Un-In-June-E-Us

It's getting to be way too long between posts for my.  The older these memories get, the harder it is to remember the details.  Maybe I can gloss over some of the details and try to get a little more current.



So, my buddy Jake's birthday was June 5th.  On the night of the 4th, we went out to Muldoon's where it seemed like it would be just another Saturday night.  I began chatting it up with this girl, think of maybe on the low side of kind of cute, nothing to write home about (just to blog about).  We were talking and she had clearly had too much and she seemed like she wanted to have an "adventure" of sorts that night.  Here's a quick game, try to guess which girl it is...(I'm in this habit of staying out past sundown and sometimes I have my sunglasses on me all night.  Really, I don't find the Frogskins to be very attractive on girls, agreed?)(Also, is it weird that I'm taking these pictures and posting them, is a line being crossed here?)

When midnight came, I bought Jake a shot of Jack, I think, and told my new friend to go ahead and give him a little lap dance.  Surprisingly, she obliged and Jake had a great time.  I took notice of his enjoyment and decided I would try to set him up with this girl tonight, that's a good birthday gift, right?  Anyways, we went to a house party after Muldoon's was closing.

This party was a little weird, the kind where you lose the desire to drink.  Lots of guys, and aside from the two girls we brought, there were maybe two others.  I guess a lot of guys shared my mentality because more and more of us began congregating outside, where there was little to do but better than being in a house of dudes.  There were two guys there, classmates from high school, we brought them there and they really didn't know anyone.  My buddy, Jeff, was good friends with the guy hosting the party, and then for some reason the two kids started jawing at Jeff.  Eventually, Jeff was telling them, "Hey, no one is making you guys stay...so you can just leave if you don't want to be here".  They started giving attitude and said they would leave as soon as someone brought them their 30 of PBR they brought.  Jeff went downstairs to get it (he didn't want them back in the house) and came back up with no PRB.  There was no left, they didn't believe that so they started getting mad.  Eventually, one of the guys swung at Jeff.  Now, Jeff is pretty jacked, he played football at Taylor, and the man can definitely be a fighter if called upon.  One of the kids was so drunk he was probably more of a hindrance than a help in the fight.  Needless to say, Jeff won the brief fight, all of 3-4 minutes, before it got broken up.  As Jake walked one of the guys out of the garage, he broke free and blindsided Jeff with a right hook.  Jeff was facing the other way, so he didn't see it.  He took it fine, turned around and tackled the kid into this ceramic pot and then just started wailing away at his face, it was crazy! The kid couldn't stand after that.  There's something about hearing fists land on flesh and skulls that I am just not comfortable with.  I was feeling pretty uncomfortable with the situation so you can imagine that someone announced they were calling the cops, I wanted to leave.  Jeff was my ride there and I know he wasn't about to leave.

So I quietly walked off into the night, didn't say goodbye to anyone, just left.  Now, I've run to the general location of where this party was before, a good 2 miles from home if I take the Prairie Path.  The Prairie Path is this path in DuPage county that goes through the woods and it is very inviting during the day.  At around 3 in the morning however, it's one of those creepy sights where if you saw the entrance you could probably see about 5 feet in until it enveloped in darkness.  I started walking through the Prairie Path and when my eyes finally started to adjust, I made sure to note the closest climable tree wherever I was.  There is a history of coyotes on the path.   I always thought coyotes looked like wolves until I saw one about 2 months ago while on the way back from work. The ones in Wheaton also have mange, this disease that makes the really ugly and kind of creepy...(kind of like this)

Anyway, if I wasn't still a little drunk, I probably would have not made that walk.  The whole walk I was just thinking of how messed up the fight was.  I realized that I really hope I never get into a fight, I just don't think it'd be a good look on me.  I'm a lover, not a fighter.

I got home fine where finally I slept and began to look forward to my birthday, again...

Here's to drunk walks home,

Chin

P.S.  That girl I tried to gift Jake passed out on a couch at the party where he left her when the party ended, alone.  Haha, poor thing.

P.P.S.  I know I was going to try to write more, but I just watched 127 Hours with T-Raz so now it's late...

May Days, Chapter 3: The Spiritual Wedding

I did eventually persuade Squires to make the drive out to Austin's wedding with me on Friday.  I picked up a neck pillow and downloaded "The Very Best of Enya" for her, she appreciated it I think.  The drive was really uneventful, of course the Enya album is some 20 odd songs, so I was starting to feel a little drowsy during the drive, I did fine though.  We did make a stop in AA to grab dinner with Cassie and Sweeney and I also went to Uzi's to get my hair cut.  He lined me up super nicely!  It was really weird just 'passing through' Ann Arbor.  I kept wanting to ask about what we were going to do after dinner.

