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La Fete de Saint Patrick Before I'm no longer able to remember what happened, I'd better scribble down a version of what happened this weekend. I'm afraid I partied like it was all coming to an end. Friday night, I sat at home, for I was tired. That did not stop me from drinking, however. I don't recall how much I drank, but I know it was enough that I felt a bit embalmed on Saturday morning. Through much of Saturday, I worked on finishing unpacking my bedroom, sorting through clothes which I haven't worn in ages and probably never will again, generally trying to get things into order. I still have not completely succeeded. Saturday evening is where the real fun begins. "Barreling down the boulevard, looking for the heart of Saturday night," as Waits would say. At about 5 p.m., I managed to have myself cleaned up and on my way to C's. As the sun was setting and the residents of Connecticunt are, by and large, incompetent drivers, I was delayed by traffic as people rounded bends in the highway and shrieked in horror, "Oh, no! The sun!" whilst throwing up their hands and slamming their feet on their brake pedals. Further, when I got into my car, the fuel gauge showed more than a quarter of a tank; shortly after I got out of the downtown area, it had revised its estimate dramatically, plunging down to two little slivers, so I had to stop and refill the gas tank ($1.94 per gallon...unbefuckinglievable...George W. Bush will rot in Hell). Finally, at nearly 6, I arrived at C's for bourbon and a snuggle. A little later, we went to the liquor store to pick up some wine, then headed to Tina & Dave's place to chill for a little while before heading off to the show. (Here I've begun to change names, as I don't know who reads this, and I don't know how some people would feel about being mentioned by name.) Tina agreed to drive (thankfully, as I don't think any of the rest of us was in any shape to do the job later that night), and we headed off to the evening's entertainment. The single hit I took on the way there destroyed any concept I might have had of the passage of time, as well as my ability to comprehend geography, so I don't recall where we went or how long it took. I do know that when we arrived, I thought the place was phenomenally beautiful. It was a rather crisp, chilly night, and our destination was the community center type space that was the property of, but not physically attached to, a church in a fairly rural area. The church seemed to sit atop a hill at, I believe, a fork in the road. It was the tall, white, steepled meeting-house sort of church, whose impression was rendered even more that of a Christmas card by the snow still lying on the ground, which amplified the milk-bright light of the nearly-full moon by its gleaming reflection. The community center building was somewhat downhill from the church, and on the other side of the street, with a parking lot across yet another street, if I remember correctly (and I might not). I was decidedly not sober by the time we arrived, went inside, paid for our tickets, and sat down. Walking into this place was a bit like wandering into a cult or secret society of some sort. Everyone seemed to be socially intertwined with everyone else, and it was a largely middle-aged Fairfield County crowd, which is to say, the whitest bunch of people I think I've ever seen in my life. We were at a bring-your-own-food-and-drink improv comedy show, and our crew, luckily, as we'd not had dinner and had the munchies on top of it, had a pretty nice spread. I don't recall precisely what I ate, but I know it tasted wonderful as I shoveled it into my mouth, and the wine was pretty yummy, too. The show, on the whole, was very good. The group has managed to get themselves booked into Caroline's in the City, so obviously, they don't suck. There were a few moments I felt dragged the slightest little bit or seemed slightly predictable or formulaic, but judging by the rest of the audience's reaction, that was probably just the result of my being over-trained as a performer and having seen so damn much improv comedy when I was an undergrad. The show was around two hours long, ending at about 10, and at the end, we hung around to chat with the performers for a bit. One of them is one of our crew's brother, so I chatted with him a bit about their rehearsal process and such. Their enthusiasm is quite contagious, I'd say. When we were finally ready to leave, we headed to a bar, where Rose's boss's band was playing. I know we were somewhere near or possibly in Stamford. The bar was a bit noisy for where I was psychologically at the moment, and I don't remember a lot of the time we were there. I'm told I sat down and "rested my eyes" for a bit and was ordered to rally quickly, and I don't find that at all surprising. I must have had at least three whiskey and something's while we were there, though, and I do recall that I enjoyed the band fairly much. Dave and I had joined the small crowd of people dancing