Went home to Rolla for Christmas and just made the rounds, hanging out with sisters, Ed, grandparents, rents, friends old & new. Rolla now has hangouts. Or maybe it always had hangouts and I just wasn't 21 enough. Anyway one night we went to Stingers, a dance club down by Zeno's, and it was actually kinda cool. Cool for Rolla. Saw a bunch of people that I hadn't seen since high school, many of them suddenly so fat that I hardly recognized them, but a few others that hadn't changed one bit.
Dustin Woody is now in a band with Eddie Weldon, the mad guitarist who used to wash dishes with me at Sirloin Stockade. I remember that sometimes after work we'd go over to his house (if you could call it that even--a few piles of trash and clothes and a mattress in the corner) and he would sit on the floor and jam for me, making Stevie Ray Vaughan faces of musical torture. The next day I'd just tell the rents that it took extra long to close.
Saw Hilary Miles, the girl I had a crush on for like five years in elementary and middle school. She was always in my homeroom, each year for five years, and I took this for a sign that it was meant to be. Now she's big. And I'm mean. For saying that she's big, that is.
Saw Chris Roberts. He is an arm wrestling champ supposedly, talks in a hick drawl and smokes cowboy killers. I smoked a cowboy killer with him. It's the taste that kills man, I don't see how people do it. But anyway he was cool and gave me the lowdown on the Rolla scene.
On different nights we also hit All Stars, the sports bar that is now in the old Uptown theater, and the grotto. Hung out a lot with Bri and Jeff, some with Turco, Daria, Suzannah, saw Uriah and Sarena. Played some Axis & Allies with Charles & Bri. So basically a bunch of random people all coping, as best they could and in their own ways, with the fact that they were in Rolla Missouri. Rolla is a sort of common enemy that people our age can unite against.
Posted by Alan at December 31, 2003 04:40 PM