Blog no. 29: No surprises

 Dear nightcrawlers,

  You can never know how things will work out in the end. So many variables fall into play, a butterfly flaps its wings and I suddenly decide to order pizza instead of burgers, or something of that sort. It's fascinating thinking about how much a single event can change the course of your life, or the universe, or everything, really. A single book can change your whole worldview and shape your future, every single encounter builds up towards your life path.
  At points you will face your worst enemy: hindsight. With 20/20 vision we can all make perfect life choices and live happily ever after with rainbows and butterflies and all that crap, but the harsh reality is that we don't have that luxury. It's like when you're taking off your glasses, and after a while you're unable to find them because you're not wearing your glasses. Kinda like waking up and trying to make coffee but needing coffee to wake up and make the damn thing. And you're searching, and everything's a blurry mess, and you're thinking how great life was when you had your glasses on, hoping you had another pair just for these occasions.
  Humans are greedy creatures, we will always downplay a situation because we could have gotten more out of it. Someone gives us a choice between two suitcases full of money, and even though we end up richer, we will be frustrated that we picked the smallest amount instead of being happy we actually got a positive net gain. I don't judge us, it's just who we are, but living your life in "what ifs" is not optimal since it hinders your ability to choose wisely in the future, sort of like a hot hand fallacy. When you keep scoring 3-pointers you keep shooting instead of thinking about the alternatives. That's why it's important to fail every once in a while, when you start missing those shots you start thinking more clearly and weighing your choices instead of just shooting on instict.
  I've had my fair share of luck and misfortune, and most of the times these two seemed to overlap. I hurt my knee pretty badly a few years back playing football, and I although my chances in making it professionally were negative, it was something I considered myself good at and something I enjoyed doing. At the time of my injury I was going out with a girl I met at a party, and it just so happened that a few hours before our second date I had to inform her that I can't meet her and thus cancel the date. Unfortunately, a week later I was leaving for Cyprus for the summer, thus the second date never took place and we eventually lost touch during the course of my vacations. Now, when I came back I didn't have any hobbies left, and a friend of mine introduced me to a student magazine he was writing of, encouraging me to start writing for them as well, which I gladly accepted since I couldn't kill time playing football anymore. In the writing team there was this girl who I liked but didn't really talk with much, up till my nameday which was the same day as my flight to Cyprus for my knee surgery,  when she messaged me to wish me a happy nameday and I think you know where I'm going with this. You gotta think, if I hadn't torn my ligament I wouldn't have cancelled that second date, I wouldn't have started writing and I definitely wouldn't be as into movies as I am today. It's all very How I Met Your Mother-ish, which is why that show resonates with me a lot.
  There will come a point though when you've had enough bad luck for a while, and you're starting to think "good god gimme a break". But the universe doesn't work that way, silly. You can't just ask for no alarms and no surprises and expect it to work. In reality, life's full of them. Instead of trying to avoid them you can just learn to adjust better. Resourcefullness is one of the best traits you can have as a person. Knowing when to counter punch and when to take hit when you're on the ropes. Dribbling past any problem that's in your way. There are a ton of sports analogies I can make, but you get the point.
  Hell, even this summer I had the (mis)fortune of seeing this in full effect. After a week-long vacation in Spain, it was time for me to return to Greece. Now for some context, this was a week of camping at a festival somewhere near Valencia. Tiring? Sure, but having no responsibilities out of, well, not dying, was pretty damn great. Everyone was dancing and drinking non-stop, there were huge lines of people everywhere and people who seemed to have taken huge lines of various drugs, and at any point I was expecting Wall-E to show up and start stacking up trash because I'll be damned if the place didn't look like something out of a Mad Max movie. People were hiding their booze outside at the beach, since it wasn't allowed in the concert areas, digging holes in the sand or just throwing stuff around as if they were playing the nastiest game of Jenga. Hope that future pirates enjoy cheap vodka and bad sangria. Despite all that, the festival was fucking amazing. The pool parties were the best of the bunch, even if I wasn't  one of the brave ones that actually jumped in. I did want to bring back some souvenirs from Spain but an STD wasn't very high on my list.
