Booze, Bulls, & Josh

Well kids... a lot has been going on since my last post. I'll try to sum it up in one paragraph, although you and I both know that's probably not going to happen. Alas, there are no pics... I didn't bring the camera out this year. The event that I'm alluding to is the fact that I celebrated the 6th anniversary of my 29th birthday. If you can't do the math on that one, just click the "home" button on your browser because you're probably not going to get any of my pithy nuances anyway.

Here goes.

Russ, Todd & Noah came over. We started out at the corner apartment sometime around 10:00 PM on Friday. My birthday wasn't actually until Sunday, but why put off the hangover that you can have on Saturday for the one that you'll have on Sunday, right? Right. Moving on. We had a couple of warm-up cocktails and made our way to A Pub Live. The best live band in Rochester and my personal favorite, The Taint, was playing. We hung out there for a little while, when Russ asked if we wanted to go check out the bull at Daisy Dukes. Why not. Sure. After a couple rounds and about an hour of watching morons get tossed ass over teacups, we headed upstairs to SoHo. I hate SoHo. The people there have an uncanny ability to annoy the shit out of me. When I see secretaries that make $20K a year acting like they're CEOs and I'm supposed to be excited because they've got knock off Prada and Louis Vuitton bags, I just get annoyed. Give me a broad with tattoos and an attitude any day.

Regardless, after a couple shots and a couple beers, we headed back down to A Pub. At this stage of the game, I have officially been over-served. Be that as it may, the band was gracious enough to have me up on stage to butcher a song. God bless those guys. I never get tired of that.

After thoroughly embarrassing myself, I was far from done. We headed back over to Daisy Dukes, where Russ took it upon himself to talk to the bull guy. Yes, my loyal readers, I became one of those morons getting tossed ass over teacups. Twice.

So... that was the end of that... right up until I learned that Noah had invited the bar back to the corner apartment for after hours. Here's the abbreviated story, as I know this whole post has been; Dave passed out in my recliner, at which point I took it upon myself to draw on his face in permanent marker. I gave him a Mickey Mouse nose, a hitler moustache, and wrote "Hi" backwards on his forehead... just a little reminder for when he looked in the mirror the next day. After that, we hung out, drank, I did some street magic, drank, turned on the iPod, drank, found out the names of all the people that were in my kitchen, drank, and then finally got to bed around 5AM. A good time was had by all.

I know this is a pretty short post and not my usual writing style, but it's 90+ degrees in my office, and for some reason, the a/c doesn't reach in here.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, something else happened that was kind of big, and not in a good way. One of my best friends, Josh's, father passed away last night. He had been struggling with liver problems for a few months, and ultimately and unfortunately lost the battle. He was 52 years old. I couldn't even find the words when he called me last night and gave me the news. I was so sad for him. I couldn't imagine.

Those of you that have been loyal readers for the last couple years know that my two closest friends, John & Chris, both lost their fathers to terrible diseases that overcame them. No matter how many times you experience it, regardless of the circumstances, it's still a crushing blow. It was one to me, but again, I can't imagine the sorrow that my friends have gone through. It seems like yesterday that Josh and I were sitting in the old corner apartment and somehow the subject came up of me being a pall bearer for Chris's dad, Al, and how I didn't really like it. How I was kind of uncomfortable... even though it was someone that I cared very deeply about that I was carrying to his final resting place. I remember Josh saying that there's nothing nicer that you can do for someone than to lay them down for the last time, and that it was an honor. I thought about that, and realized that he was right, and I felt better about it, and I was honored. We haven't talked about it at all, but should he ask me to do it again, I'd be honored.

After work today, I stopped at the mall and picked up a baseball hat for Josh, and dropped it off to him at his parent's house. He and his dad were both Baltimore Orioles fans, and they used to go to Red Wings games together, back when the Wings were the O's AAA affiliate... hence, he became a Baltimore fan. I remember him saying that he used to have an O's hat that had their old logo on it... it's kind of a cartoon bird, and I knew what he was talking about. Luckily, I was able to find it at the mall and give it to him. He liked it. He said that it reminded him of his dad. I'm glad. Anytime you can give someone a gift that has some sort of sentimental value, especially when you know they've just had something like losing a parent thrust upon them, it makes you feel good. Plus, I'm looking for some karma points.

We took a quick walk down to the church at the end of his parent's street so that he could smoke a cigarette, and just talked for a little while. I did my best to listen. That's pretty much all you can do. I didn't pull a quarter out of the air, I didn't tell him a joke, and I didn't tell him about being a moron that got tossed ass over teacups. I just listened. I think that's the best course of action sometimes.

He talked about the fact that you just never know how long someone is going to be around. He talked about how his father passed away while he was there, and how he was going to move back home to be with his mother. I just didn't know what to say. Just, "yeah, I'm really sorry." That's pretty much all I could think of that would be appropriate.

I don't know really what to take away from all this. Is it that you can't take people for granted because you don't know how long they're going to be here? Is it that you should live every day like it was your last? I think it's the former. If I lived every day like it was my last, Budweiser and Cuervo stock would go through the roof, and I'd be in rehab pretty much every other day. I don't have that kind of time or energy. I try to live every weekend like it was my last, and that's plenty for me.

I guess it's the not taking people you care about for granted thing. I know Josh's family didn't take his father for granted. I could tell you more stories about Josh's dad and I never even met the man. I think that's a lot of why I feel so bad for him.

I'm going to sign off now. I have my company's annual sales meeting all week this week, so I have meetings all day, every day. Oh God... it's death by PowerPoint. Ugh. Maybe you guys should go buy some stock in Starbucks. I'm fairly sure I can boost their bottom line this week alone. This ass-over-teacups-moron needs some sleep.

Until next time...

R