C-130

Some people are wise. Not many, but some.

"Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: "Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is." So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it. "

To all my peeps soaking up the sun at Bonnaroo: oh, you bitches, you stinky, sunburned, pooping-between-anonymous-trucks bitches, my envy bleeds forth like angry bile. Wilco has already finished playing, String Cheese Incident, Gillian Welch and Yo La Tengo are playing right now, and Danger Mouse will be doing a set in about five hours. And that's just today.

Sigh. Well, at least I get to use soft toilet paper and sleep under high thread count cotton sheets tonight... with air conditioning. Nyah. Eat my poop.

Mental turbulence is something that, while not an alien sensation, had never driven itself into the core of my being until I gained admission into some high-dollar private graduate schools.

I read things like this and I get so excited that I can barely sit in my seat.

I read things like this and I close my eyes and try not to think about it.

Having spent literally no money on my undergraduate education (all things considered, I probably turned a profit from it), I do feel something akin to a responsibility to now ante up, so to speak, and demonstrate my intentions with a large stack of bills. I have no qualms about the expense, really I don't, and spending this large sum on continuing my education is, in all possible regards, the best way to depensatorially blow a load.

No, I fear what comes after. There are no guarantees that I will ever be able to find work that will feasibly allow me to pay off the huge debts that I am soon to incur, and my rational brain cannot help but occasionally stun me with the realization of the queer ratios involved; I'm about to spend around seventy thousand dollars during an eighteen month period. That's about $3,900 per month, and that estimate doesn't include my housing costs nor the interest that will certainly accrue over the coming years.

I'm faltering, people, help me up.

On Saturday, Anita was wed in a tasteful little chapel in Hillcrest. The minister was on the melodramatic side and enjoyed the dramatics of his performance as much as his message of faith, unity, and fidelity. And boy was his message ever about faith; this wedding only had a bride and groom as attributes of god and his holy empire, and the service quickly became a rather diminutive sermon about St. Paul and his love of love (I think). His stageworthy dynamics ket distracting me from the wedding and had me unfairly disliking the ceremony, but all was well once I was out of the house of god, because the beer flowed liberally at the reception!

The reception was held on our alma mater's campus in the swank new building constructed to house solely the alumni center. I recognize the (imagined) financial importance of attracting investors (well, investments) with a fancy interior, but, seriously, we have classrooms with walls blackened by mildew and mold, asbestos problems, uncloseable doors and no access to climate control. Couldja focus on those before laying out a few mil to look glittery for the fat of the land? Jesus.

Which brings me back to holy matrimony. The patio of the alumni center accomodated a deejay and a liquor table, while inside in the meeting room lay the cake and other foody trappings. I positioned myself at the point that boasted the shortest distance to both. Needless to say, I think I may have been lit by the time I left the gathering a few hours later. I'll get back to that, though.

Mike and Anita were occupied most of the time by eager family and friends, so I chose not to interfere and to simply drink with the rest of the lazy former Donaghey Scholars until the bride, like a moth to a flame, was inevitably drawn to our cans of Miller Lite and cups of boxed wine. We know our people. Anita looked very elegant, what with her handy train-strap and all. I was envious of her cape-like swishes and obvious gown-given superiority in voguing. We got her to laugh a few times, so I considered the mission accomplished and, as they were leaving for Mexico (the fuckers), focused on slugging back the last of my wine and double-fisting a couple of beers before the caterers packed it all up. [Keep count: 4 Miller Lites, 2 glasses Franzia White]

From there I went to pause from nuptuals with Megan over an early dinner at Loca Luna. Conveniently, Rodney had come back from Oregon and was working that night. Strange, spontaneous, and frankly quite kick-ass. I had my first properly-poured Guiness at Loca Luna in some time thanks to him, so domo guy. [4 Miller lites, 2 glasses Franzia White, 1 Red Stripe, 1 Guiness]

After Loca Luna, things get a little, um, difficult to track. I remember the evening well, it's simply the sequencing that escapes me (and to hilarious ends in the coming days). I dropped Megan off at her place and make a quick stop in at a friend's apartment downtown. I'd only intended to drop off a CD, but being a beautifully mild Saturday night, I predictably indulged. [4 Miller lites, 2 glasses Franzia White, 1 Red Stripe, 1 Guiness, 1 Bud Lite, 1 joint]

