I think we've passed the statute of limitations on this one.

TequilaCon was this weekend. And also, Grad School Reject had asked for tequila stories. Although there is no actual tequila in this story, the characters herein are tequila-related in my mind. Eventually, I will write tequila stories as well.

1997. My last semester of college. This class is held in one of the university's theaters. I'm sprawled in the third row, legs up on the seat in front of me, listening to the instructor differentiate among power tools and address their various theatrical uses. I take out the plastic container of leftovers I've brought for lunch, mostly consisting of slices of candied yams. He watches me, quizzically.

Fuck. I forgot a fork.

I eat with my fingers.

He watches me some more. Not so quizzically. He tosses in some mention of how this will be tested. I keep eating. And listening. And nodding. Eventually, he stops speaking.

Staredown.

He's not pissed off; he's trying not to laugh.

"You don't seriously think I need to take notes on this? I think I'll recognize the power drill on the midterm."

*****

Late some Saturday night a few weeks later. I'm flopped on a cushy thing near the bar inside of some Pan-Asian restaurant. This piece of furniture could seat three, but right now it's just me and the guy beside me. With some space between us. The place is dark, vaguely shadowy, and I'd probably be able to give more details if I hadn't drunk quite so much vodka. But that's okay, because I'm not the only one in such sorry condition--he's not much better, and neither are the people we arrived with. This is when the sober people show up.

And by "sober people", I mean "high-strung and anal retentive". There are two of them--one man, one woman--and both of them have some strange fixation on my sofa companion. I tell him he ought to start his own cult. He says that it's just a hobby. He'd rather be a designer. At the moment, he's also stuck being an adjunct instructor. Of course, when he says that it's just a hobby, what he really means is that he's done with her, and can't I please stop her from sitting down so he doesn't have to be the bad guy.

I can, and I do. Actually, we do it together. She approaches; he spreads his knees; I grab the inside of his thigh. Then we both look up and smile. Neither she (a grad student) nor the man in denial of being fixated on the man beside me (another adjunct) smile back. How rude.

They pull up two chairs, chat with the drunken posse, and order vegetable sushi. More conversation ensues, people come and go, we drink more.

Here's the next thing I remember:

Drunken sushi-eating female grad student filled with rage approaches the sofa, but remains on the other side of the small coffee table. She carries an immense martini glass.

The martini glass contains the partially-digested remains of her vegetable sushi.

Ceremoniously, she places the vomit martini on the table in front of us--an offering to we gods of we don't give a fuck.

Yay! A present!

She says something. What she says I have no clue, because my male cohort is shifting his body from serving as my pillow, and is searching for something. Feverishly. Checking every pocket. Shifting stuff around in the bags at our feet. He finds it.

A pen.

He pulls off the cap, grabs a napkin, and begins sketching.

The vomit martini.

Sketching. The vomit martini.

"Look at that." He is deadpan, sincerely excited. "That spittle on the side of the glass, hanging down..."

(Indeed, there is a long path of drool dripping to the table.)

"The perfect detail. It fucking makes the shot."

We look on as he finishes. He is practiced--the sketch is quick and accurate. Someone puts her in a cab, our group disperses, one of our friends goes home with the inked napkin. Actually, one of our friends takes another one of our friends to her home, and with them goes the sketch.

Or maybe she takes possession of it later.

Not sure.

Mostly, what I'm sure of is that they all left us alone.

And a glass of vomit isn't as big a distraction as a sober person might think it would be. If you've consumed enough vodka and are too busy making out on the sofa.

And I honestly can't remember at which point the bar staff cleared the glass from the table.

The end.

...but not really, because I haven't even gotten to the tequila yet.

A page from the eX-Files.

Well, more like "the friends with benefits" files, but that's not quite as pithy, is it?

Warning: Flipping through XM radio stations may cause flashbacks.

The song: uber-atrocious "I Love You Always Forever".
The "artist": one-hit-wonder Donna Lewis.
The year: 1996.
The scene: Jill's car, the beach parking lot, summer.
The time: Sometime between nine pm and midnight. This I know because it was dark and we were killing time, waiting for our friends to get off work once the theater closed, and getting a head start on them by finishing off the bottle of whatever it was that I had gifted to my brother and then taken back when he wasn't home.
The cast: Jill and Drew, and I use his name only because it's relevant to the story.

