Oh, man, was I drunk. I had been drinking on this pub-crawl for ten hours. I hadn’t drank much in a month, but when going to support your buddy from high school’s business (StayClassy), and his business is the business of throwing charity events that the youngings will come out and support, and in this instance, by support, I mean drink their face off and raise money for charity, well, god dammit, I’m going to support charity even if that means someone or something having to support me at the end of the night. That was an incredible sentence to write. I hope it was good to read. I wonder if I started to write a sentence that never ended how long it would take me to write it. I’m going think about that one for a while.
Anyway. I was drunk.
My friend, Deets, revealed to me that she and my all-time crush from Mansfield used to argue over who was going to marry me back in the day. This one kind of hurt. Even through the fog of Miller Lite that enveloped my head and cushioned my heart. It’s hard to find out that your all-time crush had this argument and you had no idea about it and were too much of a pussy to ever pursue her because she was so beautiful, and you were so shy. On the other hand, it’s also flattering to know that someone as beautiful as they had a crush on you. Too bad I’m a giant pussy when it comes to girls. Rejection inhibits me. I’m working on that. The good news is that the divorce rate is up to 60% so there’s still a chance. I’m just kidding. She’s married and hopefully very happily.
Back in high school she was drop dead gorgeous. I was afraid to look at her in the eye for fear of turning into stone. She’d make me nervous and excited just by entering the room. And here I’m finding out twelve years later that it was a mutual feeling. Crazy. Life is crazy. The good news is that a few years ago I professed that I had a crush on her for some crazy long time. The bad news is she got engaged shortly thereafter. No real surprise there, but I was glad she knew.
So gorgeous.
I rolled into San Diego at 11AM. I was handed my first drink at 11:03AM, but Scot one of the founders of StayClassy. It was a mimosa.
The day was beautiful. The drive from Los Angeles had been a pleasant two hours. There were a lot of cute college interns there to hang out with. My buddy, Walsh, one of the three founders of StayClassy, is the man, outgoing, confident, nice as can be, and kicking some serious ass in life. It’s hard not to be thankful that you have friends like this. Friends who welcome you into their lives and show you off and introduce you to everybody like you’re family. That was how most of my day was. And I had a beer in my hand. Classy shit no doubt.
Eighty degrees out, sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and betties rolling around in all their California glory, the smell of the ocean drifting in on the warm breeze; it was a perfect day to be inside drinking. In all seriousness, there was some outside drinking going on as well. I even managed to get a sunburn on one half of my neck. Of all the ridiculous things I have done, this is up there with all of them.
Most of my day had been hanging with fellow Mansfieldian and California immigrant, Emus. Fresh off his bday on Thursday he was down for a pub-crawl. He showed up at the second bar with his game face on, and his drinking shoes tied tight, and we were off.
Emus and I bounced from bar to bar along Garnet Street with the other 400+ pub-crawlers clad in our white and yellow-trimmed shirts. It was great watching the bars transform into seas of yellow. Coldplay and Chris Martin would have been happy. They should have sponsored the crawl. That would have been some nice cross promotion.
We effortlessly moved through Pacific Beach bars, Miller Lite, the money in my wallet, and conversations with people. Sometimes it was me and Emus chilling, drinking, reminiscing, watching basketball. Sometimes it was me and Walsh chilling, drinking, reminiscing, watching basketball. Sometimes it was me and my Miller chilling, drinking, reminiscing, watching basketball. For five minutes it was me and Shannon, a cute girl from Sandwich, MA, with rocker shades and a rock star’s girlfriend’s hair, chilling, reminiscing, not watching basketball. Good times.
I met some mad cool people: Heather, Emily, Colette, Scot, Marshal, Mike, all of whom are associated with StayClassy and all of whom were nice as can be. It’s great that San Diego is only two hours south of Los Angeles.
My sobriety started to go downhill as the sun ran out towards the Pacific. Once it was down, my sobriety decided to not come back. I was drunk. This is of course all in hindsight. At the time, I was just chilling, reminiscing, watching basketball – with a beer in my hand.
Deets rolled in at 9PM. That’s when my memories start to get foggy – like I was underwater or something. It was great to see Deets again. A friend of my sister, Haley, Deets is a beautiful Indian girl with dark brown eyes. There is something about Indian eyes that I find so intriguing. It’s as if they know something you don’t and have the ability to look right through you. Paired up with the coconut brown skin and it’s a beautiful combo.
Deets is good people. Her family moved from Mansfield to Orange County a few years’ back and Deets followed them out here.
She really is as nice as they come.
The night ended with me and Emus back at his house cooking up some chicken sausage and peppers. They were good.
I woke up early the next morning with a mustard stain perfectly placed on my shirt right below the word “Classy.” It was anything but.
I hate being hung-over. I know that is an obvious statement, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
I’m not even the same person when I’m hung-over. Mentally I hate everything. I can’t look at magazines. I can’t handle the fire trucks racing by at 8:55AM. Fuck you San Diego. I can’t stand the show-offs running with their shirt off as I walk back to find my car. I can’t stand how my mouth is so dry that I have to pry it open with a crowbar. It’s a godsend that we can breathe out our noses; otherwise, I may have suffocated to death. I hate grocery stores that don’t sell individual waters. I hate seatbelts. I hate stupid drivers. I hate how songs / cds produced in the sixties and seventies are so much quieter than songs produced more recently and how they limit the shit out of newer cds to get increased volume so when you put a newer cd in after you were listening to the older cd the shock of the volume change goes straight through your head and leaves your ears hurting. I hate my belly fat (I always hate that). I hate losing sunglasses no matter how cheap they are. I hate the noise of the wind blowing through the windows when I’m driving. I hate the stale recycled air of the air conditioner when the windows are up. I hate traffic. I hate speeding. I hate sitting on my wallet. I hate life. I fucking hate drinking. And, I HATE being hung-over.
“It’s good to be fucking home,” I said out loud as I pulled around the corner onto my street. And then I realized it. This is home. I am home. I haven’t felt like that in, well, I can’t remember when. Probably sometime after we sold the house that I grew up in for the first twenty-three years of my life.
It was quite the revelation, and it was good to be home.
People in San Diego seemed to love to ask me which I liked better, San Diego or LA. I love LA. I like San Diego. For me, it’s all about energy. Los Angeles buzzes with energy. It’s like Manhattan. You know anything can happen here. San Diego is more like Brooklyn. It’s laid back. It’s mellow, but that energy isn’t there. People are in great fucking shape, but it doesn’t have the same pulse as LA. To each, their own, but that was and always will be my answer.
San Diego rocks, but it’s not my home. It is, however, one classy mother-fucking place - made even better by all my new friends.
Rock on,
Groundswell
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