Restructured to make a little more sense.  Still haven't gone chronological, though.  Everything that has been added in this iteration of the compendium has (new) next to it.  Six (new)'s under non-fiction and five (new)'s under other.  So, eleven entries worth putting on the revised compendium.  The last time I did one of these was about this time last year.  Not a good sign.

Non-fiction Stories(with no organization whatsoever):
(new)You're Creepy, Hunter - A girl tells me I am creepy.  I get even.

(new)Phoenix - I don't think I am supposed to write about something that is supposed to be anonymous.  Oh well.

(new)Strange Format - Saturday Show   -  Seriously the strangest format or lack thereof I have ever used.  Almost like a poem.  I've bad luck and things get out of hand.

(new)Graham's 21st Birthday - "No, dude, we're walking home.  It's like two blocks."

(new)Dead Cicada - A woman is assaulted while holding her child.  I intercede.

(new)A Warning - First Friday's in Richmond!

Salvia Gets Too Real - Fourth and worst trip on Salvia.

The Most Puke I Have Ever Seen - Imagine this next scene.  Try to visualize it with me.  My eyes open to the ceiling, my body shocked out of deep REM sleep.  My legs and waist are moist. . .

Drunk People - An interesting twist-- I'm not drunk in this story. For once in my life.

Black and Mild - I'll miss drinking with friends on top of the roof at my old apartment.  I will miss that Mediterranean market, with its natural soaps and cheap spices.  I will miss all those families who called the cops on me when I played music too loud on Monday nights.  Ahh

Hunter Takes it to the Limit, Throws Up Everywhere - In The Top Five Drunkest Nights

Pissing in Pools I & II - My double standard on people who pee in pools.

A Retelling of the First Time I Smoked

A Trip To Walmart - Seriously one of the best destinations while high.  Interesting, entertaining, sometimes a little creepy.

To Move My Body - When reality sinks in, when you think you've got nothing, you become psychic, telepathic, and shameless. This story has procession of Segways!

The Things I Remember - I somehow wake up at 2PM in my dorm, still drunk from the night before.  A rough bus ride does me in.

Hunter Blacks Out, Goes To Patient First, Blames Free Beer - Pretty self explanatory.

A Tucker Emulation, It Seems - The very first story I wrote.

Handcuffed, Robbed, and 6 O'clock Rush - Pretty self-explanatory.  Breakfast club.

Hunter Gets High, Driving Barely Ensues - I get high, and drive.  Sort of.

Lebanese: A "Nice Guy" Failure - Nine Guys, One Girl.  I get the girl and ride off into the sunset(upstairs), but turn out to be a "nice guy."

JMU, PART I - The first and, since, only time I have been breathalyzed.  There is no part II.  Part II would be better though, as it includes doing mushrooms, a starving French guy, five plus parties, nearly getting run over, really drunk chicks with australian accents, and BLOODHOUNDS.  But this story has none of that.

THE WEEKEND - A three day bender, with a decadent interlude of cheating debauchery.  All set to the soundtrack of the very trite Garden State. 

Bloody in '08 - A New Year story, complete with someone who attempts to smash a full, unopened champagne bottle over his head.

Perfect Night Ruined by Marriot, Morning -- This story is far too long to hold your attention.  Do not read it.

Short(or long) Stories(Fiction):

Saint Dympna - My favorite.

The Sink at Sunset - Guy has mobile home of a heart.  This is life at 20.

Shells - My drug induced interpretation of the scramble suits in A Scanner Darkly caused this short.  Later turned into a short fiction piece (for a class) called Mise en Place or The Writer.

Nine-Tenths is Nothing - Our children are here to replace us.  One man attempts to slow this process by proving he is better than them and protecting his wife from kid perverts. 

The Last Boat to the Disappearing - A seven vignette fiction piece about flaming zombies.  As much as I wish I had written them gay, they are actually on fire.

Story Starter Exercise - A brief story about a friend who got kicked up and did a lot of drugs while living in the woods.
 

Other:
(new)At The Edge of The Neighborhood - Vivid zombie dream.

(new)Shut Down or Reset - Up late? Two options.  Special bonus feature: scene from this year's Best Friends Day @ Hadad's

(new)A Haiku - About a day I spent at the river getting drunk with someone I didn't know.  She was taken and I fell and cut myself on a rock.  Then there is a sexual allegory at the end.  There, I ruined it.

(new)My First Near-Ticket on a Bicycle

(new)Autumn - The Greatest and Best Time of Year

Can Blood Cells Have Car Accidents? - Thoughts after the fire.

Janus - Girl cheats on me.  Girl dies in short story Sink at Sunset.

Transcribing the Knowledge of The Smoke, Part I  -- I test my voice recorder during a toking session.  Heavy on the dialogue.

Transcribing the Knowledge of The Smoke, Part II -- The better half of the overall recording experience.  A lot of in depth high conversation. 

Friend's Mom Finds Out About Hunter's Livejournal, Missiles Fly - Probably one of the more significant events in the history of my online writing.

Under a Hot Chicago Sun - I didn't even know my neighbors name.

H-D-P-E Does Not Spell "Hope"  -  Recycling is hopeful.  I am not.

It Is Only Hubris If I Fail - Childhood with a heavy dose of failure, sprinkled with Sloane Crosley.

Sick Dream D.A.N.C.E. - Dreams are fun.  Dreams about partying and religious fanatics that all have the same face... strange.  Sick dreams are most disturbing.

Rape, Tacos, and Love - I get raped, noticed for my writing at a party, have sex for the first time high, eat really good tacos, and listen in on a nasty girl shit.

Tainted Elephant Oil Prices Dowsed in Sickly-Sweat-Stained Dreams - More sick dreams, musings on family life and relationships.

Zombie Christ Day

Metal Shows - Are awesome.  Especially when you know the band.  Even if it's at a lame venue. 

Derelict Father, Are We the Cause of Our Suffering?

Shit's Run Its Course - I inherit a bike from a metal head who stole it from a crack head.

The Bear, The Bee, The Rhino - I connect with mother nature, understand things I never thought possible.

Night Luck - I have only gotten in trouble with the law when sober.  Sobriety really takes the spine out of me.

Condom Debacle - A young Hunter hides a partially used condom in duct-tape.

Jesus Freaks - I lament about my hatred for street-preachers.  This is a Facebook classic.

Bloody Knuckles - It wasn't a game that gave me these.

Diphenhydramine - The first time I ever tripped on a deliriant.

Bulgarians are Hardcore - Intoxicated 5 times the lethal limit, this Bulgarian gets hit by a car and sent to the hospital for minor head trauma.

A Little Funny and The Encroaching

Sunchips? - Do you know why they call them sunchips?

LIRICKES -  The funniest rap "lirickes" you'll read all week.

