5 posts tagged “cigarettes”

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.

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. 

This is mainly the story of my birthday party, the recognition of a problem, and the end to my alcoholism.  I cannot believe I just wrote that.

The Girlfriend(this part is mostly background)

    The first time I met her we were outside the dorm during a firedrill.  It was a beautiful day outside.  The sky was blue with ethereal plumes of white.  It was beautiful.  Just not as much as what I was in store for.  She was the most attractive thing I had ever seen, her big Italian eyes and cute little Jew nose.   Our eyes locked briefly, but I disengaged, because, hell, I was "dating"(fucking) another girl at the time.  Though I was considering "breaking up" with her because she was a total psychotic bitch, I wasn't about to do her the injustice of cheating on her.  I still find that to be the worst thing you can do to someone's trust.  I would later learn that the girl I was dating was a cheating whore and an all around liar.  I didn't care at the time of learning this as I was completely happy just being AWAY from her.  Seriously, she gave me her family history while we were lying in bed one night and this is what I got out of it--MOTHER: Manic Depressive, OCD.  GRANDMOTHER: BLEW HER HUSBAND'S HEAD OFF WITH A FUCKING TWELVE GUAGE.  JESUS CHRIST.

    So, there I am, separated from this gorgeous girl by nothing more than my unwillingness to even consider but one person at a time when John walks up and starts talking to her.  John and I have hung out recently.  Fuck it, I am in.  I go over and act like my normal boisterous and happy self.  She is sarcastic and very funny.   We are visibly into eachother already.  This is basically the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back.  I invite both of them to a party I am attending, mostly so I can hang out with this girl some more. Luckily, they both decline.  The reason this is lucky, and the thing I haven't told you is, it was at "Crazy's" apartment-- then my girlfriend.  Yes, them showing up would have ended terribly.  Instead, I go to the party alone, get excessively drunk, am unhappy, and burn myself with a cigarette.  More times than I want to count.   That's the story behind Bloody Knuckles.  Me burning myself.  Crazy makes fun of me the next day and I quickly dump her ass. 

    The first time I actually hung out with Sara, I was already trashed(see: The Things I Remember, same night) when she showed up.  She comes in and I'm throttling a handle of vodka, swaying back and forth, singing Richard Cheese songs.  If you don't know who Richard Cheese is, he is a cover artist who redoes popular songs in a lounge style.  He was instantly my hero after I heard his rendition of "Down With The Sickness" in the Dawn of the Dead remake.  I don't actually remember much about this night, as I have already downed about a third of the handle already, continuing to drink well into the night.  All I remember is having a really intense conversation.  Sara makes fun of me hardcore for singing and liking Richard Cheese.  I make fun of her for liking Dream Theatre, because Alexi Laiho(lead for Children of Bodom)  said they were gay, and if Alexi says it, it is true.  She tells me my music collection blows.  I attempt to argue that it doesn't, but ultimately lose.  She has a huge proclivity for music that I cannot ever hope to match.

    In the weeks that follow, I am awkward.  I have never been more awkward around a person in my life.  This is because I have never been so unsure of where I stand with a person than when I first started seeing her.  Luckily, she is awkward too, and it works out.  We start dating but continue the awkwardness for a short while.  Eventually we loosen up.  At some point she tells me how weird it is to be the witness to self-mutilation, or, rather, the results of it(my scars).  She seems worried, and I jokingly say, "What, you care about me?"  She says she does, and I am totally knocked off my proverbial feet.  A sledgehammer shattering my mental shins, sweeping me to the floor.  For much of my time with her I have been emotionally reticent.  I have seen the damage caused by opening up too soon, too fast.  I know my behavior, I know that I burn up to avoid rusting out.  This is who I am usually.  But I want to change.

    I tell Sara that I'm done hurting myself, because I am happy now.  But just being with someone doesn't make you happy.  I now realize that happiness comes only from within.  It is, to some extent, a choice of contexts.  Only you can put yourself in a position that will either improve or detriment you.  At the time I tell Sara I am done hurting myself, I have not learned this lesson-- the "how to" on happiness.  At the time I tell Sara I am done hurting myself, I am not. 

