Subtle Glow

There’s something about the weather, actually it’s more like the smell in the air, that reminds me of weekends and summertime when I was still a student.  Things were so much more simple then.  Time was insignificant, all that mattered was hot sun, warm sand, and swimming in the ocean.  Every night was a party, whether it was a keg at a ratty beachside apartment with a hundred people, or just four or five of us calmly sitting around and hanging out - playing silly drinking games like “Fuck You, Drink”, or Quarters, or taking turns doing shots of Tequila.  And not the good tequila - it was always the cheap stuff.

I like to think I made the most of my youth, when it comes to all the oat-sowing and everything.  Ha.  That makes it sound like it’s over.  My youth that is.  I still have a bit of hell-raising left in me.  Responsibility squelches it a bit, but it’s there, even if it is slowly eroding away.  Feh.

In high school, from my sophmore year on, I had a pretty tight group of friends.  We all had our own individual circles of other friends, but somehow the four or five of us managed to run together pretty consistently.  By the time we made it to senior year…  life was full of crazy fun. 

One of my clearer memories is when two of my girlfriends and I, each with our own bottle of $3 champagne and half a peach soaking in our glasses, hid in our friend’s closet.  We were hiding from her mom, because she was ok with letting us drink, but we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere if there was no one to drive.  And you just can’t possibly waste a good buzz by sitting around on a Saturday afternoon and not GO anywhere!!  What is the fun of being 16 and buzzed when it’s DAYLIGHT out dammit, if you can’t go anywhere and publicly show your intoxicated ignorance? 

Once we finished our champagne we oh-so-logically concluded that her mom would know we were drunk if we came out of her room, so we should climb out the WINDOW and come in the front door instead.  Because certainly entering the house through the front door promoted the illusion of sobriety much more so than just coming out of her room.

Really, it made SO much sense at the time.  We quietly munched down our champagne-soaked peaches as we came up with this brilliant plan.  What followed was the oh-so-delicate clamboring out the window that was about 3 feet high, and 5 feet up the wall.  As delicately as possible, you know, what with us being somewhat wobbly from the champagne and the window being so far up from the floor, as well as the fact that we had no chair, or step to stand on to reach the window.  And did I mention the chamapagne buzz we were also dealing with?  I know there was much giggling as we went head over heels - up and out the window.  After having used the bed, a few feet too far away from the window, to give us a boost.  It was all VERY delicate, I’m sure you could imagine.

From there it basically dissolves into drunken randomness, ending with one friend passing out, while the other friend and I flung fettucine onto her car.  Trust me - it totally made sense at the time and there is of course the story to prove it.

All three of us made reference to “the closet” for the next few years.  It always sent us into a fit of giggles.  And a strange craving for champagne and peaches.

We were crazy, irresponsible, immature, and even dangerous at times.  We all managed to live through it and we are - for the most part - functioning members of upstanding society now.  So in the end it turned out all right.

Probably because of that fact, that nothing tragic came out of it, I can look back on that time and laugh.  I don’t really keep in touch with those friends anymore - we’ve all moved on and went our separate ways in life.  But on days like today, when the sun is just so, and you can smell the ocean in the breeze, I think about those friends, and our insanity.  It makes me smile, and want to sip champagne.  And I like that.