  Now the aftermath? We lost a bunch of phones, some clothes, a smidge of our pride and a lot of our dignity, but we still made it through the week safe and mostly sound; kinda hard to not inherit some sort of illness from all the sand and dirt that was around. Something that stuck with me aside from the aforementioned dirt and sand, was the fact that you could do anything you wanted and nobody would bat an eye, because hell, they probably have seen weirder things already. Dancing like you have been shot with a tranquilizer gun on the ass? Sure, go ahead. Making dirt angels in the sand on the beat of some reggaeton remix? People will probably join you. Shouting football chants while under the influence? Be my fucking guest. It was an exhausting couple of weeks for me, and even though I had a fantastic time, after a certain point I just wanted to chill for a bit. Of course though, things didn't quite turn out that way.
  A friend of mine and I were supposed to return to Athens via the Frankfurt airport with a few hours of wait time inbetween flights, but turns out that German pilots were on strike on the day of our departure, something that wouldn't be very surprising in Greece, but damn I had the idea that Germany of all places is immune to these kinds of protests. My friend ended up booking another flight, but my, albeit tired, cheap ass didn't want to miss on the free hotel that I supposed I was gonna get so I decided to stay put until I find a flight back home. After three satisfying meals and a fantastic nap I figured I might as well explore Frankfurt for a bit, wouldn't want to just waste all my time at the hotel.
  Around 8 p.m. I start walking towards the city centre to get some money from the ATM and a beer by myself, or so I thought. After getting lost a couple of times and having to climb some sort of hill on a bridge, only to find myself on what looked like train tracks and nothing else, I managed to get the the centre. Reaching the ATM, I get the money but I realize that I can't see the machine returning my card, and in true IT fashion I start pushing random buttons as if it will realize that "gee dude that's exactly the combination of buttons I've been looking for to spit your card right back out". I then call the customer service number that was on the ATM, and a few minutes in I realize I don't actually understand german, hence I have no idea what the guy I called was telling me. A group of friends come out of the vestibule so I ask them if they can help with my situation. I give my phone to one of them who has a very interesting and agreeable 5-minute conversation with customer service, only to tell me that they can't help me cause it's Sunday and the bank's closed, of course.
  Being bummed that I wasn't sure the money I had left would suffice for the rest of my trip, since I had no idea when I would be able to fly, I took up to the guys' offer to join them for some beers, I knew I could use the alcohol at that moment. The streets near the main station were filled with drug addicts and trash, something not wholly unfamiliar to someone living in Athens, but a big surprise once again for someone who was visited Germany before. Nevertheless, we ended up going to a weird Colombian/German bar full of drunk middle-aged people and a very enthusiastic and voluptuous bartender. One of the guys who was just returning from the bathroom was very kind to inform us that the coked up dude in the table across from ours offered him some for a very appealing price, but none of us was trully excited to try their luck, or lackthereof. Eventually a few more people joined us, a freakishly tall guy and someone who had just broken up with his girlfriend and was, therefore, pretty damn wasted. I ended up having a ton of fun with those guys and was sad that I had to abandon their company, since I had to check in the airport early in the morning in order to see if I can get a flight out. One of them was travelling to Stuttgart the next day and offered me a place in his car in case I couldn't fly out and I wanted to visit my godparents instead, so we exchanged numbers and I'd update him as soon as I found out about my flight.

