I Hate Pak (...and Myself)

Some years ago, I started a recurring joke on Twitter, tweeting “#IHatePak”. “Pak,” of course, is my homie Pakistanimal. Loud, audacious, calamitous… And that’s when he’s stone sober. Get him hammered—or, more often than not, sit back and watch him get himself hammered—and those personality traits ratchet up to unsafe levels.

I don’t truly hate the man. He’s one of my closest and most trusted friends. But I do hate how every single night at the bar with him turns into one of the worst hangovers I’ve ever experienced the next morning. And that’s not exaggeration for hyperbole’s sake; I cannot name one single, solitary instance when, the morning after he and I were hanging out at a bar, I didn’t feel like a bus full of overweight circus clowns had hit me. Because shots.

So, I hate Pak. Blah, blah, blah, I’m a grown man, and can choose not to participate in the bukkake of Fireball shots, blah. Whatever. I hate Pak.

I hate him even more because one Saturday in August, as I lay on my couch at 20 after nine, content with a boring, stay-at-home night, his name appeared on the screen of my ringing phone. And because he wanted to go out drinking. And because, when I said there was a Jam on Walnut happening up the street from me, he said, “I’ll be there by 10.”

An hour later, we dapped each other up on the sidewalk in front of my apartment building. The pause was brief—long enough for him to hand me his car keys for the night—as we then began striding purposefully in the direction of the Jam. Halfway along that journey, we met Annie.

To be more accurate, Annie met us. She was a cute, younger blonde girl of medium height, walking in a group of people ahead of us on the sidewalk. As Pak and I bs’d, she abruptly spun around and said, “Mi—oh. Hi, gentlemen.” My Pakistani friend’s voice, she said, sounded just like that of someone she’d met earlier in the night, and she thought it was him walking behind her.

Smiling and bubbly, Annie was fresh from Grand Rapids, MI. As in, she had just moved to Pittsburgh that morning. So when she realized that the voices behind her were two large, unknown brown men, she didn’t hastily retreat. Instead she introduced herself and hugged each of us. Annie just wanted as many new friends as possible.

As we accompanied her up the sidewalk, she asked for pointers about living in Pittsburgh, and in Shadyside specifically. While giving her a few tidbits to hold onto, I looked down and caught sight of her shaky footwork. Annie was struggling. With every step of her right foot, she stumbled over the low walls, stones, fences, shrubbery, etc. that delineated front yards from public walkway. She somehow kept her balance and happy demeanor, despite the constant bumbles.

And, let’s remember: she was walking towards the Jam. We caught up with her friends and then moved on without Annie.

Late August is a time of renewal in my neighborhood, as twentysomethings starting grad school or their first adult jobs have moved in, replacing the residents who’ve moved on to the house with a white picket fence in the suburbs. A big, new world is opening up for these fresh faces, faster than they know what’s happening, and the fear and excitement is alive in their eyes. Pak and I slowly waded through the high tide of youth and freedom, past the games of cornhole and beer pong, past the beer stands and sleeveless bros, past the band on stage rocking out in front of a sea of Annies.

The one main criticism that can be made about the Jams on Walnut—it’s the one you’ll hear repeatedly when talking to people who choose not to bother with them—is that the crowds in the bars are suffocating. This is where you tend to find the age 28 to 40 segment of partiers, who’ve chosen the comfort of air conditioning as an escape from the 24-year-olds and head bands. No matter how big the crowd out on the street, you can guarantee at least as many people are inside at the bar. When Pak and I walked into Shady Grove, we got as far as two feet past the door.

After ten minutes or so of flowing with the surging throng, we ended up standing behind a guy sitting at the bar with his friend. He then turned around, looked up at me, and made it clear he didn’t want any problems, by announcing, “I don’t want any problems.”

[Side note, white people: You don’t have to automatically fear every black person you see.]

I reassured him that we didn’t either, and after some slurring and clumsy daps, he offered us his and his friend’s seats, since they were leaving. As soon as we’d sat down, Pak was ordering shots. *sigh*

We were also flagged down by our buddy E. Bunnies, who quickly cheered from the corner of the bar, “I’ve got my mom with me!” A cute, tiny woman in her 50s poked her head through the crowd and waved with a big smile. A few minutes later, they’d made their way over to our spot at the bar.

“You motherfuckers meet my mom!”

Weak, Pak and I pointed out the ironic hilarity of that sentence to Bunnies. “Well, you’re not fucking my mom.”

Can’t. Even.

After a few minutes, they migrated out of Grove, headed towards another bar. As Pak and I talked with our friends behind the rail, we felt a little nudge between us. I turned to find one of the most strikingly beautiful women I’ve ever met, who was trying to get in position to catch a bartender’s eye.

She was petite. She was half-Japanese. She was genuinely funny, and wholly unpretentious. She had big, soft brown eyes that dazzled when trained on you. She was from Cali. Her name was…well, that part’s not important. Nor is the rest, really. Because she was also engaged.

“Of course,” I thought, as she mentioned her fiancé. I should’ve predicted that one. But she did buy us shots. So, you know…there’s still hope.

The best thing about the Jams, without fault, is the sheer volume of women out to enjoy a summer night of music and fun. Pak’s wedding ring and my lack of fucks seemed to be attracting attention frequently. Maybe older men got it going on. Or maybe we just reminded them of their favorite uncles.

A blonde, who seemed nice enough, though she failed to meet the more shallow prerequisites that so many others were acing that night, asked to make room between us to order herself a drink. Pak and I may be superficial, but we’re still gentlemen. We yielded the breach, and I called over my boy Jed—who was bartending—for her.

When she’d gotten her drink and walked off again, Jed stopped by while filling another order. “I know who’s here, what’s going on. Don’t flag me down for her.” I assured I meant nothing by it, was just trying to be helpful. “She’s ordered three times now without tipping,” he explained. "Her friends too. Don’t help them.”

A cute friend of the blonde stepped up between us. Brown curls. Glasses. A mischievous danger in her eye.

In my head: “Hmm, this is going to get delicate.”

Pak offered to buy Cute Chick a shot (he really just wanted more for us; she just happened to be in the line of fire), and they struck a deal: She’d buy a round for her friends and us, and then he’d buy a round. As a bystander looking at getting two more free shots while in the presence of a good looking woman, the arrangement sounded like a win-win.

Her round was poured and distributed. We toasted and threw them back. Pak’s round was poured and distributed. We toasted and threw them back—well, most of us did. Cute Chick, instead of doing the shot, tossed it on the ground.

The fuck?

Pak was angry, but showed restraint by walking off to the men’s room. Laughing it off, she tried to explain to me that she didn’t want to do the shot.

Me: “So you couldn’t hand it to someone else? Or hand it back to him?”
Her: *shoulder shrug and giggle*
Me: “You need to fuck off.”

The blonde eventually came over and tried to defend her friend’s actions. But she was quickly flustered by her own inability to suspend logic to the point where pouring out a shot that was bought for you, after you asked for it, wasn’t childish and inconsiderate. She gathered Cute Chick and the others and moved off.

Sadly, with them went my recollection of the rest of the night. The shots got me. How ironic—brought down by the very thing I’d fought to defend.

I woke up the next morning with Pak standing in my bedroom doorway, asking for his keys. Judging by my cash-less wallet and the pain in my head, we didn’t go out quietly. But we made it home in one piece. I can only hope Annie was as lucky.

I hate Pak.

What I Learned This Summer (2014)

“It’s all up in the air, and we stand still, to see what comes down.”

