Catching Up

It's been a busy couple of days and I haven't been around the computer much, so I'll try to catch up.

Thursday marked 1 month - not that it's significant in any meaningful way, but I realized that when I paid rent.

After class, I met up with Justin and Laurie (who I met for the first time that night) at a pub 2 blocks from my house. We stayed until 11 at which point, Justin, who has an Appetite for Destruction, wanted to go to a club nearby and Laurie went home. Now, I should declare, for I may have omitted this before, that Justin is gay. So, when he says, "I know a club nearby - it has great music and the drinks are cheap", he's really saying, "There's a gay club I'm comfortable in and even though you're straight, you would probably be comfortable there too". (I learned this the hard way once when he took a group of us to a "mixed" club that was really just a gay club with some "fag hags" as he likes to say - women that think gays are hot.) Since I'm the equal opportunity type (he goes to straight clubs with us), I agreed to go.

He was right, the drinks were cheap, the music was good and for the most part my straight vibe deterred any acts of gay aggression (much like Saddam was deterred by US military might prior to Gulf War II). Of course, I didn't much like it when some Irish guy hit on me, but I deployed my most genuine apology when I told him I was straight, said something like, "we all have our flaws", had a good laugh and that was that.

At any rate, what Justin did not tell me (he always does this - great guy, but pure evil), is that Thursday night is Cabaret night. So, at like 1230, a drag queen rolls out onto stage and starts singing and has a general comedy routine. It was pretty funny. Near the conclusion of the "show", she's interacting with the audience and Justin yells to her, "We have a straight guy over here!". She looks at me and tells me to come up on stage. So, up I go. I get up there, she takes one look at me and says something like, "You're of no use to me - there's absolutely nothing gay about you." Then she points to the one straight girl in the joint and says, "If you want to get laid tonight, you'd better go talk to Betty." Then she kicked me off stage did her last song and left. It was funny as shit.

The other thing Justin does (I mean every single time - and I know he's not doing it because he's trying to seduce me by getting me trashed - it's just what he does), is he escalates from beer to something harder (Red Bull and Vodka). So at some point, he was like, I'm gonna get us some beer, he leaves and comes back with two double Red Bull and Vodka's. After that's gone, he keeps buying them, even when I'm like "I'm good". The point of this little narrative is that I got very very drunk (and broke one of my golden rules in the process which is NEVER get drunk the night before class).

So Friday morning, I have class at 1130 and I was going. There was no way around it. I'm paying like 915 pounds to take that class, so there's no way I was going to miss it. Easier said than done. I have a new golden rule and that is: NEVER take the bus when you're nauseous from a hangover. The swaying of the bus was nearly enough for me to lose it and puke everywhere - but I made it through. By the time I got to class, I was mostly recovered and even managed to stay awake for the entire class and even participate in meaningful ways.

I was dead tired and wanted to go home and pass out, but while I was in class, Justin had organized a group of 15 people or so to go to a pub near our neighborhood (Justin lives like 5 minutes from me). So I took my classmates David, Kenya, and Nicole - but not right away. They went to the pub at 3 - which is incredibly early to go to a pub in my book, but we didn't roll in until almost 6. My Spanish friend Adrianna called me at 8ish and invited me over to her house for drinks, so at 11 I went to her house (about 2 blocks from my house). Some of my Columbian friends were there, as well as some new Columbian friends that go to my university but I did not know them until last night. We hung out there drinking and dancing to Spanish and Latin music until 3, at which point I went home and collapsed in a heap.

Tonight, I am going to a party being thrown by some Africans I know. They're from Sierra Leone and have fascinating stories. Fortunately, I didn't get drunk last night because I regulated my consumption. Otherwise I think my liver might protest.

And this is London. Even when you're trying to go home and sleep off a hangover, you're out until 3 in the morning.