DRUNKEN TRUMPETS AND THE QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS:Of Booze, Judgment Calls, And Carl Sandburg

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- The bar tab for the evening says it all...

Three Vodka Tonics, four Red Needles, two Long Islands, and a Rum and Coke...I think.

So...uh... I thought I was pacing myself.

At least I don't feel the paintball bruises from earlier this weekend, and somebody else picked up the about half of the tab.

Err...

Yeah.

* * * *

I hate getting shitfaced; I hate the loss of control, the vulnerability. I enjoy a few drinks every once and a while, but I'm a little too old for the whole drink until wasted thing.

Not sure if my laptop is holding me up or I'm holding it down right now...

On my way back to my apartment to sleep off the whole mess, I ran into a former roommate of the woman who helped me design the infamous "Information is Power" poster.

C. had just finished celebrating her 22nd birthday - for the second night in a row. All of her friends were either in Columbus for one of the biggest college football games in modern history or had already bailed for home for a long Thanksgiving break.

She said she just wanted me to walk her home, three blocks past my apartment. As soon as I agreed, the "drunk girl hanging on for dear life" commenced. The only thing she wanted to talk about was how bored she was with Oxford, how she hated the guys here, how the pressure to get near perfect grades and to maintain a social life had left her burnt out and spent.

I thought C. was just taking in the scenery as she clung onto me, my arm around her waist in a rather futile attempt to keep both of us walking in a straight line.

I helped her up the stairs to her apartment. I had to dig through her purse to find her keys, as she couldn't seem to stand up without holding onto my belt. Three of her neighbors came out of the apartment next door.

I knew one of the guys. He whispered something like "somebody's getting laid tonight," patting me on the shoulder as he staggered down the stairs to some house party.

Um... no.

I don't do drunk girls. I won't let drunk girls do me, either, especially while I'm also intoxicated. Never a good idea. Been there, done that, bought the fucking tee shirt.

* * * *

It's not like I didn't see it coming. I did, just not in time.

That's why I may occasionally get slightly tipsy but no longer enjoy the youthful binge-drinking thing. I don't like the loss of control that goes along with being blitzed. I don't like the impaired judgment, the potential for poor risk management, the unnecessary choices that one wouldn't make under normal circumstances.

I knew that, well, the No. 1 reason C. had asked me to walk her home had to do with her feeling lonely and abandoned, that she would be going back to an empty apartment. I recognized the rather amateurish seduction techniques, the neediness and clinginess, the body language typical of an intoxicated woman who, well, just didn't want to sleep alone.

* * * *

Normally, in my professional life (particularly my old "information analyst/private contractor" days), I could spot this sort of thing rather quickly. Lately - on the advice of several friends - I've been figuring out how to integrate that skill back into my personal life. Surprisingly, it's not as difficult of a task as I once thought.

The problem with being intoxicated while trying to exercise those skills is that alcohol dulls the senses just enough to allow for delayed reactions to stimuli. But, save for a brownout or blackout moment, those stimuli can only be ignored for so long before the conscience catches up with the liquor-fueled reflex.

If I'd noticed, for instance, that C. had started stripping off her clothes the moment we entered the apartment, how she'd turned on the radio and wandered into the kitchen for a drink of water, I would've seized on my opportunity for an easy out, a quick hollered goodbye without the awkwardness of having to explain my still rather sound logic in not wanting to make yet another mistake.

But no... I had to notice the Carl Fucking Sandburg sitting on the couch next to a frigging iBook.

That's the problem with me being completely wasted. I'm still a rather deep thinker, but I end up with the simple curiosity of a typical seven-year-old serving as my guide.

* * * *

One of the things I re-learned during the whole Richmond Blue Balls Experience was the fact that there is a lot to be said for the intimacy and the value of subtlety behind seduction. I'm thoroughly convinced that most women - and probably a handful of guys - learn this sometime during their "Quarter-Life Crisis" years (approx. 24-28). With experience comes not only wisdom but the appreciation of concepts like grace, elegance, and charm.

C. came back into her living room, giggled, and fell onto the couch. While I'm trying to focus enough to dig through the Sandburg anthology, stuck reading the same lines of the long-dead bard's Working Girls, I notice that somebody's put their face in my lap and that same somebody is trying to shove my hand down her panties.

I'm still stuck on the same line:

Each morning as I move through this river of young-
woman life I feel a wonder about where it is all
going, so many with a peach bloom of young years
on them and laughter of red lips and memories in
their eyes of dances the night before and plays and
walks.

It's 3:30 in the fucking morning, I have a very cute brunette trying desperately to get me to just pay attention to her, trying to do what I guess she thinks drunk women are supposed to do to turn on a drunk guy, the only thing I guess way too many guys expect women to do with their mouths whilst shitfaced.

I should've paid better attention to my surroundings, to the circumstance, to the environment. I could've stopped things a little sooner.

Stupid friggin' Sandburg anthologies...

* * * *

When my alcohol-filled body finally caught up with my brain, I just stood up. I accidentally kneed my would-be seducer in the chin, to her annoyance. And, well, I guess my fingers had been just doing what came naturally while my mind was catching up to my body - which just made her angry.

Hell, I threw somebody out of my apartment for not understanding that I didn't want to be somebody's fuck buddy; I guess it's only fair for me to be kicked out of someone else's apartment for not wanting to be another fucking One Night Stand for yet another woman looking for affirmation and comfort from an external source.

There was something going on that I wanted no part of, something I think I've finally been able to put my finger on in regards to how I wander through life.

I don't care for being the go-to guy when a woman feels neglected and needs a release. I don't like being the training wheels on life's bicycle, the guy who has, for the most part, chosen simply to live in self-imposed ignorance when it comes to the ramifications of one's actions in interpersonal relationships.

I'm tired of being the educated - worldly - former - punker - hoodlum - turned - kinda -scary - scholar - man - of -fucking - mystery - who -used - to - date - adult entertainers - and - who - likes - Tom- Waits (ha...I'll pull a Wombat and mimic the Bohemian Literary style) experiment for women from sheltered backgrounds, self-centered and more worried about preserving an image than actually engaging intimacy like an enemy on the battlefield, than treating seduction and passion like something to be conquered and savored for all of its fleeting moments.

Simply put, I'm rather tired of my own "Quarter-Life Crisis." I'm ready to move on now.

* * * *

It's amazing what goes through a guy's mind when another person is trying to go down on them.

Or while hanging over a toilet bowl, praying to the Porcelain God of Drunken Vengeance for sweet relief, thinking of what one of my night's drinking partners - a local aspiring writer - had pointed out while watching two scenester women grind on the dance floor of one of Oxford's clubs...

One of the things that makes me fucking sick of this town is the fact that there are so many fucking hot women without enough brains to figure out that being a good fuck will only get you so far.

It's amazing what guys talk about when women aren't listening, what really goes through the bigger brain in relation to the smaller brain.

Hell, half the time I'm not sure if I even like the smaller brain anymore. Damned thing has caused me more trouble than its worth...

But at least I'm learning.

Fucking Quarter-Life Crisis.

# # #