Crushing Krisis

Category Archives: parties

I #blamedrewscancer for being a Philebrity

Friday, December 11, 2009

I have a story to tell you.

I met half of the #blamedrewscancer crew at Fuzion at around seven for the Philadelphia Area New Media Association (PANMA) holiday party.

That is not the story.

We were at PANMA for some brief networking and catching up with friends, but our end destination was The Trocadero, where Philly blog fixture Philebrity was holding their non-denominational X-Mas party slash year end awards.

Blame Drew’s Cancer was up for the “Outstanding Do-Gooders of the Year” award. Polling had been open and transparent, so it was easy to see that we were getting creamed by Phillies’ Shane Victorino from day one. As such, we didn’t marshal much of a vote – eventually coming in fourth, behind even Mayor Nutter for his ballsy budget bluff.

The four of us – Britt, Mikey, Libby, and I (plus Libby’s awesome husband, another Peter) rolled in to the Troc fashionably late, and occupied the “Reserved” table closest to the stage. Our innate rowdiness took over shortly, and we were hooting at the house band (shout out to BC Camplight) and yelling “Hut!”at any reference to Lady Gaga.

Okay, maybe that was just me.

Suddenly, it was time for our award category. Philebrity Captain and one of my personal Journalist heroes Joe Sweeney read down the list of nominees. When he hit #bdc we cheered, the crowd cheered for us, and he continued down the list.

End of story? Not quite.

Joey Sweeney: So, Shane isn’t here tonight, so we’re going to give this award to Blame Drew’s Cancer.

Team Blame Drew’s Cancer: ???

No, he was not joking. Suddenly we’re being gestured at and motioned towards to the stage and then we’re on the stage and then I’m hugging Joey Sweeney and then, inevitably, I am standing in front of a microphone gaping at a rather large crowd seated at round tables all Golden Globes style and I am like, omg I think now they want me to talk.

Luckily, there is video to document my surprising coherent trip through award show aphasia:

Philebrity Awards from Mark Magliocco on Vimeo.

(Take note of my neck-bobbing walk down the stairs, as it figures in to the next bit pretty heavily.) Continue reading ›

Also filed in Philly, Twitter, Year 10, blamedrewscancer, dancing, introversion, memories, stories | | Comments (1)

Our Battlestar Galactica Halloween as Baltar & Head Six

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Last night E and I dressed up as Head Six and Dr. Gaius Baltar, respectively, from the cult Sci-Fi hit Battlestar Galactica.

E is not in Six’s standard spaghetti-strap dress, but Six can be spotted in this style at least once in the series.

Also, note the spot-on bracelet and ring, which E made herself.

My costume was much more subtle, as I was effectively E’s accessory for the night. I simply grew some scruff and slicked back my hair. For fun, I carried two corner-cut Vice-Presidential memos (as we were ostensibly circa seasons one and two – post appointment to VP, but pre swearing-in as president).

One memo was the results of tests with the Cylon Detector. The other was a draft of Gaius’s inaugural speech, complete with parenthetical asides to Head Six (presumably floating over his shoulder in devilish fashion as he wrote it). Writing in the Dr. Baltar voice was very fun.

Out of two parties four people knew who we were. The best comment we received was by far:

I’m not sure who you are, but you both look really sexy. You should introduce yourself as, “Hi, I’m sexy.”

Oh, and SyFy – né Sci-Fi – the purveyors of the show we paid homage to, thought we were “Awesome!”

‘Nuff said.

Also filed in elise, memories, stories, teevee | | Comments (4)

I (mostly) #blamedrewscancer for my disappearing week.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

By rights and logic I really ought to be asleep right now, but if I don’t recount the past week it’s going to sleep out of the memory banks and completely disappear into the ether. At least this way I can prove that it actually happened.

So. If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been since that last post and why I am not writing you wonderfully detailed bulletins about my life, here is the download.

A week ago right now I was up late on the couch, laptop on my chest, firing out #blamedrewscancer emails. (Yes, I know I owe you the last chapter in the skydiving story. All in good time.) Around the time I planned to go to sleep National Mechanics emailed me and Mike(y) to ask if we were planning to bring some live acoustic cover music with us to the #bdc event next Thursday (i.e., TODAY).

Um, no. We had talked about it and thought music might be overwhelming. Given the open invitation, suddenly I was firing emails to all of my Philly artist friends who carry a bevy of covers, trying to find a bill for the night.

I fell asleep mid-email in that same position – lying on the couch with the laptop on my chest. When I awoke just shy of ten on Thursday morning (don’t worry; I had the day off) I literally opened my laptop before I opened my eyes. I had originally allotted the day half to #bdc and half to myself, but it wound up being double #bdc, and then some. Project managing, writing emails, talking to Drew, rinse, repeat.

It kept churning into the night (interrupted only to spend three hours researching my own well-documented credit history because – to the best that I can discern – CHASE is a bunch of predatory frauds. Without getting into my personal finances, they sent me a letter changing my terms that was blatantly untrue. Like, each “reason” they listed was immediately and factually refutable. The letter I wrote to them in response, it’s a beautiful thing. Elise speculates that they’ve never encountered such a document before in their lives. I can’t wait to fax it.)

