This is not (precisely) a drunk post

[tarigwaemir]

Lowell House, on the Feast of St. Thomas of Villanova

But I do feel more tipsy than I've ever been before in my life. That includes last year's kendo party, which is odd because I consumed more alcohol then but did not actually feel as spaced out as I am now. tryogeru, whose birthday is today, decided to come out to Cambridge to have dinner and go out drinking. We had dinner at Rendang--the restaurant formerly known as Penang--and I nearly went into a food coma there. Then I took everyone to Grafton Street where they carded us at the door (maybe I should have taken them to Daedalus instead). Anyway, the five of us who were 21 went in, and despite my initial misgivings, I got tempted by the description of the cocktails on the menu and got a pomegranate martini. What can I say, I'm susceptible to pomegranate.

About ten sips later, I started feeling flushed so I stopped and handed the glass over to Tryogeru to finish, but the damage was done, so to speak. Yes, I have abnormally low tolerance as well as horrible Asian glow. It's very odd: I'm quite steady on my feet and I don't exactly babble, but I don't feel any inhibitions about speaking or about what I say. This weird sensation of "I don't care". Not exactly a loss of control but a loss of willpower, if the distinction makes any sense. It's happened to me before when I drank alcohol but it's never been this pronounced until now. I also feel very sleepy and tend to stare off into space, but I do that when I'm very sleepy anyway, so the only new factor is this massive indifference.

Not sure how I feel about it. Not sure if I actually can muster up enough feeling to care about it.

Anyway, I must not be totally apathetic to the world at large because I wanted to note a few things down in LJ. Sign #25423 that you're an LJ addict: feel compulsion to post even when feeling sedated.

Kendo practice today. Footwork introduced to the beginners, which meant (for me) leading a lot of oikomi drills. Those are the ones going up and down the length of the dojo. Continuous kiai plus slow pace makes for very tired voice. Nonetheless, I must have gotten the trick of breathing back because my throat isn't actually sore, although my voice sounds a little squeaky. We ended on jigeiko. One round of sparring against Dave Vega, which wasn't too bad despite the fact that I ended up exhausted. He's better than me at the moment, but I got in a few hits that I thought I could be proud of...I'm not exactly sparring well at the moment but my intuition, vague though it sounds, has gotten better; I know what my opponent is thinking nowadays even if I can't really react correctly to it. Well, except for Brian whom I can't predict because he's gotten so fast. -_- Anyway, I was pretty tired out by that when Kofi took me aside for special birthday keiko. Oh joy. Actually, it ended up being uchikomi, with me chasing him down the dojo doing men then back up again doing kote-men and finished with kirikaeshi. I normally have trouble doing consecutive men with fumikomi (i.e. stomping continuously without any run-through in between) but this time, I finally got the rhythm of it and almost managed to keep ki-ken-tai-ichi (synchronicity of strike with body movement and footwork). I guess it takes complete panic and lack of thinking for you to really get the hang of something. As I said to Kofi afterwards, "It was kind of enjoyable in a I-never-want-to-do-this-again kind of way." Although I will have to do it again at the senior send-off. I suppose today's little demonstration was just a tiny preview of the gauntlet itself. Bleh.

It was embarrassing though because I was kind of dead during kirikaeshi and had my eyes closed during most of it. The veterans and the beginners were all watching of course, practice having otherwise ended, and I felt rather mortified to be displaying my kendo at its sloppiest. It was nice to be cheered on though.

Speaking of kendo, I was at Rendang, waiting for the food to come, when it occurred to me that I could practice tenouchi with the chopsticks. No, I hadn't had any alcohol at that point; I think I'm actually more willing to do crazy/stupid things when I'm entirely sober. So I started tapping it against the table with my left hand and practicing the little inward squeeze you do that gives a strike its "snap" (when done correctly, it makes a nice popping sound on the armor). At the very moment everyone turned to watch what I was doing, I...somehow snapped the chopstick in half. It was a pretty long, sturdy, plastic one too. Note to self: please do not attempt that ever again.

I had more that I had intended to post about, but it escapes me at the moment.

I should probably put in a cut somewhere, but I really can't be bothered to figure out where to put it. Apologies in advance.

Yours &c.

Post-script: Hm, only one person has bothered to guess my blind_go fic for a drabble request. Well, if you plan to make the attempt, please do so before tomorrow noon. And now, I should sleep.

Post-post-script: Oh, now I remembered what I wanted to say. Thank you (again) to everyone who wished me a happy birthday yesterday (and today)!

