fall

---

for the first weekend of october, i invited my gym friend ian to carve a pumpkin with me. i made a soy-jak-'o-lantern and he made a stereotypical pumpkin with the two lopsided teeth carved out. scooping the guts out of a pumpkin was a lot grosser than i remember it being, but overall it was a good time.

---

i was super excited for halloween for the first time in a long while; i knew all my friends were to be going out and i had an idea for an awesome viego costume. it took me around two weeks to get all the materials: foam, leather jacket, gloves, heat gun and adhesive. it took another four weeks to actually put everything together, but to be honest 75% of it was procrastinating. i had a great time making the costume but wearing it was just as cool. i was proud of my craftmanship, as well as the time i put into making my stomach look flat lol.

halloween fell on a friday, and that means i would be going out on both friday and saturday! for the first day, i went with my friend caleb to his date's house party. while he was driving, he opened up a case of beer and we had a couple, i remember thinking "oh this is probably bad i'm going to turn into one of those stories where i shouldn't have let my friend drink and drive" but we were fine... he threw the empty beer cans out the window so he wouldn't get an open intox and that probably made me not want to drink in his car more than the threat of being wrapped around a telephone pole. he talked about how his date let her friends know that i was single, i appreciate him looking out for me like that but it was not the attention i wanted, or really from who i was looking for. we got there and said hello to everybody. half of the attendees were in the living room playing mario kart, while the other half were talking in the kitchen. we wanted to play some drinking games, but no one had any ping pong balls, so caleb, his date and i went to walmart to buy some.

while we were at walmart, my caleb's date talked to me about her friend who she was trying to get me to talk to, so she tells me her name and a little bit about her and that's cool. we found the ping pong balls after some searching; caleb opens a 24 pack of ping pong balls and throws them inside an aisle. he also very loudly yells the n word. not very cool... we get back to the house and start playing rage cage. i end up talking to the girl and it's going well, we're both laughing and having a fine time until she tells me she's 17? i was shocked that my friend's date was trying to set me up with a minor??? i excuse myself from the conversation to go ask her about it and she tells me something like "oh no it's cool, she turns 18 on monday so if you two like each other just wait until monday to do anything". man do i look like scott pilgrim what kind of crazy ass advice is that, this bitch done lost her mind.

on saturday i hit up the bars downtown with a couple of friends. people were recognizing my costume and that was really cool. we all head to d2 and start dancing, or well adam and i start dancing and the rest of them sit down and start drinking. we both shittily try to breakdance and end up talking to a lot of people. vi introduces me to one of his friends and we hit it off, talking about nerdy shit like league and pokemon. she started touching my chest and i got kind of annoyed and didn't really know how to react so i just stop talking to her. eventually, there's talks of us wanting to play pool so we move to a different bar.

at this point i'm feeling the edibles and alcohol. we start playing pool and i'm just out of it, fucking around and shooting the cue ball with my sword. we meet up with more of vi's friends and hey, i recognized them from way earlier in the year! they were as equally shitfaced as us and it was a great time. i don't think i won a single game of pool. one of the friends i never really had any extended contact with, we never really seemed to eager to say hi to each other, was really drunk and suddenly wanted to talk to me. it was too much, i was already overwhelmed and this person that i didn't really know was touching me, taking my sword, holding my hand to guide me around, going through my phone... she wrote her league username on my notes app and told me to add her but i felt really awkward the whole time so i didn't.

the night ended at caleb's compound, where everyone was shitfaced and kind of in their feelings. i was lowkey having a horrible time with the atmosphere being thick and me being crossfaded. i was laying on a couch while adam is blackout drunk touching all up on me and telling me how pretty i am and how lucky i am to be korean, not words i was too fond of. vi's girlfriend smashed her head against the car door because she was mad about us bumping into a girl at a bar that used to like him. i remember seeing her face bruised and bloody and sobering up almost immediately. they go inside a bedroom and they just start arguing real loud. caleb heats up some food for all of us. adam starts dry heaving and we know he's about to throw up and pass out so i get up from the couch and he hurls. i don't remember how i got home but i was suddenly in my bed waking up at 2 pm.

