I Do Work, Once In A While

Today, work really got in the way. Sorry, this'll all have to be quick.

I was supposed to get to go home tomorrow. This is not happening. Kate is stuck here until the 15th, which is bad on many, many levels.

I will continue with what happened tomorrow, ok? Meanhwile, enjoy the poster that survied the purge of my decor, and if you're easily offended, skip today. It's been kinda rough.

I had to call an acquaintance of mine, who's been brooding about whether they're still friends with someone. I tried to explain what a real pal does, with a story in which I do not come out so well....

"Ok, I was really, really broke in college, and towards the end of my freshman year, one of my friends from the dive I lived in - let's not even start with that - invites me to a party at her relatives' place - because free food and free booze = very good. I'm not really into family gatherings, but some extended families tend to have big old parties, and this was one of 'em, so it was one of those chaotic backyard dealies celebrating some kid's scholarship or something. The friend can't stand her family, so she figures she'll take the person most capable of doing damage, which, naturally, would be me.

So, we get there, we hang out, we start drinkin' and stop thinkin', and all afternoon, I'm talking to the boy-of-the-hour's big sister, Frances. She's like twenty, a little shy, dressed really conservatively, got a Mia Farrow thing going on with her hair, and she's reminding me of someone big time. But that's neither here nor there. My friend's in and out, having scenes with various family members, leaving me kinda stranded, so I keep hanging with Frances, getting her booze and telling her to lighten up, all the while getting lit myself.

She's babbling about how she ought to loosen up and live a little, hell, live a lot, and then she makes what would have been a really shocking suggestion, except by now, my good buddy Captain Morgan is making me his ventriloquist's puppet, and he says "Hell, yeah! Where?" So, we go down to the laundry room of the house, and proceed to - you know what? details aren't necessary here - but kinda loudly, kind of a lot, and Frances' other lousy brother is a burgeoning filmmaker, and hides at the basement window.....Well, it turns out she really was reminding me of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, and there's a pretty good reason, although she decided not to enter the convent after all. Hey, if nuns are the brides of Christ, then novices are only like Jesus's fiancees, right?

The little creep of a brother decided to show his film later that evening to an inappropriate mixed audience. I'd like to say that no matter what their uncle the priest said, those were venal sins, not mortal ones, and since my face was out of focus, the state of New York's morals laws weren't enforceable PLUS I was 18, so really I was the one being taken advantage of. Besides, technically, she was still a - ok, we'll stop there....Anyhow, people started screaming and yelling, and my friend kind of got into a biiig argument with her aunt and grandma, and the filmmaker announced that he wasn't going to med school, he's going to make porno films, so there's even more screaming, and I snuck out and "borrowed" the car to get home.

But when my friend called to demand that I pick her up, after she walked halfway back, she was cool about it. "Bound to happen," she said, and she maintained that, even when she sobered up. Now that's a friend for you. They forgive you.
God, if I hadn't banged her the next year, things would've stayed GREAT."

Somehow, I don't think Chloe quite got my point. She kept going "Ew!" and I think at one point she fainted. Must've been something she ate.

NOTE: Allie has something really important on her site. This is my support for that.