so birthday extravaganza 2004 begun with quite the bang. we left early saturday morning hell bent on drinking and destruction. the whole trip came about in trying to decide when to have the joint birthday party. every year jon and i have to decide when to have this strategic party because our birthdays fall 4 days apart and one is always on a weekday. since jon got the shaft, his birthday falling on tuesday, i decided that the whole week should be spent partying/taking a break/partying/taking a break/partying. we were torn as to what weekend to have the party because we couldn't find a weekend that incorporated all of our friends. josh had to go to l.a. the week before jon's birthday and amy and adam have a wedding the weekend of my birthday. thus begins the events.

we decided it would be a good idea to head to l.a. and get drunk with josh lee this past weekend. we took a caravan of two cars and 7 people. we got one hotel room to split between us all because, hey, we like to party. we headed over to josh's brother jon's house. let me just tell you that they have the most awesome cats in the world (i say this with the exclusion of amy and adam's cat of course). the boy cat which they aptly named "the boy" was definitely some sort of bengal mix and very much appreciative that these wonderful people rescued him from some hellish shelter. he was my drunk buddy the whole night while i hit the tequila and he dosed the cat nip.

after visiting for a while and unwinding from 6 hours in the car we naturally decided it was time to go shopping. i'm no expert on l.a. living, but westwood was a pretty cool area. we decided to grab a bite at this noodle shop immediately stuffing our faces and heading back to big lee's place. i had some more q.t. with "the boy", but the sun was setting and it was time to get our groove on. jon and i dropped his brand new baby car off at the hotel so there would be zero temptation to drive race car style around the streets of l.a.

because that's exactly the type of thing that sounds fun while drunk in the wee hours of the morning.

margaritas all around. somewhere between 9p.m. and 3:30a.m. i got drunk. very very drunk. we ate fruit laden cheesecake. discussed the amazing potential of a playgirl type magazine of sensitive, hipster men. talked about how cool those cats were. decided to do some shots of evil evil tequila and head to the arcade. there wasn't much that i was interested in besides simpsons pinball and this driving/spaceship game where you lay on your back and play. it could have been my lowered reaction time, but simpsons pinball sucked. the magnets were way too strong and i was too belligerant to deal with trying to keep my palm from crashing through that horrible cheat of a game. justin and i played the crazy spaceship game and were laughing hysterically because we were drunk and the seats were vibrating. i don't think we even qualified for anything to continue in the game, but it was awesome. we quickly realized that the arcade was filling with the underage youth of l.a. and dear god they didn't serve liquor. what were we thinking?

on the way back from the arcade jon and i had to stop at this hot dog shop called u dog. a tofu dog would surely line the stomach enough to pile on more liquor. i think you've already noticed a pattern in this story, but tequila make me a loud obnoxious drunk. many of you would argue that it just makes me drunk being that i'm already pretty loud and obnoxious, but seriously, sake and tequila make me want to fight. i started our order out by informing the college guy behind the register that they needed chigago style dogs at there little hot dog shop. turns out said guy behind the counter was from chicago and totally understood. there's nothing better than being drunk and in a foreign place and finding a common thread with a complete stranger. especially if it involves chicago. jon and i went on and on about neighborhoods and various things of kick ass nature. i realized it was time to shut up when the people behind us were tapping there feet and i kept trying to lean forward there by moving this counter that was on wheels. just don't put me next to anything that's on wheels when i'm drunk. that's all i ask.

so we scarfed tofu dogs on the way back to the apartment. mine was cold. and spicy. and on a sesame seed hot dog bun. not exactly what i was hoping for but it may have saved my life by soaking up all the liquor i don't even remember drinking. we walked back to the apartment remembering that there was a whole rooftop aspect to the party that we had not yet explored.

the rooftop view was great but i'm sure some of it was lost on my lack of glasses. i had a lengthy discussion with a guy from denmark about the horrible state of health care, why he shouldn't get lasik surgery in mexico, how i'm moving to canada if bush is re-elected, and how to "make it in l.a.". at some point i'm pretty sure someone brought me another drink and it tasted so good i had to drink it. so i did. from there i don't remember a whole lot until the cab ride back to the hotel. i remember trying to speak german with mr. denmark, talking to shanna about something (lord knows what and shanna i'm so very sorry if i was spitting on you, i really didn't mean it) on the roof, listening to the hilarity of jon's friend tom from grand rapids, somehow making it down to the apartment, talking to shanna again about how it is being the only person not from grand rapids city high school, and hearing that it was time to go and there were cabs waiting.

so the cab ride. i'm no expert on the streets of l.a., but i do know that josh took both an indirect and a direct route from jon's house to the hotel and they did not involve the nonsense that this cab driver pulled. after driving down these random streets we endend up at a light where we sat. and sat. and sat. everyone was deep in the conversation so it wasn't that apparent at first, but i noticed that we had been at a red light for an insane amount of time facing toward the right. i chimed in by asking the group "is there no right on red in l.a.?". the driver responded with something inaudible about not being able to go on a red light because it's a big ticket. mason was kind enough to interpret that he was actually trying to make a left. to which mason responded "i just keep watching the meter go tick...tick...tick." i finally had to point out to the driver that the light will never turn green when you're sitting IN THE CROSSWALK when you know full well that the stoplight responds to the sensor in the ground THAT WILL NEVER CHANGE IF YOU'RE SITTING IN THE CROSSWALK. he then promptly made a very dramatic right hand turn and abrupt u-turn....only to end up at another red light. he had, however, learned his lesson because he actually stayed on the sensor and being it 3:30a.m. there was no traffic, and hey! the sensor responded and immediately turned the light green. have you seen a horse race? you know when the gates open and the horses that are all hopped up on steroids fly out of the gate? yeah, that was us. in a taxi van. laughing hysterically at this ridiculous cab driver. i wasn't the best judge of his overall speed, but i do recall someone saying they felt like they were in a video game. when we got back to the hotel everyone jumped out the cab as if it were on fire. jon payed the man and when i asked him if he tipped the driver he responded, "i tipped him well...because we were ripping on him the whole time". the 3 minute cab ride ended up totalling $11.00. without the tip.

we headed up to the room and proceeded to trash the place. there wasn't much that i remember. alika and i were taking random photos out on the balcony. we were all rolling around on the beds. there was a lot of drunk dialling although it was all to each other's cell phones. there were plenty of random messages on voicemails documenting various events. we were all trying to wind down and go to bed when jon and i had a little disagreement. apparently i thought i was ok to pin jon down and put ice in his shirt and he disagreed. one scraped elbow and various bruises later, i won.

the next morning, jon woke up at 8:30 in the morning and went to get bagels, bananas, and water. i should of been in a lot more pain than i was but somehow i was spared. i had my share of headache and queasiness but it was manageable. the car ride was long and seemed to take forever, but so worth it.

i have to say i wasn't as disenchanted with l.a. as i had expected. granted we were only there a little over 24 hours, but we had a blast. there will be some great pictures once i get off my lazy ass and set them up.