by the end of their last set, so I can't have been in LaLa Land for too long. I guess the bar must have been closing, so we left and headed back to Dave & Tina's again to hang out and smoke. Dave and I were both absolutely lit up like Christmas trees at this point; I don't know how much he'd had to drink, but at C's earlier, I'd had two rather large glasses of bourbon with a bit of ice, then, I'd had about a bottle of wine at the show, followed by three more drinks in the bar. At Dave and Tina's, I kept my smoking to a minimum -- a couple of cigs and two or so small bong hits, as I felt I'd best stay awake this time, which I somehow managed, remaining animatedly engaged in conversation to the point that Rose commented that she was surprised I'd managed to rally in such a way. Through much amusing banter, I eventually noticed the time was three and then four a.m., at about which time we all decided to leave so that Tina and Dave could get some sleep (Dave was already pretty much unconscious, and we were all decidedly the worse for wear). At C's, he and I poured ourselves another drink and curled up on the sofa to watch a John Valby video. I do not recall seeing any of that video. The next thing I knew, C & I were waking up at about 6 a.m., entwined on the sofa, where one of us must have kicked over his water, which was spilled all over the glass coffee table and onto the carpet. We went up to bed. When we finally managed to get out of bed, around noon, I immediately finished my last drink from the night before (more whiskey, of course), and we stumbled to Dunkin' Donuts, where I realised I'd blown a pretty good chunk of change the night before. C had a class in the afternoon, so I phoned friends (Olivier and Doug -- Marcus is apparently in Germany for spring break) to confirm they were going to the New Haven St. Patrick's Day parade, and said I'd meet them there, where the real surrealism began. I left C to get ready for his class and drove back to New Haven. Parking was, thanks to my parking sticker, not so nightmarish as I expected it to be, and by some miracle, I discovered this morning that no (further) damage had been done to my car by revelers, which pleased me enormously (though the brakes on my rear tires have apparently decided to start making strange grating noises -- I'm hoping it's just grit on the discs). I walked to my apartment (on the way down the hall, I was amazed at the smell of...could it be? marijuana smoke in my hallway? I'm still not sure...Might've just been wishful thinking), downed a fistful of ibuprofen, changed my shirt (needed to wear SOMETHING green, apart from the eyes, so I grabbed my short-sleeved dark green Structure t-shirt with the big sticky plastic letters across the front -- sadly, I'd not had time to enact my plan of bleaching some streaks in my hair and dyeing them green for the occasion -- probably just as well), emptied my work bag onto the living room sofa and replaced everything in the very trendy-chic and studious-looking thing with beer, which I then carried back across town to the parade. Olivier, Doug, Mary-Ellen, Erin, Doug's sister Melanie, Jason (whom I'd not seen in QUITE a long time), Beth, Nora and a bunch of people I met whose names I may not remember greeted me as though I'd never fallen off the map, which was rather nice (Here I'm changing some names, and not others, obviously). I should hang out with these people more often, like I used to do. Nora, in particular, is spectacularly cool and rather beautiful, but I won't go there 'cause she's married to Stefan, who's also very cool, and whose crew of French folk ensured that the rest of the day was a super-cool ride. Three beers into the parade for me, when we were all probably getting a bit bored at street level, Nora invited a small group of folks up to her and Stefan's apartment, which overlooks the street, and from there, we munched, drank, smoked, and sort-of vaguely noted the passing of the rest of the parade. As more time passed, more people arrived and were crammed into their rather small living room, until eventually, more than half the room was speaking French. Who knew the French did such a good St. Patrick's Day celebration? I alternated between English and French for a little while, and prepared to leave as most of my English-speaking friends were taking off. When we reached street level, though, Nora reiterated that I could stay, so I decided I would, which led to more chat, more drinking, more smoking, more trying to fix my French accent and vocabulary and a bit of working on English with a couple of the French guys. By this point, I was quite happily altered, and could not imagine why I or anyone else would want to go to the next party, to which we all seemed to be headed, one way or another. Cars were sought out, but in the end, enough people felt those of us with cars were impaired enough that we shouldn't drive, so I ended up riding with Nora. On the way to the car, in a moment of inspiring unreality, I said that of all the people there, if there was