Awkwardly Social

Will ya look at that? Tuesday. Huh. It seems like just yesterday is was Monday. And tomorrow it will be December.

I ain’t got shit to say to y’all. Nada. Zip.

If I were to re-cap my night it would go something like this.

1. Warm up left over pasta.
2. Drink three drops of left-over Shiraz that I mentioned yesterday.
3. Stare at Rosso and Chianti. Decide to go for the Rosso because the label is more pleasant.
4. Open wine. Marvel at wine bottle opening technology.
5. Stare at microwave. Wish it didn’t come from the year 1972. Hope 1972 microwave is not giving me uterine cancer as I stare at it.
6. Drink.
7. Eat half heated pasta. Curse 1972 microwave for doing a bad job.
8. Turn on the tv. Alternate between West Wing and Band of Brothers.
9. Decide to stick to the West Wing because Band of Brothers can be too confusing if you jump in in the middle and I’ve already seen every episode of the first season of the West Wing because I own it so I know what is happening even though I jumped in in the middle.
10. More wine. Consider bringing entire bottle into bedroom, but decide against it.
11. Answer door bell.
12. Crawl back into bed. Snuggle with boyfriend.
13. Fall asleep because of two glasses of wine.
14. Snore.

Good god. You must want to poke your eyes out after reading that. I’m sorry. Hey. The good news is…. there is no good news.

During grad school, I could sleep all day, every day, skip class, watch tv because it was for ‘research’ and basically go without showering or eating anything from anywhere that didn’t have a drive through and it was glorious. Now I have to shower. I cannot sleep all day every day. Watching tv is no longer a valid excuse for time wasting. And let me tell you, I am exhausted.

So the past couple of weeks I have devoted one day, and one day only to my depression. One glorious day, out of the seven other crappy ones without three naps, where I do not make myself do anything. Nothing is scheduled. Pajamas are kept on, there is only a shower if I feel like it. Football has been watched because I’m too tired to figure out if I want to see The Breakfast Club again or if I’d rather watch a Real World/Road Rules Challenge marathon. That’s right. I watched football because I was too lazy to make a decision and press a button on the remote. And I kind of liked it. I cheered. I cursed. I fell asleep. Woke up, changed the channel to catch the other game. The one with the team that had the documentary series about it on HBO, with the coach named Brian who I have a big crush on. The Baltimore Ravens. Where’s Todd Heap? I don’t know what position he plays, but he hasn’t been on the field in the last two weeks. How about Jamal Lewis? He was one of my favorite characters on the show. HBO made me like football. How depressed should I be about that? Three naps and 27 bourbon balls. That’s how depressed. Oh and I looked at the three drops of Shiraz left in the bottle from the night before with my mom and considered drinking it at 9am. Decided against it because I didn’t think it would taste good with the bourbon balls.

So until further notice - Sundays are reserved for sleeping, pajama wearing and football watching. What the hell am I going to do when the season ends?

Normally people say they’re working their fingers to the bone. I, however, am chewing off my fingernails because of lack of work to the bone.

People in the building are beginning to worry about me.

“Hey kid, what’s wrong?”
“Oh. I, uh, just bit off my fingernail, accidentally swallowed it and now my pinky is kinda bleeding from the quick. Oh yeah, and I’m poor.”
“Huh.”

I’m poor, people. Poor. Being poor isn’t like it is in the movies. People aren’t joining together and singing “It’s a hard knock life,” with me. So I just sing it alone. But then again, being poor is like it is in the movies, because if you remember the 80’s classic Trading Places, I get to take a rich old white guy’s place and hilarious consequences are going to ensue. Believe it.

Does it sound like I’m a crazy person? Do I have a crazie person’s weird round-about way of talking? Can you spare a quarter? The hobo beggar (imagine I sound like a rich Republican when you read the words ‘hobo beggar’) in front of the sev-elev asks me if I can spare a quarter every day. I give him more than a quarter every day, except days like today when I say, “No. I cannot spare a quarter. Can you spare me a $140,000? ‘Cause the government is asking for it in ’small’ installments and I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to pay them back. Not in a million years. Or thirty even.” Actually I don’t say that. I kind of shame facedly say, “I’m sorry,” and scuttle to my car.

