The Culmination of My Genius: Tales of Rum

None of this will make any sense if you don't read "My Cunning Master Plan."

So, I'm brilliant after all. The proof? I have two mickeys to show for my grandest achievement to date: the completion of my fourth year undergraduate thesis. Now, I know it doesn't sound like much (8 months of research and writing, that's four months per mickey, which means that I certainly won't have enough to get me drunk for the next 8), but it really is the thought that counts.

Dennis teased me a while ago that my supervisor did not want to yell at me about my first draft, she just wanted to give me a medal of rum and ice cream. Of course he knew how happy that would make me, even while we both knew full well it was impossible. So when he came down for my presentation that is just what he brought me--almost. He doesn't know London very well and is kind of lazy about finding grocery stores, so he grabbed the Easter chocolate that his mother bought him and gave me that instead. At least it was chocolate. At least it was shaped like a penguin.

Rory and Shane followed a similar path, but with slightly less luck. Shane showed up "early" to pick Rory up...they would have been 15 minutes early instead of 2 minutes late (you'd think they were responsible for the London Transit schedule with timing like that). Shane bought Rory Quiznos, so Rory had enough money to buy me rum. Therefore, Shane claims responsibility for the whole thing. They didn't get ice cream either, but it was because they were going to be late and the ice cream would have melted. On the way to the school I told Rory, "Don't worry about it. You can just take me to Marble Slab when I'm done presenting." To which he responded, "Ya right! What do you think I am? Made of money?" I wish. Then maybe they wouldn't have ran out of gas and Rory wouldn't have had to waste all his good acting skills on pretending to push the car while Dennis did all the work.

The first half mickey was used to relax me after my Women's lit exam. I left my mom at my apartment to start packing up; she drank a bottle of wine and talked on the phone to her aunt for an hour. I was greeted with, "Did you know what? I never knew this but I am Irish." When I asked her how she spent the night she said, "Well I talked to Aunt Alice for a long time. And I got some packing done--see! Oh and I drank a LOT of wine." Classy, Mom. Really classy. For some reason, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to get drunk and air all of my grievances to her. It kind of worked. In the best way that getting drunk and making people angry at their spouses and sons can. At about midnight my mom wanted to call my dad and scream at him for not taking it seriously enough when we realized that Jeff took my ring.

So I got loaded with my mom, drinking the other half after my PoCo exam Saturday night. We had no furniture, but Rogers hadn't cut off the cable yet so we tried to watch South Park on my comforter with some pillows. Part way through I decided that I needed to find out if I'd been excluded from the night out with Tobin. So I text messaged Dennis. Ten seconds later he called to yell at me for sending him text messages to his phone because it didn't have service anymore. When I tried to explain what the message said (because I thought that was why he was yelling at me), he yelled some more and told me that he knew what it said. Then I helped him figure out how to send Tobin a facebook message and hid in the washroom talking to him for a little while. Every now and then, Dennis would say, "Wow you are so drunk." And I would laugh uncontrollably. When I woke up in the morning I realized that Dennis must also have been drunk because he never calls anyone and he had called me.

The first half of Rory's mickey was used to help me sleep once I got back to Toronto. The odd drink here and there was all it took. Now the other half is waiting for me in the freezer. I would have finished it off though, if we hadn't had a splurge day and decided the best idea in the world was to get drunk by 2 in the afternoon and play video games between Rory's classes. I got to see George Brown as a result. They had a dungeon in the basement that is very creepy. Rory took my picture there. He drank almost as much wine as my mother had, and I drank enough lemon rum to keep me going. Then we bought a laptop and a dress from American Apparel. I drew the line at skinny jeans because I was becoming Rory too quickly and it scared me. I wanted to drink some more when we got back, but somebody had offered all of my mix to his basketball-watching buddies (jerk). I thought I had polished off the coke and felt the need to rethink whether or not I really needed anymore. I was drunk enough to believe that the coke was a better indicator of my drunkenness than the rum bottle would have been, so it was still probably the best choice for me.

So that about sums it up. I'm the smartest. I was rewarded for my genius with rum. Perfect. Actually, it seems to help. I'm going to finish up the rest of that lemon rum and maybe the rest of the mickey over the next couple of days to help me study Shakes and so that I can get this erotic novel of mine under way. It'll be fabulous. I'm not letting any of you read it.

PS The marks are in:88. I told you I'm a genius.

Revelations

Some days you need to force yourself out of bed so that your brain stops tormenting you. Some days you need to stay in bed so that your brain doesn't start tormenting you. Today, somehow, I needed to do both.

Everyone has their peccadilloes (or so I am told--in comparison to mine, they all seem relatively tame). Last night I discovered a new one. Well, it was not so much new as renewed. Know what I'm saying? I went to sleep around 2:30 with my head full of online games. In particular, I was very frustrated by Frost Bite...because Dennis is way better at it than I am, and because I couldn't get passed level 4. I spent the remainder of my night trying to figure out what my brain meant by "Dennis is done and Shane is not"--like it was the most important puzzle I could ever solve. I tried just believing it. "Okay, I get it, " I told myself. But lying to yourself is much harder than lying to other people. I didn't really get it, even when I thought I did. So I sat in bed and tried to understand what it meant and why it was important and whether or not I would have to share this information with them. I kept giving up, throwing a pillow (getting up to get it because I love my pillow) and then burying my head in another attempt to sleep through this madness.

I thought I'd found the solution when I decided that I could just think about a different dilemma, and trick my brain into forgetting this maddening revelation. Somehow, the two became very mixed up and I started thinking that Dennis was done with Antiguan nobility and Shane was still hung up on it. It wasn't pretty. There were more things thrown.

This morning I had a new revelation: I shouldn't sleep. It is bad for my nerves. Every Tuesday (set your calendar by it) I wake up super panicky and can't figure out why. Unless I can sleep until noon, the feeling never goes away. So I am sitting here at 12:27 AM on a Hostile Wednesday, still trying to deal with the aftermat of Tuesday. It's sad really. I rather like sleep. But if it is going to make me crazy then I would really like to know what other choice I have?

Some people suggest sleeping pills and I will tell you what is wrong with them: they paralyze your body but not your mind. Thus, I lay in bed unable to move and try to figure out why Dennis is done and Shane is not and what difference that could possibly make in my life. Now while I'm sitting here wide awake I wonder if I've inverted my revelation and stumbled perhaps onto some sort of subconscious tidbit of moderately important information--and I'm sure I'll spend the whole night trying to decide.