Good heavens, if I haven't written up a diary entry since Friday afternoon, than I think I have a good excuse, or rather several of them.
Wednesday – Tiffany's friend Judy got back from holiday and we helped her move back into her place. After that we stayed up until about 2 am drinking and catching up.
Thursday – In the evening I went for a run and saw that a friend Doug seemed to be back. After recovering from my exertion I walked to say hello and talked with him and Richard. While I was downstairs, Tiffany called to see what I was up to and so being in a humorous mood, I gave my phone to Doug to answer. After that initial bit of confusion, the four of us sat around in Doug's room while he unpacked and we all talked. Later on we went up to Tiffany's room to drink and watch TV before we all crashed around 2 am.
Friday – Work was fairly quiet, but I spent most of the morning preparing for the MPLEX test. I passed the Introductory Algebra level, which was enough for me at the moment. The afternoon I tried to get a little more work done, though it wasn't all that successful. After dinner I headed over to Tiffany's place where the four of us (Doug, Tiff, Richard and I) drove out to get some alcohol. After the bottle shop and then a quick stop at the supermarket, we started playing “Presidents and Assholes” while sipping our drinks and just having a nice time. About 10 pm Ryan called (we went camping with him earlier in the Summer) and wanted us to go out to the bars with Judy and him. We hadn't intended on a night out, but the others didn't mind and so after a quick trip home to change we ended up at the first of several bars On Main Street on nearby. We generally had time for one or two relaxed drinks at each, although there were a lot of students out on the town and the night itself was rather chilly. After about 3 or 4 bars and a game of pool, it was closing time. I suppose I should be happy for 2 am closing times, I'm usually not super comfortable in the bar scene, but I can hold my own for a short while. We got home about 2 am, and we stood outside wondering what to do and I suggested going to Denny's, but was eventually outvoted. We went to sign in at the front desk when we ran into a guy called Rob. Rob is in his mid-forties, a beer gut and very, very rural. He was carrying a six-pack of beer and half a bottle of Jack Daniels. We weren't able to get rid of him, and grudgingly Doug, Tiffany and I went to his room for a brief drink. It's funny that one gay guy and two gay girls can so easily go under the radar, but there we were with Doug taking full advantage of the free Jack Daniels. In a word, Doug got very, very ploughed, at one point he was sitting on the stock saddle which Rob had in his room, with a bottle of Jack in one hand, a guitar with broken strings in the other and a cowboy hat on his head. This of course was dutifully caught on film by Tiffany and I, after which point Doug proceeded to pass out.
Tiffany and Rob managed to haul Doug downstairs and outside where they could smoke and he could throw up. We didn't really know just how Doug had drunk of the Jack, but apparently it was a lot. When offered, I would lift the bottle to my lips and pretend to swallow since the taste of Jack Daniels makes me want to throw up to begin with. We managed to get Doug back to his room with Rob in tow, praying that Rob wouldn't notice Richard (Doug boyfriend) in bed. We left the lights off, but not before Doug fell down and slammed his head on a corner. This was not good, and although we hadn't encouraged him to drink, we were there to help Doug make it through to the morning in one piece. Basically this entailed holding him up straight, with a bucket in front to catch anything and forcing water down his throat and talking to him. We kept at that for about 40 minutes and when he became more responsive we left him with Richard. The time was about 5 am, and I crashed at Tiffany's place.
Saturday - Being somewhat drunk ourselves, we didn't wake up until about midday the next day, and Tiffany had a nasty hangover. I checked on Doug who was awake but very sick still, and after a late lunch I finally made it home about 3 pm. Not long after Tiffany called and said that her friend Judy (who is a mad keen outdoorsy type) wanted to go hiking. We decided to go up to the reservoir where it is really pretty and amazingly someone had managed to convince Doug to come with us. The five of us crammed into the back of Richard's truck and we drove out to where we'd camped with Ryan back in June. The change was amazing, as the water level in the dam had fallen a good 10 or 15 meters over the summer. We were walking about on the bottom of the dam and give n that none of us knew what to do we decided to walk one of the short trails. It was only about 1.5 miles, but Doug was doing it very hard. On top of the dreadful alcohol poisoning, he had the flu and is a smoker, obviously not a great combination. We did make it up to the pretty waterfall and took a whole bunch of photos there before coming back down the hill and heading back to town. We were all cold as the canyon walls blocked out the sun and it was already close to nightfall. Judy had to leave, and so the four of us ordered pizza and I ran home to change from hiking clothes into something warmer. We sat around eating pizza and Doug wanted to watch “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and so we did. I was not a terribly big fan of the movie; it was too much like sitting through a doubly sided David Bowie CD in all its good and bad points. We were all quite exhausted and so not long after midnight we went our ways and crashed.
Sunday – Sunday was slightly better, as most of the hangovers were finally cured, although Doug still felt under the weather. Richard had to drive home because he was working on Monday, but we wanted to do one last thing as a group together. We ended up electing to go hiking again, mainly because it was free. We went to a different set of trails, which I'd been on with a different set of people that summer. It wasn't hard going getting up the hill, but mainly I just felt very sorry for Doug. We did finally make it to the crest of the hill and we were rewarded with a pretty view out over the valley. Going downhill was much faster and easier and we made it back to town around 5:30 pm, which left Richard enough time to drive home before it got too dark. I went home to change, but not long after, Tiffany called and said that Ryan was having a BBQ about 7 pm. That being the case, I changed and got ready for that instead of cleaning my apartment, which was getting rather disgusting after being neglected for some time.
The hour I had to get ready was just about enough time to quickly talk to Ally, take a call from Mum and then run and jump into the shower and get ready. I knew it would be another cold night as autumn had definitely started to arrive. We drove over to Ryan's place where a cookout was in progress. I'd met Matt and Wednesday before when camping with Ryan, and surprisingly my Residential Assistant Levi was there too. We sat around cooking Bratwurst and cautiously drinking beer. I was rather heedless in terms of beers consumer (3), as I was not struck down with a hangover like the others, my drinking on Friday night having been relatively moderate.
So we sat there as the sun went down, and it did indeed get cold, Tiffany and Doug going home for warmer clothing. Much later on after a lot of talking we went inside where some of the small party were watching “Four Rooms”. The TV room was too cramped for us all to fit in, and so we entertained ourselves watching Ryan disassemble a computer power supply. Of course we were all rather tired from the long weekend and the hiking, and so we went home fairly early, maybe after 11 pm. We went back to Tiffany's place where she and I just hung out for a long time, Doug crashing out early to pay back his alcohol karma.
Monday – Today passed quickly, too quickly alas. I woke up around midday and decided to finally attack the entropic mess which my apartment had descended into. First act was to wash my hair and smear onto my face a thick layer of moisturizer, both of these being long overdue. After that I swept the apartment out of all the hair, dust, dirt and crap which was on the floor. Followed by laundry, shopping, dishes, cleaning the bathroom and so forth. I couldn't call Ally as her answering machine was busy and she was out all day. This might have been a good thing as I needed to go for a run on top of everything else. The good news is that I am continuing to improve on my personal best time.
There's an interesting point here to make. The thing which keeps me looking feminine is the fat in my face, all the medications having done nothing to change the underlying bone structure. I don't want to get rid of that obviously, being that I like to pass very much. Since I've been jogging on a regular basis my weight hasn't changed radically at all, even though my time have been getting progressively better. I guess I'm always going to be “built” (muscle that is, not fat) and I'm content for it to be that way. It won't change my longing to be more slightly built, but I'll accept a PhD and an eventual MBA as a fair trade. :)