One of my most proud lexical creations is to say things like "...borderline completely..." as in "Your face is borderline completely repulsive." You know, to lead people on to think you're going to let them down gently by saying 'borderline' but then bring down the hammer with the 'completely.' I thought this would get more reactions. I don't know if it ever has. And if you know anything about me it is probably that I am nothing if not a reaction getter. It's like the saying "if a tree falls and no one hears it does it make a sound." For me if I don't get a reaction then I feel borderline completely non-existent. Hence the high-pitched whistle before it became purely habitual.
Anyway, so I had a couple friends getting married to each other this weekend in Knoxville, TN. Knoxville, Tennessee: the Paris of the American South. Let me explain:
1. Both have hosted World's Fairs: 1889 and 1982
2. Both have iconic tower-like structures from said World's Fairs: Eifel Tower and Sunsphere
3. Both are home to great universities: Sorbonne and The University of Tennessee - Knoxville
4. Both are awesome: I can only prove this for one, however
So at 11pm on Thursday we get on a bus and head west on 66 to then head south on 81 to west on 40 to land in Knoxville at 7am--I have done that route way too many times. That's 8 hours with about 1 hour of breaks in there. My grandfather says he was known to be able to sleep anywhere. I have always wanted to have a competition. On the bus ride down I sat in front of this obese gentleman, if I can say that, and I will/did. Well I wanted to recline my seat just a smidge and he was like "Can you not do that? There's not much room back here." "Uh, OK." Guess who had their seat reclined though without the slightest bit of expressed hypocrisy? Well lucky for him I can sleep anywhere and proceeded to fall asleep with seat concaving on me. Then Hypocrite Jack got off in Christiansburg, VA and I reclined my seat and slept like a dead person to the baby I was imitating while in a concave shape.
And we didn't even take a nap when we got there. We proceeded to play what I would have called beanbags and did, which is not acceptable in the south or where the bags are filled with corn. So we played cornhole. When I say I am good at throwing things you must understand I imply overhand. Underhand does not count. I won one out of like 30 games of corn hole this weekend.
A little while back there was this lady named Beth that was like "Hey you should leave the house on Sundays, go explore, and write about it on a blog." Well this Beth character lives in the Knoxville. And the Downtown Grill and Brewery is also located in Knoxville. So for lunch I was hungry for an awesome time sandwich with Beth and the DTG&B as the buns around the meat of me. I had the portabello mushroom sandwich. And an IPA and Porter--those are the real names of their beers--with the Porter being the awesomer of the two. And they were $3 each. O how I love you Knoxville.
JP Prince was a basketball player for Tennessee a couple years ago and he was never drafted. I have a friend named Pete that bet me a mini keg (we bet mini kegs often) that he would be. The wedding wasn't until 7 so we drank this mini keg I was owed while cornholing it beforehand.
Do you remember when I told you about needing people to react to me to feel existent. Well you should remember even stronger what I tell you about my strong aversion to being the focus of attention. I have been to like 3 weddings in my life and from the very first one it was absolutely apparent to me that there is a 0% chance I will be the type of person that stands in front however many people I can convince should dress up to come to this party I am throwing and while, oh by the way, this lady and I are going to tell each other how we feel about one another/promise sweet everythings up on a stage for a short while during it. My dad threw up at his wedding from nerves. I would do you one better father and just go ahead and blackout. So yeah again while I am pretty much on the fast track to being asocial, if by chance this doesn't work out and someone rich enough wants to hangout with me forever, this union will not be legally bound like most people do it absolutely for the sake of avoiding the attention. But for the right price I might do it conventionally and at that point the me needing reactions/confronting nerves/discomfort with humor would struggle greatly to not make a joke during vows ("Do you take this lady to be your wife?" "Obviously!"--No, that is not acceptable.)
Also, if I were to do this wedding thing conventionally it would be at the rapid pace that Sam and Mark did it. Then there was a bunch of awesome food. And open bar. And Rocky Top, which would have been the only song I would have danced to, but I was in the bathroom at the time. I take that back--not literally though because if I did I would have erased it--because there was a slow song to which I slow danced middle school style for awkwardness's sake.
I haven't been binge drinking too much lately though guys and what I am about to tell you is a direct result of this.
You can still smoke in bars in Tennessee. Going to Preservation Pub on Market Square in Knoxville used to be a lot like hanging out in the mouth of a smoker--loud, smokey, and hot. Now they have an upstairs where smoking is not permitted. We hung out there drinking for a little bit.
Then we went to what was a bar called World Grotto because the basement of the bar was cavernous like a grotto and it had an international feel to it. So we had been drinking for a little while now when we got to what was the World Grotto. As you walk in there are the steps to go down to the old grotto/current basement and for some reason over the steps and probably a little bit past the steps there is a table the size of a small room (maybe 9'x9'). Now I would say I am one of the more cerebral people I know and am usually thinking things through too much. Not so all this time, however: My friends are at one side of the floor/table and I decide, probably because I wanted to be the first person to touch the middle of this floor/table, to slither across the table like a snakey snake right off the other side. Some lady at the front door was not pleased. She called over a guy to deal with me. I don't know why this guy showed mercy but he merely said, "Promise me you will never do that again." Deal. I said, "I promise you I will never do that again" mostly because I will probably never be there again.
Now we're in the basement/grotto. Once we're down there I realize the guy upstairs probably let me stay because me and my friends increased the number of people in the place by like 600%. And then: lots of alcohol + wide open dance floor = Jeff doing a dance that cannot be described without using the terms "rythmic dancing-like," or "ecstasy induced," or "something only Jeff would do because he is borderline completely crazy." There is a video out there somewhere. Cross fingers the director at my "Mid-Twenties Fun Life Fund," aka my job, does not ever see it because her asking me to take a drug test will be awkward. And I promise there were no drugs involved.
After a night like this the only way to cap it off like curling up next to the fire on a cold winter evening is to get steak supreme burritos from Taco Bell. So there was that. And Saturday there was no hangover, miraculously.
Saturday was filled with stuff that are borderline completely impossible in DC. There was the trip to the $7 chinese buffet that included hibachi and sushi. There was the driving around the underrated campus of the University of Tennessee (how can you say something like this is on one of the most unattractive campuses in the country?). There was me buying the Royal Bangs album in their hometown. There was me walking a dog while other people napped and where said dog pooed in someone's yard, after which we literally ran away (sorry owners of that yard). There was more cornhole in someone's yard with grass and trees and bugs and allergies and stuff still coming out of my face perpetually and while sneezing. There are dive bars in the truest sense with $1 Natty Lights not during happy hour, holiday, etc. but forever and always. I might retire there. There is a bar called Old College Inn that is now located in what was a Chilis, where I actually worked for a semester in college, which regardless of the signs appeared to me to be nothing but a Chilis on a special occasion in which they dimmed the lights, removed some tables, and put in some games for me and my friends. And there is Cool Beans.
Our bus was at 1030am on Sunday. I woke up at 10. In the hustle out the door I forgot my phone. So I am down one alarm clock.
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