How I BeganThe Day At A MLK Celebration And Ended Up At That Same God-Awful Strip Club, Yet Convinced Myself I Was More Noble As The Day Progressed

The story starts with a 110-pound drunk girl in 3-inch heels supporting my 220-pound drunken ass as we waddled through the icy streets of Allston at 3:00 AM Sunday morning. Tes and I had just left Julia’s party, after heroically attempting to finish a keg with the help of only 16 friends (we failed). We were trying to find a cab to split that would take us back to our respective homes in Somerville. Well, we would have been splitting it, if I were carrying any money (I actually did have cash…I just was too drunk to remember that detail).

I know this little tidbit might sound like it triggered some epiphany about how I need to drink less and make better choices, but don’t worry…this isn’t that kind of a story. I’m just relaying it to illustrate how it was possible for me to still be hungover two days later on Monday morning. Thankfully, I didn’t have to go to work. However, I did have to attend a mandatory volunteer service project (now there is an oxymoron). I would be assisting in some capacity at the Mayor’s Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Faneuil Hall. It wasn’t that I was dreading this, exactly. I just wasn’t there for any altruistic reason. I was ready to do this “good” thing, but I was only there because I knew that it was required of me. Given my choice, I probably would have been at home, practicing my golf swing on my roommate’s Wii.

The event was fairly disorganized, but it was interesting. There were so many ministers and politicians making uncomfortable small talk that I felt like I was living in an episode of The Wire. After we finished setting up, serving lunch to old people, and cleaning up, I was free to get on with my day. A few weeks back, Dan and I had made a pact to go drinking after every service project. We had a great time getting to know Julia when we did this in December, so we figured that it should become a tradition. Even though I was dragging, I didn’t feel like this was a challenge I could back down from. We try to get everyone to join us, but only the guys (C.J., Chantha, Dan, and I) were game.

We decided to go to The Tap, a crappy Faneuil Hall area bar that at least had the good sense to realize that it was crappy and price its beer accordingly. We started out with the best intentions. Everyone was planning to have one or two beers, and head home since we all had work the following day. Of course it didn’t turn out that way. The problem with drinking with my co-workers is that we are all very competitive. So when C.J. calls out Dan and Chantha for not drinking fast enough, instead of laughing it off they respond by chugging and ordering another round. I continued to sip my first drink slowly (I could still taste Saturday’s two-day old alcohol), but realized that I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. As a round of shots was ordered, I realized that I had to complete some work before I got caught up in the quickly escalating drunkenness. The bar was nearly empty (as it should be at 6:00PM on a Monday), so I retreated to the back corner and began to call the parents’ of my basketball team. I can sympathize with Jimmy McNulty…making professional calls from a bar can be a little distracting.

By the time I had finished talking to all of the parents, things were getting slurry at the bar. Dan and C.J. were arguing about which one of them is better looking, Chantha was hitting on some girls for us, and I needed another drink so that I could stomach it all. After awhile, we started to discuss what we were going to do next. Three options were presented:

1) Go Home – I was in favor of this option, but I wasn’t ready to be the first to blink.

2) Go to the Glass Slipper – When this was suggested, I laughed and said that there was absolutely no chance that I was going to end up there.

3) The Worst Idea Ever – I am not going to say what this idea was, or even who first suggested it, but I’m just going to say that The Bay of Pigs was better thought out. New Coke had its finger closer to the pulse of the popular climate. Britney, with razor in hand, had a better understanding of the long-term ramifications.

Worst of all, it looked like people were really going to follow through with the Worst Idea Ever. Fortunately, I was with drunken people and drunks are nothing if not suggestible. I realized that no one would commit to the Glass Slipper unless we all were in, so I wholeheartedly jumped on the strip club bandwagon. I was sober, had zero desire to go, but was ready to do this “bad” thing in the interest of saving my friends from themselves.

The Glass Slipper was just as bad as I anticipated. Before we even walked in, C.J. and I had been insulted by the doorwoman (He was a “pussy” for wanting to watch hockey, I was sarcastically called a “young’un” after she checked my ID). Inside wasn’t any better. Monday day shift talent was onstage. C.J. was drunkenly introducing me as Cooper and Chantha was calling himself DeShaun. The first dancer who talked to us told us to get the hell out and go to a normal bar, after we politely turned down a private dance. Within minutes, C.J. was talking about leaving, Chantha was watching a video of his baby cousin on his phone before passing out in the booth, and Dan was sitting in a booth by himself so he wouldn’t be associated with us. It cost me $20 and two hours of my life, but it did give me something that volunteering at the MLK celebration couldn’t. I knew that I did some hard work that I should be proud of.

