Saturday, April 14, 2007

Ya gotta be kidding me

I would ask if my life could be any worse but I know better. There is no limit to how bad things can get. If anything can go wrong, it will. I am the Murphy's Law poster child.

In the last two weeks I have broken up with my girlfriend, had my dad go in for emergency surgery, and now my apt flooded. So today I will be spending my day throwing water logged shit in to the alley and draging my belongings up to the second floor where I will now be staying. For $250 more a month. Not horrible but I so need teh money to buy a place. I have know the benifits of owning over renting forever but have never gotten up off my ass and done it. I am now in panic mode. I just can't stand it anymore.

Wish me luck. Today should be a complete fiasco. And I can't even get drunk after because Monkey is with me this weekend. I am sure this how she wanted to spend her day.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

48 hours of Hell-o-matic

48 hours. Seems like a week! 48 hours ago I was at work, after working a night shift the night before and getting only 4 hours of sleep. Easter. Yeah, Hoppy Easter to you too. Why people go to the ER on a holiday I will never know. Actually about half of the people I saw needed to be there which is a higher percentage than usual. Who brings their kids to an ER for a runny nose on Easter? Hell who brings their kids to an ER for a runny nose? Everyone, apparently. Trust me I see more coughs and runny noses than almost anything else. What really kicked my ass on Sunday was the lacerations. I actually enjoy suturing but it is crazy time consuming. Especially the cosmetic stuff. I put 30 stitches into a kid who got bit by his St. Bernard. He somehow thought it was a good idea to try and play with the dog while he was fighting with his other dog over food. The two things you never do are approach a dog while it is eating or fighting. Why no one saw the combination as a disaster waiting to happen is beyond me.

So I work. And finish working. The plan was then to go see Bartender Megs and meet Matador and Ab-o-rama at the local dive. And drink diet coke. Yes you heard me right. The plan was diet coke. Some one remind to stick with the plan next time. Please.

I order a SoCo and diet. (Bachelor Party in Miami in July, gotta bring my A game) It tastes like ass. Why does bar diet always taste like ass. And not good ass either. Drink #2 is SoCo and coke. Also tastes like ass. Apparently the CO2 cylinder needs to be changed or something and Megs is too lazy to do this. Which she admits happily. Some where around drink #5 she get her boyfriend Musclebound Joe to change the cylinder. For which I thank him heartily. I then procede to invite him on the Miami leg of the World Drinking tour. Why I am telling this engaged man about all the beautiful women in Miami in front of his fiancee (she was too far to hear. I think)I have no idea. Matador and I had already invited Megs and Musclebound Joe to Pamplona Spain. We are going July 2008, the trains a loading, all aboard. So I talk to Musclebound Joe, I drink, I talk to Matador, I drink, I talk to Ab-o-rama, I drink, I talk to Juggs (guess why she gets that name? They are purchased and she feels the need to tell everyone that as soon as she meets them), I drink. This is where things really go south. She starts talking about Red. I talked about the breakup a little last post but to recap. I dumped her because she was acting shady. Avoiding me. Going to the bar when she said she was going home. Shit like that. I thought she might be cheating but I had no definite proof and I didn't really want to know. The problem is we hang around with all the same people so as soon as we broke up all this information. I had already heard that Red slept with Shithead at Juggs party. While I was in London.

