What college was like

As I sit in Kimo's with my fancy super exclusive members only Mug Club mug of Screamin' Eagle IPA, I wonder why the hell more people don't come to bars to write. I mean why are coffee shops the "normal" place to write a screenplay that will never be finished? Is coffee that inspiring to people? I go through phases with coffee but I know I've never had a cup and then went "wow I just thought of a cool story." It's not that I'm asserting that drinking beer turns a person into a creativity spewing being, only that from multiple personal experiences, my fingers flow much faster and easier as I'm writing with a beverage or two in me. Toward the end of my time at WSU I think the majority of my papers were written with at least a slight buzz. I mean I got a flippin' C+ in English 101 freshman year when I barely touched the sauce. Oddly enough my GPA slowly went up throughout my time in Pullman.

There are things I miss about Pullman and the general college lifestyle. At this point I pretty much view the four year period through graduation goggles, i.e. through rose colored glasses in which I see only the fond memories I had during that time as opposed to the truthful mix of good and shitty that did exist. Particularly lately as the weather starts to turn, I look back fondly to several of the odd circumstances I found in during the winter months.

It's Friday. My first alarm goes off at 10 a.m. I snap awake with the unpleasant realization that I may have had a tad more whiskey last night than is appropriate for a Thursday. I walk over to my sink to fill my empty water bottle. A good, hydrating chug later, the realization that my room is like 50 degrees sets in. I walk over to the antique floorboard heater and click it on halfway, so that when I return to my room from my shower, the residual water won't be frozen on to me. I stumble into the bathroom and turn the water to the "hot as fuck" setting. I look around the tiny shower at the collection of beer bottles and shampoo containers that Blake and I have arranged so carefully. I exit the shower and enter my room to find that it is pleasantly warm for the time being. I click the heater back off, because not only is it ridiculously expensive to run, but I'll be leaving relatively soon anyway. I sit down at my desk and open up facebook, at first to be vain and look at all my cool statuses, but also to check the roster for today's newscast. Today I was selected to be the technical director while another classmate sits next to me and takes the roll of news director.

I shut down my computer and make my way downstairs to throw together breakfast. Splotch sits on the stairs and every time I make any movement even vaguely toward her, she shoots up the stairs hoping I will follow her and more importantly, feed her. I retrieve pans from the sink and wash them quickly as the stove heats up. I grab bacon and an egg from the fridge as Splotch yet again sprints up the stairs only to turn around and stare at me angrily. Bread goes into the toaster as the bacon is almost finished and the egg starts to cook. With about four minutes until I need to leave to be on time to the newscast, I throw the ingredients together and consume them faster than is recommended. I place the pans back into the sink, grab my backpack and water bottle, and set off at a quick pace to arrive without a penalty.

After the uphill journey to the Murrow East building, I enter the control room to find that I'm actually one of the first to arrive. With nothing else to do I enter the studio and begin setting up cameras and some of the audio equipment. Other students trickle in and eventually we have the whole crew in their positions.

It's a nerve wracking experience for everyone involved, but at this point we've gotten a flow going pretty well, and most of us can anticipate and remedy small mistakes that others may make. As per usual, the script doesn't make it to the director until five minutes before our warm up run-through. Six frantic minutes of jumbled script notes later, and the professor says it's time to go.

My heart beats at a heightened pace as I place the countdown on screen, and the director begins the process of the run-through. It doesn't go very smoothly. A camera is in the wrong place, one of the anchor's microphones isn't working properly, our floor director has a different rundown than the rest of the crew. This is why we do two runs of the newscast, to hopefully smooth out the kinks in the initial trial. Finally the credits roll, and everyone resets for the actual run. By now the director is slightly beyond nervous, shaking a bit as she reorganizes her script.

Minutes pass. They feel much, much longer than usual. Finally after zoning way the hell out, the voice of the professor over the headset I have on brings me back to reality. Everyone at the news desk is situated and ready to go, the camera operators and I have lined up the best shots we deem available, and finally the countdown is rolling.

The 14 minute 30 second newscast passes in a haze as I let the voice of the director control my every movement. I look to my right a few minutes in and a smile comes across my face briefly as I see how thoroughly she is murdering this. I spaz back into my role as I almost hit a transition late, but manage to barely make it look smooth at the last moment. Finally the credits are rolling again, and silence fills the room as the last few names scroll across the screen. The room is suddenly in an uproar as the director and producer congratulate one another and shake hands and general praise is thrown about. I wait until things calm down a bit and congratulate the director myself, who thanks me for being a reliable second in command that day. I help with putting equipment away and turn the lights off in the control room. For a moment or two I hang back and chat with fellow classmates about how the show went that day. At long last I put on my jacket, plug my headphones into my stupid-ass windows phone, hit play, and journey out into the frosty weather.

