Is this a hangover? I feel like I was hit by a truck. I’m tired, and have a mild headache, but after getting up and walking around I feel okay. I drink a bunch of water and mill around the house. Maybe I’m just tired from going to bed at ~5AM and waking up at 10AM.

Today is going to be a very long day. First stop: Alex’s BBQ in Woburn.

I didn’t plan much on the drinking front and everyone else just brought beer which I’m pretty sure I don’t like at all at this point. I tried a few things passed my way including Jonathan’s homemade beer which was deemed “quite hoppy” by everyone and while it was more palatable than the raspberry nonsense I had last week it still wasn’t what I’d call good.

The topic of my experiment came up a few times and everyone was interested in the origin, background, and my progress. No one was pushy about the whole thing which was very nice and something I’m still getting used to. A few people want to buy me drinks and take me out to taste different things to see what I like and if I’d enjoy what they enjoy but there’s no pressure at all. Their goal isn’t to get me drunk but to see how what I’d like. This reminds me of why I love my friends. No pressure. Just be who you are and they still welcome you no matter what.

I wonder if I did 30 days of goat pornography if everyone would still be so interested.

As the night dawned, we lit fireworks off that Alex had stashed away for some reason and folks made s’mores. Conversation turned to pub crawls and a few first drinking stories. Alex mentioned how he doesn’t drink to get drunk or from pressure anymore. He drinks now and then because he enjoys it and enjoys the company of friends. He brews his own beer as well.

This makes me wonder why people started drinking to begin with. What it peer pressure? Wanting to fit in? Wanting to seem cool?

Everyone had stories about getting drunk. Sometimes they get in trouble, sometimes they act crazy, but they are never alone in the stories. The one common element amongst my friends’ stories is camaraderie. Maybe this is unrelated to the alcohol, but there’s always a strong friendship element to the stories. “Dave held my hair back” or “Alex got me home okay”.

Maybe we remember these stories because they are times when we fell down or got into trouble and our friends step in to help us up or pull us out of a jam. I’ve said it before, but it doesn’t matter what you do as much as who you do it with.

After the BBQ, we headed out to the show.

I should mention that I work at the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Harvard Square (http://www.fullbodycast.org) and so every Saturday night at Midnight I’m in Harvard with a bunch of lunatics.

The show tends to get out at 2:30-3:00 in the morning, and there is often an after party. Tonight was no exception. Jon Stina were hosting so we made the trip out to Framingham. It was a small party but not in a bad way. I had a few sips of something that Stina called “basically a Scorpion Bowl” but I wasn’t too interested in drinking anything else yet. I felt like I was still trying to find something I liked and the other stuff I’d had up to that point hadn’t been very good. Maybe I should be buying my own alcohol and toting it around with me?

When everyone else left and went to bed, I ended up crashing on Jon and Stina’s couch, although I use crashing in the loosest sense as I didn’t actually get any sleep. Sunday was Jon’s birthday and there was an impending BBQ and poker game. I spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling thinking about things and talking to Jess.

This sort of bleeds into Sunday, Day 13.

Stina woke up and made us breakfast which was a godsend. Chris, Jon’s roommate woke up and we all had some interesting conversations about politics, The Rat (an old club in Boston that is now defunct and demolished), coastal differences, fighting, doing security, confrontation, and general stuff. Chris is a pretty interesting guy.

At around 3PM Masha, Jess, and I headed out as the first few folks were trickling in from the BBQ. My plan was to go home and take a shower, nap, and come back for the BBQ and poker. By the time I got home I was pretty tired and didn’t want to drive all the way back to Framingham.

I took a shower, cleaned around the house a bit and tried to calculate how many hours it had been since I slept. 10AM Saturday morning to 5PM Sunday night is 31 hours without sleep. Good times.

Burnzy called and reminded me of our plans to go see Gamer, the new Gerard Butler flick. Jess met up with us and we went to the theatre. Burnzy exercised his excellent claw-machine skills and plucked a Yogi Bear doll out of the vending machine.

It didn’t occur to me until just now how odd it is that Yogi Bear was in the vending machine. I don’t think I’ve seen a Yogi cartoon since I was 10. Is it even still on? Do kids these days even know who Yogi Bear is?

Alas, Burnzy was unable to get the claw to bend to his will to get the Patriots football.

The movie was entertaining and surprisingly full of depth despite the shaky camera action sequence that is the new movie fad. I went back to my place and tried to stay awake as long as possible so I didn’t wake up at 3AM and totally screw myself.

I finally let myself fall asleep around midnight.

Monday, Day 14.

My alarm went off at 8AM but I reset it a few times until 10. I figure I deserved the extra sleep after all the lack of sleep over the weekend.

Walking around the house I felt really tired and worn down. My back ached and I was pretty dehydrated. I didn’t drink that much over the weekend but I did have a whole lot of soda and caffeine which was stupid. I drank probably 6 cans of Mountain Dew at Alex’s BBQ. I don’t know if my current condition is a byproduct of all the caffeine and sugar, or lack of sleep, or both.

The drinking thing is leading to interesting discussions, but I didn’t feel compelled nor did I take any opportunity this weekend to drink. Even at Jon and Stina’s house I didn’t really care. Is this because I was with the biggest and most social group of friends I have? If I were out at a bar I could see myself drinking to keep the conversation greased, but I didn’t seem to need it this weekend. In fact I didn’t think of it much until someone else brought it up.

I meet up with Mary and Jess and we go to the other Alex’s Labor Day BBQ. While there, Adam has me try a beer called Creme Brule (?) and some other stuff. Adam opens one and it sort of explodes on us. I get a bit of it on me and while wiping it out of my hair Adam apologetically says:

“Well at least now you can check ‘asshole spills beer on me’ off your checklist.”

I suddenly remember that on Saturday when I went to leave Shawn put his arm around me and poured beer all down my shirt.

What’s odd is that this sort of thing has almost never happened in the past.

At the BBQ I mostly hung around and talked with various people. Gary and I made plans with a bunch of other folks to do a pub crawl or something similar later in the week.

We headed out at 8:00ish and hung out at my house watching My Cousin Vinny. Not a bad way to end the weekend. After all the running around I was happy to just relax.

In retrospect, I wonder if I wasted a potential opportunity of the long weekend to throw caution a little more into the wind, but it’s been difficult to not feel responsible for driving home or getting my friends home. I know some people who just sort of go out and get wasted and figure the rest out the next day but I don’t know if I’m capable of that sort of “letting go”. Maybe if I had a party at my own house I could not worry about what happens. But I’m always the one driving and I can’t even imagine how bad I’d feel if I ended up throwing up on someone’s floor or something.

Am I holding back too much?