So anyway, I am talking to Juggs and she says "Can I ask you a question?" And I know the correct answer to this is NO! because it is always something you don't want to hear. I consider this breifly and then say "sure". "When you slept with Red did you always use a condom?" Not what I really wanted to hear. One of the reasons I was drinking like an idiot was that I had seen red out a couple times last week because of Ab-o-rama's weeklong B-day celebration. Now the downward spiral begins. I have a couple more drinks. Megs calls last call and pours me a drink without asking. Which is what I would want her to do. Then we go to Matador and Ab-o-rama's place, which is right across the street from work. They are roommates, not a couple. We pour drinks and I start talking to Aborama about Red. They are friends and hang out a lot. This is a mistake. She starts telling me things I don't want to know. I say don't cook me food I am go to sleep at the hospital, and walk into the bathroom. When I get out I lay down on the couch and Aborama says are you leaving or staying. I say staying. So she opens up something different and cooks me some delish chinese food. At least I think it was Chinese. ish.
Matador gets a call from possibly future baby's momma. Abs and I go into Matador's room to watch How I met your Mother on DVD. Rent, no, buy this and watch it. It is the most addicting comedy on TV right now. We are watching this laughing and I am trying hard not to talk about Red. But there is a subplot in the show about this guy who is love with one of his female friends but can't have her. I can't take this and I leave. I am such a Ted.

I go to the hospital to sleep. It is not until I get there that I realise (British spelling I know. I am also really fond of behaviour) it is 3:30am and I have to start work at 7. I call down to the secretary, who is an idiot, and ask him to call me in the call room at 6:30. I give him the extension. Which he repeats back to me, wrong. I give it to him again and this time he repeats correctly. But never calls me. I sleep through the alarm until 8:20. So I get down stairs and change into scrubs and am in the ER by 8:30. To find out I am working with my boss. Oh, Joy. He says nothing but I know he is pissed. Luckily it wasn't to busy, so he wasn't getting killed, but still an hour an half by your self ehn you are supposed to have help kind of sucks. The first couple of hours kind of suck. I am a little hung over but crazy tired. I haven't mentioned it. My dad is in the hospital after emergency surgery last Wed. He is doing better. I call him from work and he sounds great. He talks more than I heard him say in 3 days. Unfortunately I am at work and wanted to get him off the phone. I talk to my mom and make plans to pick her up and take her to the hospital after work. I get off an hour late. Traffic sucks. I don't get to the hospital until 7p. My dad is dissappointed because he wanted me to see him walk. Which is big because he couldn't even get out of bed for the first three days. He did make iti to the bathroom while I was there in case you care. How I met your mother was on TV while I was there so that was cool.

On my way from work to the hospital I kept doing the "I'm not sleeping" head jerk and tried desperately not to hit the car in front of me or drift into the next lane. Even when I first got there I was pretty sleepy but after talking and watching TV 8:45 rolls around and I am suddenly wide awake. Working nights has so fucked me up that even when I don't work nights 9pm shows up and BAM! I'm ready to go.

Earlier in the evening Hottie sent me a text message that she was at work to night. So I sent Matador a text saying Hottie is at Bella's. Where are you sexypants Yes I called another man sexypants. It came to me in the moment. Don't tell anyone. I am not going to. So a half hour goes by and I think of calling him when I remember that he is at work. I consider shaving and getting ready to go out but my plans for the year include Hawaii, Miami, and buying a condo. Which means saving money. Which means not drinking. Which means I need a new hobby. Anyway I figure Matador won't get off till 11:30 and he won't want to come in to the City.

I was wrong. 11:43 the messages start. u r just mean. that's what friends are for R U at Bellas now. No, can't fly without my wingman What time do you work tomorrow? Wednesday See you in 40. Suit up.

I did. Not in a suit but I was looking sexy. I was going to have a drink a home but pre-medicating, even going out so late, just means I would get even more loaded and spend even more money. Matador shows up and we bee-line it to Bella's. We end up parking 2 1/2 blocks away but we figure that is just more sobering up time before we get back into the car. Taking a cab was out because it was 1am and the allotted time was dwindling. That and it was fucking cold out.

We get into Bella's to see Hottie's smiling face. She was only one of two women in the entire bar. Which was fine because talking with Heather is one of my favorite pastimes. We laugh, we joke, we drink. Hottie had given us 2 strong drinks and a shot, and we noticed that the bar back was covering the alcohol and Heather was pouring a shot for the entire bar. Our drinks were empty so I asked if we missed call. She said honey, last call was before you even walked in the door. I smiled and said then I guess we did ok. We looked at our tab which was $8 for 4 drinks and 2 shots. I guess we did more than ok. The barback grabs our glasses presumably to wash them when he says what were you drinking again? Sweet. We drink the second round of complimentary shots, as he puts our refreshed drinks on the bar. 4 shots 6 drinks 8 dollars. We tip 12.

