Why I will not go to a bar with half-nude waitresses (more than one or two dozen more times)

Head out to Woodale, and there's not much there. A theater, some overpriced restaurants, a ridiculously small amount of parking, and The Tilted Kilt, a bar trying to pass itself off as Irish the way Hooter's tries to pass itself off as Where-you-can-get-a-good-burger-while-incidentally-ogling-women.

Don't get me wrong--I've got nothing against ogling women. The waitresses at the Kilt wear, for the record, white stockings, short kilts and stomach-less white tops, and I am this close to mandating such a dress code for every outdoor summer festival in town. But even I have my limits. The Kilt, while sporting plentiful eye candy and a variety of Guinness-themed beers, just isn't doing it for me any more. I've only been there a handful of times (like ten or fifty), but like a good soldier, I keep making the half-hour drive out there to see if I can get comfortable with the ambience, the blaring jukebox, the half-tanked fratboys high-fiving each other. And I just can't do it. For reasons I can explain quite succinctly:

The waitresses act like strippers, but they're not strippers. When a scantily-clad woman sits down next to you in a place where alcohol and loud music are prevalent, starts making conversation about your pathetic life, and keeps her eye on the clock, she's either finagling for a tip, trying to elicit a request for a lap dance, or already married to you and enacting some weird role-playing fantasy you cooked up in a weekend marriage seminar. And I'm not good at pretending with stuff like this. When a waitress sat down next to me last weekend and asked how work was going, she visibly flinched when I produced a dollar bill and waved it in her face seductively. That kind of reality I can do without.



The waitresses could be trouble. I'm sure they're legal and everything, but still, young is young, and I don't want to be that Old Guy in the Bar. I'm not that old, but compared to a roomful of undergraduates, I might as well be collecting Social Security. When you can make lewd comments and get away with it, you know it's time to pack it up--only guys who could conceivably carry out such lascivious threats are taken seriously. Besides, you never know these days. The girls could be under eighteen, and I'm a man of values. I wouldn't touch them if they were a day below...twenty-one. Nor would I sit next to them, stroke their legs lightly, yank their hair or drink salted tequila off their flat, toned, tanned stomachs. Not me, sir. No chance.

They don't sell the waitress' outfits. Not that I'd buy one. Or buy one and leave it hanging in the closet. Or feign surprise when the little lady found it. Or feign surprise, get her drunk and dress her up in it. It's just a matter of principle.



There's a reputation that goes with frequenting a place like this. Guilt by association, I'd call it. To paraphrase Ed McBain, if you frequent a whorehouse with a really good magazine rack, you're not going to be known as someone with highbrow literary tastes. You're going to be known as a guy who likes a cheap piece of tail. And if you come out of the Kilt, staggering at two in the morning, they're not going to know about all the historical inaccuracies you pointed out in their menu to anyone who would listen all night ("Braveheart was Scottish, but Michael Collins was Irish and Falstaff was English. What kind of dump is this, anyway?"). They're going to call you a slightly creepy perv. And if they're right, so much the better to give them less to work with.

"No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
--John Donne

"But John, seriously, have you seen what's off my island? It scares the crap out of me."
--Me

Try as I might, sometimes I have to visit the mainland. I've been sick as a dog the past two weeks: stomach problems, back problems, a cold, you name it. The only thing I haven't encountered yet this year is the plague, but I'm sure some kid in study hall who hasn't had his vaccinations will cough it all over me tomorrow morning or something. So after numerous weekends/weekday nights hacking on the couch and blearily watching reruns of Married With Children, enough was enough. Kim hooked us up with another couple for lunch and drinks. And we went.

I'm pretty awkward at going out with another couple. I do better with married couples. I don't know why. Maybe because, with a married couple, some interior labelmaker has pasted them "Stable and permanent" in my mind. Even if that's not the case and they're both sleeping with their secretaries or something, I'll still see a two-weeks-married man and woman as a UNIT, rather than a guy and girl in their mid-thirties who've been going out since Clinton was president. Which, I guess, would be us. And I'm safe enough, I guess. Neither of us even have secretaries.

