Hello true believers -

Tonight has elapsed and I have not made good my goal of finishing my story by Tuesday. Alas, apologies. I will give a small post anyway to make up for it, and regale you with tales untold tomorrow.

Today was good; my recent Hamlet paper got encouraging approval from my appallingly intelligent tutor person (he's absolutely brilliant in a very slow-paced and exquisite way that makes you want to scream), and that felt quite good; aikido was good and Dirk bought the drinks afterwards, and I chatted up two british girls in my Romantics seminar (appropriately?). I only know one of their names, Polly (short for another name that's absolutely nothing like "Polly"), and of course it's the other who is more friendly and easy to talk to. Both are really nice though, and Polly is a knock-out. I have two tickets for an art thing on Thursday, the opening of a Lichtenstein exhibit, and am still searching for a date so I may ask her. I really don't know her very well though and don't give myself great odds on it; hopefully I'll get a good word tomorrow from Juliet or Elana and can avoid the whole thing. Silly, I know, but honest.

So tomorrow I invest in seeing the sights. Mr. Browne sent an email scolding me for not my idleness in investigating the varied spots of ancient blood that colour this city like the spilt wine, and he is dead right in his tisking. He is really great at telling me the right things when I need to hear them; he sent me a really kind and wonderful note after he read about Uncle Herb, with a passage from the Fellowship. He’s very peculiarly perfect in his expressions of intimacy and guidance for me, he always seems to know exactly what I need from him without my knowing it first. This is a good example too, and so Westminster, here I come! Depending on when the day gets itself started I will storm either Westminster Abbey or the British Museum. There will be photos. I think I may simply cry on stepping foot in Westminster; I mean, God, think of it all. We will see.

Also on the agenda para mañana: getting a cheap haircut, training at lunchtime, seeing a Becket friend Dan Wright yay!!!!, and MAYBE more experimentatin, if I get a lucky email. If it happens and I survive yet again, I will simply have to catch up in my storytelling. Expect to hear blood-chilling stories of a man's struggle against science, soon.

***

Winamp plays me Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" and follows it with "Wild Wild West," which samples the main line from, you guessed it, "I Wish." I think it's taunting me; I can see it rising to horrible consciousness but am powerless to act. I'm just days away from it saying "I can't do that Josh" when I want it to shut down. Oh dear. Getians, by the way, are a type of flower (thanks Cheyenne!!). The OED has not heard of them, yet Blogger spellcheck has; and somehow "sentience" runs the other way around. The writing on the wall is in back-lit courier.

My web-radio has selected a Bobby Darin cover of "What'd I Say" for my listening pleasure. Ray Charles, you ask? No no, Bobby Darin. What was he thinking, you ask? I have no idea. Interestingly, the computer followed it up with Ray himself doing "Georgia (joja) on my Mind," further evidencing my claim that the machine is slowly gaining fearful sentience. If I ever discover that it's renamed its network location "Skynet" I'm taking the hammer to it, so help me.

So I recently found myself introduced to something called Science. As far as I can make out, it's just a new bastard version of religion, with all the old rites and sacrifices and priests with long robes and unintelligible mumbo-jumbo. Our acquaintance started off in about the worst way that something can start out, but as we all know: tragedy plus time equals comedy! I will tell all.

John and I are eating dinner, our usual fabulous stir-fry concoction that I decided this time to base in lime juice (very fun since we didn't have a juicer so I got to just pulverize a lime in my fist over the pan. and very tasty; lime and soy make an unexpectedly delightful flavor combo, try it out). We somehow always manage to make an unreasonably large amount of food for just the two of us, and this night was no exception. As we are lingering in the kitchen, slowly harrying the last packs of veggies and rice off our plates, Bhav comes in. Bhav is a girl who lives at the end of the hall and emerges more rarely than the still-nameless Korean girl two doors down (whom I run into every two weeks and have to hide from - we use her pots and knives, and feel guilty). She's friendly enough - Bhav I mean, obviously not the "I'll never bother to say hello" girl - and we all start talking. She tells us that she's a Physiology student and that she's spent all week in the lab, and I make a joke about messing with lab rats. She says "no, I only experiment on human subjects" and John and I laugh. I say that if she's looking for any new bodies, maybe we could dig her up some lucky stiff, har har, and she says "really?"

