What the Hell Happened in Vegas? Part Two: The Drive
21 September 2007 at 3:22 pm

The drive to Vegas was probably the best part of the whole trip, not because the rest of the weekend sucked, but because I was with three of my most favorite people in the whole world and we create the kind of chemistry usually reserved for fiction. We each oscillate between extreme breakdowns, blatant insanity, and unforgiving rationale. Our motto is that there is no judgment between any of us; we can share anything with anyone, and ultimately there are no secrets and no reason for there to be any. Also, all of our issues come down to one thing: fear of intimacy. Seriously.

Euliza, the mother of a four-year-old and, legally, the wife to a man who cheats on her with transsexuals, focuses her energy on filling out divorce papers she will never file and trying to get her husband to houseshop with her in Orange County (she and her son are living with her parents an hour and a half north of Santa Barbara; her husband lives an hour and a half south, and she splits her time between the places). She cannot give up on her marriage because that, to her, means unacceptable failure. Did I mention she's Filipino Catholic? Don't get me started.

Deanna is a lesbian who gets herself into emotionally and physically abusive relationships, has never had a girlfriend without cheating on her, and is usually cheating on her with boys. She makes out with and sleeps with men because she does not fear them, but she is terrified of women. Men worship her [double-d breasts and size-0 hips], so they are easy prey, and she blatantly uses them as an outlet of her fear to be in love, which, to her, equates weakness in its inherent vulnerability.

Katie is my partner in repression. We pretend everything is okay until it is really, really the epitome of not okay, and then we explode in a fury of binge drinking (me) and sleeping around (her). Of the group, she is my best friend; I laugh harder at nothing, soberly, with her; I have the best silences with her; I tell her everything, every shameful secret, like I used to tell Sanam. (Oh, and look what happened with that relationship. Do you think I have a problem when I get too close to people, that I shut them out completely? Hmmm. Might that be an INTIMACY ISSUE? Dude, the rain just started pouring as soon as I typed that. Awesome.) We once spent a few hours communicating solely in inside jokes, which came in the form of a series of noises, and just laughed and laughed. I'm most protective of her.

The drive to Vegas from SoCal is six to eight hours of desert, with some entertainment in the form of the world's largest thermometer (which read 113 when we drove past it), so we kept ourselves busy drinking steadily (except for Euliza, who was driving), listening to the CDs we had made for the drive (we had a competition for who would have the best, and I won, of course), and doing our usual therapy session in which we take turns freaking out about what's been freaking us out. The basis of our respective friendships and our group dynamic was bitching about our relationships; I didn't participate actively so much as offer advice. Because I had the Perfect Relationship. Do you see yet? I was living The Ideal Life. I had nothing to complain about, so while Katie tried to figure out why she was holding onto Jared, in between Deanna screaming about how Jenny was stifling her, after Euliza was done with her monologue about why she was or wasn't going to move back in with Zach, I tried to come up with something to contribute to the conversation other then drop him, break up with her, divorce him, and the best I could do, usually, was: "Aaron refuses to argue with me and forces me to discuss our problems rationally. Aaron didn't fold the laundry right away. Aaron plays too many video games." Behold, the healthy longterm relationship!

By the time we got to Vegas, we were exhausted and drunk. Oh, did I mention that I had worked the night before until 5am? And was up by 10am to take care of business before we hit the road? I was, to say the least, out of it. As we were driving down the hill towards the lights, we discussed who was allowed to get away with what. Euliza was allowed to drink however much she wanted, but didn't want to hook up with anybody; Deanna was allowed to do whatever the hell she wanted as long as her on-again/off-again girlfriend didn't find out [she still hasn't]; Katie was allowed to make out with guys; I was going to enforce all these rules. Why? Because I'm Morgan. I'm hyper-responsible. I've got it together. I have no interest in anything or anyone but making sure my lovelies have a good time and gambling away the $200 I had budgeted for that exact purpose.

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About me
Hi. Morgan, 27, of Santa Barbara, CA. I am a hypocritical admirer of rhetoric (when it is my own) and an observer of literary trends. A secret: I don't take anything very seriously, and that includes myself.