Yes, there’s a good reason why I’m quoting The Fray lyrics. It’s because they speak of hope. They bound across a field of flowers with the enthusiastic hope that we embrace at the start of each new summer. …Or maybe that’s just me. And maybe I just like The Fray. Temecula. [for those who don't get the reference]

To know me is to know that I hold the summer in high regard. Those months of sun-drenched weather are my best of the year. Maybe I’ve never gotten over the anticipation that permeated every last-day-of-school I’ve lived. Maybe it calls me back to the majority of those early years, when summer meant going back to Los Angeles to live with my dad until the school year was ready to begin again. Or maybe the warm weather just reconnects me with that SoCal heritage. Whatever the reason, late-May through early-September is my spiritual center.

As with the previous four editions, this write serves as my lessons-learned report on the summer that was. The idea was originally borne from a need to cope with love lost, but has since grown into a way to find closure with one June solstice and move onto my inevitable love affair with the next.

And in retrospect, the Summer of 2014 was, on the whole, rather mild compared to its predecessors. Old age is mellowing me, and I’ve found my dial is more often set to “turn down” than “turn up”. But there’s still fun to be had—and lessons to be instilled—in a summer, even in limited run. After all, if we as human beings aren’t constantly learning and evolving, then we’re sinking.

Sometimes the lessons are obvious, sometimes they’re gut-wrenching. But each one is important, and improves the man or woman who learns it.

• There’s no way to casually visit a bartender at work. Driving back to my apartment late on a Saturday in July, I decided to stop by Shady Grove to see my boy Jed. He’d just come home from Tales of the Cocktail, and I was eager to hear all about the trouble and drinks he’d gotten himself into. Just one beer, while living vicariously through his stories. That’s it. That was all I’d have, before continuing on my way home. Heck, I might even be in bed before midnight!
  
  Around 3:30 a.m., I dragged myself through my front door. About 11 hours later, my face was in my toilet, vomiting like it was put on this planet to do just that.
  
  
• There’s no way to casually visit Alex at happy hour. On the previous Monday, my company held a happy hour at Eddie Merlot’s downtown. Not long after I’d arrived, my wine loving homegirl texted to tell me she was doing happy hour at Harris Grill. So after I’d tipped back a couple of free Negronis and bs’ed with coworkers, I headed home with the intention of making a quick stop at Harris along the way, to have a drink and say “hi.” Heck, I’d be home before the sun even went down!
  
  Around 11:30 p.m., I dragged myself through my front door. About 11 hours later, my head was on my desk at the office, swilling coffee and aspirin like my bosses paid it to do just that.
  
  
• All good things come to an end. Shannon moved into her Mt. Washington apartment pimp pad in 2006. In the time since, she’s hosted countless days and nights of shenanigans: New Years Eves, summer night house parties, her sister’s pre-wedding activities, rainy-night drinking games, and the best St. Patrick’s Day parties in the city. And, sadly, that all came to an end this past August, when she closed the front door behind her for the final time.
  
  If there had been a camera crew there that day to put together a Real World-final-episode-moving-out montage, every flashback would’ve featured our circle of friends living a fabled moment of our early adulthood. Life goes on, things change. But sometimes memories feel like old friends you’re leaving behind.
  
  
• Jams are international incidents. The summer’s World Cup brought a little bit of the outside world to Shadyside. Standing on the street with Pakistanimal during June’s Jam on Walnut, a flash of bright yellow caught my eye. A crowd of seven or eight Colombians, men and women, were dancing in front of the stage, wearing the soccer jerseys of their nation’s heroes and waving the flag of their homeland.
  
  
• “Schlammered” is the same in every language. Later, as we sat drinking in Shady Grove, one of the Colombianas stumbled upon Pak and me. When the homie raised his glass to Colombia, the wobbly mami happily raised hers as well. When I said I was cheering for Colombia when I wasn’t cheering for the US, she tried to square off with me.
  
  Crazy, drunk, Latina, and cute. I politely erased her number from my phone the next morning. I’ve already been down that road enough for this lifetime.
  
  
• Furries and supercars aren’t mutually exclusive. While basking in the glory that is our annual Furry Safari in July, the men in our crowd of 20+ were soon distracted by the sight of two new fearsome beasts posted up on the block: A Ferrari 458 and drop-top Lamborghini Aventador parked curbside directly in front of our sidewalk seating. I saw a furry pull out his smartphone and take a picture of the cars, in one of the more ironic moments of my lifetime.
  
  
• Whiskey doesn’t judge you when you cry. When I lost my homie Otis in September, I was broken. It’s been a while since I’ve cried that hard. Or that often. Every day for a week or so, as quickly as I felt like no one could see me at my desk, in my car, in my kitchen, wherever, my eyes would instantly well up with memories. Memories of youth. Memories of promise. Memories of a group of friends ready to take the world by storm, and scheming every minute on how we’d make it happen. I’d frequently find myself reciting old R&B songs as I washed dishes (O loved him some R&B, like any child of the 80s and 90s who grew up singing in a church choir), and choked with tears by the time I reached the chorus.
  
  Miss you, O.
  
  
• Murica is the land of the free. The Fourth of July was, as usual, a star-spangled orgy of red, white, blue, and alcohol. Participating in the bacchanalia was TD’s friend from work, a pretty, petite brown-haired chick from Philadelphia. And Philly Brown was expertly filling out a patriotic pair of Budweiser leggings. About 10 minutes after meeting us on Swag and Canada’s back porch, she decided to pose for a picture between TJ and I. Doing a handstand. Budweiser-booty shimmering in the sunlight. Yeah, she fit into our crew almost as well as she fit into those leggings.
  
  
• I mean, REALLY free. The festivities hit their highpoint at Bang’s place overlooking the Pittsburgh skyline. While the cool people—and those we allow in our presence—were floating in and out of Bang’s house in particular, every household on the block seemed to be teeming with revelers. And freedom.
  
  
  
  One reveler was a tiny, sandy-haired gal with a bountiful bosom. Swag introduced us to Four-Foot-D’s (no really, that’s his nickname for her), who quickly found a new fan. TD is my Lil Sis from another mother, and we’re a family that appreciates boobs. And shortly after meeting her, Sis looked FFDs in the eye (let’s just pretend she made eye contact) and said, “Can I motorboat you?” The sequence of 20 action shots I still have on my phone tells me that FFDs isn’t afraid to party.
  
  
• I’m 35. I mentioned that I’ve slowed down this year, compared to last year. And last year I’d slowed down compared to the year before it. One weekend in August reminded me why that regression is necessary.
  
  Over the course of 30 hours, I barhopped, I stalked, I drank afterhours at a bar with the staff, I did lots of shots, I escorted a buddy who’d drank too much, I ducked police, I attended a 40th birthday party, I watched a woman take a selfie while oblivious to everything else around her, I met my wife (pending), I spilled tequila all over Alex, I gave love advice, I followed the party to William Penn Tavern, I worked the door, I did lots of shots, I met a cute girl, I forgot a cute girl’s name, I ditched a cute girl while she was in the bathroom, I walked into a bar solo, I drank afterhours at a bar with the staff (again), I did lots of shots (again), and I—I still don’t know how—came home in one piece.
  
  I purposely stayed home the next weekend. I’m 35.
  
  
• Pay it forward. I spent the second week of July in Chattanooga, visiting my dad (The Admiral) and stepmother, as well as Sis C, who was stateside for the first time in years. It was probably the driest week of my summer. I expected that, since my stepmother is 23-years-sober, and my pops is diabetic. What I didn’t expect, though, was a bottle of Four Roses waiting for me on their kitchen counter—a gift from Step Bro, who had been there the previous weekend. Nothing takes the edge off Chattanooga like a finger of bourbon after dinner.
  