Hey! How about I talk about my boobs?! They’re still there. In fact, I spilled soup on them today. My boobs create a nice little soup catching shelf. It’s great. Especially when you’re wearing a white shirt and you spill red soup on them. ‘Cause then more people look at the boobs. They sure don’t let me down, these boobs. [Boobs. I have this annoying habit that I think I developed since living with Allie. Everytime someone says something that I like the sound of I repeat it. like for instance, boobs. Or golly. Or lucky. For a while, duty. It has to be some form of autism or that other thing where you scream out profanities, fuck. What’s it called? I seriously can’t remember. You have twitches too. Oh well. I think being poor has also made me stupid.] I have no clever sentence to wrap up this paragraph. You’re all going to have to deal with me while my bleeding pinky heals and I try to get over my autism, poorness and then switch lives with a rich white guy.

So, I won’t be writing much this holiday weekend, if at all. I know that disappoints all seven of you. Then again, you seven faithful readers will probably be doing any number of things this weekend that do not include checking to see what kind of cursing, asshole-ing, thing I’ve gotten myself into. Blahdy blah blah blah. I’m feeling like Tom Brokaw here. Filling time while the asshole in the control room gets his shit together and rolls the goddamned warm fuzzy feelings tape. When’s Tommy quitting anyway? ‘Cause I gotta catch that last day. I bet that’s one heckuva warm fuzzy feelings clip reel with some super bloopers. (Say ’super bloopers’ aloud. Do it.)

Here goes. (Oh, this is a list about what I’m ‘thankful’ for. How lame is this? ‘Cause I’m feeling lame vibes from you already and I haven’t hit the publish button yet.)

1. 7-Eleven. In the morning. With the high school kids. First of all these kids loooooove the new coffee ‘condiments’ the sev offers. They pour in the marshmallows, the cocoa powder, the graham cracker crumbs, the flavored creamer, the vanilla shots. The place is a huge disaster of kids when I get in there, and I love it. All the girls (who must be the cool girls in school but still seem so insecure and awkward to me) saying shit like, “Does this taste funny?” and “They’re out of vanilla? I can’t drink this.” And the slang I pick up, that I’m sure if I were to use I would sound like my mom saying something like, “That’s wack.” Not that my mom would ever say something like that. Today after the clerks screamed at the kids to get out, I heard the ring leader say to her ‘posse’, “Yo, we gotta shake. They’re throwing us outta here.” We gotta ’shake’. Love that. So you kids in the sev. I am thankful for you. Keep it real. (See? Lame.)

Ok. I’m giving up. I’m thankful for lots more stuff, but really, I don’t think anyone wants to read about it today. Do you? You don’t want to read about how I am thankful for my sister and my mom and my dad and my boyfriend and my friends and my President (wha? I’m not thankful for my President) and my job and my car (that car really is the shake. I totally just used that wrong. heh.) and my bed (the bed I won on a game show, you didn’t know I was on a game show did you?) and my iPod and my DirecTV and world peace (wait, we don’t have that do we… fucking Americans and what about what’s going on in Ukraine. huh? How about a Revolution!?) and finally I am thankful for Will Ferrell. I would totally cheat on my boyfriend to have sex with him. Is that wrong? Louie? Can I get a pass on that one?

Stay safe, drink responsibly, and for the Brits who read this, here is the most perfect thing I’ve ever read about our celebration of the genocide of the American Indian, “Thanksgiving: when everyone in Britain gives thanks for our ancestors having sent all the religious freaks to America.” I have no idea where my boyfriend read that, so I can’t properly give it a source. I’m sure the plagerism police aren’t going to come get me. At least, mostly sure.

I love you guys. I really do. I’m thankful for the internet and all the talented and funny and awesome and cue the clips reel, goddamnit! CUE THE GODDAMNED HOLIDAY CLIPS REEL!!

I’ve been a little down the last couple of days and I think it has something to do with the mass amounts of vitamins I’m taking to stave off this cold/flu/terminal illness. Could that be true? Being more healthy is making me depressed. My body hates health. This is bad.

And… I told my boyfriend to ‘fuck off.’ For no reason. Because I’m a bitch. I had to sign off of iChat so I wouldn’t make things worse. I’m blaming the echinacea for this one. Or maybe the calcium. I took spirulina this morning too. Maybe that did it. Or the taurine in my vitamin water.

Who wants to be a millionaire? Me. Next question.

When did being an adult stop being fun and start being a chore? The minute I got my student loan coupon book. As it turns out, they aren’t coupons at all.