someone present with whom I'd feel comfortable riding despite their being in a less-than-sober state, it'd be her, and she thanked me and we chatted about how it was funny I was not the first person to have voiced that sentiment in quite that way. In my opinion, there are people whom you know can handle themselves when they've had a few, because they have the talent of being able to, up to a certain point, anyway, impose sobriety upon themselves at will; they manage to keep their heads on straight. She's one of those (and in any case, we weren't going very far). (I have to say of Nora, she's way up near the top of the list of incredibly cool women whom I know. It seems that I see her once or twice a year, and every time she appears, I should make a mental note to myself to hold onto my clothes tightly, as I'm about to be whisked off the planet I normally inhabit and taken on some wild adventure for a few hours. I don't know if she's always like that or if it's just that our paths seem to cross at times when such trips would be appropriate. In any case, I'm always thrilled to see her, and I always end up wishing we spent more time together and knew each other better.) This party was utterly unbelievable. I pray I may one day encounter the hosts again, because I want very much to thank them. The setting was an enormous, sprawling apartment above a few storefronts. One entered from a door in the midst of the storefronts and walked up two flights of stairs (they were rather dark as we walked up, which rendered them Hitchcockianly fascinating to me in my state at the time), at the top of which was a hallway. To the right and behind, one found the three bedrooms of the lads who live there; ahead and to the left were the more social areas of the apartment, an ample living room, which opened onto an amazing roof patio, and a large kitchen, off the back of which there was a porch/back exit. I believe the Beastie Boys were on (on vinyl, no less!) as we walked into the enormous cloud of ganja smoke that was the living room (If I hadn't been high already, I would definitely have gotten there from standing in that room), and Nora led me to the kitchen, as we obviously both needed a drink. Miller High Life was very much the order of the day, which surprised me a bit, as I thought I was the only one who liked drinking the stuff and that everybody else gravitated like lemmings towards the Budweiser camp; I was a happy boy. There was pizza, there was beer, there was doobage, there were wonderful people all around me in a super-cool setting. I was introduced to many Frenchmen and one French woman. I was introduced to the hosts (with one of whom I discussed his rather impressive collection of vinyl, by which of course, I mean records). I was introduced to their friends. I had speech with Nora about the surreality of the situation, me being among strangers and feeling so welcome, and the need, I think, for more documentation of the moment in which we were existing at that time (she claims to have notebooks full of such documentation, and I'm sure it's been done before, I mean go check out Baudelaire, but it changes with time, and I'm very interested in that progression). The colors and textures and sounds and smells of that moment have faded, as they were nearly twenty-four hours ago, now, but I was wonderfully happy and thankful in the moment. A couple of hours passed, I believe; the party went on; Nora and Stefan asked if I wanted to stay, as they were preparing to leave, and I thought it best, since they were the only people at the party I even vaguely knew, that I go with them. We stuffed a good number of French people into the car with us; one sat on my lap, and I do hope he didn't think I was trying to fondle him as I think I had my hand on his back to prevent him falling backwards into me and busting my nose, should we have hit a large bump or something. We went for dinner at Hot Tomatoes, as Nora loves their fried sweet potato ravioli with cream sauce appetizers. Her enthusiasm was contagious, so I ordered one of those, too, along with my burger and fries, which I must have practically inhaled. Conversation through dinner continued to drift between English and French (On one level, I wonder if Nora might've kept me around so she'd have someone to talk to, as I discovered that despite being married to a Frenchman, she doesn't really understand the language so well.), and I bummed American Spirit Lights for smokes. Those cigarettes are a slow smoke for me, despite being lights, and I'm not quite sure why, but I definitely blame them for the way my throat and lungs felt this morning when I woke. After exchanging e-mail addys and cell phone numbers, we declared we'd have to do something similar sometime soon. I walked home, poured myself a glass of Southern Comfort on rocks, flopped down into my comfy chair, phoned C and left him a voicemail (I think), turned on the TV and passed out. It wasn't even 9 o'clock. (I may edit this later.) r
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