For Mayleenda and Matty

Melinda has had the distinct displeasure of having been stuck with me since we were eight years old.  For anyone thinking, "Aw, that's so cute,"  you might want to hold that thought.  The story goes like this.  Once upon a time in the third grade, Melinda and I were at a kids' church function coloring a banner that said, "Jesus Loves Me," and in typical Melinda fashion, she was in her own little artsy crafty world...which basically means she was hogging the markers and didn't really care how badly I needed the blue one.  So, in typical Maggi fashion, I took my necklace, a large plastic heart charm filled with glitter and water, and I said, "If you don't give me that marker, I'm going to turn you into a frog.  Don't MAKE me say the magic word!"  Needless to say, I got the blue marker.  But what I got that day extends far beyond the realm of Crayola because, that day, I also got a best friend who has stuck by me through thick and thin, loved me despite my many flaws and frog threats (and don't think that doesn't STILL come up from time to time), someone who has laughed with me, laughed AT me, cried with me, gotten into LOTS of trouble with me, forgiven me when I probably didn't deserve it, given it to me straight when I did deserve it (and always followed with, "Hey, I'm just sayin'...), someone who has always been there when I needed her, and who I know always will be.  Matty, you're a very lucky guy because I know she'll always be there for you, too--that's just who Melinda is.  She'll probably never get around to sharing her markers though, so these are for you.

I love you both long time, and I wish you guys a lifetime of happiness.  To Matt and Melinda!  Cheers!

The Science of the JBFCs

I've embraced the fact that I am currently of an age where the months of August through November each year are totally dedicated to wedding crazies. And I love it. I love all the parties, throwing showers and making tons of food and decorations and going overboard, getting to see everyone, getting all dressed up, the whole nine yards. Ric, on the other hand, thinks I've lost my mind and would just as soon not speak to me until December for fear of, "What's for dinner?" being answered with, "Did I tell you I'm going to host 12 bridal showers, a birthday party, and a bat mitzvah for my friend's Jewish dog?" I just thrive on the chaos of it all.

This past weekend was a fantastic example of such chaos. I rode up to the ATL with Mandy, so that pretty much speaks for itself. For starters, we were late. In order to fully understand the dynamics working in my group of friends, I'm just going to start putting things into the format of scientific theories I've developed, and believe me, there's method to this. For example, I rode up with Mandy, and we were late. This is called the Maggi/Mandy Uncertainty Principle--basically, when two people, namely Maggi and Mandy, are moving at a certain velocity toward a specific destination, there is no certainty in knowing firstly when we will arrive at said destination or secondly, where the hell we actually are. Our road trips are usually something like this:

So we get to the party...sort of. Actually, we get to the apartment complex, walk to the wrong building, realize we're in the wrong building, walk to the next building, go to the wrong floor, knock on the wrong door, realize we're knocking on the wrong door and haul ass away from said door before we look like idiots to anyone witnessing this spectacle other than The Almighty, who already knows we're idiots, and finally make it to the right door. I'd love to concoct some explanation of this one in science terms, but the truth is that we're just idiots, and there's no accounting for that.

At any rate, we're at the party, and things are going pretty typically for a lingerie shower/bachelorette party--booze, bras, and games, but you know it can't stay that tame the whole night because it's Mel's bachelorette party, and when you combine that woman and her whole entourage of awesomeness, there's bound to be chaos. I'm calling this The Melinda-Entropy Correlation. The First Law of the Melinda-Entropy Correlation states that, when in the company of Melinda, disorder will constantly increase. The party bus shows up, and there goes a herd of drunk women in cocktail dresses and heels (plus Patrick, poor guy) lugging assorted beverages, bottles of booze, cups, ice, penis straws, purses, cigarettes, whips, chains, and band-aids through the parking lot. Not to the bus though. Nope, we can't find the bus, so we roam around, we stand there staring at each other, we do some more traipsing, and finally someone comes to corral the masses in the correct direction.

The whole experience of the bus would've been a blast had we banned stilettos--stumbling people plus heels plus booze equals impaled feet. This is where the Second Law of the Melinda-Entropy Correlation comes in. The Second Law states that, when the forces of Marlene and Melinda collide in a closed system (say, a party bus), someone WILL wind up wearing a beverage or ten, and MANY will accumulate injuries.

Let's just say it shall suffice to conclude that Marlene owes Mandy a foot and Melinda a dry cleaning, but hey, shiz happens. Aside from all of us flailing drunkards wreaking havoc in heels though, I seriously wouldn't have minded just riding around on the bus the whole night because it was a lot of fun!

Onward to the drag show. I have to pee, so I head straight for the bathroom, where I find a completely beer-soaked Melinda fuming about the Second Law of the Melinda-Entropy Correlation. It is of relevance that you know that the door to the women's bathroom at this place didn't close. You need to know this in order to understand the Third Law of the Melinda-Entropy Correlation: there is a direct inverse relationship between Melinda's alcohol consumption and modesty, therefore, the more booze, the less "give a damn" she has about peeing with the stall door AND the bathroom door open to everyone at the bar, so she just does this:

This is also why she didn't seem to care about flashing her goodies to everyone while I tried to detangle the battery pack of her "Bachelorette" sash from her panties. Most importantly, it's usually hilarious and one of many reasons why I adore her.