So whereas with a married couple I ask idiotic questions like, "That linoleum on your kitchen floor is dee-lish. Where'd you get the contractor?" and "Gosh, your youngest is learning to read so well! I had no idea four-year-olds could tell Budweiser from Bud Lite!" in an effort to blend with the domestic crowd, yesterday, I had no such responsibilities. The couple we went out with bicker a lot. Like us. They are not above having lots of drinks. Like us (or at least me). And they didn't mind squabbling with us, either.

Truthfully, after about two hours, I'd had enough and was ready to return home. I mean, I was missing the episode where Al puts up a new antennae on the roof. But then, I kicked myself: For crying out loud, I have to live, right? Who knows when the next time I'll be encountering people will be?

So I shoved thoughts of my couch and basement aside and smiled as Brad, the Man in the Committed Relationship, explained why my belief in an active government ensuring the best for as many citizens as possible is "fuckin' retarded."

Ah. Sheer bliss, this social thing. Is this what others count on on a daily basis? If so, they're screwed.

ALE HOUSE--Blogging from Dale's iphone. Beer and hypertext go suicidally well together. Kai is in town-rejoice! Tso is hiding at his parents'--loser.

My Dumb Vacation

Click here if you missed Part One | Click here if you missed Part Two

Part Three: The heady froth of Midwestern Culture. Plus, infant expectorations.

There are fewer things more depressing than approaching the darker side of your mid-thirties wearing a Cult Rocks! t-shirt, cutoff jeans and sporting three days' worth of stubble, only to throw up on yourself.

Trust me on this one.

We'd made the Black Keys concert by 10:30 p.m. Had a few beers. Had dinner. Had a few more beers. Had a breath mint. Had another beer. And at this point, I was steady as Senator Kennedy during a floor vote. I could have piloted a B-52 stealth bomber while playing chess with a chimpanzee.

But then Dewey (without whom there can be no late-night trip to a Black Keys concert, I might add) suggests we should eat something.

"Why the hell should I," I slur confidently. "What I really need is another drink."

Dewey tries to explain the concept of solid food absorbing alcohol, thus acting as a catalyst for its entrance to the bloodstream and further enhancing the pleasures it has to provide. I wave away his suggestions as if they're a swarm of gnats, but finally give in when he offers to pay for my 35-cent cheeseburger if I pick up the next round of Jim Beam on the rocks. I eagerly agree. Sucker, I think to myself smugly.

An hour or two later, we're taking what I like to call the Drunken Royal Express: the Blue Line to Cumberland, where my car sits, waiting like the world's most patient wife after Last Call. The landscape outside the windows is suddenly swerving and dipping alarmingly. It's not the beer. It's not the lateness of the hour. It's not the Jonas Brothers currently playing on the speakers (probably). It's Mickey D's, angrily battling with my gut for domination. I forgot how lousy their food is once you're not an undergraduate any more.

I get up, grasp onto a nearby pole, and try to fix my eyes on a stationary point: the floor. Which also, as it turns out, dips and sways alarmingly. When the train stops at Montrose, several stops away from our final destination, I turn a pleading gaze on Dewey. He sighs, gets up, and we exit. I just barely manage to make it to the platform edge, my 35-cent cheeseburger charging like the Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad. I pause, fighting for control. I concentrate. I summon every ounce of willpower and self-control.

Brap. My Cult t-shirt has definitely looked better.

Dewey stands ready behind me with an ace up his sleeve: a Black Keys Rock! t-shirt, newly purchased at the Metro a scant few hours beforehand.

"You're true blue, pal," I say, drawing a hand across my mouth.

Dewey shrugs modestly. "The day I don't help a pal," he says, "is the day I can't remember where he parked. And you're not sleeping on my couch tonight, so don't even ask."

Is there any substitute in this world for a good friend? You tell me.