  My way back to the hotel was not without hiccups either. Google Maps insisted in me going through what looked like an active factory, full with smoke coming out of pipes and all that jazz, so I did just that. I ended up reaching a dead end where the river Rhine was, since the 5-metres-above-ground pedestrian bridge was closed, so I did what anyone would have done: I climbed some rusty, dirty, spiderwebby machinery as if I was freaking Ezio because honestly, I just wanted to get some sleep. I managed to get on the bridge, walk across the river and parkour myself out of it as well. Afterwards it was just a formality of walking through some forest with no lighting using my phone as a torch for half an hour, and a breezy walk towards the hotel. I was eventually able to fly the next morning, and had to refuse the offer to go to Stuttgart, but I was just happy to finally go home.
  A few days later I'm shopping at a market near my appartment, I take out my wallet and I see a shiny little thing that resembled the credit card that the evil german ATM selfishly devoured. Turns out I might have blacked out for a few seconds when I was getting money, just enough for me to put the card back in my wallet and not realize it, thus triggering all the events that transpired the previous day. I actually never told my parents about it because we had to cancel the card and go through the trouble to order another one, so in case they end up reading this: I'M SORRY.

  Generally, I have so much faith in failing upwards that whenever a misfortune comes my way I scoff, laugh it out and I try to make the best out of a bad situation. I just think that shitty things will eventually happen to you, and a whole lot of them at that. You can always play the percentages and take zero risks, assuming that your goal in life is to just live long and uneventfully. Or you can take some risks, get out of your comfort zone and make your chances count, your moments memorable. Captain Jack Sparrow, amongst many philosophical genious he showcased in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, quotes: "The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Do you understand?" Aye aye captain. I understand.


G'night mateys. 

Blog no.28: Thinking of a place

Dear stargazers,

  I didn't know who to address this to and "stargazer" seemed like a really thoughtful, deep, pretencious-ish adjective to use so there you go. It's been a while and I'm listening to a track by The War on Drugs called "Thinking of a place" and I can't but do just that. But as I'm a man of many places that *cough* occasionally *cough* likes to sit on his ass and do literally nothing, I'm thinking of several instead of just one.
  I haven't been back to Cyprus in a few months, but most importantly I haven't been there for the past two summers which is pretty damn huge to me. I've always spent my summers there, same old boring summers, you know the drill, but they all had something in common: they were a tradition. Much like decorating a Christmas tree every Christmas and only taking it down when the first person tells you "Damn, you still have your Christmas decorations?", or having a "surprise" party for one of my university friends using the same non-birthday-candles and a lame excuse to hang out even though they probably expected it, as the sarcastic quotes aptly indicate. I've spent countless summers (well, 21 to be exact - guess counting ain't that hard when you're 23) sweating my ass off with my friends in the hot, humid bore that is the Nicosia "summer in the city" experience, but we always ended up having fun, more or less. Playing cards and videogames all day, getting drunk at live shows playing the same old, familiar songs, going to the beach every once in a while and arguing over the shotgun seat, randomly popping up on our vampire friend uninvited to watch a movie and raid his fridge, just being as carefree as one can be during the summer, basically. It's sort of like living in a semi-rural Southern US county, minus the guns and murder mystery novels. So those were my summers up till last year, when I thought that fuck it, I wanna try something new. Enter Athens.
  So summer last year was my first one away from Cyprus, from the ones that I do remember, and the first one away from my family and my friends. After spending a week in an island camping with awesome people, it was yet another summer in the city for me. And it's not a myth that the Athens city centre becomes a ghost town during August, it's the damn truth. After doing what I do best in these situations - sitting on my ass being as useless as I could ever be - I started going to some open air cinemas to catch a movie or two since they seem to flourish at that time of the year. I watched a few awesome movies and a crappy one, but the most important date of the summer was August 15th. The 15th of August in both Greece and Cyprus is celebrated the usual way: our families gather to slaughter and consume delicious animals because something happened to Virgin Mary a long time ago, supposedly. Not that we needed an excuse to do that but y'know, traditions and all. But wait, this time it's also AWAY FROM THE CITY! That's right, it's the one day of the year that everyone fucks off from the city and goes to the beach or the mountain to have their feasts because that's probably what the god wanted us to do, I guess. For my family this date is also quite important since it's my sister's nameday and the 16th is my brother's birthday, so we did something every year to celebrate both. My parents seemed to have planned their kid's births quite well, huh. Well, this time the celebrations were without a very key member in all the fun-havin'; that being myself of course.
  So here I am, alone in Athens, trying to figure out how to make this day seem not as miserable as everyone assumed it would be. After snooping around on Facebook I found a free showing of a greek movie called "Cheap Smokes", about a guy meeting and spending time with a girl on the 15th of August in the centre of Athens during the 00's and I figured, why the hell not. I was surprised to see that the theatre was packed, and I felt sad for those poor fucks that ended up here of all places, until I realized that I too was a poor fuck that didn't have very many choices and it all suddenly made sense. The movie was actually amazing for what it was, a nonsensical summer love story with wacky characters, a lovely soundtrack and beautiful views of Athens in the summer. The thing that resonated with me was the feeling of solitude it was oozing. The main character was just walking around the city at night, drinking coffee, pretending to know what he was doing, much like everyone else. His coolness, his effortlessness, just his general worldview seemed to resonate with me. Much like me, he enjoyed going places on his own. He liked these little talks with random people, learning about these small intricacies that make everyone unique. He liked looking for details, and in his words, he liked "collecting moments".
  After the movie I placed my headphones on my sweaty head and started walking at a random direction. I went through places from where I had collected these so-called moments, memories of the good and bad variant. The shuffle was on fucking point for the first time since forever, and the songs kept hitting me, one after another, with waves of nostalgia and moments of their own. I walked for what seemed like an hour and a half, following some of the movie's shots, with a huge grin on my face, dancing whenever nobody was around. I never wrote about it 'till today because it was an experience I couldn't easily describe. Saying this sounds cheesy, I know, but good god you had to be there.
  When talking about favourite cities or places in general, Athens comes up quite often. I've seen people shit on it for being too industrialized, too chaotic, too dirty or too crowded, and it is all those things but I'd be damned if I didn't love it all the same. I didn't use to be as fond of this city as I am now, it certainly grew on me I'd say, and it still does day by day. I do believe that for all the shit I often say about it, it has, I think, what others cities lack: character. I'm grateful for all the moments that it has given me, because these truly are the best years of my life. I wrote a piece, not long ago, about how the main character didn't feel like she had a place to call home anymore. I used to think that was the case with me as well. Now, what do I think about when I'm thinking of a place to call home?
  Bet.

