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hAS ANYONE SEEN MY cAPSLOCK KEY?
UNTIL I FIND IT, I WILL JUST HOLD A HARD DRIVE UP TO MY EAR SO I CAN LISTEN TO THE C:
OH THERE it is...
Today is special day, -two events on one Thursday night, and thusly two blogs. It is fun to say thusly, or write it as the case may be.
ANYwho, this second episode takes place at the Hookah lounge in State College where the main character, Celery, is busy coordinating a fundraising show benefiting AIDS and PSIDE (Penn State International Dance Ensemble).
There were no melting flakes of snow outside but the crystal chill of winter made it hard nipple cold. Like a vulture, I circled the block for parking in town but had to escape to campus. With construction, I weaved around obstacles searching for an entrance to a parking lot I could see but I could not find a way in. Eventually, I abandon that lot for one two and half blocks from my place and a few jogging blocks from the Hookah Lounge. That makes a lot of sense, right? Maybe I should have parked at my place but you are not a real man if you do not take the risk to find the prime spot.
After descending only a few stairs into the dark cellar that is the Hookah Lounge, a pair of friends immediately greeted me. It was Andre the giant; I mean Andre our humorous tall Brazilian friend, along with Alice, Celery's crazy friend who is so much of a sex fiend that her last name is an orgasmic "Ou" (pronounce O like the letter or the orgasmic squeal).
Alice was in new form because she just got a fun ear piercing. Now all she has to do is the classic license plate tattoo of something symbolic on her lower back and she will have fulfilled her college transformation from seemingly sweet shy schoolgirl to masterful mysterious mature maniac. Andre was our old friend but a new roommate to Alice. It seemed like many tides since I saw the super senior Andre, but it did not take long to settle back into the waves of out friendship. I felt so much love that I could not imagine anything bad happening.
Do not think there are no crocodiles just because the water is calm. Evil guarded the dank cave of the Hookah Lounge like a fairytale goblin demanding to be paid $3 dollars to enter. “Suckanelf!” It was surreal to remember that this very Hookah Lounge where I met Evil through my sweet red ridding hood like innocent friend, Celery. I've never been sure if Celery is so innocent and loving she feels sorry for Evil and tries to show her the way, or if Celery is just naively blind to cold soul. I know the ways of the wicked are tempting, but confudles me every time I see the pair of friends together. Celery often defends Evil to me and me to her, saying if we spent time together, we would grow on each other. Sure, Celery, the Evil one would grow on me as if she was a colony of E. coli and I was room-temperature British beef.
Of course, I am speaking of Michelle as the evil one. Physically I will not insult her. She is lava lamps lovely, you know: fun to look at, but not too bright! When I first met her in this Hookah lounge she continually assaulted me for no reason, and from that footing, we have remained. Determined not to give it to her, I handed my three dollars to the girl next to her because as the Arabs say, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
The evil one laughed, as she explained why I would not give her the satisfaction of taking my money. Then Michelle boldly turned to me and asked for a truce for the night. “Yeah right, I am not so easily charmed.”
Even though he knew nothing of our past animosity, Andre chimed in asking why I was paying the three dollars at all. The sign said "$3 donation". DONATION, which should mean I only had to give it if I wanted to. Michelle claimed the sign was a mistake and it should have said “$3 cover”. Sounds like a little bait and switch to me. While we were arguing the point, another girl escaped the winter firelight outside, descended into the fetid darkness of the hookah lounge, and callously walked by use without paying.
I was outraged. "Why didn't she pay? See, it is a donation!" --No, Michelle maintained; she does not pay because she is dancing in the show. "Really?" I said shrewdly. "She doesn't have to pay 3 dollars because she's in the show. If I give you three extra dollars, will you not dance in the show? I’d pay just spare the masses."
Little did I realize Michelle was not dancing in the show, she was singing. I have been thwarted again by evil. Since I have no magic weapon or alibi, and I fear chains that clank, I retreated from the confrontation with the evil troll gatekeeper. I took solace knowing the money was going to causes I like to support. Still, EVIL will survive another day.
A crew of fun people soon formed around us. To me it was the best assortment, some people I know and some I do not. In these cases, I can have a lot of fun cracking jokes about people to strangers and vice versa. Mad props will go out to Brooke for showing up. I invited Brooke to the festivities because she is under 21 and it is nice to find places she can go other than just vball, house parties and frats. As a bonus, Brooke brought a couple of her lady friends along, one of which I accosted for going as Nicky with a y instead of I.