  
• The party doesn’t stop for the weather. At the summer’s second Jam on Walnut, Tony, FGT, and I were posted up at the bar in Shady Grove, when our resident southern belle decided we should walk to The Ave. Never mind that we were holding prime real estate near the epicenter of the night’s action, or that The Ave was a 10-minute walk to the other side of the neighborhood, or that it was pouring rain outside. Yayy…
  
  On the other hand, standing at the bar in soaking wet clothing, drinking beers and not giving a fuck does allow you to accurately measure your drunkenness.
  
  
• “I’ve gotta stop hanging out with white girls.” That’s a direct quote from the following Saturday, when I found myself jogging down a sidewalk behind Alex, through a torrential downpour.
  
  
• There’s no gift like the gift of blackouts sir bourbon. Swag’s birthday was in August, and his girlfriend, Skeets, hosted our crowd of loud and boisterous drunks. I handed the birthday boy a bottle of Woodford Reserve, which he once christened “Sir Bourbon” when finding it in my liquor cabinet (a bottle of bourbon being sealed with a cork was a radical concept to him at the time). Things rapidly deteriorated from there, but I do know I woke up back in my own bed the next morning, confused.

Here’s to the next love affair being as memorable as the last. See you in June, summer.

Double Up

“You my friend are a legend.”

Praise like that from Pakistanimal doesn’t come cheap. Somewhere along the way you pay with your liver and your ability to give a fuck. It was late afternoon on Sunday, August 3rd, and I was laying on my couch, sucking on a Gatorade bottle. I sure didn’t feel like a legend.

I had started the weekend by not getting out of work until around 6:30 Friday night. Nothing screams “Turn up!” like spreadsheets. Despite that, when Pak called after 7, I think I agreed to go out in Shadyside before the question had even left his mouth.

After a quiet couple of drinks at my place, we walked to The Yard for a few more quiet drinks. And some quiet shots. Fireball Bombs—quiet Fireball Bombs. “This,” I thought, “This is right where I need to stay tonight. Quiet.”

After a couple of rounds—and sharing disgust over the Paul George injury with the bartender and other bargoers—Pak suggested we give in to the inevitable and head over to Shady Grove, where our boy Jed was bartending. We were settled in on Grove barstools by 11:45, and things rapidly went downhill from there. To summarize:

• My Twitter buddy Lo agreed to come catch up with us. But as soon as she and her friend sat down on the other side of the bar, and before they could come say hi, a group of guys descended upon them.
• I made whimsical jokes about it on Twitter.
• Jed decided it was a “Let’s start doing shots of Rumple Minze at 1:30” kind of night.
• Lo, her friend, and the guys all disappeared.
• I made less whimsical, increasingly-stalkerish jokes about it on Twitter.
• Fried Green Tomatoes, out on her own nearby, came over and joined us.
• Pak got irrationally angry, to the point where he tried to fight people around us for no reason.
• I awoke Saturday morning with Pak face down on my couch, texts from FGT asking wtf had happened to him, and some tweets that called for an explanation/apology.
  

After that apology, I asked Lo where she and her friend had gone. “I think the bar was closing?” Welp…

I’d already had plans for Saturday, and they would require a tad more decorum. Alex is good friends with Turbo, one of the Grove’s owners, whose wife was throwing him a 40th birthday party at their home. This would be good food, good drinks, and—most importantly—good behavior. …Okay, slightly better behavior.

Alex and a tray of crabcakes got to my place just as a torrential thunderstorm unloaded on Pittsburgh. If you ever want to see a woman with perfectly done makeup and hair run like a lunatic, drop a million gallons of water from the sky as she heads towards her car.

We went to Grove to catch up with Jerry, Lil Mo, and other friends who were pregaming the party. Jed looked at me like I was a ghost. It had only been about 14 hours since I’d been there last. He helped fill in some of the gaps in my memory, since the last thing I remembered clearly was him pouring the shots of Rumple Minze. Pak’s mood swing, hanging with some of the other Grove regulars, being there ‘til 4 am—all of it was news to me.

When we finally walked into Turbo’s house, the weather’s uncooperative nature had forced a few modifications. The event was catered by a barbecue restaurant, and the whole deck had been set up with grilling equipment and tables. The rain meant that those were now abandoned, with the food and booze relocated to the kitchen and dining room. Guests were handed towels as they walked through the door. Thank god Turbo and his wife have a big, spacious house, because 50 people were now confined to the first floor of it.

Once inside and dry, though, standard rules applied. I got myself a gin & tonic, Alex got a glass of wine, and Lil Mo—the smallest person in the place—filled up a plate with grilled meat. We posted up at one end of the living room, some of us sitting along the wall facing the rest of the party like a firing squad of judgment. Jerry and I placed bets on how many pieces of birthday cake one of the older women at the party was going to have, as she hovered around the table on which it sat. Several of us watched a couple go into the bathroom together, and theorized on whether they were fighting, sexing, snorting, or some combination of the three. A beautiful Indian woman, who was clearly feeling whatever it was she’d drank, walked over and retrieved her phone from her purse. We watched in stunned silence from two feet away as she wobbily took a selfie, with a decorative sticker on her arm strategically positioned in the shot. Then, never having looked at or said a word to any of us, she put her phone away and stumbled back off into the party.

Jerry, Mo, and some of the other guests departed, but Alex and I decided to hang out a little while longer before breaking for the bar. Thank god we did, because it gave me an opportunity to meet my future wife.

Nicole, a longtime friend of Turbo’s wife, is awesome. Greek and Italian, she’s hilarious, pretty, full of life, and can drink with the best of them. And she loves whiskey; she was drinking it on the rocks. She told us the tale of how, when a guy was getting menacingly close in a bar some years ago, she reached behind her, broke a beer bottle on the bar, and threatened to stab him.

I literally got down on one knee in front of her on the porch.

By this point, I was sipping on a wonderful tequila one of Turbo’s friends had brought to the party as a gift. And just when I thought it was time to stop drinking and head to the bar, Alex grabbed my cup and went back inside for refills. A drink at the bar, a few gin & tonics, and now a few glasses of tequila on the rocks. This could only go to good places, right?

Alex and I, as well as Nicole and several people from the party, saddled up and headed to William Penn Tavern. We got a table, we got drinks, and a brilliant strategist among us got a basket of fries for the table. In our group was the pretty Indian selfie connoisseur, who I talked to for a few minutes. I don’t remember what that conversation was about, or what her name is. I don’t even think I remembered a few minutes later, when Alex and I walked off to the bar’s patio area. She seemed like a sweet girl, though.

On the patio we spotted the bouncer, who I’ve seen around Shadyside for years working at different bars, including Grove. We bullshitted about the drunken people and the stupid shit they were doing…rather meta of me, I know. At one point, he had to make a run inside to use the men’s room. So like a good friend, I stood at the entrance, and eyed up an ID or two while he was gone.

Here’s where things get blurry. From what I can remember, Alex ordered a round of shots. At some point, while standing at the bar after the shots, I began chatting up a cute brunette. She was cool and smart, and interested in what I had to say, which just made her cooler and smarter. After 15 minutes or so, I had started browning out (i.e., coming in and out of consciousness). I suddenly “woke up” to find myself talking to this girl, with no clue who she was or what we were talking about. So, when she excused herself so she could go to the ladies' room, I did what anyone would do: I finished my beer and walked straight out of the bar.

Yup. Not a single fuck given.

