Mickey Blue Eyes called me "sweetheart" last night. To be precise, he said, "Hey, sweetheart, I really enjoyed your reading."

Oh, faint. Oh, swoon. Oh, puddle of goo.

I was fucking drunk last night, but not too drunk to remember that little moment. Damn, that guy is liquid sex. His new wife was there last night, too. They certainly don't act like they're married. I will admit, grudgingly, that she is beautiful. And that she's a decent writer. And that I'm probably just projecting that trace of bitchery I see floating around the corners of her mouth.

Jealous? Moi?

So, the reason I was drunk and talking to Mickey was that we had a submission party last night. "We" being the editorial board of Prosodia (look it up in your new edition of Poet's Market) and "submission" referring to the fact that it was the submission deadline for the magazine.

We decorated the place (blue and yellow balloons, streamers and faux rejection notices), ordered pizza, and I drank about a bottle of wine. About 20 people read poems; I signed up to go fourth. I was already plastered by the time I got up there to read my poems. I'm guessing it went well; I wasn't nervous at all, I felt like I read well, and I did get a few compliments.

I remember only vague snippets of the evening, actually. I remember Mickey breathing his compliment into my ear. I remember reporting that fact to my friends, and squealing. I remember embracing one of my fellow editorial board members. I remember putting on a party hat on which I wrote "Bribe Me!" I remember my professor (who lives close to me in the East Bay) driving me home. And then I remember getting in my car and driving home.

Drunk.

Can you just hear the record screeching to a halt? I am, in retrospect, completely appalled that I drove home drunk. I drove from the BART station to my house, which is approximately a half a mile. At the time, it seemed like no big deal. It is, after all, a short drive. But of course, it is a pretty big deal.

I could just as easily have asked my professor to drop me off at home, and then I could have walked the half mile to get my car once I slept it off. But I didn't think of that at the time. My thoughts were pretty much limited to "Whee!" if you want the truth.

Here's the other thing. I distinctly remember-- distinctly-- saying the words, "I am drunk" at least twice during the ride home. Now I understand why the slogan is "Friends don't let friends drive drunk" because I was obviously in no condition to make the decision to drive. The responsible thing for my professor to do would be to notice my extreme inebriation, and AT LEAST ask me, "Hey, do you think you should be driving?" He probably should have insisted on driving me straight home.

I remember driving home safely though; I don't remember doing anything stupid. Although, for some bizarre reason, I was talking to myself in an obnoxious French accent, the whole way there. I say talking, but I was really yelling loudly in the close quarters of the car. "I muzt ztay between zee lines on zee street!!!" Giggle giggle. "It is a very leetle distaunce, after all!! Tres, tres leetle distaunce. Iv I just ztay between zee lines, I vill get home zafely!! Zo I muzt!!"

Somehow, with the help of my inner Taylor, I made it home. Then I changed the outgoing message on my answering machine to a Shakespearean sonnet, had a conversation with Tim and a conversation with Matthew (I remember almost nothing about either conversation) and passed out, fully clothed, contact lenses in.

I woke up this morning feeling like a dog's matted ass. The first thing I thought of was, "Thank GOD I still remember when he called me 'sweetheart'!" The second thought I had was, "Thank GOD I made it home alive!"

The moral being, of course, that friends don't let friends drive drunk. Seriously.

"The murder mystery was fun. We got to interrogate the suspects and came up with terribly original questions. 'Are you on crack?' 'Are you so-and-so in drag?' 'Did you have a sex change operation?'."