I am not sure at what point it happened, at what point in the evening I got so incredibly wasted, at what point I became insistently sleazy, at what point I decided that I should have my ass hanging out of my pants all night. I do know that I stayed too long.

On the way home from the silver party, some time past four in the morning, Peter and I were dragging our feet home, the walk being so long when this tired, this drunk, and on Manhattan Avenue, an SUV full of young boys started yelling at us, teasing us about being gay. I kept on trying to wave down car services, not wanting to get teased by any more people (being dressed in some pretty goofy silver outfits) and also wanting to get to bed as soon as possible, still under the delusion that I was somehow going to be able to wake up in three hours and go into work.

During that walk, both of us talked about how for not totally clear reasons, the party made us feel a little shitty. I don't remember how I passed so many hours at the party. Surely, I must have talked to people, but I have no clue about what, or really to even whom I talked to, aside from, of course, a couple of crushes, the interactions with whom I can recall in detail, and just may, just may because these are the recollections I have been doing on and off during my brief moments of being awake today, and that these recollections, if I can recall them in the right way, can redeem the night, the party, and my own self in this world - perhaps. Or, at the very least, it can give it a shine, a luster, in the recollection that it may have not actually ever possessed, and to which I can pin something to, hope perhaps, or just a more vague feeling of giddiness that life can possess these things.

And, yes, I agree that perhaps I am beginning to stretch things out a bit, am trying to skirt the issues, and add a gloss to a night that was really nothing more than me being slutty, failing in that sluttiness, and very likely probably being annoying. I am listening to Gillian Welch right now, very content with this hungover state I am in, the slow pace of this music, the coffee by my side, and this open window letting in a nice fall breeze. And this scene here right now, the wholesomeness of it, makes me feel guilty about that other scene which I have still yet to recall for you, for myself, or whoever it is that I might be trying to convince and also whoever it may be that has the patience to endure all of this chatter supposedly leading up to something.

There is that SUV of teen jerkoffs, a trivial incident in the night, that I think is in some ways significant in this story here, that those boys and their vision of the world, their derisive comments about what they presumed to be my lifestyle, is a similar vision I have of myself on hungover mornings when I recall the incidents of the night before - the sentiment uniting these two worldviews is shame. I want to live beyond it, and not have to analyze my actions of the night before, the people in attendance at that party, and what they may have thought of my behavior, whether they will think less of me.

And perhaps these are all thoughts induced by this fairly painful headache I still have from what I did not think was excessive drinking, but I guess it did start around six at Niki's store and continued until sometime in the AM. There is that circumstantial evidence, but even more so the physical evidence of this headache and that I slept until four today and still feel a little dazed.

There was a lot of skin on display last night. It had been a while since I had gone out, and so my desire was to cut loose, to throw off a week of working too much and to indulge in some partying to counterbalance the rest of my time --

Okay, sometimes you just have to say that you are not going to pull it off, and I don't even agree with some of these sentiments here, think they are a little too sentimental and more than a little dramatic at some points, and what the point is that I was trying to build up to, I am not sure. So, in short: I hit on this couple that I have been trying to sleep with and touched their bodies, and was at a couple points touched by them, and I desired more touch, still do, and that was the impetus behind much of last night, behind me baring my ass and talking to boys - this desire to be touched and to touch. My desires are simple and basic. And there was this other boy, Rich, and he is the reason I stayed too long. Had I left when Ben and Joe did, I would not have stayed and hit on this boy that I have a crush on, would not have asked him if he wanted to hang out sometime, and would not have been told a vague, polite no, but a no still the same. It was really that final interaction at that party that has perhaps colored my view of the entire evening, giving it this sad air, this pathetic air, something desperate, me flinging myself at the gates, trying to enter, the locks not breaking.

And so, once home, in bed, I thought about the ass of a former crush I saw at the party, and began to masturbate to thoughts of that recollection, these recollections worth more than the moments recalled, worth more than gold, and satisfied myself with my own touch, imagining skin.