4.3.02

Hey all! Been a pretty crazy week for me to say the least.

As you know, last week I was taking my car in to get it fixed. Well, I guess the best way to put it is to say I was taking it in to get one possible problem fixed, the cheaper of the two problems, and pray that that was what was wrong. $400 later, I don’t think it did a damn bit of good to have the intake valve gasket replaced. My car still overheats, there’s still gunk and transmission fluid in my coolant, and now I don’t really have the money to get it properly fixed because I blew $400 on the last repair. Apparently the problem has now been narrowed down to a crack in the radiator. Have I told you that I hate cars lately? If I weren’t so upside down on it’s value versus my remaining payments, I’d trade the thing in. Ah well, what can ya do?

Needless to say it’s been a pretty stressful time for me and it has not been doing good things to my motivation. I’m still working out like crazy, that’s not the problem, but I haven’t written a thing for going on a week and a half now. I’m behind on my Boundry stuff and haven’t even touched any of the other stories I have going. I’m hoping this weekend, which, in theory, should be a nice, little boring weekend at home, will correct all that. We’ll see.

As I mentioned last time, because my car was on the fritz, I wasn’t able to get home for Easter weekend, however, I had other plans down here in STL. A mutual friend, Nate, came into town from Tennessee where he currently resides, bringing along his native buddy Tahym (us Yankees would pronounce it “Tim”). Another mutual friend from the Champaign-area, Chris, also made the trek down to Ben and JK’s. After everyone arrived from their various locations, we ran to Fuddrucker’s and got some burgers – I had an ostrich burger to try to cut some calories from what I was sure to be a calorically ass-kicking weekend. It was pretty good, actually; weird, but good. I’d have it more often if I could find it readily. After Fudd, we ran through Schnuck’s on a beer run, each picking up at least a six-pack of something but a few twelve-packs in there, too for a grand total of easily fifty beers. We went back to JK and Ben’s, threw back a few and then headed out to The Landing, a local hot spot down by the riverfront.

I had some other friends, Amber and Jared, coming into town as well for a mini-vacation and got hooked up with them. Our first stop was Tequila Wyld. It’s sad when you realize how old you are. I couldn’t stand this place. They were playing some cool, old skool songs, so that was all good, but I hadn’t seen Jared and Amber in months so it really wasn’t the best atmosphere for us. We soon left and went to a bar that was a bit quieter, Morgan Street Brewery. There we sat outside in their patio area and had a grand old time. Always good to see old friends again.

Soon the other guys joined us and shortly after Amber and Jared went back to their hotel room. They had a big day behind them and another ahead so they were pretty bushed, but it was very cool of them to hang out for as long as they did. The six guys reunited, we went into the dance club side of Morgan Street and found a dark little corner table for us to gather around. By this time Tahym was pretty blitzed and was cracking us all up with his southern drawl and good ol’ boy perspective on things. A good time was had by all.

Soon we realized that we were paying $5 a pop for beers when we could be drinking beer we already paid much less for at home, so we left The Landing around 12:45. JK, Chris and I rode together and ran through 7-11 on the way back to Ben and JK’s, picking up late-night provisions that would keep us going until the wee hours of the morn.

The frozen pizzas we’d purchased were immediately thrown in the oven and I threw some cheese in a bowl and nuked it for nachos. I sat down on the couch with the chips and cheese on the coffee table and next thing you know it’s like Louie Anderson fell into the piranha tank at Sea World. The six guys were circled around the chips, cheese was flying everywhere like blood in a feeding frenzy and I swear to God the entire bag was gone in less than three minutes. Once the last remnants of Tostios were picked clean, we all sort of stopped and looked around, trying to find our next meal. The smell of cooked pizza wafted through the air. The pizza didn’t last much longer than the nachos and wasn’t nearly as good, but we devoured it just the same. Now that we had some food in our bellies, we could look forward to a long night of drinking and talking and general male bonding.

Early in the evening, Tahym had passed out and, as guys are wont to do, we had some fun with him. The finest example will be seen in the accompanying photo gallery at the end, so fear not, Little One.

