I'm apparently listening to blues on NPR right now and I know by writing this I am only avoiding writing something I am in the middle of.  Regardless, this is the second recording from the tape that I hardly ever use but feel self-guilted(yes, Firefox. Add to dictionary! Don't doubt me. For some reason you're not linked to dictionary.com or something.) into transcribing, despite how useless the content may be.  However, if you are reading this don't be afraid to enjoy the random human experience of another.

Click.
Classical music--lead by piano sounds that sound like Spring or a reflective period of one's time-- drapes the room in dim luminescence.  In retrospect, this tape reminds me of a fresh experience in what I normally consider a small, dirty apartment.  The piano rises in pitch, falls, rises, falls.  I feel like I am riding some strange plastic animal at a carnival, up and down some spinning pole on a spinning wheel. 

George: "... uhm, that Baptist guy. . ."

Hunter and Graham burst out laughing.
Hunter: "Jerry Falwell?"
George: "No! Um. . ."

Hunter: "Cuz he's dead.  Is it going to kill you if you don't get it?"
 
George laughs, Yes probably.

Graham: "Billy Graham," sure of it.

George: "...was the president, man. Not after--"
 
Hunter: "Pat Robertson!  No, he's still alive."  Someone probably glares.

George: "After Nixon, but [inaudible], was not Johnson. But, uh, Carter is who I'm thinkin' of.  But who was after Nixon? Was it Gerald Ford?"

Graham: "May I have a lighter?"

Hunter: "I think so."

George: ". . .but I think Carter was [inaudible]."

Graham: "Regan was, wasn't he?"

George: "Regan died," very matter of fact.

Graham: "Yeah!  Regan's dead."

...a lot of shit uninteresting even to me...

George: "FOX News did an entire day of Regan."

Graham: "I bet they did!"

Kim: "Yeeeeah," her words elongated to the very end of the h. 

Something about "that's when it should have been.  Fuck."  Unsure who says this, sounds like George or myself, Hunter.

Graham: "Old people like Ronald Regan."

George: "FOX news likes Ronald Regan."

Something about "white people."

Graham: "He was a good president, I think."

Cht cht cht cht cht cht cht. The tape makes a beat in the absence of voice for the piano to follow up and down, back and forth.

George: "Reganomics. . . what are R--"

Graham: "--yeah, they worked, didn't they?"

Hunter, almost offended: "No they didn't! They didn't work at alll!" 

George: "Say no!"

Hunter: "And, and, and yeah!  DARE?  DARE was terrible!"

George chuckles, says:  "It was like the highest drug usage rates," pause, "In American history."

Graham: "B'cuz people knew about drugs," cool and assertive.

And I guess there should be a volume III.  Because I don't feel like typing anything, anymore. 

 

 
 

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.

I'm sitting in some uncomfortable chair, a style of which I have never seen before.  It has the usual aluminum grey frame, a backrest adjusted to a standard of height, blah blah-blah.  But it has these strange pads connecting the seat, pads that shoot up and fill some of the space between the back rest and the ass rest with some sort of. . . spinal rest?  The color of the rotund woman's shirt--toothpaste blue-- outlines this extraneous pad. 

I stare at her, her lumpy body a pile of toothpaste squeezed directly into the same spot.  I play with the bracelet on my right wrist.  I wonder if it is really home made.  I doubt it.

I gaze around the room.  Most of the crowd is young.  A guy in the corner looks like a disgruntled underwear model.  Not big time, just a locally owned department store maybe.  There are many attractive girls my age.

Several people speak out of a small paperback.  Everyone seems to have a copy.  After introducing ourselves, I get one too.  One with numbers.  Not the numbers of the many attractive girls.  Just numbers with male names next to them following MEN: at the top.
 

"How are you?" she asked me.  No, wait, it was "Are you well?"  Or maybe it was neither, but had the tone of both, concern backing the question. 
I told her "I'm fine," with little enthusiasm.  The tree above would wet us occasionally with drops of dew. She bounced her baby a bit, gently, and a breeze blew his wispy hair.  He was concerned with the wind.  He stared into the soul of a wavering plant, trying to understand its movement. 
"He doesn't really understand object permanence yet," the father, my friend Tyler, said.  I didn't want to say Piaget was wrong.  I didn't want to say anything.  But I said something like, "You mean like peek-a-boo?"
 