No, not really. What do you mean, really? Of course not really. Explain yourself. She's running an experiment this week she says, and they're paying volunteers, 10 pounds for fifty minutes worth of experimenting. Now that's not bad for an hour's work, and we say "what do you, just spend an hour hurting some guy and give him ten quid?" And her face just plumb lights up: "yes," she says, "yes, that's exactly right." Again: What? Wait what do you work on, pain? "Yes. I experiment with pain."

Now, I'm standing there thinking I know you, I've seen people like you in James Bond movies. John on the other hand is all ears (we are making no conjecture about John's personal tastes or hobbies, friends, only choosing to understand that times are tight and money is money). He enlists himself right away for god knows whatever horrors are to come, and takes a slot on the next day at 2:15. And then the two of them start in on me. Bhav suggests 3:15, right after John's 'appointment' but I tell her that won't give me hardly enough time to learn from him what the extent of her torture is, or give me enough of a chance to make fun of him for signing up before going myself. But Bhav starts telling me how easy the tests are, that they want to see your sensitivity to heat- and cold-pain and you get to 'tap-out,' as it were, as soon as you feel any pain at all. Now that didn't seem so bad really and that 10 spot looked pretty good for an hour's easy work, and hell, if it's good enough for my gullible friend then it's good enough for me, pardner. So, like that, I'm in.

Since it will be hard for us to find the torture room on our own, it being appropriately hidden in some secret science buildings, Bhav will meet John somewhere more locatable at 2 and take him to his doom therein. He says that I should just come with but I'm sure I can find the place, and besides, that would give me a whole hour with nothing to do but listen to him crying. So we're all set, and Bhav thanks us and is gone. We are in surprisingly good spirits as we finish our meal and start dishes, laughing a lot and reprising our jokes from the last while, chuckling at Bhav's different ideas of humor and sincerity. Levity always on the doorstep of terror. Bhav comes back with a street map to show me where I need to go. She gives directions, she makes sure we're all set, and there it is. It all seems simple and straightforward at that point, no worries, no fear, no turning back; we're over the top now. Then: "I forgot to tell you before," she says, "but after those other tests, there's another one. We call it a Burn Test." Eyebrows crinkle, resolve dimishes. Burn test? "See you tomorrow!"

***
I will have to finish the story on my next post I'm afraid, for tonight it is 2am and I need some sleepy if I'm gonna be able to kick Hamlet's indecisive ass in a paper tomorrow. Sorry to leave you hanging, but I have a long line of literary predecessors who have strongly established a tradition of same, so thbbbbbt. The full story will come out soon.

A last word: In an effort to cover it's traces, my computer's spellchecker has feigned an ignorance of the word "sentience," suggesting "gentians" instead, and offering "scanty" in place of "Skynet." One - what the hell are gentians? What? Anyone? Anyone??? Two - ha! Foolish computer, your bluff only bolsters my growing suspicions. We will have a reckoning soon...

Tomorrow I give my body to Science, and in exchange Science rewards my body with money, for use pending recovery. We will inform you all how it goes and how it all came about, once Science returns my body for further use.

I don’t know what to write really. My Uncle Herbie is passing away. What a marvelous man he is. I don’t know what to say, I don’t feel like telling you how amazing he was in words on a screen; instead we will listen to jazz together and tell warm, funny jokes to make each other laugh; we will invest our lives in the bonds of tight friendship and close family; we will tell the stories that make young boys grow into young men; we will love a life of honesty and loyalty humor and music; and we will stay friends for the rest of our lives, and then we’ll have some small idea of the beautiful life that my Uncle Herb lived in this world. I see life more clearly when I am with Uncle Herb, I hear the sounds of a good life echoed more clearly through the air, music and laughter and wisdom fill up the space around him in my life and in mind.

