Archiving my Fourth is More Vital than the Water Crisis (aka I don’t want to do my project).
I should be working on my presentation on “Bottled Water and the Treadmill of Production” for my sociology class, seeing as I volunteered to go first today. Out of the eight people in our class, I think four people chose to present on bottled water. Going first should give me an edge? Maybe? Technically I should have points written down on note cards and be thinking of counter arguments, but I took the liberty of annoying the hell out of my family with the subject this weekend until they decided to argue with me about it. One thing I’ve learned: never bash bottled water in front of people who have been through a flood.
This weekend was great- I spent most of the day running around with my family and most of the nights running around with Andre and Max. Saturday night, I went to the Sounds game with my family and watched an awesome fireworks show (not such an awesome game, 3 errors in a row that cost the Sounds to fall 3 runs behind, ugh). When I got home I went straight over to Max’s in my bathing suit, and went swimming with him, Andre, Dylan, and Brian. Max and Andre had been drinking since… well, lunch. Brian seemed to be trying to catch up to them, and Dylan was chugging along at a good pace. When I called them at 9:30, they had a bottle of Jagermeister and were waiting for me to come over. When I got there at 11, the bottle was gone. As was half of the twelve pack of Red Stripe. I’m going to haveto go ahead and say that being the sober person every once and a while is way too funny to pass up. Max kept trying to assure me that he wasn’t drunk, Dylan baptized Andre in the name of “Beer” with and empty beer bottle and pool water by flinging the water in his face, and Brian was informed that I had never watched any Gundam except the final episode of G-Gundam that Max showed me years ago. When he heard this he started screaming and flailing around at Max, crying “You BASTARD! What is wrong with you!? YOU RUINED GUNDAM FOR HER.”
Pretty Much.
I left around 2:00, about when the guys stole Brian’s keys out of his pocket so that he couldn’t leave (despite his passionate assertions that he had driven when he was worse. Which none of us doubted). The next day, I went to the Square for the fair, and it was ok. Nothing like how I remembered it when I was a kid, but I guess that’s part of getting older. We went back home and prepared nothing short of a feast, because Andre and Max were coming over. We made something like 12 hot dogs and brats, 15 burgers, onions, mac and cheese, seven ears of corn, pico de gallo, guacamole, and homemade strawberry ice cream. And Max brought over a blueberry pie. None of us could move after dinner we were so stuffed. Also: vodka sweet tea lemonade sneaks up on you. One second I was arguing about the implications of group psychology with Andre and Max and the next minute I had my head on the table in a fit of giggles anytime anyone said my name. I blame the fact that Andre, to get back at me for changing my ringtone for him to “Sweet Home Alabama,” changed my name to “Cori Striepe” in his phone. Who wouldn’t binge drink after seeing that?
We went to Andre’s to blow up fireworks, but Andre and I were still too stuffed to light things on fire and then run for dear life. Instead we played ping pong in his basement. He told me he was going to teach me his five step program to ping-pong success.
Step 1: Hit the ball.
Step 2: Hit the ball over the net.
Step 3: Hit the ball over the net and in bounds.
Step 4: Hit the ball with power.
Step 5: Be as awesome as Andre. (According to him, no one besides himself has ever achieved this.)
For the most part I sat to the side and watched them play. It was the single most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen them do, partially because they’d do things like hit the ball then run screaming at the other person to distract them, partly because they chose to pose whenever they hit the ball, and partly because Max has lost so much weight that his baggy pants kept falling down.
Yesterday was my last day back home. Janey and I went to see Avatar: The Last Airbender, despite our reservations. I found myself getting furious when Zhao died, because I didn’t remember him dying so soon. After I left, it dawned on me that I was confused because THEY COMPLETELY SKIPPED EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN THE EARTH NATION. Janey told me she wished they’d cut out some of the fighting and added more of the plot, but I find myself left wanting for the little things, like correct pronunciation of Aang and Sokka. Or dialogue that didn’t make me cry. It felt like a marital arts class with a great budget did some sort of bastardized book report, video presentation on the original tv show.
I’m going to stop writing this monstrous entry before it gets any longer. It’s starting to take on a life of its own.
/wall of text.