I can really be a dick sometimes

I'm at work, and this girl that I have been trying to get the attention of for several weeks has come into the bar again. Things are going well, and she even gets my number. This girl is really cute, and I really want to get to know her better. Of course, my friends tell me that she is a bitch and that her friend is a total whore. Well, none of that matters to me because I want this girl.

2 hours later, her friend is walking towards me, and I suddenly feel that urge to impulsively kiss her. We lock lips and start making out. Mind you, the girl I like is standing not 20 feet away. We separate and she grabs my phone and calls her number. "Call me when you close the bar", she says and they walk out. It doesn't hit me that I just destroyed any chance with the one I ACTUALLY LIKE until later. But lets not get too far ahead...

I call her at 3am. She answers and tells me to come to her house. The other one is there as well. We meet up, I take them over to a friend's house to drink a little and they get a little high (thankfully I am allergic to pot and abstained) and then we head back to her house. The girl I like leaves while 'whore' and I are practically dry-humping up her walkway. Then she tells me, "I live with my mom. We need to be quiet."

"No problem", I say with a smile. She shakes her head, "I am loud though." Stupid me hears this and thinks, "and this is a bad thing?" We head up to her room. Happy time commences, and I quickly find myself either shushing her in her ear, or kissing her in such a way that she can only moan loudly, which was also too loud, and then I try the 'force her to bite/suck my neck/chest/shoulder' manuever. This works only slightly (actually it worked rather well and I got careless and started really going to town) because suddenly she releases from my neck, and starts screaming and clawing my back with her nails as I am driving into her with everything I have.

That was it. It was maybe 5 seconds after that that the light in the room was suddenly flashing on, blinding me and causing both of us to come to a stop as we realized that her mother was yelling at the top of her lungs. As I am frantically looking for my boxers, she is trying to get her mother to back out of the room, stark assed naked, and I find my boxers. With the condom still on, and my pants halfway up my knees I am gathering my shirt and boots and heading down the stairs as her mother is screaming at the both of us.

I can honestly say I have never before run down a street half naked, condom still on, trying to fish the keys to my car from a pocket hovering at about my knees....

I made a mistake recently. On a quest to have 'fun' I got nice and drunk, and then decided to chase down and wrestle two of my friends. I admit, while this behavior can be somewhat healthy among normal men who are drinking, I don't think choking one until he has tears while another is yelling for you to stop is very healthy.

After that episode, I decided that I wanted to keep my little party going, and began an ill-fated hunt for coke. Mind you, I hadn't done coke in nearly 2 years (I think) and you can see that I was clearly on a path of self destruction. While the dealer had said he had what I needed, it turned out to my surprise (what? The drug dealer turned out to not be a good guy? - Stu) that what he had just lined up for me was meth. That's right folks, I have now done the one drug I said I would never do. 14 hours later I went to work (at a bar!) coming down so badly I thought I was going to die.

Panthers

This was back in 2002, before I met my soon to be wife who subsequently became my soon to be ex-wife.

My roommates, Tom and Nate, and I along with my Indian friend Rahul (which we all constantly mispronounced as Raul) went to the bars after much cajoling on mine and Rahul's part. Seems my roommates were getting pretty tired of going out for what were supposed to be group fun nights that always ended the same, that is with me leaving early with some girl, and they basically made me promise to spend the night hanging with them. Of course this was always my plan. Something I can honestly say is that I seldom, if ever, have a definitive plan for evenings at the bars.

We walked down to Lasalle's, a pretty big place (especially for Chico) that had an even bigger outdoor area in the back and always had a good gathering of chicks who were single, or otherwise didn't give a shit if they were actually dating someone at the time. We walked into a very packed night, the music was bumping, girls were dancing everywhere, and instantly we knew this was going to be a great night. I told Tom and Nate that Rahul and I would meet them on the back patio, and he and I proceeded to the bar so that he could help me get the first round of drinks (one good thing was that the four of us all drank whisky-cokes).

