February 9, 2009
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2.9/2009
Went down to California to see Beth from late night February 5th to late night February 8th. It was quite the experience... I might upload the pictures later.
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Thursday night was spent going to a bar in which one of her roommates was playing. He's in a rock band and plays guitar. Afterwards, we ventured around San Francisco, seeing some green tower (which name I forgot) and the most-winding road in the world on Lumbard Street. After that, we went home, because she had work on Friday.
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Friday morning and afternoon was rainy, gloomy, and cold. Before I'd arrived, she'd made me a map to wander around the city, noting different places I could visit or eat at. I wandered around a little and picked up some Mexican food, but soon returned to her house to work on my thesis and warm up. After a few hours of that, I spent the next four hours or so learning how to play spades online with Russ. When Beth got off of work, we went out to eat and either see the musical Wicked or the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Wicked was pretty much booked and tickets would've cost us ninety bucks. So, we declined and ended up looking for food. We ate at a Japanese sushi place, had some sake (which wasn't nearly what I expected it to be. Tasted pretty much like regular wine to me.) and left to find the movie. We grabbed a taxi and headed for the theater.
When we got there, sadly, Slumdog Millionaire wasn't playing. Apparently, there were two movie theatres within a block of each other and we happened to go to the wrong one. Meh. We spent sometime wandering the mall the theater was located in, visiting Borders, and then heading back home.
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On Saturday morning, we went out to see the town. Much to my surprise, it was actually sunny and relatively warm. The last two days had been colder than Atlanta. Anyway, we saw Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, a vista of "The Headlands" (where Beth and her roommate Nat used to work), and the richer parts of San Francisco.
During Saturday afternoon we went down to Chinatown to observe the Chinese New Year Parade. It was interesting, I guess. We also ate dinner down in Chinatown... and I realized that the Chinese food there actually sucked in comparison to Atlanta....Which is sad because I felt as though Chinese food in Durham is far superior to the food in Atlanta.
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One of the strangest and first experiences I'd ever had was picking up a random stranger at a bar on Saturday night. His name was Will and he was one of the most random people I've ever met. He was around twenty-nine years old, carried a four-to-five hundred dollar camera wherever he went, and had a dorky side. At first I was pretty skeptical about hanging out with a random guy. I mean, he could have been a criminal, or a killer, or a thief, or something else unwanted. However, the longer I talked with this guy, the more I began to realize that he was just as normal as anyone else I knew. He played video games, he used to watch anime, he listened to old school hip-hop, watched some movies, was pretty intelligent (attended Boston College) and seemed to be an all-around good guy.
He has me questioning whether the world is as corrupt as it is, and if perhaps I'm just a little paranoid of the negative consequences. I would usually be against hanging out with random strangers because of all of the crazy things you see on CNN about kidnappings, murders, rapes, and all kinds of other madness. Seeing or hearing about these things tends to reinforce the notion that there are a lot of crazy people out there. But, having met Will, I wonder if we happened to get lucky, or if people aren't as bad as CNN and the rest of the media make them out to be.
(One more thing... apparently the pictures he took on his camera will be put up on his site later.)
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For the first time in my life, I successfully got drunk. Previously, I was unable to accomplish this before because, be it beer or a mixed drink, my body would reject the alcohol I was trying to force down. Anyway, late Saturday night we started drinking at a bar and I tried this one beer that contained a lot of hops. It disgusted me because I could literally taste the hops. Anyway, we invited someone to come with us, leave the bar, and settle at another one across the street. At this bar, called Noc Noc, I was introduced to a drink called a "Snake Bite." It can be made with apple (or cranberry?) cider and is mixed with beer to create something different. For some reason I had no problem drinking this combination. I think it was because it tasted more like a fruit juice than a beer. Anyway, I had about two glasses of this before we got a call about a party nearby and left. By this time I was feeling a little tipsy, but no more tipsy than I'd felt before.
We got to the party, settled into one of the rooms and Beth made me some mixed drinks. She mixed cranberry juice and volka. After about three cups of this, I was finally drunk, and I have to say that it completely blew my mind. I had so many preconceived notions of what being drunk would be like... and so many fears. My stereotypes of being drunk were that I would not be able to control anything that I said or did and that my thoughts would be running on auto-pilot. Apparently, this wasn't true. I was still able to reason, think, and hold a logical conversation with people about my thesis. The only issue seemed to be that there was lag on when I thought about saying the words and when they actually came out. Also, along with lagged speaking, physical movement seemed a little delayed. I noticed a slight difference between thinking of moving my fingers and actually moving them. Furthermore, I also noticed was that physical sensations of touch seemed delayed. I would tap my thigh with my hand and feel the sensation of the hit a half a second or a whole second later. Lastly, I realized that my vision was a little delayed... my eyes would move but focusing took a few seconds. (In contrast to sobriety, where focusing seems to happen together with eye movment... or so quickly that one doesn't notice a time difference.)