The Binary Universe and How Choice Works  -  With diagrams and shit.

Poems - A little too sing-songy.

Soundscape - High times.

The Nature of Souls and Soulmates - Got a decent response for this one.

Scanner Darkly and the Universe as a Vague Set of Prepositions

Demon Play, Demon Out - Your shoes are not an extension of anything that matters to your person.

Clocked Out - A New Year - 2007.  Some things get better, other things are mentioned less.

New - I miss writing.

This is a collection of things I have written that I think are at least half worth putting back up.  Since last I did one of these, I have added two short stories and maybe ten other forms of writing.  With 19 solid "Stories,"  7 short fiction pieces, and over 25 others, I would like to think that what I do for enjoyment is steadily becoming something I could do for money.  Years down the road, that is.  Enjoy.

STORIES(with no organization whatsoever):
Salvia Gets Too Real - Fourth and worst trip on Salvia.

The Most Puke I Have Ever Seen - Imagine this next scene.  Try to visualize it with me.  My eyes open to the ceiling, my body shocked out of deep REM sleep.  My legs and waist are moist. . .

Perfect Night Ruined by Marriot, Morning -- It turns out that drinking in the dorms is a bad plan.  But, for me, I have a great night, only to have it ruined by a morning hangover and the loss of my license. 

Hunter Takes it to the Limit, Throws Up Everywhere - In The Top Five Drunkest Nights

JMU, PART I - The first and, since, only time I have been breathalyzed.  There is no part II.  Part II would be better though, as it includes doing mushrooms, a starving French guy, five plus parties, nearly getting run over, really drunk chicks with australian accents, and BLOODHOUNDS.  But this story has none of that.

Pissing in Pools I & II - My double standard on people who pee in pools.

To Move My Body - When reality sinks in, when you think you've got nothing, you become psychic, telepathic, and shameless. This story has procession of Segways!

Hunter Blacks Out, Goes To Patient First, Blames Free Beer - Pretty self explanatory.

Drunk People - An interesting twist-- I'm not drunk in this story. For once in my life.

A Tucker Emulation, It Seems - The very first story I wrote.

The Things I Remember - I somehow wake up at 2PM in my dorm, still drunk from the night before.  A rough bus ride does me in.

Handcuffed, Robbed, and 6 O'clock Rush - Pretty self-explanatory.  Breakfast club.

Hunter Gets High, Driving Barely Ensues - I get high, and drive.  Sort of.

Lebanese: A "Nice Guy" Failure - Nine Guys, One Girl.  I get the girl and ride off into the sunset(upstairs), but turn out to be a "nice guy."

A Trip To Walmart - Seriously one of the best destinations while high.  Interesting, entertaining, sometimes a little creepy.

A Retelling of the First Time I Smoked

THE WEEKEND - A three day bender, with a decadent interlude of cheating debauchery.  All set to the soundtrack of the very trite Garden State. 

Rape, Tacos, and Love - I get raped, noticed for my writing at a party, have sex for the first time high, eat really good tacos, and listen in on a nasty girl shit.

Bloody in '08 - A New Year story, complete with someone who attempts to smash a full, unopened champagne bottle over his head.

Short(or long) Stories(Fiction):

Nine-Tenths is Nothing - Our children are here to replace us.  One man attempts to slow this process by proving he is better than them and protecting his wife from kid perverts. 

Saint Dympna - My favorite.

The Sink at Sunset - Guy has mobile home of a heart.  This is life at 20.

Shells - My drug induced interpretation of the scramble suits in A Scanner Darkly caused this short.  Later turned into a short fiction piece (for a class) called Mise en Place or The Writer.

The Last Boat to the Disappearing - A seven vignette fiction piece about flaming zombies.  As much as I wish I had written them gay, they are actually on fire.

Solipsism - A creation story.  A story with Robots and Gods and space battles.  A story with a twist.  A story that kind of sucks, but has novelty.

Story Starter Exercise - A brief story about a friend who got kicked up and did a lot of drugs while living in the woods.
 

Some others:

Can Blood Cells Have Car Accidents? - Thoughts after the fire.

Janus - Girl cheats on me.  Girl dies in short story Sink at Sunset.

Black and Mild - I'll miss drinking with friends on top of the roof at my old apartment.  I will miss that Mediterranean market, with its natural soaps and cheap spices.  I will miss all those families who called the cops on me when I played music too loud on Monday nights.  Ahh

Under a Hot Chicago Sun - I didn't even know my neighbors name.

H-D-P-E Does Not Spell "Hope"  -  Recycling is hopeful.  I am not.

It Is Only Hubris If I Fail - Childhood with a heavy dose of failure, sprinkled with Sloane Crosley.

Sick Dream D.A.N.C.E. - Dreams are fun.  Dreams about partying and religious fanatics that all have the same face... strange.  Sick dreams are most disturbing.

Tainted Elephant Oil Prices Dowsed in Sickly-Sweat-Stained Dreams - More sick dreams, musings on family life and relationships.

Zombie Christ Day

Metal Shows - Are awesome.  Especially when you know the band.  Even if it's at a lame venue. 

Derelict Father, Are We the Cause of Our Suffering?

Shit's Run Its Course - I inherit a bike from a metal head who stole it from a crack head.

The Bear, The Bee, The Rhino - I connect with mother nature, understand things I never thought possible.

Night Luck - I have only gotten in trouble with the law when sober.  Sobriety really takes the spine out of me.

Transcribing the Knowledge of The Smoke, Part I  -- I test my voice recorder during a toking session.  Heavy on the dialogue.

Transcribing the Knowledge of The Smoke, Part II -- The better half of the overall recording experience.  A lot of in depth high conversation. 

Friend's Mom Finds Out About Hunter's Livejournal, Missiles Fly - Probably one of the more significant events in the history of my online writing.

Jesus Freaks - I lament about my hatred for street-preachers.  This is a Facebook classic.

Bloody Knuckles - It wasn't a game that gave me these.

Diphenhydramine - The first time I ever tripped on a deliriant.

Bulgarians are Hardcore - Intoxicated 5 times the lethal limit, this Bulgarian gets hit by a car and sent to the hospital for minor head trauma.

A Little Funny and The Encroaching

Sunchips? - Do you know why they call them sunchips?

LIRICKES -  The funniest rap "lirickes" you'll read all week.

The Binary Universe and How Choice Works  -  With diagrams and shit.

Poems - A little too sing-songy.

Soundscape - High times.

The Nature of Souls and Soulmates - Got a decent response for this one.

Condom Debacle - A young Hunter hides a partially used condom in duct-tape.

Scanner Darkly and the Universe as a Vague Set of Prepositions

Demon Play, Demon Out - Your shoes are not an extension of anything that matters to your person.