Rahul and I stepped up to the bar, and only after I stopped talking to him did I notice that this insanely hot dark-haired chick was standing next to me. Something about the night, my slight buzz from the whisky-cokes we had consumed at the house, and the atmosphere at the club had triggered a near instantaneous BPD surge in me, and I was electrified with energy and confidence. Without blinking I instantly smiled at her, pointed at her forearm, and said "Nice pussy".

Oh, right I forgot to mention that on the inside of her left forearm she had a full on tattoo of a black panther that went from wrist to elbow. Her immediate response to this very stupid introduction? "It moves." To which she licked the entire tattoo and rotated her hand so that, indeed, the panther looked like it was moving. Within 12 seconds I had just learned that a) she was hot, b) she apparently liked me enough to respond to my lame-ass pickup line, and c) she was Irish. That's right folks. Full-on Irish accent. I was now in overdrive.

Theresa, it was made clear to me, was in the States for school at Chico State for Social Work (bonus! She's a freak.) And was newly single (proof that even hot chicks can be dumped.) She was also ready to leave the bar, and was about to sign her credit card receipt. What to do....

"Rahul, take this $20 and buy the drinks for you guys, I am out of here." And the Irish lass and I left the club while Rahul blankly stared at me with a look of shock.

My roommates stopped going out with me, and instead I would have to meet up with them when I could find them out at the bars. Of course, it turned out later that the non-gay roommate became accomodating to the gay roommate when he consumed enough whisky, so perhaps their nights out together was for more than just ire at my frequent bailing on them?

Pangs

"Falling, yes I am falling, and she keeps calling me back again."

It started last Friday night, and has not let go. I have no more meds, and the BPD/ADHD is firing on all 27 thousand cylinders. It's a strange feeling, emanating from what feels like my spine, radiating outward and around to my sides. Akin to goosebumps, and yet noticeably different.

My hands tremble slightly when I hold them out. My mind is racing with things I want to do. Play guitar, go for a drive (Arizona is close by and new adventure never tasted so great!), type, read, read what? History. Wikipedia. Google the news, and enter random words. All these things last a period of a few minutes at most, then they cycle. I want to play pool, guitar. I want to drive. I want to go for a run (damned meniscus tear!), I want to see the beach!!!

I'm out of control. Sure, it doesn't look like it, but I'm a loaded gun with a well-oiled hammer ready to slip and fire at the slightest jarring. I know that I should find a room with a lock, snip my battery cable so that I cannot drive, and buckle down for the inevitable crash. But it gets unbearable. How do you wrestle your own conscience? How do you tell yourself that you cannot have that candy? That you cannot drink a nice glass of cold water, when you feel soooo thirsty?

What I saw as me being responsible, being sane and safe (to the point that everyone around me has been saying I am a "white sock" - trust me it doesn't matter what it means so long as you believe that they are wrong. Dead wrong.). I even convinced myself these past days that I was cured. Who needs meds when I can be sensible and responsible. Quiet, safe, and caring? Surely not me...right?

Wrong.

It feels like the goosebump feeling right before the goosebumps actually appear. I remember the doctor describing it once. She called it "euphoria". There is a reason it is so friggin awesome, its addictive. Your own brain betrays you, sells you out for a hit of its own drug. And what happens to me tomorrow? The day after I go Tyler Durden and throw myself at the wall of fate? What happens when I lose myself and have to pick up the pieces?

I have no job. I have no future. I managed to convince myself things were going to be okay in my life, and that illusion has finally been exposed as a watercolor painting on a plate glass window. The obvious thing here is that I was suffering my depression and masking it with what looked like calm composure. I lied to myself. I did well. I have managed not to drink for 7 days and act like I would act if cured. But I am not cured. I will never be cured. I will always be this failure, this mistake of biology and circumstance.

And so I go. My knees are shaking now. Its building in me, and I can just feel it. I feel like a kid who is right outside the entrance of an amusement park. Like a teenager who is right outside the front door of his first date. I feel like I just got that great job, and am driving in my convertible sports-car, stereo blaring a favorite song and singing at the top of my lungs. I feel like I could do anything right now. Anything.