I walked over to Grove and sat down, for the third time in 24 hours. Who I talked to (other than Jed), what we talked about, etc., I was too blacked out to ever remember. The next thing I know for certain, I was waking up Sunday morning on my couch to the sound of my phone buzzing with texts from Alex.

Being a legend is a good way to die young.

What I Learned This Summer (2013)

You know the drill.

This is the fourth one of these posts that I’ve done in the past five years. If two is a coincidence and three is a trend, then four is definitely a standard. Which is ironic, since I’ve often been accused of not having standards. *cough* Moving on…

I love summer, and since my childhood I’ve worshipped it with a reverence typically reserved for favorite grandmothers. Ice cream truck jingles, pickup baseball games, and firecrackers started the romance in my days of innocence. Pool bars, bikinis, and outdoor happy hours have kept the flame alive after all of these years. For me, summer air carries a certain magic with it, be it real or imagined.

My list of memories from the Summer of 2013 feels a little less extensive than in years past (maybe that’s a blessing in disguise, though, given how long some of those posts have been). That may be due to shoddy note-taking (as always); or, maybe, it’s due to fewer shenanigans being had. Working 50 hours a week has worn me down over the past year, and as a result most Friday nights I’m too drained to get turnt up at the bars. I hate it—it’s like I’m being force-fed adulthood—but, unless I hit the lotto or marry a beautiful heiress, that’s life.

So, with no further delay (since it’s, you know, November December January February March [fight me]), and in no particular order, here are my lessons from the physically painful, mentally exhausting, emotionally dulling summer days of 2013 that I would gladly relive if given the chance.

• If a drunk friend runs away from you, let him go; if he comes back, it was meant to be. If he doesn’t…at least you won’t need staples in your leg. Yup. June 22, 2013 will go down in history as the dumbest day of my life. Well…top-5. Who would’ve thought going to a country concert tailgate wouldn’t be the stupidest thing I did that day?
  
  
• Parents always know when you’re being stupid. I limped into my mom’s house the day after the accident, expecting hysterics and motherly lectures. Instead, she reacted with a measured, cool demeanor, and calmly told me she’d dreamt the night before that I was in the hospital. That’s some ESP for your ass. At the same exact moment I was laid up in a hospital bed—in the same ER room, coincidentally, that she’d been in a little over a year before that—getting 16 staples put in my leg, she was having a dream about me being in the hospital. Our bond is tight.
  
  
• Stupidity is expensive. The bills for the ER visit and multiple follow-up doctor appointments were not cool. Perhaps worse, though, was buying more medical tape and gauze bandages every week. Somewhere out there is a mid-level manager at Johnson & Johnson who should shake my hand for sending his or her kid to college.
  
  
• There’s something scarier than 16 staples in your leg: Sobriety. My leg became infected during the recovery period. That meant antibiotics. That meant two weeks of July spent sober, praying PowerBall and modern science would rescue me with an infection-fighting rum that could only be found on a tropical beach populated by beautiful, sexually-adventurous women.
  
  
• Finding the right party means making tough decisions. Armo hosted a pool party in mid-August, but unfortunately it didn’t command the same attendance demographics (see: lots of morally bankrupt people, many of them in bikinis) that similar parties have in the past. Alex suggested, as the night set in, that we all head for life rafts and paddle back to Shadyside, where the season’s third and final “Jam on Walnut” was roaring to life. Armo refused to leave his place, vowing to go down with the ship. He’s a valiant captain. At least, that’s the thought I had as I fastened my life preserver seatbelt.
  
  
• When you’re friends with someone, there’s usually a pretty good reason for it. Alex, Tony, and I were the three mutineers that night. As we walked from her place to Shadyside Saloon, Alex tripped over the uneven sidewalk ahead of me. I began chuckling—fully intending to grow it into a self-righteous LOL—when I felt myself stumbling over the very same sidewalk bump. Just that quickly, my feelings of superiority had turned into dejected realism. As I stopped and collected my shattered self-worth, I heard Tony trip over the bump.
  
  We’re idiots.
  
  
• Only a drunk idiot puts a drunk idiot in charge of pizza. After the bars closed that night, we grabbed a couple of pies at S. Aiken Bar and Grille. For reasons unbeknownst to any of us once the sober hours arrived, I was given the responsibility of carrying the pizzas from there to my apartment. Alex instructed me not to eat any until we got to our destination; that rule might’ve held some weight with someone who hadn’t been drinking for most of the day, but…#drunchies. We weren’t even a quarter of the way to my place when she and Tony turned around to find me with sauce and cheese all over my face.
  
  
• What some call binge drinking, I call efficient packing. Each of the summer’s big three holidays—Memorial Day Weekend (MDW), Fourth of July, and Labor Day Weekend (LDW)—saw my friends and I squeeze three or more days full of crazy into one small calendar entry. As natural as such mini-binges have been over the past 15 or so years of my life, it took until just now for me to realize that those were the only three-day calendar entries of the summer. Far from being a symptom of alcoholic dependencies, those multiday adventures were actually a symptom of adulthood. We’ve found ourselves clinging ever-so-tightly to the windows of liberty shared by our calendars as we’ve grown older (especially as, in turn, those windows have grown increasingly-rare). It’s the life of busy adults trying to get the most out of the infrequent times when they were free from responsibilities.
  
  

• Responsibilities are Father Time’s rapey minions. Like many people, I often daydream of winning a huge PowerBall lotto payout. But I’ve come to realize that it’s not necessarily the financial freedom that fuels those fantasies, it’s the freedom itself. No alarm clocks, no project deadlines. No bosses. Just living life as it comes to you each day.
  
  
• Not working can be hard work. Of those three holiday weekends, LDW was arguably the least hedonistic. But it might still have been the shortest on sleep.
  
  We kicked it off with the Oddball Comedy Festival that Friday. TD, Boy Toy, Armo, Weatherman, and several others joined me in some parking lot imbibing (read: pounding beers like they were cheap sluts earning rent money) in the summer sunshine, followed by throwing back tallboys of Heineken inside the First Niagra Pavilion grounds in the summer moonlight. Dave Chappelle, Hannibal Burress, Kristen Schaal, and everyone else killed it, while I killed every beer and shot that came within 10 feet of me.
  
  
• Following your dreams is scary as shit. And I haven’t even done it. But I’ve stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the ground below, and wondered how I could ever fly above it. I have endless respect for those who’ve taken that step forward. I pray I man up and follow you soon, before it’s too late.
  
  
• When you do make a bold decision, don’t half-ass it. In July TD and I, out of the clear blue sky, decided to go on a bar crawl—after a whiskey distillery tour. And when we come at you, we come hard. (Wait…)
  
  
• Life is what you make it. Seriously, we wrecked shop that day. Nine bars. Nine bars AND A WHISKEY DISTILLERY. And we never really broke a sweat. In fact, all of us handled ourselves like all-stars the entire Fourth of July weekend, going strong four days straight. That was one of those moments where you find yourself smiling at all that just took place, as you lay on your couch in agony on Sunday afternoon.
  
  
• LDW is officially fantasy football Christmas. Saturday of LDW—as is tradition—featured the annual W&J draft at Armo’s house. It was one of two that I attended that weekend. Finn, Chief, Esq, BBB, Tony, our friend Keith, and others met to bust each other’s balls and select fantasy teams over lots of pizza and lots of beer. I don’t know if it’s due to football having dominated that weekend for numerous years now, but hearing “LDW” just triggers images of the game in my head, like saying “Fox News” makes you picture a monkey throwing its own shit at a wall.
  