Then, Friday. After work I found myself in a telecommuting menage a trois with Drew and Britt. What I couldn’t tell you then and can now reveal thanks to TechCrunch breaking the story earlier tonight is that I was working on a sponsorship proposal for 23andMe.

I started occasionally following 23andMe shortly before they were a Wired cover story in November of 2007, to the point that I knew just who they were when Cecily K. recapped her experiences with their commercial testing kit a few months ago. The reductionist version is that you spit in a test tube for them, and they report back to you about your predisposition for health and disease, and on your family history.

Point being, 23andMe is a real, tangible brand to me – a brand providing a valuable and potentially life-altering service. And I was proposing that #bdc (and, by extension, me) should be their business partner in a sponsorship.

So, yeah, just a little stress on Friday. Luckily, Drew is a wonderful human being who can make me laugh and cry remotely via instant message, and between the two of us everything was fine and from Britt’s abstract we all created a really wonderful proposal.

Saturday E and I headed to the burbs to assist in moving some friends into their first house (YAY!), and then I had a two hour intermission before heading with Gina to West Philly to play a house party fundraiser for her FringeFest play, Fefu and Her Friends. I’ve never played a house party before in a formal sense, where I was billed as a feature and was expected to play for some certain amount of time. It was awesome, but it kicked my ass – even when I wasn’t on I was still ON, from six at night to four in the morning.

In that ten hours, I played three or four hours of music. I also met, mingled, sang, and danced with some of the most beautiful and talented people in Philadelphia, namely the cast of Fefu and their amazing friend Ed, who is half lounge-singer and half space alien come to earth to reclaim Prince as one of his people.

Also, I played an on-command version of Cher’s “Believe” totally off of the top of my head, and at some very late point (possibly as late as present?) Gina, Wes, and I sang an epic three-part harmony version of “With or Without You” with Gina and I clustered around a single mic in a vague sketch of Springsteen and Van Zandt.

Then I slept. Until, like, seven at night on Sunday? All I know is that any time I was halfway roused during the day I would restart The Matrix and be asleep before the scene with the pills.

Um, where are we? Monday? Three or four hours of rehearsal with Gina directly after work (as we are providing some covers support TONIGHT while we await the arrival of the proper musician who will grace us, one Chris Huff), including playing an entire set live for TwitCam, followed by further rehearsal on my own.

Tuesday one of my other cover-songs leads came through in the form of my good friend and former TrebleMaker Kate, who showed up at my house with a setlist of 20 songs to bash through with me – out of which we were to craft 45 minutes of rockin’ cover music for TONIGHT (which is rapidly approaching as I continue to write this post).

Another four hours of rehearsal later and we had our set, packed with lots of stuff I had never played before, like Katy Perry, Aerosmith, and Evanescence … plus some familiar favorites.

Then, tonight, I baked. You see, somewhere in the midst of the days/paragraphs above, team #bdc decided that the best possible component to add to a benefit night at a local bar packed with acoustic music was a bake sale, and I – inexplicably and against my nature and better judgment – volunteered. (My altruism may have had something to do with wanting to play with the Kitchen Aid standing mixer my groom’s party bought us as a wedding gift.)

A dozen dozen cookies, half-a-dozen lead sheets, and half a half-dozen loads of laundry later, and it’s 4am. Music starts at our event in a mere 16 hours. I still have not had a proper rehearsal for myself, and I just hours ago realized I don’t have another set of my preferred strings (a particular issue since I just broke one).

Goodnight.

Also filed in Twitter, blamedrewscancer, day in the life, gina, memories, sleep, stories | | Comments (0)

In Which I Confess to Lazing

Friday, April 6, 2007

If we define me by being musical and active and despising passive expenditures of time, then I think it’s safe to say that I went through a bit of an Anti-Me month in February.

Mostly due to video games.

Let me back up a step. In 2004 I gave up network television as a concept; it figuratively and literally doesn’t exist to me anymore, the latter because we haven’t had a vestige of television reception for going on three years.

Since 2004, 95% of the television I have watched (intentionally or not) has been Eagles games. And, because we don’t have reception of our own, most of my Eagles-watching is done with friends.

This season the group of friends happens to also be a group of depraved video-game maniacs, and when we decided to get together for one post-playoffs hurrah we did nothing but play video games.

I haven’t given up video games in the way that I gave up television, but they do make me wary … mostly because I spent a year and a half of my life doing nothing but playing City of Heroes. Sure, there are a handful of site updates and new songs to prove I was alive, and also I was apparently maintaining a relationship at the time, but I was also putting in 40+ hour weeks in at work and on the game.

Well, after our little party I decided that owning a video game system wouldn’t be the end of the world. It wouldn’t be connected to the internet, so it couldn’t suck me in the same degree as City of Heroes. And, much in the way we selectively view TVDs of good shows to replace our lack of television, I would only buy and play games that were compelling. It would be a social and intellectual pursuit.

Right. And then I bought We Love Katamari and a month of my life disappeared.

It’s not that I played video games for the entire month, so much as that video games were emblematic of my lack of energy for creative pursuits. Not lack of inspiration, mind you, but lack of energy.

Merrily, I was right – a non-networked PlayStation doesn’t have the kind of grip on my immortal soul as an internet world full of unique superheroes. This iteration of gaming in my life is merely a distraction, not an addiction.