-----

The last I left you, Dear Reader, I was standing in my aunt and uncle's front driveway, teetering from exhaustion, ready to embark on a two-day binge of theater and Michigan culture. Which I did. I saw Julius Caesar with my family, fighting the urge to drop off for the first two acts, then watching wide-eyed as the remaining players in the tragedy ran themselves on their swords. My favorite scene: Brutus tells Lucius to hold his weapon, leaps upon it, and yells, "Sweet, merciful crap! I said the sword with the black handle, dumbass!" The blood spouting from his gut looked like Buckingham Fountain during the Taste of Chicago--how in hell they get such great special effects is beyond me. I also liked how Lucius managed to turn pale--how did they do that? with trick lighting or something?--and retch visibly as he was hauled away. I don't remember that line, though. Probably they cribbed it from a Baz Luhmann unused script or something.

That night, while my aunt and uncle stayed home and went through my bags for their New York gifts, I went back for All's Well that Ends Well. I got to see them rehearse a bit beforehand due to a special Discount Rate that I purchased without even knowing it. When Helena comes out to do her repartee with the Count, it got pretty entertaining:

HELEN: You have some stain of soldier in you: let me
ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him?

PAROLLES: Keep him...uh, wait a minute, I know this line. Keep him...out! That's it!

HELEN: But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

PAROLLES: There is, uh, none: man, sitting down before you, will...uh, do something nasty.

HELENA: Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up! Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

PAROLLES: Uh, forsooth...thou...Hah! I get it now! "Blow up men," that's good!

HELENA: Jesus Christ, Franklin, learn your lines already, will you?

Ah, Franklin. You put Sir John Gielgud to shame.

The next day's visit to some high school to watch Fame! The Musical is a bit muddled in my memory. I don't remember any soliloquoys. Or dramatic monologues, or iambic pentameters. I do remember my uncle grumbling, "Somebody better run themself on a sword, or I'm outta here." And oh yeah, there was something about a Performing Arts high school. I gots to get me one o' them j-o-b's. Looks like all you have to do is periodically break into song. "These are my children...please take them away." I can see the rave reviews as I close my eyes.

And then it was time to take a train ride home. For four hours. Only to sleep for four more hours, and hit the Black Keys concert. And then sleep for four more hours. And then a drive to a wedding. A six-hour drive. To Saint Louis. Through...the Midwest.



Oh dear God. Not this again.

I hadn't been to a wedding in years where I had absolutely nothing to do but show up well-dressed (check), bring a gift (...hocked it) and dance with Kim and/or assorted female relatives (hey, it's not my fault every time a good song came up I had to go to the bathroom).

But the real scene-stealer, of course, was my nephew James.

James is the first newborn into my family since my brother was born three-plus decades ago, so of course he commands a lot of attention. He's already outperformed both my brother and myself at his age: he can say "da," he can clap, he can roll his finger across his lips and make a burbling sound, he can balance a checkbook, and he can even sort of dance, provided someone else does the motions and movement for him. At his age, my brother could roll onto his back. At my age now, I can barely avoid discharging fast food onto cheap concert t-shirts.

So it was no surprise when he managed to upstage practically every setting he appeared in. But the little guy got sick, probably due to the overpowering 100-degree heat (why the hell aren't August weddings outlawed already, anyway?) and so he wasn't too happy to put in an appearance at the church.

When the sitter and Kim arrived from the hotel with him in tow, I volunteered to get him from the car. My brother, who was standing at the wedding and was currently ushering, looked grateful. His wife didn't object. The sitter, whose last nerve was quickly unraveling, readily acquiesced. The only one who wasn't apparently grateful was James, who was howling lustily from the confines of his car seat.

Poor kid. He looked like an angel. A sweaty, full-throated, red-faced, two billion-decibel-loud seraphim.

I felt my heart fill to the brim with love for my nephew as I beheld him at his neediest. No fear, dear one. Your uncle is here.

I managed to unbuckle him, draw him out, hold him close. "I know, little guy," I crooned. "You just need a little understanding and love, and that's exactly why I'm..."

Brap. The little jerk threw up all over me.