Clocked Out - A New Year - 2007.  Some things get better, other things are mentioned less.

New - I miss writing.

    There's this party last night that gets busted three or four doors down.  Clumps of drunk movie and comic book characters, celebrity and political icons, crowd the uneven brick sidewalk.  My roommate comes inside, drunk himself, telling me, "There's good stuff goin' on out here."  He bends down to pick up his inside-beer.  This guy has two possession charges, 50 hours of community service to do in his remaining three weeks on probation, and three tickets for reckless cycling.  Who knew not having reflectors was such a big deal.  Bike cocks cops. 
  
    After hearing about a scuffle between Poison Ivy and Jake(maybe?), Graham convinces me to step outside, sans-beer, to overhear the interrogation.  Some hippie with long golden hair and a viking beard(real), his name is Travis, and he sits crouched on our stoop.  Apparently, with his hands up, hands off, he tells us his friend hit a girl.  It's not his responsibility, he's going home now.  We wish him a good night. 

    Some Ethiopian bike cop explains the situation to Poison Ivy and Fran Drecer from the Nanny.  That irritating laugh, she has it down.  Anyway, Poison Ivy claims her friend got hit in the face by Hippie Travis' friend, Jake or something.  Jake Or Something tells the cops, get this, Poison Ivy swung at him.  Not the other way around.  Now, if this were a Batman comic/movie and not a costume party, and you were stomping blades of grass or cutting up plant life, maybe.  Maybe.  But, really, dude?  Really? 

    It's like when this girl I'm seeing, and we won't name names, constantly puts herself in compromising positions and gets surprised when something bad happens.  Waking up naked with a dude that isn't me.  All I can say is, I'm not your fucking baby sitter, so stop relying on me like a child does a parent.  Also, get tested. 
    It's funny how people can turn it around.  I remember this girl in highschool.  A guy I know dates her.  One day she goes over to this guy's house-- Fish, they call him.  Tag football quickly turns into rape.  Rape quickly turns into, "It never happened, [Boyfriend's Name]."  It Never Happened quickly turns into, "It was just in the butt."  So, who knows what happened but the two of them.  That girl goes on to be a born again virgin. 

    This girl I was seeing, she will undoubtedly continue to binge drink and rely on other people to take care of her hobbled legs, open mouth, and gaping heart.  At least I killed off her character in my story.  Call it foresight.  Call it hopeful thinking.  Once trust is broken like that. . .

    It is unfortunate for me, I have the same stain on my soul. 

    Last night I was over 21 for a few hours.  After work, I jog home.  About a mile and a half.  Then I play courier and pick up some money, run another mile to my dude's house, or sketchy alleyway, and then back to my ex's.  I tell her I am keeping five dollars change to keep myself from feeling used.  When the deal goes down, of course my dude doesn't have change.  I keep this to myself when I get back to her.  Jogging there, I feel like it's burning a hole in my backpack, down through my shirt and flesh and into my bones. 

    I get a text from Mueller: "InterArma at Nara tonight!  be there."  I am rushing there on the Golden POS / Ram Rider because he tells me his band goes on at 11:30 and it is 10:55.  I get there at like 11:40, and hurry to lock my bike up.  I see Mueller drinking a beer with some chicks.  I hop the fence, not paying for entry despite loving the owners, and climb up the deck, throttling Mueller and sloshing his beer everywhere.  "WHEN DOES YOUR SHOW GO ON?!?!?!"  I chugged three beers before leaving my house. 

    "We're after the next band.  We're headlining."  He then introduces me as his dishwasher.  Because I am Mueller's personal dishwasher.

    I go inside to meet up with Olebak and JLee.  JLee tells me I am 21 and buys me a beer.  "We're going to Ipanema next, you need an 'Over 21 bracelet.'"  We never go to Ipanema, but this bracelet is magical and suddenly grants me access to a whole new world of drinking.  The Bar Scene.  If you can call Nara the bar scene, I don't know, but here I am telling Dan Mills that among things like "You need to teach me how to cook," that the bar scene sucks.  

    "Once you turn 21, you'll go through a phase, but yeah, fuck that shit." 

    Again, I agree and iterate that the bar scene sucks.  If only my 20 dollar tab could jump in a time machine and warn me.  I'm having money issues, and because of 2 or 3 dollar beer, I am digging deeper a hole I cannot climb.   I buy Dan a beer.  Finally Mueller's band goes on at like 12:50 and Dan says, "Let's go to the front and be assholes."  This is followed by him just headbanging while I thrash and throw people with my body.  I drop my Yeungling but catch it before it hits the floor, grabbing it at its empty neck, upside-down.  Like I'm about to go into a bar battle. This combined with my drunken sway is so threatening to the girl behind me, she snatches the bottle and gives me a disapproving glare.  I tell her thanks.   I didn't want to hold that shit.

Dan: "I'm too old for this shit."
Me: "You're never too old for throwing people around, you're a BLACKHOLE OF HATRED!"
Dan:"Wait, correction, I am too sober for this shit."

    The awesome InterArma finishes up and pulls out, leaving you wanting more.   They pack up and begin to leave. I say hey to the singer, Mark.  Apparently we have met somewhere, he tells me, "but you were in supreme inebriation mode." 

    I help the owners of the restaurant clean up and I get a free triple shot of vodka, with some lemony tonic.  Then one of the owners gives me 5 dollars for helping out.  This will later go to beer bought off of some dude walking past my apartment at 3 in the morning.  Olebak, Kirkland, and myself haggle.  6 beers, four dollars.  6 beers five dollars?  FINE, FINE, 6 for 6.  We sit there and drink the rest of the beer.  I rip off my over 21 gauntlet, I am not 21.

Now there are scratches, bruises, and blisters covering my legs.  What's next?

   

    Against a brick wall, my body hardly able to stand, my mind runs a list.  There was that time in the park, when Jeff was on acid, Yetti and I high.  They wanted to run, but of course we got off because we didn't.  Once, when Jeff was sober, a cop pulled us over because he was serving.  I was wasted, and the cop could totally smell me-- he was called off to something more important.  There was that time I was on mushrooms on my roof with Lenora, when I confidently dealt with a cop for fifteen minutes.  And, of course, at JMU, Patrick basically puking on the boots of a tempered veteran cop.  Wasted, and breathalyzed, I got us out of that one too.

    I take my backpack off and with as much discretion as I can muster, I slide it across the floor with my leg.  I nearly fall over, doing this, but no one notices.  My limited carry-on party stash is safely not associated with me anymore.
   
    My back to the brick, I think to myself that every time I run into cops while I'm fucked up, I get off-- free.  The only time I have ever been 'caught' was for my illegal U-Turn violation at 2 in the morning.  When I was sober.  In the swirling nexus of beer, wine, and pot, I think tonight will again try the theory that being fucked up makes me more supple, and thus, less susceptible to arrest. 