When I introduce myself, I am the only one that simply says my name.  This is my first time and I have not yet developed the ability to confess my heart to strangers.  A kid younger than me speaks up.  Says his life is better now, says he's happy ninety-five percent of the time.  I think bullshit, life is a constant of inconsistency.  Fuck your 5% estimated blue time.  Then I realize he at least thinks he has something worthy of sharing.  I cannot begin to imagine a similar image of myself.

I said goodbye to the family after a walk down the street.  It was pleasant.  The sun was just beginning to tire and the air cool.  Leaves tumbled to the earth around us as we all hugged.  Phoenix, their child, grabbed hold of my bracelet.  His grip was strong and I didn't want to pry his hands off of what he wanted to hold.  But they had to visit another friend(a mother) and I had to go home.  So Kat pried his demonically possessed fingers from it and we said goodbye.

Ice floats on emulsion, melts, spins clinking. 
He tries to fish a cube with his tongue, but ends up gulping the mixture. 
His throat burns, but he has the cube.  Splinters it with a worn incisor,
crunches it with the rest.  The iced warmth travels to the back of his throat,
down, and to his belly.  Nothing tastes as good as this, he thinks. 
The sting, the texture.  The undeniable tinge of regret-- relieved.

The man child's mind cauterizes memorable moments,
forgets the ones he wishes to, remembers none other.
The ice tray with its half frozen surfaces and liquid
guts, he's chewed it all away. 

Chipped, his tooth's in pain.
Mustache froth, what is love's directive?  On the verge of 'quit,'
he wipes it away, remembers sister, a non brother.
The man's child mind: acorn fights, memorable memories.

He doesn't understand why he attempts this poetry,
but lines don't lie, they tell the only way.
Can you believe that this is my communique?
Maybe I will understand this another day.

to be clear, I have not written poetry in forever, suck at it and am a little drunk thanks to a friend. . . so maybe we'll just put this in the "in progress category"

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.

    A couple of weeks ago, my friend Gary has a party at his place, and it's pretty awesome until I downed a Jagerbomb and smoked a spliff.  I had been dry for a whole month before this party, and I took it to my low tolerance's limit.  When I left Gary's, there was no time to peace out.  My girlfriend, Lenora, led me to a bedroom where we sat and slurred our speech for a couple of minutes before I bolted out of the room and marched through the front door. 

    The first wave of puke rises and shoots from my mouth as I step off the stoop into the lawn.  I take several steps and puke on a tree.  Before I hit asphalt, I puke a third time.  I am fertilizing his yard with vomit.  I stagger to Lenora's red Honda and blow chunks right in front of it.  After puking four times, you would think you'd feel better.  I didn't.  This tells me that I am going to throw up more.  After about five minutes, Lenora comes out of the house, no doubt tromping through the fields of my regurgitation.  She steps around the fourth puddle in front of her car and sits next to me on the curb, swaying a little.

    At some point we hop in her car and roll out.  By hop, I kind of mean fall.  I don't remember much of the night, but I remember making Jeff(Horatio of old) promise me something. 
My hand on his shoulder, I look him straight in the eyes, and implore him to, "Promise me.  Promise me you will never drive drunk.  Man, you could die!"
He promises and Lenora adds that I made her make the same promise a long time ago.
I don't remember much of this night, but I remember this.  And I remember, while we are driving back, Lenora saying, "Hunter, I just want you to know," as if it was a good time to tell me, "that I am breaking my promise to you right now.  I just want you to know.  I have to get you home."  I get the impression that we might die.  Concerned with more important matters, like rolling down the window so I can puke again, I dismiss the possibility of death and begin to pass out. 

    Lenora says something, questioningly, either to keep herself awake or check up on me.  She does this intermittently and every time I respond.  Whereas getting to her apartment was, from my perspective, an instantaneous journey, from her perspective things were much more difficult.  She later tells me that, while she was driving, she was forgetting that she was driving, and she had to ask me questions to stay awake.  She had to talk, and she didn't expect me to respond.  But in my puke-addled haze, I always mustered the strength to blurt a half-assed, "Yeah" or "Cool," thinking I was contributing to our safety by doing so.  My other contributions include opening my eyes to see the road, getting car sick, and throwing up on out of the car. 

