in the bushes

so i left my belt in my friends room. it's not as interesting as it sounds. I went to get it, and on the way back i saw my boy Charlie in his first floor room. I went over to the window to say hi to him. so i'm standing in the bushes by the window, we're chatting, but it's cold and it's also like 2 in the morning, so i decided to go to bed. I'm on my way out of the bushes when someone walked by, giving me the wierdest look ever, and it hits me. I'm standing in the bushes looking in a first floor window holding my belt in my hands. a perfect "it's not what it looks like."

Danksgiving

So my Thanksgiving was not a typical one this year. It began at about five o’clock at O’Shannon (No, I don’t think they know it should be O’Shannon’s) with this girl Kate. We were working on a presentation in the library but couldn’t concentrate because it was really, really loud, so we went to a bar. (Seriously, you guys should try studying abroad; they have very different ideas about education.)

We finished our project after a couple of rounds just in time for me to sprint home and change before the big school dinner. And get blazed with my roommate. We were supposed to meet up with another girl, Anna, real quick so we smoked on the way, …on the street, …in the middle of public.

We thought about robbing somebody, then, decided not to.

It was raining pretty hard by the time we got to the Hotel de Ville, (it hasn’t rained here in over three months so we were totally unprepared) and we jogged the rest of the way to dinner. Dinner was in a room dubbed “the other cave.” Our student lounge (of sorts) is in the basement of the main building which used to be a catacomb—seriously, the main building used to be a church—and everything is always dusty because the walls are literally crumbling, hence cave (it would be cooler if we called it the ‘batcave’ but nobody here listens to me anymore.)

This room, also cave-like in appearance (thus ‘other cave’), was decorated in the cheesiest of brown and orange decorations but more seriously there was only one bottle of wine for the entire table of six—cheap fuckers.

We tell everyone that the three other seats are taken.

Dinner only improved with the arrival of the first course: Coleslaw, and boy! nothing says Thanksgiving like coleslaw. Just a big plait of coleslaw. yummmm. I took a heaping forkful into my mouth and realized, that I really don’t like coleslaw. My stomach churning I whipped out my hand to grab my glass of wine right in time to witness a piece of the ceiling sploosh into my glass.

I couldn’t believe it either.

After finishing off the glass, I start in on the cat food they tried to pass of as stuffing. That was about when I realized that I had stepped in dog poop earlier that evening and no, that was not the smell of the main course. The realization neither bolstered the consumption confidence of my colleagues nor the recognition that I had actually started taking showers again.

After tearing into a remarkably tasty turkey we were served a piece of piping hot pumpkin pie, with whipped cweam. A few minutes later, after my plait had been emptied, I walked over to the catering table and demanded to know why our table hadn’t been served yet. We all got more pie.

I miss America.

Adventures on the Aqueous Acension

So last night at about 9 i went to this house that had a bar. It was ok. I didn't spend too much time there. I didn't drink there either. When I heard that a couple of my friends who had gone out to dinner were back at the dorm I went back to meet up with them. I was invited by Pilchen to a party at his frat and we were all going to go, so once I got back to the dorm I threw on some warmer clothes and went back out to the jew frat (i got a bid from there). It was a 60s themed party. Jefferson Airplane and Hendrix were playing, the smell of hookah and alcohol permeated the air, and a few too many blacklights illuminated everyones eyes and teeth. In one room there was a cooler with what was called "Electric Kool-Aid," described as being "four times stronger than beer." I took that description with a grain of salt and poured myself a cup and was promptly proven wrong. That shit was strong. Didn't taste strong, but evidently it was. Halfway through my cup, simply turning my head gave me a funny sensation. I got excited at the thought of getting drunk off of delicious electric kool aid.

Earlier that night four of my friends tried something. I don't know how to describe it, but I'll do my best. They locked themselves in a room, turned off all the lights and listened to sound, not music, but sound. The waves of these sounds stimulated certain parts of your brain to simulate the effects of certain drugs. The different sounds had names like "alpha," "beta," "alcohol," "opium," and "cocaine." After a 35 minutes dose they definitely said that they felt a little off, as if something was intoxicating their heads a little bit. We toyed with the idea of smoke a couple bowls later that night and trying it again.

After the alcohol ran out, my friends chris and steve left. We went back to DuPont, it was about 12:30. I had a stomach ache, so I told them that we should chill a little bit before we smoked. They were fine with that. I went to my room and lied down on my bed a little. Next thing I knew the whole world was on my hall. People I wanted to see and people I didn't want to see were everywhere coming in and out of my room saying hello, being friendly, or being ostentatious and obnoxious with their state of intoxication. I needed to be alone. I needed to clear my head and get over this stomach ache. I went outside. I went out the back door and lied down on the cool concrete steps. It felt good. The cold surface on my back soothed my body, and the fresh cool fall air drawn in through deep slow breaths relaxed my stomach and aided digestion. I soon went from feeling crappy to feeling like a million dollars.

