting much harder for me. Xtine says, "um" and "uh" whenever she lies (I figured you out Roomie, don't even pretend it's wrong). If she speaks the truth, she pauses and breathes when she loses her words, and eloquently speaks again when she finds them. But during the lies, or even small fibs, it's all nonsense filler noise. Ever since I've been aware of this, I've started doing it. I don't even realize it until I've done it, and then I have to fess up and be all, "Shit. I lied." I used to have a large problem with lying to people for no reason.

3. Around Muffy I talk loud. Booming loud. It makes sense, she's a loud talker who's unconcerned about stupid things like eardrums. Or, I mean, maybe it's because I'm usually hammered around Muffy. Whatever.

4. For some reason, me and Schmee have entire conversations in tardspeak. We're in our mid-late twenties, and we act like we're four. We have ten minute conversations like this:

"What you drinky?"
"Me drink wadka."
"Have, please? Sippy sippy?"
"No, eez mine."
"Eez for sharing."
"Eez for me-ing."
"You're a whore."

In the past, I only spoke like this around her. But it's slipping into other conversations where people don't play along, and they just think I'm an illegal alien from some florescent-skinned nation (I am so white I glow under black lights) or that I didn't get enough oxygen in the womb.

5. The real reason this is a problem is because yesterday I talked on the phone with my friend Dave, who incidentally has rather distinct speech patterns. He also has severe developmental issues, which makes comprehension difficult if you don't know Dave (and believe me, if Dave knows you, you know Dave. And he'll remind you, repeatedly, "You know me."). I've known him for years, so I don't ever really have complications.

So I talked to him on the phone during my lunch hour yesterday, which was nice because I haven't in awhile. We did lots of laughing, as always, and once we hung up the phone, I had Dave on the brain. I started talking to a co-worker and immediately laughed like him, in his broad, donkey kind of laugh, and then realized what I was doing and started laughing harder... it just escalated. Co-worker looks shocked and makes wide-eyes at me, and I explained Dave.

She was all sorts of cross. Very offended that I was making fun of him, like I was doing something wrong. So I tried to explain that I imitate all of my friends, I just pick up certain ticks and speech patterns naturally when I'm around them. She did not like that. Be more understanding, it gives other people the right, don't just go around making fun of the disabled.

Developmentally delayed, I tell her.

I'll laugh how I want. Friends are friends, and I imitate them. Deal.

Oh, and PS: I'm seriously considering becoming an adult film reviewer, just so I can say that I worked in the porn industry. Thank you, M.E. and Craigslist. I'm only sticking with it if I get paid. Apparently, bonuses up to $150 are available. Which means, you know, free porn. Which I will then sell on Ebay to make millions. Or to make $150.

* I also overuse the word "especially."

...

I am red as all get-out.

First of all, I decided to check my ‘space before picking up Harry Potter, because once that book is in my hands I'm fucking reading until it's done.

Second of all: Fantastic bachelorette party.

1. Rooftop cubs game. Rules. Excellent food and lots of booze. Love.

2. Everyone made friends with this kinda hot guy on the rooftop who was wearing white pants (haha, lame).

3. At the game we decided we were going to go to Rossi's (the bar) and hang out for awhile once the game was over. My phone runs out of batteries.

4. Left the cubs game and I got separated from everyone. So I hopped on the red line and went to Rossi's alone, ordered a PBR, lit a cigarette, asked Lynn Meyers (bartender) if I could charge my phone behind the bar, and opened up Harry Potter. Yes, it came with me to the bachelorette party.

5. Everyone at the bar wanted to talk to me about the goddamn book. "Is it good? How far are you? How many pages is it?" etc. etc. etc. I'm trying to read, here, people. But eventually I just put the book away and made friends. There's Gary, and old guy wearing a t-shirt for The Color Purple, who talked to me about what it was like being the only black kid in a Catholic school. And Jim, who was also at the Cubs game, the kind of guy who wears sunglasses with a string attached, and who booked it over to Rossi's to avoid his wife, who kept on calling him.

