Shit I know About Myself

So, since I no longer have word on my computer I am forced to write things either at work in a word document which i cannot save and must then promptly delete, or I come home and am forced to write things in the "notes" section.  Now, I want to buy word, but I have to start paying loans this month so that probably won't be happening anytime soon.  I guess there is always Christmas.

Moving on.  This is just going to be a list in honor of one oldest friends, who, in our high school years, loved and used lists constantly.  I think she still uses them to this day, but I could not say for sure.  Now what will this list entail?  Um, I don't know.  I was going to make a whole list about my deal breakers, friend and girlfriend wise, but decided to save that for another day.  This one will probably just focus on random facts and anecdotes about myself.  Because I am a selfish bastard.

• I read a lot.  And I write down everything I read in my book journal.  I write the name of the book, author, start date and end date.  Start date and end date interest me the most because depending on how long it takes me to read it usually judges how much I like the book.  Though this is not always the case.  If a book has tiny print it will probably take me longer as I wear glasses and sometimes cannot see.  I also read on the subway to and from work, so depending on whether or not I get a seat, or if it's too crowded, really hinders whether or not I get to read on my commute home.

• I hate wearing socks.  I understand they are necessary when you're wearing shoes, sometimes.  But if I'm at home the first thing I do is kick my shoes off, followed quickly by my socks.  And since I hate socks, I also never wear them to bed.  No fucking way.  This also extends to if someone is sleeping with me, socks are not allowed.  I don't want to move my foot in the middle of the night and then brush up against a sock.  It sets my teeth on edge.  Can't say why, and don't judge me for it.

• Sweatshirts are my favorite things pretty much ever.  Can't get enough of them.  Because they are my favorite ever, it is rare that I let other people borrow them.  A) because I sometimes never get them back (case in point I once loaned one to my friend Sharna who didn't return it until literally five years later at which point it just didn't fucking matter anymore) B) I just don't like sharing them.  Each one is important for a different reason, and if you asked me about all like, eleven of twelve of them, I can tell you where they come from and why I still keep it.  For instance, I had my first kiss wearing my Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and my first college sweatshirt I ever purchased says Washington College '82 on it.  It is also the one I usually smoke in, when I used to that is.

• I really likes watches.  There isn't really anything more I can say about that.

• If I find a song that I love I will play it over and over again.  Once I listen to "Here In Your Arms" literally 100 times in a row without even noticing it.  I also tend to make playlist labeled "sad songs" or "if you're feeling depressed."  I literally have no playlist labeled something to do with "Party Time" or "Dance Songs!"  That's just not my jam.  Not at all.  That's not to say I don't have those types of songs, because I do.  I listen to a lot of different kinds of music.  This is not limited to JayZ, Snow Patrol, some super embarrassing bands circa my preteens, (Good Charlotte and Simple Plan) because I also have a lot of movie soundtracks as well as classical music.  I don't discriminate against cool shit, unless it's reggae, I honestly cannot fucking stand that shit.  This might have to do with the fact that it's the only CD my bus had when we drove six hours to Montréal and the six hours back.  I think every time I hear it I might be unknowingly conditioned to kill someone.

• I'm a huge fan of movies and television and pop culture in general.  I kill at pub quizzes or any game having to do with entertainment.  I worked at a movie theatre for six years, what do you think we did when the films were playing?  Actual work?  Please, we were watching trailers and talking about episodes of Chuck.  I'm full of useless facts.  I play so many sporcle games that I could probably tell you more things I learned playing hundred of different useless games than I learned in college.  Don't tell my mom that.

• I used to write a lot in high school.  It was pretty much the only thing that got me by during my first couple years there.  It was rough and I wasn't making it any easier for myself.  I didn't write much in college, or at all.  And then what I wrote about began to shift.  In high school it was a lot of stories or short moments between two people, unrequited love was usually part of the mix.  As time has passed I've moved on to personal essays and things occurring in my life.  That is not to say I have not attempted to return to writing stories or snippets about made up people from my head, but it just hasn't caught my interest lately.  And I know that this is like, national write a novel month or something, and I looked up some prompts to get me started, but I just couldn't find any that would work.  Or I started them, but it just turned into me writing and deleting the first sentence over and over again.