"Well of all the..." Splutter splutter. "Somebody get this kid off me before I..." Splutter splutter. "Nobody ever told me babies vomit..." Splutter splutter.

My dignity thus discarded for the time being, I tucked him under my arm, sprinted to the church and lateraled him to my brother. As I grabbed the nearest box of wipes to rescue my good suit from baking in baby vomit, James shot a smug look in my direction. And as the bridal party descended on him to ooh and aah, clucking sympathetically over his soiled clothes, James leered appreciatively at his ready good luck, and my crappy situation.

Nephew: one. Uncle: zero.

I returned to my church pew sweaty, smelling a trifle vomitus and looking like I'd just ran a 10-K. My beloved, the Woman who Holds the Bottle Opener to the Beer that Is My Heart, cast a critical eye at the puke on my lapel. "Wow, twice in twenty-four hours?" she asked sardonically. "What are you, going for a record?"

Damn it. Got to stop telling her the stuff that embarasses me.

The ceremony ran longer than expected, so once we got assorted family and friends back to the hotel, it was time for a little drinky-poo. One turned into several, which turned into dinner, which then turned into a full-blown dance floor at the reception cum open bar. Charlie and the Nostalgia Number did live music, and it was right in the middle of a passable rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" that James made his triumphant return: cleaned up, bathed and in a new set of clothes. I, on the other hand, was wearing the same befouled suit, rumpled hair and harried manner I'd had before, relying, in the absence of soap and water, solely on vodka and tonic to disinfect myself.

"He is so cute, gushed a nearby bridesmaid.

I stood up straight, puffing out my chest in pride. "I'm his uncle, you know."

"You've got vomit on your lapel," she said without even looking in my direction. James, apparently overhearing, sneered at me.

A half hour later, I borrowed my nephew and stuck a finger in his direction. "Kid, you're lucky you're so damn cute," I growled. "Or you'd be swimming with the fishes right now."

He acknowledged my riposte by grabbing my outstretched finger and dribbling on my shoulder. Nephew, two; Uncle, zilch. My heart melted.

"All right, you get away with it this time. But when you grow up, you're taking me to a Black Keys concert. I'll explain why later."

Epilogue:

Setting: New Year's Eve, 2069. Kim and I are sitting in the living room, poring over old photo albums. We've just celebrated our first twenty-four hours of wedded bliss. Yes, late bloomers are we, but you can't put a label on love, and now, as the fire on the TV screen crackles cheerily while the pollution and depleted ozone layer decimates the landscape outside, we exchange memories of Days Gone By, occasionally clasping hands and downing shots of Jack Daniels.

Me:"Look at this one. This was what's-his-name's and whosit's wedding that one summer in that city with the arch-thing, remember that place? You were so lovely."

Kim: "And you were a hunk stud. Oh, and look at James. Who'd have thought the future President of the United States would do so much upchucking on someone not working for the UN?

Superficial, worldly-wise laughter ensues here. Maybe some geriatric groping on the side.

Kim:"And here you are, warning him not to throw up on you again. Just so cute!"

Me:"And here he is, dancing with a bridesmaid."

Kim:"Is that the bridesmaid you were flirting with?"

Me:"Flirting? Me? Hell no. I bragged about being his uncle."

Kim:"Sure, to a hot bridesmaid. What about all the old ladies hovering around him?"

Me: "Listen, woman, know your place! The Marriage Santification Act, passed by President George W. Bush hours before he left office (HR 2172-2 Section Seven Paragraph 2), makes it a crime for me to be spoken to like that in my own home!"

Kim: "Your home? You damn mooch! When are you going to start pulling your weight, get a job and pay me some rent?"

Me: "I told you, I'm in a transition period!"

Kim: "And I told you, I was only allowing five decades for you to find a job singing in a musical. I don't care how senile you are now!"

Me: "Why you...you...you..." Brap.

I forgot. Nonagenarians shouldn't drink after only poached eggs and Soylent Green for dinner.