I love the fall. It's my favorite season. Every fall Sunday evening I used to go out for a walk to my elementary school to watch the sunset. I loved fall sunday evening sunsets. I think they're the best kind. Something about the brisk air on your face is therapeutic. It clears your head for the upcoming week. Unfortunately, I hadn't been on a sunday evening walk in a couple years now, but being outside nursing my stomach reminded me of how much I enjoyed those cool brisk nights.

So I went inside to Steve's room. They were waiting for me, packing a bowl in Steve's bubbler. "I feel like a million dollars" I said. "Let's go out and smoke this, but let's not come back inside, lets stay outside." Sure it was cold, but I wanted the fresh air so badly. Steve and Chris were down. Steve loves being outside. So we went down to the dock nearby and smoked a bowl. Afterwards, we lied down on the dock and looked up at the sky and the stars and the trees. This brought back other memories. The first time I got high, I was with my friend on his bed and we were looking out the window at this tree and describing all the things we saw in it. He swore he saw Shrek in that tree. Well now we were seeing dragons and horses and FROGS. Frogs were everywhere. Everywhere we looked, its like out brain made it out to be a frog somehow.

I think I remember Steve saying something like "dude, we could be on the lake now, I should've brought my oars." One thing led to another and we were trekking back up the hill to DuPont to get oars and snacks. We were going on the lake. I was so excited.

We returned ready for an adventure. We put the raft on the water, got in it and rowed to the middle of the lake. It was then that I was convinced that I needed to get high and have more adventures. Being on the lake surrounded by water and trees below a sky peppered with stars was out of this world. It was so crazy playing with your vision. Like...steam was rising from the lake. It created a pretty thick mist just over the surface of it, so it looked like we were flying across the clouds. Then we thought we were on some like...futuristic theatrical stage. It was nuts. We had so much fun. We sparked a J and just chilled, talking about how much we've changed since orientation and shit. We were out there for at least an hour or so, but it felt like so much longer. It was amazing. I highly recommend it.

When we got back we watched planet earth and fell asleep one by one.

“Hey mime, you suck!”

So there are a few street performers here in Aix-en-Provence, most of them are just gypsies but some are real people.

There is one in particular, whom I should tell y’all about before getting to the story. This guy is a bit of a local celebrity. He is the laziest street ‘performer’ ever. EVER.

In my first week here I saw this guy preparing for a day of performing and was pretty excited. He had donned the traditional street performer garb, everything about him was white—he had on a white sheet outfit, painted his face white, etc. I assumed he was one of those robot guys who get you to shake their hands, capture you and only let go when you give them more money, but I never saw him actually do anything.

I have STILL never seen him actually do anything. I have seen him sitting on his box, dressed all in white for the entire day and not do a thing, except maybe have a cigarette or sometimes yell at people as they past, berating them for not giving him their money. What. The. Fuck? I’m fine with people doing what they want, but just because some hobo puts on a pillowcase does not mean I should have to give him some change. Wearing white is not a skill.

In fact, I feel like I’m more likely to give money to a regular looking beggar. Usually when you pass a poor person you feel sympathy or even pity, but with this guy I’m just really confused.

Well now that I’ve set the stage of Aix being the strangest street performer city in the world I can tell you my story.

The other day I was procrastinating by strolling around the city. I was enjoying a pleasant walk when I got a call from my buddy Zach.
“Hey man where are you?”
“Over by the Cathedral, why?”
“Good, get down to the Hotel de Ville right now.”
“What?”
“Now.”
“Okay,” I began to jog, “What’s up?”
“A Clown and a Mime are fighting.”

I began to sprint.

On my way Zach filled me in on what had been happening. Apparently a clown and mime had set up on opposite sides of one of the main squares and were competing for attention of the passersby. As the day progressed the competition had begun to become more and more heated. That was when Zach stumbled upon the scene.

He was just in time to see the mime trap the clown in a box and boy was the clown pissed. For the next several minutes the clown and mime continued their theatrical skirmish much to the amusement of the huge crowd that had gathered but then things took a turn for the worse.

Luckily that was the exact moment I ran into the square. The clown and mime were in the middle of what can only be described as a sarcastic dance-off when the clown suddenly squirted the mime in the face with his flower.

The mime jerked backward rubbing his eyes, his face makeup running down his chin. After a moment of indignation the mime yelled some French obscenity, strode forward and ripped the clown’s red nose off his face. That is when the clown kicked the mime with his outrageously large shoe. The mime went down hard. As he was falling his hand shot forward and grabbed the clown’s collar tearing it off the rest of his clown suit.