• I'm a huge fan of mailing people things.  Or I am a huge fan of the idea of it.  I myself am far too lazy unless I know I absolutely need to send someone something, such as a mandatory birthday present to my former college roommate, or groups of postcards I had promised to people while I was away in Italy.  I actually spent 50 something euros on stamps, so I hope those fuckers were grateful.

• When I was a kid I used to sleep on my arm with my pillows on top of my head.  This was not because I was scared something was going to eat me, I'm just really fucking weird.  Now I sleep with two pillows and and another two for both sides of me so that I am boxed in.  I sleep in the middle of the bed if I am alone and I sleep on the right side if I am with someone, though this is subject to change if they want that side.  I don't really care.  

This clusterfuck of information is done for now.  This is probably become a regular topic (random shit I know about myself (also maybe not so regular because I'm lazy as fuck))  And holy shit I wrote two things in one day.  This reminds me of the live journal I kept throughout high school.  Which I have been meaning to delete because I think the teenage angst might kill someone, but for now, I cannot bring myself to delete my 14 - 17 year old…self.  I guess.

Tales Of My Drunken Life Part I

It’s four in the morning and I have no idea where I am.  First of all, my bed is not lofted, so this is clearly not my room, second of all, there is also someone in this bed.  God fucking damn it.  Well at least my clothes are on.  No herpes today!  But seriously, how the fuck did I get here? 

This is of course May Day night, sophomore year of college.  I remember none of this night after I left my room.  I have no recollection of getting to the green or how the fuck I ended up in a different dorm, certainly one that I’d never even been in during my first two years at WAC. 

The art of escaping this room and its occupant was made that much more difficult by the fact that I was A) still drunk, B) had to climb over someone to get down the ladder and C) There was a drunk bar preventing me from leaving.  Now, the drunk bar in theory is a great idea.  It prevents drunk people from falling out of bed.  Too bad it also prevents drunk walk of shamers from leaving said bed undetected.  Because it is way too complicated to climb over said bar but it is also just as risky to lift it up.  Because I was still drunk this would probably end with me accidentally dropping it on this girls head, and I preferred not to wake her up and I wanted to escape with no one knowing I was ever there, her included.

This problem was not helped by the fact that I had never been in that room before and I had no idea where the fuck my glasses were.  I would be ok with leaving my keys or my hat, but I can’t leave my glasses.  Damned my fucking blindness.  I decided I was going to lift the bar, this was made more difficult by the fact that I was on the wall side of the bed so I also had to climb over a body.  I pretended it was some Indiana Jones adventure, except then I got over excited and of course, dropped the beam of wood.  Well, now she was awake and it was getting way more awkward because I really just need to leave.  I’m not one for sleepovers, especially if I wake up sober.  It’s just not my thing.

Well I woke her up, so I did what I always do which was to behave like any other normal person would behave: make a grab for my shit, say a hasty “gotta go” and run from the room.  Now, I don’t count this as a walk of shame considering I A) thankfully did not sleep with her and B) it was four in the morning so no one was around to see me do it.  In fact, if I played it cool, I just looked like one of the last party people standing, making the long eight minute walk back to Chester.  And what a long cold fucking walk that was.

This is one of the only few times I woke up not aware of where I was.  The other couple times ended with me waking up in an apartment across the street from Sam’s over the restaurant now called the Lemon Leaf, but since those were purely platonic sleeping arrangements, they don’t count as shameful.  Though once when walking up Wash Ave at 7 a.m. in my sweatpants someone honked at me followed by the “thumbs up” salute.  Oh how wrong you were, assuming driving.

Here’s my thing about drinking: I either have one or two drinks not even getting my tipsy or I am wasted.  I don’t have a middle ground.  There is no happily buzzed for me.  I don’t do moderation, I go shitfaced or I stay at home and watch movies.  Though sometimes I am shitfaced and also watching movies.  Senior year I convinced my roommates to turn “The Sound of Music” into a drinking game, yes I am ashamed of myself.  No, not really.