More proof

A bunch of people did coke last night.

I was not one of them.

The Disappearing Man

I am writing this during the magical daylight saving time change, so in a way it does not exist since it occurs during a time that did not happen.
The last couple of weeks have been filled with confliction. Those who know me know that I am something of a crazy man when it gets to being out in bars, drinking heavily, or when the elements that bring out the worst/best in me come together in an as-yet unexplainable series of steps to produce what have become my embarrassing yet highly appreciated nights of debauchery and/or danger. That has all changed in these last 11 days.
I finally broke out of my desert solitude to find a place where locals in this wasteland would go to have fun, also known as a bar. The Red Barn in Palm Desert is like every other dive bar I have been in and I love it for that. It comes complete with the usual suspects, and I would be lying if I did not say that I feel I fit right in with them, so much so that I have already been accepted as a local. Being on a first name basis with the staff and the crew of drunks that frequent on a nightly basis has always been an easy thing for me to accomplish, but I would have to say that this was the quickest that I have found myself to be sleeping on the couch of a bartender after drinking well into the dawn.
Add to this the fact that I have already been inducted into a group that treats me as their own, lets me crash at their house, and eat their food, and you can understand why I have begun to feel like I might be getting too familiar with all of this. Then there is the girl. She is everything that is wrong for me, yet I find myself in the familiar role of being a “fixer”. A fixer is one who is attracted in some weird way to those that are clearly heading down the wrong road. We see so much of ourselves in them, or we feel superior by “coming to the rescue”, that we devote ourselves to being the sole reason for their salvation. It is a dangerous tactic for self-esteem. We become addicted to fixing this other person, when in reality we just want to feel needed, necessary, and the real danger here isn’t that we may fail (because the failure is always the other person’s fault for not listening to us), but rather that we succeed. Because once the artificial element that we are necessary, important and needed, that we are the sole reason for this other person’s happiness, once that is gone we have nothing to base our worth on and the relationship (if it ever was a true relationship) ends. Badly.
Mind you, I have not been a fixer too many times in my life. It stems from the upbringing with my mother: Drunk, abusive, being abused by drunk and abusive men. I watched this happen to her, and I lived it happening to me. You grow up thinking that if you could just do something, anything, because obviously she cannot, that you could solve this. It becomes a driving force. You start to develop crushes on girls in school that clearly have problems at home, and you feel you can fix them. Nevertheless, the reality is that you are not in a relationship. The crush is not real. When a person develops a crush, it is based on the personality, the things about that other person that make you like them. A “fixer” however, has developed a crush on things that he/she seeks to eradicate. If, and when, the fixer is successful the attraction is no longer there. This shows that “fixers” really have no interpersonal relationship skills. They grow up developing a false sense of empathy. In reality, they cannot relate to a real person at all, and only relate to the perceived person.
My theory, and I am not proven on this, is that most fixers are likely the same kind of people that become sociopaths, or the people that fall in love with others overnight, only to fall out of love just as quickly for any reason, and at times for no reason at all. Kind of like borderline personality disorder.
I was a fixer with my early school crushes up into the girlfriend I had in the Marine Corps, and right up to the mother of my children. She was an alcoholic with serious issues of her own. Without going into all of that (there will be plenty of time for that) I was not a fixer after that relationship ended (permanently and not during the myriad breakups). Unfortunately, I was not able to develop the ability to relate to people on a real level though. I still struggle with that. Crying is still the number one way to freak me out and trigger a BPD swing. Hurt children, hurt animals, those two things will trigger responses that have scared people, even me at times.
So here I am, spending my time around a girl whom I know I should not be around. I recognize that I am once again in the “fixer” mode and briefly, I thought about cutting her from my life cold turkey. However, it got me to thinking. In these past 11 days, while being around her and her friends and their antics, antics that I know too well, I myself have been relatively tame. Almost vanilla. I find myself devoted to ensuring that she is not going to go to jail, and somehow that devotion of my energy has made me not get out of control. Looking back, this was the exact same situation with the mother of my children. Perhaps “fixing” these women, with such obviously similar problems as my own, has allowed me a sort of cathartic release in a way that keeps me from getting in trouble myself?
Did my younger self know something back then? Does the “fixer” in me make the BPD guy, the one that everyone laughs about and shakes their heads in worry, disappear?