The walk to campus is directly uphill from our house. Something like a quarter mile of incline, which looking back I am extremely thankful for. By the time I reached my building, out of breath and somehow sweating in 40 degree weather, my brain is at least now somewhat awake from the exercise. This also meant that at the end of my classes for the day, the walk home was a pleasant downhill journey. Today I decided to take a slightly different route than usual, swinging by Don's Market to grab a 6 pack of bud ice before cutting through the adjacent apartment building's stairway. I finish the last set of stairs and half walk, half slide my way down the icy patch of asphalt leading to the above parking lot. I'm now on Morton St, and my house is just half a block down the road. I wave to a neighbor as they drive down the street, and they are either completely oblivious, or have me pegged as a weirdo that lives on that nasty old house down the road.

Finally, I am walking up to the porch of our horrible, probably-should-be-condemned house. I slide my key into the door out of habit, only to realize again that no one ever bothers to lock the door when they leave. Not because we weren't concerned about people getting in, but because there were windows on  either side a few millimeters thick that couldn't be locked anyway.  Anyway, I slide my key back out and slide the ring back into my pocket. Opening the door, I'm disappointed to find that the temperature inside was only perhaps five degrees higher than that of outside. A small amount of smoke spills out into the chilly air, and the scent of cheap beer and gut-rot liquor soon takes residence in my nose. I close the door behind me as our cat walks up to greet me and let out an annoyed meow in my general direction. Some assortment of other house residents, neighbors, stragglers from the night before etc, greets me as I walk into the kitchen. And by greet, I mean they yelled "aye grab a fucking beer and sit down for a minute," in a way that crushes my hopes of playing video games in my room like a hermit, but puts a smile on my face because I can already tell this afternoon will eventually get pretty damn weird.

We sit around the table for about 45 minutes, vaguely focused on one task but usually being distracted by something completely unimportant. Ben and I find a way into an absolutely pointless argument that we both enjoy the hell out of, but that makes everyone in the vicinity rather uncomfortable. Ozzie stands up and makes the declaration that he hasn't eaten since yesterday, gave blood today, and is on beer #4 already. The rest of the participants give a weary sigh as that's a clear indicator that Ozzie will Ozzie-the-fuck-out tonight. Blake and Cole are having an increasingly excited conversation regarding playing hockey or something, and Ian is probably there laughing at Ben and mine's argument, interjecting at times so as to keep things fair and interesting.

Finally six pm or so rolls around, people arrive from Tri Cities to stay with us for the weekend, Mallory joins in at some point, and everyone is to be on their best behavior, because someone was probably bringing a girl over that they'd met recently, and there's no way she'd make the journey to our place again if we acted as we typically did in these situations. Ozzie makes the best of these instructions by stumbling over to the potential new group member, slurs a very loud hello, and then proceeds to discuss some random controversial topic before the poor lady can even get her jacket off.

Control of the music is fought over with every song, and the volume is increasing by a few ticks every few minutes. Someone makes the decision that the time for beer consumption has passed, and now it's time to pop open that box of Franzia that we'd been saving for a special occasion. By that I mean we bought it that morning and by sheer willpower held off on opening it until later that night. Cups, ranging from beer glasses, to plastic fish, to sippy cups, to fancy wine glasses all get a healthy filling of white zin. Someone falls into the classic trap of asking me to make drinks for them that night, and as I hand them their first rum and coke I smile, because while their morning will be utter shit, tonight is gonna be a real good time for them.

Ozzie bursts into the kitchen announcing he has a batman tattoo. For the third time that day.

Cole and I get a bit restless and take the necessary steps to set up the beer pong table. The same 20 cups we've been using all year get picked up off their various locations throughout the floor of the living room and placed on the table with care. The same nasty pitcher that's been sitting in the living room collecting dust between weekends gets filled and then dispenses water to the 20 grimy red cups. Cole and I look at each other and instinctively chant TEAM PULLMAN, our signature phrase we utter before every game, that almost guarantees we will lose. Blake and Ashley volunteer to play against us, and after knocking them down to 4 cups against our 8, Ashley goes on a three cup streak, and Blake hits and island, Ashley then does the same, and in one fell swoop, Blake sinks the final cup with ease as Cole and I high five, again yelling TEAM PULLMAN.

