The Drunken Blog

It’s that time of year again… Bells are ringing, lights are being hung and thousands are invading the malls, prepared for epic battle, in search of the perfect gift.  No, it’s not wedding season… It’s Christmas.  And with it comes those perfect occasions we all dread, at least in some small capacity, in the deepest recesses in the pits of our stomachs: The Christmas Party.    Be it at home with our relatives or at the office with the co-workers, it’s go time for awkwardness.

You probably thought it couldn’t get much worse than Thanksgiving… But it can… And it will.  Family gatherings can be a lot like a bad relationship after you’re out of it… You look back and remember the good parts with complete amnesia about all the bad parts.  But then, as soon as you walk back in the door, it all comes flooding back to you.  And all of a sudden, you want out.  Where’s my jacket?  “I think someone has $#!% on the coats!”  Office parties aren’t any better.  What’s worse than being paid to spend all day with people you can barely stand in the first place?  Not being paid to spend a night with people you can barely stand in the first place.  You might be thinking right now “No way.  I love my family and I have great co-workers.”  But deep down, you know it’s true.  And so, in the spirit of giving, in this episode I will share with you some tips for surviving those maladroit moments. (more…)

I know my mom reads my blog, but I don’t think my grandma does, so I should be OK in writing this. This past weekend (please note, this was originally written back in August) it was my grandfather’s 80th birthday, which means that his children and grandchildren from across the country congregated to celebrate this calculated event. But as with most birthday parties, there was an ulterior motive for their gathering – deciding whether or not my grandmother (who divorced my grandfather years and years ago) and who lives alone, should continue to live alone, or if they should put her in a home.

Apparently cooking steak in a toaster oven isn’t considered normal.
(more…)

I awoke to the gentle music of my roommate’s alarm clock, it was 8am. This can’t be right, I thought to myself. Why am I awake? I had only been asleep for four hours when I heard the alarm. I thought I would be able to sleep despite the fact that it was on. I was mistaken. I was ridiculously tired, I still had a cold, and that damn music was still playing. It took me a while to figure out what the music was; after all, my roommate was out of town. I thought it was a dream at first, and then I heard it was country music, and I thought it was a nightmare. Then I realized that I was actually awake and I thought that perhaps my neighbors were having a raging country music party at eight in the morning.

I’m not exactly the best thinker first thing in the morning.

I turned on my computer. I was too tired to take a shower. I checked my e-mail, I had a message from my dad, it was about going to Atlantic City. He wanted to go at 10. I assumed that since he wanted to go, that’s when we were going to go. I played Guitar Hero; it was extremely difficult to do. I stopped playing and opted instead to sit. For an extended period of time. Eventually I called my dad to set things up, then I took a shower. The shower was amazing; it made me 8% more awake. I was still tired. And now I was hungry. I wanted food but my dad said he was bringing some sandwiches. I wanted some Chick-Fil-A. I told him this. He said to go and we would eat the sandwiches later. I was happy, but I was still hungry.

I called Mary. We had talked the day before and she said that she would come with me. I had a feeling that she might not. She did not come. That is sad. I went to Chick-Fil-A, it was still early so they only had breakfast. I was disappointed, but then I ate the food and I felt better. My dad was late coming to pick me up. We took his car but we should have taken mine. I have a EZ Pass which allows me to speed through tolls. There were a lot of tolls along the way.

(more…)

By all accounts, this weekend should have been awesome. Hell, if I just listed off all of my activities, you would be in awe of how awesome my weekend was, and yet somehow I managed to wet-blanket it. I’m going to blame it on my cold, which in retrospect, seems like a viable excuse, but it still sucks, because I did some awesome stuff this weekend.

On Friday, a journey to find some jumbo slice pizza, or JS as we started to call it (we were saying that we wanted jumbo slice so much that it was actually worthwhile for us to abbreviate it), turned into us making it into a club with a $20 cover for free, just the three of us guys, seeing Tito Ortiz of UFC fame, going to a gentleman’s club, and then, the next day, I went to Atlantic City. Like I said, it sounds like a pretty awesome weekend.