---

bonded with a lovely girl over dumb animal facts. finally, i was putting my biology degree to good use! we had talked briefly about our hobbies and she shows me some of her art which had a very distinct furry artstyle. it felt very nostalgic talking to her, our interests were very similar (neopets, flash games, furry art...) and we were talking like we'd been friends for a long time. i remember joking to my friend that i was thanking god for sending me my personality-match in the form of a slightly autistic furry girlfriend lol.

we met up in green bay and ate mexican food at a place called margarita's. it was actually good mexican food, surprise for wisconsin. i tell her about my job and how i'm leaving soon and her face visibly contorts, all too familiar. we then went to player 2 arcade bar. she was 20 and the signs up front said 21+ after 9 pm, so imagine my surprise when we go to the bar and she gets denied. i kind of panic because i thought surely i wasn't on a date with a minor? but i guess the 21+ after 9 pm doesn't apply for the weekend or SOMETHING, not really sure why she got denied still, her ID proved she was 20. oh well. player 2 was located in downtown so we start walking around for a good four hours. we lock hands and talk about everything and anything. fingers entwined, we try to find the worst way possible to hold them; fingers crossed, multiple fingers in between two fingers, over under... while walking, we flip a bunch of rocks over and find bugs! we found a millipede and a cricket.

it was too dark and too cold to walk around, wanting to spend more time with each other, we end up going to dave and buster's. it was attached to the mall, so we took some time just perusing. i don't really remember much about the mall other than there being a big glass window in the family bathroom that you can just look through. it is slightly frosted so it's not like there was no privacy, but you could still see straight through LOL.

dave and buster's was cool, though only because of the person i was with was. very expensive and the selection isn't too great unless you like hordes of gambling games. i beat her in guitar hero and dance dance revolution, and she kicks my ass in basketball and fishing. she sees big bass wheel and gets visibly excited, tells me about how she saw memes on pinterest about big bass wheel. no way there's memes about this stupid slot spinny game i still don't believe her lol. she scrolled through her pinterest saved to try to find them but couldn't find them. now i believe her, if i lied about that i wouldn't have opened up my saved images.

we end the night off at a baskin-robbins. we had a little inside joke going where she absolutely hates mint chocolate chip but that one's my favorite flavor, so i get mint chip and she makes fun of me a little bit and calls me nasty. while waiting in line, there was some dude lifting his shirt up to itch his back and his crack gets exposed and we just point and laugh at that scene like little kids. we sit outside on a bench and we quietly talk about our childhood. she tells me about how she would mash up something called poisonberries to attract birds to her window and i make fun of her for feeding birds POISONberries. i tell her about how i deleted all my cringe deviantart furry oc's from middle school and deeply regret it as an adult. as we sit next to each other, she leans her head towards mine and our heads clunk together. i pulled her closer to me. i haven't quite felt this way in a very long time. it's about 9 pm and i get up to start throwing away our half-eaten ice cream, but she looks at me with sad eyes and tugs on my arm to get me to sit down next to her again. in retrospect, maybe she knew this would be our last time together. we talk for another two hours and i go get up to throw everything away again, but i kind of immediately regretted it as it was the end of our last night together. she grabbed the rose out of my car, we hug and say goodbye.

while we both had a great time, she wasn't up for a second date because i was leaving in about a month. even though i was really sad, i was a little happier knowing she would have wanted a second date otherwise. i'll be waiting for her in another universe.

---

found out that one of my friends is a convicted sex offender. there were a few weird signs that kind of tipped me off.

1. while eating at a perkin's we get on the topic of our past girlfriends, he mentions that one of his girlfriends lowkey ruined his life but wouldn't provide how specifically, just that it happened while he was 23 and she was 17. i was a little taken aback, i didn't really know how to react other than to make fun of him, "how were you a grown ass man letting a high schooler ruin your life mane how you even put yourself in a situation where you were 23 talking to a teenager bro?". the more i kept making fun of him, the more it was sinking in that he did something real gross.

2. maybe a week after this we get boba together and he randomly tells me, "you know aaron, you don't really know me, you don't know that i spent two years in prison". i say very loudly to embarrass him, "oh yeah? was it for letting that 17 year old girl ruin your life?", not knowing that that was actually true. he kind of just meekly looked at me told me not to talk so loud because we're in public. i learned that wisconsin inmate records are public and sure enough, he's on there for sexual assault. great. after this i cut all ties with him.

---

---

---