Your fellow poor fuck,
Stelios. 

Blog no. 27: When the sun goes down

Dear people,

  It's just people this time, since I don't believe that "music" people exist. I refuse to believe that there are people who don't enjoy music; everyone likes music, it doesn't matter how shitty I think your taste is. Whether you enjoy some ultra complex progressive band with percussion, harmonica, saxophone and whatever the guy on cocaine figured would blend well together with his crummy guitar, or just some dude smashing the bongos at the corner of the convenient store for some spare change, you enjoy music, period.
 So, rant about music listeners aside, I went to a concert a couple of days ago. After paying a small fortune for my cheap ass to get the precious Arctic Monkeys ticket, and misremembering when it was taking place a month ago because I'm a fucking idiot, the day finaly arrived on the 6th of July, NOT on the 6th of June as some good people might have thought. I stocked up with some sandwiches and cheap wine which I was definitely not expecting to get through security, and after suffering a small heart-attack due to thinking I forgot my ticket at home, a couple of friends and I arrivd to the venue: a glorified grass field which, admittedly, felt a lot like a hippie festival.  We sat for a couple of hours while the supporting bands were playing in order to be ready for the tall task that was ahead of us: standing up for the rest of the concert.

  The wine I brought wasn't half bad, and the sandwiches I brought were, well, edible, so we munched through them quickly and listened to the "way better than expected" bands that would typically just be filler before the main concert, but were actually pretty damn good. When Miles Kane showed up on stage everyone stood up as if the pope was in the house, as a sign that the big names were starting to arrive. The dude was quite good, felt like listening to an 80's rockstar with modern influences, and of course, he was dressed appropriately, with a colourful flowery shirt and an equally flowery bandana. Everyone was really getting into the show while I was admiring the multitude of weird facial expressions his female drummer was pulling off and thinking about how freakishly long her tongue was. After his explosive hour-long set, and a small break inbetween, the next big name arrived:Alt-J.
  I hadn't listened to a lot of their songs before but what I listened to I liked, so I was pretty excited to see them live. The fact that their set was played out during the sunset might have skewed my enjoyment to their show, since I'm a sucker for sunsets, but damn were they good. Everyone was on their feet enoying the weird and oftentimes eerie sounds of the band. Occasionally, some cute girl that is actually a fan of them would hop on some dude's shoulders, and sing along to the unintelligible-to-human-ears lyrics while making a sign that could easily be mistaken for the Illuminati sign - heck, they both look like triangles to me. However much I wanted to listen to "When the sun goes down" when, well, the sun was going down, the moment they started playing "Taro", a song which even I and many other non-fans knew, the crowd went wild. I closed my eyes for a bit to take in the moment, because I realized I was gonna remember that one for a long time. The bass echoing through the speakers shook the ground so much it spread through my whole body, and I wasn't sure if my heart was doing its own thing or just following the rhythm: I could feel every vibration so clearly, I thought that even if I was deaf I'd be able to feel it. I turned around to see how much of the park had filled by that point, and the answer was all of it. Some people were singing, some people were dancing, a lot of them were recording non-stop with their shitty phone cameras, but all of them seemed to be having a good time, and that's when I realized why people go to all this trouble to see their favourite band live. It doesn't matter how good they actually are, the mere energy you get from being around fellow fans is enough for you to declare that money was indeed well spent.

