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and I dream of something wild ~total eclipse of the heart, Jim Steinman Monday, 6:22pm I was lying down on my bed trying to take a nap. Really, I was just procrastinating. And then, all of a sudden, Karen started pounding on my door, "Sarah!!! Your friends are here! They want let in! They say they know you!" I got up. It was magen, and four of her friends. I met magen online a while ago and we went out (to a movie) once before... she's in high school and she lives about a block away from campus. I opened the door, and she hugged me, spun me around in a circle, and told me they were here to kidnap me and take me to her house where I would drink naughty things and have lots of fun. I said, "let me go change." So, it's Monday night, they're on spring break and I have classes the next day... and I didn't even think twice. Magen went to get her car while I was getting ready, leaving me with her friends. She told me to "hook them up" if I could, and the scary thing is I knew what that meant. So when Sara R, the only 21 year old I really know came over and asked if I wanted anything from the store, I said, "alcohol." and she laughed at me and yelled, "No way, it's the middle of the week you lush!" (well, I thought it was funny. I think my friends thought she was serious.) And then came back a minute later and asked if I was serious and what did we want. We told her three six packs of Zima and hung out in my room until she got back. We blew bubbles and wasted a whole roll of film and I introduced them to Karen and Sarah C and Tracy and everyone who came in my room and saw new people was shocked. It was great. Sara got back with the Zima and we paid her and said thank you way too many times and then took off for Magen's house. I brought pajamas since we knew nobody would be able to drive me home. We had to take two cars- I rode with Magen and Kat and we discussed various methods of getting alcohol and how to make fakes until we got to the corner store, where we bought Jolly Ranchers, and then we went to Magen's house. It took about ten minutes. We were barely in the door before they broke out the drinks, Zima really isn't bad. I put a grape Jolly Rancher in my first one and a lemon in my second. I don't recommend the lemon. We played Ani and Dan Bern and Tori Amos way too loud and danced around and Kat did tarot readings. I really don't believe in tarot (or much of anything, for that matter) but I was really pretty shocked. From the first card she told me that I am looking for something and in looking for it I'm neglecting things I should probably be paying more attention to. The second card reinforced that, only it told her that I wasn't neglecting it because I'm lazy but because it just isn't important anymore. And I thought, okay, I have a paper due on Friday on books I haven't even read yet, I have two classes tomorrow, and here I am drinking Zima with a bunch of people I barely know. But I had so much fun. We all got slightly drunk, and after Tera and Magen finished having sex in the upstairs bedroom (umm... yeah.) we watched Empire Records. And I hung out with Michelle and Kat while the others smoked (marijuana) and that was cool, too. Kat did my nails and they asked all kinds of questions about school and for once I actually told them the whole story. And they thought it was cool. Then we started to watch the Big Lebowski, but I fell asleep less than halfway through it. I can't even tell you how much fun I had. It really doesn't take much. It's been so long since I had actual social interaction on a regular basis. I think maybe I'm a little bit like the kids who go away to college, and they suddenly realize nobody will yell at them if they drink every night so they do because they can. I don't know if it's possible to overdose on hanging out, but I would sure love to try. I didn't even think twice about going with them. I should have. I should've said that this is the busiest week of the year and I need to work and I should've worked on my paper. But school has really come second this semester. It just doesn't seem near as important as having fun. I think it should be. I think it should be more important but it isn't and that just doesn't bother me. I spent a long time without friends and it didn't bother me at the time. I think I must've told myself somewhere along the line that I couldn't have friends, because I'm really more flattered than anything else when someone asks me to hang out with them. I can never believe that I have something to add to the experience. And I hate that about me, because my mom does the same thing. Always, when I ask if she wants to play a game she suggests maybe I'd have more fun playing something different with my dad. I used to think she just didn't want to play with me, but over winter break I got both of them to play yahtzee with me and as we were sitting down to play my mom suggested that maybe we'd have more fun if me and my dad played Star Wars Monopoly... and I said, "you always suggest that we'd have more fun without you." and she laughed and then my dad said, "You do." and she said, "I guess that's because I think maybe you would." And I hate that I identify with a feeling I always hated my mom for having. I don't want to