Friday, January 01, 2010

:: 1999-2009: A Decade of Debauchery ::

"You know, this year really hasn't been a good one for me." - Christene, about 10 hours into 2010, and about 20 minutes after she finally stopping throwing up.

I have a terrible memory. Whereas there are people out there who can remember all sorts of days, event and altercations from their elementary school days, I cannot. Can't even remember much of high school, truth be told. I wish this was not the case – especially because there aren't a whole ton of photos to document these days, either – but such is life.

And though my memory is often hazy, I do tend to think of my life as having four parts: The first being all the elementary school (and earlier) days that I barely remember. The second would be high school – with most memories I'd rather forget – and the third epoch in my life is actually the shortest – the two year college period, from 2001-2003, when I lived in Kamloops. (My college experience was actually four years, but the first two were at Kwantlen and largely uneventful).

The fourth era, the one I currently find myself in, is, of course, post-college. Real Life. And as Era Three is left further and further in the rearview mirrow, it is still is a very large, important part of the last 10 years. The seven after that, of course, are big too. Lots of changes. Lots of mistakes. Lots of bad, lots of good.

Lots of booze.

In note form, here is a brief summation of the past 10 years, best as can be remembered. I know I'm skipping out on a lot, but by the time I got to the end of the list, I was pretty exhausted.

Jan. 1, 2000: I ring in the New Millenium at a house party in Burnaby. I know only two people at the party, and 10 years later I have no idea how we ended up there. Just one of those things... Even the two people I went with are now but names on a Facebook page – I haven't seen either in about eight years.

Jan. 1, 2000: Y2k is a bigger bust than an Eddie Murphy movie. No computers explode, break down or otherwise cause trouble. The world does not come to an end.

Early spring, 2001: I am accepted into the University College of the Cariboo (now Thompson Rivers University).

Summer, 2001: I change my mind about moving to Kamloops and back out of UCC, and am accepted at UBC instead.

Late summer, 2001: I change my mind again. I un-enroll (de-roll?) at UBC and beg and plead my way, at the last minute, back into the program in Kamloops.

Sept. 2001: I move to Kamloops for my final two years of university. My first year, I room in a quad with two volleyball players from Alberta and a Korean exchange student none of us ever see. We only know he's in there because the smell of his weird, Korean cigarettes wafts under the door.

Sept. 2001-April 2002: I decide that I hate Kamloops and all the people in it. I spend every single weekend in Langley, thus single-handedly subsidizing the Coquihalla Highway and it's tollbooth system.

Sept. 11, 2001: Some towers fall down, or something.

Nov. 2001: My one quad-mate, Jay, accidently burns his chest during a Nair-related, chest-hair-removal accident.

April 2002: I move home, relieved to have survived Year 3 of university.

June, 2002: Chris, Ian, Bucholtz (barely) and Jeremy and company graduate high school, and are released into an unsuspecting world. At the same time, Kwantlen college's average GPA plummets, while local beer sales increase expontentially. The two are not unrelated.

Sept. 2002: I move back to Kamloops for my final year of school. Instead of the shitty dorms, I move into a basement suite in Aberdeen.

Sept. 2002-Dec. 2002: Lots of booze. Lots of memory loss. Check the archives for the details.

Fall, 2002: I "help" Chris write a couple essays for one of his Kwantlen classes. He gets better grades than Tara, who is in the same class. Seven years later, she has still not let it go.

Dec. 31, 2002: Instead of spending New Years' back in Kamloops, as originally planned (because most out-of-towners decided at the last minute against coming back to the 'Loops in time) I end up at a party in Langley, at a now-demolished-for-townhouses house in behind the Wal-Mart. It's the house of an old high-school buddy I happened to run into the night before, and it is not my scene. Not at all. Fights in the driveway. Coke all over the counter. Spray-painted walls. Entire cedar chest full of weed (for selling). I was home by 10:30. Good times.
January, 2003: We throw a Christmas tree off a second-floor balcony, over a fence, and down a muddy hill. Years later, I admit to sneaking out, thus avoiding a landlord-directive to go pick it up.