Freshman year I got so drunk during the pregame that it just turned into straight gaming and I had to be deposited on the fourth floor of Minta with someone who I had only just become friends with second semester.  I woke up with my sternum aching and bruised from leaning over the toilet all night, I also think at one point I fell asleep in the stall against the door, or possibly lying around the ground, I don’t recall much.  Well, that’s what you get for banging back 13 shots in 20 minutes.  In retrospect I probably should have been taken to the hospital, but whatever.  I can say that I didn’t wake up with a hangover which I’m super proud of.

This blog has no point except to recall awesome or shameful nights of drinking.  Like once I got super drunk and made out with some girl outside of the Ihouse in front of public safety, which obviously I was told about later because that also is an event that I cannot seem to recall with much clarity.  I believe that night I was the victim of two shots of everclear and then a mixed drink, also with everclear.

I have a knack for drunk dialing people.  I just have to, it’s at the point where I try to sober hide my phone but then I get super anxious and have to call someone.  The usual victim of this endeavor is my friend, Flash.  Flash is ten years older than me and is basically my big sister.  Flash never answers her phone because she’s off partying herself, so I used to leave her three to five minute long drunk rants.  These were usually about the fact that I A) could not find any lesbians B) found some lesbians but they were weird or C) made out with a straight girl, I’m the king.  I stopped calling Flash the older I got in college, as I grew some shame and got more embarrassed by the fact that my drunk alter ego was some crazy drunk sad lesbian.  She would also save them and replay them for me when I returned home on holidays.  Some of them I remember, but the ones I don’t remember leaving were by far the most embarrassing.  She also like to play them for her friend who I did not know.  This is probably for the best, because if I did know them, I would feel the need to write a long winded apology citing that I only turned into a crazy horny lesbian when I was shitfaced.  When I am sober I am way too shy to talk to a girl.

Another very large problem I have is I tend to lose my friends.  See, my school was small so I’d go out with my usual drinking gang and then find some people I knew from class who would otherwise have no interaction with my core group of drinking pals and I would wander off with them.  I would then find myself in a random Western Shore house, knowing no one inside and forgetting where I had left everyone.  Besides this losing people problem, I also tend to do ridiculous things when I see people I’ve hooked up with but wish to avoid them at all costs.  This need to avoid people once had me hiding in a closet in someone’s room for literally thirty minutes.  And no, the irony was not lost on me at the time.

There are more tales of infamy and bad decisions.  I’m just either too lazy to write them now, or I just don’t remember them.  I’m sure drunk stories will pop up from time to time.  One of the most epic being my first drunk night of college, which will be saved for a later date, yet to be disclosed, since it was one of my more embarrassing moments so I might actually have to be drunk to write it.

The Bird

During my senior year in college I spent a lot of time in a place called “The Bird.”  Like many of the seniors before my class, this place became a sacred place to us for the 2011-2012 year.  First of all, the Bird is the senior class bar, sometimes shared with townies, with an established silent pact that we tolerate the others existence even though we’d rather not.  It is one of the few bars that actually cards people, I’ve seen Trish the bar tender chase some underage kids out with a bat once.  She also keeps a nerf fun behind the bar.  It’s a legit security measure.

In my younger underclassmen days I never understood why everyone was so obsessed with the Bird and why so many of my classmates were so hung over on Wednesday mornings.  But then I learned, and I fell in love.  Like big love.  Team Tuesdays became a ritual.  I was devoted to that bar and the people in it.

The first week of school also came with the realization that my dorm, the always awesome Prince George B (also known as PGB) was the closest to the bar.  I could actually throw a rock and hit the back porch.  It was a simple walk down the hill, hop over the rope fence away from my front door.  It was the fastest way to get alcohol that wasn’t in my freezer.

I became that senior with a hangover on a Wednesday morning at 9:30.  My classmates often looked at me in disgust, asking how I could be wasting my senior year in such a fashion.  Didn’t I have papers to write, better yet, my thesis?  And here’s the bottom line, here I am, a college graduate, so you tell me if my constant Tuesday drinking affected my work.  In their defense it was a bunch of lithousers in that class, so I guess that didn’t really understand the allure of being hammered on a Tuesday, or ever.