Drew flips through radio stations and stops.

Drew: Listen to this.
Jill: You're not seriously playing that piece of perky pop crap in my car, are you?
Drew: Just listen. You hear that?
Jill: Yes. That would be why I'm asking if you're serious.
Drew: You hear all the you's?
Jill: That's called lazy lyric-writing.
Drew: They could be Drew's.



Drew smiles with great self-satisfaction.

Drew: "I love Drew, always forever."



Drew: And the best part: "Drew's got the most unbelievable blue eyes I've ever seen."



Drew: Come on. Admit it.
Jill: What's unbelievable is that we both fit in the car with your ego.
Drew: Ah, you love it... "Everything I will do for Drew."
Jill: You are so cut off for the night.
Drew: There's nothing left in the bottle, anyway.
Jill: Oh, I wasn't talking about the alcohol.
Donna Lewis: "Say it, say it again."
Jill: I definitely wasn't talking about the alcohol.

What It's Like to Be Me, Vol. II: Sexy If and Only If Math Turns You On

My father’s birthday. We go to Atlantic City to play poker. I can’t play poker recreationally. I start counting cards, calculating probabilities, and wishing I could be one of those evil geniuses who beats casinos out of large sums of money. Also, I would rather spend discretionary funds on new shoes than on gambling. I have no problem spending $20 on a dessert plate.

Last winter. My brother decides he will no longer play Clue with me. He takes one of my used note sheets—a pattern of checks and x’s and question marks that makes no sense to anyone but me—and hangs it up in the kitchen as a reminder. Grocery list; important phone numbers; reasons why no one should play logic games with my sister. I don’t know why he would do that; I'm sure he won the most that night.

Thanksgiving dinner: My cousin is in the midst of an LSAT prep course. His girlfriend is a grad student in accounting.
Girlfriend: I should have taken a prep course for the GMAT.
Me: I love the GMAT!
Girlfriend: (laughs)
My brother: She’s not kidding.
Girlfriend: But I thought you were a writer.
Me: Did I mention I used to work in test prep?

A few summers ago. The Public Theater produces Shakespeare in the Park each year. Most of the free tickets are distributed at the Public and the Delacorte Theatre in Manhattan, but representatives are also sent to the outer boroughs on certain Saturdays. Usually, the line in Staten Island is negligible, but this time my friends and I arrive to find a crowd already gathered. We get in line anyway.

People behind us: I think they only have 100 tickets.
Me: Then we probably should just leave.
Them: Huh?
Me: Well, there are 140 people in front of us. Give or take.
Them: Did you count?
Me: No.
Them: Estimation?
Me: Eyeball.

When an employee distributes numbers, I am #141.

Me: Did I mention I used to count crowds every day?


1994, or thereabouts. It is my job to inventory everything in the movie theater. Every night. Five concession stands and a stockroom. In each stand, there are four sizes of soda cups, four sizes of popcorn cups, about 20 different types of candy, and a few random items. There are hundreds of each. Total number of entries on the spreadsheet: 180. Give or take. I complete it in 50 minutes. Give or take.

Lately, things are disappearing. Money? Cups? Candy? I know my counts are perfect; the problem is somewhere else. Someone on staff is way too comfortable. My boss thinks my “emotional state” due to my “asshole boyfriend” would compromise my math. Silly man. I may have been crying in the kitchen, but math is beautiful because it is not arbitrary like an insecure nineteen-year-old actor. I go home before 1am.

When I arrive the next morning, he has recounted everything. I am fuming.
Me: Fine, if you’d rather not sleep.
Him: Well, I had to find the mistakes.
Me: Where were they?
Him: (Silence.)
Me: Did you find the money? Did you find the mistakes?
Him: There was a nacho dish hidden in the kitchen.
Me: HUH?
Him: Someone hid a nacho dish.
Me: You didn’t find any mistakes, did you?
Him: (Silence.)
Me: So you’re buying me lunch all week, huh?

Justified gloating is sweet. Like all the ice cream sundaes he bought me.

Baggage (Part 1)

Jeremy taught me how to pack.

