haven't felt the need to update in a while. maybe because:
a. my computer is broken. currently on out-of-town roommate's laptop raiding itunes and burning CDs.
b. i work so freaking much. and when i'm not at work i am socializing or being with the boy or just plain ol' having sex in a laundry room.
c. my life is sort of amazingly PERFECT right now
(except for)
got home on friday night after (yes, just be jealous don't even try not to be) going with the boy on a sailing/indie filmmaking expedition in the san juan islands (pause. told you you would be jealous). he and his friends had a whole film crew out on the island with them to put together a project that had been in the works for a bout a year. couldn't stay for the whole 10 days of filming, but did join him for 3 days, living on the sailboat with him while our 20 or so amazing friends stayed in a giant rented vacation home right up the street from the dock.
every morning i woke up in this adorable little bed on the boat, wrapped up with the boy, being rocked by the waves in the tiny cove where we were docked. breakfast was always brought to me in bed, courtesy of the boy's surprising culinary skills. we would explore the island, go to the little village shops, meet the rest of the crew for picnics and, of course, work on all the exciting film sets. his friends (many of whom had never met me) were amazing, and all i heard was "you two are SO cute together." le sigh.
anyways, yes the most romantic, perfect little "weekend" of my life.
and now for the 'except for' part. i got back and noticed that something wasn't quite alright in the whole genitourinary system*. it seems that vacation timez plus sexy timez minus a working bathroom equals cranberry juice timez. if ya get my drift.
appendix!
genitourinary system: i was talking about a freakin' UTI, friends.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
officially official
you know your life is either really sad or really awesome when you find yourself at the corner market, counting change to see if you have enough money to purchase a three-pack of condoms and a ninety-nine cent box of kraft macaroni and cheese.
true story.
other sad/supremely awesome things: i just glanced outside to see what was making such a loud noise. apparently its a thing called a lawnmower, and it was being used by JOELORD.* apart from the noise caused by the thing that cuts down the jungle called our front yard, i heard a terrible crunch. i looked down and watched JOELORD fish out a crunched tallboy of olympia in the maze of weeds. welcome to my life.
life. liiiife. its gorgeous, hot outside, i am buzzed and pretty darn happy. money is momentarily UNDER CONTROL. worked a few prime serving shifts, made some moolah, put that shit in the bank, saved a coupla bucks, paid my bills AND had enough to buy a plane ticket to wisconsin for childhood-bestfriend's wedding in june (eeek weddings). suuuperb.
i spent all morning cuddling and making out and et-cet-era with my boyfriend. yes. yes. yes, i just used THAT word. wanna know why? 'cause i'm in a relationship. and we use titles. and i FREAKIN' CHANGED MY STATUS ON MYSPACE. okay, caps not necessary there, but...
backup! last week, in a late night "chat," i asked him what he thought about me. instead of skirting around the issue, i blurted out (once again), what is this? he hmmed and hawed a bunch, but i finally got the answer i was looking for. 'if what you're worried about is commitment, you don't have to be,' he said, looking me straight in the eye. 'i feel one hundred percent committed to you. that's not even an issue for me.' sigh. finally. the words i wanted to hear. i wish it didn't take so long for him to say it. or maybe it just took too long for me to ask it.
but still, no relationship? exclusivity? check. setting aside time for one another? check. commitment? check. but agreeing that we are in a freakin' relationship?? UNCHECKED!!!
so. it had been a busy week of not seeing the boy, both of us busy, working, school, his friend was in town, etc. im not going to lie, i wanted to see him pretty bad. i knew he was busy, but sometimes... well sometimes a girl has her needs! totally unrelated, of course, but after the embarrassing visit to the corner store market where old-grumpy-asian owner smirked at me for buying macaroni and condoms (and yes, the next day i made the same purchase only this time substituting the kraft for a red bull, and asian man full on laughed out loud. im over it), i hit up the PP.* showed them my 'i'm poor and fertile, please help me control the population' card (medical insurance card just for PP), they gave me a year's worth of birth control. i like to play it extra-safe, so i asked for some condoms on the side. the lady looked me up and down over her reading glasses and pushed a brown paper bag into my red face. i thanked her meekly and ran out with a giant purse full of contraceptives. upon reaching the bus stop, i peeked inside the goodies bag. there they were, thirty free condoms of the clinic's choosing. and they were all flavored. FML.
after realizing that they must have sized me up and immediately dug into the slutty stash of condoms, i got over it. free condoms is free condoms! the next few days were a blur of being called in to cover shifts (they know i live two blocks away and am desperate, whatever) and working my tail off. by thursday night, i needed to get out and get my drank on. i sent a quick text to the boy, asking him if he wanted to do karaoke at the crescent. he enthusiastically agreed.
side note. there's this funny test called the myers-brigg personality type indicator. i am OBSESSED with it. it gives you a four-letter result of how you act around others, respond to situations, think, feel, etc. i made the boy take it a while ago. out of sixteen possibilities, we turn out to be the EXACT same type. and it makes sense. we are both socially stretched thin, trying to keep up with EVERYBODY, wear our hearts on our sleeve(s), make decisions based on pure emotion, take in energy from being around others, forgetful, easily distracted, easily hurt, easily insecure, easily forgiving, and flaky to the max. sounds like a recipe for a giant up-and-down roller coaster of emotions, distrust, extreme showing of affection, fights and constant make-up sex?
uh, i mean.
anyways yes. he is ALWAYS late, distracted by friends, forgets to call. and i am the same way. i have just accepted it. i still get cranky. but whatev. so on this particular night, once the boy agreed to go to karaoke with me, i thought, excellent. it will take him three hours to get to capitol hill, so i have three hours to hang out with my other friends at oddfellows.
by 10, i was drinking with susie and, oddly enough, three of our old college guy friends. i hadn't hung out with them since, like, freshmen year. it was fun, but i was eager to convince everyone to get to the crescent. suddenly i got a text. 'at the crescent, where are you?' huh. that was early for him. maybe he actually bypassed the whole getting distracted by friends thing, for once! but then a sequel came through the cell phone airwaves. 'ps. i brought the roommate!'
...
my momentary good mood vanished. the roommate. i knew which one. and i was not happy. so, his roommate. 30. graphic designer. now for the straight up bitchy description. loud. drunk. grossly flirty. attention whore. and worst of all, she seems to know everything there is to know about comic books, movies and art. shit. how can i compete with that?
anyways, it seems like every time we hang out lately, SHE has to come along! movie date with the boy? how nice! he bought tickets! oh, wait, SHE is coming too? hangout at oddfellows? nice! lets get drinks! ...with HER. great. late night movie watching at his house? romantic? no, of course not, because SHE wants to watch movies too, and we have to watch them in HER room? ew. not cool. i dont mind her as a person, but seriously. stop getting drunk and getting all over MY man. bitch. please.
so, thursday night, midnight, i finally get susie plus the old college crew over to the crescent. the boy and his roomie are drunk and having the time of their lives. also, the roomie wants to now leave. but we just got here? i said politely. yeah, but we've been here two hours, she said, turning and walking out the door. i look at the boy for help. he shrugs, looks deeply conflicted, and then walks out after his roommate. i am pissed. more than pissed. i know they are just going up the street to another bar, but he just choose her side! that's not fair! he needs to choose MY side! i'm being an unreasonable bitch but i don't care!
the ol' college boys buy me two shots in quick succession, thankfully completely unaware of the situation at hand. i then storm out the door to find my wonderful boy. he is smoking in the alley with roommate girl. im ready to go to redwood, i announce, carelessly. we all walk in increments, the roommate wanting to get there, me making the boy walk slower as an act of defiance, the ol' college guys drunkenly and confusedly following (hey, where are we going? they keep asking) and susie, bringing up the rear, trying to contact her own manfriend via cellphone. what a mess.
at the redwood we pushed tables together for our growing group. half the table was college boys chanting 'chug chug chug!' and the other half was me, the boy and the roommate. more drinks were bought for me and downed. still angrily sober and unfortunately clear-thinking, i watched my boy get stupider and stupider. his roommate's voice was getting more and more shrill and loud. i was fuming. AND i was being completely ignored.