But then I think – how much blogging could I have done while I was thumbing a joystick? How many songs could I have recorded? Et cetera, et cetera?

Who knows. Life doesn’t work like a metric conversion scale. Could I have recorded an awesome album, or did I simply not have anything to say creatively?

A retrospective answer is meaningless; it’s a question you and I need to ask ourselves each time we pick up a remote or a controller.

This week my answer is “you have plenty to say – start talking.”

Also filed in betterment, games, gina, thoughts | | Comments (0)

with a couple of warm beers and watched the fireworks explode in the sky

Monday, July 3, 2006

Despite previous independence highlights, today’s pre-fourth could have been my best. How many other days can you succeed at work, see one of your favorite people engaged, and get rip-roaring drunk with the best of your bestest of friends (actually, family). I love it.

In other notes: A great random-topic blog, Kinkish. Some art, some recipes, some musings. All good.

Also, I don’t completely understand what it’s about (something about gay men, i think), but Ballroom Rockstar is a wonderful name for a magazine.

And (fittingly, though you might not be able to tell by my typing), the 86 Rules of Boozing. Which maybe sounds a little tongue-in-cheek, but if you’re someone who doesn’t go out to bars very often a lot of them will serve you well.

Happy freedom to do whatever it is you’re doing.

Also filed in linkylove, weblinks | | Comments (0)

Sunday Morning

Sunday, June 12, 2005

The party was a huge success, and I probably have enough leftovers to last me all week (which is good, because I’m going to need to skip lunch for a month to repay my party debt to my budget). Also, Elise is now graduated, or commenced, or whatever, and along the way her arrangement of the Star Spangled Banner sounded fantastic, took everyone by surprise, and garnered lots of random congratulations out on the lawn after the ceremony was over.

Lots of post-party mopping awaits me downstairs, but i thought i’d unload some scant links on you all first.

A Bookslut interview with the founder of Guys Read, a non-profit organization that encourages boys and men to find literature that’s right for them. I’ve been a reader almost my entire life, but that’s probably because my mother always bought me the right things to read, so i am pleased and fascinated by this cause (found via Neil Gaiman).

Word has it that Blogathon is a go, and will be held on August 6th. I’ve never liked the last-minuteness of the planning of the ‘Thon, because it sells short the opportunity to support it and it disqualifies possible participants who have a life and like to plan ahead for it. I myself already have plans for August 6th (i’ll be on stage!), so it looks as though my participation with the ‘Thon has ended. I might still be doing some promotional writing for the event, and otherwise wish them the best.

MusicLab is a study on how you like music. I haven’t done it yet, but in exchange for being a test-subject you get to download all sorts of free indy tunes. Link probably from Coolfer.

Also from Coolfer, a cool girl band Jessie Diamond and the Thousand There was another band i wanted to link to, but i lost their link. Instead, read the best guitar-oriented interview with Ani DiFranco ever.

Okay, off to mop.

Also filed in ani difranco, blogathon, elise, weblinks | | Comments (0)

The Hardest to Learn….

Friday, June 10, 2005

Somehow, incredibly, all the food is ready.

It seems incredible because, well, I haven’t cooked in a year. There, i’ve said it. I made some cookies for the office Christmas party, and boiled water for plenty of pasta, but i hadn’t cooked as in carrying out a recipe in over a year. So, the idea of having a multi-course, multi-dish party where i was responsible for making half of all of the food items was a little daunting.

And, frankly, it continued to be daunting, right up until twenty minutes ago when (admittedly, slightly blitzed from taste-testing my Continental Strawbursts) i fused all of my chocolate covered pretzels together in the freezer and while removing them discovered that all of my gnocchies had (also) fused together in the refrigerator.

However, the food is made, including food i could make in my sleep (quiche, three-cheese chicken, aforementioned strawbursts) and foods i’ve never even attempted before, out of sheer intimidation (cheesecake, philly rolls, fresh gnocchi).

Anyway, now all i have to do is figure out where to serve it all from, and how much to drink. Oh, and I have to assemble equipment for and mix a Treblemakers concert in …. 40 minutes.

Also filed in food | | Comments (0)

I’ll Cry If I Want To

Monday, June 6, 2005

I have assisted in the throwing of many parties, but I’ve only actually thrown three in my own living space that actually qualified as “parties” and not just gatherings or hangings out.

Of the first we dare not speak (not anymore, anyway). At the second, someone told me she loved me, and someone passed out in my stall shower (different someones; obviously a success). And, at the third I holed up in my room, jamming loudly with a rotating slate of collaborators, oblivious to the rest of the party (my ideal evening).

We are throwing my fourth party this Friday: a housewarming slash graduation slash after-party to The Last Ever (Really, This Time We Mean It) Live Performance by the 2004-05 TrebleMakers, at 7pm in Stein Auditorium.

Or, more accurately, Elise is throwing an after-party, and I am project managing the after-party.

Basically, this means I suck all the fun of party-planning out of party-planning by charting all food by meat and dairy content, calculating the low/mid/high number of total guests, using a spreadsheet to track all ingredient purchases, and creating a gantt chart to illustrate why we need to buy another slotted serving spoon.