Brooke also deserves credit for bringing the always-daring Island Amy from Puerto Rico along who told us humorous woes of her neglected vagina. This topic of conversation made Andre feel at home funneling the discussion to ask “Who should go down on their lover first, a guy or a girl?” Other than the chatting, the best part of Brooke’s mini-crew was that they bought the flavored Hookah and left early so I received freeness.
MattyMat soon joined but went to sit with Abha and RuchaCat in another section, leaving Anthony and a few his friends behind to join us. Then, two of Anthony’s friends came in when I was answering a call to lead to some random humorous actions. The girl facing me, I recognized her face vividly but not her name; the other one was on my cushion facing the other direction so I was clueless but she had a familiar aura.
The one I recognized, I remember was charming. We smashed two-liter bottles with a James’ sword on Anthony’s balcony before we watched the nutty movie "Bubba-ho tep". It was one of those classic "I forgot your name right after you told me" instances. Somehow, I got to teasing her that night about something and started calling her Princess so in my head that stuck.
Therefore, in the haze of flavored tobacco I guess my brain thought if I knew Princess I obviously knew the other girl who had the gaul to sit on my cushion on the floor. Thusly, when I returned I wanted to reclaim my cushion. I playfully chocked the non-princess on the neck from the back grunting in a sing-song way, "You are in my seat!"
Princess started laughing and then asked me if I even knew the girl I assaulted. I looked over, but by this time I knew I did not want to...whoops, we never met. Then Princess asked if I remembered her. Luckily, I saved a little grace with my pchewy charm, and I mentioned Bubba Ho tep.
Now I guess it was chilly in the hookah lounge. It was chilly in the sense that wusses and women might complain. This made it sensible for Princess’s female friend to keep her gloves on for a while. After about 10 minutes, though of sitting on the cushion-less ground, I started to think the gloves staying on were odd. Therefore, I turned to her and pleaded. "You know it was an innocent mistake. I am sorry. Don't go OJ on me and strangle me with those gloves, okay?" ...we all laughed, rejoiced, and prepared for the amazing show.
Wow, I am sorry for writing so much but I did not have time to write less. As favored member of the sponsor PSIDE, Celery MCed the night. The honor of introducing the sexy belly dancers befell on her. What is there to say about that? College girls dancing around in hookah room can make everyone feel like a sultan for a day.
Next, our friend Abha bravely took stage to do a reading. Now Abha can claim to be five feet tall, and with her assortment of killer heels, you would never know the truth. Regardless, she is short and it was hilarious seeing her read her poems because the mike was raised above her pointing down instead of under her point up. Also to add to the amusement were a few people next to RuchaCat saying lude things about Abha in Hindi thinking nobody could hear them or understand. Men, gesh, how mature.
Okay well I guess my groups of guys and girls were not very mature either. Throughout the whole show, Andre and I were yelling things. Andre kept insisting there should be some performance art, and demonstrated his rising and wilting flower gestures. Anthony was no help either, doing goofy things to get me to laugh my ass off like pointing to himself and smirking while someone was reading a serious poem telling the tale of homosexual lust.
I guess I should apologize to RuchaCat for our juvenile nature. By the time RuchaCat was the up to grace us with her poetry we all had the case of the 6th grade giggle. Now RuchaCat’s poetry is not like the normal silken, sad, uncertain poems; they were good. Granted I do not think they were legendary and she would never outdo her college poetry years, but they laid a good foundation of expression raw emotion, and they were just a snippet of her portfolio, a mere glance into her complex soul. I imagine one day RuchaCat will write a poem about her favorite color Purple and people will be moved to cheers of Bravo and then, and only then, will they understand her as I pretend to.
Anywho, backed to today. Beforehand I brazenly asked RuchaCat to decade her poem to me. First, she did one reading written by a published famous poet, and didn’t dedicate it to me. Then she read a personal poem inspired by the first poem. I guess it makes sense to give that author credit for inspiration, but I wanted it dedicated to me. Sensing this perhaps, RuchaCat assured me after the reading that in her heart it was dedicated to me. You have to love my weasel friends...they know just what to say. Now RuchaCat gets bonus points for fixing the microphone and engaging her audience with eye contact. Her speech com teacher would be almost as proud as I was.
Unequivocally, I would say RuchaCat’s poetry was my favorite of the night, because it seemed the freshest and most original presented well. I especially like the first of her two encore readings, a poem called Chu-Chu or something of the likes. It was the autobiographic tale of when RuchaCat and her school friends found a ladybug, which was rare in the dessert oasis Dubai where she was raised. A boy heard the commotion and smashed the bug thinking he saved the girls from the icky bug. But RuchaCat and her friends liked the bug; and even if they did not they did not need to be saved by a pretentious boy.
