Lost Weekends

originally posted 11/20/08

It got cold in Korea. Like yesterday. I’m already pretty sick of it. My favorite watering hole, a plastic table outside a convenience store, is now essentially worthless. C’est la vie, I won’t be here too much longer anyway. My flight out is scheduled to happen, well, it’s not scheduled yet, I could be leaving here anytime between last Thursday and February, I’ve been told pretty much anywhere in that range. The main thing, I guess, is I’ll be on an outbound flight soon, to Baltimore. Or Chicago. Maybe KCI. Could be Florida. Vegas isn’t off the table. Then, there’s always New York, LA, San Francisco, Istanbul, Bali, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Guadalajara, or Boracay. I suppose the point is, I have absolutely no idea when I’m leaving, where I’m going, and what I’m doing when I get there. I’m okay with this. Sure, I can’t sleep at night, but that’s where our good friend alcohol comes in.

And oh, our friend has been friendly lately. Over the last 4 weekends, I’ve been good for one low-key night (no black-outs, spending under $30, home before 5) and one borderline catastrophe each time. The catastrophes have taken place all over town - Hyehwa, then Itaewon, then Hongdae, and at my home bar of No Block.

Hyehwa was a humdinger at a bar that features $3 whiskey shots in a town where they usually cost 7. My group ran up a $240 tab, though it was a large group. A noraebang was later involved. When I got home, I took a look at my loft, where my bed is. No way I was gonna climb the stairs/ladder up there, too plastered. I looked at my couch. It had my backpack and coat on it. No time to clean up all that mess, too plastered. Nope, in the classiest move possible, I grabbed my couch pillow and the blanket that covers my chair and hit the floor.




Itaewon was a halloween disaster. In a brilliant mobilization, I managed to recruit a large group of my neighborhood buddies and co-workers, even the guy that works at my local convenience store, and managed to get them to congregate at one bar. Amazing. After weeks of planning, I could only get 5 people to go out for my birthday, but on Halloween, I wrangled like 20 people out. Highlights of this night include my “incessant hitting on” of the co-worker chick I dig. Not my words, but those of a witness. Apparently, I also had some sort of drunken “why don’t you like me?” speech directed at her. I believe this was shortly after I had a long argument with the bouncer at Spy Bar about why I shouldn’t have to pay a cover, and how I wasn’t like these other people. Neither conversation resulted in the end that I was hoping for. Fortunately, I don’t remember any of these things, therefore, they never happened and did not count. If they did, I’d certainly be embarrassed. I do remember leaving the taxi at my house and going to a convenience store, where I made the guy working there make my some instant ramen, as my motor skills had regressed beyond the point of doing such things at the time. Then, I woke up on my goddamn floor.


Hongdae was far less eventful. I discovered my new favorite bar, a van on the street that sold drinks to go, Khoa San Road style. Plus, the drinks were cheap, refills were half price for one, and the guy had a heavy pour and served all kinds of fun ridiculous drinks like mojitos, mint juleps, and Singapore slings. Sadly, I was dragging in Hongdae, as I’d been walking all day and was tired, and I got fairly plowed by 11 yet stayed out until after 5. Highlights included texting the co-worker girl at 2:30, which I remembered doing; and possibly texting a former co-worker that I was all about for all of 2007, but haven’t contacted at all this year. You see, I have an old phone, and it doesn’t have the memory to save outgoing texts, only incoming. Thus, I’m completely unaware of anybody that I may drunkenly text unless they respond, which I’ve determined may not be a bad thing. After all, if I send an embarrassing text at 4 a.m., if the recipient responds, it’s cool. If they don’t, I’d rather not know that I ever sent it. Anyway, the reason I think I may have sent 2007 girl a text is that she called me clear out of the blue the other day, and she mentioned me sending her a text a little while ago, and this seems like the only time I would have done it. Whatever, she called, so if I did it, it worked.


Last week, a large group of us went out to No Block. I left my apartment to buy a pack of smokes, ran into a couple people on the street, and ended up being out for the night. As like the other weeks, a lot of drinks were served. I’d had 3 Long Islands at No Block when we left to check out another bar, and the bar charged me for 2. I actually argued with them that I owed them more, because I can’t try to pull one over at my home bar, but they insisted we were square. Rain, everybody’s bartender hero, even gave my buddy and I free to-go cups of this new drink he had just concocted. That covered the grueling 2 minute walk to the other bar. Nothing much happened all night, but I did succeed in losing my keys and becoming temporarily homeless, which was awesome. For a while I thought that, like Nelson Muntz’s father, I had gone out for cigarettes and would now never return home. Fortunately, I managed to get in the next day.


That was Friday night. I haven’t really had much beer since then. It’s hard to sleep with all the future unknowns hanging over my head, but I’ve found completely ignoring them and playing Ninja Gaiden (NES version) gets me through the day.