My project management prowess seemed to be lost on the party-thrower.

Aside from the estimated twelve hours of cooking I have to do between now and Friday, in my capacity as project manager I am most concerned about how many people will show up. Though our house is spacious, it only is equipped with seating for six – seven if I bring in my lawn chair from outside.

In the depressing attendance basement of my low/mid/high equation (affirmed via PERT), only eight people are coming, which would make for a rousing game of musical chairs for the guests while Elise and I frantically proffered an alarming array of appetizers and 60+ servings of three possible main courses.

However, on the “our friends like us enough to park in South Philly just to eat food and be adults for three hours on a Friday night” side of the list (high), there are *fifty-four* people. Not exactly enough for the neighbors to call the cops, just enough to eat all of our food, and more-than-enough to pack our house like a sold out GA show.

As potentially alarming as the potential fifty-four guests are from a planning and entertainment standpoint, they are no where near as alarming as the potential eight. As a result, I have resorted to attempting to force my friends to confirm or deny their attendance (no maybes, damnit!) by sheer force of will. As that isn’t working out so well, I am in fact living minute to minute by the fickle whims of Evite. When two of our key couples declined the invite this morning due to prior plans I went into red alert.

“E,” my morning bulletin began, “M&S and G&W can no longer attend, and N&G converted to maybe. Lo/Med/Hi has taken an across the board hit due to variance from our presupposition of attendance.” The grim reality set forth in the stark light of Monday morning, I concluded with the real conundrum: “H’or Deurves situation may require re-eval; also, in danger of three-cheese chicken roll up overrun of half-dozen or more. Alter menu, or invite more guests? Pls advise, tx! – P”

And, I haven’t even started planning the music yet.

Also filed in Year 05, food, memories, ocd | | Comments (3)

I Do Do Meander

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Picking up cigarette butts as the scent of pancakes and sausages wafted over me, I found the sun to be bright.

Wait. Saturday was a day. All days are days, but Saturday was quite one, mostly because of Garbage. They were here in Philadelphia, and I was to see them (a fourth time) with Ayelet (a third).

Outfit after outfit was donned and dashed as I prepared – how to best recapture that youthful androgynous energy I wrapped myself in when I was first introduced to these songs? My past blasted in from the living room, each new track a flashback: I have very visceral connection to those songs, and sometimes hearing one transports me to some other place. Ayelet is slipping earphones over my head as “Fix Me Now” begins on the bus to New York. The sun has not yet risen, and Mr. Benjamin is there, somewhere in the front; Ayelet is telling me that this is her favorite one so far.

Back in the present, I decided on jeans (so unglam!) and made the trip down to South Street, eventually finding both Ayelet and my way into the TLA, which Garbage completely overwhelmed me. Each song was spectacularly re -magined while still taking me to places in time and space I cannot otherwise access. What was also incredible was running into Jen&Mel – direct from one of those flashbacks.

J&M were conspicuously inseparable, those cool older kids when we were in high school – the kind that knew everything about music, and would come back from concerts with pictures and scrapbooks and set lists torn right from the stage. I feel like they coached us – me, Andrea, and Gina a little bit too – on how to live in the world of music and culture. They’re older now, as much as I am, one married and the other an opera singer! (She couldn’t scream, for fear of hurting her voice, so every time she felt moved to scream she tugged on Jen’s shoulder and said “Scream, Jen, scream!”).

I devoured their phone numbers after the show, crossing my heart to call, that it wasn’t just an act of acquisition. I do love to acquire; no toy is ever as good as the next toy. I’ve found that eventually this leaves you poor, and with too many toys you don’t really want or use. It made me think that I treat friends and their phone numbers too much like toys, always looking for new ones, and not too concerned if I lose one. It shouldn’t be that way.

After the concert (at the party; I haven’t mentioned that yet) I had a great time. I hugged and kissed our newly returned Jack profusely. I learned about contemporary architecture from ‘Cesca, and the history of the Marshall islands from Kate. I danced with Laura without feeling as though I’d go into cardiac arrest. The day eventually overcame me, and I nodded off on a couch, with someone laying a blanket on me as they passed by from dancing to the kitchen.

Picking up cigarette butts in Ross’s yard, I checked the brands on the stubbed ends and imagined which of my friends had probably smoked them. Some were butts were longer – a few ill-advised drags, quickly abandoned. Others were sucked down to the filter. Every one a story.

I love my friends. All of them – even the ones who I might not even recognize anymore.

I wish they would all stop smoking, though.

Also filed in Year 05, garbage, ross | | Comments (0)

Sunday, March 3, 2002

There is someone asleep in my shower.

Actually, he’s not in my shower… he’s more half-in my shower, with his legs splayed out over my seafoam green rug in such a way that i cannot possibly get in to grab my toothbrush and face wash.

Apparently it was a good party.