Where are you spending the holidays? Movie theater, restaurant, boyfriend’s family’s houses for two days of Hanukkah, Christmas in Seattle (most likely), writing in Palm Springs or 29 Palms.

When was the last time you cleaned your bathroom? Yesterday.

The time before that? Do not have any recollection of ever cleaning my bathroom before yesterday, so I’m guessing it was a long time ago, maybe the last time my mom visited.

How did you spend your weekend? Trying to figure out where ‘that smell’ was coming from, and in bed, and in front of the TV.

Is Desperate Housewives good or not? I’m still deciding. I don’t know. Is it?

How long is this current ‘down’ feeling going to last? Through the holidays, maybe ’til my birthday, unless we finish the script and sell it. heh.

If you have any questions for me, ask away. I don’t feel like writing anything today.

Actually it’s nothing like having a baby. I just wanted to write, “except without all the vaginal pain” today. I’m in that kind of mood.

Writing.

Sucks.

Ass.

It especially sucks when you are trying to write something that people outside your tiny blogosphere will read, and hopefully tell you is brilliant, and then ask you nicely to re-write it, and then give you a big check filled with lots of zeros.

Yeah. It’s hard.

So Chris has been talking about sex and dating, specifically as they apply to ‘friends’ on his blog and I have something to say about it. I know, you’re totally surprised. I started to post a comment but it came out all bitchy and so I didn’t post it, and now I have felt the need to air my dirty laundry on the web. I know, again, you’re totally surprised.

Most of the people I’ve dated have been friends first. Most of the people I’ve made out with and slept with have been friends first. Some of those people are still my friends. Some of those people remained my friends until I realized I still harbored anger or sex feelings for them and I broke off ties.

For me, dating has always been difficult. I blame my parents. They wouldn’t let me date until I was sixteen. By then, I wasn’t really interested in dating and just ended up hooking up with my friends when I was drunk. Yes. I was a drunk hooker-upper even in high school. I never had a boyfriend until I met Bob. I was 17. I was immediately attracted to him, and decided I would make him my best friend, so that I could get drunk and hook up with him on a regular basis. As is turns out, he did become my best friend that year. And we did get drunk and make out. Boy, those were the days. Like the time we got caught at a school dance wasted with a twelve pack of Zima in the back seat of my car and an open Coors in the cup holder. The cops called my mom (former high ranking official in town) and put Bob in handcuffs. Ah, young love. The thing about it was, I never had sex with him in high school. He and I were actually pretty chaste compared to my friends (one of whom got pregnant and dropped out).

I’m not gonna lie, there were definitely times when I got to college and people asked me how many sex partners I had, and I admitted I was a virgin, I felt a little shame. That’s because we live in a place where sex is seen as a rite of passage, and if you haven’t gotten it by college, you might be kind of a freak. Or there’s the feeling that you aren’t good enough or pretty enough and no one wanted to have sex with you. Sad. I know. Anyway, I made sure to have sex with Bob when I got back to Arizona on Christmas break. How romantic. Terrible. Bad experience, even though I was totally in love with Bob, I totally wasn’t ready to be having sex.

So, I am a bit socially retarded when it comes to boys. Men. Whatever. If I like a guy, I get drunk and try to make out with them. (Or sometimes I get drunk and tell them I like them, and sometimes I get drunk and tell them they’re an asshole.) So you can see that I have issues not only with boys but also with alcohol. It has been a good thing that this has mostly only happened with friends, because either A. They return the feelings and the next time we hook up we don’t have to be drunk, or B. They don’t return the feelings and think I was just drunk and it’s not an issue. Wow. I think I need some therapy.

What was my point before I realized I should look up an AA meeting? Um. Oh yeah, friends and dating and sex. My opinion had been that I could only date someone I was good friends with. I have trouble meeting people and then giving them the proper signals. Or maybe it’s trouble meeting people and not realizing that they’re just not that into me. So I’ve relied on the friend pool. Until now.

What is this “A Dating Story”? Blech, I know. I’m sorry. I really am. I just can’t stop.

Louie and I were ‘set up’. We have a friend in common. I’ve told you guys this before, right? I’m so boring, I’m repeating myself.