    I reassure the girl next to me, "We'll be fine," more for my comfort than hers.  The bulldog hardass cop that has my ID is using someone's phone to take a panoramic of the scene.  Piles of beer cans on this one table and the bulldog, breathing heavily, says, "Oooh, that's a good one."  Everyone who is not a cop scowls and looks around the room to each other-- This is fucked up, right?  What else can you think about cop porn?

    And then the cop's phone goes off, blaring.  He desperately shuffles to squelch Fall Out Boy's "Dance Dance," losing credibility by the millisecond.  I chuckle to myself.  Another cop, some kid who looks much younger than me, flips through a book of charges.  They're charging one of the guys that lives here with 405 of an unscheduled drug.  That's possession of alcohol, and he is 21.  Which means he'll be fine.  These cops suck.  Sucks that the guy has to go to court, but I am out the door in the next few minutes with my ID and my backpack.
   

     Nothing is as difficult as the decision to answer or ignore incoming calls.  For me at least, it had been this way my whole life.  Until recently, a new path flattened the hazy overgrowth around me, and I was set in forward motion to an unknown destination.

     It started about three months ago.  I was at a party with some friends, a college somewhere northwest of where I am now.  It is pretty hazy.  All I remember is drinking my fourteenth beer and then blood-- blood everywhere.  Something had broken, some sort of glass structure.  I didn't fully understand what, but I knew it had been my fault.  In earnest, I gathered the splinters with my hands, some piercing my skin.  Blood poured out on tile flooring and two silhouettes told me it was okay, and to stop. 

    I didn't stop.

    Blood kept pouring until my hands were red, and someone grabbed me by the shoulder, picking me up and hustling me to the bathroom.  In my beer-full dream, I wept as someone picked little shards from my palm. 
    "I'm worthless," I told the person, and believed it. 
    The person helping me was my friend, Parson.  He reassured me I wasn't worthless, that I was worth something, but I persisted. 
    "I'm a horrible waste," I kept saying, "A horrible piece of shit, worthless, worthless, worthless."
    No, he would tell me, you are my best friend.  Whether that was true or not was the least of my concerns.  What happened next is most important.  After cleaning out my wounds, Parson left to tend to what I later heard was a broken hookah.  By "tend to," I mean he paid the guy for it.  He was going to sell it to us anyway.  But now it was broken.  A false, empty purchase, like the day I was birthed to my parents, I had in my head. 

    Parson was full of money.  He drove a nice car that he had replaced after totaling his first.  He paid for the damages, but it was ultimately with the backing of his mother, a banker, that pulled him through.  On the other hand, there is me, alone in the bathroom with only a sad, depressed version of myself, filling myself with horrible thoughts. 

    I look down at the ripples in the toilette.  My tears are falling in with the rest of the waste.  I'm Poor, my drunk version told me.  I'm Poor and I'll Never Amount to Anything.  My Girlfriend Won't Love Me.  My Parents Have Abandoned Me.  None of it true, except for right now.  I reach in my pocket to grab my phone.  To talk with God or who knows, but I grab my phone.  It fumbles from my pocket and hand, spins through the air and splashes right into the middle of the toilette.  Water spills up onto my leg, and this is the grain of rice that tips the scale.  I actually begin crying. 

    I bend to fish my phone out and reach for some towels.  Parson comes back and walks me out.  The rest is a blur.  All I remember is crying for what seemed like an hour while some girl desperately tried to study in the far corner.  I must have been in some study hall.  The study desks, four linked desks, looked like swastikas from above, up on the stairs.

    Somehow Parson managed to drive us back-- a two hour drive-- somewhat drunk.  He asked me questions all the way back, wondering how to contact my girlfriend and tell her I was in bad shape.  He called people to message her online since he couldn't get in contact with them. 

    God, she was fucking worried the next day.  She felt waste. 

    Waste is something unneeded.  Like worrying about nothing, she would tell me.  Like wasting your worry, your feelings expecting something much, much worse than just a sad, sad drunk.  But expectations narrow your reality-- which is why dropping my phone in a toilette was a blessing.  My view-screen is permanently fucked up.  I could break my two year contract with those miser-y bastards and get a new one, but this is a sign.  A sign to answer every call.  My view screen is white.  Just white.  A harsh, clinical whiteness.  And I have no fucking clue as to who is calling me.  As to what is coming my way.  So I let it come.  I accept everything. 

Sometimes I let it stay. 

And sometimes I let it go.  

There are some pretty typical things drunk people do.  They claim they aren't drunk as they fall into the refrigerator door.  They pay less attention to things like line-cutting to the keg.  They also don't really care much.  They can put up with the freezing cold, as long as there's enough alcohol in their system. 

There is a party about twenty blocks from my campus.  "BadDeal," "CharlesTheFrench," and myself all realize this, and we, having heard that it is going to be huge, start walking.  BadDeal has two friends with him.  One is a really quiet tall guy and the other is a short blonde girl who I would rag on by saying her daddy never loved her. 

A lot of unimportant shit goes on during the walk.  Say, like getting accosted by a dude looking to feed his "children."  If by children, he means "alcoholism."  I'm not judging him, I just wish he wouldn't lie to me.  BadDeal says he had his hand on his knife.  I really don't think the knife is necessary in the Fan, but you never know.  His friend, Drew, he brings up the subject of Duckman.  Duckman is a legendary hobo of the Richmond area.  Apparently, this skinny black dude with a gigantic fro did far too much LSD back in his day, and now?  Now he is a duck.  A duckman.  The Duckman.  If you're ever in Richmond and happen to come across him, try and hold a conversation with him past two quacks and a bike horn.  That's usually the best he can convey of himself.  It's sad, you know, being a duck in a human civilization-- makes things tough.

So we get to the party and the guy at the gate tells us if we're looking for a bad time, we should turn around.  We walk straight in.  The fence opens into about 12 square yards of a patio, with a small back porch and an underground entrance wrought in stone. In the basement, you hear Daft Punk playing the entire night. I lead the group inside to find alcohol, but am immediately swamped by people.  Now unable to move, the group I'm with starts to break down.  Once we've headed back from the kitchen towards the front entrance of the house, the group starts to break apart.  After I get beer, I don't see BadDeal and his friends again until after the party. Above the inside of the front door is a carboard sign, held up by ductape that says "$3.00 for a cup."  Okay, cool, whatever.  Typical.  What isn't typical, however, is the arrangement.  The keg has the single longest, most packed line I have ever seen in the history of partying.  I feel like I am on the Baton Death March.  Moving an inch a minute.  A girl stands in front of me with a foot of space in front of her.  I tap her on the should and say, "There is a foot of space in front of you, use it."  That is how packed it is.  The third time I get in line, it takes twenty minutes for me to get some goddamn ale.  A group of people get fed up and fall back.  Maybe this is the Trail of Tears.