I’ve never thrown a party before; the small gathering i arranged last month paled in comparison to this one. This, though, was a party … furniture rearranging, obsessive vacuuming, nearly eighty assorted jello shots, fifty dollars just in soda and chips, and two refrigerators full of assorted beer-like substances. I have yet to figure out how many people were here… twenty just from assorted a cappella groups, another ten certified friends of the house, and lots of random non-house friends. A large group of people, to be sure. And, funny things, too. For one, our extra room got turned into a concert hall when i brought all but two of my guitars out to play, and sudden i was being treated to a whole spectrum of songs — from a multiple-MC version of “That Thing” to what amounted to a full-band treatment of “The Only Gay Eskimo.” Recitals of Weezer songs upstairs. Me parading around nearly naked with a pair of underwear on my head.

I didn’t drink a drop.

Right now everything that i spent all day cleaning looks like it was swept over with an alcohol tinged cyclone, and we three roommates have decided to not do a damned thing about it until tomorrow morning when we wake up.

I don’t suppose that our friend in the shower is opposed to the plan.

Also filed in acappella, college, stories, weezer | | Comments (1)

Saturday, February 9, 2002

Cast Parties are always an experience that involve nearly as much drama as the show they are celebrating, and last night wasn’t an exception. What was an exception was that i didn’t drink; i’ve never drank at a winter show party, and decided to turn the trend into a tradition. It was interesting, if only because everyone finally got the point that i am really a fucking lunatic whether or not i’ve got a couple of drinks in me. There was simulated sex with multiple cast members. There was a contest to see who could grab the most genitalia, both male and female. There was me singing along and bopping around to the entire Immaculate Collection.

Oh, and i might have attempted to kiss someone.

When i’m drunk i flirt, but i’m usually doing it in a generic drunken way. Being sober, last night i was flirting with some amount of purpose. And, oddly enough, i was being flirted back at. I still don’t quite understand what was going on, personally, but apparently Laurel knows the whole story and will explain it to me before the show tonight.

See, i’m a stupid fucking lunatic who can’t even manage to lean in for a kiss whether i’m sober or trashed. Don’t you love the consistency?

Also filed in flirt, laurel, madonna, theatre | | Comments (0)

Sunday, January 20, 2002

Having never hosted a party before, i was somehow blissfully unaware of some of the cardinal rules. Sure, they seem obvious, but when said party is really just a handful of friends kicking back with some mixed drinks nothing seems life or death.

For those of you not in the know, cardinal rule numero uno is that the host should not attempt to drink the drunkest party-goer under the table, especially when being “under the table” involves locking oneself in a bathroom for multiple hours while shouting out pleasantries like “How’s the cake?” and “Could someone please check Matt’s pulse.” Apparently, it’s bad behaviour for a host to lie crumpled half-naked on cool tile floor while his roommates and party guests make sure that everything gets put back where it belongs and that everyone gets home okay. Who knew?

For those of you keeping score at home, i now owe a big favour to all of my guests and roommates. Big. Like… do any of you have a line on this world peace thing?

Also filed in alchohol, college | | Comments (2)

Saturday, January 5, 2002

The cool thing about this (other than how my typing speed and accuracy increases when i’m drunk) is the excellent time that i had. I saw friends. We made dinner. We exchanged gifts. I was dressed in a coordinated fashion until i started stripping on the dance floor. The entire affair made me feel entirely adult, complete with multiple wines before dinner, discussion of skiing over entrees, planning a trip to Spain over cocktails, and an excellently played game of chess throughout. Though most of the attendees are still undergrads, we definitely have found a way to have fun that isn’t just some beer-soaked party, and that manages to be witty and still just drunken enough to remind us we’re in our golden years.

It’s been a good week.

Also filed in alchohol | | Comments (0)

Saturday, January 5, 2002

So, like, i might be just a little wee bit intoxicated. Nothing to worry about, i assure you. It all started with our pollyanna dinner, where i unexpectedly scored the White Stripes album that’s been topping critic’s polls and Dance Hall at Louse Point, which i’ve neglected to buy for quite some time now. By the time of gift-unwrapping i had only imbibed a glass or two of wine, and so i made a trip to the kitchen to ask Ross to upgrade my liquor intake a bit.

That’s where the downward spiral began. About two hours (and four double-strength mixed drinks later) i’m el-trasho.

The road to el-trasho began innocently enough with orange juice, peach schnapps, and orange Grey Goose vodka, but soon thereafter it seemed to involve several of my friends circling the room in clown-sized bicycles and someone starting a huge fight with a large loaf of french bread. A drink later and i was playing power air-chords to Dookie, swinging around a riding crop in the air, and dueting with Kate on vocals. The next drink (a “bullfrog”) found me MC-ing tracks 1 & 3 from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in spectacular fashion. Then there was a lot of club music (the dance moves during which may have earned me a death threat from Lindsay). And, then, just when they thought they were safe, i found a copy of The Immaculate Collection.

Let’s just say i still remember all of the choreography to “Vogue.”

Ross was terrified. Kate was stunned. Lindsay was sure i was gay. I was breathless.

After that i might have climbed up the bars on the front window, but the important thing is that i made it home in a coherent state and managed to log on to the internet. Rock on.

Also filed in alchohol, lindsay, ross | | Comments (0)

Thursday, November 8, 2001

I feel like… i don’t know, Third Rock From the Sun? Do you remember at the very beginning of the show when the four of them didn’t understand anything at all? … Taking coats at parties, kissing, slapping, cheerleaders, and breasts? Lately when i go back and look at the archives i just feel like a visitor in the shape of me trying to emulate the behavior i’m supposed to be representing. Is that circular enough for you? The change happened somewhere around when co-op began, because you can tell the difference between the computer being a constant companion and just something to stare at in-between doing things. And then i started doing a few things and talking about them, instead of just talking about not doing anything. And now i do things all the time and have nothing to talk about afterwards.