February, 2003: In a magazine writing course, in which we produce a real magazine to be inserted into the local paper, prof announces that due to space, some people's stories won't make it into the magazine. All four of my stories are cut. Cue serious complaining to my friends and fellow students. One class later, prof pulls me into the hallway to tell me I can't complain, it makes him look bad, it's not appropriate, etc etc etc. I tell him that I paid thousands of dollars to take the course, and therefore it's my right to complain as I see fit. I walk away. He never brings it up again.

April, 2003: After skipping three out of every four classes of a two-semester, six-credit art histoy/photography course because it was taught by some hippy burnout, full of prententious art students and was fucking brutal, I stay awake for about 60 hours straight to finish the required course work. I read three books, write two papers, build a pinhole camera out of wood, take and develop about 20 pictures with it, and write another report about said camera. The worst two-and-a-half days of my life, bar none. I finish in time, sleep for 17 hours, wake up and drink for about two days non-stop. I ended up with a C- in that class. Lowest mark of my post-secondary career, but it works for me.

May, 2003: I graduate from UCC with a bachelor's degree in journalism, with a 3.2 GPA, or somewhere thereabouts. My two proudest achievements: that I went through four years of school without a single Friday class; and that my GPA dropped all eight semesters I was enrolled (first year at Kwantlen: 4.2; fourth year at UCC: 3.1).

Summer, 2003: Unemployed, I spent the summer blowing through the rest of my student line-of-credit. Highlights include going to Merritt for our first musicfests. It is a gongshow, and requires three posts to fully explain. (Links at left, in the Hall of Fame).

Oct. 2003: I run out of money, forcing my move to Peace River, Alberta, where I suck it up and take a job at the Peace River Record-Gazette where the annual salary is a whopping $25,000.

Dec. 23, 2003: I come home for Christmas, and find a strange, unknown blonde girl sitting at my parent's dining room table. Turns out her name is Jenna, but at the time, I had no idea who the hell she was. "Oh, we're just friends," says Chris. He continues to say this for oh, about a year.

Oct. 2003-April 2004: I spent nine months in the north, experiencing up to -50 temperatures, blizzards the likes of which I've never seen. No snow tires on the Civic the whole time. I piss off or fight with the following people in town: the alcoholic general manager of the local senior hockey team; the coach of the Catholic school's girls volleyball team; a drunken native guy in the McNamara Hotel; football parents; football coach. I apologize for nothing.

Feb. 4, 2003: Chris comes for a visit.

April 4, 2004: The Cannons take the field.

late-April 2004: I take a new job back home, and say "sayonara bitches!" to the Great White North.

Sometime later in 2004: Kelsey moves here from Enderby. Our text messaging costs all go through the roof. (Seriously, I didn't even know how to send a text message before she moved here. Now I sent about 300 a day).

January, 2005: For no real reason, I decide to go to Toronto for four days, along with my dad, who is headed there for a work conference. While he's there doing work, I spent my day aimlessly wandering around the downtown core in the snow. We go to the Hockey Hall of Fame, get a tour of the Air Canada Centre, and eat delicious hot dogs from street vendors. The Holiday Inn we stayed at is also the location of the coldest, best-tasting beer I've ever had. At the Mahogany Bar. Delicious. I also discovered a bar/restaurant called Fred's Not Here, so obviously I call from the hotel, asking for Fred. He wasn't there, so it's not just a clever name.

Feb. 20, 2005: I get in a fight during a hockey game.

June 19, 2005: Kelsey discovers the joys of potato salad, thus fulfilling her life.

November, 2005: Brad gets in a bad car accident. We all spent many hours and too much energy worrying about him, until he gets out of his coma a month later. One of the worst times of all our lives. In retrospect, it's nice to know none of our efforts were appreciated. Such is life.

April, 2006: I buy my townhouse, just a few days before my 25th birthday. My goal was to own something by the time I was 25, and I succeeded by the skin of my teeth.

Sept. 2006: Me, Chris and my cousins head to Bowen Island for the first annual MeatFest, in which disgusting amounts of animal flesh are consumed. Highlights include my team winning the golf tournament, and the 3 a.m. round of steaks.

