Stitch on 4/9/2007 at 03:10
STITCHTAKE: DAY FOUR (Sunday)
Sunday morning dawned slow and creeping, a toxic glow that inched forward watt by watt. I can attest to this as Shug, Scots, and I were still awake.
While passing through Union Square after leaving Ruby Skye for the second time that night we encountered a homeless woman with a rakish hat scurrying through some bushes, and helping her out of them resulted in quite the conversation. She was clearly mentally unwell to at least some degree, but she also spoke intelligently and carried a sharp awareness of what was going on. We were unable to offer her what she really wanted--a hotel room in which to get a good night's sleep--but I hope having three guys willing to listen for fifteen minutes provided at least some degree of comfort. I think I gave her a five dollar bill, and then we wished her the best and moved on, remarkably more sober.
Or, as I phrased it, "That really drove my boner into the ground."
We returned to my hotel room and drank what little remained of the alcohol, the change in location and re-introduction of liquor reigniting out spirits somewhat. Shug planted himself on the bed, and Scots and I grabbed flanking chairs, positions from which we would not move over the course of the next four hours.
I'm not sure what point it was that we realized we were pulling an all nighter. I needed sleep, but I would be boarding a plane in ten hours and soon wouldn't even be on the same continent as these guys. There's a thing called priorities. We were the only three awake people in the world at this ungodly hour and the moment was ours.
There's really no way I could possibly do justice to our epic conversation, but a quick summary is deserved. The topic mostly centered on frank forum talk, although we also discussed the events of the weekend and assessed the various plot lines, character developments, and mini-dramas that had transpired. Shug directed discourse with calm authority, occasionally rewinding and addressing a topic if he felt we had slipped too far off track. It wasn't all sober candor, though, as collaborative joke escalation frequently caused laughter loud enough to cause unspoken concern that we might wake my neighbors.
Night turned into dawn, dawn turned into morning, and morning turned into thoughts of breakfast. I decided I didn't want to worry about checking out later, so I packed up my clothes and decided not to change out of my club outfit from the night before. There's a certain strange power in morning after dress clothes, when the tie is askew and the hangover is starting to take fierce hold.
I found a complimentary romance novel the hotel had left as some part of a welcome pack for me, and Scots, Shug, and I had fun reciting the more melodramatic passages in our best deep-baritoned movie announcer voice, for we had been drinking and shouting for three days straight and that was the only voice we had left.
Fifteen minutes later I checked out--me and two other guys doing what must have appeared to be the walk of shame--and we picked up David and began to head up in to general vicinity of the Starrfalls' Motel 6, which turned out to be a surprisingly shady neighborhood when seen through the harsh light of sobriety. We passed a long line of homeless people waiting for some kind of breakfast service, and none of them looked like they had spent an evening indoors since there was a Democrat in the White House.
It was at around this point that the night began to catch up and I started to fade. We grabbed the Starrfalls, and I think one of us tried to call Fahfrd but honestly we weren't in any state to accomplish anything new. Scots and I had a spontaneous epic throat clear-off, each of us escalating with increasingly juicy throat clearings until we both synonymously climaxed with guttural orgasmic glee, at which point a complete stranger passed by and remarked, "Now the two of you are starting to turn
me on."
Breakfast was very giggly, I seem to recall. The brilliant idea of wearing my dress clothes wasn't maturing well as I began to sweat through my itchy dress shirt and vest. Scots ran off for the bathroom at one point and returned with a ridiculous grin on his face. Shug consumed everything in sight, remarking, "I don't know what you guys are on about 'cause I'm fuckin' eating over here."
I ate, sweated, and faded.
After breakfast we parted from Dave and the Starrfalls, a moment both sad for what was ending but satisfying for what had happened. I contemplated calling Fahrfd to see if he wanted to kill some time before I needed to catch my plane, but I recognized I was really in no state to walk around and look at things, so instead I walked back to the Aussie's hotel and remarked that I was going to destroy the next restroom I saw.
And on that topic, oh god. Between me, Scots, and Shug, I pity whatever maid drew the short straw and had to clean the bathroom that day. There was much high-fiving and joking that this was the finest collaborative effort a Scotsman, an American, and an Aussie have ever achieved. I suggested we open the main room door to funnel the smell directly into the hallway, but cooler heads prevailed.
So we giggled for several hours. Sleep deprivation and three days of drinking were definitely taking their toll and dick jokes had escalated, if the word is even appropriate, to just graphic vulgarity. We were reduced at one point to tears by the word "anilingus." I rolled on the floor and laughed; not just for the internet anymore.
After a nice bit of semi-serious conversation between Scots and I (Shug slept), it was time for me to climb aboard BART and out of this surreal dreamlike state of cocks and buttsex. We said our goodbyes, none of which could possibly do justice to all that had transpired, and I left.
Instantly snapping out of such a giddy, sophomoric state isn't easy, and I found myself making dick jokes to myself at the airport. I almost pumped my fist in the air and shouted, "Yeah, we're doin' it!" when the TSA guy gave me clearance. I'm not kidding, I avoided Gitmo by the thinnest shred of common sense.
The flight was actually a bit nightmarish, as I had a connecting flight and my first plane got delayed to the point that I thought I was going to be crashing for the night on a row of plastic chairs in Minneapolis International. Thankfully, all of Minneapolis was running behind--a statement that works on multiple levels--and I managed to catch my ride home.
I sat by myself in the half-empty plane home and watched the churning fog engulf the night sky just outside my window as the occasional knife of lightning snapped on the horizon, and I couldn't help but smile as I replayed the weekend's highlights in my head. Epic didn't even begin to describe the events that transpired, the stripes earned, and the bonds forged. It went beyond the mere meeting of distant internet people for the weekend, as genuine friendships were made, the stories therein so colossal that four days seemed inadequate to contain them. It was too much too absorb, so I just sat there with a big, stupid grin on my face as the kaleidoscope of memories washed over me.
San Francisco TTLG 2K7. We did it.
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