Deciding that standing in line for beer isn't going to cut it, I make two very important decisions.  First, I switch to jello shooters for a good fifteen minutes.  I do this with CharlesTheFrench.  He hasn't even finished his third beer, and his hands are now full of cups.  I gobble my shooters down as soon as I can fish them out with a hooked finger.  The second important decision I come to is that lines are for idiots.  With this in my head, I go outside to smoke a cigarette, reassured that I will never wait more than a minute or two for beer again.  Not at this party. 

Outside, I see, "SheWillSueYou," one of "Jane"'s friends.  I go to give her a hug, but end up fumbling my lit cigarette into her hood.  I fish it out and hope she doesn't catch fire.  She doesn't, so what she doesn't know won't hurt her, especially when I ask for a swig of the mix she brought.  It is coke and rum, mm.  The swig I take is actually closer to a chug.  I will be peeing in bathtubs and lying to strangers in no time.  SheWillSueYou asks me if Jane is with me.  I say, No, I thought she was with you.  She isn't.  She calls Jane and is all like "AND HUNTER IS HERE, I AM STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO HIM, YOU SHOULD COME."  Jane says she will, and SheWillSueYou and her friend go inside.  CharlesTheFrench is bitching about the cold.  "I can't feel my legs," he says.  I tell him that he just needs to drink more or he should go inside.  But, like the awesome dude he is, he mans up and waits for me to take the last drag.  We head inside, him leading.  Roman sees him and goes, "Hey man, is Hunter with you?"  Then he looks two feet to his right and sees me.  CharlesTheFrench is upset that he is "the guy with Hunter," and says it should be the other way around.  This is patently untrue, as I take charge and cut a swath through the crowd towards the beer.  Never will I let idle people halt my consumption of the magic swill.  I just jut my arms outward and use them to pry people out of my way, using a single-word command: "Move."  A lot of people are too drunk to realize I am giving them an order to let me to the front. 

CharlesTheFrench follows closely behind and we cut about two thirds of the line, using the beer pong room as an entrace to the front door foyeur.  While I wait on the edge of the beer pong room and the foyeur, a girl is asking her friend if some guy named Frank is in line.  She seems to want to get in front of me, so I just turn my head to her and say,
Hunter: "Frank's not up there."
Girl: "Oh, oh, okay" 
She turns to her friend. 
Girl: "Franks not up there."
She turns back to me.
Girl: "Do you know Frank's roommate?"
Hunter: "No, not really.  I mean, he seems cool but I don't even know his name."
Girl: "God, nobody does, it's weird."
And she leaves.  This secures one less person being in front of me.  I get my beer and drink all of it before I pass the end of the line on my way upstairs to the bathroom.  The bathroom that is clogged to the brim.  I wasn't kidding about being on my way to peeing in bathtubs.  So, I go in and straddle the air above the tub, flop my dick out, and start pissing.  If you have a party without operational toilets, this is what happens.

And then the worst thing happens.  They run out of jello shooters.  I am too lazy to get back in line.  I am in a good place and am okay with not waiting around.  I need to make moves.  We go out on the porch and, in the middle of everyone, there she is.  A sea of white eyes, and one pair that I recognize.  Well, actually, I recognize a bunch of people out there, I just wanted to use a Ben Folds reference, which I guess I botched.  Anyway, she's the important one.  She sees me, but I don't come over to her.  First, I light a cigarette.  I smoke my way over to her and her friends.  Jane, she is now in possession of the remaining rum, SheWillSueYou saying that she should drink the rest.  It is a fair amount, and she is going inside to get beer.  I tell her I'll call her when I'm making my way to her place.  She says okay and I leave. 

CharlesTheFrench and I are gone from the party, and we see several cop cars in the area.  Minutes later, the party is absolutely busted.  Jane calls me and tells me this and that she will pick me up.  "Are you fit to drive?" is my only response.  But she is.  For the first portion of the drive.  As she drives back to her place, she gets progressively worse, asking me for my opinion on how to handle the road.  I tell her to park as soon as possible, and that she should not kill us.  Other than risking our lives, she is the cutest lush I have ever seen.  After smoking some bud, she is all smiles as she claims, "I am not drunk!" and falls to her knees, against the refrigerator. 

The last sane story I will tell begins with four guys walking twelve blocks in the cold to get to a party.  A party that isn't going on that night.  So, four more blocks over, to a party where some girl we'll call "Jill" invited Theft.  "I'm bringing someone" he told her.  Someone(s), it turns out.  When we get inside, Chocolate, Theft, Roman, and myself all mingle at the door before spotting the keg.  I am immediately ahead of everyone, leaving my friends behind.  There is a couch against the wall, next to the keg, and in front of the beer pong table.  People are sitting on the couch like it is a fucking riser for the beer pong game.  Their legs hang over the edge of the couch and form a gauntlet to the keg.  This gets increasingly irritating as I drink more.   

The next thing I know I have five solo-cup sized beers in me and I am out on the porch negotiating with Tony, a kid from my dorm, to give me some of the liquor he brought with him.  He has major OCD and won't let me drink out of his bottle.  I tell him this is probably for the best, since, you know, I have aids from all the buttsex I have.  Apparently I say this very loudly, because a group of people turn to stare at me.  The girl in the group is hot and I decide saying "Yeeah, you heard correctly" is the appropriate response.  I don't say anything else, as I am back to bargaining for liquor, the devine nectar of the gods.  The girl turns around and giggles.  Tony agrees to pour some of his draft into my red cup.  He tells me it is Bacardi 151.  I tell him I love him.  We throw back together.  He wretches and I lick my lips, telling him I am indebted, and that 151 is delicious. 

I head back inside for more beer since I have no more liquor.  I pass Theft on the way inside and shake my empty cup in the air at him.  He takes a second to register this, turns, and asks, "Dude, you're going back already? How many have you had?" 
"Like five," I tell him. 
"Let me catch up!"
I smile and walk away, tripping over the gauntlet of feet stretched casually across the floor.  This pisses me off so as soon as I get my beer I chug it and fill up for a seventh.   With my seventh beer in hand, I head back to the porch outside.  The porch rests on the second floor of an apartment building.  I want to test its integrity, so I give Theft my beer and begin jumping up and down.  Because, testing something with YOURSELF that could lead to your DEATH is an awesome idea.  Theft is saying something to me, but I am too busy testing the strength of the pillars below.  
Theft: "Dude, it's concrete"
Hunter: "That just means we'll fall faster, right?"
Theft: "Uh, what beer are you on?"
Hunter: "Mmmm, like.. like seven... and some 151 that Tony gave me."
Theft: "Jesus man, I'm on like four, give me a chance to catch up with you."
Hunter: "I knew a guy that ate just ketchup.  It was gross."
Seeing that I was 100% capable of sustaining a real conversation, Theft takes this time to introduce me to "Jill," the girl that invited him.  She is cute, with short brown hair, bobbed, and piercing eyes. I shake her hand and she smiles. I am not revolting to her because she is probably more drunk than me.  Distracted, she shambles off into the party.  I ask Theft if he is hooking up with her.  I must have almost yelled it, because he's giving me the buldging eyes, slice-across-the-throat hand movement.  "Oh," I say.  "Nice." 

