Finding Something in Nothing

So, as with many weekends before it, this past weekend was spent living the life of a depraved college student. Friday night was spent hanging out with some friends at an apartment before venturing down to the world of expensive drinks and cheap women; aka, downtown Burlington. One of the friends I was with was freshly pumped up by the book I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max. If you've never heard of him, he's this giant prick of human being who does insane things involving alcohol and sex (one involves the other almost exclusively) and then writes about it to tell the world. The crazy thing is he may also be a genius, but that's for another post.

So my buddy and I get downtown, both full of beer and Jager. As it turns out, my buddy had apparently also been taking shots of bravado when I wasn't looking. He was in full on asshole/I'm-cool-enough-to-do-whatever-I-want mode. Friday night, for whatever reason, I was more amused by this than anything. I may have even egged him on, I don't know. The result was that we went from bar to line to bar to line pissing people off. Multiple fights were narrowly avoided and at the end of the night we were even kicked out of a cab. That last one was actually my fault. Just for a moment I'd like to focus on that little piece of factual recollection. Do you know how hard it is to get kicked out of a cab in a college town? Pretty darn, one would think. These people literally deal with drunken retards as a profession. Yet all it took for us was me informing - not even name calling because it was an undeniable fact - one of (I think only one) the girls sharing the taxi with us that she was a bitch. Seconds later we're on the sidewalk watching our taxi drive off. What led up to that is kind of a long story. Actually, it all occurred in about 1.5 city blocks, but it still seems like too much to write here. Anyway, big freaking deal, there happened to be another taxi 9 seconds away. Still, I'm a little impressed the driver cost himself some money by kicking us out over something so trivial.


Anyway, we did manage to get back home. When we did another argument which nearly led to a fight erupted due to drunkenness. That was resolved somewhat peacefully and we all went to bed shortly thereafter. The next morning, after the obligatory trip to Henry's Diner to make our lives right again, I played some Halo 3. That's an understatement. Me and my buddy actually played the damn game for approximately 6 or 7 hours straight. Then dinner interrupted, followed by some beers in front of the TV before doing whatever it was we were going to do. What we were going to do, it turns out, was sit in front of that TV all night and barely move. I did leave once to check out the worst keg party ever (guy to girl ratio? 17:1), but that was very brief. I mean very brief like under 10 minutes round trip. After a whole lot of TV and uh...just a little Halo 3, it was bedtime again. Then came the day of rest.

It was Sunday. It was fall. That means football. So we went to the store to by stuff to make nachos (and many, many cups of coffee) and sat in front of the TV to watch a couple of games that none of us cared about in any way at all. After doing that all day we rented a movie to prolong our couch time and watched it blissfully. An important thing to note here though: on the way to get the movie, we ended up behind what most be the only Ferrari F430 in Vermont. It was so awesome that even my ears got hard.

So now that I've recounted the basic step by step of my weekend, you might be wondering why I bothered. Well, because the truth is that sitting on the couch watching a game I didn't care about on Sunday, it occurred to me that maybe I was wasting my time. Maybe I should have been spending my time doing something productive. But then somewhere between our 4th trip to the grocery store and my 6th cup of coffee I was laughing my ass off with my buddies, having a great time and I realized that even though I didn't appear to do much on the surface, I had a great weekend. I mean it wasn't epic or unforgettable, it was pretty much a perfectly standard weekend in my life. But that realization lead me to another. My life isn't perfect or glamorous, but I still love it. I still aspire to be better than I am and I don't want to stay here doing the same thing indefinitely, but it's nice to realize that you're happy where you are right now, regardless of where you might be a year from now. Or two years, or 5, or 10. And if I can say that, I guess this weekend wasn't wasted at all.