I went to Dave’s 30th birthday party at Pepper’s last night.  I don’t go there frequently because it’s usually full of people from high school, which is the same reason I stopped going to Barney’s and Trophy Room.  Not everyone from high school is a douchebag, but there are enough morons out there to have made me sick of the following:

1. Being asked if I was married/had kids, and then ignored once it was determined that I was not/did not.

2. Being told that someone heard I was married and had kids, and also lived on a farm somewhere.

3. Being purposefully ignored by some hoosier with a drinking problem, as though our high school was so large and they were so popular that they couldn’t possibly remember who I was over the sound of their life going down the shitter.

But Dave is my good friend so I went, and it doesn’t hurt that most of the people we know aren’t assholes.  Most of the people, I said.  There were two leery, creepy dudes who asked me why I wasn’t going to Pepper Lounge (similar name, different place) with everyone else after the regular bar closed.

“Because I don’t want to get date raped in the asshole,” I answered.

Which was partly true.  I mean, mostly it was late, I was tired, and I wanted to go home and call Graham, but also Pepper Lounge is full of Eurotrash with shitty blow, and I was wearing the same sneakers I saw on a homeless person yesterday, so they probably wouldn’t have let me in anyway.

Just before the bar closed, I was talking to a guy I sort of knew in school about The Val Kilmer Project.  It’s so weird to me to explain to people about Tumblr, or Twitter, or really anything besides Facebook.  It’s as if so many of these people with a similar background to mine who still live nearby and have the same friends as I do live on an entirely different planet in terms of the Internet.  In terms of lots of things, actually, which is not to say they’re dumb at all, but it’s a total mindfuck to go from one group of friends that understands the Internet and Party Down and public radio, to another group of friends that looks at me like I’m an alien when I talk about reblogging and 88.1.  I feel like asking them how they spend their free time, but then I remember that they’re busy having kids and doing domestic shit, and I’m like “oh, right.”

Speaking of 88.1.  I guess they’re looking for web writers, so I submitted a few samples and am doing the orientation class in March.  It’s volunteer only, but let’s see…writing, a radio station I love, and going to shows, listening to music, and talking to people who enjoy the same?  Not really minding the whole not getting paid part.  Plus my regular job is a flaming pile of garbage at the moment and I think a creative outlet with deadlines might be a nice distraction.

Another nice distraction: Airborne and all seasons of Trailer Park Boys have now been added to Netflix Instant.  This means that for the foreseeable future, that fancy hotel I booked in Chicago might be the only reason for me to leave the house.  Don’t bother calling.  I probably won’t answer your texts.  Nothing will distract me from this torrid relationship I’m having with the television.  It’s just me, Jim Lahey, and the shithawks from now on.