Geriatric bickering ensues. By New Year's Day, 2070, we're filing for divorce, and I'm sleeping on Dewey's couch. Guess we should have seen that one coming.

The Truth Table of Weeknight Taverns

Today I stopped in a bar on the way home to Have a Beer.

I know. I know. "When doesn't he?" the sage asks. Good question. Lest I should seem an urbane bastard, let me remind you: I live in the burbs. Starbucks are easy to find; comfortable bars, not so much. If your schtick is a crowded, neon-glared watering hole filled with balding has-beens shouting at whatever game is on (and it's got to be HDTV, no less for these bastards with their pushbroom mustaches and missing teeth), my neck of the woods is quite delectable; but if, like me, you long for the old days of pubs and a veritable drinking culture, you might as well be living in Salt Lake City.

Not so Joe's Place, which is a mere skip down the road from my humble home. We started hitting it mornings during my holiday break, and I have to admit, there's something to be said for guzzling Heineken while staring out the window at people headed for work. Every morning I pass the place, and I never fail to glance inside longingly: the morose bartender mopping up last night's mess; the overworked crew just getting off the night shift; the hard core alcoholics; and the hung over, nursing headaches over tomatoe juice and Budweiser. Roll of booze, hear my cry, I call to them. I am one of you! Now save my seat, or I'll kick your asses.

It was a crappy Monday today, one of those days where you leave wondering, had you been born in the 19th century, would you lumber home on a morning like this, head full of existential angst over your place in life, your career path, your overall health and karma...or would you be too busy trying to survive while doctors fed you opium and sawed off your limbs?

Ah yes, simpler times.

So, completely independent of my own conscious thought, I found myself wheeling into the parking lot of Joe's for a $1.75 Heineken. I'd decided to Have a Beer.

Having a Beer calls for a certain approach. I've not had much practice in Having a Beer. I've Gone Out for a Beer, true: there, the objective is to celebrate the end of a day or week by consuming as much as possible, without stepping over the line and screwing your short-term sobriety too badly. If Going Out for a Beer is a journey with a tangible end (drunkenness), Having a Beer is a meditative, introspective act, and it demands a certain sense of dignity, one I'm not likely to find in myself as I pound the bar furiously while calling Tso a buffoon for subscribing to Libertarianism.

Actually, I've only recently understood Having a Beer; if you're not out to get wasted, why not just have a Coke? But the beer itself is a reward, a garland for the exhausted Greek athlete, I suppose. The beer itself matters less than what it represents: Victory. Or, in my case, Survival.

If you don't want to Have a Beer, or Go Out for a Beer, you can always Get Drinks. "Let's Get some Drinks" used to be a danger sign in most places I worked, up to and including my current occupation. It was an open door policy: the more the merrier, true, but x amount of people fed into the equation equals a certain number of hours out, of money spent, of poison ingested. If, say, Tom Haldemann were to send out an e-mail tomorrow, "Out for drinks at 4," the danger would be minimal: It's a Tuesday, most people are going to work late or go home; Tom is not, shall we say, universally liked; e-mail invites are routinely ignored, etc.

But if John Pepper sends out such an e-mail, as in "We're going out for drinks at 4," the equation shifts: John has something political to get off his chest or he wouldnt' be offering; John will scare several others into going and I don't want to leave them hanging; he owes me two rounds and this is my chance to get paid back.

None of that is likely in the second week of February, especially while we're in the midst of all this damned snow. I'd worked late, not really wanting to stay but hating the thought of rattling around an empty house in the mid-afternoon with anything school-related on the brain. So when I Had My Beer, it tasted more like water down a Welsh warrior's throat, the cries of the dying surrounding him as his king stares at him inscrutably. Only I had no king to adulate, the battle was far from over, and I can't shoot a longbow to save my life.

The bar was relatively empty, but what it lacked in population it made up for in volume: the Juke Box O Matic was blaring something by the Scorpions, and two guys on my side were bellowing at each other about their wives. No fooling. I make claims like that sometimes, they're total crap, but this was true: "I just said that to fuck with you!" the first guy called.