One of the strangest moments of the wee hours of the morning was when we were in JK’s room, which is occupied mostly by his weight bench, looking at the pictures we’d taken on his computer. Drunk Nate suddenly decided to do some bench pressing and next thing you know we’re all curling this fifty-pound barbell to see who was the most manly man. I obviously won since I start my curling routine at fifty pounds and cranked out a quick, easy fifteen reps. The rest of the guys were sore ashamed at themselves, but I didn’t gloat…until now! MWHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA! Oh…sorry. So, yeah, that was a weird event, but quite funny.

As the morning wore on we began to hit the sack sporadically with Nate, Ben and I being the last three up around 5:30AM. We slept until around one in the afternoon when we had a need for gravy. Two hours later, all six guys were showered and ready to hit Uncle Bill’s Pancake House. Don’t laugh – two hours for six guys to get ready is pretty fast. It would take at least two hours EACH for women to get ready (at least that’s how we justified it).

After breakfast food at four in the afternoon, we decided to go to the ultimate time-killer, Dave and Buster’s. If you’ve never heard of D&B’s, it’s a chain restaurant with something like 14 locations all across the U.S., mostly in bigger cities. Take TGI Friday’s, throw in a really nice pool hall, and then spice heavily with coin-op video games and skee ball and you have the recipe for D&B’s. Needless to say we weren’t there to eat or play pool. This place is pretty good sized and we lost each other quite often as very few of us wanted to play the same games as everyone else, but being guys it was really no big deal. The highlight of this little adventure was seeing Nate and Chris try to play a game where you have to step on these squares in a pre-determined order to the beat of some generic dance tune. To imagine the scene, take two white guys and tell them to copy a dance routine from Janet Jackson as they watch it on TV. Hilarity ensued.

After D&B’s, we went back to Ben and JK’s to drink more inexpensive beer, ordered pizza and then left for the Mecca of the weekend – The East Side. Any male bonding weekend like this would not be complete without hitting a few strip clubs because, well, we’re guys. Obviously I won’t be going into specifics here, but let’s just say: a good time was had by all.

We left The East Side around 4:00AM, went back to JK and Ben’s. Chris had to work the next day at noon, so he took off shortly after we got back, leaving only five of us to stay up until 6:30 in the morning before finally hitting the sack. Sometime around 5:15AM, we drunk dialed our friend Liz and left multiple messages on her answering machine. She asked us to do this, so don't think we're complete assholes. Tahym left a message despite never meeting Liz before, going on about some kind of weird carnal event starring Mick Jagger, Christopher Robinson, and Winnie the Pooh. I think he meant to say "Christopher Robin", the owner of Winnie the Pooh, not "Christopher Robinson", the guy from the Black Crowes, but then again...who knows? And really, who wants to know? It was quite surreal to say the least. Oh, and we virtually finished off all the beer. I’ll bet there were maybe ten left at the most. That’s a lot of beer drinkin’, ya’ll.

Despite what it might sound like, I didn’t really spend that much money for the whole weekend. We all split most of the costs, buying each other beers and food, the only expensive parts were Dave and Buster’s and, of course, The East Side, but we kept ourselves pretty well restrained even then. And, man, did I get a lot of bang for my buck. I had such a good time last weekend. I really needed to blow off a little steam after the shit that has been going on with my car and this really helped. Best of all, despite all the beer, pizza, waffles, nachos and ostriches consumed, I still somehow managed to lose three pounds – go figure. So although I wasn’t able to get home to see the family, at least I had a good time to make up for it. And don’t worry, I’ll be home soon, Dad and Lesa.

Wanna see Tahym? Wanna see JK mounting a speaker? (And, no, I don't mean he's hanging it on the wall) Click here for the Official Weekend of Debauchery Photo Gallery

So this weekend I’m looking forward to a nice, quiet time, hopefully writing and relaxing. I have to get back on my writing regiment, that’s for sure. And I’d really like to get into the final act of this one story I’m still kicking around. I’ll let you know how things go next week.

Oh! One last note, I purchased a Space Monkey X shirt from my little store and I gotta tell ya – the thing kicks ass. I picked up the black and white “baseball jersey” which is sort of a dumb description, but I don’t make these things up. Anyway, it’s really cool as hell and I was very happy with how it came out. Next time I’m home I’ll be sure to wear it for you all to see. As the kids are saying, “It’s da bomb” (whatever that means). Next I’ll be buying a DYG Floyd shirt, which you should too – Click here for yard gnome goodness

Have a good weekend!

Space Monkey X