What a trip

I was amazed by perspective. Astounded how all these different objects came together to create this amazing 3-D image I was looking at. It blew me away. How could this be? How had I never realized before that looking at shit was this awesome?! It was then that I became aware of my bladder and noted that I had to pee. I sat my drink down on the lawn and wandered inside to the bathroom. While doing my thing on the toilet, I began to look around. Did you ever realize how neat toilet paper is? And tiles.. Tiles are great! Don't even get me started on wallpaper. I could have stared at the wallpaper for hours, and in all reality did.
"Your bathroom is so much fun," I told him when I got back. "You should totally go in there."
He was staring at the fence and didn't hear me at first. "My bathroom is not interesting, Meegan. It is just a bathroom," He said solemnly.
"No, I think it has something to do with the fact that our pupils are so dilated. It's the bright lights and the mirrors. It's everything," I explained. "What is this in my drink? Is that a bug? It looks like a monster," I said, handing it over to him for closer inspection.
"I think it is a moth," He told me, looking scared. "No, wait. It is an earwig," He finally decided.
"What would you do if I just kept drinking my drink anyway. Would you still be my friend?" I asked, completely serious.
"I would high five you," He told me.
"Why the hell would you high five me for eating a bug? That's gross."
"Well, what would you want me to do?" He asked, and I poured out my drink.
"Do you want to know why I just poured that out?" I asked, and he nodded in response. "I poured it out because I was worried that I might get to the point where ingesting an earwig might seem like a good idea." He nodded again and I could tell that he knew exactly what I meant.
"I was just thinking," he said quietly, "that if anybody inside looked out of that window, they would think I was having the worst party ever." We both dissolved into giggles. "It's true though!" he exclaimed. "Only I was also just thinking that I am having so much fun."
He was right. If anyone had looked out the kitchen window they would have felt sorry for him. Just two people, sitting on broken chairs, listening to awkward music on the radio, not even talking. "Do you see that tree?" he asked me. "I was just looking at it, and I was just seeing it. Like, I saw it."
"Wait a minute," I braced my arm on his shoulder, "let me get this straight. You were looking at the tree, and you saw the tree? No, that is impossible." I said, shaking my head. I was mocking him, but he didn't seem to realize that.
"Yeah. I was looking at the tree and then all of a sudden I saw this face. Do you see that face?" He pointed and we both looked up at the tree.
"No, I just see leaves," I told him honestly.
We sat in silence for several minutes as the Barenaked Ladies version of "Lover's in a Dangerous Time" played on the radio. I furrowed my brows and tried to figure out if I really saw people crossing the street, or if I was hallucinating.
"I always keep looking back at that wall, and then at you. And then you and the wall merge, and it blows my mind. And it anchors me. What do you keep looking at?"
"Nothing really. No, everything. It's like I want to look at everything, but I know there's not enough time so I want to remember every last detail of what I am looking at." If I'd been completely honest with him I would have also mentioned that I kept looking at my hands and feet to make sure I had the right number of toes and fingers. I counted over and over again and always came up with ten, but it still didn't look right. I was worried that all of a sudden I would look down and there would be six fingers on one hand.
We heard his parents saying goodbye to some of their friends, whom had come over to play poker, and he jumped up and raced towards the front yard to see what was going on.
"I wonder what is wrong," he said, concern written on his face.
"I don't think anything is wrong," I told him. "Don't people ever just leave your house because they are going home for the evening?" Evidently the answer to that question was 'no'.
"Do you ever look at the shadows and then think that they are coming alive? Like they're moving and then they become this person?" He asked, sitting back down beside me.
"No, you're on your own," I replied, but his attention was already somewhere else.
"Do you see that? In the bushes? I think it is my gray cat friend."
"Um, I think that is a raccoon." But it was too late because he'd already hopped up and rushed over to the hole in the fence.
"Cat friend," he called, every so often making clicking and cooing sounds in an attempt to lure whatever animal it was closer to him. "Have I told you about my gray cat friend, Meegan?" he asked, and then proceeded to tell me a story about his stinky room and his conversations with a cat. At one point in time, he told me that his gray cat friend was going out to pick up some "East Coast hunnies".
"Did you really just say that? Did you really just try to tell me that a) you had an actual conversation with a cat, and b) that the cat used the term 'East Coast Hunnies'?"
"Hey, they were his words, not mine. Get off my back."
As the evening wore down, it suddenly became apparent that I had not kept track of how much alcohol I'd been consuming. Later on I would have my own conversation with a toilet (while marveling at the wonders of the bathroom), though I did not vomit, before stumbling downstairs with the intention of falling asleep on the couch.
"Wait a minute. Where did the blankets go?" I asked him.
"They are on the couch," He replied.
"I am on the couch and there are no blankets here," I sighed.
"They are pink, Meegan, just look for pink blankets," he told me, sighing at what he perceived to be my stupidity.
"But there is no pink anywhere. Did you sister take the blankets? I had two here. One was purple. Do you see purple anywhere?"
"Just come sleep in my room. We're friends. We can keep the door open and you can keep your pants on."
"Jeez, thanks," I said, narrowing my eyes at him - which he completely missed in the darkness of the basement. "I am not sleeping in your bedroom. Did you not hear your sister ask me over and over again if I was your new girlfriend and if we were having a sleepover? If I sleep in your room she will conclude that I was lying." We both turned to look at his 11-year-old sister and her friend who had camped out on the floor just outside of his bedroom door. She seemed unconvinced when I'd told her earlier on that evening that I was going to sleep on the couch, and so she continued to ask me again every fifteen minutes until she and her friend finally passed out. "I am sleeping out here because they are sleeping out here to see where I will sleep. I do not need blankets anyway - and I don't need pillows either. I will just sleep out here like this. You just go to sleep now. And stop banging every girl you meet so that your family does not seem so shocked every time I explain to them that we are not sleeping together. "
"Okay," he said, looking slightly skeptical of my assurances, as if trying to determine if I was testing him in some way. After several more minutes, he disappeared into his room and I rolled over on to my stomach and prepared to settle in for the night.
As I lay there, on the couch, on the verge of unconsciousness, I felt something drop over me. It wasn't until I heard a whispered "Sweet dreams, Meegan." that I realized it was a blanket and that it was actually being tucked in around me. I woke-up this morning with a headache and morning breath that would have caused plants to wilt and die. I quietly gathered my things, and then stepped on his little sister (and her friend, just for good measure) as I tried to sneak quietly towards the stairs.