Desert life

So far, being in the desert has been a mixed bag. Yes, it is tough living so far from what I have become accustomed to, and I was reminded of this at 4am when the girl I recently met began talking about eating fresh crab on the penninsula (Balboa).
I miss the ocean and everything that comes with it. I discovered that a lot of the younger crowd out here in the drylands actually spend a remarkable amount of time in OC and San Diego. One even lives there for 4 days out of the week, working at a bar there as well as the Red Barn here.
Ah yes, the Red Barn...my oasis in the desert of culture and modern living. Punk chicks, bro's and the ubuquitous drunk girl and her mom fighting nearly each night. Reminds me of OC more and more.
So, am I finding myself? Losing myself? I know I am heading down a terrible path. The girl is about to begin house arrest for her second DUI. I have isolation, and yet I am doing whatever I can to avoid it.

Oh, whoever gave me strep throat, I hope you fucking die.

This is all your fault.

Sooo after reading some political sites about Cali's state of shit, it became apparent that the Progressives and Democrats are freely and confidently blaming everything on Schwarzenegger. Of course, we all must recall that just before the Governator threw his hat into the RECALL ELECTION against then-current Gov. Gray Davis, the state was in just as bad a shit-hole and it was only a recognition of that fact that caused Davis to make certain decisions (like tripling the vehicle registration fee) that caused a state-wide ire and resulted in his recall.

But hey, I guess when you need a scapegoat its always best to blame the governor. Not the frikkin system that the state of California is sitting in and has been sitting in for nearly 40 fucking years. The writing was on the wall long ago folks. But hey, keep submitting those voter initiatives that the state HAS to adhere to twice a fucking year!

The door was open

Going to check out this place called "Red Barn" here in the California desert. I hear its my kind of place. We'll see.

After several months of being 'good' I think its time to let a little off, and see where the night takes me. Besides, feeling a bit reckless.

And what the fuck is a 'jobless recovery'? I mean, the whole idea sounds fucking stupid. The only reason the country went to hell in a handbasket was because motherfuckers couldn't pay their bills. They couldn't pay their bills because they lost their fucking jobs. How in the fuck is there a recovery if the same motherfuckers still don't have a job?

I hear Meg Whitman, or Witman or whateve-I don't give a shit's name is, thinks she can fix the state because she ran ebay. Sweet. Last time I checked, companies didn't stay profitable for the shareholder's by hiring people. They cut. Deeply. Great for shareholder's and corporations. Not so great for the workers, which are listed as OVERHEAD on ALL corporations. So, are the citizens of California overhead Ms. Meg?

And Jerry "I'm coming back...maybe" Brown is going to do better...well, that's what everyone else is saying since he hasn't actually said ANYTHING. Must suck to be running, and losing, against a guy who isn't actually officially running!

Espresso Shots

"People go to Starbucks for an escape, just so they can get peace," Fascitelli said. "But people walk in with open-carry guns and it destroys the tranquility."

Wow. What utter stupidity from one who probably thinks he is really smart and hip. When I lounge in my house and watch the tv, the last thing on my mind is that someone might come and rob me by gun point. In fact, when I go to the bank I don't ever think that while I am standing in line, some societal fucktard is going to come in and shoot me in the fucking chest to steal my piddly $250.00 weekly paycheck. But guess what? Shit like that actually DOES happen to people Mr Fasci-I live in Fucking Disneyland-telli.

The four cops who were killed in the coffee shop in Washington probably didn't think a raving psycho was going to come in and kill them while they were 'escaping' into their lattes, but it happened.

Shut your ignorant, utopian-blinded myopic filth-hole.

Hiatus Interruptus

"Pause" is an interesting word.

