A Friday Night for Myself and Others

One of the reasons I feel weird about being the center of attention for partying is that I'm apparently meant to make decisions for our own fun.  I don't like making the decisions and in any case, most of them get ignored if they don't make people happy. 
Anyway, so we were at our favorite restaurant, and we were thinking of moving on to somewhere else.  But I'm not much of a partier, so I didn't know where to go.  Claire was being particularly annoying about it.  Finally, Jenny stepped in and saved the day and was nice enough to suggest a particular place. 
When we got there, Ruth and I used the bathroom, and we both got a drink from the bar.  We were perfectly happy to just talk to each other.  Ruth was leaving for a while, and I know that I'm going to miss her dearly.  It was our last night together. 
Two men approached our group.  Neither of them were particularly attractive.  The first guy, who has a beard, was a jerk.  When I talked to him about my current employment situation, he was totally judgemental and unkind.  And then he also berated a recent decision I had made.  Part of wished I could explain my decision, but how to even begin?  All of my decisions reach back into my personal history; even deciding where the genesis of a decision came from is hard to decide.  I could have explained about all the reasons, but it would be a long story, and he had already demonstrated a lack of care for my personal feelings.  No thanks.  No way was I going home with this guy.
His friend seemed sweet enough, though a bit naive.  I liked him alright.  If he didn't have such a crap friend, I might have been willing to give him more of a chance.
They were both in finance, which later on made Ruth just cringe and complain.  "Ack!  Finance.  So boring."  I had to concur.  What could girls like Ruth and I have in common with someone like that? 
Jenny and Claire were both really liking these guys for reasons I never quite figured out.  The guys bought us cheap beer, which was totally crap. 
As I was standing there, finishing the beer up, so man at the bar told me I could have a drink that had been left there next to him.  He felt the need to tell me no one had taken it and that it wasn't drugged, which made me disinterested. 
Eventually, Ruth and decided to go home, and off we went, leaving Claire and Jenny.  We walked down the street, Ruth leading the way, as I wasn't totally sure I knew where we were going.  Ruth wanted to get some McDonald's before we went back home, and I reluctantly agreed.  The only time I seem to eat McDonald's is when I am with Ruth, who seems to prefer it as "drunk food." 
This time, ordering wasn't nearly as painful.  Ruth got herself some burger and fries and a massive drink, and we trooped back home.  We went to sit in the lounge.  Ruth didn't want to wake Hayley, her roommate, up, and we ate out there. 
There was a Norwegian girl sitting there when we came in, which surprised me because we usually are left alone there that late on Friday nights.  She talked to us about how much she hated old women, which actually sort of bothered me.  There was nothing about this young woman that I found all that impressive, and why she felt the need to hate on old women and things about them I don't generally find that terrible, really confuses me.  Ruth and I exchanged some of our patented looks. 
Eventually, we went our separate ways to go to bed.  It was around three in the morning before I finally went to bed.
I got about around nine fifteen the next morning, and I was surprisingly okay.  In fact, I felt almost great.   The only thing that wasn't so good was that I was possibly still drunk.  When I first woke up, I still had that swimming feeling that comes with being drunk. 
I had breakfast with Hayley and Ruth.  I couldn't seem to stomach my omelet, so I gave up on it.  Ruth informed me of what had happened to Claire and Jenny the rest of the night.  Apparently, Claire and Jenny went to another bar, and Jane tried to buy pot from someone.  Claire would not allow this to happen and dragged Jenny home.  Apparently Jenny refused to talk to Claire the rest of the way home.  They got home sometime between five and six. 
(Even later on, Jane would claim that she didn't remember any of this, though Claire certainly did.  She also was so drunk that she didn't get up all Saturday.) 
I had to work Saturday.  I usually don't, but as I was walking to work, I was struck by how nice of a day it was shaping up to be.  I walked down the street, admiring the sunshine and the warmth and the air, which felt strangely clear and fresh and almost as if it had never been used before.  It was relatively quiet, but there were people around, already out enjoying the day like I was. 
I ended up at work way earlier than necessary.  It took me a while to figure out where I needed to go, but once I did, seeing my coworker wasn't around, I sat down and waited for him.  As I sat there, being awkward, two other people at the table next to me were setting up.  A few even talked to me, saying nice things. 
One of the nice people was named Craig.  He came over to talk to me.  He said he knew my coworker, that he had seen him the night before.  "He had an empty bottle of wine." 
This particular coworker doesn't strike me as the kind to drink wine, but it sort of put an interesting image in my mind.  Sounded like he a Friday night similar to mine. 
Anyway, that's why he was late. 

Spending the Day Doing What I Didn't

Erin, Nori and I were outside, dancing and fooling around.  Erin and Nori were taking pictures of the night.  I had my camera with me, but I didn't feel like getting it out. 
I was too busy dancing.  I dropped my shoulders low, looking down at the ground.  I put my arms out, slightly above my head, making it look like I was pushing walls away that were closing in on me.  Then I moved my legs so that one foot was in front of the other.  When one leg would move, I'd wobble just a little bit.  I did this for a while. 
I turned around.  Both Nori and Erin were staring at me.  "What was that?" Nori asked. 
I really couldn't tell her. 
They both kept taking pictures, including some of me.  "You always make your pictures look nice," Erin scoffed.  So sue me. 

"Post them immediately!" Erin commanded.  Nori told her that she had to go down to Ann Arbor the next day to see Frontier Ruckus, this band I saw a few years back.  I would like to go myself, but more because I took a class with their drummer and admired how smart he was.  Mark later tipped me off that he was in the same band I had liked.  I suspect Ryan, the drummer, wouldn't even remember me, because why would you remember some girl from a class a year ago, even if she was one of the smartest and talkative kids in the class?
While we were dancing and taking pictures, a janitor came out and looked at us weirdly.
"We're not doing anything wrong," Erin said to her as way of explanation.  And we weren't, though she skittered around us oddly. 
"You would think she was used to drunks," I mentioned to Nori, even though we weren't.  Usually when I've had a lot I feel like I'm swimming, but here I just felt like I did when I wake up from an unrestful sleep: tired and wishing for something better. 
"We should try to break into Morrill Hall!" Erin exclaimed.

There's a long story here.  Morrill is where the English department is located, and it has become a tradition for English students to "break in."  By break in, I mean go through the often-unlocked front door or climb up the fire ladder.  Almost ever creative writing kid I know has written a creative nonfiction piece about it.
I always had this weird fantasy of camping out in an office I had the key into.  In this fantasy, there was a particular young man with me.  We'd share a sleeping bag, and get up right before the sun, and watch it rise from the roof, admiring campus at dawn.  This never happened, for a wide variety of reasons. 
In the meantime, I had spent the day doing what I didn't get done when I was actually in school.  I went for a swim with friends.  I went to a co-op party.  I have a long lunch without regarding the time.  I had an evening of being silly with friends, regardless of the rules or time.  Breaking into Morrill Hall, another thing I never got around to doing, seemed right somehow. 
We drove over there, we parked in the nearby ramp.  Several cars passed us.  We stood outside the front door.  A cop car drove by.  Something about it dampened by mood. 
Erin couldn't get the door open. 
"If that door's not open, the rest of them aren't either," she said.  "Let's go home."