6. After about an hour of talking, I check my phone to see if it's charged. It is. I call people, and they're all like, "where are you?" and I'm just like, "duh, Rossi's."

7. I stay at the bar for like forty more minutes and then leave and walk over to the hotel. I am pleasantly hammered and it's six thirty. Before I can even get inside, Fraya snags me and is all like, "lets get beer and cigarettes." Ok. We go on a mile hike to find a Jewel or White Hen (the only ones I knew about were far, so we walked over there all stumbley-like down Michigan Avenue.)

8. Bought booze and began the trek back to the hotel. I'm sunburned as all fuck, and we watch some tap dancing street guys and give them like six bucks because they were awesome and I was drunk. Me and Fraya just stood there for like fifteen minutes clapping and cheering, and eventually a crowd formed around us and started giving the tap kids more money. Our work there was done. So then we leave.

9. We get back to the hotel with our sixpack and head over to room 1216 or something, and when we get there we hear serious cheering. Pound on the door, Schmee opens it a crack and is like, "Prepare yourself." So then we go inside and there's hardcore porn on the television, everyone is hammered, cheering, and watching the guy with the white pants from the rooftop take off his white pants (thank god, because white pants are LAME). I was thinking, "way to go Schmee, secret stripper. Excellent." But he was just a random dude that they convinced to leave his friends and come back to the hotel and strip for them. Amazing.

10. Everyone leaves to go to dinner except me and Fraya, and we hang out with The Amateur Stripper for awhile and finish off our beers. We make fun of his pants for about an hour.

11. Powell gets back to the hotel and we decide to head over to Rossi's again. Walk the couple of blocks over there and stop at 7-11 for cheap dinner sandwiches and go into Rossi's. People remember me from earlier, and they're all like, "How was Harry Potter? You find your bachelorette party?" and I'm like, "yeah, they convinced a guy to strip for us for free at the hotel and now they're eating tapas and drinking sangria, but we came here for 7-11 sandwiches and PBR." I am all class, I swear to god.

12. Fraya is hammered and goes back to the hotel and passes out for the night. This is at like ten.

13. Me and Powell make friends with a guy named Donny and he leaves his friends and follows us around for the rest of the night. He followed us to Mothers, where we met up with the rest of the party and kidnapped Muffy and sang some quick karaoke, and then to Estelle’s even though we never went inside, and then back to my apartment and slept on the LayZBoy.

14. Just before Mothers I take sixty bucks out of the ATM.

15. While we were hanging outside of Estelle’s they decided they wanted food (Powell, Muffy, and random guy Donny) so they went into Flash Taco to get burritos, and I started talking to a hip hop performer named Calloway who was selling his CD's on the sidewalk. I give him two dollars for one and realize that my sixty dollars is missing. I'm fucking hammered and don't really care. I probably put my card in the ATM and left the money there. I suck.

16. Calloway keeps me company for awhile and does some freestyling for me, which I think was impressive, but I really can't recall. Everyone comes out of flash taco with their burritos and I give Calloway a hug before he hands me a slip of paper with his Myspace page on it, and we head over to Estelle’s. The Compatriots want to eat outside so they sit down on a cement wall under a viaduct. Two guys are there with two dogs named Leopold and Belle. These dogs RULE. Leopold is a smallish American Bulldog (I mean, he was still huge, but he didn't look like beefsteak like some bulldogs) and he becomes my newest bestest friend while everyone is eating.

17. They decide they don't want to go to the bar. Fine. Lame. We have no cash so we walk home. Donny gives Powell a piggy back ride half the way.

18. Get home, turn on Venture Brothers, and hang out before it's pass out o'clock.

19. Wake up this morning and head over to IHOP, where I find my sixty dollars in my wallet.

20. And here I am. Sunburn. It's about time for some serious Harry Potter 7.

...