Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Surviving Post Grad: Sick Days

One of the worst parts about having a job is that a reasonable ammount of attendance is expected. Fortunately there are weak human beings out there that "get sick" so in the American corporate world we are alotted a certain number of sick days aka recovery days or if you are ambitious enough Darty days.

On a given work night on the town a reasonable person would take it relatively easy. In fact they may drink so little that they can get behind the wheel and drive home risk free. At the very minimum they will stick to beer and go home at a reasonable hour. Besides being boring and completely and utterly lame, I find that type of behavior impossible. There are two types of nights...rot on the couch and watch movie nights and rage 110% nights. Did your coach ever tell you in practice that the people that got hurt were the ones not going full speed. Thats what happens when you go out an party a little bit, you wake up with teh hangover of the century. It's your body's way of punishing you for being a pussy.

When you wake up the next morning with 2 chicks and a midgit in your bed, you have the choice of going to work. Because you can always call in sick. Although you may smell like a brewery and your bac is thrice the legal limit, its a general rule of thumb that no DUI's are given out prior to noon, and you are probably in sales so no one will give a shit that you look like you were beaten by an angry black man and left to die in a gutter.

If, however, that is too much to muster, you can always call in sick. Once you call in sick it is not an excuse to have a bate-athon and/or play modern warfare 2 all day. It assumes that you will call all your unemployed friends and force them to come party with you.

...AND THAT kids is how you survive post grad

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Bar blogging?

I'm not usually the guy that hops on a computer at a bar and starts typing away whilst drinking...but since I've never had this oppurtunity...why the fuck not?

NOTE: This entry will have many grammatical errors because I have been drinking copiously tonight and I took a Xanax when I got home, however it should be entertaining. So let's have some fun shall we? I need to come up with some general thesis for this peice but I'm not going to stop typing until some general train of thought strikes me. I've been texting this girl all night and I think we might hook up later...ahhh perfect. Texting your way to love!

Many of you have seen the video on youtube or college humor or whatever other gdi multimedia you use to see "funny videos."

Let's turn the clock back about 9 years. My target audience was about 13 years old and everyone and their mother was on AOL, AIM or some other of the sort. I used it exclusively for 2 reasons, 1. try to convince girls my age in chat rooms to send me naked pics of themselves and 2. to say the things via the written word to girls I had a crush on that I was to much a coward to say in real life. What has changed over the past decade. Not a whole lot. Reference my previous entry the drunken late night "where are you" or "come over" is me throwing down my buried feelings in a t bomb that I would never say in person. And although I know it is almost guaranteed to fail, I go for it anyways. However, the sober texting...no fuck that blackberry messages that I send, have tended to get me somewhere.

Its like I'm in and gold during the chat....the problem arises when you actually see that person in REAL life. All of a sudden its like oh fuck, this is like the fourth time I have ever met you. I don't know how to act, or what to say. I can't hide behind calculated banter and subtle hints. I actually have to turn it on. So it goes terribly of course. But then you lose her for a bit. Albeit you are still in the same bar, but its crowded...so you wait until 2 am. Now you are both properly smashed and your inhibitions have been sent westward. "Where are you?"

...a response. I'm by the bathroom. Bar Close. You start walking out together. It is unsaid, but you both start walking back towards your apartment. The whole time your mind is racing, what the fuck is going to happen when we get back to my apartment? So like a seasoned veteran of Glenngary Glen Ross you assume the sale...walk up to your bedroom, hop in bed turn off the lights, throw on Definitely, Maybe on Demand and you start making out....

Bam!!!

97.3% of the time it works everytime...the morning could be a little awkward. I reccomend going to work early and leaving a note.

Taxis, el trains and unreasonably long walks

Can we walk? 90% of the time I would say yes, but girls are irrational with their high heels and scantily clad wardrobe that they always object. Well how about an el? It goes downtown and its rather quick? Can't we just take a cab. Dammit. Sure let's squeeze. We need two. JESUS! You know how the scenario plays out from here. You get shafted with the front, which means you are not only obligated to navigate/converse awkwardly with the Somalian cab driver who probably moonlights as a pirate...the $20 fare...ya its on you. And you can forget about paying with card because his machine is down and this bastard isn't even going to let you smoke during the ride...but none of that happened tonight. Because you got in a Yellow Cab.

Those of you who aren't irrationally blue collar and have some degree of culture have been to NYC. If you have been recently, then you will know all about the new badass cabs. Well now they are in Chicago. Sitting in the back seat you will be treated to a touch screen information highway with games, menus and even some on demand episodes of Glee. It is fantastic. When you arrive at your destination there is a convenient credit card reader on your side of the glass. You never even have to make eye contact with your cabbie! Moving on.