What’s so interesting about my life, really? Obviously i do things… last night i went to the movies, i can talk about that. I walked to the movie theatre, which is three blocks from my house. In the lobby Laurel was waiting for me (along with her roommate and Jeff (as if i went on a date with Laurel and didn’t mention it (obviously i only mention Laurel because you know who she is at this point))). She asked if i had gotten my haircut and i responded “Not for almost a month.” We saw Monsters INC, which involved a lot of giggling. Afterwards i bought some sushi and talked about X-Men with Erika, who was reading Carrie.

So, there’s two main theories of journaling that i can discern. The one is that obviously my night was pretty freakin’ boring when it comes to reading about it, so i should either talk about something else or learn to do more interesting things. The other is that it doesn’t matter what i’m doing, just so long as i put my own spin on it people will care about reading. I’m not sure which of the two i subscribe to, but my first journaling connection online was the ever-present Gus, who resides wholly in the second school of thought. Gus basically just writes one post a day, each and every single day, and he weaves it all together so that you’re not only interested in what he has to say, but you honestly want to know what he’s doing with himself. Frankly, Gus is one of the only people who employs this technique who i enjoy, the others being Alison and Meg, though they use their narrative voice a little more pervasively.

The way last year had been going for me, i just merrily trolled along with my own script of things to say and would talk about parties and things if and when i went to them because they were typically unusual and exciting. But, at this point, going to a party is like “wow, another party. i wonder who’ll hook up tonight?”, and afterwards i’m always tearing out my hair thinking “how can i tell an interesting story about that lapdance…?” So, now i have a daily existence and i suppose my big question is whether i’m supposed to talk about it, or me, or some other nebulous thing — because back in the day i was talking about my life, but it was a lack of a life, so it was just me talk about me.

Wow, now i’m dizzy. Tell you what… you sit and stare at the screen for an hour thinking about what i’ll write next, and i’ll go get some ice cream. Cool? Cool.

Also filed in comics, erika, flicks, laurel, meta, self-aware, teevee | | Comments (0)

Thursday, November 8, 2001

So, this is as out of order as the rest of my life right now, fittingly, because i got all the way out of New Hope and into the umpteen hundred magic cards on my bedroom floor and skipped Saturday. So, that whole thread on masturbation will have to get resolved later. So.

Saturday.

In Autumn, hardly a week goes by without a party, and having been here for three years i’ve noticed that fall quarter falls into a neatly distributed schedule of nighttime affairs. Welcome Back! for returning people, and then Welcome Freshmen! to meet new girls, and then Kegger (part 1)!, and then Halloween, Supertech, Pre-Play, Cast Party, Post-Play, et cetera ad nauseum. Yes, i am a social fucking butterfly, because i wind up at all of them one way or another. But, anyhow, this past Saturday was Supertech and so we appeared at the corresponding party already quite inebriated from hitting the house liquor from last weekend. At some point before or during the inebriation process i was informed that one of the “new girls” seems to have a little thing for men of my type, so not only was i slightly drunk, i was slightly drunk with a mission!

Point being, not only does someone quite apparently have a crush on me, but she’s, like, sorta kinda really hot. And listens to good music. And has this really hot roommate… oh, wait, didn’t i mention that i had previously declared her really hot roommate the only Freshmen worth flirting with? Such is life. But, rest assured, they’re both really hot.

Please also rest assured that i’m not pulling a Selina on you and that i am, in fact, not currently at this girl’s place blogging around the issue. Here i am, blogging in the issue, tracking it all over my easily locatable page for all to see. Blog blog blog.

So, i don’t know, if she found my portrayal of a drunken lout charming i’m apparently just her type. Heaven only knows what that’s supposed to mean. As soon as i figure it out i’ll tell you…

Also filed in alchohol, college, elise, flirt, q.o.d. | | Comments (1)

Sunday, October 28, 2001

Scattered. Last night was a weird scattered night because i went from being virtually invisible on Friday night to being central, and it was a wholly different feeling than i usually have and i think that’s why i had a good time. I went shopping for supplies, i ran out to make sure we had supplementary drinks, i got everyone together at the party for a little group chat, and i suddenly knew all kinds of party things i had only ever barely observed when it came down to it. At the point in the party where i am usually miserable and ready to implode i was serene and just wanted to stop pounding at my brain with anything i could get my hands on and head home. And, so, we did.

It was so very different… like the difference between being a ghostly cipher of a person who can barely make his presence felt as a tiny whispering breeze and a real tangible thing that can touch and feel and manipulate anything i can get my hands on. I had an effect on events. I am inextricably woven into the story. I am a supporting character that is so regular that i appear in the opening credits.

I should be on the credits. After all, it is my show.

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Sunday, October 28, 2001

Scattered scattered scattered.

Yesterday was all about scattering myself like a dandelion in the wind to see where i wound up. I didn’t like many of the places, and so i kept scattering again and again until i had nothing left but sleep, and so that’s where i finally wound up.