  
• The better you are at something, the more you suffer for your art. This year saw me manage six fantasy football teams of my own, and consult two of my friends’ teams. Every godforsaken day from mid-August through the end of December saw me dividing up the free time I don’t have between fantasy research, eight leagues, and the CS pages. Who needs a love life?
  
  
• Love lives are second-class citizens in a world that’s home to fantasy football. One of those friends who employed me as a consultant was Dupa. He flew into Pittsburgh late on the Saturday night of LDW for his league’s draft, which would be held Sunday afternoon. By early Sunday evening, he was on a plane headed back to Houston.
  
  His girlfriend lives here in Pittsburgh. He didn’t visit her during the approximately 20 hours he was here. …She was not happy.
  
  
• Getting drunk with your homies is like riding a bike. On his one night in town, Dupa dialed the knob to “full turnt.” He drank himself silly on the plane, and then led Tony and me to Shady Grove straight from the airport. In the 20 minutes after we walked through the doors, we consumed a round of Long Islands, a round of Jager Bombs, and a round of Heinekens. By the end of the night I was taking pictures of Dupa sitting alone on a city bench with his arm around a pizza, as he made sex faces at it.
  
  
• Fuck fire hose fittings. Seriously. To this day I feel myself get nervous and twitchy each and every time I walk near a fitting sticking out of a wall or a hydrant on the sidewalk.
  
  
• I don’t know how Pak’s wife does it. For reasons only known to divinities of the universe, I spent three consecutive weekends hanging out with Pak in Shadyside. Week 1 was two homies wanting to drunk; Week 2 was the summer’s second Jam on Walnut; and Week 3 was the annual kickball tournament that turns my friends into booze zombies. Safe to say, Mrs. Pak hated me as much as I hated Pak by the end of that stretch.
  
  
• It’s possible to be a bigger drunken spectacle than Pak. The second of those weeks, the Jam, found Tony in his drunkest form. Pregaming at my place, drinking beers on Walnut St., and downing shots and drinks at Shady Grove did in the homie, who was an irrationally-angry mess—a.k.a. “full-on Irish”—by midnight.
  
  Realizing that his night had reached its peak, I walked him home. Along the way, we passed various random bands of revelers strolling through the neighborhood. And each time someone in one of those clusters would raise their voice in excitement over whatever it was that they were discussing, Tony’s reaction was to accuse them of talking shit on him, and to attempt to dart in their direction.
  
  
• With age comes experience…and shame. The following week—that of the kickball tourney after party—Tony balked at Pak’s and my suggestions that he come catch up with us. He was worried that most of Shadyside would remember him as the blotto fool he had been the previous week. He finally relented when I reminded him that all of the people that had seen him be a drunken asshole that night were, themselves, drunken assholes that night.
  
  
• Fate is a woman. Related: Women are cruel. The postgame partying after the kickball tourney saw some wild sights, including our girl Liz expressin’ herself on the wall at Mario’s East Side. The star of the night, though, was Armo.
  
  It’s rare that we get the Italian Stallion to venture outside the five-mile radius encircling his house (as evidenced by the fifth bullet point of this post); his average is about once a year. On this uncommon night, he met a cute blonde girl at Grove, who talked him up for most of the night. Keith and I watched from nearby barstools, sipping our beers like proud parents. At close, her friends pulled her in the opposite direction from the one our collection was headed in, so Armo and blondie did the whole huddle-on-the-sidewalk-away-from-your-friends-while-exchanging-phone-numbers ceremony. She then made him a tongue-wrestling practice dummy in front of their friends and the world.
  
  
  That Monday he texted her to see if there were flames to fan. She mentioned that she has a boyfriend. A boyfriend with whom she lives. Armo considered that maybe once-a-year was too often to venture out into the world.

The Summer of 2013 may have turned into November December January February March [fight me] as quickly as it appeared, but we’ll always have the memories.

…And the scars.

Drunks Say the Darndest Things 6

Here we are again: Year Six for the DSTDT write up. As I have each of the past five years, I hereby present you with a series of drunken addendums and cloudy-brained contemplations by my blotto friends and me. It’s a magical time of year, indeed.

Yet again I’ve had to trim the fat and only use the best of the best quotes. I may not capture every single funny utterance by my friends and me in my notes, but the fact that I get as much as I do speaks volumes about the volumes we speak. And drink. As always, each of these comments is as real as the person that thought it prudent to give voice to it. Most are from this past year, but some are older; how they escaped my net before now is a mystery…though I’m guessing I forgot because I was drunk.

• As we watched last year’s Super Bowl, those of us gathered at Armo’s house worked to polish off every bottle of beer and liquor on hand. And Alex, as usual, was doing her share of the heavy lifting. By halftime, she was in the zone. She stared through the TV, entranced by Destiny Child’s performance. From my right I heard her say, “I lo__ __c.” Between my attention being elsewhere and the music from the show overpowering her voice, I suspected I didn’t quite hear her correctly.
  
  Me: “…What?”
  Alex: “I love TLC!”
  
  
• Armo’s residence is a popular site for misguided commentary, since the amount of alcohol you’ll inevitably consume during your visit is going to mercilessly twist you. One random night last spring, as he and I discussed criticisms of The Hangover Part II, I eloquently and emphatically drove my point home by saying, “…You know? Don’t break what’s fixin’…”
  
  
• One morning in the spring of 2012, Belle had a blackout night. The kind of blackout night my friends and I have, where you last remember talking to a former coworker at a bar and then wakeup butt naked in Swag’s house. You know, normal stuff.
  
  On a Saturday night last June, a few of us sat on Swag’s back porch drinking and politicking, and the topic of that night came up. And when one of us asked just what had happened between her and that former coworker, Belle took the floor: “I wasn’t sore the next day, so I figured nothing happened. But then I found a condom on the floor, soooo…” As all of us doubled over in laughter, she added, “…and that’s not a good sign!”
  
  
• A wise man once said, “Steel sharpen steel.” And when a crazy bastard like Pakistanimal—who’s accustomed to being louder and more audacious than anyone else in the bar—is wowed by an astonishing quip, some serious steel has been sharpened.
  
  One night in July he and I toured a few of Shadyside’s drinkeries, eventually finding ourselves at our beloved Shady Grove. One of my favorite bartenders, “Spice,” was behind the bar; she’s easy on the eyes, good with conversation, and packed with the energy of a Sisqo backup dancer. It was Pak’s first time meeting her, and she quickly left an impression. He had put a couple of bucks worth of songs on the jukebox, and when “Call Me, Maybe” came on I quickly cursed at him. [There’s a history to this particular song that’s really only known to my close friends and I; trust me, he did it to be a dick, not because he likes the song.] Spice, however, began, dancing to the beat, exclaiming as she mixed a drink, “Ooh! He’s making my vagina move with this song!”
  
  
• Late one night last spring, I got a phone call from Hollywood, whom I hadn’t heard from in about a year. As we caught up on the happenings in each other’s lives, our conversation drifted to a crazy chick he’d recently met. I asked about her age, but he seemed to know as much as I did. "You can't really tell how old she is, because her face is weathered. …She could be 35, she could be 25."
  
  
• My Lil Sis From Anotha Motha (TD) is a fan of the ladies. Especially when they’re hot, and especially when she’s drunk (it runs in the family). So getting her really drunk and taking her to a strip club is a formula for entertainment success. Earlier this month, that formula was put to use, as a night of drinking in the South Side somehow found TD and others downtown at Blush. Not long after they got there, a beautiful blonde dancer caught her eye. TD decided to ask for a lap dance, and was allll charm. “I want you,” she told the dancer. “I want you…privately.”
  
