T R O U B L E

last night i got drunk for what seems like the first time in a very long time. it was the gana's last day at work and there was an open bar celebration for him at pinot. open bar! no two limit, drink ticket event, this! no beer and wine exclusivity. this surely spells T R O U B L E.

i order my first cosmo. it's hot and i'm thirsty. it goes down easy. T.
i'm anxious to get away from the group i've been conned into talking to. i casually walk to the empty corner of the room. it's hidden. it's the first place you should hit when entering the room. but for whatever reason everyone is sitting along one wall, in a straight line that makes talking in groups difficult. "mr. poison paranoia" is sitting with "hua mei" and they refuse to occupy the corner with me. they suck. fine. i meander over to the safety of my peeps. "mr. poison paranoia" hardly knows anyone there. so i clue him into some of the people i have nicknames for -- see that lady in the mini-skirt? that's "make-up by." she must have a performance today cause her cheeks have extra blush on. the woman standing closest to the fireplace. i call her "sim." it's short for simian. over there in the blue dress, she's "seaweave." several years ago at some other company function, my friend saw her "emerge" from the ocean. her hair was wet. like seaweed. but her hair was weird. so she became "seaweave." yes, MPP, i am "the bad." i do have a lot of names for people. and you have one, too. muahaha

another drink? sure. cosmo number 2. R. still shooting the shit with MPP who is drinking 18-year-old single malt scotch. they did say open bar. MPP keeps distractedly looking at his cellphone because he's supposed to have a meeting at 8. put it away. you're not going to make it. have another drink. and keep talking to me.

finally lk and "mr. o'fox" arrive. hooray! they join me and MPP at the bench. where are the hors d'oeuvre? is this duck? esta es pato? no pato? lk had something that was either duck or not duck. we weren't sure. there were also a couple of chicken on stick things. but that was about it. no real food to speak of. this could be "the bad."

the roast is about to begin. everyone is looking around for gana. someone says he's in the bathroom. i say, perhaps a little louder than i thought, that he was doing #2. people look at me. some snicker. some just stare. heh. there were speeches made. gana was given gifts. and now the traditional gag tape farewell. i thought it was going to be horrible. beni.p. was in charge of writing it and coming up with the bits. but i thought it was well done. and quite amusing. every department was allowed to call gana on the shit that drives them crazy. the anchors and producers are waiting for script approval, the researchers are brown-nosing, online gets a few (read: five million) changes for their columns, graphics is having trouble getting all the sponsor logos (five million) on the damn morphing map, etc. every thorn in the side brought to surface, every fuck-you-up-the-ass mistake brought to light. and that's how we really feel. now here's your fucking carrot cake! :p

the bar is still open. but for not much longer. and now everyone is trying to get their drink orders in. o'fox, MPP and i make the rounds. one more cosmo, please. O. i run into "cat". and am happy to see that cat's being chatty and friendly, so it dispels all my recent paranoia. i have not annoyed him beyond all repair. he tells me jon cryer is in the next room. wait, duckie? si, pato. we listen to our dorky ringtones, we formulate a plan to get outside without having to run into gana, and we accidentally splash our drinks onto the other's foot. accidentally. great. now i need another drink. U.

o'fox ditches his "yogurt" class, MPP puts off his meeting, smarty's ready for the next thing. but lk bows out with "sass." and i'm just hoping my car is where i left it. apparently everyone is going over to hollywood billiards. gana's buying. o'fox says let's roll. and we do.

hollywood billiards. i'll have a newcastle. B. o'fox and i play against MPP and smarty. i am sooooo going to kick my boss' ass! our team breaks. we're solid. awesome. maybe the drinks helped but i was on my game last night. made 3 shots in a row. made a really nice bank shot into the center pocket. the other boys were amazed. where's my fins, you say? hustle hustle and nice set up for o'fox to sink the 8 ball.

new game. and a lot more smack talking. and oddly, a lot more pop-locking. are you trying to step to me? i'm obnoxious at this point. getting a little loud. with a capital L. another newcastle over here!

i go around to some of our other tables and mingle, make mischief. it's all the same. and then things turned into an old budweiser commercial where we all just start telling each other how great the other person is and how glad we are that they're in your life because they bring such sunshine to it and warblksfordoglkd.

so it's warblksfordoglkd time and i'm getting a sneaking suspicion that the drinks are catching up to me. MPP and i got out for a smoke and we get to talking about the weirdness between him and "silent kid." and the deal with silent kid in general. the guy hates the job. he doesn't care much for the people he works with. he's just a weird weird guy. i'm so glad that MPP didn't end up being like sk. would have made the room miserable. and i told MPP i was glad he's come out of his shell to play along with us and go out to lunch and, well, hang out. so hopefully he'll keep it up. hopefully. if i haven't scared him off with my particular brand of weirdness. cause we like it when we have good people in the room with us. it makes the days go faster.

back in to collect my bag and gana has just bought a round of jager shots for everyone. E. i'm the first to knock it all back. now i've done it. now i know i'm not going to be well. now i know that what i was looking for i've found. now, under no uncertainty, i am full up on T R O U B L E.

the graphics peeps and prongs are kind enough to sit with me through the beginning phase of sickness. and i feel horrible. for myself and for the people who now have to make sure i'll be ok. prongs gets me water. which i try to down. smarty suggests i drink as many glasses as i can. i'm apologizing profusely. and concentrating on not closing my eyes. if i close my eyes, i spin. and i do not want to spin. another glass of water and i'm needing to pee. but i don't want to get up for fear of throwing up in front of everyone and the online peeps. it sucks to be drunk with an audience of people you like and work with. sucks. eventually i get up from my chair and hurry into the bathroom stall. heave. and it does wonders. i wander back to the table and drink a couple more glasses of water.

and the night's still not over...

so now everyone has gathered at gana's house. it's a lovely spanish style house in the hills of los feliz. impressive to be sure. there were a lot of people i don't really know well, but enough people that i was happy about - music guy, cat, prongs, mpp, smarty, hua mei, o'fox. safety in numbers. so i didn't feel so weird being there. gana handed out cuban cigars to those that wanted one. people were drinking and smoking and continuing on. i still felt a little sick. but was on a water chaser marathon session. suddenly i catch a whiff of cigar smoke and run in horror to empty my stomach into some bushes in the dark. [shakes head] so so sad. in all, i think i threw up five or six times last night.

but it wasn't all horribleness.

once my stomach had settled, once there was nothing more to give, i was able to relax and enjoy the company of my co-workers. i got some quality time in with the C1Cs - held exhilerating conversations, laughed with wild abandon, made interesting discoveries, found different perspective, gained deeper insight, and got on the wrong end of some jacuzzi hijinks (you guys are going to pay). best of all i felt a lot closer to the people i work with. today i knew i'd pay...

but it was worth the trouble.