I head back inside and pass the couch.  This time, I step on everyone's feet.  Someone calls me an asshole, but I tell them they are impeding my intoxication.  I get an eighth beer and Chocolate and Roman say they're headed out.  I am giving them high fives and hugs like they're departing for some long journey that they'll never come back from.  I turn around and some random guy is behind me, so I high five him too.  I am a happy drunk tonight. 

Terror strikes.  The keg is dry.  I almost begin weeping, because I am no where near as drunk as I want to be.  Jill sees that I am distraught and comes up to me.
Jill: "There's another keg in the place behind this one.  Just go around back, outside, and take a left."
Hunter: "You are my hero."
I end up following her to the next apartment where she waits outside to smoke.  You know, on one of those ancient fire escape things, the pitch black metal and what not. Inside, I am packed between two fat dudes that smell like shit.  Luckily a girl entertains me while I wait to get to the alcohol.  She asks me if I'm Hunter.  Hunter Caldwell.  I say yes, and ask her why the hell she knows me.  I am enamored.  I feel famous. "You went to James River, you were in my graduating class. I guess you didn't see me much."  It just got scary.  I have never ever seen this girl in my life.  She tells me her name as she exits and I tell her I'll look her up on Facebook sometime.  I immediately forget her name. 

I finally get to the keg, fill up, and leave.  I go outside and my current entertainment, Jill, is gone.  I decide to drink this beer as fast as possible and go for another.  I do, and a guy from my dorm comes up behind me saying, "Nice."  I turn around to see who it is.  It's some kid that absolutely zero people like.  I've never had a problem with him, but think that fate has given me a means to my own entertainment.  I talk to him for awhile, making sarcastic remarks about his leather outfit.  Before I go for another beer, he asks me what my name is.  Not being very creative in my drunken stupor, I tell him my name is James.  That's my first name, so technically I wasn't lying.  Throughout the rest of the night I would tell him my name was Fred, Jason, Jackson, Jefferson, Earnest, Bunsburry, and Captain Kirk.  I think he finally got it by the last one. 

After several more beers, I am out on the terrifyingly high fire escape.  Jill is sitting on the stairs leading up.  I guess to the roof, there aren't any third floor apartments.  She's smoking a cigarrette, and I ask her for one.  I am not a smoker, but when I drink, I do smoke.  The nicotine-alcohol concoction is nice for a head rush.  We sit out there and smoke, talking.  I am not going to lie to you, I remember nothing of the conversation, and I'm not going to pretend I do.  She asks me to hold on to her cigarrette and heads inside to use the bathroom.  The kid from my dorm comes by and asks my name.  I think this is somewhere around the use of "Jefferson."  "Cool," he says, and I head inside, leaving Jill's and my cigarrette behind on the rail. 

After awhile, I am drinking another beer out on the porch, talking to Theft, when Jill comes up.  She asks me if I have a girlfriend.  I am honest, so I say yes.  I kind of wish I didn't right now, because the question is not subtle at all.  I tell her yes, and am surprised to hear her explain the friend zone. 
She says, "Oh, because you can climb the 'Friend' ladder or the 'Fuck' ladder."  Ooo, girlfriend means "Friendzone"!  I'm not a cheating bastard, but am disappointed to have been put in a less-than-awesome category.

The rest of the night between that and getting back to the dorm is unimportant.  We did go to another party, but it was totally lame.  The last thing I remember before getting back to the dorm is riding on Theft's back down the street. 

So, I get to the dorm, sloppily swipe my card a few times, and rush upstairs.  Yes, stairs.  Even drunk, I have a four-floors-or-less stairs policy.  I live on the third floor and I refuse to be that lazy.   I have to take a hurculean piss, so I go to the bathroom.  I see two shoes sticking out from under a stall door.  Somebody has been partying way harder than me.  It kind of reminds me of the Wizard of Oz, and I wonder if the shoes will curl up and disappear. 

I am willing to ignore the person, take my piss, and be on my way, but then the groaning starts. 
Hunter: "You alright in there, man?"
"OoOOOARH!"
Hunter: "Dude, you don't sound so good, you need some help?"
He starts puking, "BLAAAARRRH!"
I finish up and look under the stall.  There is dark, viscous liquid coating everything.  The toilet, the floor, the wall, his arms and shirt.  It is fucking gross.  I reckognize him.  It is "Somedude2" from my story "Drunk People."  We'll just call him "Toilet" in honor of his submission to the porcelain god. 
Hunter: "I am so getting you some water man... it's like. . . a cure-all"
Toilet: "BLllaaargh"
I go to DasBox, knowing he is the only other person awake at four in the morning.  I ask him to help me.  I don't know for what, maybe moral support.  Or maybe because Toilet is a fucking tank of a person, and immobile to someone like me. 
We keep supplying Toilet with water and he keeps throwing most of it up, or just pouring it on himself.  Toilet has been arrested before on campus and is on the verge of getting kicked out of the dorm, so I can't leave him in good concience.  We decide to move him.  But first we get a trashcan so he can throw away his shirt.  It is literally caked in brown and black throw up.  I don't know about you, but the second I start throwing up black shit, get help for me, please.   We get him to his room.  I walk inside, and try to get Greez off of Toilet's bed.  I tell him he has to move.  And he doesn't listen to me.  This pisses Toilet off and he says something to the effect of "I'll fucking kill you."  I don't really remember, but I recall it being commanding.  And besides, this guy is an ox and could destroy Greez.  Greez hears him and springs into awareness, moving to the floor.  Some random girl is on his bed. 

I mention the last part, about Toilet, because that may very well be me soon.  Heading back out into the drinking world, beyond my limits and what not.  My friend Luke is coming back this summer, and let's just say I can drink a lot, but not like it's my job.  Like, if you're in the military, you kill people for a living.  If you're Luke Koftan, you drink bitches under tables for a living.  This man keeps drinking after he has won drinking contests.  People actually tell him, "You don't have to drink anymore, you know." 

"FUCK YOU," is his response.  So, I have some catching up to do.  With a family history of alcoholism and my Irish heritage, here's to the last sane story I ever tell. 