At this point, mamacita needs a smoke, so I head to the bar, point at a man with my penis straw and tell him mine is bigger than his, which distracts him long enough for me to get in front of him in line, get a rum and coke, then head out back for nicotine and run into Mandy and Denise. Denise had been misdirected to the bathroom, wound up in the mens room, decided even at a gay bar that perhaps she should pee with those who have the same parts as herself, wound up in the upstairs women's bathroom, encountered a delightfully drunk Marlene who proceeded to tell her she's always loved her since the moment she met her because she had her at hello or some Jerry Maguire sentiment like that, and so Denise decided she'd rather just pee in her shoes than deal with estrogen because homey don't play dat, and back down the stairs she came to chill with us until I informed her that there was another bathroom downstairs. Back to the bathroom we go, and we wind up in line behind some frisky groping lesbians. By this point, Denise has to pee, Mandy has to pee, and I have to pee again. Somehow this led to me flashing the lesbians so they'd go faster, and Mandy, Denise, and I went into the stall together to save some time (and give the line behind us something to cheer about).  Mandy took this as an opportunity to torture me while I was helpless and vulnerable...

while Denise tried to find logic in why one can't pee with Mandy accompanying without a mooning taking place. I smack her ass to get it out of my friggin' face (Mandy's not Denise's; Denise isn't evil), the line outside cheers again, and we finally make our way out of the bathroom, light and fluffy, to discover that the drag show has started and Marlene is dancing with a drag queen. This seriously has GOT to be one of the FUNNIEST things I have EVER seen. It's also an anomaly in my research because there's no way in hell I could've ever predicted Marlene would be gettin' down with her bad self grinding with a drag queen!

It is during this performance that I first realize that Caitlin is shnockered--the realization hits me right about the same time her bootay hits the floor. This brings up the next discovery I made over the weekend, Caitlin's Law of Universal Gravitation. Basically, every particle in Caitlin's being attracts Caitlin to the floor with a force that is directly proportional to the amount of alcohol she has consumed. So by this law, when Caitlin had not had that much yet to drink, she only tripped. At the drag show, the booze was up, so Caitlin was down, but this time with a little more force. By the time we got back on the bus, drank some more, then arrived at Cosmo Lava, Caitlin's boozacy was to a degree strong enough to not only pull her to the ground but to accomplish this:

Yes, that's her hair extension in the background, and no, Caitlin doesn't have a ridiculous Giada DeLaurentiis head or man shoulders in real life.  Stop judging me! Naturally, because Caitlin's a classy chica, her first concern was mortification over having flashed her "sha-nay-nay" to the free world, so I assured her that she fell with dignity, nobody saw her Lindsay Lohan, AND mad props on the wooble guarding. Finally content with this, Caitlin drinks the water the bouncer so kindly brought over for her, declares, "Ah, fuck it" to the hair extension, which Mandy then throws over the balcony, and away we go.

For some odd reason, Mandy thinks we need more drinks and buys a round. This is because she is evil and likes that, for once, everyone is falling except her (just kidding). Somehow, Caitlin manages to knock her drink over on my ass, then decides to embrace the Fundamental Principle of Equal Alcohol Consumption, ie. All drinks are created equal as long as their alcohol content is the same and the drink is within reach.

So yeah, she highjacks my drink, I get it back mostly empty, and I have to laugh because I'm usually the drink thief, so this is just hilarious.

Time to go. On the walk out the door, I command Caitlin to use my elbow for walking because she's no good on her own, somehow she still manages to trip herself, and I get her to sit for a minute, during which Mandy gets the phone number of the bouncer. We walk out to the bus, and en route, what to our wondering eyes should appear?  Take a wild guess...

"Fuck it, I LIKE this hair!" exclaims Caitlin, picking it up--yeah, she can't walk, but she can squat in the street to pick up her extension without so much as wobbling. THAT'S dedication, my friends! She gets on the bus, the very confused driver asks what the hell she has under her arm, and I reply with, "her hairdid," like it's perfectly sensible, and we're off.

Most of the bus ride back is spent with me on my knees on the bus looking for the lid to the rum, which I dropped when the bus hit a bump. This is also when I poured my entire drink all over myself and my cigarette, which I still tried to smoke even though it was out and never coming back. Patrick, being the CHAMP that he is, attempts to help me find the lid, but it's a goner, so I begin trying to drink as much of the rum as possible so as to waste as little of it as possible. Totally explains why I was fine the whole night until we got back, then BLAH. I didn't even remember until the next day that, when we got off the bus, Mandy and I crammed into the doorway of Justin's truck to harass him while Denise danced in the parking lot and made up songs about how all her friends are crazy. At least Justin was warned.

Oh, and for anyone who thought, "hey, where's mention of the rest of the girls in this?" I direct you to the Theory of JBFC Dispersal. This theory addresses JBFC movement away from an existing population, thus affecting population dynamics. Essentially, we scatter, and for this reason, I really have no clue where Missa and Dessi were for the majority of the evening. If one were to apply the Maggi/Mandy Uncertainty Principle to the two of them, chances are that they don't have a clue where they were the majority of the evening either. =D

So yeah, that was my saturday night, and I have to say it was hella fun. Now back to normalcy with the hubs and my other main man...

Oh, the things I do for science...