On the dangers of binge drinking

Hang on to your butts folks, as Samuel L. Jackson would say, it happens to be a two-fer-one day. Good fortune has smiled so upon you because as I was considering what amusing anecdote to relate on this day, I stumbled upon not one, but two (at least) stories that happened to end in the same way.

We've all seen advertisements warning young adults on the dangers of binge drinking, perhaps you've even seen a lifetime movie or two tackling that issue. However, while we may all have that one crazy night we are lucky to have survived, the biggest danger you face while drinking too much isn't alcohol poisoning, its (you guessed it) public humiliation. Don't drink and drive? How about, don't drink and pee in a fountain?

My wisdom unfortunately comes from personal experience. At the tender age of 15, puberty was in full swing, I had finally grown some teeny tiny things that I called breasts, and was wowing all the boys with braces and such fascinating extracurricular activities as marching band. I was lucky enough to get to go to Europe to play my flute in a band, which was more like a massive ensemble of horny adolescents given free reign to humiliate themselves in 10 countries and 3-4 different languages. I played my part.

One of the hotels we stayed in had not only a bar, but a real-life honest to god "DiskoTeka" or whatever lame name the Swiss have for their dance clubs. Attempting to get over my natural weirdness and once again, fit in with everyone else, I decided that what I really needed to get down, was half a liter of orange vodka. And get down I did.

The patrons of this club consisted of a few big toothed English tourists, 1-2 french speaking Asian break-dancers, and about 50 of us marching band kids ranging in age from 15-21. I was feeling good. I was feeling more than good, I was feeling obliterated. I, oh-so-cooly, passed my "Booty Mix 2001" CD to the DJ and proceeded to climb onto a railing that separated the two dance floors. I inherited many gifts and talents from my parents, but dancing was simply not one of them. Usually, I'm aware of my disability and take pity on those around me, but I had succumbed to peer pressure and was fully immersed in my drinking binge.

I was feeling the beat. I just knew I was going to meet my future swiss husband in this club, and he was going to be stopped dead in his tracks by my gyrating, and full body thrusting as I balanced precariously on the railing. Luckily, I had a large 2'x4' which hung low enough from the ceiling that I could stabilize my flailing body with. Unluckily, this large board was also at head level.

The music began to crescendo, I was in the zone. I began a series of violent hair tossing movements and as you can probably guess where this is going, I slammed my alcohol-numbed forehead directly into the wooden cross-beam. The next thing I remember is looking up into the amused/annoyed/slightly concerned faces of the asian breakdancers whos sick reverse air baby/turtle spins my flailing body had violently interrupted. To add insult to injury, the head injury also caused acute belligerent drunk speak, and I had to be carried over a friends shoulder up the fire escape to avoid being caught out after curfew.

Now sometimes in our lives, it takes making the same mistake twice for the lesson to really set in, as evidenced by the fact hat you get two stories for the price of one today.

I wish I had the hormonal ragings of puberty to blame on this one, but unfortunately it was just the regular old hormones at fault here. Jump forward about 5-6 years. I was in a long distance relationship at the time, and also had a pretty nasty drinking habit that if you recall, had begun in my XXL Pink floyd sweat pants some years before. After guzzling, semi-socially, a bottle of the sophisticated "99 Bananas" which for those who dont know, is a 100 proof banana flavored alcohol which you could probably power your lawnmower with, I was feeling frisky.

It was my boyfriends lucky day, oh yes it was. I adjusted the mood lighting and flipped on the webcam and commenced to give what in my mind, would be a sexy striptease. intermittent stumbling, and probably hiccuping, I slid off those sweat pants, and did the little helicopter fling with my oversized hoodie. I decided maybe he needed a better look at the toned ass that gaming 20 hours a day had gotten me.

I threw my leg up onto my computer chair and began to do my slow turn around. Oh the humanity. Are you at a computer? If so, look down and note that most computer chairs are on wheels. It was this particular feature which was, quite literally, my downfall. The chair slipped out from under me as I mouthed the slow motion, "nooooooooo," just before my head slammed into the wall that I had previously not thought was a serious danger to me.

I awoke to my phone ringing. Not only had I knocked myself completely unconscious, apparently I fell directly in the webcams field of view, butt first, in such an unflattering and disturbing way that my boyfriend felt compelled to try to rouse me by phone.

