The Penultimate Birthday
2006
Tuesday, July 25
~I am weary of days and hours~
Last night was my friend's birthday party, in which many people were looking forward to getting thoroughly drunk and did not. Apparently without hard liquor, they don't have the true commitment it takes to drink their entire share (8 bottles) so that they might best contribute to the fun factor.
Of course, I have no room to talk. I had one Hard Mike's and then graduation night came rushing back, aided in part by my friends amused recollections of many events that I apparently had a large part in and yet remember nothing. Go figure. Since the day after graduation was the worst day of my life in a dazed, continuous "I-need-to-throw-up-and-am-I-still-drunk?-I-feel-drunk-why-am-I-driving?" kind of way, I decided to end it with the one. Celebrating graduation with drunken shenanigans is a right of passage. I don't regret that I made an idiot of myself; however, the aversive conditioning was very effective.
Our group's next birthday will be the last of us to turn eighteen, and then all innocence will be irrevocably lost as we enter a world where we can be tried as adults, buy lottery tickets and cigarettes, and have sex. All of which we've been looking forward to with all the giddiness of a kid whose training wheels are coming off. You know, with terror and and uncertainty as to why we now have to wobble around on two motile appendages instead of four (this is partially metaphorical, partially nonsensical).
I've decided that if I were to ever get a tattoo, it would be a polar bear. They have recently become my favorite animal--adorable yet deadly. If proof is needed:
Soon to morph into honed baby-seal killing machines. Now, I have nothing against seals, particularly fluffy baby arctic seals, but if anyone's seen "Eight Below" there is a killer leopard seal there, so it's obvious that they are evil incarnate, and if I had a choice between the above picture and this:
I would kill the seal myself. Honestly, it looks like a murderous sock. Seal doesn't even sound like a word anymore. And I don't care if these two animals are on opposite poles; the seal would eat the baby polar bear if it could, which puts it beyond redemption in a way that a fluffy polar bear killing a fluffy seal would not because they are both fluffy and it is the polar bear's fluffy right since they are being fluffy together. This lump of ashen flesh is deadly without the advantage of transcendent cuddle-ability, and so is somewhat lower on the list of things that I wouldn't want to poach in the interest of saving more attractive animals (and I'm talking harpoon-wise, not simmering in a pot-wise).
Leopard Seal headline: Leopard Seal Kills Scientist in Antarctica
Polar Bear headline: Polar Bears Being Considered for US Endangered List
Which one elicits sympathy? I think I may rest my case.
---
"Do I look like a cat to you? Do you see me jumpin' around all nimbly bimbly from tree to tree? Do I lick milk from a saucer? DO YOU SEE ME EATING MICE?!"
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Tuesday, July 25
~I am weary of days and hours~
Last night was my friend's birthday party, in which many people were looking forward to getting thoroughly drunk and did not. Apparently without hard liquor, they don't have the true commitment it takes to drink their entire share (8 bottles) so that they might best contribute to the fun factor.
Of course, I have no room to talk. I had one Hard Mike's and then graduation night came rushing back, aided in part by my friends amused recollections of many events that I apparently had a large part in and yet remember nothing. Go figure. Since the day after graduation was the worst day of my life in a dazed, continuous "I-need-to-throw-up-and-am-I-still-drunk?-I-feel-drunk-why-am-I-driving?" kind of way, I decided to end it with the one. Celebrating graduation with drunken shenanigans is a right of passage. I don't regret that I made an idiot of myself; however, the aversive conditioning was very effective.
Our group's next birthday will be the last of us to turn eighteen, and then all innocence will be irrevocably lost as we enter a world where we can be tried as adults, buy lottery tickets and cigarettes, and have sex. All of which we've been looking forward to with all the giddiness of a kid whose training wheels are coming off. You know, with terror and and uncertainty as to why we now have to wobble around on two motile appendages instead of four (this is partially metaphorical, partially nonsensical).
I've decided that if I were to ever get a tattoo, it would be a polar bear. They have recently become my favorite animal--adorable yet deadly. If proof is needed:
Soon to morph into honed baby-seal killing machines. Now, I have nothing against seals, particularly fluffy baby arctic seals, but if anyone's seen "Eight Below" there is a killer leopard seal there, so it's obvious that they are evil incarnate, and if I had a choice between the above picture and this:
I would kill the seal myself. Honestly, it looks like a murderous sock. Seal doesn't even sound like a word anymore. And I don't care if these two animals are on opposite poles; the seal would eat the baby polar bear if it could, which puts it beyond redemption in a way that a fluffy polar bear killing a fluffy seal would not because they are both fluffy and it is the polar bear's fluffy right since they are being fluffy together. This lump of ashen flesh is deadly without the advantage of transcendent cuddle-ability, and so is somewhat lower on the list of things that I wouldn't want to poach in the interest of saving more attractive animals (and I'm talking harpoon-wise, not simmering in a pot-wise).
Leopard Seal headline: Leopard Seal Kills Scientist in Antarctica
Polar Bear headline: Polar Bears Being Considered for US Endangered List
Which one elicits sympathy? I think I may rest my case.
---
"Do I look like a cat to you? Do you see me jumpin' around all nimbly bimbly from tree to tree? Do I lick milk from a saucer? DO YOU SEE ME EATING MICE?!"
---