Of course, he didn't teach me until he realized I was bad at it, which was right about when he saw me unpacking in a hotel in Rome. It was my first time out of the US. I was 18. Being taught how to most effectively pack a suitcase might not sound like a particularly formative experience, but coming from a writer who lists "wanderlust" as her favorite word, this is nearly in the realm of the sublime.

Soggy January, 1994. My first year of college, his second. We were on a study trip with a university group. He had packed for nearly two weeks in one large military duffel bag. He unpacked quickly, showered for dinner quickly, met me and my rooming buddy in our room. Two girls with long hair. We were not ready. My clothes were everywhere. And they were wrinkled. Grunge may have been in, but there was no need for wrinkled dinnerwear.

He knocked some idiosyncratic knock that I now wish I could remember. I opened the door and--though I was pretty hot for him--thought nothing of letting him see the mess. He'd known me for three months; if he didn't like my mess, then he didn't like me. His black button-down was wrinkle-free, no doubt due to the miracle of a steamy shower. He strolled on in and took up more space in the room than I would have expected from a guy his size.

"Hasn't anyone taught you how to pack?" A bit more bite in his voice than I'd been hoping to detect. I gave it back to him.

"Why, are you going to show me?" I knew he'd traveled a lot, but I wasn't sure a man could teach me how to organize my own wardrobe.

Great job, Jill. Bait him. Good plan.

What did you expect? I was 18. I hadn't yet learned how to check my ego at the door. (Um...have I fully learned that yet? I don't know.) I wasn't about to take any crap from a know-it-all upperclassman, no matter how turquoise his eyes. Though, if I knew then what I know now, I probably would have realized from the pragmatic way he would arrive in a new city and have a gameplan for us all before we'd even showered, that he was someone to be reckoned with. And that perhaps I shouldn't bait him. His glibness and self-importance notwithstanding.

Seriously, he could make things happen. Like a few months before. In Chicago. It was a weekend trip. I'm not sure what we were supposed to be learning. We'd been seated next to each other on the flight out, as the seats had been arranged alphabetically by last name. Only a few weeks into my first semester of college, I would be spending my birthday with a horde of students I didn't know. It was our first extended conversation.

(Technically we first spoke at the meet-n-greet, wherein the upperclassmen were supposed to welcome the freshmen. Months later, I learned that it was more like the upperclassmen rating the freshmen. Ah, adolescence.)

As we checked in and found our rooms, Jeremy surveyed the people we'd become friendly with. He discovered food preferences, dietary restrictions. He found a guidebook. He located an appropriate restaurant. I think he may even have made reservations. He made plans for after dinner. He figured out to get to the Improv. (And all the while, he took a series of really cool photos which I saw when he developed them a week or so later.)

What, a man with organizational skills?

This was astounding to me. I'd gone to a very competitive all-girls high school. The place was filled with leaders. Girls who could organize a prom in their sleep. Girls who could stage-manage a cast of 50. Girls who could raise $100,000 for the charity of your choice. We didn't mess around. I wasn't used to a man taking charge. (Isn't that ironic? Such is the value of same-sex education.)

I was enamored. Wow. Slight problem, though. Sorta-boyfriend back home. (Eventually, it turned out that the sorta-bf wasn't into the whole "monogomy" thing, and the unbelievable self-control I demonstrated by not kissing Jeremy right in the hotel lobby for his amazing freakin' competence at all things I was just discovering that I found impressive was for naught. But hey, live and learn. Next time you don't kiss someone, think of me.)

So, back to Italy: He folded and rolled and stacked my clothes, tough-love-teasing all the way through. Besides mocking my packing skills, he had to rub it in that his French was way better than my Italian and was more likely to help us out of a jam, even in Rome. Bastard. I wanted to slap him. But I also wanted to kiss him. Again. Which I didn't. Again.

(Still had the sorta-bf back home, who by this time had left me for his ex and came back. You'd think I would have learned my lesson, but no. Good job, Jill. Don't kiss the cute bi-lingual world-traveling intellectual photographer with killer taste in music who makes you excellent mix tapes monthly. Who, by the way, also had single-handedly organized the outing for the evening of your 18th birthday. Good job!)

Tune in tomorrow...or the next day?...for more of "How stupid was Jill at 18?"