be like her, and I am. I am more than I could ever admit. Anyway, back to the story. I fell asleep during the Big Lebowski and then woke up and moved to the couch in the family room. I think I slept about five hours, which is better than the last time I drank. I'm discovering that when I drink, I'll sleep for a few hours and then suddenly be wide awake and that's it, there's nothing I can do about it. Friday night was the worst- I went to bed at 4:00 and woke up at 6:30 and I wasn't tired again until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Luckily, I'm not the only one, Michelle and Amanda were up pretty soon after I was. We sat around talking for a while... and really, that is the most fun thing. To sit in a room, with no tv and no music and talk. I could do that for hours, and I think I did. Around nine we started raiding the kitchen. I love kitchens. You don't realize how good it is to eat toast with peanut butter and jelly until you can't make toast anymore. Then we hung out for a little while longer, and after a, "Where the hell did my keys go??? I knew I'd lose them! I showed you me putting them in my bag! You saw me put them in my bag!" crisis (They were in Magen's car, my license is in a thing on my keychain and apparently when I took it out to point out the tricks to making fakes I forgot to put it back in the bag.) Tera brought me back to campus. I was wearing the same clothes I did the day before and I hadn't taken a shower, but I had just enough time to run to my room, dump the clothes out of my bag, throw the books in, and speedwalk to class. It was 11:30, I'd been gone for 17 hours. When I got back to my room after class there were maintenence men working on our shower (yeah, the one time I really need a shower, it's not in working order.) so I sat down at the computer. Five minutes later Tracy walked in and asked me to explain mp3s. So I started showing her, and I knew she was looking at me funny but I ignored her. About 15 minutes later Erin came in and said, "What the fuck time did you get in last night, party girl?" and I said 11:30 this morning. She didn't say anything else so I kept explaining to Tracy until finally Erin yelled, "Are you gonna tell me what happened or not?" and Tracy yelled, "I've been in here 20 minutes and she still hasn't told me!" and I yelled, "You didn't ask me!" and they both yelled they didn't think they had to. I said I just spent the night at my friend's house. And Tracy asked, "so what'd you do with the three six-packs of Zima?" and we were all loving every minute of this. They don't expect me to drink, they don't really expect me to do anything. And they were having so much fun hearing about me actually doing something and I was having even more fun pretending I wasn't gonna tell them. Of course Tracy wasn't there when I got the alcohol, which means Sara told her, which just fascinates me. I really wish I could have that conversation on tape. "Listen to this. M made me buy her three six-packs of Zima." "What?? Why??" the three is apparently important... if it had just been one they would've thought it was just for me and that wouldn't have been quite as weird. I explained that there were six of us and that it was all gone by midnight. Tracy's said, "That's still three apiece and Zima's strong shit!" I nodded and went back to explaining mp3s. Until Erin piped up and said, "So are you gonna tell me what happened or not?" ...again. I kinda thought I just had. So I told her, we just sat around listening to Ani and doing Tarot card readings and drinking Zima, and oh, we watched Empire Records. They're still talking about it, all of them. I answered the door around 7pm today with a cup of tea in my hand, it was Sara and Erin... "What are you drinking? Are you sick?" "No, I'm just..." "M's got a hangover M's got a hangover!!!!" "whoo!!! Go M!" "I never even drank on a Monday before!!!" Just two seconds ago while I was writing this Sara's boyfriend (the one who technically bought us the alcohol, since he was the only one with cash right then.) came in and asked if I got hammered last night. I said only kinda and he said, "I hear ya. As long as you got kinda hammered." Did I mention that I'm loving this? I'm not at all sure why. I think it might be the attention, although I don't think so. Or maybe it is. I tend to feel invisible. That could be what it's all about. This journal, dancing in a cage with bunny ears on my head, taking off and drinking on a Monday night... I don't think there's really anything wrong with attention. As long as I'm not doing it solely for that. I'm doing it more for me than them, that's all that's important. I didn't even really get drunk. I had two Zimas and some vodka. (I don't know how much vodka cuz it was in orange juice and I didn't see her mix it. It wasn't much.) I love being around people who like my music and except maybe for Amanda they're all very out, which is liberating, just being around people who are braver than I currently am. And at least two of them don't shave. They're more like me. The people I hang out with now are more like who I wish I was and who I'd like to be a little bit more than who I actually am. And if they had asked me, I probably would've gone back tonight, no matter how much I know I shouldn't. ~me |