I left from there to meet up with the Donaghey bunch at a stranger's house in Stifft Station, a sort of personal Darkest Africa of uncharted streets that has remained outside of my canon of streetmap knowledge for the entire 24 year period I've lived here. Since I've been driving, this neighborhood has become increasingly dominated by the black beast that is hipster culture. I wouldn't so much mind the star tattoos, trucker caps, and rancid body odor (darlings, hydrogen sulfide gas is not a product of your natural bodily processes, it's scores of bacteria decomposing your filth) if they weren't so exclusive in the ranks. Needless to say, moving around in this neighborhood didn't happen as naturally and thoughtlessly as is possible in the rest of the metroplex, so I felt lost in spite of knowing exactly where I was. Walking down the stairway to reach the backyard festivities, I passed a tightly-clothed wisp of a man. "Hayyadoin'?" I asked, to which I received the sassy reply, "Oh, I am so wow!" I didn't even try to contain my laughter. Almost immediatley after I arrived, we decided to leave in favor of Matilda's place. [4 Miller lites, 2 glasses Franzia White, 1 Red Stripe, 1 Guiness, 1 Bud Lite, 1 joint, 1 glass Muscadine]

Getting to Matilda's was another maze-like foray through the streets of Stifft. When I parked, I had no idea where I was, geographically. I only knew that uphill vaguely meant 'towards Kavanaugh Boulevard." Gathering my things (wallet, check, camera, check, wine from last house, check, phone, check) failed to catch perhaps the critical utility and, realizing my error milliseconds after slamming my car door, I panicked-dropped-my-things-reached-for-the-door-heard-it-click-locked-pounded-on-the-window-flapped-each-door-handle-kicked-a-tire-fuck!-kicked-a-tire-again-FUCK!-moaned and finally just accepted that I had locked my keys in the car. In the ignition. Fuck. Fuck. Once inside, my worries were washed away by a delicious Matilda-made mojito (with fresh mint from their garden!) I knew I was getting tipsy when it was really, really fun to play with their two large, slobbery dogs and when conversation with Simon (much more over the line than I at this point) was a nonsensical journey into perversity and the Cockney dialect. [4 Miller lites, 2 glasses Franzia White, 1 Red Stripe, 1 Guiness, 1 Bud Lite, 1 joint, 1 glass Muscadine, 1 big mojito]

From Matilda's, we headed out to Pizza D'Action for beer, but before I had the chance to get one they shouted out their last call (what a silly thing, a 1:30 a.m. last call on a Saturday). I ran into Rodney inside and Steven (who had brough along Damian and Lizzy) gave him a lift to Midtown.

More went on that is confusingly arranged in my memory and a bit more pornographic than I wish to be in a post that began with a wedding, so let's cut to the next day.

Avilez had come into town and needed a lift to Conway, as he began working (as faculty) today at Arkansas Governor's School. On the return trip I asked Steven to drive me by my car so that I could give the exact street address when I had the lock popped the next day, but when we pulled up to the street where I had parked--holy shit, holy shit, holyshitholyshitholyshit-- my car was no longer present. I saw no glass, so the window hadn't been broken in, and there were no streetsigns alerting one to a no-parking zone, but it sure as hell was gone. I couldn't think of what to do, even, when a tiny memory of a different-looking street popped into my mind. Oh, but it was so generalized that I couldn't tell from the visualization where exactly I'd formed that memory. This is where I start to realize how inebriated I'd been the night before, trying so hard to remember where I'd last been, where I'd stopped when I locked myself out. We called a friend and got the exact name of the intersection where I'd been when I goofed, but it took us forever to find it as we kept confusing signs and directions out of nervousness (as in "Tyler" versus "Taylor").

We found my car, thank god, and had it popped within an hour. The neighborhood was great and the guy in front of whose house I'd left my car wasn't pissed at all. While trying to help me jimmy the door, he told me, "I just thought you'd tied one on across the street." Across the street wasa colorful house blaring Bowie with a handwritten sign in the yard that read "Come here for FUN!" Sweet, remember that street.

So, the moral of the story is: even if you get totally drunk for free at your fifth wedding reception of the week, don't go driving around like a jackass or else you'll lock yourself out of your car with the keys in the ignition in an unfamiliar neighborhood and the next day you'll have an anxiety attack when you think your car has been stolen.

The end.