Day 158 - Revelry

Damn, they look good

September 12th, 2015

Up late drinking leads to early mornings! That’s partially tongue-in-cheek, partially based in reality. Have you ever found that the morning after drinking you’ll wake up at 8am, even if that’s not your normal schedule? I’ve read that it has to do with your brain being sugar deprived. Eating a piece of fruit should help you get back to sleep, and help whatever hangover you’re dealing with.

Back on track: Dan and some of the others are 9-5ers, so their internal alarms go off much earlier than those of us with less-than-structured days. I mentally combat the idea of getting up, knowing that it will make the night that much harder to stay awake through. But there’s an ever-weakening band-aid solution which I call coffee! A tolerance break is in order...

Me and Herbert

It’s a veritable smorgasbord of coffee, eggs, sausage, and the wonderful new addition, rum chata. Goddamn, that’s good with coffee. The day before, we bought 3 dozen eggs and weren’t sure if it would be enough. I said we should get 1 more as a buffer.. but Steve decided that we don’t need no damn buffer. Living dangerously. Dangerously, indeed.

One of the main features of this area was the dune buggies, and that’s just what we’re going to do! We wandered around, asking random residents which company was best. As it turns out, the first place we stopped was said to be the most reasonable. Kirk, Dan, and I decided that it wasn’t worth the price, but John, Joe, Steve, and Shikhar all went for it. When they were deliberating, I kept working in the words “do it” into my phrases and statements both to egg them on and because I wanted to see how much they’d notice. Answers were not found because they started saying it as well.

We backtracked to the original buggy rental place and watched a really boring video on the safety rules. I watched for a bit before joking around with the things in the store, also taking advantage of the free coffee the store was offering. Steve and Co. put on their massive helmets and we left them to their business. My ragtag trio robbed the liquor store and for some additional grilling essentials. That means Meat.

Back at the cottage, I saw an opportunity to take a nap while they stoked the flames of hell the grill. Charcoal takes forever.* I slept for two hours and missed the food, waking up when the dune people returned from their sandy slopes. Now it’s time to grab some burgers before they’re gone.

Look at that massive Apple. Look at it.
On the bottom right basket, dead center.
Seriously, Look.

We cracked into the liquor, trying the additional kinds of rootbeer we had acquired from the burglary. Not all rootbeers are equal, let's just say. I think it was the twins who got the fire going around the side of the house, and the topic of wrestling came up. Apparently Joe has a wrestling hold that can “beat anyone," and they wanted to see how it would fare on someone my size.** I practiced Judo for a couple years, so I thought why not? He tried for the move, almost getting me into it, but I managed to turn it around and pin him. It’s been too long and makes me miss all the man handling. It’s like a modern day Fight Club. Seriously, I can totally see the appeal of a fight club.

We sat around the fire a spell longer until Dan and the others said they wanted to play Everyone is John, again. I was pleasantly surprised that they liked it because the game format is on the nerdier side. I was also hesitant because I’ve never tried to play it with so many people while keeping it interesting for everyone.

And here I thought he couldn't be any sexier...

During the game, a bottle of whiskey kept taking its rounds and I took a big swig each time it made it to me. I was experimenting to see how well the game could be run while intoxicated. Maybe with less inhibitions, I might be able to do it better and more creative!

…Which is not the case. Instead I found it harder to keep track of everything that’s happening and stay focused on the game. We had tweaked the rules a bit to see how that would work with so many players, but it fell apart after a half hour, descending into drunken revelry. The night before, I had tipsily said something to Kirk that had betrayed some latent arrogance. Self-development is cyclical. I see it like an large, unruly garden: you fight back the weeds, nurture certain areas, and get them to a good place. Then when you move on to help the other spots, the weeds start regrouping. Slowly, you’ll get it to a place you want, but you have to be ever vigilant and realize that it’s a long, ongoing process.

The night gets hazy at this point due to the heavier-than-normal drinking. Sadly, I turned in at midnight.

Editing Music: Can't Feel My Face by The Weeknd

*but who can resist that smokey flavour?

**For those of you just tuning in, I’m 6’7”, or somewhere around 200cm