    When we get back, I fall out of the car, stand up and take a look at her car.  There are three distinct orange streaks trailing from the inside of the car, out, and back from the windows.  I say "Shorry," And tell her I will clean it up later.  We go inside.  I pass out on the bed.  I am awakened minutes later to food being stuffed down my throat. 
You have to eat this, she tells me. 
No, I tell her.  I take the food anyway.  It is an English muffin with cottage cheese on it.  It greatly resembles barf.  I down it as quickly as possible and drink some water out of a blue cup that is being pressed into my face.  I put the cup on the window sill.  I pass out again.

    Feeling victorious for getting us home safely, Lenora goes and fixes herself a plate-sized quesadilla.  She comes back and sits on the bed.  Through the veil of my blackout, I hear the sound of smacking lips.  Her chewing wakes me up.  Though I don't remember being pissed, I am apparently pissed. 
"STOP!"
"What?"
"CHEWING"
"Sorry."
"It's okay, it's just going to make me throw up."  It doesn't and I pass out again. Lenora passes out next to me.

    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.  I look up and there is vomit covering my legs and my waist and stomach.  The smell is vile, and I see little salsa chunks caked in two spots on the bed.  Paralyzed by sheer amazement, I am only able to observe my surroundings.  I look to my right, where there is retch splattered on the wall like blood from a gunshot wound.  Something straight out of Hollywood.  

    To my horror, the story does not end there.  There is a trail of puke leading to the bathroom, where Lenora is now taking a shower.  I take my clothes, which are covered in quesadilla, off and join her.  We clean off and then strip her bed. I clean everything up that I can with my three-AM hangover handicap. I take down the dust ruffle from her window because it is tainted.  Hidden behind the dust ruffle is the crowning achievement of the night.  There, on the windowsill, is a blue cup overflowing with gooey, chunky throw up.   Not thinking, I dump it into the sink and not the toilet.  The next couple of days, the sink is clogged. 

    In the aftermath, Lenora is passed out on her completely stripped bed, with her completely stripped body wrapped in three different towels, one wet, as blankets.   Yellow, pink, blue.  And the memory of orange streaks on white walls, and orange streaks on her red honda.  And the floors, two blankets, the bed covering, the curtains, and dust ruffle. After everything that had happened, she is passed out and I am on the corner of her bed, finishing the last fourth of the humongous quesadilla, stuffed with salsa, beans, an inordinate amount of cheese, sour cream, and a shit load of hot sauce.

Post Script
Awesome party, by the way, Gary.  Sorry I had to leave so early and couldn't help lead the Blackout Brigade. 

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. 

Because I want to write about something, and I was just reminded of the first time I ever got high:

It is freshman orientation, and I am working the Fencing table with a friend of mine and my girlfriend at the time("Jane" again), who was a junior.  We have fun cracking jokes on freshman, because, hey, we're no longer one of them, and that's what we do.  Freshman suck. 

Jane gets a call on her phone.  It is Paul Ruecroft, a senior at James River High.  He and my good friend Luke are hanging out and want us to join them.  I didn't know Paul well, other than the fact that his father taught my sixth grade science class, but Luke and I had become pretty good friends by this point, dominating any class that we shared.  So we go over to Paul's house, enter, and head straight to the back of the one-story building.  It is kind of run down and packed with random shit. 

Let me explain the setup to you.  Paul's parents were both huge hippies back in the day.  His mother is sitting on the bed, his younger brother is sitting across from me.  Another family member, female, is there.  The rest of us are positioned around a gravity bong(GB, for all of you who don't have better things to do with your time than say everything out, fully).  Now, you may be thinking, "where is the father?"  Good question.  While we're in this nearly vacant, white room smoking bud, the father of the household is paralyzed from the hips down in the room next to us, asleep.   Mr. Ruecroft had been in a biking accident a year prior, and was basically fucked.