When I was fifteen I snuck two Playboy magazines out of his house for the dirty pictures. It was later that I realized he had kept these ones for the articles; each had an installment of a four-part piece on Jazz. Once I knew this I felt terrible for robbing him of half of his jazz story, but I never figured out how to give them back. What a stupid thing to do.

Over the last year or so I have been becoming much closer with Uncle Herb and Aunt Quillie, since that trip for Nanny’s 80th birthday, visiting them once in DC and speaking on the phone. I bought a postcard in a store for them a few weeks ago, with a photo of Sonny Stitt and Dizzy Gillespie, but I hadn’t written it yet, only their names. I can only imagine what Quillie is feeling, or Steve and Tana, or Nanny, to whom I haven’t mailed anything since I’ve been here, i can't believe that's true but it is. I wish I were home to be with everyone. I wish I were there for Jason and Brandon to help them feel … I don’t know, I don’t know how I’d help them feel, I just remember when I lost my grandfather and I’m the closest boy to their age in the whole family, so maybe I would be helpful somehow. Steve was the closest man to my age when Bepop died, and I remember him at the Funeral and how it helped to see him there. And the boys are younger than I was, and spent much more time with Herb. I can’t believe that my Uncle Herbie is passing away and I’m so far away from him and from my family, for them and for me. What a strange time to be so far away from everything I know.

What a strange time. I guess I know that my family will be alright without me, but they shouldn’t have to be. They are losing someone and will be coming together, and everyone should be there to help everyone else, there is such a huge rift in our hearts that it takes everyone’s help to sound its depths and know its feeling. They will already be without Herb, they shouldn’t have to be without anyone else.

What a sad thing, what a sad thing. I don’t know what to write to help me or help you, a great light is sinking below the horizon and we all must bow our heads.

Everyone with a spare second and a thirst for good reading should check out Ellie's Subway Diary. The link is below, and it will be one of the fixed ones in the right hand column too. It's pretty freakin great and I'd tell you all about how, but go find out for yourself. Sis has a real gift for installment-writing that I think she'll really get to flesh out here, so the Diary will definitely be worthwhile to keep up with. My only complaint is that I often write "dairy" instead of "diary" and later have no idea what the hell I was talking about. Other than that though, awesome.

The Subway Diaries

Uch, does anyone else share my utter weakness to good candy bars? I swear, I just have no ability to resist the things. Had such a big and filling dinner tonight, but was unable to restrain myself from chowing down a Mars bar just now, and feel a bit ill from overstuffing. Blast you, Mars bars!

So when I say that last night was an interesting experience, I don't want anyone to be confused and think that I mean it was a good experience. Not funny "ha ha" if you know what I mean, just funny. Right, well that said, last night was sure an Interesting experience. Umm, apologies to those with sensetive eyes. This post might not be the one to show the kids or Great Aunts (Hi Aunt Quillie). In fact, this post is certainly not the one to show to those kids etc. I just scanned down to reread before posting, and, well, a weeeeeee bit of agression finds its way onto the page. Aunt Quillie, you just go ahead and scroll down to the next post, and everything will be better.

Selena, a hallmate, and her best friend Stephanie invited John and I to a birthday party at Stephanie's flat. It was, in a word, horrificallyterribleandembarrassingnottomentioncompletelydemeaning. So we were told a few days ago that it was probably going to be like fifty of Steph's girlfriends and the two of us, which we figured was an odd but possibly good setup, but we didn't really put enough thought into why a setup like that could come about.

God, you know what - i'm still so completely pissed off about it all that I don't really have the wherewithal to even desribe the whole night and the myriad facets of its utter sucking, so here's a tidy breakdown of it all. Don't worry, you'll never know the fun you weren't at all missing.