  
• Dupa is shocking. He prides himself on it. But he’s even more so for those who don’t know him, because they underestimate his attention to detail. The guy can spot a penny on a bar floor and formulate a comment about you picking it up with your butt cheeks while you’re still a mile down the road from said bar.
  
  One night in early 2010 we were partying at Hofbrauhaus with a large group of friends, including Yum, who was in a short denim miniskirt and looking, well…yum. She was sitting on a bench in the entryway at the end of the night, as we awaited a cab to take us back to the hotel. Dupa, lit like a rocket, walked through said entryway with his eyes on the door, when he stopped, pointed in Yum’s direction and said, “What’s up, leopard?” The immediate change of her face to flush red told me what my homie already knew: she was wearing leopard-print panties.
  
  
• Sometimes you don’t need to be blessed with hawklike vision. Sometimes you just have to look straight ahead. At Swag’s birthday party this past August, I was having a one-on-one convo with T.C. when he momentarily lost all train of thought mid-sentence.
  
  T.C.: “So then I, I…*staring off* Jesus.”
  Me: “What? What’s wrong?”
  T.C.: “Nah, it’s just…I never noticed how big TD’s rack is before.”
  
  
• From our early days in college until he got locked down by the gal who would eventually wear his ring and have his children, my homie BBB joyfully carried the reputation of being an unabashed coozehound. And there was zero shame to his game. He was the perfect wingman, because half the time he’d go after the big ugly ones even when he wasn’t wingmanning. Just because.
  
  One Friday night in early 2002, we found ourselves at Bar Pittsburgh drinking and carousing, as per usual. Our buddy Firewater eventually met a random gal of atrocious morality, and BBB dutifully swooped in to occupy her friend. The ladies invited them back to their apartment at the end of the night, and—being the odd man out—I drove BBB’s car to my mom’s house, where I was living at the time. The next day I had somewhere to be, and Mom had to leave for a hair appointment, so she put BBB’s keys in an envelope taped to the front door of the house. Upon opening up the envelope, he also found a handwritten note from my sainted mother: “How fat was she?”
  
  
• Dupa took a trip to China to start 2014, beginning with an NYE party overlooking Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong. Most people faced with a 20-hour flight would have paced their alcoholic intake, realizing the difference between a marathon and a sprint. But not Dupa. He was three sheets to the wind before boarding started. I’m not sure that the flight crew knew what they were in for when they got out of bed that morning.
  
  Hot Flight Attendant: “Drink before we take off?”
  Dupa: “You're delicious.”
  Hot Flight Attendant: *doesn't break stare*
  Dupa: “So... Coke Zero and Bourbon then?”

Merry New Beer!

I’ve hated Christmas since I was old enough to know why to hate Christmas (about 23, for those of you still not quite there yet). This time around, it was New Year’s Eve before I realized how little hating of the holidays I’d done.

Don’t misunderstand—I wasn’t happy about it being Christmas; I just didn’t pay attention to the same raw nerves that typically get exposed this time of year. Work has sought to absolutely destroy me over the last few months, and as a result I’ve been largely numb to all that was going on around me. [I legitimately thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown one day, but that’s for a blog I’ll inevitably write and recite as part of a group therapy session.] The obvious negatives of such a situation aside, the positive is that Christmas was blandly tolerable. One might say mildly enjoyable, even, if for no other reason than it forced my company to let me stay at home for a few days. Yay work misery!

I certainly didn’t get to relax as much at the end of December as I used to, back when I worked for a company that gave us paid holidays from Christmas Eve through New Years. But old friends being in town and a few nights where you don’t have to set the alarm clock mean booze is going to be poured. And if booze is going to be poured, well then…something, something, me waking up in weird places.


Monday, December 23rd
Once upon a time, I tried to bring rise to a new tradition called Christmas Eve Eve. It went strong for about four years before fading in ‘12. But it’s not dead yet.

Dupa, home from Houston for Christmas, gathered several of us that night for dinner at Church Brew Works. Six young professionals ate, drank, and became increasingly louder and more profane, to the point that I could feel the families seated near us cringe each time one of our voices built towards its crescendo. After dinner most of us went to our respective homes to decompress—including me. I honestly thought Christmas Eve Eve’s tradition had entered oblivion. Turns out, I just wasn’t believing in it hard enough.

TD and Canada believed, though. An hour after I had come home, I began receiving picture texts from the two of them. Awesome, drunken images of Lil Sis and various people with their eyes narrowed paper thin, chucking peace signs and grabbing breasts at Sloppy Joe’s. I’ve never been prouder of family who aren’t really family but are really family.

A week later, Canada gave all of us his postscript to that night: TD and Boy Toy dropped him off in front of his house around midnight (he’d managed to spend $80 at a dive bar where a mixed drink costs about $4, so you can go ahead and calibrate your expectations to how this ends). They watched him open his front door and walk into the crib before they left. Nevertheless, around 4 a.m. Canada awoke…lying in the bushes in front of the house.


Tuesday, December 24th
TD, Boy Toy, and TJ joined my cousin, her husband and I for dinner at my mother’s house. Bottles of wine and Heineken marched in full and rolled out empty. The guests marched in empty and rolled out full. Mom has never been one to half-ass it in the kitchen, and we feasted on a delicious home cooked ham dinner (TD ate fish) with all the fixins’. Also, a giant cake shaped like the Grinch’s head that TJ brought (it’s tradition; the last couple of years have seen cakes shaped like Santa and Rudolph).

When I got back to Shadyside that night, I stopped at William Penn Tavern to catch up with Mo-Fo and Jed. It was the first time in over two years that I’d seen Mo-Fo, who lives in North Carolina. As we caught up over draughts, a steady stream of familiar faces from around the neighborhood rolled in for drinks and holiday cheer beer. It wasn’t a night of loose women and drunken episodes, but instead a chance to catch up on each other’s tales of loose women and drunken episodes. You need those nights. When stress melts away and all that’s left is laughter and community.


Wednesday, December 25th
Christmas Day. Spiked eggnog with my mom while opening gifts. Wine with dinner. Sometimes things don’t change simply because they ain’t broke.

For those wondering (and since I’ve catalogued my alcohol-related gifts in the past): A bottle of Bulleit 10 Year Bourbon from my Lil Sis, a bottle of Glenfiddich Nadurra from my manager, an On the Rock Glass and bottle of Makers from Armo, and a bottle of Chivas Regal 12 from my mom. The quantity of booze gifts may be going down, but the rising quality is more than making up for it.


Thursday, December 26th
I fought the system by calling in sick instead of going into the office. Never mind that I legitimately needed it because I was too exhausted to function when I awoke that morning, or that I still put in about four or five hours of work from my dining room table…Viva La Revolucion!

That night T.C., Hurley, Mo-Fo, and Jed convinced me to venture over to Grove for the second half of Pitt’s bowl game. I began drinking Manhattans, and then…well, the next-to-last entry in this post happened. The most irreversibly shlammered I’d been in some time, I barely remember being at Cain’s. I do recall sitting down and ordering a beer. Then I awoke on Hurley’s couch.


Friday, December 27th
If you’ve gotta spend half of a day at work drunk, and the other half viciously hungover, I recommend doing it on a Friday when none of the executives are in the building. Thank god I have the kind of cool-as-hell manager who found my ever-deteriorating state hilarious and not wage-garnering-ous. I spent my Friday night at home, thank you very much.


