I’ve been joking to my friends lately about how I’ve been caught in a self-induced downward spiral (of morality), and that I won’t rebound until I hit the bottom. That explains things like the 21-year old, and the way my phone keeps ringing when I’m out. Of course, I should have been doing this stuff when I was 21, but whadda you gonna do?

And also, of course, describing my behaviour as a result of declining morality is a huge exaggeration. I’m just still searching is all. And self-medicating with alcohol, but that’s beside the point.

Last week, I spent 95% of my time in bed, with what turned out to be the flu. I read a lot, I surfed the internet a lot, and I slept a lot. I wasn’t bored, though nor was I particularly entertained. I didn’t talk to too many people, and, for that week, I was effectively lifted out of the world. Come Friday, I was beginning to feel a little like Howard Hughes in my reclusion, and the point was doubly made when I clipped my nails and shaved my week-old beard in preparation for my emergence.

Which was coming hell or high water.

First off, I was sick (no pun, etc) of being sick; and, secondly, Saturday night we were celebrating one of my best friend’s birthdays… something I wasn’t going to miss. I had been feeling steadily better all of Friday (though still marginally feverish, and still definitely incapacitated), so I had a glimmer of hope that I would be able to make it.

Saturday morning, I woke up determined to shrug off what had kept me down all week, and jumped out of bed… and then immediately hit the floor, completely out of breath, and with absolutely no energy. In reality, my living situation doesn’t afford me the chance to eat particularly well to begin with, and being sick, I’d really only been drinking fluids supplemented with an occassional sandwhich for the better part of a week. I walked out to the kitchen and began peeling an orange, but had to actually sit on the floor half way through because my heart was pounding, my breath was ragged, and I felt like I was in the 22nd mile of a marathon.

This was not looking good.

I literally crawled back to bed and weighed my options. I felt pretty OK. by which I mean I wasn’t feverish or achey, and I wasn’t terribly congested. I was just so weak. I figured it was the lack of food, so I mentally prepared myself to marshall all my energy for one big attempt, and try to go out for lunch.

And I did.

By the time Saturday night rolled around, I was ready. OK, maybe drinking wasn’t such a good idea, or screaming at the top of my lungs in a bar wasn’t the best solution for my mangled throat, but I did, without a doubt, have a great time. Because it was a surprise, my friend’s girlfriend brought him to Kincaid’s, ostensibly for dinner, but really because we were all waiting in the bar. I wouldn’t have thought that a restaurant bar not particularly known for its hippness would be that much fun, but apparently dousing everything in Jack Daniels takes care of that.

Afterwards, we wandered down to Old Tony’s on the Redondo Pier, which was, in a word, awesome. Don’t get me wrong, this ain’t the Sky Bar, and the crowd is at least a generation older than the one up the coast in Hermosa, but when you’re in a dive-bar with a mullet-headed guitar and harmonica playing/singer/keyboardist who takes requests, and pulls them off unbelievably well… you can’t go wrong.

Also, talking to hott girls makes it good.

So, from crawling on the floor, to staying out until 4, I think I kicked the flu.