Oh, it sure ain’t easy.

Once upon a time, in a town called Chi, a fair and somewhat naive lass named Penelope lived in a tall tower on the corner of Madison and State streets, on a year-long quest to earn something like a writing degree. It was an election year. Two Presidential elections ago, to be exact, and the grand majority of Chi-town peeps felt GREEN about the outcome. They pondered packing up and moving to Canada, and a long series of other idle, empty threats. Ultimately, instead, they decided to throw a party. A GREEN party, it was called, and it was hosted by mine and m’s lovely, laid-back, funny-and-epitomizing-awesomeness teacher. The GREEN party invitation was printed on GREEN paper and explained that since (some people) were so GREEN about politics that we should all wear GREEN clothing and gather at our teacher’s home to eat GREEN food and drink GREEN drinks. And so we did. I wore a GREEN shirt from Old Navy, along with some GREEN socks, hopped on the train and maybe a bus? out to the fabulous apartment of our teacher, where the dining room chairs were all artfully mismatched, the living room walls painted orange like Kool-Aid, the hardwood floors edged with twinkle lights and the walls showcasing dresses from another time. We ate fried GREEN tomatoes and catfish (not GREEN? or was it) and some horrible GREEN Jell-o mold thing that involved horseradish. I tell no lies. And some other GREEN things, I’m sure. And I don’t believe my drink was GREEN, but I can tell you that the bottle sure was GREEN, and this glass of mine magically refilled with not-expensive champagne every time I turned my head. I looked back, and there it was, full again. Sparkles. Something about drinking the stars. M, I believe, drank some horrible gin and tonic thing that she likes, and at some terrible, fateful point, our teacher mixed us up some margaritas on the rocks. I drank. We all danced. And somewhere in the middle of this dance, I’m now losing track, I stumbled out to the freezing cold November porch and slumped in a chair, passed out and vomited all over myself.

I was GREEN.

And I can only tell you bits and pieces of moments I’d rather not remember from there. Something about being led to the bathroom to continue my vomiting? Having to change out of my now-nastified GREEN shirt and borrow another from our lovely teacher? Dragged down to the street and into a taxicab with poor m (m, holy crap! we’re still friends?) and our other friend from class to the tower at Madison and State, stumbling up to my room to vomit at least one more time into the kitchen sink and settle in for a night of true misery… and realizing that Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was on, which yes, ladies and gentlemen came on around 8PM—on the East Coast. In the Midwest, it was just after 7. On a Sunday night.

No applause necessary, no applause as I take my bow.

By the way, my lovely teacher did call the fair, undeniably naive, and beyond mortified Penelope up in her tower the next day to apologize (whatever for?! oh, the Margarita of Death—but still), and had her GREEN shirt dry cleaned and promptly returned, although I could never bring myself to wear it ever again.

The End.