Awkwardly Social

With my real job and my freelance work, I’ve been working seven days a week.  On my birthday I had a glass of red wine with my friend who just had foot surgery, and spent the rest of the night kind of rolled in a ball of self-loathing.  The thing is, I’m doing what I need to do to support myself, I just don’t particularly like the person it makes me - tired, snappish, prone to drinking, and quite possibly in need of a serious attitude adjustment.  I mostly thought when I turned 33 I would be more… grown up?  responsible?  I don’t know.

So, thank you for the birthday wishes everyone.  I love the belated ones, because they came in after the hoopla of the day is over and remind me that it could be worse, I could be dead!

Seth is going back to work soon, which, YAY work!  Boo, no more Seth at home giving me the daily dog update.

Random aside: We were at our local joint eating and a woman walked in.  She made me so ridiculously sad.  It was her mom hair and her perfectly ironed skirt.  Her sweater tucked into it and her belt just so.  Her black nylons and her pratical heels.  She ate alone.  She looked perfectly fine with it, but, man, she depressed the shit out of me.

And appropos of nothing, I don’t know how you people do it, the work, the family… How do you have time for television?  I work in television and I don’t have time to watch it.  I didn’t have cable for a year.  I would watch a random episode of Gossip Girl here and there, and 30 Rock on Hulu, but boy am I out of the loop.  I have about 15 minutes a day that I can spend watching TV, and those precious moments are instead spent either hitting the snooze button or writing my morning pages.  Which, morning pages are embarrassing, that’s all there is to it.  But they’re an integral part of my writing process, and I need them.  I do them.  I cringe.  I try not to bring it up in mixed company, but there you go, I’m a recovering writer.

All of this is to say that it’s been busy.  I’ll be getting less busy as soon as Seth is getting more busy, and so the world turns, and sands through the hour glass, and something about a hospital in general.

I got a couple of e-mails this morning with pretty much the same message, “Happy Birthday!  We got you a new President!”

Way to over-shadow my special day, Obama.  God.

So, anyway, I’m 33 years old.  Too old to be an ingenue or a wunderkind, but old enough to mastermind a Ponzi scheme, create a religion to span the test of time and most of all old enough to know better but to do it anyway.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes on Facebook, Twitter, via Text, e-mail and messenger pigeon. I’m sorry to report the messenger pigeon, well, Lula ate it. But! It was the thought that counted.

We had all the doors flung open to enjoy the unseasonably balmy and clear night.  I was sprawled out in the living room trying to get the energy to walk Lula when she dashed out into the front dark, gave one yelp and dashed back in.  Seth calmly looked out the front door as I stumbled to catch Lula and said, “Skunk.”

In another second’s time, Lula had rubbed her face all over me, my bag, and, it seems, the back of my head.

I mean, that is the only explanation for the back of my head smelling like skunk, and I am still confused about the whole thing.

Silver Lake is really beautiful and all of god’s creatures and blah, blah, blah, but shitbaghellballs, I am so sick of the smell of skunks.  May they all perish from the earth from a virus that simultaneously renders them scentless.

I had to drop Seth off at the hospital today.

I’m going to drop the Mr. F business because two capital letters and a period make my eye twitch, and given the gigantic bags accentuating my 33 year old (on January 20th, I’ll be 33 years old!  eep.) crow’s feet and morning after a crying jag swelling due to a fight that’s been brewing since Seth and I moved in together, I can’t deal with an eye twitch.  I also can’t figure out if the previous sentence makes sense, but that’s probably because I woke up at 5AM to take my partner (also, I can’t decide what to call him, he’s not my boyfriend, he’s not my ‘man’, he’s not technically my husband, and while he’s my roommate, he’s way more than my roommate, if you know what I mean, and I think you do, and also, where was I?) to the hospital to have a biopsy.

I couldn’t take the time off to stay with him during the procedure for complicated and boring reasons, and his sister is going to pick him up and take him home, and Lula promised not to lick or sneeze on his bandaged area (she really shouldn’t make promises she can’t keep), but I’m still feeling kind of adrift being out of contact with him.  Not knowing what part he’s at in the procedure.  Have they drugged him?  Have they numbed him?  Did they shave his belly?

All of this has only marginally to do with my needing therapy.  And that means I need to find a therapist.  One that charges on a sliding scale, can do early morning or late evening appointments, and has a good relationship with a psychiatrist that will give me brain medication but the right brain medication so I don’t lose you know, my charm.  If you have a lady (or a dude) that you recommend in the Los Angeles area, hit me up via e-mail.

I’ve been avoiding some stuff for too long enough, you know?

Anyway, think good thoughts for Seth, would ya?  It’s not the procedure so much as the results that we’re sweating.

I looked at the door and she walked in.  Taller than I expected, but just as pretty as she was in the photographs.  She walked over to my favorite waiter and I realized they were together.  Mr. F was in mid question but my ears went dead and I started to panic.  What if Louie showed up with her?  Why did they have to come to my restaurant?

They sat at the booth next to us.  Mr. F got quiet.

“I’m sorry.  It’s just, they’re friends of my ex-boyfriend.  I’m not really interested in making small talk with him today.”

“Is he here?”

“No.  And it would be absolutely fine if he was.   I just don’t know why they have to come here.  This is my turf.”

Mr. F’s dessert finally came and I finally relaxed.  We walked out and they stayed there.  Our lives brush up against each other in the oddest ways.