The plant deserved it.

It would appear as if last night was another one of those nights that has a need to be memorialized in blog post form.

First for the fact that I was actually invited to a party. Not a friend-of-a-friend type thing - someone directly invited me to a party. Yeah, I'm moving up in the world.

It was a highlighter party (the premise, for those who may not be aware, is that you draw on stuff with highlighters under blacklights), which was pretty awesome because I hate direct light and I pretty much wandered around in a white t-shirt, jeans, and Chucks - low maintenance FTW!

But, while being pretty cool, that's not what made the night awesomely memorable. It begins, as do a lot of random events in my life, with a text message.

Namely, "We are thinking of setting a house plant on fire. You want us to wait for you guys?"

I was taken a little aback by the statement, as I had merely texted to say that we'd be taking a later bus. I said that I didn't care, as we'd be arriving a little late.

So we arrive on said late bus (we being myself and the most venerable Miss Scarlett, who appears to be my partner in crime of late), and we began to make ourselves comfortable amidst the music and theme lighting. I eventually made my way over to the host that I knew and, after a few minutes of conversation, asked him what was up with this whole plant thing.

"THE PLANT!" he yelled, very excited. "Do you guys want to watch it burn?"

"YES!" Scarlett exclaimed ferociously, surprising me, considering she was the sober buddy of the night.

"I'll be back," he said, weaving through a crowd of people and disappearing. Scarlett and I looked at each other, shrugged, and grinned, which is slowly becoming our reaction to anything that is abnormal.

Which, actually, is a lot of stuff that occurs around us. What happens when the abnormal becomes normal? Does the world implode?

The host soon re-emerged, large potted plant and grill lighter in hand. A small crowd of people followed him out into the backyard, where he placed it in a fire pit and began dousing it with lighter fluid.

(Now that I think about it, how many houses have a fire pit ready to go in their backyard? Something tells me that this was not the first thing to burn this year...)

"You guys might not want to breathe the smoke in," the designated driver disdainfully said, as the host lit the plant on fire.

And the plant burned, what can I say? Along with additional spurts of lighter fluid and the first few bars of "Disco Inferno" being sung, the plant and accompanying basket soon changed into mere embers.

After it was done, I voiced the question that lingered in my mind. "But... what did the plant do to deserve this fate?"

"It was fake!" The host replied emphatically. "It wasn't real! It was... an impostor!"

So while the rest of the party was pretty cool, it is the weeding out of the artificial house plant that is now forever seared into my brain, and that elevates the entire night to epicness.

Tales of an Epic Friday Night

Some nights are just more special than others for whatever reason. Like, the ones you want to tell stories about afterwards because they were just epic or strange or out of the usual modus operandi. Last night was one of those nights, and since I think that a third of my friends wouldn't care and another third would silently disapprove because I hang around prudes, and then the final third would wonder why I'm holding up mild occurrences to be epic. So I'm left to blog about them, to write down the stories for posterity's sake.

Well, the night begins with a hankering to watch Anchorman. My friend Miss Scarlett and I some time in the recent past had brought up the epic news anchor fight scene in conversation, and after a quick YouTube search showed nothing even remotely of good quality we decided that we needed to watch the whole movie at some point. Well, weeks had gone by and this need had slowly built up to an obsession, to a necessity for life, much like breathing or eating.

So Scarlett and I literally wandered around campus looking for a copy of the hallowed Anchorman DVD, driven by our all-consuming need to watch this epic movie of epicness. (Quite literally, actually, we went from my friend with Netflix streaming, to the library to peruse their DVD collection, and then finally to Scarlett's sorority house to get the DVD from her sister. Have I brought across the point that we were determined to watch this movie?)

Of course, if this were any other normal night, the story would end here, with us both going to bed at a decent hour after watching the movie. But, about halfway through the movie (Afternoon Delight scene, for anyone who cares), I get a text from The Enigma about a costume party.

Stay in warm room and watch epic movie, or throw on costume and freeze and go to a party with the guy I like? It was a tough choice, made tougher by the fact that my costume ought to have more than one minute of prep time. But the magical Universal Decision Maker told us to go, so go we did.

At this point, I would like to point out that part of this night is realizing how much of an awesome friend I have in Miss Scarlett. It's one of those things that you know, but you don't really know until you do stuff together. We made a promise to stick together in what we were doing last night, and we did. Honestly, I'm not sure how much fun I would have had if she wasn't there to experience it with me. Which is kind of odd because she's not a partier (hell, I'm not must of one either), but sharing this just made the night even more epic. This is one of those things that I'm having trouble putting into words, but I guess I could say that my esteem for her and our friendship rose about twenty notches last night.