Some things amaze me. There was a girl flirting with me, and she seemed nice enough but to me she was very unattractive. She was thin, and pretty, and talkative, and everything — but she absolutely didn’t mean anything to me at all. She took a hold of my necklace and asked me if i knew how to hold the reigns of a horse and i found my body suddenly sliding out from under me and two minutes later i was locked in a bathroom hiding.

The funny thing is, other guys at the party were eager to flirt with her… in fact, nearly all of them were, considering that she was blonde and single. I just couldn’t understand it; am i broken somehow, that i’m a boy yet i don’t immediately want to even so much as kiss someone if i’m not implicitly interested in them? Am i supposed to want to kiss just for the sake of kissing, and to see where it leads?

Do you know that some boys really still tally up their sexual partners like proverbial notches on a bed-frame? I always assumed that teevee-bred frat-boys and other such miscreants did it all of the time, but it’s a strange otherworldly feeling to be in a room full of boys who are having that conversation where i keep thinking… why would i want to give some of myself to so many different people? I can’t even begin to talk about the whole ordeal because it wholly involved the private-me and not the internet-me, but what i can say is that there is someone who i used to quite like as a person to talk to who i now can’t even look at because he disgusts me on such an inherent level that my stomach is currently churning. It’s not just sex… it’s disregard for self-worth. And personal safety.

In the same way that i never thought of my own friends as those sorts of boys, i never saw the Players’ dating habits as indicative of college as a whole. We are thespians, after all. However, suddenly there are all of these new girls floating around and i am old enough that i am separate from them at the parties we attend, and they make me wonder. Are they flirting with nearly everyone because they like the sudden power they have over men? Do they have their own notches and bedposts and bragging conversations that i am blissfully unaware of? Or, are they somehow hypnotized by the plain old bunch of us just because we’re older and have apartments and wet-bars and roles in plays?

I wonder if i acted anything like they do when i first got here… i always thought i had found my real friends for the first time in my life, but maybe it was just that i had finally found a social structure that i could weave my way into. Maybe for me it wasn’t the beer and the pot and the escape from the dormitories so much as the feelings that i was braiding myself into a continuing history that had existed before me and would go on without me, and that forever-after a smattering of those rambling tales of wild weekend nights would inevitably include me.

Also filed in college, flirt, sex, theatre | | Comments (0)

Saturday, October 27, 2001

So, the party was bland. It’s funny… not doing the play and not being the biggest social butterfly in the world means that none of these crazy new freshmen have the slightest idea of who i am. I introduced myself to one of the major people from the play and she just tilted her head to the side and oozed “Well, it’s very nice to meet you Peter.” In a way it’s all rather amusing, because no one has any context for me, but in an entirely separate way it’s incredibly depressing because everyone is so busy fawning over their usual focuses and on the muscular and busty new players that i am just wallpaper. Flavor. Amusing. It’s not as though i need to be a center of attention, i just prefer not to be invisible.

Are you starting to get the sense that i don’t like parties very much? Good, cause i’ll be on my way out to another one in about an hour. I actually have high hopes for tonight’s soiree… Ross and I sped out of our crew call in the shop to spend more money on liquor than i did on my guitar, and i’ve been drunk once already so far today (more than i can say for last night), and the shindig tonight is a mostly upperclassmen invite-only affair staffed with no beer (well, a little) and a Daylight Saving’s power-hour. Yeah. Should be fun.

Also filed in alchohol, ross | | Comments (0)

Saturday, September 29, 2001

Last night was our second of three nights performing in our student written/directed plays, and we actually had an audience. A big audience. All of the major current Drexel Players showed up, and we had equally that many Freshmen in attendance for our little meet and greet function afterwards. The show was hilarious, the actors had a good time, and then things got interesting.

Being the Friday night of a show we were (of course) going to have a cast party later, and somehow someone got the idea to start inviting the people at the reception every time our program director turned her back. So, we went from a rowdy crowd of theatre people alternately hitting on each other and talking about how trashed we were going to get (or, in some cases, how stoned we were already) to leading a parade of assorted players and freshmen back to Kevin’s at 8:30. Yes, 8:30. I don’t think we’ve ever started a party so early in my entire time here.

Us regular peeps didn’t drink especially in excess, but there was an unusual amount of energy in the air between it being our first big party as a group this year and our first chance to mingle with our new recruits. Needless to say, things quickly got out of hand. I decided after only consuming half of what i typically do that i really needed to be a whore. A big, cheap, rowdy whore. Suddenly i found myself giving people peeks at my underwear and straddling others sitting on couches or in armchairs. And, somewhere in there, someone unfortunately asked me if i was planning to give lapdances.

I am infamous for my teasing at lapdancing at theatre parties, but last night i was all sexed up with nowhere to go and i happened to have Garbage with me, so suddenly “Queer” started popping up on stereos all around the house as i writhed around like a man whose clothes were on fire.