  The Monkeys were great of course, and I'm so happy I got to see them live, but I wouldn't say that it was the highlight of my day. It's like Victoria's theory from HIMYM, that the moment that leads up to the kiss is the moment to cherish, not the actual kiss. That being said, the kiss was freaking good. Thrashing around during "Brianstorm", holding up our phones and accidentally taking a picture of the crowd during "Star Treatment", listening to high-pitched screaming when Alex Turner took his sleeveless jacket off and shook it around enough for its concentrated sweat to shoot in the crowd's direction, seeing the guy brush his hair every so often and "losing his train of thought" as if the bag of acid he had taken before the show just kicked in, all of that is part of the experience that contributed to making this an unforgettable night.
  To sum up: decent experience, a 4/5 from me.

Your friendly concert-goer,
Stelios Zesiades.

Blog no. 26: Blistered

Dear nostalgia addicts,

  Watching the sequel to Trainspotting a few weeks ago, I saw the now middle-aged characters latching to their previous lives and repeating mistakes of the past without missing a beat. I mean, seeing as they all were drugged up in their early twenties, their future was already looking grim. It's a miracle they all survived well into their fourties if you ask me, but it was sad that even though they tried to escape their past it just wasn't a choice for them, as is the case for a lot of people. Like how you get black-out drunk for the hundredth time, even though you promised to yourself you wouldn't drink again after your previous shenanigans, or how you decide to take out that tray out of the oven without using oven mitts, even though you've burned yourself the previous twenty times you've attempted this, as if this time you're freaking Elsa and your hand is magically immune to heat. Point is that sometimes even though we know we're making a mistake, we still do it because we feel the need to, and that's okay. Eventually our gag reflexes will reject alcohol, one hard liquor at a time, and our hands will be too blistered to even attempt cooking in the oven. Ι, for one, am fond of all those drunken memories (or lack thereof), and I can probably explain every scar I have with a cool story. By pure coincidence, those two usually go together. Who would have guessed  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  I once read somewhere that "it's funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different", more or less anyways. Looking back at four, five years ago is like entering a time capsule to a completely different time, with different people around you, different concerns, different tastes. Reading my diary entries from a few years back I realized how much different I was back then, and it baffled me because I didn't even realize it. Mind, me, I've only written a couple of entries since then, but those two are enough to give me an idea of who I was back then. I often find myself reminiscing about those times, much like Renton, Spud and Sick Boy did when "Lust for life" came on in the movie, not in a "life was so much better back then" kind of way, but rather because you've revisited those memories so many times, they've become familiar to you. And no matter how good your memory is, it's not like you're a reliable narrator of your own story, we tend to overexaggerate our memories to fit our narrative, and we tend to make them far better than they actually were. That's why we often revisit our failed relationships for another go, even though we know that the tray is hot, we still wanna touch it.

  Even in the off chance that our memories are actually as amazing as we think they are, there's still no point in feeling down that you're not reliving them, you should just be glad that you've actually lived them. Memory is a helluva drug, it drags you around and slaps you with waves of nostalgia, and it makes you reminisce about times that can't be replicated. All you can do is strive to make your days memorable and let go of the past. The sooner you do that, the carefree-er you'll be. It's a word, alright? 

"I wish there was a way to know that you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." - The Office

Your fellow memory latcher, 

Stelios Zesiades. 

About a cloud - pt. 1

Introduction

  You know that feeling when you think you’ve done everything right but you somehow still manage to fuck up? I mean, you have everything you wanted, friends, family, a girlfriend, a couple of dogs, and all of a sudden BAM. A car hits you on your way to the supermarket. No? Well I do, unfortunately.
   I must admit that it’s not a very pleasant situation to be in, but being dead does have its benefits. For starters you can’t die again, which is kinda neat. I can’t go through walls or anything worthy the attention of Murray and Co. but I can dο other stuff, I think. To be completely honest I still haven't found out what exactly I can do in this limbo-like reality I'm living right now, but I'm a fast learner so I'll figure it out. I like the one where I flicker the light for just a second so people are not sure whether it really flickered or they just blinked, it messes them up real good. That is my favorite past-time now that I’m eh, well, dead, y’know. Don’t judge me, it’s not like there’s a lot of stuff to do in the afterlife.
  But! This is not my story; I’m merely narrating it. This is a story of something much bigger than me, much more interesting and frankly, much more alive. This is a story about something that even though is seemingly insignificant, it’s actually of great importance. This is a story about a cloud.
  This is gonna be really long and weird, and I'm not gonna make it any shorter, so just try to keep up alright? To make it easier for you, I'll just break it off in 3 parts. The first one is the part where I die. Think of it as a How I met your mother situation, but instead of meeting your mother, I die. And no, it wasn't some idiot driver who got distracted talking on the phone, I was just jaywalking and, well, reading some funny post on Reddit. Hey at least the dude that made it can say that he literally made someome die from laughter, if that's any consolation whatsoever. Dying is all morbid and whatever but trust me, there's worse things that can happen to you. You could get expelled, for one.