Sept. 2007: MeatFest, round 2. This time, I win "The Show" award for being the drunkest during the golf tournament. I drink one beer per hole, and finish the round by tripping, falling, and sliding down the backside of an elevated green. I still have the grass stain on my white golf shirt. What a time to be alive.

Nov. 1, 2007: Seven of us go to Cancun for a week (Guess who made it an odd number?!). It is glorious.

April 2008: I get a Facebook friend request from a woman I do not recognize, with the message "I think we went to high school and university together!" I add her. A week or so later, at my company's annual conference, a strange woman approaches me in the coffee lineup and says "Remember me from Facebook!?" It is the same woman.

We exchange awkward pleasantries, and that is that. As it turns out, she ends up getting a fulltime job in my office a short time later, and we not only went to the same high school and university, we have tons of the same university friends, and also live across the street from each other. This crazy mystery woman also is best friends with Christene, who I meet sometime later.

Late April, 2008: I go to Vegas for my birthday, with my dad. I quickly realize that Las Vegas is my favourite city on the planet.

Sept. 11, 2008: Kelsey announces she's moving to Fort McMurray, in an attempt to out-run her debt. She is roundly criticized, mostly by me. She is also mocked, also by me. "Ill be back by the spring - by your birthday at the latest," she says."

Oct. 2009: Back to Vegas.

New Year's Eve, 2008: I invite Christene to a New Year's Eve party at Brett and Tara's house. At the end of the night, in a drunken stupor, I slip and fall down the stairs. All part of my charm, apparently. Or maybe not. Either way, it impresses Christene.

May, 2009: Me, Chris, Jenna, TO and Carly head to Phoenix, then rent a car and drive to Vegas. Carly accidently leaves her wallet, complete with ID and hundreds of dollars, in an A@W washroom in Sun City, Ariz. We realize this hours later at some awesome trading post in the middle of the desert. Thankfully, it's still there - and with money in it - and the wallet it FedExed to our hotel. Because all's well that ends well, TO manages to avoid killing his wife. Close call though.

Spring, 2009: Kelsey, not exactly true to her word, is not home for ball season. Neither is Scott, as it turns out, because he's been suckered in by the lure of riches.

"We'll be back by the fall," says Kelsey. "Just a couple more months."

August, 2009: Me and Christene go to Vegas - my fourth time in less than two years, and Christene's first time ever. It is oustanding, except for the 40-degree heat.

Fall, 2009: "We're just gonna work through the winter," says Kelsey, in a text message. "But we'll be there by next ball season for sure. I promise."

Fall, 2009: I stop believing a damn thing Kelsey says.

Christmas, 2009: It is relieved Scott and Kelsey's lease in Fort Mac is not up until October, long long passed the end of baseball season. Not many people are surprised.

Dec. 25, 2009: A delightfully hilarious story regarding herpes is revealed, over a few beers on Christmas night. One of the holiday highlights.

New Year's Eve, 2009: At Davy and Colleen's for NYE this time, Christene and I are well on our way to intoxication before we even arrive, having stopped at a pub earlier in the evening. "I'm gonna try hard not say too much," says a drunk-but-hiding-it Christene.

2:30 a.m., Jan. 1, 2010: In a delightful twist of fate, exactly 365 days after I fall down some stairs, Christene bails while going up the stairs at her parents' house. The commotion wakes up her parents. Once I discover that there are no injuries, I laugh heartily.

So there you have it. A lot of changes from Jan. 1, 2000 until Jan. 1, 2010 - which is not all that surprising really, considering that 10 years is a long god damn time.

It was the decade I became legally allowed to drink; bought two different cars, a townhouse; travelled; somehow snared myself a girlfriend, and kept the same group of friends I had in the decade previous - the latter being a rare feat, I think.

And there's a ton of other people I met in this decade that I didn't know existed before - Christene, Kristyl, Sean, Kelsey, Meghan, Jenna, Katie, Dan, Davy, Colleen, TO, Carly, Melissa, Mike, Scotty to some extent (I knew he existed but we weren't friends).

I even managed to keep this blog alive for the last seven years.

And if it somehow manages to survive 10 more, I wonder, what will I be writing about then?

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