In life, when you want a moment for catching up, or to bring some control back into any given situation, you call "Time Out" and magically, you get to take a breather, refocus, and start afresh. This "time out" mentality gets used a lot in life. Well, in most instances, and when used it is always for a positive. "Pause" was further made important when we started using it for simple conveniences. Watching the World Series and really need to piss? Pause. Thirsty and need another beer? Pause. Hungry and want to run out to the store real quick? Pause.

Then "Pause" got used for the economy. Now we don't have recessions, we have "pauses". But never has pause been used as a negative. I'd like to point out that I am currently in a pause. Have been for several years. I didn't realize it before now, and looking back, if I had I think things would be different in my life. Pausing was something I did to make changes I thought were necessary. Now, I am not so sure, and I am certain that others out there are also feeling the same way as I, feeling like they'd rather have the thing keep moving, and play catch-up rather than a pause that doesn't truly feel like a pause much as it feels like someone's holding me by the shirt while I am trying to run.

Today we have a mentality that "Pause" is the way to fix things in our lives when it all goes Khe Sahn, and I can't help but think that our parents had moments in their lives, particularily when I was younger I can remember my mother's moment, and pausing wasn't the way you dealt with it back then. You saw you were losing, and instead of some "Time out" you just threw in your gloves and left the field.

Fuck pause. I'll go play somewhere else where I can start this fucker back over at 0.

Sleep.

I need it.

Someone suffering from Bipolar disorder will either swing into their Manic or Depressive poles due to triggers despite their taking medications and therapy. When a person enters a manic episode they will require very little to no sleep. As far as I understand it, no one is certain if disrupted sleeping patterns can cause a manic episode or if it is the manic episode causing the sleep disruption. My theory is that it is both.

It's 1:35 in the morning and I am currently going into day three with only 73 combined minutes of sleep. Luckily I am broke and therefore cannot go on my usual spending spree, or alcohol fueled rampages. But I am getting shit-hot good at the guitar...

A pretty acurate snippet.

This is from TherapyDoc in Chicago who's probably the most 'real' mental-health professional I have come across in some time. She seems cool, so read her blog at http://everyoneneedstherapy.blogspot.com

"But people who suffer from BPD have a helluva time trying to reign in their impulsivity, and the folks who try to love them, who want to help them, get worn out by the drama. The truth is, most people with this disorder are smart, and they can really be very funny.
Traditionally with people who have Borderline Personality Disorder, once they're flying, meaning angry, there's no stopping them. The anger is a manifestation of pain. If you can't see that, then there's no helping your spouse, your child, your friend, your mother, whoever it is who is unable to regulate emotion. When the plate needs shattering, it will shatter. When they need love, they'll find someone to sleep with. When a car needs to be keyed, it will be keyed.

When it's all over, it's 'What's for Dinner?' As if nothing happened." -THERAPYDOC

Anger is definitely the fallback outlet for me. Doors, walls, newspaper boxes, parking meters, the hood of my car, several phones hurled into walls or sidewalks, a package of Huggies diapers.... I used to think that as long as I was destroying something of my own what was the big problem? I'm venting, leave me be. But it is something larger. The anger, it consumes you. It's as if you momentarily drift off to some other place while your body is taken over by a caveman that knows only one thing, "Hulk SMASH!" And you feel so foolish afterwards, when people you know are staring in disbelief.

This is also usually how my frequent fist-fights have occurred. The anger comes out of nowhere. I think a normal person experiences anger in a slowly rising wave, with plenty of time to think and avoid the situation. But I have never been lucky enough to feel that way. With me it's simply an arbitrary level. One moment I am in the slightly annoyed range, and the next I am swinging fists, kicking things, trying to leave this pure, white-hot rage into whatever/whomever I am trying to break at the moment.

For this, I have my mother to thank. Nothing says 'love' like coffee cups and fists on a Saturday morning.

Birthday Chaos

My 34th birthday was a night to remember. As in, "Do Not Repeat!" There have been plenty of other birthdays that went either spiraling into the toilet or have remained great nights, but this one really went to the extremes of my behavior.