So. I have a great man in my life. He treats me way better than I deserve and I didn’t really know him before our first date. It so far is working better than my previous relationships were working when we got to the three-month mark. And I can’t really figure that out. 1. We didn’t really know each other that well at first, I had read his stuff, he had read mine, but we didn’t know things like, who our respective friends were, what our families were like, where we like to go, etc. etc. Which most of you are thinking is why you date people, to find out those things about them, but remember, I have pretty much only dated friends up to this point. Yeah. Socially retarded. 2. We had sex on the second date. Which was, yes, the day after the first date, and I totally wanted to have sex with him on the first date, but he turned me down (!) I was made to wait one whole day. And that didn’t seem to matter. Because even though I’m slutty, he still likes me. 3. We’ve decided to be honest with each other. I know. That’s totally crazy right? Honesty is a relationship killer. Apparently I was wrong about that too.

So in 28 years, 12 of which I’ve technically be ‘allowed’ to date, I’ve learned basically nothing, except that maybe all of my previous dating ‘strategies’ have been terribly, terribly wrong. And I now know that it doesn’t matter how much you think you know, you are always going to learn something about it the next time.

So would I recommend getting set up? Yes. Only because I’ve only been set up once with superior results. Would I recommend dating friends? Yes. Because, seriously, I don’t know how else you people meet people. Will we ever, ever find a way to figure out the best way to find a great person to be with? Nope. Never. We just gotta keep trying. Or be alone. There are your options.

Try –or- Be Alone

And there’s nothing wrong with being alone. I know. I really do.

Hey guys. I don’t want to alarm you, but my sister is pregnant. And you know what that means. Half of you who are reading this might also be pregnant. Because pregnancy is kind of like an infectious disease. Seriously. I know that sounds wrong, but have you ever noticed when one person gets pregnant everyone gets pregnant?

Like in high school, all the girls I hung around with started dropping like flies. Kind of round and barfy flies. Thank goodness I have some kind of immunity to that disease. Phew.

PS - Looking at the ultrasound made me cry this morning. In the good way.

I got an e-mail today from my dear friends at Evite saying, “Print photos for Allie’s Princess Party.” And immediately I wondered how the hell they got the photos for that party. Were they looking up addresses of the parties on-line going there and taking photos, and if they were, why didn’t I notice. And then thinking I probably didn’t notice because I was reeeeeeeaaaaally drunk and wouldn’t have noticed if someone bowled me down the bowling lane. And then I worried that maybe someone is following me all the time taking pictures and posting them on the internet.

Ok. I’m exaggerating a little. I didn’t really think all of those things. Only a couple of them. And that’s only because I’m a crazy paranoid freak, and I think I know why.

Parents, listen up. Do not let your 12 year old daughters read “Flowers in the Attic,” or really anything by V.C. Andrews. It will fuck them up.

I used to babysit for this lovely family who had three daughters betweent the ages of 7 and zero years old. The seven year old and the four year old were in the snack food age, while the zero year old mostly ate baby food. Now, as a babysitter, you learn a few things and those things are this: How to make Ravioli-O’s, Macaroni and Cheese, and hot dogs. You also have a really great and fully stocked pantry and fridge at your beck and call. You learn early on that you do not go into the pantry and start eating a big bag of teddy grahams or oreos or crack open a can of Coca-Cola Classic while the children are still awake. You do not do these things because the children, who love and admire you (and love and admire sugar), will beg and scream and cry until you give them Coke, Teddy Grahams and Oreos ten minutes before bedtime and then all through the night will get up and ask for a glass of water until you want to give them some children’s Benadryl and hope they don’t tell their parents you drugged them.

Now, back to V.C. Andrews. [Jen I’m about to spoil the book for you if you haven’t read it, and how could you not have read it? you will want to stop reading now.] Have you guys read “Flowers in the Attic”? Aside from the incest between two creepy kids, this is a cautionary tale about poison. It taught me that anything you eat could be poisoned. [It also taught me that if you are trapped in an attic with only your creepy, but HOT, brother you will eventually have sex with him. Thank god I don’t have a brother] And because the kids were slowly dying in the attic, being poisoned by their own mother, I became terrified of poison. Oh, V.C., how you done me wrong.

So. Everytime I would go into that pantry [after the kids were asleep] I would wonder, “Is this bag of chocolate Teddy Grahams that I found way in the back of the pantry a trick bag? Is it actually poisoned?” Of course, I would still eat said bag of Chocolate Teddy Grahams, but the worry was always in the back of my head.

And now, you guys can pinpoint the exact day you were reading T and A and realized, “That bitch is fucking crazy.” And you can blame V.C. Andrews, or my parents for letting me read that book.