Saturday, December 28th
Esq and Shock hosted the annual holiday reunion of some of our closest friends at my homie’s big, beautiful “lawyer’s house” (think it was my mom who coined that term) in the far northern suburbs of the city. Chief, Tank, Mrs. Tank (Katie), Finn, Genoa, BBB, Tony, and others gathered to drink the booze, catch up, and reminisce on the good ol’ days. All of the college stories about the girls we did or didn’t bag, the fights, the Federales, the masturbating roommates—all of it played like a classic movie marathon, one after the other.

Some in the crowd, like the ladies and the suddenly urbane Chief, drank wine. I, on the other hand, eased into the night by drinking bottles of Miller Lite. By around midnight we’d killed off two cases, and it was time for some beer pong in the three-car garage (once Esq had backed out one of the “his-and-hers” Escalades). That’s when the Beast Light came out—W&J waters run deep. By 4:30 a.m. I was passed out in one of the guest rooms.


Sunday, December 29th
I awoke the next morning to Chief passed out on the floor of the room. “I was so mad when I got up there and found out you’d beaten me to it,” he told me before we each headed home that day, “that I decided to sleep on the floor out of spite, even though I knew there were 50 open couches in this house.”


Monday, December 30th
…What am I, an animal? I laid low and stayed dry. Bitches.


Tuesday, December 31st
The main event. The Academy Awards of Drinking. The Blotto Super Bowl. I prepped like any professional does: by shoving a McDonald’s Extra Value Meal down my throat and showing up on TD and Boy Toy’s doorstep around 8 p.m. with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in my hand.

There was beer pong in the garage, of which I took part in for a while, Armo and I hardly making a dent in the night’s competition. There was lively, drunken conversation in the kitchen, of which I took a LOT of parts in. There was a game of Spades in the dining room with Joel, TJ, and Affliction, of which I cheated in (…was totally playing “Asshole” in my mind for the first hand or two). There was the ball drop, punctuated by about 10 different bottles of champagne being popped in a living room filled with 20 people and zero cups—straight chuggin’, homie.

Shannon provided my New Year’s kiss; Mo Paddle provided my New Year’s style via comically-oversized sunglasses; Lil Sis provided my New Year’s ego by pointing out that we were the only two drinking real champagne (she had her own bottle of Clicquot); and one of Boy Toy’s best friends provided my New Year’s comedy by passing out on the toilet with his pants around his ankles. And the host himself provided the New Year’s drama, getting into a fight with Under The Porch (UTP) that spilled out into the front yard, and resulted in me shoving Toy and TD back into their house and others shoving UTP into the backseat of a car headed away from the scene. (By the way…we’re all adults.) Toy found out a couple of days later that he had broken a couple of his ribs in the commotion. And, for some reason, the people who removed UTP were mad at TD the next morning for him being at their place. (…Adults.)


Wednesday, January 1st

Tradition is tradition. pic.twitter.com/bT6pc7GmDD
— The D.E.F.I. (@CS_Defi) January 1, 2014

Of the two couches in TD’s living room, I awoke on the smaller one. Of course. “Toilet Napper” had taken the larger couch the night before. But when I awoke, it was unoccupied. I moved over, stretched out, and began drifting back to sleep in the growing 8 a.m. sunshine. I soon felt someone shake my leg. It was Napper.

Him: “Ah, dude, I was sleeping there. I just got up to go to the bathroom.”
Me: “Yeah…that sucks.” *rolls over and goes back to sleep*

A couple of hours later I finally headed home, with a quick stop at Shannon’s along the way to help her with her Irish family’s tradition (a dark-haired man must come into her home and receive a shot of whiskey and one dollar at the start of each year, before she’s allowed to cross her threshold). The whiskey provided cover fire against hangover laying siege to my head, giving me the chance to retreat to the safety of my couch and five more glorious hours of slumber.

Sometimes you need a holiday from the holidays.

Spring Cleaning

I believe it was Henry David Thoreau who first said, “The more time I spend being drunk and awesome, the less time I have to write about being drunk and awesome.”

March and April were so full of shenanigans that I skipped out on writing about most of them. It tends to happen every year, since you get three significant drinking holidays—St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th, my birthday on March 29th, and the Pirates’ Home Opener in the first week of April—packed together in a three-week window on the calendar. Add in TJ’s birthday, Penguins playoff games, and Brewski Fest tying a nice bow on it all at April’s end, and you get a whole lot of “Wait, whose couch is this?” mornings. In past years, when I worked at my old job, I would’ve devoted some of my daily free time during workdays to retell the details of those events. But, with my current occupation, there is no such thing as “free time”; consequently, it’s you the viewing public who suffer. ‘Tis a cruel, cruel world, I know.

Let’s see if I can give a quick rundown of the blurry-visioned fun that has taken place through the first half of spring.


St. Patty’s Angels (Saturday, 3/16)

• Our standard squadron of drinkers assembled on Mt. Washington, with TJ, Specs, and I starting our morning at Jay Swag and Mitch Canada’s house. Making a special appearance was Affliction, who quickly explained his recent M.I.A. status: He’s (reluctantly) going to be a father.
  
  Yes, he accidentally impregnated the hot, mentally-unstable Jesus freak that he had been casually bodyrockin’ for a few months. This chick is so crazy that he once caught her reading the bible aloud…to her dog. Seriously.
  
  Always wear a condom, kids.
  
  
• For weeks, Shannon had been teasing that she would have a surprise waiting for me when I arrived at her annual party. Given my various bedroom entanglements with her and her sister’s friends over the years…well, I didn’t expect good things.
  
  My god was I proven wrong. When we walked into her apartment, she pointed me towards her kitchen table, on which sat a pyramid of Irish Car Bomb cupcakes. Whether she knows it or not, we’re getting married. And we’re consummating the marriage on a mountain of those cupcakes.
  
  
• I did quick, swift damage on St. Patty’s. True, it was to myself; but…whatevs. Before I knew it I was sitting at the bar in Redbeard’s, using chicken tenders to ward off a full-on blackout.
  
  
• By the end of the night I was air-humping a passed-out-on-the-couch JL at Swag’s, while everyone else played drinking games. About seven of us passed out in that living room, and that eventually turned to eight when Tony showed up out of nowhere at 2:30 a.m. and began drunkenly groping his way through the room with a goofy smile that beamed through the darkness.
  

Meet the Parent (Friday, 3/22)

• Alex’s parents were in town for her Mom’s birthday. To celebrate, Alex took her to a local place where you can do amateur painting while sipping wine. Her dad, however, is like the rest of us normal people, and therefore chose sitting at a bar over sitting in an art studio. So Tony, TD, and I caught up with him at Shady Grove.
  
  In about 30 minutes of hang time, TD fell in love with him and I gave up Alex’s secret about the parties she threw at his house when she was a kid. This is why we shouldn’t be allowed around parents.
  
  
• We offered to buy him a shot, but he wouldn’t hear of it, saying firmly that he wasn’t up for anything crazy like us “kids”. Curious, though, he asked TD what kind of shot she would normally buy.
  
  TD: “I don’t know, probably some kind of bomb…”
  Alex’s Dad: “No, I don’t want one of those. *to me* How ‘bout you?”
  Me: “I’d probably just do a shot of Jack.”
  Alex’s Dad: “Now that sounds good.”
  Me: “Bartender!”
  
  
• The night ended with TD, Tony, and I back at my place, obliterated and suffering from drunk munchies (or “drunchies”—copyrighted). Tony found out Dominos was still open, and ordered up two pizzas. Three minutes after he hung up, TD accused him of not ordering pizza. She called Dominos herself, and was told by their staff that the order had been placed, as Tony and I laughed.
  
