the sky is falling

I had a really excellent (and altogether terrifying) evening … well, it didn’t start off so terrifying. To begin with, I am just sitting at home, eating my Special K dinner, and watching a crappy old episode of Buffy. (You know, the one where she’s just come back from being “Anne” and the mask her mom has on the wall wakes up all of these zombies, including the dead cat they found in the basement? And then the mask posesses her mom’s annoying friend “Pat” during Buffy’s welcome-back party? Right. That one.) The phone rings, and it’s Sonya! She says something to the effect of “Hey, sugartoes! How would you like to play Trivial Pursuit with me and Patrickt?” You can not say no to someone who calls you sugartoes. You can NOT.

I vaguely remember that Zach should be back from Lithuania, so I ask Sonya for his number and give him a call at his parents’ place. I’m so happy to hear his voice that I practically mess my pants. I tell him to meet us at Jack’s Roadhouse on Capitol Hill, and hang up the phone. Then, I call Mike. Now, I know that he will not know any of my crazy Annex friends, but they’re all nice and I think he’ll like them, and plus, I know he likes Trivial Pursuit. He’s still at WORK, and he sounds really frustrated with what he’s working on. So, I tell him gently (but firmly) that he needs to get his sorry ass out of there and come play with us. And that no is not an acceptable answer.

As I’m driving toward Jack’s, I realize that I’m going to have to park near my old apartment building. This rarely happens, and it’s always rather difficult. A flashback to what now seems to me to be simpler, younger days … I know I was very unhappy here a lot of the time, but for some reason, the memories that come back are happy ones, and that makes even the simple process of driving around the block to find a space a rather bittersweet one.

I drive by Jack’s, and I wave, and I wave, and I wave at Sonya. I make moon eyes at her from the car, I blow her kisses, and she totally blows me off. When I get there, she is deeply entrenched in the job of burning the holy hell out of her mouth on her chicken-fried steak. I get myself a soda, and sit back to have a smoke with Patrickt. (I told him last night that it’s so comforting to me to have him around, since normally when I’m hanging out with this particular faction of the Annex ladies, I’m the only one who’s smoking, and it always makes me feel a little weird. A little … deviant, as it were.) So, we’re sitting, we’re smoking, we’re sipping, we’re chewing, when suddenly CRASH! The beer-emblem lamp which was screwed to the ceiling above our heads has come CRASHING down onto the table, not six inches from Sonya’s nose. She yells out “FUCK ME!”, which - considering the circumstances - is a perfectly valid thing to say. We all take a moment to re-learn to breathe, our hearts pouding … and I start laughing. It’s that sort of terrified post-heart attack kind of laughing, and I am having a damn hard time stopping. The waitresses all rush over - they’re all terrified, they’re so sorry, they can’t believe it … everyone in the restaurant is looking at us in awe, and I can not stop laughing. Every few minutes I manage to stop, and it starts up again. The general manager comes over as we’re leaving and gives us all hand-written notes saying that we get a free entree for our harrowing experience. Sonya has a hard time tabulating a tip on her receipt, so after several failed attempts, she scribbles it out and writes “I can’t think, something just fell on me!”

We call Mike and Zach to inform them of our change in location, and we head to Casa de Patrickt. I play with the Satan-Cat and marvel at the fact that his apartment building does, in fact, look like a penitentiary. Sonya and I discuss whether you can pop a little hole in a window with a marble. A few minutes later, Pamala shows up. We go inside, where we raid Patrickt’s books. He’s moving to NYC to go to grad school at Sarah Lawrence, that lucky bastard. As such, I end up with free copies of The Fountainhead, Equus, Nausea, and The Fall. Shortly after, Mike arrives, looking haggard, and I feel good about rescuing him from his work-induced hell. Mike, Gillian, and I are on one team, and Sonya, Pamala, and Patrickt are on the other team. When Zach finally arrives, we all nearly herniate. He’s wearing a walnut-y colored corduroy jacket, and he looks kind of like a big teddy bear. I tell him so. He rolls a 2, so he ends up on the other (i.e. not mine) team.

At this point, I should probably explain the names. Now, I’m not sure how the names work. One team was the bitch-whores, and one was the slutrags. However, both terms were used by everyone, so nobody really knows. After awhile, Tim came over, and was the final member of our team. We kicked ass on the first game, despite the fact that I was terrified of Patrickt and his infinite sports knowledge. However, we made out like bandits. I got to use the phrase “Fuck you, Zulauf, I didn’t miss you that much” (when I spilled our pie pieces out and he told me we had to start over). We learned that the answer to every Emperor question (including “Whose name meant ‘Little Boot’?”) is Caligula, and that if there’s a question saying “Who broke Hannukah Harry’s 1905 record in 1907?”, the answer is probably Hannukah Harry. Oh, and Merry Krishmas. That’s all I’m going to say.

The next game, we did not do so well. In fact, we lost by a whole pie piece. But, all in all, it was an excellent way to spend the evening, and I ended up with free books AND dinner. Both of which are good things. Plus, I really love bringing together friends from different spheres of my life … I’ve never been able to quite discern why, but I felt really good about it last night.

This morning - not so good. My housemates woke me up at seven by LOUDLY moving furniture and yelling back and forth across the house to each other. I got back at them by angrily hitting my snooze button (with pillows jammed into my ears) for two hours. Finally, I looked at the clock, and said “Hunh. I’m supposed to be at work in five minutes. ” I ran to the shower, drove like a maniac to get here, and was half an hour late. Then, they didn’t have any bagels left at Starbuck’s, and I spilled coffee all over my light-colored pants. I’m guessing this is not going to be my day.