P.S. – Two other things happened that night that should be mentioned. While commuting from the bar to the Slipper, Dan and I got into a “fight” in the subway station. I totally dominated him and ended up messing up his finger. The fight was funny at the time, but Dan is a boxer and has a fight in a month. I hope I am not the one who knocks him out of the Golden Gloves. What happened to C.J. was much funnier. After C.J. left the club, he took the subway home on the Red Line (here’s a map, if you aren’t familiar with Boston). He got on the train at Park and planned to get off at the Quincy Adams stop at the far Southern end of the Red Line. Unfortunately, he passed out. Two hours later, he woke up and groggily realized that he was at Porter Station at the far Northern end of the line! By the time he finally did make it to the Quincy Adams stop, he had spent nearly three and a half hours on the train. He could have flown to Orlando in that much time!

Why I Miss Omaha

Before I knew him, I couldn’t stand him. When I was a senior in high school, my mom sat me down for a talk. I knew that it must be serious, because formal talks were not something that we did in my family. What made me especially nervous was the presence of my high school football coach. He and my mom had been regularly talking and periodically dating since the end of my freshman year. During this entire time, he and I never spoke about their relationship, nor was he ever in my house. It wasn’t that I was particularly upset about this arrangement, but it was definitely a subject that I avoided thinking about. Now he was in my living room. I knew what was coming before anyone said anything.

Initially, I took the news that my mom was pregnant (at 45!) pretty well. I shook my coach’s hand and promised to be there when they told my brother Jon. I think they were more worried about how he would take it. I was leaving for college in 6 months, but Jon was only a freshman and would still be attending (and playing football for) the high school where both my mom and my coach both taught. When he found out, my brother was initially upset but handled it well and soon warmed to the idea.

I went in the opposite direction. I grew angrier and angrier every day. Rarely a day went by where I didn’t say something to make my mother cry. I regularly skipped school and went from possible valedictorian to nearly failing to graduate. I almost was expelled from school for running a school-wide March Madness pool (thank goodness the principal’s son and a few teachers were involved) and for circulating a “Real” Senior Superlative survey with categories such as Best in Bed, Least Desirable, and Most Likely to Die a Virgin (I still think that was kind of funny).

I barely remember when Cole was born prematurely, just weeks before graduation. I have later been told that it was touch and go for a while, and that my mom was in very poor health, too, but I don’t even think I ever went to the hospital. After everyone came home, I continue to turn my back on the situation and all responsibilities. I spent nearly the entire summer at my girlfriend’s house. I never blamed Cole, but I certainly did not recognize him as my brother. It took a semester at college before I finally started to grow up. And once I gave Cole a chance, it was impossible not to love him. Even if we had to share a bedroom with me for that first summer!

My now ten-year-old brother Cole has grown into the greatest kid in the world. I have suspected this for a few years now, but after working at a school I am ready to say it for certain. I can’t help caring about what he cares about. This means that when he was five, I cared about helping him collecting as many different colored newspaper bags as he could (he was obsessed with collecting the weather-proof bags that newspapers came in). When he was seven, we would play miniature golf five times a week. When he was nine, I helping him expand his ridiculously large NFL and NBA jersey collection. Now it means that when I am in Omaha, I share his obsession with small school Nebraska boys’ basketball. When we play one-on-one, it isn’t Lakers vs. Celtics…it is the Elkhorn Mt. Michael Black Knights vs. the Bennington Badgers.

Our 18-year age difference leads me to look at him more paternally than I do my other siblings. And it leads me to worry and obsess. He’s a fourth-grader, and yet he hasn’t had to lose any of his innocence in the same way that many of the kids that I work with have. He still believes in Santa. He constantly worries about others (“Mom, this girl at school was being teased because she is fat…do you think it makes her sad?”) He doesn’t ever hide his emotions. I worry about what will happen to a child that is this earnest. Over Christmas break, he stopped to ask me what this gesture meant. As I laughed while trying to explain, he looked hurt that I wasn’t taking him seriously. He told me that a 6^th grader showed it to him, and he was embarrassed that he didn’t know what it meant. I still danced around an answer to his question and I was consumed with an overwhelming urge to protect him. I know little things like this are what growing up is all about, but I don’t want it to chew away at the incredible person he is.

Last year, Cole told my mom that he knew that Jon and his parents loved him, but he felt that I loved him most of all. And I’m not sure he is wrong. When he asks why I can’t live in Omaha so that we can see each other all of the time, I never know what to say. I miss my mom, some friends who still live in town, Runza, and Creighton basketball, but thinking about Cole is the only time I ever even consider moving back. When I think about the possibility of seeing Cole every day and watching him grow up, Omaha almost seems like an option. It will never happen, but my heart breaks every time I have to say goodbye to him.