(more…)

Saturday was pretty standard as far as graduations go. Both my sister and my cousin, who were born two days apart, graduated, which meant that all of my grandparents got a lot of bang for their buck. One trip down to Virginia Beach and they knocked out the last two high school graduations they will probably every see.

The event was typical in that the grandparents were there and my mom was stressed out over getting everything ready, while I vehemently avoided all work and social interactions with anybody over 47. Look, I used to live with my grandma, the amount that she talked to me while I was staying there should last me a life time.

The graduation was also a pretty standard affair. I found out that my alma mater was apparently a very good school, ranking among the top 3% of all high schools in the country. The valedictorian had a GPA of over 4.64, while the salutatorians (there were two of them with the same GPA) had GPAs of over 4.5. Just so you can get some perspective, Virginia Beach has an adjusted grading scale, where a 93 is a B. In an AP class an A is weighted as a 5 where as in all other classes an A is weighted as a 4. That means that over half of the classes (including classes like PE) the valedictorian took were AP classes, and he of course got straight A’s.

I also found out that just because you have a high GPA, it doesn’t necessarily make you smart, you could just be extremely motivated. This was pointed out by the fact that both salutatorians gave absolutely awful speeches. I had to remind myself that they were only in high school, which makes them as smart as college freshman. The valedictorian, on the other hand, actually gave an excellent speech.

(more…)

Throughout my scholastic career, I have always hung out with the “good kids”.  These were the kids that were smart and well behaved, and if anything didn’t act out enough.  Your pre-18 years are supposed to be the years where you test the waters, to see what you can and cannot do, find what your limits are.  There’s a reason that your records are sealed for crimes that were committed before your 18th birthday.

My friends and I didn’t drink in high school.  I guess all of those ad campaigns actually worked.  The situation was not without irony as my mom would often tell me tales of when she was 16 she would drive into DC where the drinking age was 18, but she knew a place that didn’t bother to check IDs anyway (which is probably the same place that I go to buy alcohol in DC now).

(more…)

I recently took a mini vacation down to the Florida Keys to visit my sister. I went with my dad; it was my and my sister’s birthday gift to him. I knew this could be trouble, especially since my dad doesn’t drink, but he might also want to spend time with us, while my sister and I would want to go out and get hammered.

My sister is a teacher down in the Keys and she has some teacher friends, most of whom seem to be from Ohio for some unknown reason (it would later be explained to me that Ohio has a really good teacher training program). However, these friends had the thought that they were going to try and get me so drunk that I would throw up.

(more…)

I’ve been told that stories are my bread and butter here, so I will continue with stories until I run out of them, at which point I’ll have to go out and make new stories, or at least make up new stories. This particular story dates back to October of 2005. It is the story of the most unusual way to start a relationship, leading to quite possibly the shortest relationship in history.

Oktoberfest is an annual party put on by my uncle and his friends. It’s basically an excuse to drink good beer, eat good food, hang out with good people, and give money to a good cause. With all the goodness in the air, you wouldn’t even think that something bad can happen. This Oktoberfest was the first year that the party was big enough to move out of my uncle’s front yard, and into a new venue, Oceana, which is a naval base, for all those people not from the Virginia Beach area.

The year previous to this Jeff and I had marked our cups with sharpies for every beer that we imbibed, a way for us to keep track of just how drunk we were. It was also when I was given some of the best advice of my entire life, “It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.” True to form, we were drinking for about 8 hours, which makes it more like a double marathon. It was also at this Oktoberfest that I heard one of the funniest conversations in my entire life. I will recreate that conversation for you now:

(more…)

The time finally came, for the third time in 6 months, I was moving once again. After graduation I had to move out of my apartment, so I moved into my dad’s apartment in DC. It was a pretty sweet location, but it sucked for where I was. Then my dad got rid of that apartment, so I went to live with my grandma in Maryland. That was pretty bad, so now I’m glad to be in my permanent housing in Reston.

I’ve learned that I am a bit of a hoarder, not quite to the extent of an OCD person, but I keep more than I should. And it sucks, because moving that stuff is hard, especially when you have convinced yourself that you need to move the stuff in one trip, whether it be from grandma’s house to the new place, or from the car to the apartment. What can I say, I like to one-trip-it.

(more…)