I was never much of a beer drinker before the bird, but at five bucks a pitcher, I’ll drink pretty much anything.  And since I was usually all for shelling out the extra dollar, I mostly ended up drinking two pitchers of Angry Orchard.  And since we were such frequent patrons of the bar, I got to know Trish the bartender pretty well, I put my cup down and as soon as I went to get another it was already full.  On Saturday’s when Trish didn’t work it was a husband and wife team and their drinks were generally all booze and no mixer.  I got a tequila sunrise once that was basically just straight tequila.

Things we did at the bar: Karaoke nights, watch some asshole sit on and then break the big main table up front, watch a giant florescent beer sign fall on someone (bud light I think it was), a horrible amount of shots. Threw up in the bathroom and rallied for more.  I talked to townies I was never going to see again, and saw alums that just didn’t get that they were too old to still be going back.  They just looked like sorry frat bros and sorority girls who still thought they were the cream of the crop.  But worst than them were the lax bro alums, still thinking they were in their prime glory days.

This is a side note but does anything know if the lax bros know that we all think they’re a total joke?  Or do they actually think everyone at the school worships them?  I hope that weren’t that stupid (I’m kidding, I do) but I actually believe they have no idea that everyone at the school thinks they’re a complete waste of space.

The bottom line is this: I love The Bird.  It was the perfect bar, with just the right amount of off putting air, and the perfect amount of cheap booze.  Where else could you get all you can drink for a ten dollar wrist band?  I made my money back and then some.  Actually that night in particular is a complete blur.  It was also underclassman free and cheap enough that after Team Tuesday I still had enough money to binge for Friday’s drinking activities.  I’m just going to blame The Bird for my rising alcoholism senior year.

My Friend Shanna

This is going to be about my friend Shanna, but I guess since no one reads this piece of shit blog, it doesn’t matter to anyway when I say “skip over this”, because it’s just for her benefit.

To preface this entry, it is important to say that before Shanna, I never had any gay friends.  I had only ever had girly girl friends, and rarely did I ever have guy friends.  You’d think that as a giant homosexual I would have surrounded myself with people with common interest, girls being the biggest one.  But this was not the case for me, most likely because I went to a tiny high school and all of the boys were actual morons.  Some of them continue to be morons, I’m sure.  Though I could not say this is the complete truth, as I have unfriended almost every single person from my high school save for possibly 14 people.  All of them happening to be girls, and one member of the faculties son, who I like to keep tabs on so I know he’s not growing up to be an asshole.

Anyway, I had only ever been friends with straight girls.  I did not intentionally set out to do this, as for a long time, it was a very lonely way to have friends.  First of all, I wasn’t exactly out in high school.  This stems from the fact that if I was, every single person (not an exaggeration) there would have been privy to this information by lunch time (I went to a tiny school).  I was not ready for that kind of exposure at the tender age of 14.  Because not only would every kid have known, but every single member of the faculty would have as well.  And that’s just a daunting thought when you a) have not informed your parents b) many members of the faculty are actually like your parents and c) many members of the faculty were (and continue to be) very judgmental.

You might ask how this pertains to Shanna, well I’m fucking getting there.  When I was 16 I set out to find a job.  This tasks was made slightly more difficult by the fact that I had school Monday – Friday and on most days I was there until 5 at night except Monday (out at 4) and Thursday (out at 3:15).  I know, it’s weird.  So I applied to work at the movies, because why the fuck not.  I had been there a couple months when this girl started working there, college age, really weird orangey red hair color, and totally gay.  I knew this because I have awesome gaydar, even my super gay boss at the time didn’t know (she has a knack for accidentally hiring lesbians unknowingly, as this continues to happen to her).

Of course, upon meeting Shanna I got over excited about the possibility of having a gay friend that I scared the shit out of her by jumping into our new delicate friendship with the hard hitting questions, namely, “How do I come out to my parents?”  This scared Shanna, as it should have.  That’s generally a question one saves for their school GSA club (which I didn’t have) or someone you’ve known longer.  But that’s just not the kind of person I am, I just straight up ask what I wanna know.  Unless those questions are about feelings for other people in which case I pretend those questions do not exist.