bitchy time. i turned to the college guys and starting laughing loudly, swapping old stories, and acting like it was the fucking night of my life. i mean, if my boy's roommate was just going to keep directing the conversation towards things that only she and the boy had in common, i might as well be passive-aggressively exclusive with my friends. it didn't work. he didn't seem to notice, and i was so damn angry that i wanted to cry. suddenly i jumped up (woa, those drinks might have had a slight effect) and mumbled a goodbye to everyone. the boy jumped up too. 'where are you going? home, already?' he asked, stupidly. 'yes.' i glared at him and walked out. 'wait, we'll go with you,' he shouted, chasing after me. his roommate jumped up too. fucking GREAT.
outside, they continued chatting happily and i wanted to die. i was hoping that only the boy would follow me home and i could dramatically tell him to go back to the redwood and find his roommate to share a cab ride home with. 'you seem to have so much more fun with her than me!' was the grand finale line i had been rehearsing in my head. now i couldn't say anything with the roommate around. crap.
on broadway, his roommate hailed a cab, quite sloshed. oh crap, where's my money? she slurred. here. i said, shoving the entirety of my cash at her. thanks, she said, to no one in particular. once the cab took off i did the same, marching, arms folded, with some great speed, towards my house. wait, wait, not so fast! came the cries from the still oblivious boy. i spun around, hysterical. 'why didn't you just go home with her in the cab?! seems like a fucking party, you two!' hm. not bad for unrehearsed.
he stopped walking. 'WHAT?!' i looked at him. it had finally hit. here it is folks, our first (or last?) fight. i glared. he grabbed my hand. i pulled away. 'NO, we need to talk!' he said with a lot more confidence and passion than i would have expected from someone so wasted. he tried again, taking my hand gently. 'please, please, just sit down. you can be mad, just sit and tell me what is going on. feel free to yell at me, maybe i need to hear it.'
okay. i did just that. i whined, i bitched, i got teary, i got mad, i got pleading. i told him how i was insecure, how i felt ignored, how i felt like he kept flaking out on me all the time, how i get weirdly jealous of his friends (especially the roommate) and how i felt like i was freaking out and being a bitch. he listened quietly, and then he took a deep breath. i feel the same way sometimes, he said carefully.
so, we're both insecure because we are both flaky and easily distracted and we both really like each other and BAHHHH we're both so ridiculous! in the end, we're like the same person with the same silly flaws. after fighting and understanding and sorting everything out (in the park, at 3 in the morning), we sighed. 'what is this? what are we?' i asked, one last time. 'this,' he said, kissing me, 'is a relationship. and you're my girlfriend. and i guess we better just be honest about it.'
!!!
cue the make-up sex.
...and i have a boyfriend. officially. i said i wouldn't... but i pretty much immediately changed my myspace relationship status. whatever, im a girl. get over it.
appendix!
JOELORD: our landlord, named joe. amazingness; he parks his truck on our front lawn, killing the grass and occasionally running over our garden. nothing works, nothing is ever fixed, our front door is broken, the bathrooms are tiled with sample tile squares from home depot.
PP: planned parenthood! free contraception! free exams (ew, but necessary) free condoms! ask for non-flavored ones!
true story.
other sad/supremely awesome things: i just glanced outside to see what was making such a loud noise. apparently its a thing called a lawnmower, and it was being used by JOELORD.* apart from the noise caused by the thing that cuts down the jungle called our front yard, i heard a terrible crunch. i looked down and watched JOELORD fish out a crunched tallboy of olympia in the maze of weeds. welcome to my life.
life. liiiife. its gorgeous, hot outside, i am buzzed and pretty darn happy. money is momentarily UNDER CONTROL. worked a few prime serving shifts, made some moolah, put that shit in the bank, saved a coupla bucks, paid my bills AND had enough to buy a plane ticket to wisconsin for childhood-bestfriend's wedding in june (eeek weddings). suuuperb.
i spent all morning cuddling and making out and et-cet-era with my boyfriend. yes. yes. yes, i just used THAT word. wanna know why? 'cause i'm in a relationship. and we use titles. and i FREAKIN' CHANGED MY STATUS ON MYSPACE. okay, caps not necessary there, but...
backup! last week, in a late night "chat," i asked him what he thought about me. instead of skirting around the issue, i blurted out (once again), what is this? he hmmed and hawed a bunch, but i finally got the answer i was looking for. 'if what you're worried about is commitment, you don't have to be,' he said, looking me straight in the eye. 'i feel one hundred percent committed to you. that's not even an issue for me.' sigh. finally. the words i wanted to hear. i wish it didn't take so long for him to say it. or maybe it just took too long for me to ask it.
but still, no relationship? exclusivity? check. setting aside time for one another? check. commitment? check. but agreeing that we are in a freakin' relationship?? UNCHECKED!!!
so. it had been a busy week of not seeing the boy, both of us busy, working, school, his friend was in town, etc. im not going to lie, i wanted to see him pretty bad. i knew he was busy, but sometimes... well sometimes a girl has her needs! totally unrelated, of course, but after the embarrassing visit to the corner store market where old-grumpy-asian owner smirked at me for buying macaroni and condoms (and yes, the next day i made the same purchase only this time substituting the kraft for a red bull, and asian man full on laughed out loud. im over it), i hit up the PP.* showed them my 'i'm poor and fertile, please help me control the population' card (medical insurance card just for PP), they gave me a year's worth of birth control. i like to play it extra-safe, so i asked for some condoms on the side. the lady looked me up and down over her reading glasses and pushed a brown paper bag into my red face. i thanked her meekly and ran out with a giant purse full of contraceptives. upon reaching the bus stop, i peeked inside the goodies bag. there they were, thirty free condoms of the clinic's choosing. and they were all flavored. FML.
after realizing that they must have sized me up and immediately dug into the slutty stash of condoms, i got over it. free condoms is free condoms! the next few days were a blur of being called in to cover shifts (they know i live two blocks away and am desperate, whatever) and working my tail off. by thursday night, i needed to get out and get my drank on. i sent a quick text to the boy, asking him if he wanted to do karaoke at the crescent. he enthusiastically agreed.
side note. there's this funny test called the myers-brigg personality type indicator. i am OBSESSED with it. it gives you a four-letter result of how you act around others, respond to situations, think, feel, etc. i made the boy take it a while ago. out of sixteen possibilities, we turn out to be the EXACT same type. and it makes sense. we are both socially stretched thin, trying to keep up with EVERYBODY, wear our hearts on our sleeve(s), make decisions based on pure emotion, take in energy from being around others, forgetful, easily distracted, easily hurt, easily insecure, easily forgiving, and flaky to the max. sounds like a recipe for a giant up-and-down roller coaster of emotions, distrust, extreme showing of affection, fights and constant make-up sex?
uh, i mean.
anyways yes. he is ALWAYS late, distracted by friends, forgets to call. and i am the same way. i have just accepted it. i still get cranky. but whatev. so on this particular night, once the boy agreed to go to karaoke with me, i thought, excellent. it will take him three hours to get to capitol hill, so i have three hours to hang out with my other friends at oddfellows.
by 10, i was drinking with susie and, oddly enough, three of our old college guy friends. i hadn't hung out with them since, like, freshmen year. it was fun, but i was eager to convince everyone to get to the crescent. suddenly i got a text. 'at the crescent, where are you?' huh. that was early for him. maybe he actually bypassed the whole getting distracted by friends thing, for once! but then a sequel came through the cell phone airwaves. 'ps. i brought the roommate!'
