tossin’ the beads on tossback (fat) tuesday

i don’t know about you, but the hardest i seem to sleep (when not drunk, stoned, or freshly laid) is that time right after i’ve slapped snooze for the last time, finally turned OFF the alarm, and fully plan on getting up…it just doesn’t happen, and i doze back off. then i wake up, that panic sets in, and you race through your pre-commute rituals so you can get your ass on the road quicker and not be as late as you’re gonna be. this is towards the top of my LEAST favorite wake-ups…basically the opposite of morning sex, but not as extreme as, say, the roof collapsing…but CLOSE.

THAT was how friday started. the wake up. the “oh shit, that was some solid-assed sleep…i gotta motor…” bit; the rush through shower, skipping the shaving, and throwing on clothes. on top of that, i had a blackout happen WHILE i was in the shower (as in power outage, not that i passed out or some shit), so i got out and all the clocks were blank. i let the dogs out, throw down some juice and echinacea, and grab my mobile off the charger. it’s 7:40 by the clock on the phone…twenty minutes BEFORE i need to leave my house. i had panicked and rushed because i had actually slept well and my body isn’t used to that shit lately…how’s THAT for sad?

my work day was odd…pre-5:00, a nice casual kinda day. nothing major. basically dull. but AFTER 5:00, it was a whole different world…i had to close out a show, do up all the paperwork, and give it all to yvonne, one of our newer girls to run to san marcos for me…then i had to run to the hockey game to work puck night before the dave chapelle show that josh and i had tickets to…but i forgot i was supposed to run the CASE to the game, and left it stashed behind my desk when i left. so i get all the way to the other side of town (in friday rush hour traffic) to realize that i have to loop BACK and get the shit. it took 30 minutes one way to get there, and now i have thirty-five minutes to make the round trip if we’re gonna open on time.

i did it in thirty-eight minutes, thanks to one of our accountants making the trip up 360 for me. not bad.

not good that i forgot it, but not bad…basically, fumbling the ball is bad; but recovering your own fumble sorta makes up for it. still not a screw up i plan to make again. then it was off to the paramount to catch dave chapelle.

my new buddy trans am dan went to the 7:00 performance. he called me by 8:30 saying it was over, he was out, and wanting to know where to meet us after the 10:00 show. i set the place, and called the time at probably around 11:40, going off when we made it out. but as per usual, the late show ran longer and we didn’t get out till after midnight….well worth it, ’cause that was one funny negro. great way to round out black history month, right? then it was off to mardi gras on sixth street…

austin mardi gras 2k3 can basically be summed up by slightly bastardizing an eddie griffin quote from the movie the new guy…

“the tits you wanna see, you don’t get to see…and the tits you GET to see, you don’t WANT to see…”

kinda like certain college parties i attended…but with a lot more guys. according to the news, the crowd at mardi gras was 80% male. and they were there for the view. from our perch on the maggie mae’s balcony we could watch it all (just like the A.P.D. spotters on the building across the street from us) and whenever a girl even came close to REACHING for her top to flash for beads, WHAM!!!, about twenty guys were practically on top of her. most of the girls would then chicken out…and who could blame them? gang-rape is a spectator’s sport most females would rather avoid. and like i said, most of the ones who DID flash you didn’t want to see…let’s just say i can remember swinging beads from the balcony and offering to throw the lot if certain women would don parkas and hooded sweatshirts rather than go topless…and i still can’t touch dairy products after some of the viewage i got…

but there were a couple of exceptions, and i drunkenly ended up pimping two of them out (loudly) from the balcony and got strands galore thrown up once they gave up the goods (as in flashed the crowd…not “gave up the goods” in THAT sense of the phrase)…then i went to the car, grabbed some late night magnolia dining with josh as we dealt with MORE drunken blondes (unlike the two i pimped out, these were CLEARLY over 21, and had nothing i wanted to give up beads (or anything else) to see…but the one who fell into me on her way to the restroom was the one who was DRIVING, so we gave them a head start before we trekked on home) and then i collapsed exactly twenty-one hours after i had shot out of bed.