We were brought to this place as objects of malicious entertainment for the birthday girl and her friends, to be mocked and made fun of for the entire effing night. It was completely fucking embarrassing and demeaning, competely crushing and aweful for the entire time we were there. It seems that the whole focus of our inclusion in the evening was to provide an imported item of exotic and savage origin that the locals could jeer at and feel better than. It was fucking bizzare, like depraved and twisted and bizzare. It was like something out of ancient Rome. The whole time was this progression of people just laughing at us in these mean and subtle ways, talking to us in order to make fun of our Americanness, of my Jewishness at one deLIGHTful moment that mysteriously preceded our immediate getting the fuck out of there, our speech and the words we said, our bearing and manner; they made fun of how we felt out of place in a new country around new people, they got a kick out of our newness to their more civilized world. It was embarassing and meanspirited all. We were only there to be mocked as exotic outsiders by this group of in-friends, like people take out a bad horror movie to laugh at or assholes TV jocks taking a nerd along with them for a night just to laugh at him cruelly. It was like the Romans finding sport in pitting unarmed slaves against, you know, LIONS, because it's entertaining to watch something get torn the fuck apart in place that feels alien to it. It. Was. Terrible. MY absolute highlight of the night, and this is just a gem of an experience, came with Stephanie. She was extraordinarily drunk and horrible to be around, and coming onto me strongly. She walked over to talk to me and didn't make it, half collapsing on a bad and almost sliding off it onto the floor. I try at first to coax and then to heave her fully onto the bed so that she doesn't end up falling down and hurting herself, and ending up passed out on the floor of her own party. And into the middle of this enobling and exciting process steps Nina, one of Steph's horribly condescending and deriding and aweful friends. She pulls herself right in front of me as I'm struggling to look out for her woefully drunken friend, levels eyes like coal bricks at mine, and says in a voice that she's made loud enough to get the attention of everyone in the apartment: "I think it's just disgusting when someone takes advantage of a drunk girl." And remains there in front of me as heads turn from every direction, smiling her venomous pointed little teeth at me, until my face goes red like a strawberry and i mumble something like "yes, I concur" as coolly as I can. In my head, I finish the statement with something like "you whorish, fathomless pit of poxied utter bitchiness," but i thought it not perhaps prudent to voice that particular opinion at that time. I, by the way in case you couldn't tell, Can Not FUCKING Believe That. Snake Nina spends the rest of her night wandering around the party repeating her scandalized summation of the event to everyone she can find, pointing at me from across rooms, and always making sure I'm just in earshot when she says it, and often engaged in conversation with someone else who turn to look at me askance when they realize that i'm the disgusting creep in question. To make the experience so much the sweeter, Selena (who is SO high up on my favorite people list) explained to me that indeed Snake Nina is not to be blamed for her reaction; since when a girl is "out with her mates, right" and some "sketchy fuck" is trying to "take advantage of" a friend who has drank themselves past the point of self control, then "of course a girl's going to stick up for her, it's just the right thing to do, you know?" So, thank God, it actually turns out that Nina's not a gigantic bitch, but in fact handled the situation with an astutely perceptive grace and responsive genius. And here, silly me, I had not even considered myself to be the "sketchy fuck" in question, nor had I fully taken into account my deplorable attempt to take advantage of the poor birthday girl. Thank the fucking sweet lord jesus that they set me straight on that score. Un be fucking lievable. So, a night spent getting stabbed by the speared tongues of a legion of british bitches, TONS of fun and an evening well bloody spent.
Jolly Good.

I recall thinking that I need to be meeting more British kids; i think perhaps i need to qualify my future desires with little phrases like "that don't totally suck" or "that aren't wretched and horrible." Live and learn, liiiiiiive and learn.

