Maybe I (Definitely) Shouldn’t Go To Nightclubs

Catherine: Here I will detail the first of MANY reasons why I should really just stop going to nightclubs.

We open on an 18 year old Catherine, freshman year of college. I had a relentless ability to rage long and hard every single night of the week and still manage to wake up the next day and 1) live and 2) accept any and all drinks, any time of day (luke warm vodka at 3pm? Sounds fun!). One night, I ventured out to downtown Burlington, VT (no doubt taking the off-campus bus and saving myself the approximately 1.2 mile walk) with some fellow dormmates (that was a thing, guys). We headed to the (only?) 18+ nightclub, and I was brandished with big fat X-marks on both of my hands. I am ASSUMING that I was already drunk, but to be fair, that part of the story escapes me. What’s important is this: It was a time in my life where I wore, and loved, Gap jeans I had owned since 8th grade, despite their having holes in both knees and the butt. And the fact that they could no longer zip up all the way. That, I determined, was no problem at all. Instead, I safety-pinned them open and wore them with black underwear. It was a look, it was intentional, and yes, I am glad there are no pictures.

At said nightclub, it was all top 40s which was my JAM. So I was alloverthatshit. I don’t wanna get ahead of myself, but I’m a pretty sick dancer (in terms of grinding, dancing awkwardly provocatively, hair flipping, etc.) My talents were not wasted on the fine men who chose to go to an 18+ nightclub despite being mainly over 21. One such man began dancing with me, citing my “sick moves!” This went on a while, culminating in the ever-sexy “I will dance LITERALLY ON YOU with my feet off the floor as you dip me and I think I look really good most likely.” It was hot.

Upon leaving, it came to my attention that my dance date was missing a tooth. A front one. Prominently in the very center of his mouth. I literally had no idea. The ridicule I endured was appropriate because like, seriously, people. How did I not see that. My friend wrote this poem of the incident:

Hmmmmm…Cathy.
Oh Cathy oh Cathy.
Toothless Willy will never be the same because I bet he never danced with
a chick that didn’t think he was lame.You said he was sick danca’
and that’s all there is to it
because for real, he looked like pranca’
… and you know he wanted to do it.I called his friend Pedro,
maybe that wasn’t right.
But it all seemed just fine
at the end of the night!

I should mention that his friend was called Pedro solely because he was Mexican, and Napoleon Dynamite was really huge at the time.

Jana: Poor Pedro – I’m sure he got that all the TIME that year. And, I can see why toothless man liked you: it was because your outfit was so classy.

An Irish Memory

Jana: St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday that matters only in Boston, or to big drinkers, or to people who look really good in green (ie, redheads – girls, not boys). Also, I guess, to the Irish. Luckily for myself and for Catherine, we together meet all of these criteria in one way or another. PLUS, St. Patrick’s Day is the day before Cath’s birthday, thus essentially BEING her birthday. For all of these reasons, we decided to go extra hard on St. Pat’s 2007, also known as Cathy‘s 21st birthday. The anniversary of this occasion seems as good at time as any to do our first ever “in college, we were drunk and did stupid things!” post. Happy Holidays.

Catherine: I gotta say, I am SHOCKED it has taken this long to dip into our many terrible college drinking times. How is it possible we haven’t tackled that night I fell asleep on a stranger’s lawn on the walk home? Strange. But, on with the story.

Jana: We had just returned from spring break, which we’d both spent at our parents’ houses doing absolutely nothing. It was, I believe, a Saturday night. As was our custom in those days, I collected approximately all of my clothing into plastic bags and arrived in Cathy’s room to try them all on in different combinations and with different jewelry. It took us a while, but here are the outfits (and, god help us, poses) we came up with:

   

I don’t have much defense for these pictures except to say that WE WERE IN VERMONT, and WE WERE TWENTY-ONE, although that in no way excuses the tiara (it DOES explain the wool socks). Also I’m sure Catherine stands by these outfits and still thinks they are great. Ah well.

Catherine: I wish there was a way we could go back in time and un-delete all the pictures taken BEFORE these ones. God knows these weren’t the only shots taken, but apparently these ones were the best – the ones deemed worthy for the facebook album. Also, Jana, on my birthday, and when I am 20, I can think that wearing a tiara is a cool idea. Although I do feel like it wasn’t my idea somehow? Not sure. But MOVING ON.

Jana: Once we’d settled on these, feeling really attractive, we waltzed into the kitchen to make ourselves a celebratory drink. We were drinking Bacardi Limon mixed with diet coke, a drink our group of friends had affectionately termed “Paula Abduls”, because they are very low calorie and probably Paula was drinking them during most of American Idol.

Catherine: Correction: She was definitely drinking them during most of American Idol.

Jana: The point is that, about 4 Paula Abduls in, we were with all our friends and dancing in the living room. An important thing to note is that the next day we were all set to attend a local child (in fact, our friend’s son)’s birthday party, and in anticipation of this event there was a large blow-up dinasour in the living room, which people danced with.

As Cathy demonstrates, here.

Catherine: Besides dancing, I would like to mention that pictures were taken with the dinosaur in compromising sexual positions, and also drinking. Sadly, neither Jana or I appear in these photos, so we have to refrain from sharing them.

