Dirty laundry and cigarette butts scattered around the room like an explosion. An every-ready crucial bottle of generic labeled aspirin. Slips of papers, napkins, coasters with scribbles, thoughts, names and numbers. Empty Coke cans and a few not-so-empty ones that teeter precariously in high-risk places, waiting for me to create the inevitable mess. Beer bottles, cans, and the cardboard carcasses of 12 packs long since consumed.

This is college.

My head is pounding as hard and as frequently as my heart. My musical selection of garage-fusion is not helping, but I'm too lazy to rise from my bed to remedy the situation. Sometimes eternity is four songs long. I rise, holding my head and smash my fist into any row of random buttons on my stereo, just wanting it to stop, and stop it does. Unfortunately, so does my stereo. I grimace as my left foot comes into contact with a metal object as I look down to find an empty Coke can quickly becoming a 6th toe. I fling my foot to release the menace, only to flail the aluminum torpedo towards a not-so-empty counterpart, which predictably topples to the floor with it contents glug-glug-glugging everywhere. I absorb the situation and shrug, figuring the dirty laundry will absorb the beverage, and gaze out the window. With a side glance to the clock, my throbbing brain attempts to internalize the time, in the scheme of my evening. I go back to staring out the window. Flickering and sputtering lights wake up and greet the approaching night. My subconsious begins to do the same. A gray haze hangs over the inner city. The window feels cool to my touch and I wonder if anything I have to wear that is clean, is warm. Probably not. I have perfume. That'll do.

Cliche as it sounds, I believe the night holds mystery. My brain screams what mystery? you'll get drunk, woof down something greasy and pass out. No mystery. Well, says the dreamer on the other shoulder, you just never know. I envision myself as Leonard Nimoy, which ambiguously equals that 1970's series, In Search Of, of which he was the host. However, my episodes never know exactly they are searching for. So here I stand, a Spock with no trek.

Enough feigned profundity. I turn back to the sty to look for a cigarette. There's gotta be one here somewhere. None to the immediate eye, however....not a good sign. Well, this is obviously going to require food for thought, and food here at Disgraceland is a beer. I reach for my cheap sunglasses. The fridge bulb blew a few weeks ago and we replaced it was some sort of neon-cornea-burning substitute. Opening the fridge is as close to staring at the sun as you can get. Imagine that with a Jager hangover. With ammo on eyes I open the ultra-violet glacier and actually see a beer. There is a God. And he likes me. I stick the bottle under a drawer and on the fourth attempt am successful at getting the cap off, with a minimum of beverage loss. In a triumphant gesture I down a gulp and enjoy the ensuing belch. With my nose tingling (it was a really good burp), I again begin the quest for cancer. I begin sweeping the floor with my foot and uncover countless surprises. Oh. Yee-hah. My tax form shit. Well, that's the beauty of the IRS. Doesn't matter if it's a day late or a year late; it's just late. A pizza box. Stinky. Oh, YES. There on the floor, like a stick of gold, is a cigarette. The beer is like sacred nectar and the cigarette is like a joint. Life is good.

So here I sit, convincing myself into thinking I'm alive for some worthwhile reason, and wishing the phone would ring and someone would be on the other end screaming that specific reason. I snap out of my introspective bullshit and see that the hour indeed is growing late, and decide I've got to put things into high gear. I walk slowly to the shower and sheer laziness overpowers the desire to be clean in an amazingly brief altercation. I go back to my perfume scapegoat.

I take three aspirin for preventative measures. I don't need to actually live my life to know that frequent headaches are a given. Like a dump in the morning, or a beer, anytime. At 22, drinking has become an intregal part of my life. If I was organized enough to have one of those little canary yellow Post-It pads with Things to Do delicately stenciled at the top, DRINK would be in the top two. In competition with Get a Life perhaps. I laugh to think that do laundry wouldn't be in the top ten, evidently.

I jump as if I've stepped on a landmine as the telephone bellows. A disabled Veteran selling an entourage of lightbulbs, in various wattages and assortments. I refrain from inquiring about his selection of Fridgidaire models and politely decline his pleas for purchase. I console myself with the notion that someone out there is having a much worse Friday night than myself. Then again, maybe not. At least the Veteran is interacting with other humans.

If I need a lightbulb, it's one to go over my fucking head. I wonder if the unknown soldier has any of those?