penis grafitti

Never eat breakfast buffet eggs. Especially when you know you’ll be eating and drinking too much of a good and bad thing later.

Sitting at the table, I’m hung over. The decision to just “go back to Shula’s” was definitely Joshy’s. I had no desire to sit in that awful pit of lousiness for another minute. An afternoon and a late night there should have been enough.

Must not have been for him. I’d like to think it isn’t because it’s easy. The easy way out is always the wrong way out. Well, I’m sure there are times when it’s not, but it sounds better to say always. It’s more dramatic. Nah, that’s the wrong word. Emphatic. That’s what I was feverishly searching my slowly eroding vocabulary for. I always tell myself to read more. Those words will come back to you if you read. Instead, you continue to write (well, I don’t write anymore) and work for a newspaper. And the drivel that gets in the newspaper I work for, it dumbs me down just a little bit extra each day. Something to look forward to. Kind of like driving almost five hours to get to work today as the end of my little mini-vacation ended.

I do think I worked all of two hours today. That’s always fun. I did send a message to the redhead that doesn’t. She responded via text. I haven’t responded to that. I want to go to this show. I tried to get Joshy on board. He balked. Ditto Alli. Now the redhead that won’t seems interested. And, it’s her birthday weekend. Funny how that all seems to happen. Now, the question is do I dare try to take extra time off of work? We’ll be down a person again. I really don’t give a shit, however. Life is for living, what’s living for?

Where the hell was I?

Eggs. Yeah.

I ate lots of eggs at Shula’s. Quite possibly the worst sports-themed restaurant in the world right now. I’d much rather sit in a NASCAR themed place in Pickeral, New Jersey, than Shula’s in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. Fuck, I already hate the city with a passion just because that’s the place that pretty much ended what I thought was the best thing that ever happened to me. But, since it shat on my head, it couldn’t possibly be that. But this bar sucked.

And really, just because of the televisions. They were all old. Not flat screens at all. Just big-ass televisions from the late 1980s. All over the place. Hanging in the air, waiting for the old pieces of wire and metal holding them up to collapse from the shear weight of them all. Shear? Sheer? Fuck. There goes my awfulness again.

The televisions are so shitty, you can barely make out an image in some of them.

We watched LSU and Alabama play. We watched the Breeder’s Cup. I boldly proclaimed that Zenyatta would lose and I’d bet my life’s savings on Blame about a half hour before the race. When the race began, I was the only one cheering against Zenyatta. Baltimore being a horse-racing kind of town. Right? I cheered when I was right. Then I realized I didn’t really win anything but bragging rights with Joshy. And that won’t take me far. Kind of like picking the trifecta for the Derby in 2005. Didn’t put the money down, so it don’t matter a bit.

Anyways, the bar proved to be a good place to get a buzz, though. Which we did. Then we walked to the show.

After the show, we went back to Shula’s. Seems dumb, but we did. There I met Jennifer. But that story will have to wait, as I was talking about eggs.

Eggs. And bacon. And French toast. And sausage.

I ate them all. And 10 hours and 250 miles or so later, I was sitting on a toilet in the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville as my favorite band in the world started to play the opening chords to their opening song. The girl I came to the show with was standing out in the pit by herself.

And I’m staring at graffiti on the wall. “Bob Dylan sucks. Long live Ha Ha Tonka!” It said. That and a penis. Why do guys draw penises on the bathroom stall doors? It baffles me. At least draw the old half McDonald’s trick.

This is one of those shits that you try to keep from coming out. I was wary of eating a cheeseburger and fries when I did about 45 minutes earlier. But damn, I was hungry. Hadn’t eaten since the eggs. It also kept me from drinking at the show. I had planned on getting drunk, finally (well, maybe) making a move. Who knows?

Now? I’m on a toilet. Embarrassing myself in a Dumb and Dumber way. But at least the only people hearing it, and smelling it, are random dudes at a concert venue. And that goodness for a door at the Jefferson.

Anyway, I finally finish and go out. Wash the hands and enjoy the end of the second song. I get the look, the knowing look, from my concert-going friend. She hands me her ginger ale. I take a swig. I start to tap my feet and sing along.

By the end of the night, we’re outside, cold, but happy. Sometimes things work the way you planned, and sometimes you get the shits.