A cush to fall into

Sorry about the late Halloween update. I'm sure you have been chomping at the proverbial bit just waiting for how that guy in LA spent his holiday.

Well, spent is quite an appropriate word.

Went out as Groucho Marx. Basically, I bought one of those plastic glasses with the nose and mustache attached deals. Also, bought a nice long cigar, which I will smoke later. Then I wore my tux. Classy, looking good costume that totally goes with my personality.

In fact, riding in an elevator with a girl who happened to be going to the same party, she and I started talking. After a bit, she said I was doing a great Groucho. To which I was caught by surprise, I wasn't doing the character at all. It was just me. I do have a bit of an east coast bite to my vowels, and I am a pun master with the wit.

The great thing about that costume is, take off the nose, and you are just a guy in a tux. Which looks good.

I remember a Halloween many years ago where I dressed up as Frankenstein. It was a great outfit. A paper bag on my head to get the square top, green makeup, and raggy clothes, including my green raggy army jacket, which made for great detail. I actually won the nice bottle of wine as first prize. The crap of it though was, a girl I was hot for turned to me at the end of the night and said if I hadn't covered myself in green, she would have taken me home. That's just cruel. Don't ever tell anyone that.

So, I learn from my mistakes. Still managed to look good, but I could ditch it all in a second.

Not that anyone asked, but lessons learned is the whole point.

Got to the party, and as I walked in, the smell of weed was overwhelming. I was looking around to see who was providing, but it seemed that I had just missed a go around.

Now, lately I have been returning to the occasional smoke, after years of paranoia induced abstinence. However, I am like a teenage girl in the amount it takes to get me "right there".

So, I didn't want to ask whomever if I could have one hit. I figured it was a party and eventually, it would come around again. I told one of my coworkers that if he spotted the goods, to let me know.

Then I settled down for a night of mingling.

Not long after, my lookout came around and said that the smoking was about to commence. We headed out to the balcony.

The people out there were paying some sort of deference to a guy sitting down dressed as a pirate, so I assumed he was the man with the stash.

I was waiting for the moment when he determined "everyone" was there. I started joking with a Superman. As I spoke, a guy dressed as a friar walked out and joined us. Continuing to joke, I said, Father, touch me.

He pulled out a cigarette case, opened it, and held it out to me. It was full of pre-rolled joints. He told me to pick the one.

Suddenly, I realize this is the "man", and now everyone is staring at me. Groucho.

I unthinkingly point to a joint and say that one.

He pulls it out, lights it, and smiles. I was awarded the first hit. Silly, since he actually took the first hit, but semantics at a time like that is unwise.

It makes its way around once, and as it does the friar looks at me and says I chose the "bullet". He says it real creepy like, which makes me mentally remind myself not to ever trust the clergy. Not even those who dress like the clergy.

Superman looks to me like I should understand the bullet comment, to which I reply, Leave it to me to select the bullet that will inevitably shoot my brains out. Superman starts laughing, and trying to figure out what movie I just referenced, not listening to me as I try to explain that I wasn't quoting, just quotable.

The friar is whispering something to another when the "bullet" comes around to me again. I am thinking one normally does it for me, but considering Superman's giggling conversational skills, I might have a second go, just to assimilate with the other wildlife.

I do.

As I pass it, the clergyman leans in to me and says do I wanna know why it is the bullet.

I really didn't, but that would be rude. So I say, sure.

He says it is cush. There was only one, and I picked it. Nice pick, he says.

Cush.

I think I have heard of that somewhere. I quickly try to scan every drug reference I have ever heard MM say, but all that comes is a vague feeling that cush is something greater than most.

I lean in for confirmation. The friar not only confirms, but tells me it is strain DK9700 with, I don't know, like lavender infusion, or something. All of which sounds to me like I just shouldn't of had that second hit.

I pass on the rest. As the round ends, the friar leans in and says, it should roll over you in about a half hour.

Does that sound ominous to anyone else? I was looking for a giggle. I wanted to be Stupidman, not rolled over.

I make my way over to a wall, predicting loss of muscular function when the roller rolls. I start conversation with an Agent Smith. A few minutes into the conversation, I break out in a sweat that only Amazonian explorers could relate to. My eyes are having fun with the internal zoom button, and keep going from widescreen to telefoto. I decide conversation will certainly break down soon, and excuse myself.

I make my way inside, shredding clothes like a eager prom date. I find a soft couch, and decide to rest in peace there.

Just as I sit, the belligerent hostess calls my name. Her sister and brother-in-law have just arrived, and he too is dressed as Groucho. Now, we have to do some sort of secret guys-who-dress-as-Groucho handshake or something. The last thing I am prepared to do is a Groucho-off. I make my way over, thinking that the fucker who keeps rolling the room is going to hear it from me tomorrow.

I politely acknowledge the fellow Marxist, and smile as he tells me how those are his real eyebrows. I can only imagine the angle I am standing at, and whether the "I need a V-8" reference would play now, when my mouth loses all capability to make saliva. The result: a tongue that could give Godzilla a fair fight. Now incapable of speech with my rival, I mumble the word water, and break away.

At which point, God has a laugh.

The hostess is actually a co-hostess. Her roommate is fricking gorgeous, and has come into work before, never even looking up as I pass. I, being me, have never started a conversation with her, because of feelings of inadequacy. That while sober. Now, I can't even talk to myself. So who should decide to introduce themselves to me, right now!

Hi, my name is Jo.

I mumble that I know that already. I work with Lora.

A W K W A R D P A U S E

My brain is not helping. This is what my mind is telling me:

---------------------------------------------------- pretty.

Someone calls my name, to which I respond. Jo fades away. Literally, not in my drug addled reality.

I get the water, as whoever thought they needed to speak to me does. I don't listen, and don't look. My focus is solely agua.

I sit at a corner chair and drink the water. Normalcy starts to make a flirtatious return. Not quite settling on me for the night, but hovering just enough that I can do an impersonation.

I speak with Hunter S. Thompson, and it goes well. I am even aware enough mentally to see the irony.

Jo does make her way back, asking me if I have seen the remote. I try out my new conversation legs, wobbling like a baby fawn. She smiles and leaves. I remind myself to forcibly kick myself hard in the morning. Tux, removable character, kick ass haircut, and I now have disabled my one true asset: wit. Hell, not just wit, the ability of speech.

I sentence myself to remain out on the balcony for the rest of the night. I talk to the pirate about back pain. Neither of us are functional enough to think to listen seriously to the other. A guy dressed as roadkill comes out. I joke with him about how I have always wanted to fill a rotten apple with shaving cream and then have a bag of those in my car for when someone drives like an idiot around me, and I could just throw it at the car, and what a great explosive gesture that would be.

I think to myself, hey, that was both funny, and logical. I'm back, baby, I'm back.

What I realize twenty minutes later is that was the last thing I said.

Rather than a return to form, that was the last gasp of a dying man. I give another ten minutes to make sure. Then I leave.

My total time at the party was just under two hours. My Groucho nose is folded into an inside pocket. My tux shirt is unbuttoned enough to make me feel like a desperate Vegas lounge singer. My tie is shoved into my pants pocket, making an unseemly bulge which I realize might have been the reason Jo finally did introduce herself after all.

I fold myself into my Geo, and make two wrong turns on the drive home.

As I climb into bed, knowing that this will be another great "fool" story, I am surprised I'm not depressed by it all. I wonder why that is, and after a bit of thought, the reason comes to me.

At least I'm not sleeping on La Brea.