The person who I'm making drinks for hands me their cup, and asks politely if I'll make them another. I smile and say of course, and make it just a bit stronger this time around. I step away back toward the seating area to see a game of Fuck the Dealer is a few turns in.

I sit down to join and am immediately handed the deck to become the new dealer. A few turns later I had plowed through two large cups of wine, and finally circumstances occur wherein I select the next dealer. After several more rounds of this, the game is concluded, and everyone is much more inebriated for having done so. The time is now around 9 or so, and a slight lull is felt. Some people head to the porch for a smoke, some stay inside for a slightly different kind of smoke, and the music takes a turn for the more relaxed.

9:30 arrives, and someone says "c'mon guys it's only fucking 9:30 let's rally." Easier said than done when the collective group began their consumption around 2pm that day, but we manage to pull it together making some weird batch of vodka/energy drink stuff that manages to put a bit of pep into everyone's step.

Bartender Sean's services are requested again, and another noticeably stronger cuba libre is served.

We sit around and yell conversations with each other over the raucous sound of the music that is now vibrating parts of the house. Ozzie is sitting straight up on a couch, somewhere between sleep and consciousness, letting out a noise every once in a while in response to conversations going on in the vicinity.

The person I've been making drinks for all night approaches me and grabs me by both arms, looks me dead in the eye and says "ca I ha a nother wun?" I ask if they're absolutely sure they want another drink, as I turn around to see Ozzie has returned from the dead and on his way to grabbing another keystone ice. Their response was essentially that if Ozzie can keep going, so can I. So I grin yet again and prepare their 4th cocktail. I help myself to another cup of wine, long since having lost track of how many times I'd filled the plastic fish cup that I drink out of.

Things continue on like this for a while, and suddenly it dawns on someone how hungry they are. They announce this to the group at large, and almost as if we all had one collective stomach, we realized that we too were in need of nourishment. People pull out their wallets to scrape together whatever meager amount of cash they happened to have on them, and we call in an order for two huge-ass pizzas from Pizza Perfection. As usual my financial contribution was a bit lower than most others, so to compensate I braved the walk to retrieve the pizza. Generally I'd arrive and whip out the wad of one dollar bills and pile of quarters I was handed. The person behind the counter sighs slightly but cheers up somewhat when she notices we scraped up enough to leave a small tip behind. I grab the pizza and hold it tightly against my chest as I use the top of one of the boxes as a mobile plate for my road slice.

It's on my way back to the house that I pause for a moment by the bridge which you cross in order to not have to swim through paradise creek. The night is completely still, and very quiet. I sit on a nearby bench for just a moment to take on the sight of the bridge, covered in Christmas-esque lights with a layer of snow across its walkway. The sky has an odd orange hue to it. The pizza boxes are warm in my lap. My phone buzzes asking where the fuck I am with the pizza. I chuckle and stand up and realize that in this one odd moment, everything in my life is completely okay. I'm not worrying about the impending fight with Mallory over something I don't understand. I'm not freaking out about the research paper due on Tuesday that I had yet to begin. I can see past the fact that I have twelve dollars to feed myself over the next week. Everything is just content, for this small moment.

I stumble my way the last three minutes back to the house where everyone is extremely excited to see the pizza. I convince the person I've been preparing drinks for to get some pizza into them, then I'll make them another drink, knowing full well that throwing a few hundred calories of pizza on top of all that liquor will make them fall asleep far before they have time to consume more rum.

The lady that was invited, for whom we were supposed to be on our best behavior for, is on the verge of laughter induced tears in the corner as Ben and Cole recount a story of one of their many snowboarding trips in which Ben did something... unsavory.

At this point, everyone is rather drunk and pretty damn full on pizza. The night has just a few minutes remaining as I half trip, half walk to the kitchen to get a huge cup of water. Perhaps this time I could prevent the hangover by drinking enough water, but after a while there's only so much that hydration can do to combat a 9 hour tour of poisoning one's body for the sake of fun.

I announce that I'm heading up to bed, and as I turn to leave I hear a collection of boos coming from behind me from those who have convinced themselves the night is still going strong. Ten minutes later as I come down to get ice for my water, I peek into the living room to see them passed the hell out, slumped next to each other on the big red couch.

I fall onto the mattress on the floor that served as my bed. Splotch meows angrily as I disturbed her precious kitty sleeps. Mallory mumbles something in her sleep as I gently move her away from the center of the bed. I kiss her on the cheek, roll over onto my back, close my eyes, and smile one last time that day. Because tomorrow is Saturday, and we're doing it all again.