when I woke up in someone else's bed this morning, the first word out of my mouth was "shit."

last night, after April woke up from her sleep coma, she decided she had a second wind and that we would go out with Megan for some beers. their choice of location was Irish Oak, which is possibly the very location of The Bottomless Pit Of Shamelessness, where all shameless souls go to hide, drink, and make-out in front of fellow imbibers. I always get a funny "oh God, something wack is gonna happen tonight" feeling whenever I go there and it tends to fill me with dread. I walk around carefully, scanning the crowd like a deer who tiptoes through the forest during hunting season.

when April went up to the bar to get our first round of drinks, she was informed by the bartender that a gentleman sitting at the end of the bar had paid for our drinks. she accepted the drinks, waved "thanks" at the man, who was middle-aged, alone, and wearing a red plaid shirt, and promptly walked back to where I was standing before he could start talking to her. it made for an awkward vibe. then, the kid Sean who hung out with all us all evening two or three Saturdays ago walked by, stopped, and said to me, "Don't I know you from somewhere...?" I said, "Yes. Here," and pointed at the ground. he said, "Oh yeah...so how are you doing?" A and I answered, "Fine, you?" and Sean replied, "Not too bad. Well, it was nice to see you again," and walked away to the table in the corner where he was sat with some curly haired skinny girl with lots of makeup and a low-cut print shirt. awkward #2.

Megan arrived at the bar shortly afterwards and we continued our drinking. after a little bit, we decided to move to a different part of the bar, where Megan ran into an Irish boy who she'd made out with, or hooked up with, at an earlier date. he, in turn, introduced us to his bevy of fellow Irishmen and they immediately took a liking to tiny little blonde Megan and also blonde April. I, brunette, continued to drink and smoke, awkwardly making side comments when A's suitor wasn't kissing her on the cheek. this continued for at least a half hour and I began to damn the treachery of blondes repeatedly.

when I'd had enough of going it alone, sometime around 2 o'clock, I suggested we all go to the Ginger Man so I could hopefully find refuge in one of A's male coworkers who goes there nightly. so we left. on the way, a man trying to sell things let me know he liked my hair. at least he was on my side. also, I decided to randomly high-five people walking in the opposite direction of me. because sometimes I just really like a high-five from a stranger, and no one has ever refused.

we got to the Ginger Man safely and yes, A's coworker was there...talking closely with a girl. damn. I decided to amuse myself at the jukebox for a while so I could eventually just feel secure standing off to the side singing along to music I knew.

side note: I am not ugly.

when a table opened up, I implored A, M, A's companion, and M's companion, who was at the moment doing push-ups on the bar floor for I don't know what reason, to move there so I could at least pretend to be a part of a group. then a fellow Irishman, Joe, came in to meet up with A & M's companions, one of whom was his brother. now, I was not interested in Joe one iota. in fact, I'd been eyeing two other non-Irish men who were friends with the Irish ones the whole time we were at Irish Oak (how many times can I type "Irish" before it gets to be too much?), hoping they'd pick up on the love-me vibes I was sending with my powerful eyes. for some horrible reasons, the vibes were not working. I blame it on the drink.

anyway, the Ginger Man staff kicked us all out at closing time and the whole posse I was with now decided it was time to make their way uptown to another bar that was open till some dawn hour. I tried to beg off, lying that I had to work tomorrow (really, though, I did have a hair appointment at noon. that's kind of like work, right?), but no one was having any of it and then Joe's rough and strong hand grabbed mine and I gave in.

uptown we went, and that's when the alkyhol really hit me. good music was playing at this new bar and the pints of Bass kept coming at me so rapidly that I would actually have to throw out my half-full old beer to have my smoking hand free because I simply couldn't drink that fast. when "Common People" started playing over the sound system, I almost had an orgasm at hearing Pulp played in public and began jumping up and down, screaming the words along with Megan in wild glee.

not long after that I found myself being kissed by Joe. "Oh well," I thought, "Might as well get action when it's offered. And he's not that bad looking. And also, he's Irish." so I let him kiss me a little and then my PDA shame took over.

it was not long after that when 1/2 of the two American boys I'd been eyeing at IOak walked in with some other of his cronies. I decided that the PDA signified my committment to being a whore for the night, so I kind of pounced on the tall, strawberry blond guy and we struck up a conversation.

another side note: I'm not naturally "flirty" because it's not me and also, I hate that word.

sometime during the talky talky with the tall American boy, we addressed foreign travel and I started blathering on about "I love Paris soooo much, I studied abroad there for a summer, and blah blah blah." the US boy said he'd never been there so I told him he must go. he said something about wanting a chaperone and I said, "I'll be your chaperone. [pause, pause] Do you want my cell phone number?"

