radfrac_archive_full

It's like this.

Here was my plan for the day:
Go to class
Study all afternoon
Proceed to that-which-might-be-a-date* from campus

Here is what has complicated this plan.

Remember Drunk Skinhead Guy (DSG)? The one who did the presentation on early skinheads and slammed two cans of Guinness in the process?

The Byzantine assignment structure of our course had us turn in a draft of our final paper early and submit it to a peer for review. This was done in-class via mass scrum popularity contest.

I stuck up my head to see if I could catch the eye of either of the people I knew from the Gothic course, both dead clever -- when Glam Guy called me by name, "Frac!" -- but then, seeing my eyes on another, said, "Ah, damn," and immediately hooked up with DSG instead.

I was startled to be known and even desired academically, and so lost my original chance of a nice clean paper hookup. I also didn't catch the eye of the Gothic woman. So boldly (well, boldly for me) I got up, crossed over to the group, and negotiated.

And when I say negotiated, I mean "Stood about for a bit, then thrust my paper at Glam Guy and mumbled urgently."

Result was that Glam Guy got my paper, DSG got Glam Guy's paper, and I (Punk, if you recall) got Drunk Skinhead's paper.

There's an interesting musico-historical intertextuality to all that.

Anyway, all pleasingly arranged. Or So It Would Seem.

DSG looked shifty and said he'd have to email me his paper. I said sure, giving myself points for flexibility. I reasoned he'd probably get it to me late -- Saturday, maybe -- but that I had the time, what with being a Person of Such Massive Cleverness that He Was Very Nearly Chosen by Glam Guy.

Nothing Friday. Nothing Saturday. Nothing Sunday. By Nothing Monday, my cool was badly dented, but I figured he'd bring it to me in class.

Then DSG didn't turn up for class.

I wasn't going to say anything in class -- maybe go ask the prof afterwards what to do -- but the prof kept asking if we had any more questions about the reviews, and finally I admitted, in some embarrassment, that I hadn't received mine yet. Naming no names.

He boggled a bit, overtly at the other student, possibly at my stupidity. Two other people volunteered to let me do reviews for them instead. So that was all right.

Then, Tuesday morning, DSG emails me his paper.

I ended up reviewing that, because everyone is supposed to have one done or they can't finish the course, and I'm just that beautiful a soul.

First I let him sweat for a while by not answering his email or indicating that I'd received the paper.

I guess it worked. Today in class he brought me a plastic bag, containing:

1. A miniature keg of Heineken (8L)
and
2. Four cans of Guinness

To show there were no hard feelings, I cracked two of them and we toasted.

That left me, post-class, with two unopened cans of Guinness, one mostly full open can, and a keg. I have no car.

I put the keg and the unopened cans into the plastic bag. The opened can I carried in my hand, the foaming gap concealed. I slung my backpack over the opposite shoulder. I carried this lot to the bookstore, where I wrapped the keg and unopened cans in my coat and stuffed the whole bundle into a storage cubby. The keg just fit in upright. I shoved it to the back.

Then I had to find somewhere on campus you could pour out a can of Guinness without evoking outrage. The idea of drinking before noon has a pleasing decadence, and on any other day I might have gone ahead, but QED, today I was planning a day of sober studying followed by my maybedate, and the last thing I want is a beer. I haven't even had coffee yet.

The question now, sitting in the university library, is: do I ask the date if he minds driving my keg home first? It might break the ice.

{rf}

*Or not a date. This will pivot on whether he also turns up in a sweatervest.