30 Days: Day 25

Karaoke Contest! It happened a few short days after seeing the movie Duets again that a friend mentioned that some tiny bar somewhere had a karaoke contest with a grand prize of $300. Mya, my new karaoke buddy, decided she could use a little extra cash, so Tom and I piled in the car and met her there for some fun.

We rolled up to a house turned bar set in the middle of the country, but that still had a few neighbors. I mentioned that the bar looked frighteningly similar to the bar in The Accused, a film Tom hadn't seen. So as we sat in the car, opening the doors to go in, I described Jodie Foster's rape scene and it was just then that someone's chained up pitbull started barking and we both nearly peed our pants. We then decided it would be best to go inside before the dog broke loose to knaw on our faces.

So, the gay white guy, his mulatto buddy, and their fat black girlfriend join up at the smallest possible bar where everyone already seems to know each other. I was expecting a screeching record noise when we walked in, but we managed to not be chased out by flaming torches. They had pretty good beer for really good prices, although they must not have sold much since the bartender had no idea what a Modelo was, and in fact thought I was cursing at her. So, content with our bucket of 10 7oz Miller Lights we grabbed a book, signed up for the contest, and eventually formed the bulk of it's contestants.

In the end, Mya took the ladies (she was *awesome*) prize and entry into the next level of competition, by a slim one vote even though she sang the pants of everyone else and Tom was denied completely in favor of some dude that obviously frequented the bar more often and didn't sing songs by suspicious sexual deviants like George Michael.

Keep your fingers crossed for the finals this weekend!

30 Days: Day 24

Happy Day of Green Beer and Merry-making! It was my first celebration of St. Patrick's Day. I'd either been too busy, working, or in some non Irish-loving country over the holiday in the past, so I've never really gotten to take part in all the festivities. This year, I gave up my Friday morning shift at the SB, hydrated myself to the best of my abilities and rolled up my sleeves for what I was sure would be a great time. Turns out it sucked. Much like New Year's Eve, it wasn't worth all the hype. We ended up in the same old bar, drinking just like we always do, heavily, only this time the beer was slightly darker and there was cabbage involved.

I did make over to McDo to sample the Shamrock shake I'd always heard so much about though. Turns out they stopped making them years ago, and now just change the name of the Strawberry shake to the Strawberry Shamrock and call it a day. I was slightly miffed at my perceived injustice. Damn lack of Mint green milkshakes!

In the end, it really just felt like work. My friends were committed to the one bar as several folks we knew drifted in and out. At one point in the merry-making I wanted to frolic in the park. This was not met with enthusiasm. Apparently moving from the table would both lose us the sitting room *and* involve enjoying the sunshine and fresh air (which sounded heavenly to me after sitting in the smoke, eating heavy foods, and drinking entire loaves of bread for 4 hours). Instead another round of shots came, more food, and an increasing malaise creeped up on me. I'd been so excited, but in the end, it was just another day. Only this time the guys at the bar all wore sweatshirts as they had rolled directly from bed into their cars and the chicks all wore their same bar clothes only at 11:30 am.

And I forgot to drink a green beer before I went home with no voice and feeling half dead at 6:30pm.

New Trend or 30 Days: Day 23

I had another day of eyeball scratching cabin fever. I did have a car this morning and before that cabin fever had set in I went to the fabric store on a mission. I'm going teach myself how to knit. So, I found an instruction manual and a ball of deep red yarn and set to learnin'.

The crazy part was later in the day I got that itch again. The climbing the walls feeling that keeps getting more intense and strikes when I conveniently have no vehicle. It's to the point where I'm looking to do something dangerous. Play times with a stranger, calling a friend I know will get me into trouble, or anything that I would generally consider not such a great idea was becoming more appealing with each passing minute. As a result I wrote/made several potentially embarrassing e-mails/phone calls but in the end, I ended up no place near what I was looking for (which I suppose could be a good thing). I later found myself turning up to the Village Player's Theatre to watch a play in 3 acts with a happy ending, surrounded by season-ticket-holding patrons with an average age of 62.

It wasn't a bad play and it was nice to get out of the house, but again there's the appearance of the Bettie/Betty double-headed beast. One has all the intentions and the other does all the action. So Bettie wanted to *get some* play, but Betty ended up *watching* a play. Here's to hoping it's a pattern put behind me.

Dichotomy

I've been sick for the last few days. I came home from work early on Monday and slept, called off Tuesday and slept, and finally I'm starting to feel human again. It may be that the combined effect of Benedryl leaving my system and the clearing of phlegm has given me a sense of renewed energy, but suddenly I feel ready to take on the world. I have no car though today so it's a third day of in-house lockdown. I'm going a little crazy and I have the urge to out on the town and wreak some havoc, but instead I decided to bake some cinnamon rolls. It's like I want to express my inner Bettie Page, but out popped Betty Crocker. I guess it's just nervous energy that all comes from the same place. I mean, those rolls sure did take 3 hours to make given the dough-making, rolling, raising, baking, and icing time so it's certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Now if only I could round up some fellow trouble makers and get to being crazy.

30 Days: Day 22

On my way home from the SB, I found myself taking some back roads in an effort to avoid the sudden occurance of construction that marks the arrival of spring. As I stopped at the tracks for the train, I noticed that it wasn't moving and in fact the engineer was waving me forward. I cautiously drove around the gates and directly in front of the train and even though it was stopped, it still made me pretty nervous. I never did find out why it wasn't moving.

CatchinUp

I've been MIA, both to you and to myself for the last few days. I'm not sure what I've been up to, but it feels like I've spent a sick amount of time at the SB. A majority of the other SB'ers went on Spring Break leaving us folks not fortunate enough to afford a getaway to mind the ribs. I'm pretty sure I've got BBQ sauce coming out of my pores...It's actually quite disgusting to towel off after a shower what with all the oozing.

But on with the final entries in my 30 days!

Happy Birthday Mike

I apparently can't post to your blog, but I can to mine, so Happy Birthday!