We got to the hotel around 9ish.  The only other people who were there for the wedding at that point were Austin and Brittney and some close relatives.  Squires and I ran out to Wal-Mart, got some cards and beer and enjoyed an evening playing speed and a bunch of other card game, we even tried to do screw the dealer.

Most of Saturday we just chilled in the hotel room because the wedding didn't start until 5ish.  We ran out and got some SoCo, an old wedding favorite of mine.  The wedding building was about 10 minutes away so we opted to take a cab there.  They have some very janky cabs out in east MI.

The ceremony itself was very short because they had actually already been legally wed in Mexico a few months before.  Shortly after getting my food from the buffet style arrangement they setup, I checked my phone because it had been on silent.  3 missed calls and 2 missed texts from Mike O.

Him: "I'm here I think, nos sure where2 park""Bruh come2 the door"
(20 minutes)
Me: "Ok, u here?"
Him: "Yes!"

I went to the door and sure enough, Mike O was standing outside with his helmet and a red backpack.  I had him put his helmet on his bike and he followed me in.  Now, before Mike O walked in I think I was the only minority there, so it was going to be pretty hard to blend in, it didn't really matter though.  The bride and groom were still going through the rounds of saying hi to all the guests, so I wondered how Austin would handle seeing Mike O.  Austin is a cool guy though so he said hi and took it in stride, as if he was expecting to see Mike O there.  Austin is a pretty cool guy.  After eating, we went over to the open bar and enjoyed the "wedding special" which was very similar to an sea breeze(?), fruity and they were stingy with the vodka.  We migrated outside where there was a gazebo overlooking a river and a little tiki bar.

The bartender was making margaritas, that's all there really was to drink out there.  As it got later, more people joined us and we made a lot of friends, mostly parents.  With Mike O there, it quickly turned to a 1502 sort of atmosphere, lots of sexual conversation and tons of jokes.  Everyone seemed to be in a good place like us, so people were loving it.  It only seemed appropriate that Mike O found a roll of caution tape and decided to add flare to his style. (The headband was still on when he woke up the next morning haha)

As the reception started to wind down, we stuck around and were actually some of the last guests to leave.  It only seemed appropriate that before we went back inside we take the following pictures to compare to the orginals.

Back inside we actually helped take some stuff out to Austin's mom's car.  We got our belongings from the table and noticed one of those disposable cameras that get handed out for picture taking at weddings.  In our state, it only seemed like a good idea to take some pictures.  We posed and took a bunch of silly pictures then I told Mike O he should take a picture of his dick.  OK! He took the camera, unzipped his pants and shot a flash down there.  I haven't heard anything from Austin, so he must REALLY be a cool guy.  Mike O was the only black guy there after all.

Squires was the most functional out of us so she arranged for a cab to pick us up.  We had him drive us through the Taco Bell then back to the hotel.  Our room had access to the roof so we went out there to eat, I learned that Mike O is afraid of heights haha.  The rest of the night kind of fell apart, I wandered off into a bunch of rooms that were unlocked, not too exciting.  I went back up to the room and fell asleep.  When we woke up, Squires was asleep on the ground, I was in two chairs and Mike O had one of the beds.  As mentioned, he still had his headband on haha.  We enjoyed some continental breakfast and checked out.

It was weird driving past the Ann Arbor exits and not checking into hotel arch, really weird actually.

To say that the last two weeks of May were awesome would be an understatement.  The wedding was a perfect was to cap off what was a great few weeks.  The next thing I had to look forward to was my June 11 birthday, or so I thought, there was a little fiasco that occurred before that...

Here's to the next wedding we can find to crash,

Chin

May Days, Chapter 2: Socially networked

As I made my way to the bachelorette party, it became apparent that this was one of "those" bachelorette parties.  Adorned in inflatable male genitalia and things of the like, the bachelorette seemed like she was already in a good place.  She was a pretty attractive 25-ish year old woman, with a crew of 5-6 girls ranging from skag to as high as a 7.5.  I don't remember how I started the conversation, but I was pleasantly welcomed in and began exchanging the usual pleasantries, "How are you?", "What have you ladies been up to tonight?", and "Can I buy you a shot of Rumplemintz for your novelty penis shot glass?"  After about 15 minutes of talking, I persuaded them to come towards my group of friends on the other side of the bar.  They followed and on the walk I began chatting with one of the better looking friends (of course).  I learned that she was a lawyer and she seemed like a fun girl.  I introduced my friends and things were going really well for about 30 minutes.  My conversations with the lawyer were constantly interrupted by some of the less gifted girls in the group and things never did pan out, unfortunately.  Perhaps the best thing to come out of the bachelorette party was when Drabik approached the bachelorette and whispered softly into her ear, "If you weren't getting married, I would fuck the SHIT out of you..." To which she replied, "Thank you, that's so nice!" with a warm smile.  And they say chivalry is dead.  They resumed their trek to whatever their next bar was and we were left at Lionshead, a position not unlike the one we were in before the bachelorette party.  The upstairs wasn't as Rick's-ish that night so dancing was very limited.  We eventually left, but I felt content with how things went.

