Last night as I was buying a cheap beer at the Upright Citizens Brigade the bartender, a comedian I admire and work with during my internship at the theatre, said to me:

"You know Phaea, now every time I see you I think of vomit."

.....

Just for the record: The vomit in question was not mine. I was just the last face the bartender saw, before they vomited. I was like the last song you hear before you leave the house and then its stuck in your head all day. Is that the songs fault? No, but it's forever placed in a different category in your mind. Like that Target ad that goes: "A little bit more, a little bit mo'.... a little bit more, a little bit mo'." That song, while at one time a fine and dandy tune in my life, should now go fucking die.

It makes me worry that just being around for bad things, even if I am on the side lines, implicates me in the event.

Per example, Tim saw someone get stabbed on Tuesday night at McDonald's. Does this mean that he will somehow always be associated with blood splurting out of some dude's head and some other dude jumping over a counter with no pants on and running into the basement to flee the police (as I understood the story to go)? Does it mean that simply because I might have been standing next to a drunk friend as they might have tried to pick a former teacher of ours up with their arms, that somehow I did something wrong?

Unfortunately, yes. My freshman year of college I had a long feud with a girl in my dorm who would always come into my bathroom and steal tampons. I finally put up a sign which said:

"to who ever is stealing my tampons,
bad karma to you and your family"

which, seeing as I am not a Fakir or a Swammee means exactly dick in real life. Later that night my best friend Viky and I were crashing a party in the New Dorms. As we walked into the room, eagerly searching for the keg, a giant ugly upperclassmen swooped at us.

"You're fucking banned! Get out!" He gargled and he literally picked us up and tossed us both out the door, an experience which, if has never happened to you, I highly recommend for keeping your self esteem and ego in check. Behind the upperclassman's sweaty shoulders I caught a glimpse of my enemy from the dorm pointing and laughing at us. I was later informed that she had told the ape man that I had "threatened her family."

I was upset, obviously. A bit angry and really embarrassed. But it was nothing at all compared to my friend Viky. She lay on the grass, gnashed her teeth, pulled her hair and sobbed.

"I didn't even do anything and just because I'm with you they throw me out of a party and i though this was going to end in high school!!! Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" She cried, her face turning bright red.

As betrayed as I felt at the moment (shouldn't BFFs stick together?) I can understand her pain. She was placed in the loser category simply by turning up with me and there was nothing she could do about it. She was a loser by association, and would remain that way to those people for the remainder of our stay at college. She didn't take it well.

But I guess you choose your friends and choose to go to Mickey D's and damn it, you choose to hang around improv theatre where people might get food poisoning, so in the end, its all just your fault. I will accept the vomit into my heart because ultimately, doesn't it just mean I'm living my life to the fullest extent that I can!?

Sure.