I thought Shanna was the Bees knees.  She was in college, was out, had a girlfriend, and was super awesome.  I finally had someone I could talk to about girls without feeling weird.  At that time in school my only friends were made up of one super Christian, (I’m pretty sure she only kept me around so she could say she had a gay friend), girls who were obsessed with boys, or girls who did not like to talk about other people like that.  My other friends who I could have talked to about these things had graduated and had left me to fend for myself.

And so for the next year until I graduated and went to college I had a big gay sister.  She would listen to me talk about “South of Nowhere” or obscure gay movies no one had heard about.  My little gay brain blossomed and I saw that there were other people out there that appreciated boobs as much as I did.  I finally had someone that I was never in any danger of getting a crush on which was awesome.  I went to college and stopped worrying about gay stuff, and I just started to be Tory, it became less about defining myself as gay and more about defining myself as nerd, student, friend.  Shanna stopped being my big gay sister and just started being my super awesome pal (companion, platonic partner?).

I have this problem where I outgrow my friends, and we lose all interest in each other.  This generally happens after four years of friendship, usually the span in which I am stuck with them, usually coinciding with school years: middle, high school, and college.  Shanna is one in only a handful that I have never outgrown, and I am confident in saying, that I will never outgrow.

Through college we didn’t text often, but enough to figure out that we were both alive and having a good time.  I once texted her that I had finally made out with some girl while I was completely hammered at a party and she texted back “was it your hand?”  This joke would have been funny if I A) hadn’t been shitfaced and B) This hadn’t been the first girl I had kissed since high school sophomore year (I wasn’t kidding when I said (actually don’t think I mentioned it) I was the only out gay person or gay person period at my school).  This joke offended my drunk minded brain so much that I refused to talk to her for two months.  No worries, we moved passed it.

I also like to drunk dial people, top of this list is usually my 30 year old friend who I like to leave messages for and Shanna, who I called drunk after my senior homecoming at school.  It was during this phone call that someone poured a drink on top of my head from the balcony over the front stoop of my dorm.  Now, any other friend might have asked if I was ok, but this is what Shanna did, “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”  This continued on for some time.

Shanna and I like almost all of the same things.  I’m going to say all because I have yet to find something we don’t both appreciate in some form or another.  Shit we get ourselves into: We both really wanted to see the Glee 3D concert film.  We decided this was two embarrassing to do when other people were around so we went to the earliest show that we could find during a weekday, pulled our hoods up, and sat in the very back row of the theatre.  This then turned into a super awkward event as a bunch of preteens and came in and sat in front of us, so then we looked like creepy pedophiles.  Upon leaving the theatre we both made a pact that we were never going to talk about the fact that we went to and saw it.  This pact held for less than 10 hours, Shanna got drunk that night and told people.  She is a horrible secret keeper.

I also went on her first date with her awesome girlfriend Stephanie.  This is less weird than is sounds since neither of them at the time knew it was a date but I did.  Ok, that’s as awkward and weird as it sounds.  And to top it off, Steph had to change in my tiny ass car, and then it started pouring, and she threw a rock at me.  It was the start of a beautiful friendship between the three of us. 

Sometimes I feel really bad that Steph has to put up with us.  I mean, Shanna and I am some point in time are going to get a set of harry potter tattoos with mine saying “I solemnly  swear that I am up to no good” and hers will say “mischief managed.”  Not a lot of girls would let you get a tattoo with some other girl, but Steph said ok.  Also Shanna and I have our own yet to be filmed show, based on Troy and Abed in the morning, only ours is called “Shay and Tor Tor in the morning.”  Steph also has to deal with us getting overly excited about fanfiction.  In fact, instead of having this be a whole blog out Shanna, I feel like it should be a giant apology to Steph.  Sorry that I come over on Friday nights and getting super hammered a lot, Shanna invites me over and I have to go.  That’s the thing, Shanna says let’s do it, and I have to.  How does getting shitfaced in Salem on a Friday night with a bunch of our friends during a Halloween weekend NOT sound like a good idea?  Well it certainly doesn’t NOT sound like a good idea, I can tell you that.

And to close out this novel, this is what we text about:

Me: What are your thoughts on a power rangers phone cover?

Shanna: You should get one obviously.  It would always be morphing time.