We did meet up with some old high school friends again, ex-girlfriend Steph K. included.  However, at this point her countdown to Mongolia for the Peace Corps had reached the single digits of days and we all know how Wheaton girls are.  That being said, the bar we met them at was a good night cap to a fairly entertaining weekend in the city.

__________________________

2 weeks ago, I took Friday off of work because I anticipated going to Austin's bachelor party in Detroit on Thursday.  Those plans fell through and I found myself still in Wheaton, at Muldoon's, on Thursday night, watching the Bulls try to win game 5 of their series against the Heat.  As it was, about 8 of us had shown up only to witness the Bulls blow a 15-ish point lead in the 4th quarter and end their season abruptly.  Most of my friends left after that, the way I saw it was that I could either go home and mope as well, wasting a perfectly good Thursday night, or I could stick around and wash some of the pain away.  I decided to stay and a few other friends stuck around with me too.  We started to have a good time again and I got to catch up with a few high school friends that I had not seen in awhile.  That's when Lauren approached me...

Now, a few months ago, perhaps as late as December 2010, I began to rekindle my friendship with my buddy Sean.  I'm sure I wrote about this night once, but Sean introduced me to his friend, Crazy Lauren.  The moniker did not seem to fit the bill as she seemed very polite and actually even had us over for some drinks at her house.  I learned things about her like how she works at Genghis Grill, a restaurant like Mongolian BBQ, and she also has an internship somewhere, somewhere that I do not care enough about to remember.  I hadn't seen Lauren until the night before this Bulls game, we chatted a bit and she actually seemed pretty cool.

Now, back to Thursday night.  Lauren approached me, probably using some line about how terrible it was that the bulls lost.  I got into this conversation with her and my friend Kel (Kel is a boy).  Lauren went on this 10-15 minute tangent about how Genghis Grill was so much better than Mongolian ("They us new cooking sticks every time", "The food is fresher", "Drink specials are better", etc.).  During this conversation I began to think to myself, wow she crazy about Genghis grill, PERHAPS Crazy is a good prefix for her.  Well, maybe not crazy, but a little nutty at least.  Her and I continued to chat and things became very flirtatious.  Now keep in mind, I have been in a bit of a drought, with anything significant dating back to Stev's and my roadtrip (Was Clinton still president then?).  Little Bit Nutty Lauren asked me as last call was being announced, "Do you need a ride back?"  because she saw the state I was in and knew I probably had not driven myself.  I replied, "Well, I rode my bike..." (As in *bringg bringg* not *vroom vroom*).  To which she quickly and adamantly said, "Well you can just throw it in the back of my car!". OK.  Now I knew that something was bound to happen that night.  We left Muldoon's as they were putting the chairs up on the table and she was parked in front of Genghis Grill.  After we both got settled into the car I almost immediately went in for the move.  We had been so touchy feely at Muldoon's, there was no way this wasn't going to happen, right? WRONG.  She deflected my approach and exclaimed, "Wait! We're not even Facebook friends yet!"  Crazy Lauren it is.  I shrugged back into my passenger seat and took pause.  Huh? Facebook friends? Should I have whipped out my phone then and added her?  I mean, this is 2011, if you're not FB friends, then you'll never be friends.  Obama was never friends with Bin Laden right? She then began to explain that this was only our 3rd time meeting and although she thought I was a cute and nice guy, she wanted to get to know me a little more.  Ok, I want none of that.  I was shocked and having troubles formulating the right thoughts and responses, prompting her to ask me the question, "Where would you take me on a date?"  Maybe I wasn't thinking clearly, or maybe I was thinking completely clearly but I had to respond, "Well...I would, uh, take you to Genghis Grill..."  So there went any chance for me.  "Really?! You would take me to the place I work at? I'm serious, where would we go?".  I answered with some BS about Glen Ellyn and a nice dinner, blah blah blah.  She told me that we could discuss as she drove me to my bike.  We sat in the Shane's parking lot, near my bike and had some sort of mental standoff.  Basically, it seemed that she would not be willing to put out unless I dated her. Oh I see now, so Crazy Lauren is a Wheaton girl!  Well, I wasn't going to budge, so I got ready to step out of the car.  As I was doing so, I realized I had left my jacket, which had my bike lock key, at Muldoon's.  I knew I didn't have much time and would need to hustle back over there because they had started closing down when we left.  So what Crazy Lauren saw was me getting out of the car and literally sprinting as fast as I could away from her.  Right past my bike, seemingly into the Wheaton night.  Probably not a good look on me.  So I did get my jacket before they locked up and the night ended with me riding home slowly, trying to digest the comments made.  She almost took advantage of me, I could have woken up and found myself "in a relationship".  She gave me her last name, but I forgot it so we still aren't Facebook friends.  Who knows, I haven't really seen her since, so it could make for an interesting encounter next time.