  That wasn’t enough confirmation for her, though. She called back several more times, to the point where the people at Dominos asked her to please stop calling them.
  

Treat Yoself! (Thursday, 3/28)

• My birthday weekend kicked off with Aziz Ansari’s “Buried Alive” tour stop in Pittsburgh. After work I caught up with Alex, TJ, and Armo at Olive or Twist, and swilled Manhattans while taking in Pittsburgh’s young professional set (shocker: I wasn’t impressed). We moved from there to the show (much love to all three of them for covering the cost of my ticket for my birthday—a truly fantastic gift), and Aziz brought the heat throughout his performance.
  
  

Birth Dazed (Friday, 3/29)

• The day’s fun started that afternoon. TD picked me up at my office building and took me to lunch at Fatheads, handing me a gift when I hopped into the car. My present? A bottle of Bulleit bourbon. Love. My. LSFAM (Little Sister From Another Mother).
  
  
• We met up with Boy Toy and Special K for beer and fantastic sandwiches. I ate until I couldn’t move, washed it down with drafts of good beer, and then ate some more. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried to work half of a Friday while simultaneously fighting off a Fatheads coma and a coronary.
  
  
• That evening we gathered troops in Shadyside. TD, Special K, Special K’s husband, Tony, and Pakistanimal, all met up at my place for some pregaming, and then headed to Shady Grove for dinner and drinks. Hollywood, too, would eventually make an appearance.
  
  
• Pak, in particular, was anxious to start ordering me shots (#shocking). But even TJ—who couldn’t make it out that night—was in on the assault, ordering the modified Liquid Cocaine shot that has by now become our traditional birthday napalm. I texted him something anti-Semitic and threw it back.
  
  
• At William Penn Tavern later in the night, Tony was utterly dumbfounded to find out that the lyrics are “Highway to the Danger Zone,” and not “I went to the Danger Zone.” Yes, I’m serious. Yes, we made fun of him.
  
  
• For the second Friday in a row, it was TD, Tony, and I back at my place to the end the night. And for the second Friday in a row we ordered pizza from Dominos. But this time we kept TD’s phone away from her until the food was delivered.
  
  

Cold Open (Monday, 4/1)

• 
  This year Mother Nature played a cruel April Fools’ joke on Pittsburgh: the high for the Pirates’ Home Opener was a sweltering 47 degrees Fahrenheit, though for most of the morning and afternoon—the prime tailgating time—temps hovered in the low 30s, with frequent snow flurries. Ever get pelted in the face by snowflakes as you grip a can of Miller Lite with a shivering, numb hand, all while trying to watch a guy and five girls do some hip-hop line dance a row of cars over? Mother Nature is a devious bitch.
  
  
• LRG was on hand, along with his crew of young(ish) millionaires. Once we had all migrated indoors to McFadden’s, they quickly set up shop at the bar. And, before long, shots were being passed in every direction. I got hit by a few, and the next thing I remember with 100% certainty, I was sipping a beer on Swag’s porch.
  
  
• Somehow, someway, we found our way to Redbeard’s, where we were joined by Boy Toy, Mitch Canada, and a few of Canada’s boys for dinner and more booze. Lil Mo even made a brief appearance—just enough time for me to drunkenly yell at her for absolutely nothing. We closed the night at Cafe Nikos, and I finally called “No mas” around 2 a.m. Not bad, considering I’d started drinking at 9:45 that morning.
  
  

TJ’s Birthday (Sunday, 4/14)

• The birthday boy waited until that afternoon to decide that he wanted to have drinks at Grove; Alex and I faithfully obliged. A drunker-than-usual Lil Mo made an appearance, the Grove bartenders worked their magic, and we managed to get the homie buzzed-up on his day. It was small ball, but a win is a win.
  
  

Brews’ Clues (Saturday, 4/27)

• Brewski, oh Brewski. 20+ of us swarmed Seven Springs for this year’s event. I sipped beers during pregaming in TD’s room, pounded beers during the event, pounded beers and shots during the after party at Matterhorn, and threw the last shovelful of dirt on my coffin during the after-after party in BlahBlahBlah’s room.
  
  
• The best-kept secret of early 2013: Dupa made a surprise guest appearance at Brewski. The homie, who now lives in Houston, TX, flew into town to ensure that he, like me, extended his attendance streak to eight straight years of beer-tasting, booth-babe-teasing awesomeness.
  
  
• Among this year’s rookies was Jay Swag…who was technically one of last year’s rookies. But last year he spent the entire event sleeping off the hangover he’d incurred the night before; this, therefore, was his first time actually tasting brewskis while at Brewski Fest.
  
  
• When entering the event, you file in past security, ticket takers, etc. Nodding towards the policeman working security detail, I flashed a smirk at a female member of the event staff. “Have you guys ever had to throw someone out for being too drunk before they even got in?” Without a hint of a smile, she looked directly into my eyes and said, “Yes.” I suddenly wished I’d never said anything at all.
  
  
• 
  That night at Matterhorn, I stepped up to the back bar with T.C., and waited while a middle-aged white woman—the only bartender at that post—worked her way clockwise around towards our spot. And when my turn came a good ten minutes later…she passed me over for the guy standing to our left. T.C. and I both instinctively yelled “What the fuck?!” And in my alcohol-sodden state, I added, “That’s racist!”
  
  Was I entirely serious with the accusation? No, of course not. If anything, it was a reflex, given the humor my crew and I engage in on a daily basis. As you might expect, though, the bartender did not take kindly to my comment. Her claim that I had just then walked up to the bar, however, inspired shock from both T.C. and some of the guys standing around us. Then, when she could have saved herself by selling me booze to erase my memory of the whole situation, the bartender instead waited on a guy who had just walked up to the right of me. I walked off, calling her a “fucking racist”, and listening to T.C. telling her how full of shit she was as I went to the bar on the other side of the room.
  
  
• Once back at BBB’s for the after-after party, we decided to play beer pong. Someone had been smart enough to bring cups, but no one had been smart enough to bring pong balls. W&J boys never falter, though; BBB and I played one-on-one, using bottle caps.
  
  
• …All of that lasted one lengthy game, before the girls took over and started rounds of flip cup.
  
  
• I awoke a few hours later to my boy “Hurley” standing in the room with his new friend, a trashy blonde. Hurley, Dupa, and I were splitting the suite. But Dupa had the girl he’s dating with him, and had weaseled his way into the deckside bedroom, leaving Hurley and I to share the hallside bedroom. And since I’d gotten there first, it seemed like Hurls was all out of options for lovin’ in Room 356.
  
  He and his gal pal left. I got up to use the bathroom, and as I walked out a few minutes later, they came back. I went back to bed, and realized soon after the light went out that they were now cuddled on the other half of the bed. So I did what any reasonable friend would do: I got my phone and snapped a picture of her laying on top of him.
  
  
• Eventually, I was awakened again, this time by…certain sounds…and a moving bed. I refused to roll over to see something I couldn’t unsee.
  
  
• When I told Dupa the story the next morning—Hurley had left early to catch a flight—and showed him my photographic evidence, he expanded the picture, chortled, and shoved the phone back in my face.
  
  Dupa: “What do you see?”
  Me: “What?”
  Dupa: “Look at her hand!”
  
  There, on the second-from-the-left finger on her left hand, were a wedding band and an engagement ring.
  
  
• I realized, as I got dressed to leave that morning, that the lace from my left Timberland was missing. Gone. Nowhere to be found.
  
  This is now a cold case. R.I.P. Timb lace.