  Yeah yeah, we all hate spoilers, I know, but the me dying part is actually the least important part of the story. I told you, this isn't a story about me, but since this part is integral to the events that occur afterwards I can't really brush it aside either. Anyways, to sum up, I was on my way home from the grocery store, on my phone, wearing headphones and crossing the road. Relatively new driver is cruising at a normal speed, perfectly in line with the rules and stuff, but she doesn't have time to react to the idiot crossing the road. She tries to swerve but it's too late; my face smashes on the windshield at first before my whole body is sent flying quite a few meters away. I die almost instantly, and that's that. And that thing they say about your life flashing I front of your eyes before you die? Well, either it's bullshit, or mine was just directed by some french new wave jackass experimenting with a still black frame, which is what I actually saw. If I see the big guy at any point, I'm asking for a refund.
  Now that I think of it, the actual dying part isn't even that relevant to the story, damn, I should probably change the name of the first part. Let's see: "The part where I ramble on for a third of the story". Nah, too tongue-in-cheek. "The one with all the exposition." Accurate, but it makes me sound like an awful story-teller, dontcha think? How about we name it something like, uh, "The part before I die." Yeah, that's a bit more accurate I'd say.
 I actually have to go way way back to give you some context otherwise it's gonna be a shitty story, and this is not something I'd like to fuck up. One would think that after dying you'd just seize to exist peacefully, like your soul rests and all your memories are gone or whatever, but I guess the universe has greater plans for some of us. I don't even really believe in god, or reincarnation, or life after death for that matter, but now I don't even know what or who to believe in anymore. In a totally unrelated matter, I really like squirrels.
  Since that's out of the way, now I can get to the real story. You know, the stuff that is actually important to the plot. To do that though I have to go all the way back, back to the day when Chris and I got adopted. Didn't expect that did ya? Well anyways, you ready? Here goes...

Nothing good happens after 2:00 am

I started rewatching How I met your mother the other day. At its best it's a brilliant show, not because of its comedic value, but because of the interesting way it treats concepts that are known to us but are left unexplored. At its worse it's a pile of crap that drags a single wedding to a whole season and then tears any character development of its last seasons to shreds, but that's another story.
  Last night I watched an episode called "Nothing good happens after 2:00 am" and it kept me thinking, how the hell did they come up with something so specific? It's such an arbitrary number that I fail to understand how such a rule can apply, plenty of good has happened both before and after 2:00 am. Then it hit me: it's not about the actual time is it? There's certain thresholds in which that rule applies, not because of its 2:00 am-ness, but rather because of the idea that there actually is such a threshold that makes us make all the bad decisions. Be it in the am's or the pm's, it's the point in time in which we're most vulnerable, a point where we seize any rational thinking and we let our insticts take over. Not the kind of instict that helps us survive from a bear attack or something, it's the kind of instict that makes you drunk text your ex after a night of partying, or the kind of instict that tells you that it's a good idea to eat that leftover pizza from last week's house party you hosted, or the kind of instict that makes you tell Robin you've broken up with Victoria when in fact you haven't, just to get a head start in your soon-to-be relationship. It's the kind of instinct that makes you drink your third post-midnight coffee in hope that you're gonna cover a semester's worth of knowledge in one miserable night. And trust me, in that context I can definitely agree: Nothing good ever happens after 2:00 am, it's just that my 2:00 am is probably different than yours. Besides, it's always after 2:00 am somewhere, technically.
  So take it from me, or take it from Ted's ma, "Nothing good ever happens after 2:00 am. When 2:00 am rolls around, just go home and go to sleep". Whenever your 2:00 am is.