Anyways, we go to a party with The Enigma, who had this other chick with him. Which isn't interesting in itself, but in one of those Seriously? moments of life, it was a chick who apparently lives down the street from Scarlett and who she was not on the greatest terms with. Because an epic night is not an epic night without a bit of drama on the side.

But, yeah, this is where memory shifts and some things are remembered in crystal clear HD, and other things are fuzzy like rabbit ears picking up a station just in reach. So I'm going to switch to bullet mode, mmkay?

- I love Halloween. I love being in costume, I love looking at other costumes. So this probably made what would have been an awkward I'm-just-going-to-stand-in-the-corner party into a pretty awesome conversation party. Pro-Tip: costumes are an excellent icebreaker.

- Some dude tried to tell me that the "C'mon Man!" segment was on Sunday nights instead of Monday nights before Monday Night Football. This pissed me off.

- Walking in a group of people ranging from moderately sober to drunk where only one person knows where you're supposed to be walking is both a hilarious and harrowing experience. It took twenty minutes to walk like four blocks that Scarlett and I walked in like five when we walked back. Needless to say, many sarcastic comments were being murmured to Scarlett as the procession occurred.

- I was bummed because the group we ended up being with left the fun party to wander across town to an overly crowded alcohol-less party. Those who know me know that I don't think alcohol is needed to have a good time - but truly some things can only be tolerated when you're drunk. Moshing in a basement with poor lighting and about 100 people more than sane capacity is one of those things.

- At one point the fun party got obnoxiously loud with people yelling across the room to one another over the booming music. This prompted the guys next to us to start shouting "LOUD NOISES" just like Brick in Anchorman. It made Scarlett and I's night, to be certain.

- Also, a dude dressed in a fireman stripper outfit started grinding on Scarlett, most likely because she was the most awkward one in the room. I couldn't stop laughing; her face was priceless. And, yeah, I just went all semicolon on your ass. What now, punk?

- I didn't get to dance with The Enigma, which was rather unfortunate. I'm not sure if he didn't spend much time with me while at these parties because Scarlett was there or if it was because the other chick was there or if I give off a general "don't touch me" vibe. Disappointing, but I wouldn't have ditched Scarlett for the world last night.

- Taking a shower this morning I found a huge patch of dried blood on the back of my heel. Apparently my flats had ripped open the back of the heel over the course of the night. I have no idea how I didn't feel/notice this.

- My costume, for reference, was/is Elizabeth Bennet: Zombie Killer. It's a thrilling effect to rip a fake knife out of your bun when you say the "Zombie Killer" part. Also an effective costume for weeding out the illiterate assholes.

And so, I think, ends the tale of my epic night, although I think I'm forgetting some interesting tidbits. For the record, Scarlett and I did finish watching Anchorman after we bailed from the overcrowded party. We watched the epic fight scene like three times. So it was Halloween parties sandwiched by Anchorman - a recipe for awesomeness unlike any other.

You stay classy, San Diego.

Welcome to My Life

This is a post I'd like to call "Welcome to My Life", which I hope will be a recurring type of post here. Pretty much it's just those random occurrences and conversations that make my life rather interesting, awkward, and unintentionally hilarious. Today's iteration is a little shorter than I'd like, but, for the record, two of these things happened in the past two days. My life is just that strange.

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A conversation with my friend, who, for lack of a more creative and entertaining nickname, I'll refer to as "Mira". Honestly, though, the first thing that popped into my head was "M-Dawg", which probably tells you something about my brainwaves of late.
*EDIT* I'm actually going to call her "Miss Scarlett" or "Scarlett" for reasons that make some sense but that I don't feel like explaining.

Scarlett: Wait, is that the guy from last year? Why are you still Facebook friends with him?

Me: Because, if someone else is friends with him, the probability of them being a douchebag increases tenfold.

Scarlett: Ah. Clever.

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You know someone's special when merely seeing them in a dining hall makes your heart race like you just had a close encounter with a rabid bobcat and your stomach starts doin' flips 'n shit.

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Super O-Lube is one of the most unfortunate product names I've ever come across. It is also one of those things you shouldn't leave out in the open around college students if you want conversation to stay G rated.