Then we go next door. We invited Heather who said she would show after closing up. She tells us that Batman is bartending next door and if we say we are with Heather we will get hooked up. We enter the pub and there is no bartender. We wait we look around. There is a drunk guy in a cubs shirt havering to a woman at one end of the bar and two girls at the other end, one of which is making out with a guy too short to get a girl that cute. Another minute goes by and a guy walks behind the bar. Makeout guy. "Are you Batman?" We ask in unison. He looks at us crossed eyed and says yes. We explain the Heather Connection and we get drinks. We joke around with him for a whiel then he goes back to girlfriend/girl he picked up today, were not sure which.

Heather shows. Brings a guy friend who is restaurant manager at the W. He is forgiven for having a cock. We drink, we joke we do shots. Bartender disappears. Also missing is makeout chick. For several minutes. Then Cubs shirt goes looking for him. Makeout chick's friend cuts him off before he can make it to the back room. Cubs shirt calls out his name but sits down. Matt remarks how the friend is a good wingman and wants to go talk to her. Hottie says don't do it. She was just protecting her friend don't go talk to her. Matador thanks Hottie for being a good wing man. Batman shows up a few minutes later. The conversation about wing men leads to Hottie agreeing to be our wing man on further adventures. Excellent. We get our bill, we ordered a total of 7 drinks and 5 shots. Bill: $24. Hottie connection: Priceless. We tip $20 and call it a day. We hope he remembers us. If not we just have to say remember the time you banged that chick in the back room while working?

And of course no stop on the World Drinking Tour would be complete without stupid pictures.

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Friday, April 06, 2007

D-Day part one

Why I always start writing at the worst possible times I will never know. Like when I know I am going to be late for something or at 4am when I have to be up by 7. Like now.

Anyway my last post as it turns out to be the first stop on the Matt & Dave World Drinking Tour. The second stop unfortunately was Joliet, IL. But the next few stops, London, Manchester, and Oxford, England were much more interesting. I took about 450 pictures so you will get to see some highlights. Including pretty decent pics of Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds. But unfortunately you won’t see them now. The reason for this is that another one of my bad habits is that I take inordinate amounts of time trying to post about stuff I should of posted about 3 weeks ago and ignore the here and now. The here and now may not be quite as interesting but it is the here and now.

I was going to leave this to the end, but I dumped Red. Speaking of not posting, Red dumped me in November, because her mom thought I am too old (I am). Then we started dating again slowly. It started out as hanging out together, then sleeping together when drunk, then sleeping together while sober, then she started telling me she loved me again. Everyday while I was in London. Then she started pulling away again. As soon as I got back she so happy to see me. For two days. Then she was always busy. And always going out drinking without me. Which is the same thing she did to the last guy. The last straw was last Sunday when I was off during the day but had to work at night. I woke up uncharacteristically at about 12:30pm called and left a message. She did call, I just hung around the house. It had been rainy and cloudy the day before so I had no interest in going out side and I can’t see out of my apartment unless I make an effort. I did not. So I leave for work at 8 pm and it is gorgeous out. It was warmer outside than in my apartment. At least 70 degrees. So I go to work. I leave her a message. She calls me back. At 2am. She’s sorry she did call because she woke up at 2pm and was late for a cookout. A cookout hosted by someone I hang out with. Not quite a friend. A bartender at a place near work but I hang out with outside of there too. We were watching NCAA basket ball 2 days before. All the people there where people I knew. Not once did she think to call me? Recockulous. But that was it. The line in the sand. Crossed. But I have been known to be a gentleman, and we work together, and I wasn’t going to break up with someone over the phone. So before I went to bed on Monday morning I called and left a message saying I wanted to talk. Then when I woke up I called again and she said she could meet me before she started work at 3pm. But she took to long and I had to go see Monkey. I told her I needed to see her after work. It’s a date. I see Monkey. I go home. I take a nap. Matt calls or texts, I don’t remember, at about 7:30p. He wants to go drinking I want dinner. He is at dinner and in Joliet. I say I have to go out there anyway to meet Red but I will need a drink after so I’m in. At 9pm he wants to know where I am. I haven’t left the house because I am a semi-pro procrastinator. (It doesn’t pay well). I go eat at a bar down the street. It kills me not to order a drink. I get back to the house at 10:30p. I call Red to let her know I am on the way. She gets off at 11:30. She says it is super busy and doesn’t know when she will get off. Don’t come now. See me tomorrow morning at Mom’s we can spend the whole day together. Wait what? I have been saying it is important we need to talk it won’t take more than a few minutes but see doesn’t get the hint. What makes her think there is going to be an all day?