...
my momentary good mood vanished. the roommate. i knew which one. and i was not happy. so, his roommate. 30. graphic designer. now for the straight up bitchy description. loud. drunk. grossly flirty. attention whore. and worst of all, she seems to know everything there is to know about comic books, movies and art. shit. how can i compete with that?
anyways, it seems like every time we hang out lately, SHE has to come along! movie date with the boy? how nice! he bought tickets! oh, wait, SHE is coming too? hangout at oddfellows? nice! lets get drinks! ...with HER. great. late night movie watching at his house? romantic? no, of course not, because SHE wants to watch movies too, and we have to watch them in HER room? ew. not cool. i dont mind her as a person, but seriously. stop getting drunk and getting all over MY man. bitch. please.
so, thursday night, midnight, i finally get susie plus the old college crew over to the crescent. the boy and his roomie are drunk and having the time of their lives. also, the roomie wants to now leave. but we just got here? i said politely. yeah, but we've been here two hours, she said, turning and walking out the door. i look at the boy for help. he shrugs, looks deeply conflicted, and then walks out after his roommate. i am pissed. more than pissed. i know they are just going up the street to another bar, but he just choose her side! that's not fair! he needs to choose MY side! i'm being an unreasonable bitch but i don't care!
the ol' college boys buy me two shots in quick succession, thankfully completely unaware of the situation at hand. i then storm out the door to find my wonderful boy. he is smoking in the alley with roommate girl. im ready to go to redwood, i announce, carelessly. we all walk in increments, the roommate wanting to get there, me making the boy walk slower as an act of defiance, the ol' college guys drunkenly and confusedly following (hey, where are we going? they keep asking) and susie, bringing up the rear, trying to contact her own manfriend via cellphone. what a mess.
at the redwood we pushed tables together for our growing group. half the table was college boys chanting 'chug chug chug!' and the other half was me, the boy and the roommate. more drinks were bought for me and downed. still angrily sober and unfortunately clear-thinking, i watched my boy get stupider and stupider. his roommate's voice was getting more and more shrill and loud. i was fuming. AND i was being completely ignored.
bitchy time. i turned to the college guys and starting laughing loudly, swapping old stories, and acting like it was the fucking night of my life. i mean, if my boy's roommate was just going to keep directing the conversation towards things that only she and the boy had in common, i might as well be passive-aggressively exclusive with my friends. it didn't work. he didn't seem to notice, and i was so damn angry that i wanted to cry. suddenly i jumped up (woa, those drinks might have had a slight effect) and mumbled a goodbye to everyone. the boy jumped up too. 'where are you going? home, already?' he asked, stupidly. 'yes.' i glared at him and walked out. 'wait, we'll go with you,' he shouted, chasing after me. his roommate jumped up too. fucking GREAT.
outside, they continued chatting happily and i wanted to die. i was hoping that only the boy would follow me home and i could dramatically tell him to go back to the redwood and find his roommate to share a cab ride home with. 'you seem to have so much more fun with her than me!' was the grand finale line i had been rehearsing in my head. now i couldn't say anything with the roommate around. crap.
on broadway, his roommate hailed a cab, quite sloshed. oh crap, where's my money? she slurred. here. i said, shoving the entirety of my cash at her. thanks, she said, to no one in particular. once the cab took off i did the same, marching, arms folded, with some great speed, towards my house. wait, wait, not so fast! came the cries from the still oblivious boy. i spun around, hysterical. 'why didn't you just go home with her in the cab?! seems like a fucking party, you two!' hm. not bad for unrehearsed.
he stopped walking. 'WHAT?!' i looked at him. it had finally hit. here it is folks, our first (or last?) fight. i glared. he grabbed my hand. i pulled away. 'NO, we need to talk!' he said with a lot more confidence and passion than i would have expected from someone so wasted. he tried again, taking my hand gently. 'please, please, just sit down. you can be mad, just sit and tell me what is going on. feel free to yell at me, maybe i need to hear it.'
okay. i did just that. i whined, i bitched, i got teary, i got mad, i got pleading. i told him how i was insecure, how i felt ignored, how i felt like he kept flaking out on me all the time, how i get weirdly jealous of his friends (especially the roommate) and how i felt like i was freaking out and being a bitch. he listened quietly, and then he took a deep breath. i feel the same way sometimes, he said carefully.
so, we're both insecure because we are both flaky and easily distracted and we both really like each other and BAHHHH we're both so ridiculous! in the end, we're like the same person with the same silly flaws. after fighting and understanding and sorting everything out (in the park, at 3 in the morning), we sighed. 'what is this? what are we?' i asked, one last time. 'this,' he said, kissing me, 'is a relationship. and you're my girlfriend. and i guess we better just be honest about it.'
!!!
cue the make-up sex.
...and i have a boyfriend. officially. i said i wouldn't... but i pretty much immediately changed my myspace relationship status. whatever, im a girl. get over it.
appendix!
JOELORD: our landlord, named joe. amazingness; he parks his truck on our front lawn, killing the grass and occasionally running over our garden. nothing works, nothing is ever fixed, our front door is broken, the bathrooms are tiled with sample tile squares from home depot.
PP: planned parenthood! free contraception! free exams (ew, but necessary) free condoms! ask for non-flavored ones!
Thursday, May 7, 2009
punch drunk like
i just made a playlist. no. make that two playlists. consisting of one hundred percent genuine, googly-eyed, mush-brained, down-right silly "in like" music.
yes, i just used the phrase "in like." whatever. it works.
le sigh. life is really good right now. well, other than money being sucky. ug. if i overdraw my account one more time i am going to want to die. payday can't come soon enough. and i have no more clothes to sell, honestly. maybe its time to consider stripping...
but no. things will get better! more shifts happening at the ol' restaurant job, making moolah with the tips and yes, absolutely, amazing... I GOT A JOB AT THE NEW FROZEN CUSTARD STAND. fucking dream come true! free frozen custard and free greasy restaurant food, ALL SUMMER LONG! AND YES CAPS ARE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY RIGHT NOW!
besides all that, the past few weeks have been chock full of lovely evenings such as georgia and kelly's going away party (drunk), liz's housewarming party and subsequent redwood hangout (drunk), and most recently the infamous "truth or dare night" at cha cha and last saturday's funny hangout at sun liquor (both drunk).
i have to pause though, and talk about the one night that was sort of awful. on one of georgia and kelly's last nights in town, they invited me to sing karaoke with them at the wildrose. as seeing it was a wednesday (traditionally karaoke night at kate's pub for me and the boy), i called him up and asked if he wanted to switch locations for the night. only if it involves karaoke! he enthusiastically agreed. wonderful! sort of a double date? nice.
around 10 i was slightly boozing at lindas, with some kids from oddfellows. wondering where the boy was, i texted him, asking his current whereabouts. two minutes later, i received a hasty reply: "brother. emergency. call later." shit.
my mind flipped through the handbook of possibilities. drugs. jail. fight. what could it be? his brother has a track record a mile long, but seemed to be stable as of late. he had a new job, some solid friends, and best of all, had a new-ish girlfriend after years of a psycho one. what could have gone wrong?
hours later, my boy called me. he sounded absolutely beat. his voice shook slightly, and he asked me if i could come over to the honeyhole where he was eating a sandwich. "i just... need you to be here with me," he said. i quickly shut down my tab and rushed two blocks over.
upon entering, i saw my boy. staring at the wall with an unfinished sandwich in front of him, he was sitting with a few close friends. i breezed over and whispered, "what happened?" in his ear. he looked surprised to see me, and took a minute to respond. "my brother walked in on his girlfriend ... committing suicide."