Arriving at the bar is a small reward for going through the hell that is public transportation. Fighting over the cab bill is almost always as bad as the restaraunts that don't split up checks. (It's not that all young people are cheap, I will gladly drop $80 on a round of shots, but I'm just morally opposed to picking up a friend's cheeseburger at Applebee's.) Our generation is one walking enigma when it comes to finances. In college many of my friends would have no problem purchasing a bottle at a bar for a 500% mark-up at a bar...but if you ask me to get you a polar pop too you better damn well give me 74 cents.

Coming back to the original title leads me to the conclusion that we are all insane. I would walk 2 miles in the most miserable of weather to avoid paying a few bucks for the cab, but when I arrived at my destination a $200 bar tab would sound more than reasonable.

Burning bridges not just for arsonists

It's 2 AM and you have had enough alcohol to render a moderate sized puma unconscious. But you are just getting started. The past 4 hours your short term goals have been whoring shots from anyone and everyone and hoping that the table didn't collapse when you hopped on top to do the YMCA. But now it's 2 AM.

You fire up the BBM and immediately scroll down to some girl you subtly flirt with at work and have a very slight degree of unsaid sexual tension..."Where are you?" No response... 2:15 PING!!! Nothing... 2:30 "Come Over."

Finally...you get a response. "Hey, I didn't go out tonight, I'll see you at work tomorrow. (Oh yes, it is a work night by the way) At this point she has let you off the hook a bit. Chalking up your baffoonish advances as simply drunken jest. But you can't let it go..."F- that, come over, or are you banging some other dude! Come party!" Then you call her a barrage of names that rhyme with Bunt and Rock-chucker...needless to ay tomorrow will be a tad awkward at work. You are burning bridges faster than a WWII dictator.

Fortunately, the text assault is usually easy to shake. Although I do wish your emoticons (smileys) on bbm would mirror your drunken demeanor as proof to your victim how far down the gutter you had really tumbled. I digress, as there is more than one way to skin a mongoose, there are a multitude of ways to burn a bridge. Let's observe a couple of the more popular methods.

"The Pub face-sucking douchemonster"
OK, show of hands who hasn't pulled the classic PFSDM? This is when you are out with some friends and you are clearly going after a cutie that you have invested a little bit of time with. However, a your level of intoxication increases you become more distracted. Eventually you run into some ex-fling who is just as incoherent as yourself. You then start sucking at her face like you are trying to inhale her soul. Shortly thereafter you leave together...unfortunately your initial target for the evening is rarely impressed by this kind of behavior.

"The pass around guy"
As a bro, I have absolutely no problem with sharing and I think eskimo brother is one of the coolest pop culture terms in recent memory. Chicks, by rule, are not as cool. Similarly to sororities in college, groups of friends, or even worse roommates come with some of the same rules. The quickest way to ignite a flame is to attempt to secretly swing the roommate or the best friend and that shit collapses like the Berlin wall. You will most likely be black-listed from that entire crew and ruin a friendship in the process.

The best part about burning bridges though, is that there are plenty to cross, and usually the act of defiance becomes a great story. This is a giant city and there are plenty of people...some might call your shameful actions noble, we let forest fires burn don't we? It's just Darwinism.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Naming shots, telling lies: the art of a good story

99% of the memory lies within the story in which it was retold. Therefore many of our fondest memories are some of our rememberances of our friends' more entertaining fabrications. Sometimes a little stretch goes a long way, but other times the end result of the oral word can have a similar result of a group of 7 year olds playing the game telephone. Let's do a brief example showing how to turn an anyways average evening into an epic tale.

"Jon got home from work and hopped in the shower. He stubbed his toe walking down the stairs. He got dressed and went to a friend's apartment. He had a few drinks. He then met up with some work friends at a bar. They ordered rounds, there was a bit of dancing. Jon left the bar and went to bed."