9:00PM: Mrs. Ruecroft tells us we have to be relatively quiet.  There is someone in the next room who works for the county.  Yeah, my sixth grade science teacher.  We could get "in deep shit."  I get the impression that people who smoke too much are really paranoid.  Paul takes the first hit off of the GB.  The resevoir is dirty.  As my first time smoking, so far I am unimpressed.

9:05:  I am taking mental notes on how to hit a GB.  Of course, being a noob, I botch the first two.  I drop the bottle, half full, into the water and it looks like a jet engine streaking across the sky, smoke pluming up and into my face.

9:15:  A lot of sexual inneundos about "sucking correctly" are made.  By now, on a fourth GB, I have it down.  I turn to Luke and inform him that I, and I qoute, "Don't feel anything yet."  His only response is, "You should take more." 

9:25:  Luke is telling me not to talk to Satan if I see him.  Being stupid and naive, fear washes over my heart.  I am not an atheist at this point in my life, and my belief structure allows the fear to be acceptable to my reality.  "Don't talk to Satan if you see him, he might convince you to give him your soul."  I believe him, but quickly forget and begin poking things.

9:30: I take my seventh and final GB.  Somewhere between 4 and 6, I have been poking my girlfriend relentlessly.  She is visibly uncomfortable.  So, instead of being logical, I be high.  I continue poking and groping on her body. 

10:10:  I am in the back seat of a car, on the right side, Luke to my left.  In front of me is my girlfriend, and, driving, is Paul.  We are on one of the most treacherous roads known to man--Old Bon Air.  Let me explain.  This road is home to over thirty car-related deaths, ranging from people flipping their cars at the bottom, in a creek and drowning, to vehicular manslaughter. It winds, with many trees and branches hanging over the gnolls that encase the road. Mostly drunk people die on this road.  Luckily, we were just high as shit. 

I decide that unbuckling my seatbelt and opening the door will be a good idea.  Apparently, I didn't realize we were in a moving car.  I begin stepping out of the car as Luke bounds across the backseat, slamming me back with a swift elbow to the chest.  He basically saves my life.

10:19: We have arrived at Wendy's.  I didn't realize, until now, that we were on a food run.  I had been viewing our exodus from Paul's house as I would view a movie while high.  If you've watched movies high, you know exactly what I am talking about.  Every scene is interesting and totally unrelated to the subsequent scenes.  Like a group of interrelated short stories that have nothing to do with eachother.  What I am saying is there was a lack of cohesion to my thought, and I'm not going to lie, it was awesome.

10:03: We are still in front of the bright menu.  There are like 3 cars in line behind us.  Paul slowly turns around to look at Luke and I, probably to ask us what we want.  I just see two bloodshot eyes and a huge grin.  I begin laughing uncontrollably.  Everyone laughs, but Paul pulls us back together to focus on food.  The employees in Wendy's are alerted to our high, I am sure.

11:30:  We are in Luke and Paul's friend's house.  His name is Cory, and his entire family is getting high.  This is awesome.  I feel like I am on the Underground Railroad for Smokers.  The Wendy's is long since destroyed, my girlfriend has left, and Paul has lectured me on making her uncomfortable.  I say, "whatever," and proceed to join a group of people sitting in a circle passing a pipe. 

12:40AM:  We finish passing the pipe around.  I am riding another high. Cory, Luke, and I go for a walk around the neighborhood. 

12:50:  I decide that ding-dong-ditch will actually be fun, for once, since I am fucked up.  Luke and I go up to a random house. Cory stays behind on the street because he is a very paranoid person.
12:50:05:  I ring the doorbell as fast as I can.  Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
12:50:15:  We have forgotten that the "ditch" is key to playing.
12:50:20:  The door begins to open, we freak out and start bolting.

12:55:  Cory is nowhere to be found, and we can't find his house.  Nothing in the neighborhood looks familiar. 

1:00:  We see a man in a robe and boxers marching down the street toward us.  We walk by and say hello, immediately cracking afterwards.  Definitely the guy who came to the door.  He is now stampeding around the neighborhood seeking retribution.  We are apparently bigger than he thought we would be, because he doesn't even question us.