...
there are no words. i started to choke up and i just held him. he was in shock. two hours prior, after getting the absolute meltdown call from his sobbing brother (who was holding the phone in one hand and his bloodied girlfriend in the other), he had rushed over to find a myriad of ambulances and police. the girlfriend was rushed to the hospital and put in the ICU. she had survived, but barely. my boy was then left to help his brother sign the papers committing the girlfriend to the psych ward, clean up the apartment and finally, wipe the splattered blood off of his brother's clothes and calm him down.
the rest of the night consisted of me trying to calm this boy down. his friends bought him a couple of shots to calm his nerves (probably a bad idea). he went outside and smoked (quite a bit of) pot to relax. and then he was in horrible shape, and i had to help him home. even when he hit the bed (and i was taking off his shoes for him), he wouldn't stop freaking out. "what if she dies?" he asked, suddenly bringing out his irish catholic upbringing. "do you believe in hell? what happens to suicides?" he demanded, of no one in particular. i admitted i had no idea. he kept sitting straight up and grabbing my hands. "just tell me if you're ever sad," he said, as horrible possibilities must have been running through his brain. "have you ever considered suicide?" he kept asking. shudder. it was a horrible night.
and yet, for some reason, it made us closer than ever. once again, it was a moment when everything seemed shitty, and one of us was there for the other. he kept apologizing for bringing me into everything. i kept telling him to never be sorry for sharing. i want to be here for you, i kept saying.
after a horrible wednesday, the week took a turn upwards. thursday night josh head, ruth, jerad and i headed over to the cha cha for some cheap pitchers and a silly game of truth or dare. yes i know, how old are we. anyways, sooner or later the boy showed up with his friends, and then we had a big rowdy table full of kids. the bars closed, the boy and i wandered over to his friend's apartment and somehow, we got really messed up. bleh. at four in the morning, we found ourselves sneaking into his coffee shop and stealing beers from the fridge. i have no clue how or when we got home.
saturday night was equally humorous. i hung out at the coffee shop with the whole crew, joking around and distracting the boy and his co-workers. its funny. at this point i am good enough friends with his co-workers that i could call any of them up to go out. in fact, on this particular night my boy was sleepy, so i turned to his co-workers and asked them if they wanted to hit up sun liquor for some post-work drinks. well, it turned out that everyone thought it a swell idea and my boy found himself persuaded to join us. "just for one drink," he stressed.
four drinks and two hours later, we are all sloshed and happy. the boy and i headed back to the coffee shop where i had left my bike chained up. "i really have to get home," we both kept repeating. we walked outside to the bus stop and weighed the pros and cons. school early for him, work early for me. ugg. ah well. a passionate smooch goodbye, and two separate, uncomfortable, frustrating trips home for each of us, respectively. nothing worse. haha.
the next few days were full of work and keeping busy. oh and yes, a lot of brain energy was going into planning my big party. what occasion, you ask? cinco de mayo. aka MEXI-FEST 2009. yes, my housemates and i love random celebrations. hence the past parties (justin timberlake party, "fuck on" party, obamarama). and now, we were overly excited for cinco de mayo. understandably so, however. tecate tall boys, chips, guacamole and being outrageous are just everyday things in the goblin house. and to have an official day to celebrate these items to excess? perfecto.
what ensued was a house decorated in red, white and green streamers, sombreros, mexi-blankets, red lightbulbs, signs declaring our purpose ("its mexi-fest 2009, put your shots out in a line..."), mexi-music blaring (think way too much ricky martin, the macarena and yes, although she is colombian, shakira), and best of all, a giant cardboard taco ring toss game that actually mostly resembled a large vagina ("toss it right in!")
and then the guests arrived. goblin friends, hon gobs, neighbors, co-workers. the music was up and going right away and the dance floor packed. outside people smoked and drank and conversed (and later yelled). upstairs people did shots. im not going to lie, it was sorta hella (steph and i decided to bring back this word) fun. a successful party, if you ask me.
oh, and me. aha. silly, silly me. ahem. i might as well preface my behavior at mexi-fest by declaring that i did my first tequila shot at nine in the morning on may the fifth. at work. while working. while an elderly couple looked at me. i shrugged, stuck a lime in my mouth while my eyes watered, and waved them over to seat themselves anywhere. twenty minutes later my co-workers and i did a second shot. it was a fun work day.
after work i did two more shots, grabbed a beer and took myself home to set up the par-tee. let me tell you this, getting sound equipment set up, lightbulbs changed, decorating and cleaning are hard enough. while drunk, well, i have no idea how everything was pulled together in two hours. but suddenly, forty people were having fun and somehow everything was in full swing.
four beers, two shots and a few hours later i was GONE. accounts from other people range in nature, but according to susie i ran upstairs when my co-workers arrived, hugged everyone and demanded that we do a shot together. pouring bad tequila into the four shot glasses i own, i decided to substitute a small juice glass for my own drinking vessel. i offered the mega shot to susie. she declined, stating that anyone would "be nuts to drink a shot that big." i then downed the shot (which was actually about 3 shots in one), my eyes got big, and i calmly walked to the bathroom where i puked my guts up.
hours later, i heard someone knocking. i groaned, wondering why i was sleeping on such a cold floor. it was the bathroom, and my boy had come looking for me. "there you are," he sighed, shaking his head. somehow he carried me to my bed, got me water and made sure i was okay before i re-passed out. ah true romance.
the next morning i felt like... well shit is not strong enough of a word to describe what i felt like. i felt like shit that has been flung into the wind and hit by a speeding semi-truck. yes. that is how i felt. thank you mexi-fest 2009. and tequila. and never, never again.
the past two days have been recovered from my mega tequila hangover, mostly laying in bed with the boy, and then eating a bit of food, and then going to his house to lay in his bed. last night we didn't even leave his bed for fourteen hours. it was sort of glorious, not going to lie. i mean, when you're warm and happy and snugly, and only have to wake up when you need to drink some water or use the bathroom or have some sex, life is good. the end.
tomorrow work begins again. welcome to the weekend.
yes, i just used the phrase "in like." whatever. it works.
le sigh. life is really good right now. well, other than money being sucky. ug. if i overdraw my account one more time i am going to want to die. payday can't come soon enough. and i have no more clothes to sell, honestly. maybe its time to consider stripping...
but no. things will get better! more shifts happening at the ol' restaurant job, making moolah with the tips and yes, absolutely, amazing... I GOT A JOB AT THE NEW FROZEN CUSTARD STAND. fucking dream come true! free frozen custard and free greasy restaurant food, ALL SUMMER LONG! AND YES CAPS ARE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY RIGHT NOW!
besides all that, the past few weeks have been chock full of lovely evenings such as georgia and kelly's going away party (drunk), liz's housewarming party and subsequent redwood hangout (drunk), and most recently the infamous "truth or dare night" at cha cha and last saturday's funny hangout at sun liquor (both drunk).
i have to pause though, and talk about the one night that was sort of awful. on one of georgia and kelly's last nights in town, they invited me to sing karaoke with them at the wildrose. as seeing it was a wednesday (traditionally karaoke night at kate's pub for me and the boy), i called him up and asked if he wanted to switch locations for the night. only if it involves karaoke! he enthusiastically agreed. wonderful! sort of a double date? nice.
around 10 i was slightly boozing at lindas, with some kids from oddfellows. wondering where the boy was, i texted him, asking his current whereabouts. two minutes later, i received a hasty reply: "brother. emergency. call later." shit.
my mind flipped through the handbook of possibilities. drugs. jail. fight. what could it be? his brother has a track record a mile long, but seemed to be stable as of late. he had a new job, some solid friends, and best of all, had a new-ish girlfriend after years of a psycho one. what could have gone wrong?
hours later, my boy called me. he sounded absolutely beat. his voice shook slightly, and he asked me if i could come over to the honeyhole where he was eating a sandwich. "i just... need you to be here with me," he said. i quickly shut down my tab and rushed two blocks over.
upon entering, i saw my boy. staring at the wall with an unfinished sandwich in front of him, he was sitting with a few close friends. i breezed over and whispered, "what happened?" in his ear. he looked surprised to see me, and took a minute to respond. "my brother walked in on his girlfriend ... committing suicide."
