A Long Night
Starting at 6 o'clock AM, yesterday morning:
I got up, as I usually do at that time, ate breakfast (rice krispies, fuck yeah!) and killed time before heading into work.
Work was slow moving on account of it being New Year's Eve. I was let go at 2 PM, and I rode home listening to Russian Circles and feeling better than I have in a while.
I got home, ate lunch, walked the dogs with my little bro, and we rehearsed while my mom made shepherd's pie (fuck yeah!).
I hung out with my folks for a couple of hours and headed out the door at about 8:15 PM. There was a New Year's Eve show in Garden City (about five miles south), and I stopped by my buddy Shaun's house to pick him up. He was still in his boxers on the couch, nursing a hangover with Papa John's pizza. I showed up and got him motivated to go to the show. It was while I was at his house that I found out that one of the friends of The Classic Struggle (a band that played last night) had committed suicide the previous night.
A lot of people at the show were very distraught. People that I usually see going apeshit and doing circle pits were just kind of staring off into space. I wasn't one to bother them in their reverie, so I just sort of stuck to my inner core of friends and gave condolences to the friends and family.
Despite the morose undertones of the gathering, I was still happy to be among old friends and SOBER for the first time in 10 years on New Year's Eve. I had one shot of Jack Daniel's whiskey at midnight and basically played "sober driver" the rest of the night.
We left there after the show to meet with friends that we hadn't yet seen, but I was growing tired of the bar scene, so I hung out for a few minutes and dipped out to find my brothers. This was about 3:00 AM.
My older brother Patrick was at the house with my mom and his girlfriend drinking Jose Cuervo. I had a shot with him and called my little brother, who had just gotten done talking to police because one of his friends had been jumped at a party. I went to pick him up and brought him home.
For some reason, I had resolved to stay up until 6 AM, just to make it a truly full day, so I just killed some time after everybody went to sleep, chatting with a friend of mine from Baltimore. Then I took my dogs for a 3-mile sunrise walk, stretched and went for a 3.5 mile run. I'm feeling pretty ****in' good right now, and I hope you all are, too. Happy 2010.
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