"Yeah, better fucking with me than with your wife!" the other catcalled.

"Better than fucking her in the ass, you mean!"

And on and on, and I knew I could never reproduce the conversation believably. It would look too cliched. And isn't it pathetic that was what I was worrying about, sitting in a bar all by my lonesome, guzzling cheap Heineken while the two guys on the other side of me watched a high school volleyball game on TV with, shall we say, more than usual interest. That I wouldnt' be able to tell about it and make people buy it.

I could have sat there all night. Cars were passing out the window. My mind, weighed by the minutae of daily teaching while at school, found itself strangely untroubled in that dump. I started glaring at everyone around me: "What're you so happy about, asshole? Bet you don't have to redo curriculum. Bet if they ever gave you a study hall, you'd run screaming. What's that you do, lay bricks? Come over here and lay on my asshole."

It's a bad idea to be eyeballing so many of this sort. They're not bad people, but they're not used to taking crap from anyone (one reason, I suppose, they're not co-workers of mine, watching fifteen-year-olds roll their eyes and shoot water bottles across the room), and they're certainly not going to take it from yours truly. When the volleyball watchers started glaring at me and the wife-fuckers on the other side started scaling back their conversation in favor of curious glances in my direction, I realized I'd been muttering to myself. Bad habit. Thought I lost it years ago. Wasn't even drunk. So either get drunk now, Teacher Man, cover your tracks and dive into the bottle, or get out. Go home, put on Jane Austen from last night, maybe have a glass of wine. Show those Philistines.

So that's sort of what it likes to Have a Beer on a Monday night. I'd like to try Getting Some Drinks tomorrow night, but I think it's much more likely I'll Down a Brew when I get home, and maybe Go Out to Imbibe Wednesday or Thursday night. Or maybe I'll just wait until Friday and Get Plastered. There ought to be a flowchart for the options you're supposed to exercise. Me, I'm reduced to a self-created blog.

CARY--At Dewey's house, listening to his usual line of bullshit. "Yeah, I was going to get high speed internet, but I figured that was too much money."

Well, I use that connection to write high-profile blogs and surf the internet.

"Uh huh. And how much does that cost?"

Uh...ten cents a minute.

"Right. Well, I use the money I *would* spend on stupid cable crap to drink and pursue my intellectual interests."

Like what? Collecting bottle tops?

We went on like this for a few hours, at which point his daughters came downstairs to warn us to keep quiet, or they'd take away whatever remaining alcohol was kept in the house. A sad day, indeed, when nine- and six-year-olds can dictate the behavior of a couple of beat-up thirtysomethings.

Then (god help us both), the women called:

Mrs. Dewey: I just love you so much, and I hope you're having a good time with your pal tonight, but if you forgot to do all the chores I laid out for the two of you, I'll bust your ass.

Dewey: Yes, ma'am.

My Girlfriend: Don't come home tonight without french fries.

Me: You want curly-fries or regular fries, Love of My Life?

Her: What do you think, stupid?

And all that after only ten beers. Check back at midnight for the real juicy stuff.

Behold: my first home made martini. Courtesy of my brother's birthday gift.



I didn't bother to take pictures of the second, third or fourth. After the fifth onwards, I wouldn't have been able to hold the camera steady anyway.

Almost there. Eyelids heavy, blood thick and sluggish enough to make me even more stupid than normal. Sleep can't be more than a few hours away.

Today is the woman's birthday. She wanted a kayak. No, she wanted two kayaks. And nothing is good enough for my baby. So I told her, yes, you may go out and purchase kayaks using your own money and driving your own car, and if you need any help, you may call anyone you want, as long as it's not me.

Here she is, presumably buying her kayaks. I don't see them, though. Maybe she got ripped off.

OK, bad idea. Not drunk, but it sounds like a good idea. Can't get drunk, though. Supposed to go out tomorrow night. After work. Right, forgot about work. This is good beer, though. Got it from Lake Geneva. Quality hops and malt, not like that domestic crap all the drones around me drink. But not me, though. Nothing but the finest for my lifestyle. Dammit, just spilled my spare Coors.