...
there are no words. i started to choke up and i just held him. he was in shock. two hours prior, after getting the absolute meltdown call from his sobbing brother (who was holding the phone in one hand and his bloodied girlfriend in the other), he had rushed over to find a myriad of ambulances and police. the girlfriend was rushed to the hospital and put in the ICU. she had survived, but barely. my boy was then left to help his brother sign the papers committing the girlfriend to the psych ward, clean up the apartment and finally, wipe the splattered blood off of his brother's clothes and calm him down.
the rest of the night consisted of me trying to calm this boy down. his friends bought him a couple of shots to calm his nerves (probably a bad idea). he went outside and smoked (quite a bit of) pot to relax. and then he was in horrible shape, and i had to help him home. even when he hit the bed (and i was taking off his shoes for him), he wouldn't stop freaking out. "what if she dies?" he asked, suddenly bringing out his irish catholic upbringing. "do you believe in hell? what happens to suicides?" he demanded, of no one in particular. i admitted i had no idea. he kept sitting straight up and grabbing my hands. "just tell me if you're ever sad," he said, as horrible possibilities must have been running through his brain. "have you ever considered suicide?" he kept asking. shudder. it was a horrible night.
and yet, for some reason, it made us closer than ever. once again, it was a moment when everything seemed shitty, and one of us was there for the other. he kept apologizing for bringing me into everything. i kept telling him to never be sorry for sharing. i want to be here for you, i kept saying.
after a horrible wednesday, the week took a turn upwards. thursday night josh head, ruth, jerad and i headed over to the cha cha for some cheap pitchers and a silly game of truth or dare. yes i know, how old are we. anyways, sooner or later the boy showed up with his friends, and then we had a big rowdy table full of kids. the bars closed, the boy and i wandered over to his friend's apartment and somehow, we got really messed up. bleh. at four in the morning, we found ourselves sneaking into his coffee shop and stealing beers from the fridge. i have no clue how or when we got home.
saturday night was equally humorous. i hung out at the coffee shop with the whole crew, joking around and distracting the boy and his co-workers. its funny. at this point i am good enough friends with his co-workers that i could call any of them up to go out. in fact, on this particular night my boy was sleepy, so i turned to his co-workers and asked them if they wanted to hit up sun liquor for some post-work drinks. well, it turned out that everyone thought it a swell idea and my boy found himself persuaded to join us. "just for one drink," he stressed.
four drinks and two hours later, we are all sloshed and happy. the boy and i headed back to the coffee shop where i had left my bike chained up. "i really have to get home," we both kept repeating. we walked outside to the bus stop and weighed the pros and cons. school early for him, work early for me. ugg. ah well. a passionate smooch goodbye, and two separate, uncomfortable, frustrating trips home for each of us, respectively. nothing worse. haha.
the next few days were full of work and keeping busy. oh and yes, a lot of brain energy was going into planning my big party. what occasion, you ask? cinco de mayo. aka MEXI-FEST 2009. yes, my housemates and i love random celebrations. hence the past parties (justin timberlake party, "fuck on" party, obamarama). and now, we were overly excited for cinco de mayo. understandably so, however. tecate tall boys, chips, guacamole and being outrageous are just everyday things in the goblin house. and to have an official day to celebrate these items to excess? perfecto.
what ensued was a house decorated in red, white and green streamers, sombreros, mexi-blankets, red lightbulbs, signs declaring our purpose ("its mexi-fest 2009, put your shots out in a line..."), mexi-music blaring (think way too much ricky martin, the macarena and yes, although she is colombian, shakira), and best of all, a giant cardboard taco ring toss game that actually mostly resembled a large vagina ("toss it right in!")
and then the guests arrived. goblin friends, hon gobs, neighbors, co-workers. the music was up and going right away and the dance floor packed. outside people smoked and drank and conversed (and later yelled). upstairs people did shots. im not going to lie, it was sorta hella (steph and i decided to bring back this word) fun. a successful party, if you ask me.
oh, and me. aha. silly, silly me. ahem. i might as well preface my behavior at mexi-fest by declaring that i did my first tequila shot at nine in the morning on may the fifth. at work. while working. while an elderly couple looked at me. i shrugged, stuck a lime in my mouth while my eyes watered, and waved them over to seat themselves anywhere. twenty minutes later my co-workers and i did a second shot. it was a fun work day.
after work i did two more shots, grabbed a beer and took myself home to set up the par-tee. let me tell you this, getting sound equipment set up, lightbulbs changed, decorating and cleaning are hard enough. while drunk, well, i have no idea how everything was pulled together in two hours. but suddenly, forty people were having fun and somehow everything was in full swing.
four beers, two shots and a few hours later i was GONE. accounts from other people range in nature, but according to susie i ran upstairs when my co-workers arrived, hugged everyone and demanded that we do a shot together. pouring bad tequila into the four shot glasses i own, i decided to substitute a small juice glass for my own drinking vessel. i offered the mega shot to susie. she declined, stating that anyone would "be nuts to drink a shot that big." i then downed the shot (which was actually about 3 shots in one), my eyes got big, and i calmly walked to the bathroom where i puked my guts up.
hours later, i heard someone knocking. i groaned, wondering why i was sleeping on such a cold floor. it was the bathroom, and my boy had come looking for me. "there you are," he sighed, shaking his head. somehow he carried me to my bed, got me water and made sure i was okay before i re-passed out. ah true romance.
the next morning i felt like... well shit is not strong enough of a word to describe what i felt like. i felt like shit that has been flung into the wind and hit by a speeding semi-truck. yes. that is how i felt. thank you mexi-fest 2009. and tequila. and never, never again.
the past two days have been recovered from my mega tequila hangover, mostly laying in bed with the boy, and then eating a bit of food, and then going to his house to lay in his bed. last night we didn't even leave his bed for fourteen hours. it was sort of glorious, not going to lie. i mean, when you're warm and happy and snugly, and only have to wake up when you need to drink some water or use the bathroom or have some sex, life is good. the end.
tomorrow work begins again. welcome to the weekend.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
i live for weekends
sunday night found me in a piercing shop on the ave, doing something rebellious, impulsive and unwise. and yet it was definitely the most responsible move i pulled all weekend.
for some, weekends are a time to relax, stop setting the alarm clock for 6:50 am (enough time for a hot shower from one's efficient condo bathroom facilities, a smart breakfast of trader joe's koshi cereal and an hour commute listening to npr while stuck in traffic on 1-5. on one's way to microsoft, boeing or amazon, of course), and maybe make a trip to such exciting and exotic bars (or watering holes, as the locals might call them!) as the cha cha lounge on "interesting and artsy" capitol hill.
and then there's the rest of us freaks. no nine-to-fivers for us! work doesn't magically stop on friday afternoon. we don't get to go sailing (there is this permanent image of a sort of "inspiration" poster in my mom's old boss' office: it has a smartly dressed, early 90's dude with a neon "salmon" wetsuit and he is happily sailing. the caption reads, "i live for weekends."), or go to those weird farmer's markets that i hear exist. no, not so much. when the belltown condo kids clock out at 5 pm on friday and head to their honda prius(es?) to drive themselves over to kurrent or moe bar, that's when we go to work.
welcome to the restaurant industry.
my work week began on thursday. happily curled up in wallingford at the boy's house, after a night of karaoke and the comfort of not having to be to work until 9:30, i snoozed away. and then my phone rang. it was 6:43am. i saw the number, knew it was my restaurant and KNEW that the fucking schedule had been switched around again and no one remembered to tell me i was opening. shit.
after throwing on clothes and smooching a confused, sleepy boy goodbye, i ran outside, frantic. i was in wallingford. 2 bus rides and an hour away from work. the restaurant was opening its doors in seven minutes, with only one slightly hungover worker present. in mere minutes, the PTA ladies, early morning old man risers and seattle academy kids would come pouring in, demanding breakfast and coffee. only one thing to do (ug); take a cab.
after a not-too-bad cab ride ($12) i made it to work only four minutes late. the day zoomed by, i collected a neat benjamin in tips, and after a drink shift or two i go to hang out with the boy at his coffee shop. soon enough they are closing, so i head home and crash and get ready for the next round of work.
and there began my weekend. by friday afternoon, i was mentally calculating my tips earned thus far, minus what i needed to pay to make the credit card company stop calling, and adding in the cost of rent, electricity and school loans... wow i sound so responsible. i was actually just seeing what was left to drink with. ha. classy. and indeed, i took those dollars and went with the lady roommates to (in the following order) comet (happy hour 4-7pm, $1 cans of pbr/rainier. awesome), bimbos ($5 happy hour pitchers of pbr, equally awesome), presse (again and again), the convenience store (for $2.49 pbr 40's), a house party, dicks (i dont remember why we thoughts this would be a great idea) and finally, the redwood. in that time, much was accomplished. amanda drank her first 40. liz celebrated her new apartment. i met some weird cornish kids. crazy roommate drama was solved (with a bit of buzzed bitching at each other. healthy!) i witnessed a drunk man get into a brawl with the bouncers on the street. all in all, a good night.