1:10: "Psssssst."  "Pssssssst."  What the fuck is that sound, I ask Luke.  We are in front of Cory's house, but aren't sure which one is his.  All the lights are off.
Luke: "Were the lights on when we left?"
Hunter: "Uh, yeah, I think so."
"Pssssst," a sound eminates from the bushes.
Hunter: "No, seriously, what the fuck is that?"
Luke: "Cory? Cory, is that you?"
Cory pops out of the bushes and stumbles towards us, scared shitless.
Cory: "Dudes, I thought the cops were coming."
Apparently he had run back to his house, told everyone to hide, locked everything up, and turned off all the lights.  He closed up shop. 

Inside, I pass out under a table in the living room and have the best sleep I have ever had.  Luke and I walked back to his house the next day, and I was a changed man. 

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. 

Transcribing Knowledge Of The Smoke : PART I

So, recently I went home and had a good time smoking with one of my best friends ever--Jeff.  In my stories, for continuity, he is known as Horatio.  This entry revolves around the night we smoked, using quotes from the voice recorder.  I wish I could upload the audio, but we went with the cheap version.  In hindsight that was a bad idea.  There is no USB output and thus, I must transcribe it.  Here goes:

We sit in his car, something he has named the "Goldsmobile."  Guess it's color.  Slightly Stoopid plays in the background.

Talking about some guy named William, who is a compulsive liar.
A car passes us, I tell it to fuck itself, because I am the Doctor Doolittle of Cars:
Jeff: He's goin' to 7/11
Hunter: Ha, I love when people come out of Sheetz and go to 7/11. It's like, "Uhh, yeah, flashing lights and cool music isn't going to make me want to come to your store... I want shitty tacquitos."
Jeff: I do want shitty tacquitos!

Jeff: Man, I love the mirror system.
Hunter: Yeah, mirrors are kind of ingenious. 
Jeff: It's like, "We're gonna get a huge chunk of metal and have it fly down the road, and we're gonna put mirrors on it so you can see."
I then geek out at the prospect of video replacing mirrors. Jeff says we can discuss that after he takes his next hit off of the gravity.  We never do.  Instead, Jeff loads the gravity and realizes we have alcohol:
Jeff: This is crazy, but we do have vodka.
Hunter: Really?
Jeff: Yeah.
Hunter: Well, uh, cool.

A car passes and it looks like a cop, but isn't.  He takes a massive hit and sputters the smoke after a few seconds.  It rolls across the ceiling of the car.

Jeff: Ah, shit, that cannot be allowed to float around the car.
Hunter: Do you have Fabreeze?
Jeff: I have drive-breeze.
 
I laugh and tell him I love slamming words together.  This is why the German language kicks ass.  Compound words are key.  We talk about language briefly, and Jeff announces, several times, that he is "really high." He lists off his GB intake over the past couple of days.  He says he had one, then two the next day, and should now have three.  You can see how it becomes necessary to smoke more and more if you do it often.  That's why I love moderation.  We agree on three each, and I'm in for some high times, as I haven't smoked in months.

Jeff: Dude, I love being ambidexterous.
Hunter: ... I like having hands. Period.
Jeff: That's a good call, because not everyone has hands.
Hunter: Yeah, some things don't have hands. Some things have, like, tendrils.
Jeff: Well, no, like people.
Hunter: Yeah, and those people suck.
Jeff: Haha, I feel sorry for those people.
Hunter: Mmm, I don't. (pause) Actually, no, I'm a liar. I feel sorry for the stupidest shit.  I feel sorry for fat people, even if it's their own goddamn fault. There's this guy that sits in Larrick, the dining center next to my dorm, alone.  All the time.  He is definitely fuckin' obese.  This kid is not jokin' around with his fat.
Jeff: Hahaha, aww.
Hunter: I always feel compelled to sit with him but never do.

Jeff loses focus for a second.

Jeff: It's not caching, sooo, uh, I guess that means there's something in there.  But yeah, I saw the fattest dude in CVS today, and it was really sad because he was buying vaseline, which you know was for his bed sores--shit, not bed sores, but you know, like fat sores that you get from having too much fat--CHAFING!
I laugh for like 30 seconds.
Jeff: Yeah, I realize that was convoluted as shit, but I am high as shit.