I got home, cleaned up and fell asleep.  I didn't expect to kick the weekend of like that, I had to store up for Austin's Wedding after all...

Here's to new cooking sticks...every time,

Chin

May Days, Chapter 1: Hulk is in Town

$100 for a new laptop charger?

I've got 5 minutes plus until my phone finishes updating, so I figure I will get my Mike O. on and write this guy more like a book...

The week following the weekend downtown with Sweeney and Barnes brought two great freinds, Hulka and Steph K.  On Saturday, I spent my morning helping my friend Scott and his wife, Anna, move out of their apartment in Schaumburg.  I was there at noon and was expecting to be done by around 2.  The whole process took until about 3:30, leaving me very little time to get to the 3:54 train downtown.  I picked up Drabik, Fabian and Hulka and parked at my house.  They immediately walked to the train while I went inside to change out of my clothes that were drenched from moving stuff.  I topped off my flask with some Svedka (woof) and ran to the train station...

When we got downtown we picked our way northwards to my sister's apartment.  Her and Trent were on their way out, so we stopped by the nearest liquor store to have buy some beer and liquor before getting our free beer at Duffy's.  I was half expecting a text from Steph K. because she was pregaming at some freinds' house nearby (Caroline and Michelle).  It was Caroline's birthday so, like Stev, coincidentally, I bought her a fifth of Ciroc.  Turns out Steph didn't call me soon enough so the guys and I just headed to Duffy's, Drabik and I one beer deep and Hulka and Fabian an entire bottle of Jack deep (3/4 taken by Hulk).  We got to Duffy's and much to my chagrin, Lisa, from Wheaton North, was not working.  She was at a wedding in Michigan, the same scenario I would find myself in in a week from then.  Anyways, we got this Asian waitress instead, of course she gave us trouble.  Then there was this other Asian girl who was just a customer.  She came in with a bunch of her friends so she left to join them and drink the beer that she had BOUGHT.  She returned briefly after, claiming her friends drank her beer.  She promptly grabbed one of our extras, this was NOT OK with me.  I asked her, "Are you Asian?" to which she replies all sassy, "Uh yea, you must be really smart". Regardless, I found out she was %100 so my attention became focused on more important things, or just other things.  Some of the guys got some food and I swear I do not remember how but our waitress got my number, to my credit, she was kind of cute for an Asian.  We left and made our way to Caroline and Michelle's place.

On the walk over I got the following texts from our Duffy's waitress:

"Ahh I forgot you guys still have $7 on ur bill for the rest of the food!!!!"
"Are you alrdy far away"

Now I may be shallow, or too picky, as observed in Mike O's book, Galfing: A Young Man's Guide, but I do believe this is not a good way for a girl to flirt.  Why would I want to backtrack to pay you $7 fool?  And Sweeney knows, aside from the ellipses, I only like single points of punctuation, none of this "!!!!" garbage.  Suffice to say, Asian waitress didn't make anymore appearances that night.  We got to Caroline's house, where I didn't give her the Ciroc because I gave it to Steph and Trent instead.  It was pretty low key there and I could tell that we were further along then Steph and all her friends so we didn't stick around for too long.

The next destination was Chicago Rick's, aka The Lionhead Pub.  We arrived and I immediately ordered the 90 oz. Goose Island IPA for us.  Drabik and Hulka aren't huge fans of dancing (the second floor) and Fabian was not looking as energetic as he is on other nights, so he seemed like he wanted no part of dancing either.  I was not ready to stay on the first floor all night, I mean, who hangs out in the line at Rick's anymore than they should? (not Cass-eyes).  I felt this pressure to not settle and let the night fade.  Some say that it is darkest before the dusk, others say the grass is always greener on the other side.  It was this mentality that called me to raise my chin and make a desperation scan of the bar.  It was then that I saw a group of girls on the other side of the bar, no indication of men present.  A bachelorette party? Indeed.  So I stood up from my chair and picked my way towards them...