what i remember of charleston

ok. here is the charleston story, or at least what i can remember. should be a rollicking good time.

so, i drove to charleston. this is how it starts. carlson couldnt stop calling. he was like a four year old. too damned excited. it was a bit alarming. but i got there at like 3 or so i think. and the boozing began. right on time. riley showed up after two drinks, so maybe 30 minutes. and with riley came clouds and a cold wind. clearly the gods were angry. and we drank. and then we drank a little more. things were going well. i think we all had a solid buzz when carlsons sister suggested dinner.

oh yes, at this point i should set the scene a little. the convergence on charleston was a very rare one. i havent been up there since the notorious "spring break '01", or at least not that i remeber anyhow. calson has been several times, despite the efforts of the chamber of commerce to bar him from within the city limits. riley had dropped off the face of the earth years ago, only to reappear on this particular weekend, with an actual interview for an actual job. amazing. so anyhow, here we all were, and little lady carlson was kind enough to offer us a place to stay. little did she know what she was in for. one last bit of scene setting- lady carlyle lives with 2 other girls, one of whom was apparently "really hot" according to carlson. what the hell her name was i cannot recall, as she seemed to hate me, and thus we did not speak often. whatever. itll come back to me later. the other roomie was susan or "sooz" as we took to calling her (forgive my phonetic spelling, but you people would fuck up the pronunciation if i didnt do it that way. from now on however, i shall refer to her as suze). so anyhow, the hot roomate got home like an hour before we left for dinner, at which point we were already pretty lubricated, so she got quite the intoduction to us. i think we almost broke her by making her laugh so hard, as we are super entertaining by our powers combined. she was pretty hot, but again, she didnt seem to be a super fan of mine. too bad.

back to the narrative at hand- where was i? oh yes, dinner. we went to dinner. and we ate. and we drank more. and oh yes, we met suze. i was at the far end of the table and didnt really notice her much. i needed more booze. she looked kinda tall though. she turned out not to be tall at all. short in fact. anyhow, enough about dinner. it was boring. too much talk about work and shit. it bored even me, and i am constantly entertained by my own musings if nothing else.

on to the bar! the first stop was like a british pub. low key drinking and discussing worldy matters. like the following joke, supplied by carlson, and which almost caused the hot roomates heart to stop as she was laughing too hard to breathe- "what do gay guys and st louis cardinal fans have in common? the both love pujols! (or poo-holes if you will. again, this format not wonderful for dealing in puns. youll survive). i still could not get a good grasp on who in this group was cool, but at least it was a balanced crew; 3 guys and 3 girls are decent odds, if one of the guys is chris carlson. he probably shouldnt even count. anyhow, moving right along, the next bar was a fucking dance club thing of some sort, and they charged a cover, but at least there was basketball on. i paid suze's cover because of some miscommunication or something, which meant she owed me, which gave me an excuse to talk to her, or flirt with her or whatever. i can never be sure which im doing. i try one, and end up doing the other, and vice versa. its very frustrating. but she turned out to be cool, which was good. and she bought me booze, which is even better. nice to be on the receiving end of that deal for a change. we didnt last long in this bar. but we did drink a lot. i think a jager bomb might have been involved. good times. on to the next place, or were there two? needless to say, at this point things started to get somewhat sloppy. not for me of course, because im am the worlds most accomplished drunk. i could write symphonies and shit, im so lucid. but carl was ripped. the hot roommate (what the fuck was her name?!) seemed in no mood to talk to anyone, carlyle was talking to men, riley was wandering all over the place, and i decided to chill with suze, cause she was cool. we all proceed to get blasted. i had indeed packed my a game, bacuse in lesser instances this level of consumption could have easily led to a brilliant coma, or at least a professional hangover. but i was in championship form. finally we got booted from the bar- whoever heard of a bar like forcibly booting everyone at 2 on the dot. fury. they wouldnt even let me visit the loo. i was super pissed, and had to take a super piss. which wasnt good, cause carlson was none too speedy, saying goodbye to people im not even sure he knew. finally we thought we had him conrered and began to wander off. at this point i was wandering with lady carlyle. and we turned a coner ahead of everyone, and they vanished. they did not follow us around. fuckin david blaine caliber disappearance here. and i was about to wet myself. so i told her to fuck them and just find me a place to relieve myself. needless to say, it was a public appearance i made. but i did make water without making an appearance in jail, and finally eveyone else showed back up. the car situation was looking a bit crowded, but old suze drove herself, and parked way the hell off in the other direction, and asked for someone to accompany her. i was man enough to fill the position, and off we went.