PS: Matty commented to me in email about this, reminding me that I know martial arts and could have taken half that party apart if i'd wanted to, but am such a better person for playing it cool. Ice cold, ice cold.

Wow, I have been getting the best emails ever from people. Homefront, you rock my world. Everyone seems to have a little bit of very valuable insight to share, all things which I am glad to receive. Some highlights include:

"My advice is to stay away from whiskey porridge and tipsy laird. And hamburger, since it will inevitably be cooked into charred shoe leather. Also the things known as "margaritas." Extremely nasty."

"london = so exciting!"

"I for one am not delighted about the pub age there"

"Don't walk where ice is about to fall on you."

"The English certainly aren't the warmest folks you'll find. Go to Ireland and its a whole other kettle of fish."

"I think, Josh, that you need to find someone with a blender."

"Shopping tips: Americans go to Costco and buy enough food for the End Of Days: Europeans buy and eat."

"I'd say it's not flag house without you, but that would be lying, because we still have all the flags."

"If you see the queen, tell her I said hi and we should meet for tea."

“Whether she's just hanging out to be friendly or if she wants to make sweet love to you highlands-style, there's no telling.”

"I know we don't really have accents, but the Brits think we do, and sometimes think the accents are cute, so just roll with it and play it for what it's worth, aye?"

"Read early Samuel Beckett & listen to early Shane MacGowan while you're there"

"DON'T fall for anyone over there .... Just be a horn-dog and have a little fun."

"Did you buy limes to combat scurvy? good thinking. effin limey”

“take care in the land of the funny talking people.”

So I had a date on Friday. That’s right, three weeks in and I get my first date on foreign shores. Not too bad for an ol’ country boy (or, you know, me). It was a pretty crazy experience, very exciting but very odd at the same time, but who knows, maybe that’s what dating is supposed to be like. This is pretty much the first date I’ve ever really been on. Usually it’s worked from the other way around, where I’d developed a personal intimacy with someone and then we saw if we wanted to share something deeper; this was kind of the opposite way, where two people are essentially supposed to pretend at having intimacy until they discover that reality will either adhere to their idea it or won’t. Two days gone though, I’m still not sure which direction reality decided to go in. I will tell of.

Juliet, from Glasgow, dynamite to look at, sweet voice, friendly to talk to, works at the fitness center. I’ve been chatty with her since I started going there for aikido on like my third day in the country, and we have gotten nice and friendly like. So last Wednesday I go in for lunch-hour class and we start talking; it seems that she lives right close by to me, and both of us to campus, and she bemoaned the fact that she never gets to go home and feel like she’s really getting away from school. Kinda before I can rethink it, I ask her if she wants to come over to my place for dinner some night, since me and my buddy are top-notch Iron Chefs, and she'd thereby get to escape campus a bit more. So she says that would be great, and why doesn’t she give me her number when I come out from the gym. Pa-fucking-ching! I couldn’t really believe it. The second we bowed out from aikido I searched like mad for a breathmint or some gum (one of the girls on the mat had some) and went back down to see Juliet; she already had her number written down for me. Colossal, right? I was skyin’ all the way home, and put on Ludacris and sang along and danced around my room for like ten minutes as soon as I came home. I’m totally like fourteen years old. Whatever yo, at the time I’m just really freakin happy with myself for ignoring the instinct to flee and cower from cute Scottish women, and that I have instead beaten out reason and might be on my way to making a new friend. Rock. The. Party.

So this was Wednesday, and it took me till Friday to realize that what we had agreed on was, in fact, a date. Thank the good lord I hadn’t really figured that out on Wednesday, I might have had an aneurysm before she even gave me her digits. By the way, Thank GOD for voicemail. That’s what I got when I called her to actually set a time, and LORD was it a mercy. It's a much less anxiety-ridden thing than an actual conversation would have been. Not that I'm saying I would have necessarily screwed up the actual conversation, necessarily, but it's much easier to be cute and rambley on a message, and one’s nervousness and long-windedness are infinitely more allowable since everyone is like that on voicemail. Anyway, she got back to me and set the day for Friday, which, when I woke up that morning, means that it’s actually a date. Dinner on Friday night, with open plans for afterwards, and mention of possible clubbing? Date.

