Only 3 weeks in and I already fell behind again. I’m really an awful person. I’ll use the defense that the holidays distracted (which is so not true—but that’s none of your damn business!)

So two weeks ago was Josie’s birthday weekend. We had an entire weekend planned. It was gonna be lit. We went out Friday we’re having fun then ended up at Fantasy. This cute guy wanted to fool around with me in the bathroom so I went with him (I’m not kidding. What’s a hand job from a stranger in a public bathroom?) I get back and Marlin tells me that Josie is hurt. I think nothing of it but he tells me he’s serious. Apparently Antonio went to dance bachata with her and dip her and her white ass busted her knee in the process. So her entire birthday weekend was ruined. I felt really bad for her. We all ended up going home.

Saturday Marlin was going to see Cirque De Soleil and didn’t get home until 11. Josie was down and Antonio was taking care of her. So I had no one to go out with so I stayed at home and watched movies.

Sunday Marlin took Josie and Antonio to see Cirque. When they got home I came over and we all started drinking and playing video games. Josie went to sleep early but Marlin, Antonio, and I were fucked up. We decided we wanted to go out. Problem? By the time we wanted to go out it was 3:30 AM…we agreed YOLO—the clubs close at 4. Let’s go. We got to Boystown and no where was letting us in. Really I don’t know what our dumb drunk asses were thinking. Thankfully as we were passing Fantasy we saw our friend who is one of the owners. He invited us in and we all started hanging. We were drinking. A lot. I blacked out (I was drunk before we even got there). Marlin literally has pictures of me with closed/cross-eyed eyes. Forever classy. We stayed drinking at Fantasy and hanging out until like 5:30 AM. Marlin sent me home cause I was blacked out and they all continued hanging out until like 7:30…can’t say our life isn’t interesting.

Monday I was literally hungover the entire day. I was sick and threw up and didn’t feel better until Tuesday. Whoops.

So I had no where to go for Thanksgiving so I asked Marlin if I could go with him to see his family. Most of his family knows and likes me anyways so he agreed. I was always taught never show up without a dish so I made this Puerto Rican meal (his entire family is German. I figured they could use something a bit more ethnic)—it’s called pastaleon. It’s essentially a Puerto Rican lasagna. Ground beef, green beans, and platanos all layered. My mom didn’t know the exact recipe so I fucked up the platanos part but my meat and green beans were fire. My grandmother would be so proud.

Anywho, so we get there and I’m pooping and I’m looking at their collections of magazines and I see a Disney one. At the top it says “Micky Maus” and I’m thinking that’s weird. Then I continue to look through the magazine and it’s just making no sense…then I remember they’re all German. I was trying to read German and couldn’t fathom why I didn’t know these words. His sister and brother are great. I’ve already hung out with them several times. His mom was a bit over bearing but whose mom isn’t? But she was very nice. And his dad was almost quietly intimidating.

So for Thanksgiving dinner we went to his aunt’s house. His grandmother was cooking. It was fun. Good food. Afterwards they decide they wanna play some games. Marlin was being too lazy to stand up so we start playing Telephone. Marlin’s mom is the one whispering things to me. Anywho, it’s her turn to make a phrase and she whispers in my ear and I have NO idea what she said. It didn’t make sense. I pieced together what I thought I heard. Turns out she freaking whispered a German phrase to me and did not tell me it was German so my brain associated how these words sounded to an English word. It did not turn out well. They did that to me twice. Rude. Then we started playing a Truth or Dare game we found on the App Store. It was supposed to be for kids but some of the questions/dares were certainly not for kids. “Who in this room of the same gender would you have sex with?”/”Chug the rest of your drink”/etc. What the fuck kind of kid’s truth or dare is that? Makes me terrified/intrigued to play the adult version. Anywho, we all ended up going back to Marlin’s place and playing video games all night. It was a nice Thanksgiving and I’m glad I had people to spend it with. Certainly made me thankful for the friend’s I’ve made over the past few years here in Chicago.

I was actually well behaved Friday and Saturday. I was kind of socially overwhelmed still. While I enjoyed Thanksgiving spending that much time (especially in an intimate space) with strangers is taxing.

