Sunday July 5, 2009

I wake up to my 10:00 AM alarm with the hangover of the fucking century presenting itself as soon as I open my eyes. I feel close to paralyzed as I try to sit up and almost eat floor in the process. I've got to be to work at 11 and it's the first time in almost two years that I have had doubts about being able to make it in to work. I lay on the floor for a few minutes and try to come up with a valid excuse to call into work, but all of the thinking just makes my head hurt considerably more. I decide to muster up the almost non-existent energy left in my body and am almost crawling to the bathroom to get my day started. I surprisingly make it into the shower and I'm pretty sure I blacked out in the middle of it because I can't remember washing my hair, but I know I did because it smells like shampoo when I get out.

Once I'm done in the shower, I can't even think about anything else but water and Advil, thus putting the rest of the morning clean-up on hold until I obtain said items. This also included putting the getting dressed part on hold, so here I am walking bare-ass through my condo into the kitchen. I definitely stop to notice that all of the windows are wide open and anyone who just so happens to glance out their window this particular morning will no doubt get more than they bargained for if they point their eyes in the direction of my windows. But I'm so fucked up from my hangover at this point to really care, so I continue with my mission. I grab about four Advil and a gargantuan pitcher of water and go to town. Now it's on to the rest of the morning after clean-up adventure, until I get a call from Justin telling me that him and Mary are in the parking lot and request that I bring them their handle of whiskey that they left hear a few nights back to have on their Wisconsin trip. I curse them as I reluctantly agree to meet them downstairs in a few minutes. I throw on a pair of shorts and a shirt and go out to the parking lot wielding a bottle of whiskey that is almost making me want to puke every time i glance at it's contents.

I make it to the parking lot and scramble around trying to search for Justin's car, assuming he's the sucker boyfriend being conned into driving to Wisconsin on such an unfortunate day in history (I know he's hurting just as much, if not more than me). After searching with no luck, I finally spot Mary's red Chevy Cavalier in one of the parking spots, and I curse them for not calling over to me because I know they obviously noticed me walking around aimlessly in the parking lot. I hand over the bottle of booze and they hand me over a Sausage McMuffen from the always delicious McDonald's breakfast menu. Now, normally I would be ecstatic to be receiving such gratuities on a morning such as shitty as this one, or any other morning to be exact. But this particular morning was a fluke and I almost made them take the greasy piece of heaven back with them, but I hesitantly accepted and thanked them for their kindness. I bid the couple farewell and bombed back inside to continue getting ready for work.

I attempt to eat the sandwich, as to not waste it, but it doesn't go over well at all. I only get through maybe three small bites before throwing in the towel and disposing of the remains (sad face). I then throw on my work clothes and continue to get ready. I'm still doing the dirty man competition, so my hair has actually reached that perfect length where it doesn't require any extensive care after a shower, so I just let it air dry and it looks fine. I brush my teeth and almost vomit in the sink because I can still taste the booze on my tongue, which when mixed with toothpaste doesn't exactly make for an award winning taste, but I press on and get through it... barely. I put in my contacts, grab a bottle of water to go, search desperately for a smoke because I'm considering relapse (I don't find one), grab my keys and I'm out the door.

The drive to work alone is brutal as I try my hardest to keep my eyes open. But between the glare of the morning sun and my lack of motivation to be awake this morning, it makes it that much harder to not just close my eyes. But then I remember that a lot of car accidents are caused from sleeping at the wheel and most of them end with a fatality. Then I think about my hangover again and the thought of being offed in a car accident doesn't seem like the worst idea. But again, I press on and keep going. I only promised myself that this would happen when I was with Justin's family last night and I glanced at my phone only to realize that the sun would be rising in no less than an hour and a half and I still had a beer in hand. I'm just paying for my insubordination and it's only fair that it be an ugly payback.

I make it to work on time, surprisingly, and walk in the door in complete silence. The last thing I wanted to do was speak to anyone in fear that they would ask about my excursions last night and the mere thought of even thinking about the booze and food indulgence I would have to speak about in order to describe my day would ultimately end with my puking all over myself. So I just clock in and bomb in the back to grab an apron. I run into Lori while making my swift run to the back and it starts. She asks me how my 4th of July was. Normally I would just tell someone to fuck off at this point, but Lori is a sweetheart so I broke down and had to tell her. It was brutal, but it didn't end in puke and tears, which is a bonus.

Work goes by as well as it's going to, which is not that well. Every customer today seems overly needy and can't learn to let a guy sulk in his alcohol induced sickness in peace. I do manage to rock a burrito from Chipotle later in the afternoon, which somewhat picks me up for maybe a half hour, but then it's right back to where I started. Luckily, Lesly shows up a half hour early for her shift and she offers to let me go home early, bless her heart. I take her up on the offer and cruise out as fast as I can. Upon arriving at home, I jump out of my work clothes and throw on a pair of shorts and proceed to pass the fuck out for the next three hours.

I wake up just around 7:00 PM and am feeling slightly more life-like, but not much more. I down a few more Advil and make myself a light dinner that consisted of a sandwich. I get a call from Tool asking if I would be interested in meeting him and a few of our buddies over at the Naperville Rib Fest to catch the Huey Lewis and the News show. As much as I love Huey, I have to decline, as I'm still feeling like absolute balls. I enjoy my sandwich and water and decide to just chill out and watch a movie. I settle on The City of Lost Children, which I had heard was a fantastic film from numerous people. I throw it in, not at all fully prepared for what I was getting into.

Right from the get-go, the movie fucks with my mind. For those of you who don't know, the basic premise of the movie revolves around this mad scientist, Krank, who kidnaps children to steal their dreams so he can have some of his own and ultimately preserve his youth, for lack of a better term. The only problem is, he scares the piss out of all the children, so he can only get nightmares from them. That is until he kidnaps the little brother of a circus freak (played surprisingly well by Ron Pearlman) who does not seem to share the same horrific reactions to Krank's presence as the other children have. So now Ron Pearlman's character must join with a group of orphaned children to search for his little brother. The entire movie is like watching someone's nightmare, but it is insanely well done, nevertheless. Unfortunately, in my somewhat ill state of mind, it wasn't the ideal movie I was hoping to witness at the moment. I immediately searched for something a little more uplifting and lighter to counter-act the insecure feelings I had after the piece of French cinema I had just sat through. I end up throwing in the David Mamet film, Heist, with Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito. Totally not an uplifting or light film. Epic fail on my part.

Fortunately, I was still so tired that I ended up passing out ten minutes into the movie, making it impossible to feel any worse than I did. Good night.