So my plan, and I did plan, was to try and walk the thin line between an intimate date and a more relaxed general-social atmosphere. I mean we don’t really know each other, so I thought maybe we could do with a nice non-threatening balance, like not coming on too strong and getting to interact somewhat naturally in a relaxed environment (and I was confident that I could pull off charming and funny in the kitchen with my impressive cheffery and jokey dynamic with John). This plan fell to pieces within the first few minutes of the date. So I show up to her place right on time to pick her up (right on time after loitering in the across-the-street bookstore for half an hour). She looks fantastic, and has put too much effort into how she’s looking to appreciate having dinner with my buddy in our pubic kitchen. She has also picked us up two bottles of wine, and her words when I tell her that I’d got us one too are, “great, let’s go to your place and get drunk.” Them straightforward Scottish lasses, right? Well, not really, as it turns out.

We come to my place and start in on the wine and start talking about this and that and every other thing, and we’re really kinda hitting it off. The best example of this is (and you’ll love this if you know me): who’s her favorite musician? None other than Johnny Cash I’ll have you know, that Man-in-Black hero of my America (I rejoiced, but inwardly cursed that I hadn’t worn my Johnny Cash black cowboy shirt). Yeah man, we are just hitting it off great. We go on like this for some hours, lots of really good talking and stories and things, and then at some point her phone rings. And it’s, drumroll, her boyfriend. Boyfriend, you ask? Boyfriend, I ask too. Boyfriend? Boyfriend. So we keep at it as we have been going, drinking and sharing, for a few hours more, but from that point on (and he text-messages her TWICE later on) I am pretty much baffled by what may or may not be going on. I mean, it’s great to be sharing a fun time and good stories and things in common with a new person from a new place, all that is great. But, I still feel like what the fucking fuck was going on? I mean, am I mixing up my signals here? So on her Friday night she wants to come out with me, she gets dolled up looking damn good and damn sexy for it, she brings TWO bottles of wine over to my place, has no interest in doing anything but being in my room with me drinking it and having a good time, and has a boyfriend? Yo, I KNOW that can all be nothing more than friendly, but come the fuck fuckin on, could you maybe be a bit more freakin direct about some part of it? Any part of it! Eeeeeeyyyyyya.

So I think, based on things that she said and the general climate (and the paranoid way that her dude kept messaging her) that she is not really certain about the relationship she’s in right now, and maybe her coming out with me was an experiment or something, and that’s all great, but it sucks being guinea-pigged on something like that. Because also it leaves me wondering all, “did I just turn her off somewhere, or did she have a relapse of love for her dude, or was it all not supposed to be a date, or whaaaaaaat the fuck?” So I have been moody about it since, and confused. I will probably see her again on Wednesday and hopefully she will be friendly and will say she had a great time, and maybe it will turn out that we get to be great friends, and that would be scoretastic. To tell the truth, I like the idea of being able to date and everything in this new environment in these new situations, but I’m mad not ready for anything more than just casual dating or friendliness; Robin and I are still hugely in love and hugely loving each other, and even where we’re not trying to carry through a strict long-distance relationship it still sure feels strange to be meddling in new intimacies that don’t involve her and I. Oy, the complications of love, and having it. Maybe though, this "date" went all for the best.