side note #3: I never do that. who does that? not me. me as a whore does that, I guess.

he said "yes" (can you really say "no" to that, though?) and I punched my name and number into his Nokia. then we talked some more and then he walked away and then WHOOPS, kissing Joe again, then talking to another boy and then ooh there goes that kissing thing and then ok let's leave.

oh yeah, also, at some point, I grabbed the US boy's bicep and exclaimed, "WHOA! you've really got some arms on you there!" at its solidity. just another thing I never do (I'm just not so smooth with the boys) but the whore-brain decided to give a go last night.

the 7 of us (A, M, their 2 companions, me, Joe, US boy) piled into a cab, and headed to the building where all the boys lived. I was faced with a bit of internal conflict: I was, as I said, committed to being a whore for the night, but I really wanted to get bizzay with the US boy and not Joe the Irish. but tact and decency said I should just stick with the Joe since I'd been tonguing him at random intervals throughout the past two hours. also, US boy passed out on the loveseat. so.

I looked at my watch and it read 5 o'clock on the spot. I yawned deeply and Joe asked if I was tired. when I responded in the affirmative, he told me I could go "lay in the bed," so I said "ok" and he walked me into his chamber. "I won't do a thing, just give you a kiss goodnight," he said. I was thinking, "oh, yeah, right," and also, "HEY! I demand ACTION!" until he took off all but his boxers and started the action I had demanded in my head. only, something was different. the nice, getting-to-know-you kisses he'd given me in the bar was now some sort of powerful whirlwind of tongue assault wherein I doubted the owner of the tongue had any control over it whatsoever, and HEY, WHY ARE YOU SMOTHERING MY NOSE AND MAKING OUT WITH THE AREA AROUND MY MOUTH??

oh it was horrid.

the funny part came when I had to repeatedly tell Joe "I have my period." yes, that's a moment I always cherish fondly. so I kind of made up for it, you know, and then more action action and then, like a toy whose batteries are dying, the action got slower, slower, slower . . . and stopped. that's the last thing I remember before waking up to the face of an unfamiliar alarm clock.

when I saw 9:47 on the clock, I said "shit," and sat up. "yew gon' to be aahroit, gon' to get a caah," Joe slurred. "yeah," I answered, and carefully smoothed my hair in his mirror so I could find a cab without looking like the whore I secretly was. I opened the front door to the apartment, fastened my bra in the stairwell, and got out of the house faster than you can say "whore!" oddly enough, that was the first time I ever spent the night after a hookup with a stranger. weird, huh?

somehow Jesus gave me super powers of direction and I found Clark Street. I found a cab, hopped in, told the driver where to take me, sneezed, and then began a series of coughs that betrayed the loads of nicotine and tobacco I'd inhaled all last night. I think the driver really liked that.

when I got home, I downed approximately two quarts of water, showered quickly, treated my whore-self to a Frappuccino, and then made my way to the hair salon, where my highly entertaining stylist had me laughing my ass off for two and a half hours. GOD I love that man. his "name" is Vlad and he's the perfect combination of ditzy yet straight, highly informed of pop culture, and just downright hilarious. like, it'll be quiet for a while and then he'll say, "oh yeah...I went waterskiing the other week and almost drowned." also, when Vlad asked me what I wanted done to my hair, style-wise, I replied, "wellll...I want it to be different, but kind of the same...I don't want to use the word 'edgy,' but..." and Vlad suggested, "you want it to have some...oom-pah-pah?"

I mean, come on. that is fucking awesome.

so anyway, my hair is cut now and highlighted, only Vlad made a bit of a blunder, and in a cruel twist of fate, I'm kind of blonde-ish now. I mean, it's not BLONDE, but my hair is brown, I am a brunette, and now there are just too many goddamned blonde parts. I'm not really happy with it. but oh well. I'll just live with it until it's time to get it done again and I'll never stop going to Vlad because he's just too entertaining.

I met up with A & M after that appointment and had to listen to overly-effusive phrases like, "So, we're having sex, right, and..." ugh. yeah. they both got laid. I don't really have sex with strangers, so I'm not really down with that, which is really really hypocritical, I KNOW, but that is the idiosyncratic nature of being me. the level of hypocrisy only increases when the tale-telling is done in public, loudly, with total disregard for who's around, who's listening in, and how embarrassed I am to be walking beside this loud person loudly spouting their sexual escapades in a loud voice. did I mention loud?

but whatever.

I had a kick-ass lunch/dinner at Pars Cove and did some couch sitting and now it's 7pm and my face is flushed from typing this all out. so that was my Saturday-Sunday and now I think I'll eat my leftover Baskin Robbins from yesterday and hope that the US boy calls me in a week, like he said he would.

the end.