Sooooo, I text Matt. Red is schizophrenic. Let’s go drinking. $2.50 Miller Lite and 25 cent wings at a place by my house. In the City? No by my other house. Yes in the City. He calls we talk. He comes into the City. The Matt & Dave World Drinking Tour resumes.

We have a couple drinks at the house then walk down to innjoy. Where they have no SoCo. No SoCo. At all. And they call themselves civilized! So we have one beer and get the fuck out of Dodge. We walk the down the street to EasyBar. That name is so good in so many ways. It’s a cool bar with laid back bartenders. The scenery is nice, we sit down at the bar and order. The bartender then proceeds to somehow suspend the law of physics by pouring a half a bottle of soco into a rocks glass and still left room for a splash of coke. We talk we drink we look at the women. Including the two hot ones sitting next to us. Which we soon talk to. They’re drunk and we’re on our way. Mercedes is a meeting planner and Angelina, well I don’t think I ever found out exactly what Angelina does but I know she has done at least commercial voice over. I am sure she has done some modeling because she is gorgeous. We call her Angelina because Matt thinks she looks like Angelina Jolie. Not a twin but definitely some resemblance. We talk to them but make the mistake of talking to Mercedes more than Angelina. Enter Gus. Gus is a six-foot five 275lb black man who is a friend of Mercedes but took no time becoming friendly with Angelina. Last Call is sounded and we order. Of course. But I also take the opportunity to ask Mercedes, Where next? Oh it should be home but I guess it is going to be The Continental. The Continental where’s that. Chicago and California. Chicago and California? Is there anything at Chicago and California. There is now. And off we went Matt and I in a cab and Mercedes, Angelina and Gus in In Mercedes’ car.

The Continental turns out to be a very cool bar for people with more than 5 tatoos. Matador was in heaven. As soon as we walked in I said this is your kind of place. “This is my kind of place.” “I know”. We order a drink, we enjoy the music, we look around. We drink some more, we listen to more music, we talk. Still No Mercedes or Angelina. We figure we’d been had but at least the bar wasn’t far and was pretty cool. Then Just as we had written them off, Mercedes walks in. Where’s Angelina? In the car. With Gus. Making out. Nice. Time for another drink. Mercedes is cool. We talk. Angelina and Gus show up. Angelina is drunk and she knows it and says out loud that if she has one more drink she will end up going home with Gus. So she has another drink. Then goes home with Gus. We close out The Continental and Mercedes offers us a ride so we are following her and Matt says Oh is this your car? Pointing at a Mercedes Benz. One second later she presses a button and the doors open and lights go on. And you thought Mercedes was her real name. So we get a ride home in a really nice Mercedes. Is there any other kind. She pulls up in front of the house and I say would you like to come in for a night cap. I turn to Matt and say I have always wanted to say that. And she says yes. There really are things out there that can still surprise me.

Nothing really happened, we each had one drink. We talked to 6am. We did get her number though. So I didn’t get laid or get to make out. But this woman was in my apartment at 6am.
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