recap
While in mind and spirit I’m still an immature bastard planted firmly in his mid-twenties, the sad fact is the rest of my body has yet to get the memo.
Which is all a fancy way of saying it’s Wednesday and I’m finally 100% recovered from the weekend.
Friday is still a half-blur in my mind, and probably responsible for the majority of my mental and physical aches. The Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll1™ went on until about 2 or 3 in the morning and I ended up crashed out on a couch.
Of course, my “you’re late for your shitty job” internal clock woke me up at around 8:30, despite all the internal protests. This went beyond hangover. Then my “you’re in someone else’s house alone on their couch” mechanism triggered the fight/flight response which gave me the needed internal adrenaline and other brain/body drugs to find my way back to my car.
20 or so Portland blocks walked and a quick Portland drive later I’m at my favorite fake-french bakery planning on getting some food in my system, lest I die. My body, upon smelling the baked goods and morning humanity, decides that maybe puking is a better idea. I convince it not to, but I had to skip breakfast and promise the brain extra sleep right then and there along with a future promise that yes, we’d find it some sex chemicals soon2.
I camp out in my old empty apartment, and wake up with not enough time to pull down the remaining fixtures and pack up the odds and ends. A mad-dash, bleary eyed clean-out session later, and I get everything done except the plates for my curtain rods.
You’re welcome, future tenant.
Landlord checkout complete, I lumber downtown, my brain still none too happy with me and threatening to re-uptake all my serotonin until the end of time unless I sleep for 72 hours straight. I threaten it back, reminding it that it’s just a squishy grey blob of neurons and I run the show, adding that time is it’s deal and has nothing to do with the nature of reality, so the end of time is a useless gambit.
I also threaten to go back on Zoloft if it tries fucking with me again, which shuts it up right quick.
This uneasy truce lasts long enough to get me checked into my hotel and take a shower. I crash for a few more hours.
Slightly more rested, my old bag ‘o guts now takes the standard hangover stance. Tired, can’t quite concentrate on anything, etc. This, I know how to deal with.
Drinking!
It’s still a few hours until the Nerd Party so I run off to the comic shop and then plant myself in a pub for a pint or two, which tricks my body into thinking it’s ok.
A nerd couple notice me reading a Transmetropolitan book and ask me if it’s anything like the Star Wars graphic novels they’re reading.
I debate reciting the passage I’m reading at the moment, but decide that these two aren’t ready for a man who has acid bombs and Ebola virus set to drop from his testicles at the first sign of trouble. Instead I just hand the book over and let them flip through it,
They return it and feign nice conversation for a bit before leaving.
I spend the next half hour humoring a cute, but oblivious and high-maintenance lady who lost me the second she started acting genuinely afflicted about not getting her pizza and missing the start of the Harry Potter Movie.
I’m down with a girl in a questionable body with a decent soul. But vice versa? I can’t deal with the hot chicks who wouldn’t know what to do with Art, Grace or Beauty when they throw you up against the wall and take turns ravaging you until dawn.
At least, they said they were Art, Grace and Beauty…I just took them at their word and made them buy me breakfast.
I tab out so I can head to my nerd party and Ms. Harry Potter says she enjoyed our conversation. Which is telling because while I can kind of concentrate on the real world now, I can’t string together more than 5 words without having to think really really hard. Which is a fancy way of saying she did most of the talking.
The nerd party proceeds as these things do, and I trick my brain into releasing more dopamine. There’s a boy who looks just like me, only 15 lbs lighter, and I make a metal note to loose 15 lbs and have him killed. Later in the evening he ends up breaking a full pint in his lap, so I call off the death squads and settle on loosing 8 lbs.
Tipsy, but not wasted, I get sick of waiting for the cab to show up and I head out on foot.
Up Belmont to about 7th and unsure how pedestrian friendly the Belmont bridge is I head south toward Hawthorne. The streets are empty except for the occasional young and beautiful thing doing the same stumbling dance that I’m doing.
I hit the bridge; It’s a cool, clear night, the cold air having chased off the clouds. I reach the midway point on this metal, rusty, industrial, gorgeous monstrosity, and look out over my city. The river is sparkling in the city light, the weekend traffic creating a a quiet din of white noise and a light show in the distance.
Eight years ago my only thought would have been “do I jump from the bridge now, or put it off a few more days”. Now, as the cold city air and adrenaline combine in my system, I just cackle with delight, because I own this city and my every thought creates the universe around me.
Back at the hotel I snap a quick drunken picture and crash out on my bed. My brain reminds me it was promised sex and I tell it to shut the fuck up or I’ll go out and contract a case of gonorrea just to spite its lust. This, and the past two days of abuse prevent my brain from getting my body to conspire against me.
Sunday is back in boring, banal Redmond, where I go through the necessary purge to restore chemical equilibrium in my fleshy starship.
Which brings us to Wednesday, my ancient decaying body finally processing the last of the weekend from my system.
The moral of the story? Don’t do Drugs™, unless someone else is paying in which case you still shouldn’t do drugs, you should give them to Alan3.
1. I’ve been told Boston was involved. I am deeply ashamed.
2. Despite a weekend of Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll, there was no actual sex involved.
3. You may also do drugs if “drugs” is the nickname of some hot body hipster who’s really into you
Originally Posted February 22, 2006