The Birthday Party

Skip a few weeks later to my birthday party.

    Horatio and I get his brother to hook us up with some beer.  And by some beer, I mean four fucking cases.  We load Horatio's car with the beer.  Inside the car, he tosses me a water bottle full of clear liquid, saying, "Happy Birthday, enjoy."  It is vodka.  Horatio is my best friend.  I take a swig and wince.  It has been awhile.  I figure I'll need some mixer and food in my stomach before we head to the party.  We drive to Sheetz. 

    En route, Horatio goes, "There are beers under your seat from the other night.  Beer me."  I hand him his first Natty swill.  He nearly downs it before we reach Sheetz.  He does down it immediately following Sheetz.  I have a huge burger in my face, and am not worried about regulating his driving. 

    His second beer is done and he begins to "feel it."  I am worried about regulating his driving. I begin the "double-check" method.  He is drinking his third beer with one hand and driving half-heartedly with the other.  I get the idea that I might die tonight.  I got this idea much earlier in the week when I was told how much alcohol would be at my party.  I figured alcohol poisoning would do me in, but now I am worried about becoming a roadside cadaver.  I quickly forget this as I drink more of my Gatorade/Vodka mix. 

    We drive around for awhile trying to find a parking spot.  Richmond parking sucks.  Horatio announces, several times, that he has to urinate.  I begin torturing him, saying "Drip, drip, drip.  Pssssss."  I decide that this is a bad idea since he is driving.  Finally we find a spot to rest the car.  We are in front of a very nice town home with a large street lamp blaring above us.  We are not far from a stoplight, where an audience of drivers no doubt watch us.  Horatio says he is going to pee on his car:
Hunter: "Dude, for real? Right here?  You can't wait?"
Horatio:  "Fuck it, I don't care, man, I have to piss."
Hunter:  "There's a huge lamp above you.  We are completely visible.  And have beer.  And are underage.  We don't want to draw attention to ourselves."
These were all quality reasons not to publicly urinate, but in the most serious voice I've ever heard him deliver anything, he says, with a slight pause:
Horatio: "... Back up, lest you get pissed on."

I don't know why, but I grab three of the cases.  I start walking across the street.  Horatio says, "Wait up," finishes pissing, and downs the last of his third or fourth beer.   A couple of minutes into our five(or so) minute walk(Richmond parking sucks, remember?) to the apartment, having two cases in one arm is a ridiculous waste.  I insist Horatio take one.  He does, and now we both have two.  He says he feels badass just walking around with beer.  I tell him this is how it feels to "bring the party."  He gets pumped and I immediately remember why I only left one case for him to carry.  Holding the handle, he juts his fist outward, pretending the beer case is a boxing glove or something.  The handle remains in his hand while the rest of the case sails through the air and smashes into the sidewalk.  We just stand there for a moment. We start gathering the scattered beer cans.  Some of them are rolling away from us, trying to escape:
Hunter:  "Why was that a good idea."
Horatio:  "I don't know, I'm already drunk, I think." (The "Drunk Defense")
Hunter:  "Good enough."
Horatio:  "No one can know about this."
Hunter:  "Alright. We'll just let them explode on some people."

    We head upstairs and are immediately rushed by everyone inside.  I am bombarded with "Happy Birthday" and such and what not.  This makes me happy.  In my vodka glow, I am already the center of the universe.  Awesome. After awhile though, I find myself having an iteration of the following conversation... throughout the ENTIRE NIGHT:
Rebecca:  "Hunter, your arm looks like fucking hell."

Adrian:  "Yeah, you should put bandaids on them, they'll heal"
Liz:  "What the hell did you do?"
Me:  "Lots of bad stuff."
Rebecca:  "Is this new or is this shit I've seen?"
Me:  "All old stuff"
Adrian(pointing to my cuts): "What did you do? Is that when you woke up bloody?"
Liz: "Yeah, what is that?"
I try to convince them that it was a cougar attack.  I then explain that the burns are from lye, like in Fight Club, and that it was a gang initiation.  Then I concede that I was playing chicken with cigarettes.  With myself.  They say I am crazy, and probably just like Tyler Durdin.

