where did these beads come from?

ms k. stopped over around 7:30am on st. patrick's day. i told her 7:30, assuming that she'd be late as per usual. i figured i'd see her around 8. needless to say i was surprised when i stepped out of the shower and my phone was ringing. it was her, she was at my door. so i got ready and she watched tv and yelled at me from the other room.

it was nice and warm this year, no snow, like our past few st. p's days so that was nice. we headed downtown to fill up on a big breakfast before we began drinking. we decided to start our day at the pub and see where things went from there. we found seats at the bar right next to the juke box, and i decided it was best to drop my five in right away knowing that was my only chance of hearing my songs sometime that day. we both ordered a beer and sat and talked, and people watched. the bar was packed at 9:45am and we ended up finding the last two seats in the place. ms. k couldn't take her eyes off the ryan cabrera look-alike at the other end of the bar. we sat and watched him go from table to table, it appeared that he knew everyone in the bar. at one point i stood up to go to the restroom and found him making out with a random girl behind me. while in the restroom i realized that my tongue was bleeding, thanks to biting it earlier when i was chewing gum. i filled ms. k in upon my return.

me: i spit when i was in the bathroom peeing and i saw blood.
ms. k: what?! you're peeing blood? we need to go.
me: no, i spit blood. i bit my tongue.
ms. k: oh, well then we can keep drinking.

we scored some beads form the bartender and then ordered a pitcher of green beer. the thought of all that food coloring icked me out, but i just tried not to think about it as i drank it down. after about three hours of so my songs finally came on. the one bartender started rawking out to my first choice, mr. brightside. what can i say, i'm addicted to that song. i followed that up with a couple ryan adams songs and i think that's when he fell in love with me. well, that's what we'll tell our grandchildren years from now anyway. he looked at me and asked if i played ryan adams too. i said yup, and he announced that i had excellent taste in music. he walked over to us and introduced himself. we weren't sure if he said his name was aaron or eric, so we spent the remainder of the day calling him aaron...k. we talked about our mutual love for ryan and he informed me that he was touring again and that he had three cds coming out this spring. as we stood there talking the evil juke box began skipping songs. we told him we had to wait three hours to hear our stuff, including the free song i won with my whack-a-mole like ninja skills. he walked around the corner and came back with two dollars, apologizing and said they called someone out to look at it. then he made his way to the juke box and put some money in and played some more killers and ryan adams to make it up to me. we love aaron...k. we then got him to give us a t shirt, after he made us promise to hide it so he wouldn't get in trouble. then his shift came to an end and we waved our goodbyes. we realized that we were raging drunks when the bartenders changed shifts and we were still there drinking.

at one point i looked over and saw nikki's favorite bartender who let us look at his abs once upon a time, so i had to text her to tell her. then G's cush meghan, from the other bar, walked by us. i texted G to tell her that her girlfriend was a slut and was cheating on her. she was okay with it until i told her that it was another girl, then she got pissed. she tried to get me to walk up to her and tell her she said hi, but i passed.

ms. k: can we get another? (handing bartender our empty pitcher marked coors light.
bartender: sure.
ms. k: it's coors light.
bartender: (smiling)
ms. k: but i guess you knew that since it's written all over the pitcher.
me: i wasn't gonna say it, for once i decided to keep my smart-ass mouth shut.

i motioned for ryan cabrera to come over to us and then pointed at ms. k. he looked at me like he was confused. so i did it again. he hopped off his stool and stumbled his way over to us. ms. k told him he looked like ryan and that she wanted to get her picture taken with him. he claimed to be too cool to know who we were talking about but agreed to pose anyway. then he stood there for a few seconds and we smiled and said thanks and sent him on his way. that's when this crazy insane chick made her way up to the bar and talked to ms. k for like an hour. we heard about her drug habit, life on welfare, her two kids, with two different dads, and the third guy she was about to marry, how she was adopted, and several other things that i zoned out on. the crazies sure love us. i texted ms. k and told her to make crazy go away. at this point we came to the conclusion that we were completely loaded. i think it hit us when we both looked down and saw that we had a new set of beads on and neither one of us had any idea where they came from. granted we weren't as drunk as the insane blonde girl who was climbing on the bar and reaching across to the bartender, trying to undress him. but all the same, we thought it was best to stop drinking and track down some lunch.

i suggested walking up the street to see if josh was working. ms. k said she was up for it so we headed down the block. once i told her what part of town it was in she told me it was a good thirty minute walk and that maybe we should pass. i thought it was closer than it was, so we just gave up and headed back the other way. fifteen minutes and several blocks later, we ended up right next door to where we started. we're awesome. so we order some nachos and water and sat there in our drunken fog hoping to sober up. it never really happened. i suggest calling ms. b to see if she wanted to meet up with us after work. she said that she was in, but we were to stay where we were and she would come get us since we were drunk. she we made our way back to the car and decided to take a nap while we were waiting out the hour. ms. k threw her keys into the back because she was worried about getting in trouble form dunk driving. i was sad because i wanted to hear some music. she fell asleep and i just sat there feeling too odd about sleeping in a parking lot in the middle of the day.

cut to a knock on the window and me realizing that i was sound asleep. hehe. ms. b found us and was laughing at our sad sight. she had tried to call me three times and i never answered the phone. so we loaded into her car and headed off for some food. we filled her in on our day and she kept laughing at us. we stumbled our way into the restaurant, still wearing all our beads and flashing pins, and ordered a ton of food. rick was working so i was glad that i could make a bang up impression on him again. me, half asleep, half sober, wearing all my beads and my "i love ms. b" post-it note that she stuck to me when we sat down. two of her friends happened to be there as well drinking and they made their way over to say hi for a bit. my post-it note was a big hit.

after dinner ms. b took us back to the car and we said our goodbyes. ms. k then dropped me off and i wasn't quite sure if i was sober yet or not. i was worn out, that much i knew. i watched some will & grace, and then took an hour nap. i woke up to find empire records on tv. that made me smile, we had a great day together and then i ended up watching one of the movies that reminds me a lot of her. i think it's just because we spent one summer watching it close to one hundred times. i couldn't have asked for a better day. we talked about a lot of stuff and it just felt good for us to finally clear a lot of things up. and i was just happy that i could finally be myself around someone who has meant the world to me for over twenty years.

i felt happy. and i felt loved. it doesn't get much better than that.