but friday night turned into saturday morning, and saturday morning turned into oh-yeah-i-have-to-work-at-nine. shit. waking up, i could barely move and felt the most hungover i had in a while (this record was later broken the following day.) work was crazy busy, i made mega moolah. after work, i rewarded myself with some wine, some chocolate eclairs and a good book. and then onwards i went, to the coffee shop to flirt shamelessly with the boy. i mean, when he leaps over the counter to smooch you in front of all of capitol hill AND his-coworkers, its good.
plans for the night, he asked coyly, kissing me on the cheek. actually, yes, i replied, dreading the reaction. its georgia and kelly's going away party. oh really, he answered, recognizing the couple. where?
gasp.
at the name of the bar at which the aforementioned party was to occur, two of his co-workers audibly gasped and one dropped a cup. they looked to my boy helplessly, as if to say, oh shit. this isn't even our war but we sort of want to build a couple of underground bunkers and go cry in them. lord help us all.
you see, this is the bar that the ex-girlfriend works at. unspoken rule, i don't go there. i don't hang out there, i don't talk to the staff there, and i certainly don't make an appearance with the boy there. and now i was just going to march myself in there and hang out. what was going through everyone's minds as drew picked up the pieces of the broken cup? will they meet? will there be interaction? will they brawl on the countertops and later spill over into the streets as the masses cheer for their favorite? okay, well i think the last one was mostly my main worry. i have built up the possibility of new girlfriend(ish) meeting ex-girlfriend a lot, and i have sort of terrified myself into believing it would be something horrific. yet in the past weeks, i have let myself relax. obviously, she cheated. she had no room to be pissy about her ex dating someone new. also, she might not even know me. or be working!!! lastly, how much drama could there possibly be?
and yet the sigh confirmed the high possibility of drama. as i looked up at the boy, with a face that showed no knowledge of the high chance of a bitch fight going down on first hill later that night, he looked really distressed. i didn't bother asking him if he wanted to go. he mumbled something about having fun and absently said he would call me later. he doesnt have a phone.
and then there was nothing else to do but go face the bitch. and by bitch, i totally mean the awkward situation between two respectful, understanding and forgiving young women. ha. yeah, right. by midnight, i was sloshed from a bit of pre-gaming at my work, while i waited for the rest of the staff to get done with their shift. we headed over to the bar and walked in. and fucking A, there she was, no doubt about it. shorter than me, a bit rounder, as steven would say. not fat at all, just not all awkward angles like me. and she was working like crazy behind the bar, as it was 1 am on a saturday night. she won't see me, i thought.
oh guess again. soon after our group stumbled in, she looked up. her mouth dropped open and she... glared? pouted? i couldn't tell. okay, fear number one, two and three NOT quelled, but rather proved legit. eek. a couple of my co-workers encouraged me NOT to go up to the bar, but to stay away from her. which was probably a good thing. turns out i was doing a few death stares of my own.
the night ended with me avoiding her around the bar. (she bussed out table at one point and took a while trying to stare me down. i pretended that i didnt even see her standing a foot away from my face), wondering a lot about their past relationship and finally (trashy, i know), i answered a phone call from the boy (he found a co-worker and somehow convinced the fellow coffee-shop employee to lend him the phone for the night). everyone had just exited the premises (it being 2:01) but i ducked back in for a second, almost colliding with the ex. i'll see you soon! i gushed loudly, using his name as many times as possible in a forty-five second phone conversation. eek, i am such a bad whore sometimes.
here's what ensued: a funny drunken ride (don't worry friends! the driver had been roused from his sober saturday night and summoned to drive us all to ihop) in a pickup truck with lovely georgia passed out in her leopard print mini-dress, ihop parking lot loitering, eating a cream cheese hot dog in an alleyway by myself (i hate when people watch me devour things like some sort of lioness), and yes, once again, rancho bravo tacos. of course, i managed to secure my boy in that time. he followed me home, leaning happily and excited about diving into a warm bed. we such an old, funny couple who get stoked about sleep. except minus the couple and minus the old.
waking up this morning was hell. i started crying in bed as my alarm went off because i was so, so SO physically miserable. i honestly felt like my insides were exploding and i couldnt stand up. headache, dizzy, dry mouth and off to work. woops, i realized as i attempted to pour a glass of OJ for a table and ended up just pouring OJ on the floor (three feet away the glass sat). im still drunk.
later on the day steph texted me. want to do something impulsive with me? she asked, excited. want to go to deep roots and get the piercings we have always wanted to get? want to go get a piece of metal stuck through your lip in an hour without consideration of if your job allows this or if future jobs with frown upon it?
sounds like the most well-thought out plan anyone has had all weekend. lets do it.
for some, weekends are a time to relax, stop setting the alarm clock for 6:50 am (enough time for a hot shower from one's efficient condo bathroom facilities, a smart breakfast of trader joe's koshi cereal and an hour commute listening to npr while stuck in traffic on 1-5. on one's way to microsoft, boeing or amazon, of course), and maybe make a trip to such exciting and exotic bars (or watering holes, as the locals might call them!) as the cha cha lounge on "interesting and artsy" capitol hill.
and then there's the rest of us freaks. no nine-to-fivers for us! work doesn't magically stop on friday afternoon. we don't get to go sailing (there is this permanent image of a sort of "inspiration" poster in my mom's old boss' office: it has a smartly dressed, early 90's dude with a neon "salmon" wetsuit and he is happily sailing. the caption reads, "i live for weekends."), or go to those weird farmer's markets that i hear exist. no, not so much. when the belltown condo kids clock out at 5 pm on friday and head to their honda prius(es?) to drive themselves over to kurrent or moe bar, that's when we go to work.
welcome to the restaurant industry.
my work week began on thursday. happily curled up in wallingford at the boy's house, after a night of karaoke and the comfort of not having to be to work until 9:30, i snoozed away. and then my phone rang. it was 6:43am. i saw the number, knew it was my restaurant and KNEW that the fucking schedule had been switched around again and no one remembered to tell me i was opening. shit.
after throwing on clothes and smooching a confused, sleepy boy goodbye, i ran outside, frantic. i was in wallingford. 2 bus rides and an hour away from work. the restaurant was opening its doors in seven minutes, with only one slightly hungover worker present. in mere minutes, the PTA ladies, early morning old man risers and seattle academy kids would come pouring in, demanding breakfast and coffee. only one thing to do (ug); take a cab.
after a not-too-bad cab ride ($12) i made it to work only four minutes late. the day zoomed by, i collected a neat benjamin in tips, and after a drink shift or two i go to hang out with the boy at his coffee shop. soon enough they are closing, so i head home and crash and get ready for the next round of work.
and there began my weekend. by friday afternoon, i was mentally calculating my tips earned thus far, minus what i needed to pay to make the credit card company stop calling, and adding in the cost of rent, electricity and school loans... wow i sound so responsible. i was actually just seeing what was left to drink with. ha. classy. and indeed, i took those dollars and went with the lady roommates to (in the following order) comet (happy hour 4-7pm, $1 cans of pbr/rainier. awesome), bimbos ($5 happy hour pitchers of pbr, equally awesome), presse (again and again), the convenience store (for $2.49 pbr 40's), a house party, dicks (i dont remember why we thoughts this would be a great idea) and finally, the redwood. in that time, much was accomplished. amanda drank her first 40. liz celebrated her new apartment. i met some weird cornish kids. crazy roommate drama was solved (with a bit of buzzed bitching at each other. healthy!) i witnessed a drunk man get into a brawl with the bouncers on the street. all in all, a good night.