Comments

[ladydaera.livejournal.com]

First: Penang changed?! Did they change the menu? *looks sad* I liked that restaurant. But wow, I find this very amusing because I had a pomegrante martini last month too (along with a cosmopolitan) while at a conference - it was a corporate sponsored dinner/party so they didn't card. Did you like yours? I kind of forget how mine tasted but I liked it better than the cosmopolitan. The bartender was liberal with the alcohol when he was mixing my drinks so I was fairly woozy when I got back to the hotel at midnight and had a meeting with my boss. (Sounds pretty horrible, I know.) But I'm sufficiently reserved (tightly wound?) that alcohol actually makes me more careful about my behavior unless I consciously decide to otherwise. I can't really imagine you being really goofy either, even if you were drunk. Anyway, the chopstick thing is hilarious, I think it means you have good tenouchi.

[troisroyaumes]

Yes, I was shocked too. The menu is the same though, and it's exactly as good as it always was.

I didn't dislike the martini but the bitter aftertaste of the alcohol was not so nice. But then again, what else can I expect? ^_^;; I realized that I probably will never act goofy when I'm drunk because I need to be energetic to do silly things. Sedation = no energy. I don't get less careful either, but I stop caring about how other people will react to what I'm saying, whether they're listening to me at all, and whether I ought to speak in the first place. It's almost as if there's a moral restraint removed...so I really hope I don't drink around someone I dislike because I might end up saying nasty things to their face without must change in expression. -_- Looking back on it now after a night's sleep, it's kind of disconcerting. ::sighs:: But it wasn't too bad at the time, kind of liberating. ^_^;;

[ladydaera.livejournal.com]

Yay! Okay, as long as the food's the same I really don't care what they call the place. :-D We should go there for dinner when I'm there in October. And yes, I remember, the martini was bitter even before the aftertaste. But I suppose any drink that has a reasonable amount of alcohol would have to be. It's interesting how you describe your lack of inhibition when you are drunk - it sounds like such a classic description of the effects of alcohol. Though strangely I don't feel that way at all when I'm inebriated. Quite the opposite, actually. I actually have to try to act different or people don't notice that I've been drinking. >_< The main effect that alcohol has on me is to make my head spin when I try to move quickly... like, I have to concentrate more on my movements in order not to stumble around. <-- gee, now that I think about it, I was probably pretty drunk at that conference if this is how I felt. That night is kind of surreal in my head because the girl I was with found a snail on her bag when she went to the bathroom, which was somehow the most bizarre and amusing thing to our intoxicated minds. Anyway, note to self: to figure out what Hana really thinks about things, I should ask her when she's drunk. :-D

[troisroyaumes]

O_O I must not have described it well then because I was surprised at the very fact that I didn't feel a lack of inhibition. Inhibition usually implies holding back, no? I have the opposite problem, lack of impetus. As I said, a massive indifference towards everything in the world. I don't have much motivation to talk, so you would have to repeatedly prod me to keep up a conversation. I would however have less compunction about being really mean, which is why I said there was no moral restraint.

I don't get disoriented at all, luckily, although that may be due to the fact that I get tipsy so quickly that I stop drinking before I have enough alcohol to affect my motor functions. Although I think you do act differently when you're very drunk; you seemed a lot looser at the kendo party, kind of like a great big cat. ^_~

[clocklike.livejournal.com]

Happy belated birthday, Tari 언니! ^___^

(I'm sorry there's no accompanying fic! I'm so busy nowadays ;__;)

[troisroyaumes]

Thank you~! (That's all right, am having fun reading your five things anyway. XD)

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry I missed the chopstick snapping and the drunkenness, haha. I had an amaretto sour yesterday and it had no effect whatsoever, but there probably wasn't much alcohol in it.

[troisroyaumes]

Well, you also just might have higher tolerance than me. Which isn't hard because I have the lowest tolerance out of anyone I've ever met. ^_^;;

[offtheshoulder.livejournal.com]

Happy Belated Birthday -- I did not forget!

[troisroyaumes]

Thank you!

[tryogeru.livejournal.com]

MMMMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO~!

[troisroyaumes]

Hahaha.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

It's kinda cool to hear (well, read) you talk about kendo these days. When I first met you on LJ, you would make long, earnest posts about kendo practice and the upperclassmen leading practice, and now you're leading practices and stuff! ^^

[troisroyaumes]

Thanks! Although actually I'm no longer co-captain like I was last year, so the most I'll ever do this year (hopefully) is lead an oikomi line (we usually split up into three or four lines). I actually prefer it that way since leading practice is kind of distracting. ^_^ I say that I'm the eminence grise in the dojo now that I'm captain emerita, so to speak. ^____^

[themadpoker.livejournal.com]

Happy Belated Birthday! Also, I wanted to apologize for not making your blind_go icon. Because I got busy and now Photoshop's expired and I can't. -_-; Fine way for me to act before your birthday.

[troisroyaumes]

Thank you! And no worries about the icon; I figured you must have been busy. ^_^

[angelyrique.livejournal.com]

LMFAO. You broke the chopstick? xD I want to see you do that, ahahhaa xD

[troisroyaumes]

Yup. You should have seen everyone else's terrified glances. "Who is this psycho and why is she sitting with us?!" -_-