I'm Ready to Play Now

It will be a great shame if the Prototype and I don't get a chance to be together. She called me after successfully defending her thesis on Wednesday (of course getting an A) and asked if I wanted to get drinks and a bite to eat. Nothing wild, pretty tame was the idea. I was tempted to not go because I had successfully pulled off being a homebody all day, but I agreed to go for three reasons: 1. I wanted to demonstrate that I can do the friend thing, if necessary; 2. my best shot of making things happen is to keep seeing her in whatever capacity she allows and let that foul bitch Nature take its course; and 3. I just enjoy being with her to such an extent that she could have called in a blowing hell storm and I would have thrown on my scarf and jacket and trudged to her location. Plus, I was pretty happy that the first person she called after she was done, and the person she wanted to celebrate with was me and no one else. That's called progress.

At any rate, I met her up at Angel, which is near Islington, which is essentially Northeast-Central London, which, to non-Londoners, means absolutely nothing. It's not that far from where I live. We walked around a bit before settling on a Cuban Tapas place that has some pretty good food deals. Dinner was fantastic. You know you have something going when you can go to dinner with someone and there's never a lull in the conversation. Anyway, back to the point, here are two new things that I learned about her:

- She's into conspiracy theories, re: Aliens - Not only is she into them, she's fairly well read. I was amused because she started the conversation by saying, "You're going to think I'm wierd, but..." She had no idea who she was dealing with.

- Her best friend is essentially a Real World clone. Both have ADD (or variant), both have serious mental health issues, both have serious alcohol issues, both have had serious drug problems, and both are constantly striving for attention to the point that continually attempt to one-up the absurdity that is their daily lives on a daily basis. Real World and I are not that close, but having her as a friend did have value in this conversation. The Prototype goes way out of her way to take care of her friend and do what she can for her, but she's a realist and knows that at some point, people got to take care of themselves. I think that speaks to her character and her sense.

At the end of the meal, we got up to leave and walked back toward the tube. She was taking the bus in the opposite direction so there was an awkward moment where she wasn't sure if she should walk me back to the tube or not. I'm not that silly, so I let her know it was ok to go our seperate ways. Now, mind you, when we met at the tube, I didn't get a hug or anything like that. But, when we parted at the end of the night, I got a full body hug - the warm type and I almost thought she was going to go for more. This is a woman who is obviously conflicted. It's my sincerest intention to keep her stuck between a rock and a hard place. (Note: It wasn't the booze, because we didn't drink much after all.)

Yesterday, I did little at all at work. But, one of my mates there, who will now be known as the Roving Alcoholic, told me that there was a free holiday party being hosted by a company that we do business with. Who am I to argue with free spirits? We rolled out at 6 and started drinking double vodka Red Bulls by 630. Well, we started with doubles. And this is why he's the Roving Alcoholic. For the 2nd round, he orders two quadruple shots of Sambuca and two quadruple vodka Red Bulls. Things got worse from there. At some point, I called Smooth Like Butta' and he came out for a few "on the house".

I should, for the record, clarify one point. The UK shot is a good bit smaller than the US shot...normally. This particular bar, however, was pretty much giving us US sized shots. So, after 8 shots of Sambuca and 12 shots worth of Vodka, well, I was pretty much done. I'm relatively sensible, even when drinking, so I called it a night about 10. The Roving Alcoholic was having none of that. He stayed out until 5 am and was still at work, bright eyed, at 9 (and I think we all know what that means...).

Now, before anyone has a fit about that level of consumption, that is not the norm. If it hadn't been free drinks I would not have even gone. I also deployed an anti-"Keeping up with the Joneses" strategy to limit my consumption. See, the Roving Alcoholic drinks fast. So when he's out, he immediately orders two more, assuming you're out as well. There was no situation I was going to keep up with him, so when the new drinks arrived, the old one got stashed on a table somewhere. That's why I only had 12 shots of vodka instead of 16 or more.

My plan worked, although it did leave me with a bit of a headache this morning. Thankfully, I stay well stocked with modern pharmaceuticals.

A short story I excluded the other day: Big Tex and the Angry German were in rare form. I've alluded to them before, and since they're essentially permanent relics of uni pub, they'll getting enshrined today. (That's 3 new characters for the glossary.) Big Tex lives in Germany (he's Texan, but his parents live in Germany for business), so he has something in common with the Angry German. Well, they're also both dumb as nails, but that's self-evident. The Angry German, in a clear attempt to either establish himself as deeply, passionately angry or to expose to the world that he's a Neo-Nazi, shaved his head and now looks the part.

At any rate, they were playing pool, as they do each and every night of the week at uni pub and Big Tex was winning. Angry German didn't like that much and he wanted everyone to know it. He shouted obscenities, he kicked the pool table; he even threw the cue on the floor one time. Finally, having enough, he storms to the bar to get a drink. Another thing about the Angry German, he carries an IPod and the bartender lets him hook it up to the stereo. So instead of a juke box, you get an interesting mix of pop-hip hop, rock, straight up pop, and occassionally some wierd industrial German shite. On this particular occassion, one of his friends was fiddling with the IPod trying to find a song. Angry German was not happy about that. Classically acting out something his parents probably did to him on a routine basis, Angry German shouts, "If you can't pick a song, then you don't get to listen to any songs!" and grabs his IPod. The rest of the night, the jukebox played, Angry German sulked, and Big Tex walked around like a man beaming about the birth of his first child simply because he beat the Angry German. Good times.