Semper Eadem

Fuck, I feel like shit. I think I’m lying on my bed—no, no I’m not. Open your eyes. There’s the ceiling. The light’s on. Oh, I’m lying on a sofa, and I’m still wearing my jeans, and I can kinda hear the victory result screen from Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Yeah, that track’s been going on loop for a while now.

I played forward in high school. Now I’m point guard.

You playin’ for a league now?

Voices. They’ve been chatting for a while now. Their voices have been soft, almost kinda jazzy and soothing. Or am I just saying jazzy because one of them is black?

Okay, there we go. I forgot for a second; I’m in Fullerton, at a friend’s apartment. Thursday night. Walden called me and invited me over to come drink and chill, and well, fuck, I can still taste that god awful burning Brandy in my throat. Man I can taste it every time I swallow my own saliva, as if Brandy is all my glands are producing right now. Shit, I’m going to vomit if I keep on thinking about it. Think—cold crisp Crystal Geyser water, or chocolate protein shakes. Yum. Ugh, well, not the latter. Just think about the former.

Shit, did I forget to take out my contacts? Sit up. Whoa, I got up too fast. Nausea’s hitting me pretty bad. I can feel something brewing in my chest, or esophagus, or diaphragm—shit I don’t know my human anatomy, and I don’t need to be thinking about it. Just needa calm down and focus. The contacts—taking them out was the last thing I managed to do before I passed out. From all that Brandy. From the whole two god damn shots.

Fuck okay, think about the Crystal Geyser water now. Sparkling, delicious water.

I gotta burp. Fuck. Just let it be a burp. Fuck. This can be one crazy big burp, or I’m just going to explode with vomit, but I hope it’s just a burp because fuck I haven’t vomited in forever and I really hate the feeling and shit I’m in front of other people right now—better dancers than I am, way better and I am not going to fucking vomit in front of them. It’s just a burp.

Esophagus. Definitely brewing in the esophagus. Definitely not going to be a burp. POWER WALK TO THE BATHROOM LIKE EVERYTHING’S COOL. Close the door behind yourself, lift toilet seat, take a deep breath aaaaand—What the fuck that’s the spinach I had for dinner. And some more of it. And some more of it. Now I can’t breathe, and fuck why is my vomit reddish orange—oh, that’s probably the spaghetti sauce. Okay and there goes most of my vomit. I have the option of trying to force out the last of it and suffocate some more, or try to swallow it down and breathe a little more easily. Swallow. Breathe. Kinda tastes like the Brandy, or just simply alcohol because it all tastes the same to me. Head back out and plant your ass on the sofa.

I vomited, I announce. I’m not really talking to anyone but to myself, but the two guys discussing basketball are around to hear.

Dang, how many shots did you have?

Just two. Yeah, I know, I’m a one shot wonder but our friend Walden, who looks great passed out on the couch over there, made me take a second one.

I think they’re going back into their discussion about basketball now, so I’m just going to lie down and close my eyes again. I still feel like shit, but I just wanna sleep it off. Shut your eyes. Now fall asleep, damn it. Alright, that’s not going to work. I’m just too miserable. Instead I’ll try to piece together everything that happened this week that led up to this.

I remember a conversation I had with Walden, about a week ago. Sunday, past midnight. Earlier that night I auditioned for Team Millennia in Fullerton, and as always, I had doubts leading up to and after the audition. Auditions always got emotionally stressful, but what won this particular audition the award for the most emotionally overwhelming one ever by far was an impromptu visit from Ranier over the weekend.

And now Ranier had left, and auditions had finished, and I was back at home in Irvine. Walden called me because he also happened to be in Irvine practicing for a performance he was going to dance in with a project team. I met with him at the parking structure where he was practicing, and we found a corner where we could chat. I had told him that I had a lot that I wanted to get off my mind. We talked about ex’s, both mine and his, and we talked about dancing, and some more about ex’s, and some more about dancing.

Walden, I know I’ve improved, but sometimes, I watch recent videos of my own dancing and I feel like the dancing I do now hasn’t really changed from the dancing I did a year ago.

Walden regurgitated the same thing I hear from everyone, about how I really did improve. I felt a little better though, because sometimes I just needed someone to remind me of that, but my dancing wasn’t even really the main issue. My feeling like I hadn’t changed went a lot deeper than dancing.

Walden, remember the night at the kickback when I ended up taking a hit from the bong? You know why I did it? It wasn’t because you or because anyone else at that kickback convinced me. It was because I was, and still am, tired of being the person that would choose calling special ed kids stupid over keeping a relationship with his boyfriend. I’m tried of being the person who has such a strong grip on reality and logic that it’s more like a desperate grasp for dear life, and I drop emotion and anything weighing me down in order to keep holding on. Trust me when I say that I am over my last ex, and trust me when I say that I no longer believe it’s ok to call special ed kids stupid, but despite these little things, I am still the same person. What if I get into a similar situation in the future, where I find that I have to choose between my own convoluted idea of logic and reality, versus an emotion I feel, like love, or regret, or plain happiness? I know I’m going to choose the former.

Something had to change, I concluded. If I can’t change my dancing, or the choices I make, I figured I should drink.

I wanna get fucked up, I told Walden. I think if I work at it, I can really start enjoying myself, so hit me up next time you’re partying.

Brandy.

No, fuck that. Crystal Geyser water. So purifying and refreshing. Open wide for...Brandy. Fuck.

I need to burp again. It’s just a burp. There’s no way that I’ll need to vomit again. Open your eyes, sit up. Get ready to push yourself from the sofa. No, I don’t need to do this because all I really need to do is just lie back down and close my eyes and it will all go away. Then I will wake up the next morning feeling great, and then I’ll go to class and then I’ll go to my friend’s birthday party later at night and drink some more there because drinking has to be the one thing I can change, so... I. Can’t. Fucking. Vomit. Now.

Now POWERWALK TO THE BATHROOM LIKE A BOSS.

Okay, looks like I still had some spinach sitting in my stomach. I’m sure at this point it’s like I never even had dinner at all.