My birthday started rather benign. My birthday happens during the summer, so I was not in school, but was working full time at my job. This birthday however was on a friday, which meant that even though I would need to spend the day at work, I would have the next day off, and thus heavy drinking and free reign to get crazy! I had a roommate at the time. A woman who seriously had the hots for me (this created many situations during the 1.5 years we shared a townhouse). However, she was a very round, and very short lady who was about 10 years older than me. I came home from work and she had made a dinner for me which was very nice. Then we played a drinking game that I made up on the spot to coincide with Jeopardy. If you got an answer correct, the other person had to take a shot of the Jim Beam I had. Yeah...

I love Jeopardy. I watch it all the time and anyone who has ever been present during these times often says something along the lines of, "Dude, you should totally try out for the show." I once had a coworker in the company break-room during our lunch who actually accused me of watching a rerun.

Anyways, that game ended real quick after my roommate had hit her 5th shot in 10 minutes. She literally refused to continue playing. Not that it mattered. I had been shooting with her, so we were both getting pretty buzzed. I flipped off the TV and we headed to the bar.

It was made clear that it was my birthday to everyone there. As you can guess, the liquor came from everywhere. People were buying me beers, and lots of tequila (Patron Silver-yum!). Next thing you know, I am drunk off my ass, interupting people's conversations, and basically becoming an ass. It wasn't my fault, there were no hot girls present! Suddenly, through my drunken haze I realize that I am being hauled up to the stage to sing Bob Seger's "Night Moves", while my roommate and the serving girl are handing me what they say is more Patron. I down it and instantly my throat is on fire. They are laughing at me and I can distinctly hear, "It's Bacardi 151, fucker!" Cue the band playing and me desperately trying to keep from puking, and you get the worst rendition of "Night Moves" ever.

I couldn't even finish the song, mainly because I don't think I was even singing it anymore, but also because suddenly a HOT chick walked into the bar. I literally hopped off the stage mid-song and grabbed this girl who strangely was into me as well without either of us ever meeting before. She was a hot Mexican girl and it was just at that time that the bar was shutting down. My roommate and her friend are trying to get me to leave, and I am holding this hot girl for everything I am worth in resistance. I tell them, "She's coming home with me." She agrees.

They try desperately to get me to not bring her home. They tell her to leave, and she says she can drive. So of course I immediately tell the roommate, "I'm leaving with her. She's going to drive me home." Of course the fact that I literally live next door to the bar and can walk to my door faster than we can drive doesn't matter to me. I'm on a mission.

We head out to her truck, a big Ford 250, and I hop in. We drive out of the parking lot and turn right into my own parking lot. Of course, she's hammered as well and when it comes time for her to park, she tries to pull the truck into a tight spot and has to back up a little to straighten the truck. Next thing I know, we're going 10mph and slamming into 'something' behind us so hard that my head hits the headrest. She quickly parks the truck, and by the time I am opening my door I have forgotten that she hit something. We head into the house where my roommate and her friend have been waiting. Saying nothing, I grab two beers and my random hookup and I head upstairs.

It doesn't take us long to be fully naked and going at it on the bed. I'm beginning to think that something isn't quite right with the situation, but can't be sure. I start thinking that we sure seem to be moving a lot. I really started to feel the bed moving about the room with our activity...until I realized that that was just a serious case of the spins coming on. Who gets the spins while humping? Apparently this guy does.

So here I am, humping away while she's under me asking me to tell her I love her (seriously), and next thing you know, I am puking my guts out on my carpet next to my bed while not missing a beat. I mean, I am going at her like a champ, and she is still trying to get me to tell her I love her, all the while I am throwing up so much that you'd think I still had the food from the day before in my stomach! And then it happens. The puking finally takes control of my body as I start to heave. She starts screaming as vomit hits her chest and arm. She pushes me away, which only helped me in that I was trying to get off her anyway! I head out onto my balcony, stark-assed naked, and furiously vomit off the balcony.