Let's see how to spice this tale up a bit with a few white lies and some hyperboles.
"Jon sped home and cut off 2 semis causing a freeway closing accident. Who cares? It didn't slow him down a bit. He sprinted in the door of his apartment and slammed 6 beers while showering. On the way down the stairs he stumbled and crashed to the floor putting a gaping hole in the drywall. He covered it up with a Bulls poster and had 6 more beers. Jon then drove to a pal's apartment and proceeded to slam a fifth of rumplemintz while socializing with the crowd. He was bored by the scene so he took a cab to a bar. After arguing over the fair Jon went P Kane on the cabbie and feld the scene chuckling as he jogged away. Jon then saw a buddy from work at the bar and they traded off inventing shots with proof well over 120...coming up with names insinuating death or pain: "Flatline, curbstomp, the abortion." A group of pro-life liberals approached the scene after that 3rd round. They were not pleased. Jon punched her in the stomach and called her a hippie and high fived his work friend.
Three girlsfrom across the room had enjoyed the comedy of the scene and approached the boys. They laughed, joked, and drank, then moved the party to the bathroom where they had a 5some no pants dance. After last call Jon walked to a gas station and bought a 5 hour energy and a pack of Marlboro Lights. When he finally walked to his car he drove home and went to bed."

See how just a few exagerations, some small fibs, and a couple of named shots can greatly enhance a story?

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Advanced Peter Pan Syndrome

So I'm back. I'm writing again. Consider this my first step to crawling out of this corporate nightmare I find myself in. Give Jack a little time to get established out in L.A. I'll be Hank Moody by 2015. But why now? Why did I start writing again. Is it because I only have 100 followers on Twitter and I'm bitter that Alyssa Millano, some 80's child star has half a million?

Side bar: I started following her because she was sitting in front of me at a Cubs game and I wanted to see if I was in her twitpic. I have since grown a severe hatred for her and her non-funny cause-oriented tweets, but for whatever reason I won't remove her.

No the reason I started blogging again is because the stories they I/we experience need to be written down, or 20 years from now I'll just be some overweight assclown trying to tell my kid how cool I used to be. Scratch that I will never have kids because I have advanced Peter Pan Syndrome.

Graduation was what...8 months ago? I still follow the comings and goings of Greek politics in Btown, I come up with any possible excuse to go down there for a weeekend to seemingly black out with Paul, and I come back to Chicago at about 4 A.M. the following Monday carrying with me a 3 day hangover.

It doesn't stop there though. I used to think it was a generational issue, that "Hey, kids born in 1987 just really like to rage!" False. I come to work with a pulsing hangover, telling my coworkers how I put down 34 shots, then proceeded to go out, fight 2 bouncers, stumble out of the Hangge Uppe at 5 am and sleep in my bushes because I lost my key. I expect nothing short of high fives or at least for them to be impressed on some sort of level. They are not. They are disgusted.

Classic example. There was supposed to be a blizzard in Lake Forest last night. My commute is already over an hour each way, I figure with 8 inches of snow on the ground, I would have a better shot hiring an Eskimo with a dogsled to get me to work. I decided to stay up in the suburbs to avoid a disastrous traffic scenario.

At this point in the story I have made a very responsible, adult decision.

Then came last night, where I proceeded to personally take down 3 bottles of wine and a bottle of Effen. Then braved blizzard-like conditions to go to empty bars in downtown Libertyville. Any event that is remotely out of the ordinary is an excuse...scratch that, provides an obligation to drink. Let's look at this week particularly: Monday...MNF. Drink! Tuesday: Blizzard. Drink!. Wednesday: Glee. Drink! Thursday start the weekend early...Friday and Saturday...SEE YA and Sunday you squeeze one more day out of the weekend.

...and it's not casually having drinks either. Every night it is a competition to see how many drinks you can have while still maintaining a pulse. Some people drink to socialize, others drink to get so out of control that others would not even consider holding them responsible for their actions.

This is why I fall victim to the Peter Pan Syndrome. This absurdity sounds appealing to me. I see no qualms with living sharing a room, living with a lot of people in a small place, going after a "Tiger Woods-esque" ploethera of different chicks. When I hear fifth years talking about how they are ready to graduate or they wish they were working I want to beat them to death with a prosthetic leg and then pee on their corpse. Or the general cloud of depression that circles the term "unemployed." I was unemployed this whole summer and it was GREAT! I traveled coast to coast over 3 months spending my parents' money and getting hammered. (Waa Waa my parents don't give me money...run up $10,000 of credit card debt and when the bill comes tell your parents you have no money. See what happens)

The point is...I'm not jealous of Derek Jeter really, or any athlete for that matter. I'm jealous of college kids and John Stamos (He has been MIA since the 99 cent long distance service 10-10-220 went down. But he still has a ton of money and gets paid alimony from Rebecca Romijn) I don't aspire to settle down or be the baseball coach. I aspire to party on a yacht with Blake Lively and the unknown author of broslikethissite.