Some people enter and they wish me happy birthday.  I announce that I have no idea who one of them is.

    I go to the bathroom and Calypso(of Pissing in Pools I & II  and Hunter Blacks Out, Goes To Patient First, Blames Free Beer) tells me not to use the one I'm headed to.  I assure her I know what I am doing, and that I know the door jams.  I will leave it open.  I stay in there for like two minutes taking the most titanic piss of my life.  While I'm breaking the seal, I thank the toilet for drinking my piss.  Am I already this drunk?  Seven gargantuan cups of jungle juice in the first hour or so? Yes, yes I am this drunk.

    I come back and Horatio's brother has arrived.  I am enamored at the fact that such a cool motherfucker would grace me with his presence. He holds out his hand:
Hunter:  "Hold on, there were no fuckin' towels in there, give me a second."  I actually count out a full second Mississippi style and shake his hand.  I notice one of the guys accompanying him:
Hunter:  "Annnnd?"
Justin:  "Justin.  You don't remember me?"
Hunter:  "No.  What's your last name?"

    He implies that we once "chilled" together, sounding hurt.  Telling me what was involved with our "chilling" really helped.  Apparently we smoked together once.  I have no recollection of this, and therefore invoke the "High Defense."  He takes off his hat and gives me the "Ehhh, ehhh, anything?" look.  It doesn't help, but I do notice he has red hair, and therefore will fail to hit on any girl at the party.  It is a well documented fact that red headed guys generally do poorly with women.  True story.  He hits on Liz but ultimately comes up short.  She is one of the few girls Richmond produced that isn't a whore at all.  I can't help but respect her for that.

    I totally didn't catch this at the time, but in the background Horatio is lamenting about his ex-girlfriend.  He tells the story of how they were together.  Then how the romance was stifled by a grounding of a month-long duration.  He got grounded as a result of the Friend's Mom Finds Out About Hunter's Livejournal, Missiles Fly incident.  He blames his failed relationship on the grounding, and for mostly good reason.  His girlfriend and him couldn't see eachother, and he became what he refers to as a "Low Status Male," dumping his emotional issues on her. Because of this, he helped her transition to who she truly was.  Upon breaking up with him, she informs him that she is a lesbian.  As he tells this, the three or so girls he is talking to go into shrills and half-muttered explitives.  I hear several "OMIGOD's" in the pity tone.  Yeah, everyone feels bad for the "transition guy."  Seriously, if you are dating someone when they switch sides, that is indicative of you making them change their mind about their sexuality.  Of course, I know the truth.  The girl is a lying seductress of a woman, and Horatio is one of the coolest people I've ever met. 

The Recognition of a Problem and the Resolution to End Alcoholism

Yetti:  "No piggy-back rides tonight."
Apparently, a few nights ago, we were all drinking beer and I drank way too fast, getting myself well into Hyper-Hunter Drunk.  I jumped on Yetti's back and we both went careening into the asphalt.  He is like 6'5" and over 200 pounds.  I am like 6' and 180 pounds.  He is crushed under the inertia of our combined weight, and I, on his shoulders, fall like 10 feet to the ground.  We squirm around in pain for like thirty seconds before realizing we are intoxicated, and pain can't fetter us.

    I tell the story of how Horatio destroyed one of the cases of beer.  Someone overhears this from another room and asks which one is fucked up. 
Hunter:  "You see that one with the gaping hole in it?  Yeah, don't take beer from that one, it will explode all over you."
Liz:  "Who did that?"
Horatio: "Me, I can't feel my face already."
Hunter:  "Slow down there, you have all night."  I find this advice particularly funny because I am already working on being utterly shit-faced.