She's in my room, telling me to finish so I can get back in bed, and all I am thinking is that this girl is robbing me. She is taking my shit and is going to steal my things while stabbing me because I am too busy throwing up to do anything about it. An idea comes to me and I am moving through the room to the hall. I head down the stairs calling for my roommate. Of course, I think the fact I was dry-heaving probably made her and her friend come see what was happening. I'm naked, contorting with heaving, all the while yelling for her to get that thieving whore out of my house before she steals all of my shit!

The rest of the night is a blackout from that point on. I am told that my roommate had to tell the girl to get dressed and get out while I was busy vomiting off the lower balcony. Apparently the girl wanted to say goodbye to me, which my roommate unceremoniously informed her was not happening. While she was getting the girl out of the house, I apparently was ready to sleep. I guess in my drunken state I was still able to think clear enough to know that my room and bed were not a place for sleeping that night, because I am told I curled up, still naked, across my roommate's pillows. All attempts to get me to leave her room were met with me speaking in gibberish. Needless to say, the hangover was phenomenal the next afternoon.

Oh, and the hot chick that backed into my neighbor's car? The one that wanted me to tell her I loved her right before I started sharing my poor decisions with her? She came into the bar about three weeks later, and my roommate pointed her out to me. I had ZERO memory of her, only that a 'her' had been there that night. Yeah...she stands 5'11 and weighs a good 200lbs. They call her 'The Amazon'. I hate drunk me sometimes.

Happy frikkin 34th.

Everyone clap for the moron

I figured I would start with an event that happened about 5 years back. Just so its clear I am not proud of the vast majority of my actions, I thought I would start with an event that had a bad ending to show that often my antics lead to embarrassing results.

The (first) time I got “the clap”.

I went out drinking and, as is my usual routine, got completely hammered drunk. First, you need to understand that when I am hammered, it is not like the common stereotypical drunkard who shuffles about, slurring his words until he finds a comfortable-slightly comfortable-uncomfortable-oh hell a cold, wet slab of concrete has been known to provide a napping area for a drunk to fall down and sleep. No, when I am hammered it is similar to unlocking the door and letting the crazy relative out to endanger the public for a few hours until someone hits him with a tranquilizer gun and drags him back into his basement hideaway. It is not a jest that my friends enjoy, and yet fear, my getting drunk. It is guaranteed that something interesting will occur that night.

I went to the only happening place on a Tuesday in Chico, and as I got drunk, I began to flirt with a short dark-haired girl who was clearly ahead of me in the drinking race. She was one of those encounters where the girl is so drunk she does not actually speak. She just dances, drinks, and makes out to the point that you realize you do not actually need to speak because she does not care who you are, only that she will be getting some that night. Her friends realize it too, and while the two of you have convinced yourselves that you will be F-ing each other’s brains out at the end of the night, they have made other plans. Suddenly, it was closing time, and they whisked her away without even so much as a salutary goodbye.

So, here I am at my routine post-drinking diner on a Tuesday night. I am so drunk that I am at my best/worst: boisterous; swaggering; and cocky. I am horny as hell from the make-out session in the bar with the drunk chick that went nowhere, and I am looking for something to erase what feels like impending doom (that is the feeling I get every time a night is nearing its end). I’m bouncing from table to table, flirting with the female customers (single or not), and the waitresses, including the one that I hooked up with regularly who is still kinky and full of her own issues (more on her another time). The potential for a fight was growing as quite a few of the girls had guys sitting with them who were none too happy about my apparent lack of caring. My f-buddy waitress was quite busy redirecting me, or dissolving things before they got out of hand!

Suddenly, I had to piss. I mean, one of those, “If I don’t piss RIGHT NOW I will piss my own pants” urgent moments. This is where the night suddenly went into the familiar “how the hell did I get myself into this situation” moments. I am about fifty feet from the restroom. An UNOCCUPIED restroom! Instead, I confidently stride out into the front grass area of the diner and start pissing near a tree while standing between the parking lot and the street! I had to walk nearly fifty yards to do this! I am thinking to myself while I am taking what was surely turning into one of the most relieving pisses in my life that I probably could have used the restroom inside. Its then that I become aware that some guy is standing only twenty feet from me, glaring. For some reason I realize he is not glaring at me because I am pissing in the diner’s front grass, but for some other reason.