at this point you should know that this story is not going to end at all like you expect it to. unless you know me well, which means you can probably easily anticpate the results.

so as we headed away from downtown at like 230 or 245, suze asks me if im tired or if i wanna go smoke with some of her friends. and of course i am referring to smpoking perfectly legal substances, as i am a law abiding citizen, except when i really have to pee and the bar has tossed me out on the sidewalk. in those circumstances, i will toss something of my own on the sidewalk. but never one to turn my back on a social event, i tell her to bring the pain, and head to the pal's palace, or little two room house in the skecthy part of town. we arrive, and are among the first, but old duder meets us on the curb and introduces us to the folks inside. they are restaraunt folk, and thus begin parties after work, which means at like 230 or 245. perfecto! i drink some more. within like 30 minutes theres a pretty good little shindig going on, and im making all kinds of new friends. seriously. they loved me. excpept this one dirtbag apparently, who for no apparent reason, when asked by a quasi-host or something, "hows everyone doing, everybody having fun? everybody getting along?" or something like that, responds, "well, except for the atlanta kid, we dont like him at all." i assume she was speaking for herself, because her friends seemed quite taken with me. clearly she had some badass envy or something. fuck her. but otherwise all was festive. finally people start to trickle out at like 5 or so. suze and i, troopers that we are, remain. it of course becomes apparent that she is somewhat involved with the host of this little event. it becomes apparent because she is nowhere to be found for much of the time we are there, and because she tells me so. people always tell me things they perhaps should not. but whatever, its cool. im busy talking to her friend, who's this giant who is apparently a studly pitcher, or was at one point, i cant remember now. but everyone was quite nice. then everyone leaves. suze has asked me like a billion times if i wanna go home, cause shes paranoid that im not enjoying myself. but seeing as the alternative is a night spent on the floor possibly being fondeled by chris carlson, i am delighted to be tagging along on this little adventure. anyhow, so we decide to stay, me crashing on the couch (which was surprisingly comfortable), and she doing her thing, spooning with duder or whatever. but its now like 6 or 7 or something and she has to work at 930 i think. so we are only gonna crash for a short while. i am awoken at like 910 and we head back home. she will of course be super late to work, and my eyes are blurry as shit because of the overly dried contacts, but otherwise i feel pretty fucking good considering the amount of alcohol and other substances ingested in the previous 20 hours or so. suze tells me that i may crash in her bed when she leaves for work, which rules, cause its a carl free zone. we get back, and she busts it to head to work and be as on time as possible (not at all, 30 minutes late or something), and i nest in her bed and watch sportscenter, cause sleep isnt working.

i am bothered by carlson at like noon or so, as we are apparently heading to the beach for the day to visit a graduation party for one of lady carlyles friends or something. there will be a keg there, which we have been instructed by lady carl not to drink from. so we will have to buy our own beer. we find this utterly ridiculous. but she is driving, so to the grocery store we go, and beer we buy. we get to the party and are told to help ourselves to the keg, to which we shout "i told you so" or some such sentiment, and proceed to drink all the beer we brought with us instead. logic is a bit hazy after the previous night. we drink much, and toss the old pigskin around (gotta love cliches), and ingratiate ourselves to the parents and grandparents in attendance. if hate was a rodent, their hate would have been a capybara (its the biggest rodent. i just looked it up. trust me. or google it yourself.). anyhow, we eventually leave, to go home and shower and chill for like a little while before going out again.

we went out again that evening, but it was unremarkable save for the weirdo who talked our ears off, and the like 8 mile walk to the bar we met the ladies at, cause they didnt give great directions and we didnt know our way around. i slept on a couch again that night. i left the next day around 2. i drove through a fucking monsoon, which was super fun. then my car imploded at 70 miles and hour just outside madison georgia or something, and i was starnded for a good little while. much fun. finally though i made it home. my car did not. r.i.p.

a return trip is surely necessary one of these days, especially since riley somehow got that job, and will now have a place for us to stay, since im sure we wore out our welcome with the ladies.

ill be very impressed if anyone reads this whole post. it is epic in scope. apologies.