Okay, the house didn't actually burn down. The basement caught on fire prompting a corrective force of four firetrucks at 4am and rendering my apartment utterly unlivable for the three days of my college graduation.

I had convinced my parents, not huge drinkers themselves, to fund a graduation party for a good number of my nearest and dearest. Ignoring my (b)latent alcoholism (and ignoring the fact that they had basically funded one long four-year graduation party for me and hundreds of my closest friends), they agreed to help me out with a catered and kegged karaoke party at Apsara, a local divey pan-Asian joint, and a keg after-party following that at my apartment.

The month following the end of classes and exams, during which one essentially looks forward to leaving the warm dark womb of college and being spanked on the ass by the cold and blindingly bright real world, was not the pinnacle of my partying career. But this story bumps it to a close second. On the evening which this story occurs (Thursday June 27, 2004 I remember the damn date!), I had spent the past two or three weeks high, the evenings (which were starting earlier and earlier each afternoon) wizzasted, the nights in fitful if any sleep. I woke up involuntarily every morning before 8am.

In spite of this anxiety about 'the future', which I was intent to ignore until safely out of the country, and absolute physical wastage (my toes were numb from wearing ridiculous heels for hours at a time; my body was bruised and torn with "party scars:" random marks mysteriously acquired from the night before; expensive items of clothing were disappearing into some drunken black hole), I was having a great time. I may have been drunk and high for the wrong reasons, but so was everyone else. I was seeing many people and places for the last time. And it was certainly the last time that I would get away with this sort of behaviour, that I was aware of. I was intent on taking full advantage of this last opportunity for utter irresponsibility.

The restaurant closed before 10, so I was high and drunk in a cocktail dress serving hors d'oeuvres before it was dark. Cognac out of the bottle seemed like a fantastic idea. So did pot brownies. The restaurant floor slowly acquired a good thick carpet of beer. I definitely decked at some point bringing two or three girls down on top of me. Instead of having a karaoke party where two people wouldn't stop singing and everyone sits around awkwardly, two or three people sat around looking boring and the 50 other people fought it out for the mic. I have proof. I have pictures.

The second half of the evening starts to get hazy. I do recall, in the transfer of goods and people from the restaurant to my apartment, police sirens screaming at me as I ran up the porch of my apartment carrying plastic cups for the second keg. To the amusement of all we realize that, with all the booty dancing I had been doing, I had actually busted the seam of my tight fancy dress and, wearing a thong, had flashed the friendly Providence Police. So this story gets some gratuitous nudity and a costume change.

My physical state went from drunk to drank. I clocked in a good 28-seconds for my first (and probably last) keg stand. My last memory is of some sketchy guy who no-one knew, not a student of our university, relentlessly insisting that he could "do things to me that my man couldn't do" like some sort of played-out Usher rip-off. I don't take him up on the offer.

Consciousness fully returns to me when I realize that the smoke pouring through the apartment isn't just a lot of people's cigarette smoke. We figure out that it's coming from our basement, and that it's definitely not dying out. The smoke alarm, as if on cue, goes off. People pour out of the house and start calling 911. One of my best friends, who had abandoned me for the coke-party next door, runs across the lawn screaming my name over and over to come rescue me, dead-or-alive, and in his frenzy he runs into the burning house. The firemen show up, busting out windows and hosing everything down. They find one of my roommates passed out naked in bed with her boyfriend, more than ten minutes after everyone else has left the building.

It was surreal. In shock and disbelief, my combustible love-interest and I leave before the fire is even extinguished to pass out at his place - which we had pledged to avoid for the rest of our brief time together as it was furnished in its entirety by his recent ex-girlfriend.

Obviously it rains the next morning. In the cold gray drizzle I stumble back to my place to check out the wreckage. My keys, are of course, locked inside and I stand in the cold bemused confused and shaking - still drunk yet finally unfortunately sober. And then I got to meet up with my parents to tell them the good news.

After this shit just went to shit, slowed down and sped up. Our basement was a dingy mildewy pit used only for storage. Especially since we allowed smoking (of either substance) in our place, no one had any excuse to be down there lighting shit on fire. Our lease ended in a couple days and the incoming tenants had been moving their things in all week. Maybe some of their electronics had been left on, spontaneously combusted. Maybe somebody had actually intentionally started a fire in the basement of my apartment. One angle relieves me of blame. One angle makes a better (but more disturbing) story. Nothing was ever determined.

The girls in the apartment above us were PISSED. My father and one of their fathers almost got into a fight. The house had no electricity, no running water. The walls had been busted and bottles and beer and water and insulation were everywhere. My clothes and sheets absolutely reeked of some sort of fried electronic stench for months afterward.

And I was a wreck. Sure, no one was hurt in the fire, and all of our stuff got out (relatively) unscathed. I found out that, while my wall of electronics was (obviously) the only wall to get hosed down, my computer and iPod, which sat for two days in a two inch layer of beer-water coating my floor, continue even now to haltingly function. But I felt massively guilty. It was, after all, my party, and I was so fucked up that I didn't have the wherewithal to prevent what was happening from happening. I couldn't help but accept the responsibility for the fire, since I couldn't remember whether or not there was anything I could have reasonably done to prevent it.

But, as the disturbing dreams and guilt work themselves out I become more and more comfortable laughing about it. It does make a good story. And a long story.

PS There's only one way to be part of our next scandalous party story, and that's to be there. Saturday February 19th, 9pm, The 'Werkz. We might regret it, but you certainly won't.

Dear edward,

I will not leave a wad of chewed up gum near the computer again.

Sincerely, jenna