Tao of Pauly

Faded Weekend

By Pauly
Hollyweird, CA

I make lists. It's something that I do. I'm checking it twice. Thrice. Many more times throughout the day. I need the lists. I forget things. The lists are my guide through live because I travel so much that I often forget the basic things like pay bills or hand in an article for another deadlines.

For example, I checked my To Do List for this week and totally spaced about a deadline on Friday. I also know that Tuesday is a travel day so I have to hustle on Monday to prepare for my departure. I have to do a load of laundry and pack for two trips; the first one is NYC for ten days and I also have to pack for almost two weeks in the Bahamas.

I basically ignored my lists this weekend. I had a shitload of work to do, but sometimes I decide that those things can wait. After a crazy bender in Las Vegas, I needed a mellow couple of days when I didn't get off the couch and caught up on the boob tube. Sports and TiVo. I had a couple of last minute assignments dumped onto my plate. Those deadlines were for Friday morning. I worked frantically on Wednesday and Thursday to complete the articles. As soon as I was done, I had zero desire to work.

On Friday, we drove down to Carlsbad. We went to see Jen & Shecky's brand new baby. I even took photos of me holding the baby. That's something you don't see everyday.

We grabbed lunch at a local Mexican joint and baby Cora slept through the entire meal. I'm not the biggest fan of babies, but I love it when they sleep. Peacefully. That kid is pretty mellow and we clicked right away. We hung out for a bit and talked some business with Schecky. I'm going to be working on a new project with him next year which should be fun for the both of us.

When we returned from Carlsbad, the last thing that I wanted to do was work. We watched a couple of episodes of Sunny in Philadelphia, which was definitely pretty funny. One of the downsides to traveling so much is missing out on a regular viewing schedule for programs. Since Heroes has been blah the last two seasons, I have been actively seeking out other things to watch. Shows like Top Chef and Summer Heights High have been filling the void for me, since Entourage and Weeds are on hiatus.

The other day we went shopping at Target for a Hanukkah gift for Showcase. A woman in front of us bought over $500 worth of absolute shit like a gingerbread train set. Somewhere in the kids section, I spotted Life. On sale. I picked it up and told Nicky that we could tweak the rules and figure out how to gamble on it. She was down with my scheme and we've been playing a couple of games every night. Heads up for $20 a game. We definitely amended some of the rules. For example, we added drug dealer and crooked cop to the potential occupations you can get at the start of the game. We also figured out a way to gamble on the wheel spins. I know, we're degenerates but I was also getting some random flashbacks from when I was a kid and used to play Life all the time.

I got a little too snookered on Friday night. Too much so that I woke up on Saturday still faded. I wandered into Jack in the Box for an iced tea. I spotted two lesbians all over each other. They were hot. One Latina. One black. And I could not stop staring at them. I stumbled back to the apartment with a big assed ice tea. I had two different poker tournaments to play and needed to sober up a bit.

I hosted Saturdays with Dr. Pauly, which is always fun. BadBlood won this week for the second time this year. We go waaaaay back to the old days on Party Poker. He's one of my oldest online poker pals so I was thrilled that he won twice this year. I also played in a satellite on PokerStars. The short story is this... the top 72 players won a ticket to the next level. Nicky finished in 74th and me? 73rd place. Ouch. I rarely get pissed about getting knocked out of a poker tournament, but I was steaming on that one. Nicky cooked me dinner which took the edge off.

I woke up on Sunday with a wicked hangover. I drifted in and out on the couch while Nicky worked for most of the day. She managed to multi-task and whipped up a batch of her famous garlic meatballs. She served them with German mustard and onions on a baguette. Tasty. I crushed the leftovers.

I got wind that the Rooster was indeed in Southern California. He had been promising to stop by during football and finally arrived at the end of the Sunday night game. He showed up with his Uncle Joe and we watched the exciting comeback from the Giants. I'm a Jets fan but I picked the Giants in my pool. I was in first place and sweating like a whore in church all Sunday. I whiffed the afternoon games and went 0-5. Lucky for me, most of the pool also missed those picks. I still held a one game lead over Storms and Otis. Storms picked the Giants, but Otis went for Carolina. If Carolina won, we'd be tied for first place going into the last week of the season.

Mixed emotions for me since I had DeAngelo Williams on my fantasy team. Lucky for me, Carolina missed a field goal and I got the best of both worlds. Williams had a sensational game and the Giants won in overtime. Yes, it's pretty obvious that Favre is overrated and that cracker Eli Manning can come from behind to win a tough and close game.

Showcase also stopped by to hang out and snag some music. He loved the Christmas tree and we caught up on old times.

It was an exhausting day of football. I essentially had action on every single game and by the end of the night, my body and brain were fatigued from sweating so many games. I literally passed out from sheer exhaustion. I woke up early on Monday morning when I heard a light drizzle. It was raining. Something sort of rare for Southern California, but Vegas got snow twice last week so I'm not complaining.

I wandered to the laptop and opened up my To Do List. I ignored it the last 48 hours and I have a massive load of stuff to do before I fly back to New York City. Well, I've wasted enough time as is...