Calypso saunters over.
Calypso:  "Don't you like the Jungle Juice?"
Hunter:  "It's very good."
Adrian:  "It's very lime-y.  Did you put citrus in there?"
Calypso:  "Yeah."
Hunter:  "It's like, I wanna play some, like, tribal drums.  No, not really.  No,  I have no rythm."

    Rebecca comes along and says she can't feel her face, so I poke her cheek. 
Hunter:  "I can still feel your face, you're fine.  You're still with us."
Rebecca and Liz start talking to me about something, but my phone buzzes and I totally just walk away from them to answer.  I am sorry, girls, I guess I am an asshole.  That or I'm like anyone else when they're drunk, and I just go with whatever.  I have achieved Autopilot Drunk.

    I re-enter the room and Calypso is taking pictures.  I rush to shove my face into every picture taken.  Seriously, if you guys read this and have those pictures, please send them to me, or post them online. 

    I approach Liz:
Hunter:  "I heard you called me an asshole because of my stories online."
She grins and turns her head slightly.
Hunter:  "AH!  You can't deny it! See, that's the 'I can't deny it' face. OH!"
Liz:  "Can't deny it.  No, not going to either."
A small crowd erupts into "OOOH."  I say, "That hurts," jokingly, because there is no emotional pain you can inflict upon Raving Drunk Hunter that he won't embody in physical pain later.
She giggles.  Apparently hurting me is funny.
Horatio:  "Dude, there's nothing wrong with being an asshole!"
I almost contend that I am not an asshole, and someone backs me by saying, "He can't be an asshole, he has a beard."  I'm not sure how this logic works, but I did in fact have a beard.
I fully contend that I am a mix of "nice guy" and "asshole." 
Liz: "So you're half and half? You are fifty percent asshole, that's still pretty bad!"
Adrian: "He's part sex machine, as well."
Hunter: "This is true.  Thank you for reminding me.  But seriously, do you really think I am an asshole?  Like, back in the day?  Other than when I was on aderol.  Because, I would come in happy one day and an evil bastard the next."
Liz:  "That's true.  That applied, I don't necessarily think you.... I don't know, but you're looking at asshole as a bad thing."
This shocks me. 
Yetti:  "Girls like assholes."
It's true, to some extent.  Though, I still believe that some of the qualities of an asshole can be taken away, applied to a nice person, and you get the same results.  Confidence mainly, but, unlike an asshole, not overflowing with hubris.
 
    Across the room, Horatio announces to no one in particular, "Shit, it's not even eleven o'clock and I am already shit-faced."
I rally the forces to go out to eat somewhere, and we head out.  Unfortunately, with everyone's short attention spans, we only make it as far as Seven Eleven.  God damn convenience.  I stand, staring at the Chip and Dip section for about five minutes before grabbing a bag.  I tell Horatio what I'm getting-- chips and salsa.  He says he'll buy the salsa, but, seeing the price, and being the Jew he is, decides he wants to buy the chips.  I tell him I'll buy both, but he hands me the salsa.   "Okay," I say.  I don't even use real money, I just hand them my university debit card.  The next day, Horatio complains that the bag of chips was like four dollars.  I tell him the salsa was like three. 

    We get back and drink more. Everyone engages in eating my tostitos and dip.  I am like, "Didn't you fuckers buy anything for yourself?"  I guess there's a Jew in me too.  I start eating faster than anyone else, so as to get my money's worth.  I am shoveling salsa into my mouth, getting the impression that I might shit blood later as a result.  Alcohol and hot salsa do not mix well.  Deciding that I have an iron stomach, I push the idea of bloody diahrreah to the back of my head and grab another drink.  I am drinking unhappily, and decide to separate myself from the crowd.  I head outside with three cigarettes and a lighter.  I sit outside and smoke them, putting the last one out on my skin.  For awhile, I narrate my surroundings to no one but myself.  Realizing this, I immediately head back upstairs.  To drink more.  To drown out the recognition of a problem. 