Just decided to teach nephew to box, which means I have to learn how to box within about, what, two years? That ought to be enough time. Kid could be training by three, beat the crap out of anyone he wants before he can even ditch the kid seat in the car. Sweet.

Guilty confession: last month, when I was supposed to be working on a homework assignment, I wrote a chapter of a novel. It's about an intergalactic smuggler who trafficks in people for a while, then gets mixed up in a revolution on a world on the outskirts of the galaxy. Go read it. It's gonna suck.

Seriously, I really can't sleep. This is dumb. I'm tired. I haven't slept in my own bed for a week. Slept like a rock on J&R's couch, but can't sleep in my own bed. What would a psychologist say?

Me: I spent a week away from home and slept fine on a couch, in a motel, in an easy chair. Now that I'm in my bed, and comfortably home, I can't sleep. What's my problem?
Doctor: You have insomnia. That's $500, please.

Just discovered the Instant Viewing option on Netflix, by the way. A lot of crap, but good crap. The kind of crap they used to have in the VHS shelves at Hollywood Video. Tried watching Imprint. Booring. Tried to watch The Candidate. Froze up. Tried to watch Episode I of Voltron. Freakin' awesome.

OK, I'm seriously about to whack myself over the head with a mallet with the words "Vacation is almost over, so get it in gear" burned onto it.

Possible first lines for each class on the first day this year:

--"This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me."
--"If you listen quietly, you can hear my stomach trying to eat itself."
--"Get ready to ditch your hopes and dreams now, kids. It'll make June much less painful."

Got an e-mail from an old journalism student. She got a job. Awesome! I helped make that happen. As a hotel desk clerk. Oh. Well, you probably made that happen, didn't you? Screw you.

NYC-49th and 6th-TROPIC zone bar is a lounge-type place with pounding yet manageable disco music, plenty of space, and waitresses in string bikinis. Journey's End turned out to be an outstanding play chronicling the pathos of the Great War. But it didn't have any waitresses with string bikinis. So I think it's only fair to turn my attention back to the excellent service I'm receiving.

I like this blackberry. This could be a problem.

What kind of friend (who shall remain nameless) meets you at a bar (which shall remain unstated), lets you buy a round of beers (the brands of which shall be omitted), and then lets you drink one after he notices a film of soap in the head?

An ijit friend, that's what.

An interesting forty-eight hours, friends and neighbors. Any water I swallowed went south immediately. Big bubbles of what I can only assume were soap bubbles swelled up in my gut and intestines; I must have made the walls shake on at least three occasions trying to get rid of them. And in case you're wondering, five running steps to the bathroom to take care of all of this business was only a barely tolerable distance.

The good news: the delirium and dehydration allowed me to enjoy two straight hours of Not Another Teen Movie. Or maybe that's the bad news, who the hell knows?

What a way to celebrate the Fourth, I tell ya.

Eh...make that an hour.

I just got a blister opening a bottle of champagne. It's official--I'm out of shape.

OK, no booze for a month.

The problem: You're broke, but you want the bar experience. Substandard food, reprobates for company, a cold bottle in the hand.

The situation: Ten beers in the fridge and a barely-functional boom box.

The solution: Wuss rock marathon in the kitchen.

The result: Splitting hangover Sunday morning after drinking until 4:30 a.m. Tso passed out in the next room until noon. No energy to grade. No motivation to read the paper. No strength to do anything but stare at the television and reminisce about listening to Steel Dragon on a tape deck.

Outstanding. Nothing I want to make a habit of, but there's one for the memoirs, by far.

How to anesthesize turning 30

I'm about one week into being thirty. It has the damndest way of sneaking up on me: I could be at a shopping mall looking for a good Wagner CD (or Vanilla Ice, whatever), and I see myself through some kind of objective third eyeball: "There's a thirty-year-old homeowner in ragged jean shorts, needs a haircut, glasses are dirty, and he's hanging out at a mall. Ugh." Or "Look at that thirty-year-old homeowner pausing to glance at new Batman Begins action figures. How old does he think he is?"

