tallahassee

Ok, so I finally have updates from the other night. I ended up sleeping all day on Sunday before heading out candy-collecting with some of my younger friends who are still able to do so without the aid of masks, and then falling into a candy coma shortly after. Needless to say, it's been a crazy weekend and this is the first chance I've had to sit down and write anything coherent.

So what happened was that one of my really good friends had invited me to a crazy Halloween party at this local underground punk venue (which, believe it or not, was used to film the chinese restaurant scene from a Christmas Story, but that's a story for another time kiddies.) Anyhoo, as we're getting ready for this party, she slyly mentions that she's also taken it upon herself to invite the only guy I've had what I could call real feelings for in quite some time. Well now I'm considerably more excited about the whole night than I was earlier, and much less nervous about possibly being abandoned at some point throughout the evening in a room full of people I don't know. (Not a good thing for an agoraphobic with social anxiety.) I'm also internally thanking my lucky stars I decided to go with a cute/sexy costume this year rather than the gross/scary/humorous route I would usually have chosen. And may I say I was feeling quite confident in my sexy lil tiger getup, whiskers and all!

We ended up smoking a bit in the car (the fun kind, that is) before picking up Jake (the aforementioned boycrush) and heading to the party. It was his first time at the Tower, so I spent a good amount of time taking him on a little tour of where all the fun would be happening throughout the night, though we ended up just spending it snuggled up together on a couch most of the time anyway. It was going pretty well, and we were both really starting to get into all the fun of smashing bottles and tossing around everything capable of being lifted over one's head within the room once the bands started to play, but we were starting to relax more by the third band when we got all cozy on the couch. I was complimenting him on his discovery of how well a barter system could work within the tower (cigarettes can be used as currency for absolutely anything with those people) and enjoying the "music" and the drunken idiots stumbling around amidst filthy mattresses, demolished space heaters, and broken glass, when out of nowhere he taps me on the shoulder. I turn expecting him to launch into one of our usual conversations about anything and everything, but instead he kisses me and I can't help but blush and get this big stupid dorky grin stuck all over my face that I proceeded to try (without much success) to remove all night.

After saving my still-grinning face (seriously, I imagine I looked like one of the Joker's victims at this point. I can be unbelievably lame sometimes.) from yet another flying beer can, we decided it was late and we should probably go find my friend so we could get our stuff out of her car and find somewhere to crash. After searching all over the house asking if anyone had seen a girl in a hot pink wig and a big bird costume (it was actually way more awesome than it sounds), we found her curled up in the car and decided to join her. Her seats fold down into a bed, so we just cozied right up in my sleeping bag together and started to fall asleep when the most epic part of the night decided to go down right outside the car. These two girls had been arguing about something inside, and it ended up mutating into a giant ball of fur and claws and "you bitch"es and "stupid cunt"s and bottles being thrown and someone actually being slammed right up against the car...all while the three of us were sitting there watching the action go down. Shit was better than pay-per-view. The fight went on for a few minutes, then it would break up for a while with everyone separating into three groups up and down the driveway, which would converge every so often and fight again-always right in front of our car. I'm glad they couldn't see us watching them, because it probably would have been more terrifying than awesome if they could've.

It was definitely a better time than the last party I went to there where this annoying ass teenager kept hitting on me all night and wouldn't let me go to sleep and then stole my friend's ipod.

Anyhoo, after a little incident where my tummy got mad at me because I had a few too many sips of an alcoholic beverage than my whole ulcer situation allowed, my friend decided she was sober enough to drive so we went back to Jake's and crashed on his couches. In the morning (or more like late afternoon at this point, i think it was about 1:30), I wake up to him bringing me a plate of food and asking how I slept. (Awwww much? He must secretly be a flesh-eating demonbeast or something because my luck would NOT just drop a guy nice enough to make me food without being asked and actually care about my sleeping patterns without some kind of flaw.) Then we played Scott Pilgrim the game and accidentally knocked each other off a few cliffs before I had to go home.

And that was my epic night of blushing and stupid grins all because of one little kiss. Well okay, it was two kisses. But still.

Also, I have discovered that my dog is afraid of gorillas and will do pretty much whatever you ask of him as long as you're wearing a gorilla mask. The other one still just stands there staring at you like an idiot, but then he was never all that bright to begin with. Silly old dogs. They're really a lot like people sometimes. We've decided that since my border collie Trevor has gotten even more obnoxious and loud in his old age, that he would be the old man that's always yelling things out the window at those "damned kids", usually things along the lines of "stay off my lawn!". Rocky the lab is just that crazy old guy that's always wandering around town with a goofy smile on his face, just happy to still be alive but not really quite all there. If you ever stopped and talked to him, he'd probably just stare at you blankly and keep on smiling, because it's not really so much what you have to say so much as that you're alive to say it.

I'm probably putting way too much thought into it, but my older baby may be on his last years so I figure I should just get it all in now while I still can. He seems to be doing better the last month or so, aside from a few incidents of sniffing walls or licking things that have no reason to be licked (like my clock next to my bed, the weirdo). But he's just been acting really different, and the only explanation we can come up with is that his mind is finally starting to go with the rest of him. The dog who used to take an entire neighborhood to catch after his daily escapes out the front door can now barely walk three blocks without limping from the arthritis in his hip. The smartest, most wily little puppy I've ever known now barks at walls and is fascinated by his own tail. It's always sad to see anyone go like that, especially someone you've known most of your life. I was only 8 or 9 when we got Trevor, so I can't even remember what it was like without him. It's hard to imagine what'll happen when my oldest friend finally leaves me. No one has ever put up with my many "quirks" and eccentricities as long as my flufferbutter has. He may have been the WORST puppy imaginable, but he's really turned out to be one of my best friends, as lame as that may sound. No matter how bad my day is, I can always count on my boys greeting me at the door when I get home, and Trevor gluing himself to my side before my shoes are even off. It's hard to imagine that one day he won't be there to sneeze in my face first thing in the morning anymore. Much as I hate it now, it's familiar, and it's hard to imagine anything else. We've been together for 11 years now, and he'll always be my baby.