What You Missed in Chicago

One of the best things about reuniting with old friends is that you immediately fall into the old patterns. Alex and Jon become the nice, funny ones, Blake and Reid join them until he gets drunk, I become uber-sarcastic, Jeff and Aaron compete to be more outrageous, Susan keeps us all together, G is all about the camaraderie, Amir shows us his new websites (I’m very, very sorry) and Kevin avoids us for as long as possible. We retell the same stories we have told a hundred times before and we laugh as if we haven’t heard them before. And we start drinking before noon every day like it’s our job.

This New Year’s Eve Party didn’t have the same number of stories as some of the past years (see Exhibits A, B, C, & D), but I’m not sure I have ever had more fun. It was as relaxing and laid-back an experience as being completely bombed for three straights can possibly be. If there is one memory that stands out in my mind from Chicago 07/08, it is drinking and playing beanbags on the roof of a Chicago building for three hours on New Year’s Eve, in a snowstorm. It is as surreal an experience as I can remember. Here are ten more memories (in chronological order) that you didn’t have to be there for to appreciate:

1) Big Life Events – Living in Boston, it is easy to avoid the fact that I am supposed to be growing up. Most of the people I hang out with remember Nirvana as an oldies band, while my roommates are all older than me yet no further advanced. In Chicago, I quickly realized that just because I’m standing still, time isn’t. I found out that one good friend is engaged, I saw another for the first time since he was married, and I’m guessing that a few more will get engaged sometime in 2008. Even Amir has a steady girlfriend. That is a far cry from hitting on college students with Dan while doing my best not to look creepy. At least Jeff was around all weekend to make me feel better about myself.

2) New Friends – One of my favorite things about my weekend was the interesting mix of people that we brought together. The Rice/Trinity/Baylor Med School meshing led to some interesting interactions. Here are two of my favorites (paraphrasing from drunken memory):

1) Anne: “Elsa, you are always flirting with random boys at bars.”

Elsa: “No, they were just flirting with me.”

Anne: “What’s your secret?”

Elsa: “I act really slutty.”

2) Aaron (drunkenly, jokingly(?), and hopefully some extreme non-sequitir): “We should just go over there and have sex with all of the Arab women.”

Amir: “And the best part is, they are the ones who get arrested for it.”

Aaron: “I think you and I are going to be friends.”

3) Garcia’s Shots and Blake’s Disregard for the Guy Code – The pure evilness of that last quote makes a little more sense when you consider what Aaron was putting himself through on New Year’s Eve Eve. After a relatively slow start to the evening at a sports bar and an Irish whiskey bar, Aaron decided to take matters into his own hands. When we arrive at the next bar, I immediately head to the rest room. By the time I get out, Aaron has already ordered a round of Irish car bombs and another round of…umm…”chaser shots”. Five minutes later, he was ordering Jager-bombs. Twenty minutes later, tequila. Then whiskey. At one point, Reid walked up to Aaron who was standing catatonically in front of another group of shots. Reid said, “What’s up, Aaron?” Aaron glares at the bartender, points at Reid, and yells, “Tell him what to do!” The bartender answers, “Take a shot???” Aaron is an overwhelming presence when he is drinking (and especially when he is buying). It got so bad that Blake couldn’t handle the thought of taking one more shot and did the unthinkable…he went and told Aaron’s wife (Susan) on him. Not long after, Susan sent Aaron home. In the vernacular of my school, Aaron was forcin’ it, Blake snitched to the principal, and Aaron got suspended.

4) Alex’s Love – The Old Faithful of any get together is Alex getting drunk and telling all of us how much he loves us, his girlfriend, his family, that drunken guy in the corner, and that advertisement over the urinal. You can tell that he hasn’t been drinking too much in Atlanta lately. First, he announced to the whole bar that he would rather have sex with his girlfriend than any girl in the bar (which is actually a nice sentiment if you think about it). Then he told two female friends of Amir that he was “not sexually attracted to (them) in any way”, but that he liked them as people. He later explained that he wanted to make them feel safe so that we could hook up with them. There are also multiple pictures of him kissing Jeff on the lips. This would be much more explainable if they weren’t taken on different nights.