I have never seen a clown so angry; a very French, pissed of clown, complete with ridiculously thin moustache. The angry clown then signaled over to the other end of the square and the whole crowd turned in time to see about eight other clowns pile out of this really tiny European car. They bolted across the square and begin beating the shit out of the fallen mime.

Much to my dismay, the goofy European police siren began in the distance. As soon as they heard that, the clowns all dropped their improvised weapons and bolted back into the car skidding down the street.

The entire crowd was completely silent.

Don’t you guys wish you were in France?

reflections: words of wisdom from your favorite, the cush

in german, all vouls have capital letters... that's so unnecessary.

how you know a girl likes you: she gets hives after hooking up with you... twice... and still wants to hang (and make) out

60% of students at my school marry other students at my school. thats ABSURD. and if 10% of people really are gay (i duno if that stat is actually true) that means i only have a 30% chance of marrying someone who went to a different school. plus, my friend told me 10% of people marry their highschool sweetheart. that means i have a 20% chance or marrying someone i havn't gone to school with.... WHAT THE SHIT?

the ending of the departed blows my mind every time i see it. fuck yes, scorsese, fuck yes.

my highschool alma mater is offering a chili lunch the day after thanksgiving. so i could either a) go to my old highschool for an awkward lunch with other alums that i may or may not know, where i eat pretty decent chili, OR, b) eat what is universally aknowledged by americans as the BEST lunch ever. the post thanksgiving, turkey stuffing and gravy sandwhich. good job GDS.

Fuck You Economy!

Okay, the dollar to euro exchange rate is now 1 to 0,6814.

FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

Get it together America, all us studying abroad are getting seriously shafted. Put out the fire, stop giving out mortgages willy-nilly, maybe spend less on the army or something. But for the love of God, I need to eat something besides fruit.

So Amsterdam…

I really don’t know what to say other than it was awesome, and the five days was four days too many. Seriously, I’m at a loss for words and totally burned out.

But I will tell you this: If you ever make it to Amsterdam do not, under any circumstances stay at the Whiite Tulip (Yes that’s how it’s spelled) hostel in the Red Light District. It was dirty, it was dingy, it was creepy, it was loud (it was over an Irish bar) and I think that Oscar the Grouch was staying in the room next door. It was bad, but then I got stoned so everything was okay; until one of the girls caught the owner going through our bags. Seriously just avoid.

I am also waiting to hear some of y'all’s (I go to school with a ton of southerners) Halloween stories. I feel like I totally missed the holiday this year. My Halloween consisted over getting really stoned wandering about Amsterdam “looking for Halloween” finding the Dungeon Ride (like a haunted house type of thing), having the shit creeped out of us by some dude in a costume outside and being told that a private party was going on which we could pay 40 euros to get into—not the 6 I was planning to spend on a ‘haunted tour.’ I suggested the next best thing—going to the torture museum—and got quickly shot down. That was the extent of—what in America is—a great holiday.

The Red Light District was a freak-show all of its own. I remember walking into it during my first twenty minutes in the city on the first night trying to find the hostel and being greeting by a sketchy guy who came up to me and said, “Hello, welcome to Amsterdam,” and then as I nodded and kept walking and he hisses at me, “The best coke. The best ecstasy.” That same drug dealer accosted me several times during the trip, it was REALLY creepy. The place is pretty crazy.

I’ll try to write more as I remember it latter on, but seriously guys, what’s new?

add these to your list of stupid ideas

first i'd like to apologize to the readers because we've kept you waiting for a while. i've been busy recently, and i lost track of my priorities, but i'm back, and i've got some stories for you. here's the beginning...

if you're looking for some stupid ideas, i've got some for you. i may also come up with some not stupid ideas... you know, thinks you should avoid doing if you wanna be a total moron. they're based on a party i was at last night.

1) having your beer pong table be a door. i mean seriously, what could be dummer. first off, a standard pong table is 8 feet, whereas a standard door is generally 80 or 84 inches (unless you're in australia, where it is 8 feet). but that's not even the biggest problem. a door has fucking panels. its uneven! don't do that! then, when more people show up, and you go to play flip cup, everyone gets the shaft. just don't fucking do it.

2) putting a keg at the end of a long skinny kitchen. it's really a wonderful thing when the entire party wants beer, but only 4 people can fit in the room where the beer is. i love traffic jams.

3) playing the song "shout" (you know, that one from animal house?) when theres 200 people in the living room of your old, termite infested, frat house. every single one of those people is going to be jumping up and down in unison. they had to end the party because the floor started caving in. sweet.

4) kicking everyone out of your house while the ONLY sheriff in town is driving by. good job.

to make up for it, here's a good idea inspired by last night... a keg of honey brown. i'm having trouble coming up with something i'd rather see at a party here.