    I wake up the next morning with three hours of sleep under my belt.  I am either still drunk or very hung over.  Horatio and I head out and he takes me to my dorm.  On the way, I rediscover my left-over gatorade-vodka concoction.  I don't want to waste it, so I drink it.  I get back to my dorm and never manage to go back to sleep.  The day passes slowly.  I take some sleeping pills at night and pass out. 

    The next day, I see Sara.  She grabs a CD and hands it to me, delivering a happy birthday.  It's Richard Cheese's Lounge Against the Machine.  I am enamored.  We chill for awhile and she notices my newly incinerated flesh.  She wasn't supposed to see that.  I feel bad because I told her I was going to stop.  It wasn't like one of those childish promises someone makes you swear an oath to, but I still broke my word.  And, if I can't trust myself, how can I ever hope to trust anyone else? This was my major realization.  I have to generate everything from within, for myself, before I can be happy with someone else.  Or make someone happy. 

    On that note,  I have decided to stop drinking in excess, at least until I can understand where the line is.  It's okay to cross it, as long as you acknowledge that it has been crossed.  First, I have to find it, to draw it. 

I am never sober in a group of drunk people.  I am either drunk in a group of drunk people, or not-drunk in a group of not-drunk people. Or drunk in a group of not-drunk people... Tonight was different.  Tonight was a new experience.  I mean, let's face it, there are only so many times I can iterate my drunken escapades before they become dull.  So, in this edition of my blog, we'll examine drunk specimens in their prime from an unaltered state of mind. 

I'm outside with my buddy "Das" smoking a cigarette because, I'll be honest, I wanted something to do at 2 in the morning and smoking seemed the only social avenue.  Pretty lame reason, but I'll get over it.  Apparently I wanted many things to do, as I smoked about 7 cigarettes over the course of however long it was we stood outside.  I'd say probably fourty minutes.  I don't normally smoke, but when I do, I smoke a lot.

Cigarette One: Das and I are outside and immediately engulfed in a sea of drunks.  We're new, so we're interesting.  We're greeted by people we know, "Psych" and "Greez", and people we don't, "NielsBohr" and a group of unimportant drunk chicks.  They would be important, but they were far from eye-candy, not to mention their conversation tool-box consisted exclusively of the Gossip-Hammer.  I would hope for at least one aspect or another in a human being.  They let me down. Our novelty wears off quickly and the unification we brought to the group rapidly disentigrates into several small factions.

Cigarette Two: I feel bad for bumming cigarettes off of Das, but then again, I got him and his friend drunk the other night. Also, he reassures me, saying he got a full carton for his birthday.  Justification enough for me. Nielsbohr is asking around for a cigarette. Psych throws up all over the place and pretends to do it incognito.  She fails, as everyone is now looking in her direction.  Only three of us are sober enough to care for more than three seconds.  Somegirl is making out with Somedude1.

Cigarette Three:  Realizing that the "circle" is an impenetrable fortress with no focus or cohesion, I give up my attempts to join the crowd and announce my retirement.  I sit next to "Theft," who aids me in my persuit to crack jokes on everyone who is acting ridiculous.  Thus, the main target, Somegirl.  She is now making out with Somedude2.  And eating his face. 

Cigarette Four: Greez doesn't want his clove, so he gives it to me. Technically, this time period, labled "Cigarette Four" should actually be "Clove One," but whatever.  It was my fourth smoke fuck you and your semantics. Nielsbohr has smoked both of the cigarettes he has gotten out of charity and is now asking people for more.

Cigarette Five:  Nielsbohr takes some drunk chick's pack of cigarettes and fumbles it into the river of puke laid forth by Psych.  He gathers up the cigarettes that have broken free of the pack, staggers upward, and offers me one.  I go, "Dude, you realize that's puke you just dropped those in, right?"  He looks down, and then back at the pack and shrugs. He is drunk and doesn't give a fuck.  I am not, and do. Luckily, he hands me the one resting on his ear.  I totally win the prize of a non-puke-laden cigarette. He then proceeds to smoke the entire pack.  I tell him he's going to get a disease and die, but he still doesn't give a fuck, because he's still drunk.  And off to the side, Somegirl is still biting the shit out of Somedude2's lips. Eating his face off.