Somehow we get on the subject of tattoos, probably because I go, "Dude, I was thinking about getting a tattoo." Jeff tells me that's pretty cool, but then I tell him, "I mean we're talking a really hack tattoo"  He goes blank and asks, "What?" in that monotone voice that indicates disappointment.

Hunter: A yin-yang.
Jeff: Don't do it.
Hunter: Dude, duality is fucking cool. I believe so strongly in duality.
Jeff: OH! That reminds me, I reread your... VOX thing... the entry that was deterministic in nature, and I was thinking, those comments were really good.
Hunter: Yeah, they were, I really appreciated them.  They were good. Wait, you read the actual VOX post right?
Jeff: Yeah.
Hunter: Okay, yeah, those were really good.  The one with the logical proofs I didn't quite understand.
Jeff: I didn't really get that one either. What I was impressed by was how logical these people are, though.  Like, when I read your arguement, I liked it, because it was good writing, but like, there was something wrong with it, but I couldn't put it into words, and these people were just like bam!
Hunter: Yeah, when I write I don't really think about what I'm doing, I just channel.
Jeff: No, I know what you mean.  I left a great story as one giant block of text for two weeks.  No paragraph breaks.
Hunter: Yeah, I remember that shit.

We segway to talking about the college experience, and Jeff asks me if the song playing is Glassjaw.  I tell him it is, and that I put it on the custom CD we are listening to simply because of the effects in the song.

Hunter: I love this effect.
Jeff: Dude, I have yet to play guitar high.
Hunter: Deeyew Deeyew deeyew.  You need a huge effects set-up.
Jeff: Dude, effects make or break music.  That's actually kinda why I like classic rock, because it's not the effects that make the music.
We begin to move out of the parkinglot we're in.
Hunter: Uh, where are we going?
Jeff: To air out the car.

Thinking he had forgotten about me, I point to the GB, then me, and back to the GB. He laughs and reassures me that we're going to stop in a second. I point out the voice recorder set up and tell him I like it.  He says he has forgotten about it. "Yeah, I-- I haven't," is my response.  I am not high enough at this point for a glowing red let at headlevel to just slip into the background. The real background, outside, is beautiful.  The trees are turning with the changing temperatures.  Fall has begun, and back home, twenty or so minutes from where I currently live, it is absolutely beautiful.  Jeff says, "See, that's what separates us from a soul-less, urban 1984 society."  I haven't read the book, but I know the gist of it, and he's right. 

I notice a huge Trailer Truck parked in the vacant lot.  We're surprised we didn't notice it before.
 
Jeff: Oh shit, dude, Mr. Krane did the craziest thing in Creative Writing today.
Hunter: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.  The biology teacher?

He tells me he teaches psychology now.  I am pissed, because when I was in highschool, psychology was forbidden on the premise that sex factored in to a human's thought process.   We continue driving and pass a car of young girls.  Jeff inflects out loud:
Jeff: Holy shit, do I know those girls?
He doesn't. We pull into our spot.
In a news anchor voice, I say, "Here we are, back at Smoke-Central-Station."  Jeff proceeds to slam his hand into the dashboard repeatedly.  This is the only form of laughing he can communicate.  I know this because there is a huge smile on a face gasping for air.
Hunter: I love that about high people. I can't deny my love for beating the shit out of something because it's funny.  Wooo (slam, slam, slam), thaaaat's hilarious.  It's like reverting to a lesser state.
Jeff: But I love reverting.
I reassure him that I do too.  I begin talking about the "allies" mentioned in Carlos Castaneda's The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, but he isn't listening.  The reason for this is he is attempting to pack the GB and it is requiring all of his mental focus.

Jeff: Hunter? I am entirely too high to pack GBs.
Hunter: But you're not too high to hold the GB for me--
Jeff: That's right.
Hunter: --because that's what I did for you.
Jeff: Haha, come here, GB, give me a hug.
Hunter: Man I can't see shit...
I get out my phone and use it as a light to pack by.
Jeff: Oh shit, we didn't use the crack lighter.  Oh, we've gotta raise some GBs with the crack lighter.