5) Munoz’s Pull – Deaf girl aside, all of the rumors that I have heard coming out of Houston are that Jeff is maturing, that he is hardly going out anymore, etc. That may all be true in his day-to-day life, but Jeff on vacation certainly hasn’t changed. The night started off calm enough, but sometime during the cab ride from the sports bar to the Irish bar, Jeff got Munoz-drunk. To those of you who are uninitiated, this means his face turns purple, he stops making sense, and he approaches every girl between the ages of 16-60 that he sees. He will have absolutely no memory of anything that happens after this point. This particular time, Jeff was in particularly rare form. He couldn’t hold more than a one- sentence conversation, multiple strangers approached me to ask if my friend was ok, and Aaron (in the condition that he was described above) was actively concerned about him. The one thing I forgot to mention about being Munoz-drunk, however, is that he is a regular Energizer bunny. No matter how many drinks he has, he doesn’t fall down. He is like some Charles Bukowski/Jason Voorhies hybrid. Anyways, around 1:00 AM we decide to leave and get some food. Somehow, I end up talking to this group of girls on the street and manage to convince them to come take more shots with us at this bar that we are passing. After we drink, Jeff is talking to a brunette girl, Blake is talking to a girl who looks just like him, and G and I are talking to a blond (who obviously prefers G to me…now that is an event that will lead you to take a long look in the mirror). Anyways, not 5 minutes after meeting us, the girls asks us what is wrong with Jeff and calls him “creepy”. The next thing he knows, Jeff is waking up in bed next to this same blond. He doesn’t know her name, he doesn’t know how he did it, and neither do we (we had left him at the bar with these girls after he…rightly…assured us that he was getting somewhere). I am honestly not sure how I am going to be able to write regular columns without Jeff around for material.

6) Reid’s Broken Glasses – After a long night of New Year’s Eve Eve drinking, the night was coming to an end. The sleeping arrangements in Blake and Amir’s apartment weren’t too exciting…there were three air mattresses and one very comfortable couch. I noticed Reid was getting up from the couch to get some water, I capitalized and jumped on the couch to try to claim it for the night. Without missing a beat, Reid jumped on top of me and started humping my leg. Two seconds later, Blake jumped on Reid, quickly followed by someone jumping on Blake (Alex? Jon?). Everyone's friends have latent dispositions when they are drunk...right?While I was being violated, a pair of glasses fell on my face. Drunkenly, I thought I softly set them down on the table. Unfortunately, I underrated my drunken strength and I accidentally threw them across the room, into a wall, breaking the frame. Umm, sorry Reid.

7) The Reading – Before the New Year’s Eve Party, we all gathered in Blake and Amir’s apartment for dinner and drinks. In what may become an annual tradition, we re-read the easiest column that I never wrote. If you haven’t read it before, or have not read it in awhile, I think that it might be time that you take a look. “I appreciate you taking me seriously and valuing who I am.”

8) Blake’s New Girlfriend – At first, I wasn’t sure what to think of Blake’s new girlfriend. She was quiet (possibly because she was present during “The Reading” and I wasn’t sure how she would fit in with our group of friends. At the New Year’s Eve Party, she set my mind at ease. After a few drinks, she came up to me, skipped the small talk, and said, “Aren’t you glad you aren’t that fat girl standing by herself at the food table on New Year’s Eve?” I guess she’ll fit in just fine.

9) The Party – The party at the Wyndham was pretty amazing. Everyone was dressed to the nines, the liquor was top shelf, and I can’t remember the last time there were so many gorgeous women in one place. The party was divided into two floors. The lower floor was packed with the beautiful people of Chicago. There was a light show, girls were dancing on stage, and the dance floor was packed. The only problem was that there was a 15-minute wait for drinks. After awhile, we grew tired of this and decided to check out the scene on the upper floor. Upstairs was much emptier, the people were noticeably less attractive, and the DJ was ridiculously corny. But, there was absolutely no line for drinks. I remarked that I felt like we had moved to the JV party. Someone said, would you rather be drunk with the JV team, or sober with the varsity. Of course we stayed upstairs. I am still not sure if this is heroic or sad.

10) The Hospital Incident – When the lights came on at the Wyndham, we drunkenly began wandering the streets of Chicago in search of an after-party. It didn’t take long before we realized that we were lost. Fortunately, Blake and Amir realized that we were right next to the hospital where they work. To celebrate in the New Year and take out some frustration from the old one, Blake and Amir decided to relieve themselves on the building. When Jeff saw what was happening, his eyes lit up. After a spectacular fall on the ice, Jeff made it just in time to turn an unsuspecting Blake’s body so that he was now facing an even more surprised Amir. As Blake put it the next day, “I got to pee on my place of employment and my roommate, and I couldn’t even be blamed for it. Not a bad way to ring in the New Year!” Indeed.