Life is Strange

I don't know what it is. Life is just strange.

I got a DUI a few months back. It's a long story, but I'll try to summarize.

I was going out to the bars in Santa Barbara with my cousin Rosalina as we do pretty regularly. She's one of my favorite weekend companions because we have a similar outlook on partying vis a vis how much is acceptable and what kinds of things are ok to do. The plan was for me to leave my car at her friend Natalie's house, and to crash on the couch there at the end of the night.

As it turned out, though, I got into an argument with Natalie's roommate, also named Natalie, and she kicked me out of the house. What did we argue about? That's the long story, but it has to do with the fact that I got kicked out of a bar for saying something that I should have had every right to say, and that she took the female bartender's side in the matter.

Well, Natalie had called me a cab when she kicked me out, but I couldn't take it, because my car was parked on the curb there and I had to work at 8:00 am, the math just did not work for me to get up, get back to the mesa and get to Ojai in time. Leave aside the fact that my cousin had gone home early in the night, presumably to make love to her boyfriend, and the only other place I might have counted on to sleep was off limits because the last time I'd crashed at my Nono's apartment without prior warning, I'd nearly given him a heart attack.

So I drove home. I know it was stupid, but based on the rule of thumb formula I knew I was close to the limit and I figured I'd be alright if I was careful. As it turns out I was indeed close to the limit. I know because I was breathalized, I had a BAC of .09%. The limit, by the by, is .08%. Basically if I hadn't finished my drink before getting kicked out of the bar I'd have been alright.

Anyway, why do I tell this story now? I'm staying at my cousin's house again the last few nights because I've been volunteering for the Barack Obama primary campaign. Saturday night we went out to the bars, and in the course of the night we met up with Rosie's friend Natalie, who just happened to be hanging out with little Natalie.

No biggie, I convinced myself that I'd just cold shoulder little Natalie and try to have a good time anyways. Life had other ideas.

Almost immediately on meeting up inside EOS, a nightclub just off State St. we all went to the bar and I bought a round of drinks because it was my turn (it didn't really bother me that little Natalie got a drink because that's the nature of buying a round, it's about alcoholic karma, not about only buying drinks for the people you like). Rosie and her friend Natalie grabbed their drinks and walked off to the dance floor to dance, but little Natalie grabbed my arm and held me back to ask if we were "cool".

"Whatever," I told her, knowing it was the closest thing to an apology I was likely to get. "I don't particularly think you acted very fairly toward me, but I don't hold any grudges."

Well, we talked about it, and I have to admit, just the fact that she brought it up, without any hesitation or sense of trying to avoid the issue made me more inclined to forgive and forget. I figured that in truth I hadn't been blameless, I'd definitely not been very nice, etc. In the course of talking about it we had both told each other straight out that we were attracted to each other, and eventually, after we'd both sort of admitted fault and more or less expressed regret for out part of what we'd done, we ended up making out!

Yeah, I felt a little bit stupid and easily manipulated, but then again, I made out with a girl I'd liked when I'd first met her, and the reality is that it's not like its her fault that I got a DUI, it's just her fault that I didn't have a couch to sleep on. I'm the asshole who decided to get in my car and drive that night. I don't know, in a way it's totally messed up and neurotic and sad and even a bit masochistic, but in another way, it's kind of just totally reasonable and makes sense. Part of the whole reason we'd gotten as pissed at each other as we did was because of the sexual tension between us, it was sort of natural, after we forgave each other that we would hook up pretty immediately.

Anyways, life is just a ridiculous story. My Nana liked to say, before she died, that the only difference between reality and fiction was that fiction had to make sense.