So seriously folks. If ever you feel tempted to indulge in a drinking binge, think of my awkwardly positioned unconscious form, and think twice.

a brief era that everyone is happy to forget about

Since the masses have cried out for more with much furiosity, I am reluctantly going to oblige with some touching reminiscings on this lovely afternoon. I know you may find it hard to believe, but I have once again sliced my index finger open, not once, but twice during cooking adventures and it is quite painful to type at my usual unfathomable rate. Additionally, I have a vindicitive little bitch of a cat who has a favorite activity of prying off my laptop keys and then mutilating them beyond any hope that I might snap them back into place. She also hates books. So you all better be grateful every time you see any of the following:

a 1 e = ,

and their associated shift characters, respectively. Anyways.

I have already mentioned my brief stay in the mental health facility, and perhaps you might be wondering, "I wonder what happened after that!" (! is 1's shift character, so you owe me one hail mary)

Well since you asked, after my enjoyable holiday at "High Pointe" The extra e makes it a classy jointe, I decided that what I wanted to do the most in the world, was become a massage therapist, and attend the internationally respected Blue Cliff College of Lafayette Louisiana. I moved into my fathers rent house in the even more respected and quaint town of Eunice, with attractions such as the snow cone stand in the music store, wal-mart and local gem of a bar "the purple peacock" Not a gay bar. I dont think.

My first priorities after moving to a new place, was to make friends, do well in school, lose weight and pursue some hobbies. So obviously I started playing online video games, gained 10 lbs, shaved my hair into a really really lame mohawk and drank oh I dont know, a 12 pack of budweiser every night.

I will say that for all of its merits, any town where more than a handful of people believe that lying down and taking a nap by the side of a road is a good way to spend your free time, is probably not the best town to make new friends in. In fact, people in this town did a lot of horizontal posturing, as shown by my poor concerned mother standing for hours in the laundromat who's otherwise ample seating was occupied by 3-4 gargantuan townies who napped peacefully as their moo moos and shower caps tumbled through the gentle cycle. Others were simply so foreign to me I was stupified into silence during encounters. Once while walking my dog in my lovely neighborhood, I nearly lost control of my sweet lab pointer mix because as we rounded the bend, we came upon 5-6 grown men in a front yard, dressed head to hood in camo, with a smallish deer missing most of its skin hung by its backlegs onto (I hope) one of their offspring's elmo swingset. I figured we probably didn't have a lot in common and kept walking.

This was also a town wherein upon seeking help for my (already diagnosed) case of bronchitis at the town ER, was given a pepcid AC and told to wait 20 minutes for drug interactions. I digress.

Many of the adventures I undertook while living in Louisiana imbibe themes of previous childhood humiliation blog entries, for instance, trying to reinvent myself into someone worth knowing. On a health kick, I had decided to become vegan and take up smoking. It wasn't cool enough to just smoke the things, I wanted to roll them too. The only problem being that the only thing I knew how to roll, was a big fat splif. I was also of the just shy age of 20, my birthday being in november. So I cleverly solved this problem by simply converting the 11-9-84 of my drivers license to 1-9-84 with blue sharpee. I would then go to bars where terrible bands played and look introspective while sitting at the bar, smoking my big fat splif cigarettes, reading some god awfully depressing poetry, and guzzling whiskey. Needless to say, the only friend I made that way was the tooth-missing bar fly who waddled up with his voice full of hope and said "HAY You smokin ganja in here!?" Our friendship just wasn't one made to stand the test of time I suppose.

I also tried to get into the tagging scene by creating a crappy television shaped stencil and sneaking around like one shady son-of-a-bitch in downtown lafayette with my backpack and wifebeater. I only had the balls to spray one half of one stencil on, before chickening out and just getting drunk.

For the most part, however, my time was taken up by playing a little game called "WORLD OF WARCRAFT," Wherein I frolicked about the mythical land of Azeroth as an azure blue troll, who incidentally also had a mohawk, and shot various forest creatures with my bow and arrow for hours, and hours, and hours while, IRL, I sat drinking heavily in a par of XXL pink floyd "dark side of the moon" sweatpants my mother hesitantly purchased for me at the local wal mart. She had always reluctantly let me dress myself. Thanks mom. I think. Anyways, my world of warcraft career spans so much time that unfortunately there will probably be multiple entries involving my escapades in Azeroth, and I figure its getting kind of late.

Its really quite a miracle I made it out of this period in my life, and it just goes to show, when you find yourself with dykey mohawk, crying in your empty house every day, everything is going to be ok. It really is.