That is when the girl pissing behind the tree (obviously drunk since she was only ‘behind’ the tree if you were standing on the diner side…otherwise she was more exposed to the street than I was!) begins laughing and finishes and walks near me towards what I assumed (correctly) was her boyfriend. She was hot! Of course, my understanding of hot changes as the level of alcohol rises in my system, but I still remember her being a dirty 8 (which means she was probably about a 4…). She’s suddenly looking right at me as I am standing there with my business out, I’d finished pissing and apparently felt it was entirely appropriate to remain au natural, and says, “do you want to party with us?”

Party, did you just say ‘Party’? In my head I am thinking, this is normal and not crazy at all. Smiling and looking right at her I say with a tone that sounds like she just won the lottery, “Of course I do.” Somehow we manage to introduce ourselves (for the life of me I cannot remember their names). She’s got dirty blond hair that’s clearly given up on remaining in the style she’d put it in earlier, a furry type of jacket that I remember reminded me of an old dirty dog’s hair. She is very thin, more on that later, and just looks like the kind of girl that I needed at that moment. He has a shaved head, with a goatee, and completely looks like a meth-head skinhead. Of course, the majority of my friends looked like that so I thought nothing of it (at the time my head was also shaved but I never viewed myself as fitting that profile). Somehow, we have managed to make it into a cab headed for my place.

Now, at this time I was a cab driver myself, furthermore, I was an owner of my own car, and I knew the other owners in town. Yes, this means that I was in a cab with a couple, all of us quite vocal about what was going to transpire at my place, being driven by a guy named Dave who was actually quite familiar with my antics. I would be sure to hear about this later (and I did).

We get to my place and instantly we are drinking beer and whiskey, and they are asking me if I want to party. This makes me slightly annoyed. Uh...yeah. We would not be here unless I did. Right? Of course, this is the night that I learn that when someone asks you if you want to party at 3am odds are they are not inviting you to Chuck E. Cheese’s. I politely decline when they produce crystal meth and a pipe. With no pause they begin to smoke the meth while I blithely sit there watching. They finish, and within minutes, Skinhead Tweaker and I are undressing his girlfriend while she is busying herself with ‘us’.

Things go from 0-150mph in the space of a minute and we are in my bedroom. Instantly my mind yells out, CONDOM, and I reach over and grab a handful from my bedside table. I toss one to Skinhead Tweaker and tell him, “Use a condom man.” He does. That is me, always looking out for others. Of course, I do not use any condoms that night (because I am an idiot). We get to business and hours later, I am done. Spent and ready to crash. The sun has long since come up and I am ready to have these people leave my home. After getting them to leave, which involved calling Dave back to get these tweakers out of my place so I can go to sleep; I hit the sack and pass out for nearly the full day.

Less than a week later, I wake up from sleeping, and feel like something is going on in my boxers. I go into the bathroom, feeling like I am already pissing (strange right?), and when I go to piss I realize that I have a mess in my boxers, and I can clearly see where it’s coming from. A trip to the health clinic that morning confirms I have gonorrhea, and I get a shot in my ass-cheek from a nurse who looks rather disappointed in me for the fact that I had condoms and did not use them. Worst part (there is something worse?) is that they tell me I need to let my partners know so they can be tested. One common characteristic of my partners is that they usually are not people I can contact after the fact. Yeah, nothing really tops the look on that health clinic worker’s face…almost.

Moral of this story? It is not enough to realize that you get crazy and take steps for precaution. You must also follow through with those steps. People with no impulse control (myself at times) will likely NEVER follow through...therefore it is better to just realize you have problems and avoid situations that require you to control your impulses. Anything else will likely result in embarrassment.