There's some silence between us, but Glassjaw is just now finishing up their song.  It's a good thing too, because the end of the song is not something to listen to high. It's caustic.

I go for my first hit, and Jeff whips out his "crack lighter."  I ask him as judicially as I can, "Is that the fuckin' crack lighter."  He lights it, and it is.  The flame ripples in waves towards the ceiling of the car.  It is nearly four inches of deadly blue and orange flame.
Hunter: Oh, NO WAY. No, I'm not using that shit.
Jeff: That's a fuckin' horrible idea, thank you.  Thank you for double checking that, we're in an apholstered car.

In the background a new song is playing.  "Parole Atale," by Meg.  Very moody music--in Italian.  I figured I'd test run the song high, but it flopped and turned out whinier than anyone would ever want to listen to high. 
Jeff: Is that phone-off-the-hook sound coming from the song?
Hunter: Yeah, you're fine.
Jeff:  I know, it's just fucking with my head.
Hunter: Hahaha, dude, does your cellphone have a hook to put on?
Jeff: Yeah, exactly.
Hunter: You are high.
Jeff: Exactly.
I take my first or second hit, and it is gargantuan. I never cough when smoking, but I almost heaved up a lung right there.  I was in for a good time.
Hunter: One second, fuckin' cotton mouth killer.
The car starts rolling.
Jeff: Oh my GOD, this car's still going!

DING DING DING.
The car is turned off and back on. I ask him to hold something while I chug some Pink Lemonade.  I offer him some, because it's a 2 liter, but he remembers I am sick.  We then talk about listening to the voice recorder high, and how we're not going to do that tonight.
Hunter: We're not going to listen to it tonight.
Jeff: Because we're really high.
Hunter: And that's scary.  Remember when we did that, uh--
Jeff: And never listened to it.
Hunter: No, no.  Do you remember listening to it high?  Because I remember that being scary.
Jeff: Oh yeah!
Hunter: Hearing myself on a device was scary.
Jeff: You realized the whole Native American, stealing of soul thing is true.
Hunter: Yeah, because it's true.
We laugh.
Jeff: I like that we acknowledge that.
Hunter: Yeah, it's true.  Your "soul" is stolen when you place it on a cold-- Like, no, seriously, what you are, your soul is everything that comprises you.  And if a machine can transcribe it and replicate it more efficiently than you can... it has captured a moment in your soul, in time of your soul--physically captured it.  Everything's physical.

Jeff: Yeah, that's true.  You just reminded me about the story I was going to tell about Mr. Krane.  He showed us this video with people wearing white shirts and people wearing black shirts, throwing basketballs. And you had to count the number of times the people in the white shirts passed the basketball.  So, the video's like twenty seconds long, he stopped it and goes, "Okay, raise your hand if you didn't see the gorrila."

Hunter: Isn't it crazy? Focus the mind on one thing and it ignores another.
Jeff: Yeah, and you rewatch it and there's just a guy in a gorilla suit on the screen like[Jeff dances].

I cough again, expelling more smoke into the car.  An Airbase song comes on--"Spin." 
More confidently than anything I've ever said in my life, I go, "This song I kept on the remix, because it's only two minutes long(whereas most are 8 or so), and it's a good Airbase song. So, I figured 'Why not?' Mix it up a little bit in your mind.  Like, those are two pretty good reasons."

We go back to discussing psychology, and I tell him how I love that there's a whole science behind how humans operate.  I say, "understanding the self is the only way to obtain any true sense of power."  He tells me if he doesn't become a teacher, he will be a psychologist.  Inevitably, we get around to talking about majors, and how they don't really matter.  At the time of the recording, I was seriously considering switching my major from Psychology to English, which I now realize would be a waste of my time.  Jeff gets pensive about college, explaining all the shit he has to apply for, all the essays he's writing.  Hell, I barely even tried to get into college.  It was more of the next, inexorable step for me.  I really respect the fact that he's trying, and I hope he gets in where he wants and then enjoys it.  Also, I hope he goes to a big party school and fits in... so I can come visit.