but friday night turned into saturday morning, and saturday morning turned into oh-yeah-i-have-to-work-at-nine. shit. waking up, i could barely move and felt the most hungover i had in a while (this record was later broken the following day.) work was crazy busy, i made mega moolah. after work, i rewarded myself with some wine, some chocolate eclairs and a good book. and then onwards i went, to the coffee shop to flirt shamelessly with the boy. i mean, when he leaps over the counter to smooch you in front of all of capitol hill AND his-coworkers, its good.
plans for the night, he asked coyly, kissing me on the cheek. actually, yes, i replied, dreading the reaction. its georgia and kelly's going away party. oh really, he answered, recognizing the couple. where?
gasp.
at the name of the bar at which the aforementioned party was to occur, two of his co-workers audibly gasped and one dropped a cup. they looked to my boy helplessly, as if to say, oh shit. this isn't even our war but we sort of want to build a couple of underground bunkers and go cry in them. lord help us all.
you see, this is the bar that the ex-girlfriend works at. unspoken rule, i don't go there. i don't hang out there, i don't talk to the staff there, and i certainly don't make an appearance with the boy there. and now i was just going to march myself in there and hang out. what was going through everyone's minds as drew picked up the pieces of the broken cup? will they meet? will there be interaction? will they brawl on the countertops and later spill over into the streets as the masses cheer for their favorite? okay, well i think the last one was mostly my main worry. i have built up the possibility of new girlfriend(ish) meeting ex-girlfriend a lot, and i have sort of terrified myself into believing it would be something horrific. yet in the past weeks, i have let myself relax. obviously, she cheated. she had no room to be pissy about her ex dating someone new. also, she might not even know me. or be working!!! lastly, how much drama could there possibly be?
and yet the sigh confirmed the high possibility of drama. as i looked up at the boy, with a face that showed no knowledge of the high chance of a bitch fight going down on first hill later that night, he looked really distressed. i didn't bother asking him if he wanted to go. he mumbled something about having fun and absently said he would call me later. he doesnt have a phone.
and then there was nothing else to do but go face the bitch. and by bitch, i totally mean the awkward situation between two respectful, understanding and forgiving young women. ha. yeah, right. by midnight, i was sloshed from a bit of pre-gaming at my work, while i waited for the rest of the staff to get done with their shift. we headed over to the bar and walked in. and fucking A, there she was, no doubt about it. shorter than me, a bit rounder, as steven would say. not fat at all, just not all awkward angles like me. and she was working like crazy behind the bar, as it was 1 am on a saturday night. she won't see me, i thought.
oh guess again. soon after our group stumbled in, she looked up. her mouth dropped open and she... glared? pouted? i couldn't tell. okay, fear number one, two and three NOT quelled, but rather proved legit. eek. a couple of my co-workers encouraged me NOT to go up to the bar, but to stay away from her. which was probably a good thing. turns out i was doing a few death stares of my own.
the night ended with me avoiding her around the bar. (she bussed out table at one point and took a while trying to stare me down. i pretended that i didnt even see her standing a foot away from my face), wondering a lot about their past relationship and finally (trashy, i know), i answered a phone call from the boy (he found a co-worker and somehow convinced the fellow coffee-shop employee to lend him the phone for the night). everyone had just exited the premises (it being 2:01) but i ducked back in for a second, almost colliding with the ex. i'll see you soon! i gushed loudly, using his name as many times as possible in a forty-five second phone conversation. eek, i am such a bad whore sometimes.
here's what ensued: a funny drunken ride (don't worry friends! the driver had been roused from his sober saturday night and summoned to drive us all to ihop) in a pickup truck with lovely georgia passed out in her leopard print mini-dress, ihop parking lot loitering, eating a cream cheese hot dog in an alleyway by myself (i hate when people watch me devour things like some sort of lioness), and yes, once again, rancho bravo tacos. of course, i managed to secure my boy in that time. he followed me home, leaning happily and excited about diving into a warm bed. we such an old, funny couple who get stoked about sleep. except minus the couple and minus the old.
waking up this morning was hell. i started crying in bed as my alarm went off because i was so, so SO physically miserable. i honestly felt like my insides were exploding and i couldnt stand up. headache, dizzy, dry mouth and off to work. woops, i realized as i attempted to pour a glass of OJ for a table and ended up just pouring OJ on the floor (three feet away the glass sat). im still drunk.
later on the day steph texted me. want to do something impulsive with me? she asked, excited. want to go to deep roots and get the piercings we have always wanted to get? want to go get a piece of metal stuck through your lip in an hour without consideration of if your job allows this or if future jobs with frown upon it?
sounds like the most well-thought out plan anyone has had all weekend. lets do it.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
breaking the routine
i woke up this morning, shivering and attempted to yank some blankets over to my side of the bed. groggy, i looked down on the floor to see a discarded swimsuit top, summer dress, and sandals. i felt my warm, sunburned face and arms and looked outside the a grey sky that seemed to be smirking at me. idiot, it said. this is seattle. didja think it was summer or something? ha!
why is it so fucking cold? the last two days have been marvelous. sunshine, 70 degrees, swimming suits, laying in the park, drinking kombucha and cold beers. well cold beers happen year-round.... but whatever.
back to the cold morning. still confused as to why my feet were icecubes, i try to bury myself under more blankets and wrap my frozen legs around the (always, why are men so... warm-blooded? they are like hot water bottles or something. not complainin' or anything...) warm body snoring next to me. he grumbles and mumbles something about my feet being too cold. i don't listen but just snuggle closer. heck, its not even a romantic thing anymore, having a bed buddy. its like fucking survival mode.
as we both attempt to go back to sleep we are suddenly startled awake by my phone alarm clock. oh yes, once again i have to set my alarm to make sure my boy wakes up for class. why was my phone set, instead of his? oh yeah, my wonderful boy once again is not in procession of his phone. it wasn't a phone malfunction, or that he once again ran his phone over with his bike. oh, no. this time he left his phone on the bus. good lord, what am i going to do with him.
anyways, the phone alarm goes off a few more times before i can finally rouse him. er, well, let's be honest. it took a little something more than an annoying phone alarm (which he snatched out of my hands at one moment, put on silent and hurled across the room into a pile of towels) to get him ... going. ha. after a bit o' morning shenanigans, i reminded him of the time. he yelped, and in one motion threw on some clothes, smooched me goodbye, and yelled something about getting his phone back and he would call me and come visit him at the coffee shop later? or something. i dont know, i was busy tunneling into the now empty bed full of thick blankets. all mine! warmth! survival!
survival. bleh. lately i feel like that word is coming into my vocabulary a lot more often. mostly because i have zero dollars. actually, no, not zero. negative dollars. bling.
last night, after spending a carefree day sunbathing and hanging out with friends, i realized that i had no money for evening time entertainment. not a problem. some boys who came over to hang out at amanda's brought a case. travis bought some liquor and shared. and later, at the crescent, someone bought a pitcher. i merely helped myself. i know, i know. sad and pretty pathetic. but whatever, its the new economy. at al's as i was fishing was the $3 in quarters that i knew i had somewhere, my barista boy patted my shoulder and told me he didnt mind buying me a beer, i kissed him on the cheek and told him i owed him one. his winked at me and said he was sure there was some way i could re-pay. great. now i'm a prostitute.
ah well. its not all that bad. he takes care of my beer and coffee needs and i take care of ... waking him up. and reminding him to take his books. and making sure he doesnt drink too much while on pain medicine for a dislocated shoulder. (!) oh yeah, i forgot about this. last wednesday, i woke up to a text message from him that read, "got in a bike accident." panicked, i called him and demanded to know if he was alright. he thought so. he had just woken up, fully clothed on top of his bed, with his elbow bleeding, his head throbbing and his shoulder immobile. apparently, post-tuesday-night-out-drinking-in-wallingford had gone badly. he was riding his bike when his hat flew off and he tumbled over, hitting his head and shoulder. he walked home, drunk, and passed out. bad idea. upon waking, and sending me the text (and subsequently me yelling at him to go to a doctor), he finally dragged himself to the UW hospital where they put a sling on him and told him not to use his arm for a few weeks. oh, and he had a concussion and shouldn't be alone.