My first dance was for some girl named Adina who lamented “It’s a shame you’re not straight,” to which i replied “Oh, but i am.” Needless to say, that lead to some interesting conversation. But, anyhow, after another warm-up dance i decided to take my act down into the middle of the living room where i could be viewed in all of my inebriated bump-and-grind glory. Let’s just say that a lot of me was seen, and it involved a lot of writhing around on top of Chevy and Hillary. Somewhere in the middle Meg decided to start spilling beer on me (intentionally) and between all the adrenaline of dancing around half naked and how much i generally despise Meg i smacked her (but only in the nose, and she slams me across the face harder every night in the play). If anything, i figure that should make tonight’s kissing (and slapping) all the more interesting.

Afterwards i seem to recall being carried out of the room over Chevy’s shoulder and plunked down in the hallway, and afterwards i just followed someone around all moon-eyed while they talked about how they weren’t ready to break up with their boyfriend and how they like this creepy crew guy and i just sat and listened for the remainder of the night. Because, ultimately, i’m protective of my female friends even before i am possessive of them. At some point i danced to “Miami” and then facilitated Ross crawling into a bathroom, and then i collected Erika and Lindsay (both knee deep in their own inebriation-related drama) and we found someone who hadn’t been drinking to drive us home.

Wow, it’s almost as if this is a journal… or that i’m happy some of the time. Rest assured that i mentioned the pointlessness that is life and how much i hate everyone at least three times at the party, lest you think my depressed-cred is waning. And, now that i just gave an hour long tour to perspective students while slightly hung over, i’m off to locate something resembling breakfast.

Also filed in alchohol, elise, garbage, stories, theatre | | Comments (0)

Saturday, September 29, 2001

So, not to tease you and then leave you waiting for more or anything like that, but let’s just say that last night will forever be remembered as “the night of the lapdance(s).”

Oh, look, i have to give a tour now. See you later…

Also filed in elise, theatre | | Comments (0)

Sunday, September 23, 2001

Yesterday was impossibly full… two or three different days all slipped deceptively into the packaging of one. Shopping turned into lunch, which turned into a deep conversation about what made me who i am, which turned into a concert for my mom that ended with a concert that pulled out notes and chords from places i’ve never been before. That was one day… happy deep family day. Then there was my day to myself, with guitar and internet and music and napping and food. And, then, came my day with friends, which typically started out happy and fun and quickly descended into misery. I’m usually introverted enough towards the middle and end of big parties, but this time i had headphones with me so i just turned on the good bits and let everyone at the party do their miserable little social dance to the sounds between my ears. Eventually i got tired of waiting for the people i wanted to be with (the story of my life) and i went out on the front step and turned it up all the way until finally i set off for the apartment.

So many blogging things happened in there… things i’ll have to say eventually for me to make more sense. Somehow i explained to my mother exactly why i like to be thin and why i like the girls who i like and why i have to be successful at something and she understood it all with this wane little smile and tears welling in her eyes. I can’t imagine what it must have been like seeing me from the outside… i wanted to thank her for everything and so when she asked me to play “under my skin” i shut my eyes and opened up and poured things into it that she had never even heard before, and afterwards she sortof just stared at me and i was just sweating and breathing and smiling because somehow i opened the song up again just when i thought i had used it all up.

It’s hard to quantify 20 years in any kind of way, but somewhere in between my nearly mathematical proof that i’ve never had a male role model before Peter Mulvey and my gut-wrenching concert i think i was having a happy birthday. The only happy one out of the three.

Also filed in introversion, mom, mulvey, only childness, self image, under my skin, vanity | | Comments (0)

Tuesday, July 31, 2001

I just had to let everyone in the office know that we were having a party. Entirely in mime or lounge lizard versions of “Celebration.” How many times have you told your co-worker down the hall “Come to the conference room @ 4:30pm for a party, and make sure to bring your knife and some napkins!” entirely in hand gestures and dance moves from the 80′s while they’re on the phone? It was like being my own roving charades minstrel… bleh, this day sucks.

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Saturday, May 12, 2001

Leaving for work yesterday morning began a sequence of events that would leave me rushing from place to place for the entire weekend with just moments like these to catch my breath; work, rehearsal, dyke march, cast party, sleep, car wash, scavenger hunt, ushering, dinner, sleep, ushering, striking the set. Everything was going just fine until the cast party, during which a combination of all sorts of factors left me dumb and sleeping in a stupor (although i made it back here, in an example of (a very addled) mind over matter). I woke up this morning not hungover but instead still mildly drunk, which made the walk to the car wash an interesting incident. However, totally raising the average estimated value of my day was that fact that Teri decided to come all the way in from Shippensburg to hang out with our chapter of PNE for the day. Seeing as she’s about to disappear off of the face of my earth for three months, i have to say i was happy to see her. But, anyway, somewhere in there i played some hardcore ultimate frisbee, and now i have to run off to see what the rest of the night has in store for me. Should be interesting…

Also filed in college, day in the life | | Comments (0)

Sunday, April 1, 2001

At one point my teeth were actually numb. Numb! How cliched is that? I was surreptisiouly tapping my fingernails against them for the latter half of the night to make sure that it wasn’t my imagination.

People are so weird when they’re drunk. Said Josh at the party: “I’m starting to realize drinking is a spectator sport.” I wholeheartedly agree… i just wish someone would tape it so i could study my performance later. Although… that might wind up being a little embarrassing…

Also filed in alchohol, college | | Comments (0)