Except once in a while, it does.

Yesterday was the festival at my school. There was a stage set up in the parking lot, people selling veggie burgers and wine. Jen and I got there close to noon, when the first band was supposed to go on. We stopped by the liquor store first so we could get right to drinking. (Stage fright, you know.) We added half a bottle of Bacardi to a liter bottle of Diet Coke. We used it as a chaser for the rest of the Bacardi, which we drank straight.

I was carrying my thesis-in-progress, which I had printed out to use as my set list. I had timed a ten minute set for the first one, and figured I'd play the second set pretty much by ear. Joey showed up soon after we got there, and that's when the gin-and-juice got started.

With my sheets of paper in hand, we settled in to watch the band play. The band consists of Toker (one of my best friends in the program) who plays the drums, Rick (I'd call him a good acquaintance, we run in the same circles) on bass, and Ian (useless, shagging, and a bastard) on lead guitar.

Also in the audience were some people I know because they are Ian's good friends, particularly his one friend Spike. I think the last time I saw Spike, I had my tongue in Ian's mouth, which made for some interesting context. Spike and I had a very friendly conversation, though; he's a cool guy.

The band had been rehearsing pretty hard, I hear. They don't have any vocals yet, but their music sounded very together. Clearly they have been working hard. I wasn't paying an inordinate amount of attention. I was busy continually reminding myself not to watch Ian's hands while he played. He has great hands. I don't know why my brain can't turn off my body's response to him. Annoying.

Ever since I first heard about the festival, I had been pondering reading this poem, which is about Ian. Not only that, it has Rhode Island in it, which makes it obvious that it is about Ian. So my options, if I wanted to read this poem, were to change the name of the state, or to say to hell with it and read the poem as is.

I decided to read the poem. Changing the state felt like a very obvious obfuscation. I think people would have guessed, and I would have felt like I had something to be ashamed of. Screw that, right? I wasn't going to do that.

But reading the poem was risky. Because Ian might hear it and think, "Ha, ha, she is clearly not over me. Look, she's writing poetry about me!" So I decided to open the set with a poem that "I promised my boyfriend I'd read." This is an exaggeration. I definitely would not call There's This Guy a "boyfriend," nor does he even know the poem exists. I took some poetic license.

So I read that one (about my breasts) and some other ones and then introduced "Week" by saying, "This is about getting over someone." In the meantime, Ian was standing right behind Jen and Joey (I feel like I'm living in Dawson's Creek all of a sudden) watching my whole set.

But I was drunk and therefore brave. I read the poem.

I finished my set with "The Taco Bell Manifesto," which is the first poem I ever read publicly and one of my favorite poems to read. People enjoy the fact that it says "cock" a lot. I hadn't read it in a long, long time, and most people at the festival had never heard it.

There was a lot of great audience response to my set and I got lots of nice comments, which was gratifying. I was also proud that, even though I almost missed my seat and fell on the ground when I stumbled off the stage, I didn't actually fall over. Ten points for me.

I saw Ian applauding during my set, but he didn't say anything to me afterward. Who knows how it had gone over. But I was proud of myself for having the balls to read it (even if I didn't quite have the balls to look at him while I did it).

A little bit later, Jen and I were sitting on the school steps, drinking (gin and Snapple, the ultimate white trash beverage) and chain smoking. Toker came up to me and said, "Did you psych Ian during your set?" I threw my head back and laughed and said that I had. "Oh, because he came up to me and said he was having fun, even though he got psyched."

Yes!!! I win! I win!

The taste of triumph was sweetened when one of Ian's best friends came up to me and said, "I liked your poem," wink wink, "You know the one I mean." Ian didn't miss my point. Ian's friends didn't miss my point. Nobody missed my point! And he didn't feel flattered or anything, he felt like he got dissed. Which he did. And everybody knew it. Ha!

Much later, Ian did finally say something to me. He joined our conversational circle, looked at me, raised his eyebrows and said, "I heard that, you know." I smiled sweetly. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm very innocent."

Later, somehow, I ended up talking to him again. "I saw you talking to Spike earlier..." he said. (So he had been watching me too.) We were talking about our beds (we both bought new ones recently) which made for a weird conversation where the subtext was, "Yes, I remember your bed." Then he reached out his thumb to brush away something on my lower lip. Slowly. A startling and intimate gesture. Those green eyes.

Hey, at least I didn't whimper audibly.

Even though I know he had been drinking (and weren't we all) his demeanor was subdued. I'm not sure if he felt chastened or just mellow or what. I think I might have preferred his old obnoxious attitude. At least it's easier to resist him that way.

Anyway, the conversation ended. Before I walked away, he pulled me in for a hug. Another unexpected maneuver, the feeling of his body against mine. Was it a gesture of impulse? Attraction? Contrition?

I'm trying to think of it as closure.

My second set was at the café. By that point I was tired and increasingly hammered, and the room was spinning more than a little bit.

Professor President was there, and when he saw me he gave me a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek. I'm like, hmm, either he really missed me, or he's drunk. His fiancée was her usual super-flirty self. I gave up on trying to figure out the dynamic and just went with it. By the end of the night, it felt like Professor P was just another one of my pals.

My set seemed to go well-- it's all sort of hazy, I don't know. Joey read, two of my professors read, Probst read, a few total psychopaths read. Jen and Joey and Fiancée slipped out during the most painful reading, which consisted of this SCARY ASS looking woman making weird noises. "Cooo Coooo! Auuuuuooooo. Whisssssssker. Nininininii!" Professor P and I sat there, silently passing the bottle of gin between us and trying not to burst out laughing.

We all needed to head back to Oakland, so we decided to go together. Jen was the most sober, but a little intimidated about driving in San Francisco. Professor P said he was okay to drive, so he drove us over the bridge. It was a little weird, sitting in the front seat of my own car, absolutely hammered, talking to Professor P about god knows what. (And I really don't remember.)

When we got to Oakland, there was hugging all around, and then Jen drove us back to her house. It was at this point that the room really began to spin, and I think there was pizza (anything to soak up the alcohol in my stomach) and I know there was water, and I had weird nightmarish dreams all night long.

I woke up feeling fairly ass-tastic, and headed home to find the delivery of my new bed already in progress. Well, at least I didn't miss it. And now I am working on proofreading work, taking little breaks to write this entry. Which brings us up to this very sentence, in fact. (It's 11:14. Do you know where your online journaler is?)

I ended up having a lot of fun yesterday, even though there were long stretches of boring time in which there was nothing to do but drink and chain smoke. Jen and Joey were immensely supportive of my mania, and hopefully I didn't embarrass myself too much.

I know I came off on top with Ian, which was nice considering the complete fool I made of myself last time I saw him. And I am kicking myself for not bringing a camera, because we all looked cute. (I got to wear one of my new shirts, which has a sparkly Marilyn Monroe on the front.) Plus I bet that in a picture, the whole stage/microphone set up would have made me look very impressive.

On the whole, it was a good day. Although I don't think mixing gin, rum, wine, beer and cigarettes was the best plan I've ever come up with. As it turns out, Dutch courage gives you quite a Dutch hangover. Ongelooflijk!