Clarity?

Have you ever woken from dreamless sleep at four in the morning to have a thought so rational about your own life that it prevents further sleeping?

That happened to me this morning. The thought itself was nothing life-changing, and not very important in the long run, yet it was something I failed to notice for years. I realized why a relatively obscure acquaintance five years in my past never became my friend.

We got along very well, we had enough in common to build a lifelong friendship, I think. There's no real reason why, after meeting her, we never connected again. At least, I didn't think there was a reason.

I got way drunk at her friend's house, and I didn't black out or anything, but I remember it being a wonderful apartment. And then, I remember smoking a clove inside (this was before I became a chain-smoker). And then she and her friend left me and my friend for a little while, I don't remember why.

I smoked in her friend's apartment and got all Louisiana-drunk on their outside-of-Louisiana drinking rules. I swear, drinking is not the same outside of Louisiana. Cultural differences.

...I guess I can go ahead and say that LA is a state of drunks. We might be on par with Russia. Anywhere else, they'd put me and most people I know in a program or something.

And at that point in my past, I was very much a lush.

She and her friend probably left because I was acting an ass and filling the living room with clove smoke, which, as I've noticed lately, can be the most annoying thing on the planet to share a room with. Later, we all went to this IHOP-type place for some food, and I vaguely remember saying to the server in a loud voice, "I'M DRUNK, I'M SORRY YOU HAVE TO BE HERE" (it was 2am on New Year's Day). Jesus Christ. She probably ate my food and crapped it back out on the plate before handing it to me.

It seriously never occurred to me that we're not friends because of that. And usually when I wake up, I'm groggy and my dreams stay with me for a second, and I don't really think about anything clearly. So to wake up and think about a single obscure night five years ago and the consequences of my actions was a bit irregular.