I wish I could have recorded my experience and the images that went through my head.  I wish I could convey and project my understanding onto you, but all I have are words.  They are insufficient in describing this particular encounter with salvia.  And, I'll start off by saying I've done salvia several times and that I am not inexperienced.  Granted, I have never done 15x, but I knew I could handle it.  Or, at least, thought I could.  This is that story:

The night began when Horatio and Yetti show up.  I know exactly why.  Our friend, PK, his house has been empty for two days, this being the second.  Last night I was over there getting rather drunk on shitty beer(See: Natty Ice).  Tonight is the night of the actual party, in which a lot of people are showing up.  Horatio's nose dons a bandage.  We went to a Children of Bodom show recently, and someone's fist or head met up with Horatio's nose, crushing it a bit to the side.  He went to the doctor to get it fixed.  His bandage says, "I'm on hydrocodone and feel good!"

We head outside to Yetti's vehicle and hop in.  We have to stop by his house to grab a GB cap.  I'm excited, I only expected shitty beer to be at the party.  When we get to the party, though, I am less excited, because no one has pot, just salvia. I notice a bubbler sitting on a table.  I remember John Lee telling me a story of how he acquired a bubbler, and since he's sitting on the couch opposite it, I assume it's his.  I ask him about it and he retells the story to everyone.
John Lee: "Nick Volante just gave it too me.  He was just like, 'John, I never use this unless you're around, here, take it.'" I was like 'Sweet!'"
Horatio: "He was high as shit wasn't he?"
John Lee: "Yeah, Nick was high as shit and I was drunk as shit."
Hunter: "Wait so, you have your bubbler here, that implies that there's pot.  Is there?"
John Lee: "Nah, [PK] and Alex have some salvia, though."

I have done salvia many times, and none of them were particularly interesting: 

The first time I did it, Horatio and I went down to this place in the city, AfricaHouse, and bought some really overpriced shit.  We mixed it with pot and took GBs of the concoction on the rail-road tracks near our house.  The effect was smooth and nice, I saw colors that I wouldn't have normally, you know, purples instead of blues.  And, the trees lining the railroad tracks bent in towards eachother and formed a tunnel of brances. 

The second time I did it, I did it with Yetti and PK on Horatio's back porch while he was gone for the weekend, which is kind of fucked up. It was purely salvia, sans pot.  We packed it tight and took GBs.  I laughed really hard for about 10 seconds before I started choking.  I had to remove myself from the situation and sit on the steps, because I was "Choking on the spheres that we're all made of."  It was a brief trip, and not worth choking for. 

The third time I did it was terrible and made me hate salvia.  My friend Chocolate gets some and we decide to smoke it.  He has a small piece that has a hole too big for salvia's fine, ground up leaves.  Theft, being the boyscout and theif that he is, goes into the bathroom on our dorm floor and whips out his knife.  He pries a faucet guard out from the sink.  He feels accomplished, and fails to inspect the guard.  We go outside and light up.  It hits incredibly hard.  We are all gasping by the end of it, and I fumble the piece.  Something hard and charred falls out of the piece.  We look at it like dogs look at the source of a high pitched noise, our heads all cocked to the side.  I pick it up and go, "Guys, I think we were smoking plastic."  THE GUARD WAS FUCKING PLASTIC, AND WE SMOKED IT.  Knock about 10 years off my life.

Flashbacks aside, I am standing in PK's kitchen playing Drink The Beer.  With myself.  John Lee stands next to me, visibly drunk.  He is standing on a ledge of stairs, and I tell him to be careful.  He only says, "That ledge is my bitch." 
The typical beer vs. liquor argument breaks out.
Horatio: "You know who is the only person on earth to have thrown up on beer alone?" 
He points to me.
Schwemmer: "Haha, really?"
Hunter: "Hey, hey, hey.  Now, that was all under an hour.  We're talking 40 minutes or less."
Horatio: "It was like seven beers dude."
Hunter: "In like 30-40 minutes."
Schwemmer: "Damn, that fast."
Horatio: "Well, yeah, he did throw them back pretty fast."
Hunter: "And beer does terrible things to me.  I am a liquor fan."
Schwemmer: "I can understand that.  I mean, genetically, we respond to things differently, all of us."
I am impressed and agree.  PK is offended that I am knocking beer, because that's all he has.  I reassure him that it's cool and I'm not complaining.  Just defending my pride.

By my third beer, another group of people shows up.  Clay, back from the military, carting two large party packs of Smirnoff bitch drinks.  Lot of good the military did in teaching him to be a man.  Behind him, two girls follow with a small group of gothic characters. Black, red.  Some pink on one of the girls.  She is quiet and reserved, and heads immediately downstairs with her group.  Only one of them is sociable, other than Clay.  It is the other girl, and she seems cool enough, but I notice she has a hollow-point bullet on her necklace.  I slowly back away while Horatio hits it off talking about guns and her shirt, which is of the band Yellowcard. 

I am in the dining room where a piano is.  John Lee is playing it rather drunkenly and I am attempting to communicate good vibes to the other group.  They are angsty and resist.  I give up and start talking to Clay.  He gives me a stern handshake that not many people can muster and I ask him:
Hunter: "So, how is 'it' going?"
Clay: "Have you ever blown up a tank with a rocket launcher?"
Hunter: "Uh, no, have you?"
Clay: "Oh yeah."
Hunter: "Oh, the perks of being in the military."

Basically, because there is no group cohesion, Yetti, Horatio, and myself head outside to smoke some of the Salvia Yetti has been saving.  He snatches John Lee's bubbler on the way out.  I chug my third beer and grab a bitch drink because I am a hypocrite. It is Smirnoff Ice, and it is delicious.  We sit in a circle... triangle really, and Yetti loads it up.  Before we start, he notices my drink and goes to grab one.  He comes back and we light up.  Yetti hits it first, passes it to Horatio, and then to me.  My reality dampens as I exhale.  Salvia hits really fast, by the way.  I put the bubbler down on the concrete.  On its side.  So, now, there is water in a small puddle in the middle of us.  No one notices but me, and I don't actually care at this point.  It's refillable.  No big deal.

