Overdue Journaling

The Night of the Party
A few scrawled lines dash across the page:
Our Journey Begins in Covington, KY
Exit 192, toward Covington, 5th Street Exit
West 5th Street, LEFT onto Greenup Street, LEFT onto East 4th Street
Find a parking place
Between the directions there is time, and in that time actions occur.
One drink, two drink, three drink, floor.
It's not a chronological night by any means. There's a drawing of supposed-to-be Julie's head, underneath it "Andre showed up"
Before that, there was a bar with the Suicide Girls glamored over a wall. The white stucco-looking paint made a makeshift screen for the film projected from somewhere in the room I couldn't bother to look. "Mike" keeps looking at me, asking with his eyes how familiar, how much effort he should be putting towards getting to know this drunk girl beside me. I shrug as best my eyes can and order myself another Long Island Iced-Tea. The smoke in the room is deafening and unwelcome, but it's broken for a few instances by the arrival of others.
Justin is Fabio.
Mary being carried.
We're outside, down the street, and there's maybe six of us in total. Mary can't walk, not because she's incapable, but because her shoes are disagreeing with her feet. They won't stay on and we can't have the birthday girl walking about in clean socks on the dirty broken sidewalk. Justin and Cory carry her. "Mike" and Justin switch out occasionally. We're not even on Panda's street before Mary decides it's a good thing to walk.
Drinking game.
Higher or lower.
Bladder of a peanut.
Mary requests I remember she challenged Julie to a drinking contest this time next year. I write it down, because if I hadn't there's no way I would have remembered.

Four Hours Early 10-2?-10
It's a Monday and I awaken to the sounds of a screeching alarm clock. It's not the first time today I've been awake, but it's the one that rattles my senses to some form of alertness. Jess has to work today, early, so we have to be out the door and on the road by 8AM.
It takes about fifteen minutes to get from the parking lot beside our building to the sparsely occupied I-75. A host of idiot early morning drivers, trying to sip their coffee, shave and maybe do that line of coke off the steering wheel, make the journey from our humble exit to Jess' grandmother's an ordeal of great annoyance. Ultimately we arrive somewhere close to 9am, after Jess threw up in a cardboard box.
We sat at Granny's for a while, entrenched in small chat, mostly about health-related issues. Granny makes a point to appoint me in charge of keeping Jess healthy. I really don't need the reminder, but I take it in stride. It's good to know she trusts me enough to look after her grand-daughter. By the time forty-five minutes have rolled by, Jess is ready for work and I am fully awake.
It's 10:03AM and I am four hours early for work. If I had a credit card I'd drive back to Cinci, take a shower, read a comic and drive all the way back before my shift starts. If I had a car with better gas mileage, I wouldn't have to count every penny so meticulously. If I got paid every week, my bank account would have more than five dollars in it.
But instead, here I sit now twenty minutes early, jotting down stray thoughts as they bounce off my brain, wishing I had more time to listen to Death Cab for Cutie and maybe draw a sunrise.

Two Hours Left 10-25-10
I find that journaling at work helps maintain my sanity.
Doug has visitors. He normally does. At least three a day. He's a pretty stand-up guy as far as I can throw him. Polite, curteous, informative. Living up to the boy-scout code in most every feasible aspect. I bet he was an Eagle scout. He wants to be a teacher.
His girlfriend looks like a young Julie Benz. They seem like the All-American Dream kids. They probably had their parents meet each other on the third date.

theartdepartment.org, something to look into 10-26-10
I've been sitting in this Barnes and Nobles' for nearly four hours reading art magazines and dated science fiction news. There's torrential rain pattering against the windows and pavement outside and I keep hoping that Zeus will smite the power to this town like he did to Touch-Down Jesus. Then maybe I won't have to work.
The water bottle (nearly empty) in front of me reads "Pete" below the recyclable symbol. I wonder if all water bottles have names that I haven't bothered to look for before, or if this one is some sort of ambassador or representative of thirst quenchers everywhere. I realize I'm already being wasteful, in that I didn't write on the back of the page previous to this one. Someday a panda is going to sock me in the jaw.
At least I completed a drawing today. Seems I haven't lost the knack just yet. I need to make more of a habit of this drawing thing.
On a final note, "The Virigin Suicides" was a sweet, sad movie.