Off the kewl prose of the poetry, the night of humor overtook the show. RuchaCat introduced the Chu-Chu poem as something she wrote from Dubai. This caused some guy from the audience to cheer for his homeland. This made RuchaCat feel a little uneasy because her poem was not really about Dubai and she thought she was going to let him down.
In the middle of the poem, RuchaCat goes on to describe the girls in their school uniforms, skirts of course. This made Andre yell out "Man I think I like Dubai already!" to the boisterous laughter of all. I guess you had to be there to appropriate it fully, but I cannot remember the last time I was entertains so much by good performances, and laughed so much by the side comments as this night.
Meanwhile I took it upon myself to challenge the non-performing spectators to blow smoke rings. Of course, I told people to curl their tongues just to see them do it, even though I had no clue how the rings were created. Andre graced us with his thoughts. He suggested you should ungulate your jaw with no other shenanigans needed. This worked for a one girl once, perhaps as a fluke, but she was the only one to have any success other than Celery who has done it before.
In the interim, we had sad pathetic Brooke. Poor Brooke spent most of the night just trying to learn how to blow smoke out of her nose. When we caught on to what she was doing, like good friends, we made her laugh every time she tried to exacerbated things. Still, like frantic fish determined to breathe out of water, Brooke was bent on smoking through her nose. Before the night ended, we were proud that she persevered and succeeded. She deserved a ribbon, but sadly all she got was smelly clothes.
Now back to the show and the shockers. Celery danced another group dance with the girls from PSIDE with the poise and charm you would expect. There was no shocker in that in itself. Due to the smoke, you usually get a haze in the pictures you take at the hookah lounge. Today there was anther affect of flash photography. The girls wore outfits that had shear fabrics over their midriffs and when the camera flashed, you had flash of sensual flesh. Luckily, these girls were not in sporting dresses made of this fabric like John Kerry's daughter at the Canes film festival, because she appeared naked to the cameras and exposed her granny panties.
The first real shock for me was when the Evil Michelle got on stage to sing. There is no denying her. As snake's shed skin, the Evil One sang a solid melody that left me swaying like an oscillating electric fan set on medium. Michelle had an amazing voice with enchanting tonality. It was the kind of voice that reminded you of a nightingale serenading her children with lullabies. I was entranced and even complemented her after the show. "Good job. You have a really good voice."
Michelle interrupted, befuddled, "Is that a complement?"
I continued, "Yeah, you should sing more and talk less." I know I have sensitivity of a Medieval Dentist. Still, like the Venus flytrap, I learned Michele is danger and delight growing on one stalk.
The next shocker was by far the biggest. This made the shock of a rookie QB on the Steelers going undefeated in the regular season seem cliché. This monstrous shock was perpetrated by Celery's roommate Rachel. Anthony and I met Rachel on the sand courts of Volleyball. She is a sweet playful girl, and I do not want to say she has a Mickey Mouse voice, but she has a childish voice on the likes of Spaz or Princess. It was in the heart of the show when Rachel stepped on stage without me noticing because I was in the middle of a conversation.
When I looked up by happenstance, I could not believe it was Rachel. Her voice floated like prayers into my amazed ears. She was singing a raspy, sexy, hilarious country song I never heard of and she was a star. I turned to Anthony who was not paying attention and said, "You won't believe who is singing!” His shock and awe reflected my own. Of course, this was more of a funny night of theatrics. Celery convinced her roommate to go up for a much-deserved encore and sing a Britney Spears song. Midway she forgot the words and left us with smiles frozen on our faces still lost in amazement.
Eventually, and unfortunately the night had to end. Since I am the gallant hero, I would not let the ladies burn with frost and offered Alice, Abha, and RuchaCat a ride home. I even went as far as to run to my car and pick them up at the door...mostly because I was too impatient for them to say their goodbyes.
Today I realized my life has a superb cast, but I just cannot figure out the plot. If I was stuck on a deserted island, I would still pick Drew Carry as the thing I would bring (Girls would turn me into a slave; drew is funny and he is fat so if needed, he would make a tasty treat.) But if I had to choose a group of people to vacation with on an island with nothing else to entertain me, they would be the first I’d want to shipwreck with.
Your Personal Hero
THE BAbbLER
pchewy
Anshu Gupta
http://psubabbler.esmartguy.com
