I'm Studying You

Lucky I'm here.

I took the day off from a lot of things yesterday...Walgreens, blogging, sobriety...

Please don't assail me for the immorality in the conversation I'm about to have with you. I'm fully aware that when I do good things, I wind up cancelling them out with bad things.

Managed to stay out of The Wall yesterday. No prob. My landlord/Village Trustee reminded me that the fire hall around the corner was having their chicken bbq, and the people in our political party were going around 3pm. Wasn't gonna go, but who turns down some winner winner chicken dinner?

So I went and it was a good time. The mayor is lookin out for this kid...she had a position open but it's only part-time, and she didn't wanna screw with my unemployment benefits. Fair enough. Saw a few people I hadn't seen in awhile, and was introduced to someone running for some office in county legislature who encouraged me to volunteer for her and she'd see what she can do for me. Fuck that, I know the talk. Ain't no jobs anywhere up in here.

Then the fun begins. I should've been arrested. On multiple charges.

Jack upstairs is an a-one certifiable alcoholic. The shit I've seen him go through put my drinking days to shame. I'll never say another word about being an alcoholic because he embodies it. And his wife Diane is a god damned saint. To the letter. Jack's a great guy outside his problem, and Diane is like a mom to her 3 kids' friends.

So I come home last night, and the kids are all there. They're plotting their mayhem for the evening. Which unbeknownst to me, would include teenage drinking.

Before all y'all rip me a new asshole on this one, listen to me. If you knew your kids were gonna go and get fucked up, would you rather not know, or know that they were doing it either in your own home or under controlled parental supervision and weren't going to leave and cause problems? If kids are gonna do what they want anyway, at least let them do it the safest way possible.

So everyone leaves and I retreat to my quarters to spend my saturday night gettin my loser on with a crossword puzzle when there's a knock at the door. It's Winks, one of the neighbors' kids' friends. We've got a kinda a lot of similarities and I like the kid. He's got a good heart, great humor and great taste in music. And he's got a buzz on.

I invite him in and we share a smoke and he apologizes if the upstairs is being too loud. Since I know what's going on up there I tell him I don't mind and I hope they're having fun. He invited me up, praising me for being cool and oozing genuine sentiments. I went up.

Next thing I know, I've rediscovered my Beer-Pong talent and everyone's playing this stupid-I-don't-even-know-what-it's-called-game where everyone says something they've never done that others might have, and if they have, they drink. And this got to Winks.

I didn't realize the kid kinda looked up to me. Dude got loaded, and he became "that guy". He went off about his life and how miserable he is at his own folks and the only family that loves him are Jack and Diane and his friends and "Norb who is the fucking man". At this point, I stepped in and let him speak while people were trying to interrupt him.

Diane is taxed enough with all these kids. Some left; I took Winks downstairs to chill out. We talked and hung out, he puked all over my backyard and the neighbor's house (and cleaned it up) and I babysat him while we dug on his new fave group, Atmosphere. We bonded. Kids tried to come around to see if he was alright. He wanted none of it, but I told Diane he was ok and he was gonna crash on my couch because she didn't need the drama. She was cool. One of her sons came down an hour later when he got home (he wasn't part of the original festivus) with a sleeping bag, and we all crashed old-school with Winks on the living room couch, Jake in his sleeping bag on my papasan cushion on the floor, and me on my spare room's loveseat at 4am.

For me, it was an old-school, party-for-13 hours-and-sleep-for-5 kinda day, that I haven't had in years. I realize the majority of it was wrong. Underage drinking, my having more than a few, etc...but consider the good: I took care of someone when he needed it, made it clear he can always talk to me about anything, and took some burden off of poor Diane for a night. So I'm not all that bad.

Anyway, that's my weekend. Read the news and chilled with Winks and Jake a bit this afternoon. Made no attempt to scout out what's her initials today. But tomorrow I'll post an interesting editorial on the poor I read yesterday, plus some supportive links to some other folks' ventures. Til then, it's the most gorgeous day of the year, so I'm goin back outside. Peace y'all...I'll catch up on your blogs either later or tomorrow.