Cigarette Six: Theft and I have turned our sobriety into a spectator's sport.  Somegirl has moved on to Greez(numero tres). A red-head shows up and isn't drunk. Theft, Das, this red-head, and myself form our own group.  We are not drunk, but definitely enjoying the show.

Cigarette Seven: Psych feels jealous, runs over, and shoves Somegirl out of the way, verbally declaring ownership of Greez, saying, "He's mine. I found him first."  They begin making out.  I wonder if she tastes like throw-up.  Defeated, Somegirl wobbles away and into the arms of the red-head. She's taken inside, but doesn't quite make it in before throwing up. Everyone is pretty much gone at this point, except the people that care enough for conversation, as opposed to passing out. 

    The past few days, everyone's been having the same conversation.  A fire alarm went off.  If you know anyone from the Cabaniss dorms down here at VCU, you know the story.  I hear the same fucking complaints about burnt soup everywhere I go.  On the bus.  In the dining hall.  In class. 
In the bathroom, two guys sit and converse through the blue panels surrounding their respective toilets.  They're talking about the goddamn fire alarm.  The fire alarm caused by soup.
 
    Some girl on an upper floor burns soup and causes this whole ordeal.  On the bus to class, some guy questioned the possibility of burning a liquid, as if all liquids share the same exact qualities found in water.  He doesn't understand the dire situation our nation is facing with such non-water-esque liquids.  He doesn't understand fire.  He doesn't understand fire like I do. 

    Waiting for the bus, I read my book, foolishly leaving my knuckles exposed for anyone to see.  Thomas walks by and asks me what happened to my hand. 
"Bloody knuckles," I tell him, dissmission coating my voice.  I find that straightforward answers held with little regard yield the best avoidance possibility when dealing with outsiders-- those not in the know, in my life, in my head.  The lesser tiers of my involvement.

    Earlier, I met Devon, the tall guy on my floor with the long hair, outside of my math lecture building.  I sit down next to him and ask him whether the imminent test is scantron. No, he says, not scantron.  No, I say, I guess it's just "papertron."  A failed jab at something clever.  The girl mirroring me on Devon's other side asks what happened to my hand.  Before I can bullshit her, she hands me a crutch to lean on--"'Bloody Knuckles' or somethin'?"
    "Yeah," I say, agreeing with her.  People like to think they're good at knowing what's going on in other people's lives.  If people speculate, I let them guess correctly every time.  You got in a fight? Yeah. You punched a wall? Yep, it looked at me funny.  You played "Bloody Knuckles"? Of course, it's my favorite game.  

    The truth is, though, that none of those are true.  I'm not bleeding, I'm pussing.  Pussing the ever living shit out of my unhealing hand and arm.  It looks like a battlefield, my arm.  My mind too, if it were visibly available to me.  No, I just feel it.  A dull roar of cognition.  A dull infrastructure of senses and reactions.  My system. Me. 

    My point is, if you keep your mouth shut and don't suggest things, hand over your ideas, people may be more willing, or more pressured to surrender the truth.  The truth is a self-generated understanding of the universe, and as soon as you have interfering factors, like a ditzy blonde who says "'Bloody Knuckles' or somethin'?"  you have a chance to skew that universe, to blur it.  To take an image and sodomize it with falsehood.  False enough to the point where I'm lying twice.  Bloody Knuckles?  I've never even played that game.  Great, blondy, now you have me lying about having played this sophomoric game TODAY and ever.  Thanks a lot, you genesis of lies. You sssserpent of deceit. 

    So, before it is questioned, I do stupid things when I'm drunk.  To myself.  Several times.  Again and again.  I'm fascinated by the utter lack of pain during intoxication.  A quick swipe of fire normally will not hurt you.  A longer duration of exposure to it, however, will.  And, if it doesn't feel like it's hurting, the scars and bulging skin balloons of puss will tell you otherwise the next day.  So, I'm sorry to You and Me both, for causing these second degree burns.

Also, fuck cigarettes.