Weblog
Last night was, I think, a great night to go partying at Cornell. Of course, me saying that is just an overly generalized way of saying that I personally had a lot of fun, but the people I was with (and laughed at) and the people I ran into throughout the night affirmed an undeniable sense of Big Red euphoria on a grander scale. All throughout the evening’s festivities, the dancing was unabashed; the conversations, candid; and the alcohol consumption, pleasantly liberal.
In general, the typical Weekend Night Out with your friends is a bizarre and surreal experience. You go out and find yourselves in the midst of some awkward social gathering, and then early on, just to be cool, you find your way into an obscure corner of the room with a drink in hand (and it might as well be empty, because no one cares as long as you look like a veteran of spirits) and either talk about things that are totally not party-conversation material or complain about all the ways in which this party sucks so much compared to that other thing you went to back then on that one day at some guy’s apartment where you met that chick with the thing. Yeah, that thing.
Eventually, in way of their very own, people get drunk or tipsy, and now all of sudden you find yourself obsessed with one of two phrases: “I am so drunk” or “I am not drunk”. You could just say it once, but then there’s always that one friend of yours who points and laughs at you and tells you how cute you are when you’re inebriated, and you want to just shut them up by feeding them more alcohol, but for some reason your face feels like it’s melting off, which is bothersome, and then you stumble into a really, really cute girl with the most awesome hair you’ve ever seen (like, ever) and yet only manage to laugh and utter something vaguely apologetic but definitely more imbecilic like “Oopsie”.
It’s tough, being drunk.
On a good night, everyone leaves the party without any nauseated urges, and you and your friends suddenly decide at that moment that pizza is the most desirable thing on the planet. The bigger guys in your entourage are sobering up, while the girls and Asians are laughing at everything that moves. (Like firetrucks. I’ve never seen anyone garner so much interest in a firetruck.) People’s bladders start going nuts too, which is hilarious because the afflicted persons start making silly noises and suddenly forget how to walk. Then, the drunken master of the group comes back from relieving himself on private property and joins in with everyone in a fit of laughter about something or other, but of course most people are just laughing at the drunken master, and the drunken master is probably just laughing at the trash can he peed on. You start to think he might actually be sober enough to understand how ridiculous it is to pee on a trash can.
No one’s really judging anyone else that harshly though, and soon enough, people are telling you for the millionth time how tired they are, or how they really, desperately wanted to have sex tonight and probably would have if not for some craziness about the alignment of the stars, self-defeating behavior, and the social forces compounded against the likelihood of a fling, like that one hobo-looking fellow who somehow managed to cockblock everyone just by laughing like a Disney character, and it doesn’t matter which character because no one should laugh like a Disney character, thanks.
People start to head home for the night, but a few are reluctant to part with the company of such beautiful, beautiful people and want to stick around and talk more about everything they would never otherwise talk about, but it’s past three in the morning and people are like, “Oh, I have so much shit to do tomorrow” or “Oh, I have to get up for church tomorrow” or “Oh… I am so drunk”. Everyone finds their way home, and there’s a brief exchange of really stupid, nonsensical instant messages before everyone falls asleep. Finally.
And that’s how it goes, sometimes. If you’re lucky, you catch yourself in the middle of it all and appreciate it for all its stupor and trifles—a mental process naturally facilitated by alcohol—and it doesn’t seem to bother you that you’re out there indulging in completely hedonistic pursuits when there are greater things in the world that could probably use your care and attention. For the moment, your world is all about the people around you and their debauchery, and for all the guilt that may nag you later, you can’t deny that you did, in fact, kinda sorta have fun.