Sunday I was ready. Josie refused to miss another day out too. We were gonna make Sunday funday our bitch. (Sunday funday made us its bitch.) So we get to hydrate and we had sobered up because Antonio cut my hair before we left but it was a group effort and it was just rushed. None of us were feeling it. Marlin and Antonio left to go buy a little thing of vodka so we can do shots. Josie is sitting on a stool and I see she’s upset. I try talking to her but it wasn’t really working. Marlin gets back and Josie and I go to do a shot in the bathroom. She starts telling me why she’s upset. It sucks that she can’t move at the club comfortably. I get it. I feel bad for her. I’ve had this feeling a lot. I’ve gone to parties where I can’t even bring my wheelchair. I’ve had to just sit on a couch the entire time. It’s frustrating. Not many people appreciate the freedom of mobility. If I wanna go join a conversation sometimes I can’t. Even when I do have my wheelchair. Either there’s too many people in my way. There’s steps. People are sometimes just too tall and it’s rude of me to expect them to get closer to my height so I can hear them. I felt bad for her but we joked with her—girl it’s not like she’s out tearing up the dance floor. She’s usually just standing in one spot anyways. She laughed cause she knew we were right and calmed down. Then we all started to have fun. A lot of fun. We agreed to go home at a decent time so poor Josie hobbled over to pick us up pizza while her boyfriend came to pick her up and then Antonio, Marlin, and I were gonna leave. As we were about to leave Marlin’s ex walks in. Sees us and instantly turns around and walks out. We can’t leave yet now. Our friend buys us shots. We are having fun. Josie is blowing up our phones. She’s mad we aren’t leaving. We finally left like 15 minutes after we told her we would. We get back home. She’s mad and doesn’t wanna talk to us so she went to her room. Marlin, Antonio, and I keep drinking. Then I made a joke about Marlin’s ex. Sure enough there’s a knock at the front door and in he comes. Antonio and I both look at Marlin like wtf. First thing his ex does? Comes in and starts calling Antonio a whore. Literally meaning it. I’m drunk and confrontational and I’m not gonna let him talk shit about my friend so I go in. He then tells Marlin he doesn’t know why he hangs out with us. He can do better. (Like his friends are so much better?) Marlin tries to calm the situation down but it’s not happening. His ex decides to go to bed and demand Marlin joins him. Marlin says no cause he is playing video games with us. He gets mad. Continues talking shit about us. We agreed he needs to go. We call his friends and they come to get him. He starts causing a scene. Mind you Josie is definitely sleeping now. So we try to shut him up. His friends walk him out and he gets mad and does something fucked up. After he leaves the three of us are…varying degrees of upset. Marlin wants to go back out. We agreed.

We ended up back in Boystown at roscoes. We found Jimmy and hung out with him. It was also Britney night and drag queen night. Famous drag queens from RuPaul were there. It was fun. We drank a lot more than we should have that day. I think total we had about 10 drinks each. Whoops. We head home and as I’m walking Marlin tells me he’s hungry and bring him food. I was gonna get some McDonald’s anyways so I go to get him some. He’s texting me hurry and bitching. I get the food and text/call him…he fell asleep. Bastard. I gave the nuggets and fries I bought him to my roommate.

Today I have auditions again. I swear to god if I’m just a door man again…I’m not gonna do much…but fuck around on Grindr the whole time again…but still! I wanna see the actors actually speak. I wanna hear monologues. I actually wanna be a part of casting!

So in two weeks I’ll be back in Florida. Luis’s wedding and then a family cruise for a week. I am looking forward to it but also dreading it so badly. A week on a boat with people who barely like me. Most of them haven’t even seen drunk Nick either and there’s no way I’ll survive this trip without being drunk Nick. So it should be interesting. I’m thinking of reaching out to Jimmy and Russell while I’m back home. I haven’t spoken to Russell in about a year and Jimmy in longer. I don’t like the idea of these two people who were my best friends not liking me. I think this could be my last attempt to salvage some sort of relationship with them. The Jimmy one I know isn’t likely and that’s fine and probably for the best. But Russell. I often wonder about. Who is he hanging out with? Where is he living? How’s his mom? I wanna talk to him about Pokémon. Hopefully he’ll agree to meet me. Maybe he’ll come to Luis’s wedding. My mom wouldn’t mind driving him home afterward. I’ll reach out to mutual friends and see if he gets back to me. I hope so.