My greatest fear about drinking was that I would be an angry drunk or an aggressive, fighting drunk. I found out that I'm a happy-go-lucky drunk. From Will, the guy we picked up at the bar, and Nat, one of Beth's many roommates, told me that the type of drunk you are can depend on your mood and the the type of person you are. For example, for one of them, if drinking while upset, it just makes them more upset. The other noticed that people who are aggressive or angry while drunk become aggressive or angry drunks.
I realized something about myself in the process... the real reason I'd never gotten drunk before with other people was because I didn't truly and completely trust the people I was with. It was something in their smiles at the prospect of getting me drunk. I guess I assumed that they'd take advantage of me in some way shape or form, and derive entertainment from it. (I guess I got this notion from how people wanted to see me drunk over my lifetime, tandem with my assessment of their various personalities.) I believed that some of these people would help me if I were in a bad place, but not until after they got their laughs out. (This isn't meant to reflect poorly on them, well, at least not necessarily... trust is subjective and it could be my misconception of the level of trust which fostered this paranoia.) I also feared that I would do something stupid because I naively believed that I'd lose the majority of control over my own actions. Luckily enough, I was in quite capable hands, as Beth helped me deal with the drinking and the aftermath.
Yes, I said "aftermath." Beth created two large concoctions of cranberry juice and vodka. I drank them both and finally reached the state of drunkenness that I'd so long desired. At one point, Beth offered me more to drink, but I declined. I was in a perfect state of drunkenness: A perfect balance of control and disorientation. (While drunk, I had some interesting conversations with Will and Beth [about motorcycles, and drinking, and my thesis], and also learned some tricks to tell if people are drunk through their eye movement from Aaron.) Near the end of the party, Will, the random guy who we picked up at the bar, and Aaron, one of Beth's friends, began telling me to drink water in order to avoid a hangover. I did as they said and still felt good. We then left the party and took a taxi ride back to her house. At this point, sitting down became very disorienting. If I sat down, my world shook a little. Anyway, in the house, Beth and I went to the kitchen and I put my head down. She readied a cup of water for me. I drank a little water, but then became skeptical because I could feel a vomit coming. Worrying about a potential hangover, she told me to finish the cup and I could go to sleep. I began drinking, but this time the feeling was much worse: It was coming.
I vomited a small amount in the kitchen, and then Beth quickly lead me to the bathroom down the hall. I vomited again in the toilet. I remember feeling ashamed and saying "I'm sorry" a multitude of times. After the second vomit, I began to try to clean up the mess I'd made with paper towels and toilet paper. She claimed it wasn't necessary, that she would clean it up, and that it was her fault for being a bad friend and allowing it to happen... but I couldn't get myself to even consider it. It was my fault: I knew it was coming after I took the first drink of water in the house. I should've stopped then. I also shouldn't have drank so much in the first place: I should've tempered it more. As I sat there in a sense of self-pity, Beth came and hugged me. Although I was distressed, everything seemed to calm down. That gesture was what I needed to feel that it was okay, and perhaps that the situation wasn't as serious as I believed it to be in my head.
When I woke up the next day I saw there was a glass of water and a bucket, just in case I had another episode or a hangover. Luckily I didn't need either, but I'm appreciative that she thought that much ahead. In my mind, everything fell into place. I took a shower, and headed to Walgreens for carpet cleaning supplies and detergent to wash my things. I got the stuff, came back and quickly and quietly began to clean the small remnants of the mess I'd made the night before.
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Over the course of this trip I was able to talk to her about all kinds of things. The most important information pertained to relationships. She told me that you can usually tell when a girl is single because she doesn't mention her boyfriend. Most who are in a relationship flaunt it, or drop names.
One thing we talked about a lot was confidence in the initial stages of dating. It takes a lot of emotional investment to ask someone out and be able to deal with the consequences whether they're good or bad. Beth's perspective was this: She believed that I was afraid of a relationship, not because I was afraid of rejection per se, but because I wouldn't know where to take the relationship if the best case scenario occurred... if the girl in question said "Sure." I doubted the reasoning at first, but I'm starting to re-think it, because many times the outside perspective is more clear than the view from the inside. Right now I'm trying to understand how she reached that conclusion... what evidence was used to reach that end and seeing if it is more valid than I credit it.
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In the end, I realized that I have a very good friend in Beth. I realized that I can trust her even more than even I knew. (This entire idea is strange to me... How could I not see this before? I might have to come back to this idea later.) Actually, I think she's a better friend than even she knows.
She's a good kid, and I'm glad she's a friend of mine.
On Friday morning, between writing some of my thesis and Beth being at work, Russ and I decided to learn how to play Spades on Yahoo. We started off cheating by talking on Skype and AIM while we talk, but we still would lose because we didn't understand the idea of bags, not making our bids, and setting the other team.
Still fun, though.
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