Then, there's also, "Look at that thirty-year-old homeowner lurching down the back alley. You'd think he'd be able to tell that diluting whiskey with vodka isn't really dilution at all." Okay, that one I'm more comfortable with.

So, summer is dwindling, and as always, I'm clutching on to it like a drowning man onto a floating plank of wood. And one of the things I swore to accomplish: some kind of memorandum on July 16.

The party was awesome. Originally, I had a more comprehensive, column-type story to tell about it, but truth be told, some of my memories of that evening are a bit hazy, so this will have to do. I remember I drank nothing but Black and Tans.

I remember someone commenting, "It's his party--it's been ten years since the last one and it'll probably be twenty until the next one, so he can do what he wants." Cool! I thought, a total excuse for anarchic debauchery! but I don't remember if that led to anything illegal.

I remember finishing my first cigar in years with my brother. I remember a lot of old friends showing up. I remember a lot of people calling my name in a way that suggested comraderie ("Hey! Hey get over here!") instead of how they usually call it at work ("Hey you! Get the fuck over here! You messed up again").

I remember that, for an Irish pub, they played a lot of eighties rock. I wonder if that was by request.

I remember getting a floating candle in a pitcher of beer. (Kim would later complain that the staff treated her request akin to one for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow--apparently, at this pub, they don't do pitchers, and it's uncouth to ask.)

I remember I had a speech (of sorts) planned, which would have entailed digging up a list of things an old health teacher told us to write down that we'd want accomplished by the age of 30. My list ran like this:

Be a full-time novelist. (Nope.)
Be well-adjusted and stable. (Nope.)
Be surrounded by people who love me. (I guess...)
Be healthy. (Oy, my back is killing me.)
Be confident. (Hey, we're having some time now...aren't we?)
Be athletic. (Oy, my beer gut is killing me.)

I remember signing an outrageous bar tab, having trouble keeping the pen steady in my hand, thinking, I'm lovin' this.

I remember getting back to my place, and eventually seeing five or six complete strangers in my living room. I remember one of them (and he must have been a stranger--no friend would do this) suggesting that they all apply makeup while I was passed out. I remember the other strangers (again--no way they were friends) laughing and looking for lipstick and mascara. I remember staggering to the second bedroom and pulling a blanket over my head.

I also remember the furtive wakeup the next morning. That, for those of you with livers healthier than mine, is when you come to consciousness, afraid to move for fear of discovering a hangover, afraid to get up for fear of learning of bad behavior. I came outside, looked around cautiously. Kim was at the breakfast table, eating cereal, looking a little haggard herself but not exactly brimming over with wrath. Little by little, I relaxed. Everything's fine, I got away clean, is more or less what I'm thinking, when the trash is dropped off outside. Trash cans clang, engines grind, brakes squeal, and all I can think of is, Oh shit, my head is about to explode. I regained poise a minute later, to see Kim regarding me with a look that was three parts concern mixed with two parts weary exasperation. "Do you even know how many you had last night?"

"It was worth it," I said. "I regret nothing." And then we were off to breakfast.

So that's that, another milestone in the life of yours truly. The rest of my time has been more or less spent straightening out this place, catching up on my reading, watching crappy movies, seeing more friends and family, and mourning Bush's appointment to the Supreme Court (as are we all). You wouldn't think picking up a new bed, grilling material, nightstands, bathroom necessities and what not would occupy so much time, but listen, when you make a trip to even Bed Bath & Beyond, it takes a minimum of ten minutes just to find a parking space, let alone purchasing anything. So while I can't complain for lack of relaxation, it's still good to be done with all that crap.

Today Dewey looked at me over a mug of cold beer and said, "We may never achieve greatness. But we can always be greater. And that's the power we hold."

I looked back at him. "Are you coming on to me?"

He smiled, and downed the rest of his drink. The rest of the evening is vague.