Everyone is quiet for a second.  Yetti is staring at the ground when Horatio asks him a question.  I don't understand the question.  Apparently, Yetti understand it less, as his only response is a two-syllable word in what seems like tongues:
Horatio: "[questioning tone]"
A pause ensues.  Yetti looks up.
Yetti: "Barr-haw!"
Another pause ensues as everyone, even Yetti, runs the interaction through their head a second time. 
Hunter: "Did you... did... What the fuck was that?"
I am laughing uncontrollably at this point, which spurs laughter in them.  We errupt and sit for about three minutes just laughing.  We manage to get a few words out inbetween breaths, but they only serve to feed the raging fire of hilarity.  I have never laughed this hard.  Ever in my life.  I am seriously ROLLING on the ground.  Suddenly Yetti is worried:

Yetti: "Guys, oh shit."
Hunter and Horatio in unison: "What?"
Yetti: "We broke the bubbler."
Hunter: "What?"
Yetti: "Yeah, look, it's broken, there's water everywhere."
I explain and talk him down for like ten seconds.  He grabs his now empty Smirnoff, holding it opposite the hand clenching the bubbler and says, "Then what's this?"
Hunter: "That is your empty bottle, it's fine dude."
Yetti inspects it and goes, "Oh, oh yeah."
At some point he calls Horatio a motherfucker which is really out of character for him.  He is joking of course, but it's a sure sign that he's still riding the high.  He explains his experience as Horatio becoming part of the background and me as a laughing enigma.

We go inside, but within minutes are back outside with a larger group of people, drinking more.  Schwemmer, PK, Horatio, Yetti, and myself.  Also, this kid Alex, who is drunk as shit, stumbles all over the place.  I ask him what he would do if I drop-kicked him into oblivion.  He just laughs at me and falls down on his face, unable to get up.  He stays down for a few minutes while the big boys talk.  Then he gets up and decides to go inside.  A few of the others do too, and then there are three: Horatio, Yetti, and myself.  Again, ready to smoke more.  We sit down in our "circle" and begin.

For greens, Horatio and I play Rock, Paper, Scissors.  It is a hard fought battle, us matching eachother 4 or 5 times in a row, but I eventually win.  I take notice of the bowl.  It is packed to legendary standards.  I ignite the patch of green, inhale for several seconds, and hold.  I pause for a few more seconds and exhale.  I cannot emphasize enough how much I took from this one hit.  A heroic sized cloud rolls from my lips, and I say, "Guys, I might die," jokingly, but the next thing I know Yetti and Horatio have evaporated, interwoven into the scenery.  They have, as Yetti said earlier, become a "part of the background."  They become part of the fence, the ridges.  Small, individual slivers that make up a whole.  I am a very visual person, and sometimes it is hard to describe what I experience.  This experience boarders on impossible-to-describe.  For 30 minutes, head time, I am flying around the back yard, which is about 100 times as large as it actually was. The weird part is I see myself doing these things, as I am a plane.  A plane with a face.  And a propellar for a nose. I am swooping by the fences(made up of Horatio, Yetti, and the shed I see in the background).  I am pretty sure that I fly into the sky, and suicide drop to the ground.  I stretch, endlessly against a black backdrop of time and space.  My thirty minutes of head time take about 10 seconds of real time, and I swoop back into the shell of Hunter Caldwell, my body.  My mind has returned, and now I am standing up, facing Horatio.  I run my hand against my forehead and back beyond my hair.  I am sweating, and Horatio is talking to me.  I am pretty sure he is trying to get me to fuck a vehicle.  He might as well be speaking in a foreign language, I can't understand anything he is saying. 

I asked Horatio what he saw from his perspective and he said this: "Yeah we were all sitting down and then you burst out nervous laughing and stood up and just started roaming around babbling incoherently. And you would grab various objects which I termed 'anchors.'  Like, to keep you in this world"

It's true, I do vaguely remember grabbing things, because I felt like my world was being torn apart, like my reality and actual reality were at odds, fighting for their place.  And my strange reality was slipping back to normalcy, and I was coming down.  I stand, staring at Yetti, not truly recognizing him.  I head to the front of the house, bumping into the fence and a van. Yetti somehow makes it to the front door before I can, slips inside, poking his head out and says, "Dude, I am going to find you a pen and some paper.  Just don't wander off."  I tell him I am probably going to.  I have no idea where a portion of my time went, and I am confused and still buzzed off of the beer and bitch drinks I have consumed.  I head inside, say peace to a few good people and leave.  I give John Lee the power fist before I go, because I don't feel up for much more contact than that.

I am speed walking down the street, terrified out of my mind at what just occurred.  Nothing seems real in this blanketed  world of cold air and blaring gas giants.  It is night time and a pick up truck is slowing down in front of me.  Its lights are aimed at me, but I walk past it. 

"HUUUUUUUNTER CAAAAAAALDWELLLLL!!!!"  A voice emanates through the thick shadow.  I am going to die tonight.

"It's NICK, man, what's up!"

My heart pounding, I wave and continue walking.  Things are still too real and this is totally unexpected.  Nick Volante, the guy whose bubbler it was originally. That I smoked out of, was calling my name from an ominous pick up truck.  He was heading to the party, and I was heading home.  Heading home, afraid that I would never be normal again.  Afraid that life was going to turn on me, and all the taking I have done from the universe would reverse itself, and start taking back.  Afraid that my future was doomed.  Afraid. 

But, by the time I had marched home, I was normal again.

My head is still spinning from the weekend.  I went to Farifax to party at my girlfriend's.  There is a terrifying amount of money in Northern Virginia.  I was kind of sketched out at first, you know, a little uncomfortable at the prospect of being the peon of the group, what with my Richmond background and all.  But no, the culture is the same almost everywhere you go.  There is Subway.  Sheetz.  Taco Bell.  Blockbuster.  Everything you'd expect in any suburban area.  The Suburbias of Richmond share all the same aspects, just at a different(see: lower) living standard. 

It was my first time getting hit on by a 0-star girl(out of 5).  According to Tucker Max, a 0-star is that fat girl who, in addition to being obscenely unnattractive, also has a terrible personality.  She is loud, overly foreward, awkward, and all around obnoxious.  He calls them "Wildebeasts" and says that "basic human rights do not apply to them."  And she hit on me. 

I am upstairs toking.  Despite all the money in Nova, we smoke out of a ghettoblaster.  I laugh at this in my head at the time and out loud after I've been smoked out.  I am a bastard. 

I head downstairs tipsy and high and I go to grab a beer.  As I walk into the kitchen I hear, "I really wanna make out with someone."  I glance over and see her--Allison, with her chubby cheeks, thick-rimmed emo glasses, and she looks at me. 

I grab a beer.  What the fuck is she thinking?  No one will make out with her.  She is She is at a party filled mostly with 18-19 year olds.  Most of them girls.  Is she lesbian?

She contorts her hefty body on the couch to see me grabbing a beer.  She goes, "...But you're already taken."  Damn straight, bitch.  And even if I weren't... are you... are you serious?

I am not drunk enough to respond to this situation frankly.  I grab a second beer.  I want to be honest, so I load my proverbial gun of truth.  In other words, I start drinking seriously.

It was a fun weekend, I just thought I'd document that one instance.  Plenty of shit happened, including something absolutely horrifying.  It's a subtle glow, warm and pulsing through your body like an ocean of vicodin.