Jana: Eventually, we went to karaoke. While this is not something I REMEMBER, I do know that it happened. At this point in my life my friends were all huge karaoke fans, whereas I was not generally a karaoke participant; yet, I karaoke-d on this night. I believe I met a gentleman who joined me on the stage (a quick peek at my actual journal for the day reveals “met some guy named kevin i think who i gave my number to”, so I guess his name was Kevin). Catherine, I know, sang her standard: Alanis‘ “You Oughta Know“.

Catherine: Quick side note about “You Oughta Know” (one of the best rock songs, ever, yeah, I said it.) Last time I was at JP’s, I sang “You Oughta Know” and closed out the night. I only know this not because I recall having a blast singing it, but because I saw pictures of me singing on my camera the next day and was informed that I had closed out the night while swaying in an enthusiastic but ultimately awkward way.

I don’t know what I sang.

Jana: The point is that around 3 AM we ended up at the local 24-hour diner, Henry’s, where after eating a hot dog AND eggs I fell asleep on the table and someone took a picture of me which I mercifully have been unable to locate.

Catherine: Henry’s is no longer open 24-hours. They had discontinue this perk after a late night food fight, which I feel a lot of regret about missing.

Jana: The next point is that the following morning, we still had to go to the child’s birthday party. I remember waking up and feeling like: how could I get dressed? I couldn’t. Could I? But, I did, and I chose to wear a pair of bell-bottom style khakis with a light blue tank top and a gray sweater, and to straighten my hair without washing it first. At the party, I looked and felt like this:

It was a real “You have no ability to dress yourself nor any right to be in the world, at any time of day” moment. In that regard, it was similar to my own 21st birthday, which I shall have to touch upon another time.

A la New Year’s Eve, we advise you to stay in this St. Patrick’s Day. At the very least, it’s best to leave your camera at home.

If You Can’t Swim, Don’t Take A Swim Test

Catherine: As a youngster, I went to a Catholic Lithuanian Heritage camp in Vermont. It was awesome. I get that you don’t think it’s awesome, but that’s only because you are judging. Stop it. It was awesome. Except maybe for my brothers the short week they came, when their sleeping bags were set on fire. They didn’t think it was too great.

At camp, every day had a pretty similar outline, with swim time coming after lunchtime. After getting either a soda or an ice cream (it was also a health camp), we lined up with our cabins and walked down to the pond, which had a leech problem. Like, if you went in, you were gonna wanna make sure you didn’t just get ‘leeched.’ The most prominent leech spot was the shallow end, which was also not the cool hang out spot.

The cool hang out spot was the dock. You could only hang out on the dock if you passed a swim test, which meant that you could swim, oh say, 30 feet and back, or some really stupidly short distance, without drowning. And then you had to tread water for two minutes or until the lifeguard got sick of watching your head bop unenthusiastically up and down. I REALLY wanted to hang out on the dock, and for this I convinced myself that I COULD swim, despite every bit of evidence to the contrary (largely, that I had never been able to do so.)

I went at the same time as my friend, Alex, which calmed my nerves (which were REALLY JUST WAY TOO LOW FOR SOMEONE WHO COULDN’T SWIM). We got to the little floating rope thing, me doggy paddling just marvelously, and then I starting sinking (since I couldn’t swim). So I thought Alex would get my back and let me lean on her a little. Well, that backfired when she yelled out (and I can still hear this ringing in my ears) “She needs help!” Oh, good god. For someone taking a swim test so she could hang out with the cool kids, I really needed to have thought about the implications of making the too-cool-to-jump-in-the-water counselor rescue me.  It didn’t make me any cooler, you guys. It made me  LESS cool.

The counselor inquired, why did you take the swim test?? And I probably mumbled, “I thought I could swim… but I guess not…”

Sulking back to the leech infested half of the pond, everyone was staring at me, and asking if I was ok – I wasn’t dead, so just drop it guys. Don’t wanna talk about it. If I were to guess,  I was fighting back tears as I headed back to read my Baby-sitters club book on my towel.

I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. So, guys, if you can’t swim – don’t take a swim test. You can’t swim. You will fail.

You can’t tell from the picture, but that dragon is covered in white glitter. This was taken the summer of the incident – 1998.

Jana: Oh, Cathy. Poor Cathy. This reminds me of endless horrible camp experiences (my parents sent me to “Adventure Camp”; Adventures TERRIFY me), a similarly embarrassing swim test experience, and a bad leech experience. So yes, we’ve all been there (or possibly just me and Cath). I forget if Cathy can swim now, but I feel like she can’t, and this story brings a lot of things together for me.

Also, just so everyone knows, Cathy once told me about a “Genocide re-enactment” day that took place at this Lithuanian Camp. Apparently, they put the children into vans and blindfolded them and some other stuff that she’ll probably share at some point. She told me this story while we drove from Vermont to Boston, and I thought she was kidding most of the time. Then I realized that she was NOT kidding, and felt like I should take some kind of legal action on behalf of the Lithuanian children. I have to, I thought! But then I thought, ah well – someone else will take care of it.