Jeff stops mid-breath at the sound of "Sacrifice," by The Expendables.
Hunter: No, yeah, no I had to keep this on the CD, this is a high classic. How could I forget this song?
Jeff: This song is just... YES, I get to listen to this high!
Hunter: In fact, we get to listen to this high, turned up.
Jeff: This is why being high in cars with sweet sound systems is awesome.  Have you been in one?
Hunter: Dude, the kids down the hall have speakers taller than this car.
Jeff: Oh, you totally told me. Such a sacrifice inside, ooo, oooooo.
Hunter(singing to the tune): Taxi cab goin' by. What if that was my ex girlfriend coming to kill us
We make shotgun and machine gun sounds for a few seconds.
Hunter: She's got like a tracking device in me.
Jeff: Is she really that crazy?
Hunter: Mmm, no, but that shit's funny.

We start talking about comedy.  Apparently my delivery of "No, but that shit's funny" spurs this thought in his head.  I'm sweet.  We talk about a comedy club I've mentioned, one that my friend Sean introduced me to.  He wants to go, and I tell him he should come sometime.

Hunter: Dude, you have no idea how high I am right now.
Jeff: A lot? Is the answer a lot?
Hunter: Do you remember planet Sieben?
Jeff:  Oh shit.
Hunter: That's how high I am.
Jeff:  You see, I realized that back when I had a place in my head, a planet that I went to... I got really high then.
I can't stop laughing.  I throw the GB out the window as we leave our spot.
Hunter: I'm making the executive decision up there on that dark road... after... all these fucking lights are gone... Like right here. 
The GB makes a hollow clunk as it roles and slows, stopping-- dead.
Jeff: Doo DOO DUKE!
Hunter: Hahahaha
Jeff: Dooka doo doo, dooka dooka doo doo.(he sings with the song, which is "40oz to Freedom", Sublime)
Hunter: Hahahahhaa, reality is sweet.  Wow, I feel like the car is going faster than me.
Jeff: The great part is, right now, your internal organs are moving at 30 miles per hour.
Hunter: Yup. Damn it's cold.
Jeff: I've learned to ignore it.
Hunter: Yeah, me too, but then a breeze of needles hits you in the face. And you're like, "Mm, that's cold."

I proceed to laugh my ass off at Jeff's driving ability:
Hunter: Hahahaha, as we creep, hahaha, ever so slightly, hahaha, up to the curb.  That was fucking classic man.  Vvrrrr, pulling into docking bay one.
We are in the Sheetz parkinglot eating cold pizza and he wants a drink.  He is going to go inside, but I feel too high to do so.  I will lose my shit in front of the officer on call and laugh at his shiny badge.  Jeff wants cottonmouth killer.  I suggest the alcohol in the back and he scowls at me. "Fuck that," is all he says.  He concedes, though, that beer and pizza would be amazing. 
Jeff: Have you ever had just like... two beers... instead of...twenty?

I tell him no. And then here it comes, Jeff's oration on life, and what it is to be a stoner:
Jeff: I realized why being a stoner is not acceptable.  You are not supposed to have this much fun.  Think about it, you can go out and do anything and it's fun if you're high.  And that's just not natural, you're not supposed to have that much fun.  You're supposed to get that much fun out of life.

I laugh in his face, but say he's somewhat right.
Jeff: Think about it, if you cannot get that kind of fun out of just living life, there's something wrong with you.
There's a slight pause as the bass picks up and Bud Gaugh lays down a tempo change.
Hunter: Or.  The chemicals in our brain are different.
Jeff: Exactly, but you shouldn't need to put chemicals in your body.
This goes on for awhile, but ultimately we make fun of stupid people, like this girl from my English class who tried to argue that sodium ions aren't what help cause thought.
Jeff: Oh, I love the comment from that girl--"SALT DOESN'T CONTROL OUR THOUGHT!"
Hunter: Yeah, somebody actually said that to me.

The periodic table is mentioned and we see blue lights flashing across the four lane road in front of us.  Someone just got pulled, which is a really strange thing to see when high.  I call cops "Enforcers" now, because of that.  That's what they are, but that's my high terminology for them, because I think it's best to have different words for the same meaning, so as to take yourself out of a conditioned mindset about things.  It helps expand your view.  Maybe that's bullshit, but it helps me see things differently.

.