I mean, it's pretty great all by itself that I got a date. Feels ballsy and brave and good, and you know what, it was a very fun time. Really neat discovering that I can do that, I can get a hot girl’s number and bring her out and have a great time with her, make her laugh and feel pretty. I’d never been in that position so spontaneously before, and for all that I can be cocky about stuff like that it was still new and scary and exciting and fun, and weird. Boyfriend. That bastard, what the hell is he thinking? Well, anyway I got (probably) a new friend, a Glaswegian to boot, and had a fun time and drank like a gallon of wine in my room, legally and happily (and resourcefully figured out how corkscrews work; thank you spatial aptitude tests in 7th grade for making me not look like an idiot). Chris gave me great advice and peace of mind in an email, saying among other things, “dude, you're freaking out over one date.” And he’s right, it was just a date and a fun time, and probably I didn’t just scare her off like I’m thinking in my head, she probably had a good time too. So word. And things are still close and wonderful with Robin, and not as grey as they might be otherwise. And I love her, and that’s scorefreakintastic. And I had my first date ever, and it was with a Scottish lass. So for all that I’ve been bitching, hell, a fun night and good date. And I went out with a Scottish girl.

So Thursday night turned suddenly awesome at a late and unexpected hour. At about midnight I got a call from this girl Selena, a brit friend who lives down the hall. She has this mad hushed voice and is very anxious, and asks if i would be brave enough to come down the hall and check out her area, because she has been hearing this steady heavy breathing right outside her door and is freaked out; she can't see anything through the peephole, but there is unmistakably some kind of heavy breathing noise that is coming through and scaring her. So I come out thinking that it's probably nothing, some kind of plumbing or heating thing or something, but i go and look down the hallway and there's this body lying down on the floor with its face right up against her door. I'm thinking "oh shit" and suddenly expecting some kind of trouble with a creepy guy who's mysteriously in the building, bracing myself as i keep going down the hall. And then i get closer and see that it's John, passed the hell out on the floor of the hallway, having not made it to his room before abandonding the consious world. I start laughing and tell Selena to come out, and she screams when she sees the body on the floor but quickly relaxes when i explain that it's just her drunk neighbor, and we both are laughing at him for a while. I try to puzzle out how to find his keys and get him into his bed when we see that his keys are in fact in his hand, held out pointing at his door. The poor guy was so close, so close and just couldn't make it that extra few feet.
I am getting ready to fireman's hoist him into the room (wouldn't be easy since he's much taller and heavier than I am) but he shoots awake the second I touch him, and is somehow instantly energized and still drunk and hilarious. We laugh at him a lot and laugh with him a lot more, and he's really embarrassed about it all and REALLY sorry for freaking out Selena, and kind of all around hilarious as he is frenetically apologizing and telling his night's story and discovering that he's still drunk. The best part happened after Selena went to bed. I was still with John making him drink water, and he realized that he hadn't eaten in a long time and was really hungry, but didn't trust himself to cook anything safely and pleaded with me to help. I was happy to, i was actually really enjoying myself. John is a very boistrous kind of guy, even if he thinks he's somewhat shy, and very loudly fun to be with. Together we are undoubtedly the loudest people in the building, and it's a good thing that my room is the only one closest enough to the kitchen to be bothered (at some point that night though, i told him to quiet down because we might wake me up, and it really confused him). So we go in the kitchen and start frying some eggs up and heating up bagels, all John's, and we eat a bunch of eggs and decide to make a bunch more. I barred John from doing anything related to the cooking process, for fear that he'd somehow kill us both, but this had only limited success. See, i kept breaking the yolks when i cracked the eggs, and we started yelling at each other about it. He wondered why i cracked the eggs into a bowl and not on teh edge of the pan, i said it's because i didn't want egg juice getting onto the burner, he said that if i cracked them on the pan then i wouldn't break the yolks. We went on like this for a while until he says "I'lllllll do it!" and proceeds in one deft motion to shatter an egg all over the stove, pan, burner, and floor. It was epic, homeric. We were laughing so hard and so long that the eggs in the pan burnt. It was hysterical and great. Good stupid male bonding. Here are some pictures of it, John being drunk with cheese, eggs on the stove, me with eggs, me like a cheffing ninja with pan and spatula (although i didn't use the spatula, having great success with the pan-flip).