cue the supportive girlfriend role!
i rode my bike over (maybe pushing my luck and the gods of irony) to see how he was doing. swaying a bit, and droopy eyed, i tried to cheer him up. i suggested we go watch the regulars sing karaoke at kate's pub, down the street. even though he was on a strict no-drinking regimen, i allowed him to have one beer. and because it made so much sense, i decided to drink the amount of beers that he would have drank, plus my own. smart! suddenly we had a very loopy boy with an arm in a sling and a very intoxicated, swaying girl standing at the stage while the former sang some ridiculous karaoke song and the latter cheered drunkenly. in the end, he had to help me home and he had to take care of me. some caretaker i am.
c'est la vie. the next few days were a lot of me being overly-worried about him, calling, texting, etc. god, i feel crazy sometimes. i am so overwhelming i think. friday night was a good example of this. my roommate steven was having his video release party, after working for months on a music video for a well-known band. before the party, i was working all day. barista boy texted me, promising me he would visit. i was elated. i love showing of the coffee crush. three hours later, i was not so elated. he hadnt showed up or texted. i got off work soon after and tried to get ahold of him. "forgot class went late! missed text! buses late!" all the excuses came flying over the cell phone air waves, with the force of a paper airplane thrown half-heartedly. i gritted my teeth. well, come hang out tonight, i said. two hours and several shift drinks and no texts later, i left my work and went to the comet to meet afton. a couple of other friends showed up and we started forming a beerimid of happy hour priced olympia cans. buzzed, i texted him again. nothing. we all went home and i started complaining to a co-worker, and next thing i know we are buying cheap wine, cooks champagne and (yes, really) tropicana orange juice. yes, this is my friday night. cooks and tropicana, being buzzed and pissed off at some boy who may or may not be my boyfriend, and then (ta-da!) stumbling over to rancho bravo tacos*. and its only 7pm.
lets just say that by the time party o'clock came around, and all of steven's friends, child-hood friends, friend's parents, family and (eeek) the elite class of friends-of-the-family had arrived, i was DRUNK. and loud. and passing around open bottles of champagne in a sad attempt to try to get someone to be as drunk as i was. no go. i ended up dancing at the late-night dance party (after all the aforementioned groups of people had left and it was just us goblin kids around and no one to be ashamed in front of), or rather, swaying a lot. my roommate's lady friend (who we all sort of dislike extremely) was there and i apparently glared at her like a psycho all night. great. i ended up passing out early, missing the one text i had been waiting all day and night for. FML.
saturday was a funny day, mostly full of comforting a friend-in-crisis. this girl has had it tough. one of her roommates has become increasingly snotty and disrespectful. this roommates accuses my friend of constantly being messy, although doesnt really try to be tidy herself. she blames household problems on my friend and scapegoats her for everything. worst of all, the roommate's boyfriend is always around, lounging in the shared living room, having "intimate" moments in the middle of common living spaces, making my poor friend uncomfortable and just pretty damn annoyed. and so, on saturday afternoon, my friend asked to crash at my house for a bit. i was totally cool with this, and helped her throw some of her stuff in my bedroom before we both went out for different errands and stuff.
part two. i forgot that my friend was staying at my house. i forgot all about all her stuff in my room. i was too focused on, yes, let's be honest, hanging out with the boy on saturday night, drinking beers at the stumbling monk with some of his co-workers and eventually, stumbling home with him. this were getting a bit heated in the bedroom when i heard a noise. thinking it was my cat opening the door, i looked over. no, not a cat. it was my shy, not-very-comfortable-around-boys friend, who had just walked into an extremely awkward scene while looking for her laptop cord. the same friend who couldnt take one more extremely awkward scene and had fled her house and was staying at mine for that very reason. second FML of the weekend.
appendix!
rancho bravo: its a freakin' taco truck... indoors! apparently, the old taco truck in wallingford thought it lucrative to expand to capitol hill. and whats better than an authentic mexican food taco truck? one that you can stand inside and sway in! the brave little taco truck took over what used to be PETA's number one target: the KFC fast food restaurant on 10th & pine. now its delicious, cash-only, post-drinking food. open until 3 am on weekends. genius!
why is it so fucking cold? the last two days have been marvelous. sunshine, 70 degrees, swimming suits, laying in the park, drinking kombucha and cold beers. well cold beers happen year-round.... but whatever.
back to the cold morning. still confused as to why my feet were icecubes, i try to bury myself under more blankets and wrap my frozen legs around the (always, why are men so... warm-blooded? they are like hot water bottles or something. not complainin' or anything...) warm body snoring next to me. he grumbles and mumbles something about my feet being too cold. i don't listen but just snuggle closer. heck, its not even a romantic thing anymore, having a bed buddy. its like fucking survival mode.
as we both attempt to go back to sleep we are suddenly startled awake by my phone alarm clock. oh yes, once again i have to set my alarm to make sure my boy wakes up for class. why was my phone set, instead of his? oh yeah, my wonderful boy once again is not in procession of his phone. it wasn't a phone malfunction, or that he once again ran his phone over with his bike. oh, no. this time he left his phone on the bus. good lord, what am i going to do with him.
anyways, the phone alarm goes off a few more times before i can finally rouse him. er, well, let's be honest. it took a little something more than an annoying phone alarm (which he snatched out of my hands at one moment, put on silent and hurled across the room into a pile of towels) to get him ... going. ha. after a bit o' morning shenanigans, i reminded him of the time. he yelped, and in one motion threw on some clothes, smooched me goodbye, and yelled something about getting his phone back and he would call me and come visit him at the coffee shop later? or something. i dont know, i was busy tunneling into the now empty bed full of thick blankets. all mine! warmth! survival!
survival. bleh. lately i feel like that word is coming into my vocabulary a lot more often. mostly because i have zero dollars. actually, no, not zero. negative dollars. bling.
last night, after spending a carefree day sunbathing and hanging out with friends, i realized that i had no money for evening time entertainment. not a problem. some boys who came over to hang out at amanda's brought a case. travis bought some liquor and shared. and later, at the crescent, someone bought a pitcher. i merely helped myself. i know, i know. sad and pretty pathetic. but whatever, its the new economy. at al's as i was fishing was the $3 in quarters that i knew i had somewhere, my barista boy patted my shoulder and told me he didnt mind buying me a beer, i kissed him on the cheek and told him i owed him one. his winked at me and said he was sure there was some way i could re-pay. great. now i'm a prostitute.
ah well. its not all that bad. he takes care of my beer and coffee needs and i take care of ... waking him up. and reminding him to take his books. and making sure he doesnt drink too much while on pain medicine for a dislocated shoulder. (!) oh yeah, i forgot about this. last wednesday, i woke up to a text message from him that read, "got in a bike accident." panicked, i called him and demanded to know if he was alright. he thought so. he had just woken up, fully clothed on top of his bed, with his elbow bleeding, his head throbbing and his shoulder immobile. apparently, post-tuesday-night-out-drinking-in-wallingford had gone badly. he was riding his bike when his hat flew off and he tumbled over, hitting his head and shoulder. he walked home, drunk, and passed out. bad idea. upon waking, and sending me the text (and subsequently me yelling at him to go to a doctor), he finally dragged himself to the UW hospital where they put a sling on him and told him not to use his arm for a few weeks. oh, and he had a concussion and shouldn't be alone.
cue the supportive girlfriend role!
i rode my bike over (maybe pushing my luck and the gods of irony) to see how he was doing. swaying a bit, and droopy eyed, i tried to cheer him up. i suggested we go watch the regulars sing karaoke at kate's pub, down the street. even though he was on a strict no-drinking regimen, i allowed him to have one beer. and because it made so much sense, i decided to drink the amount of beers that he would have drank, plus my own. smart! suddenly we had a very loopy boy with an arm in a sling and a very intoxicated, swaying girl standing at the stage while the former sang some ridiculous karaoke song and the latter cheered drunkenly. in the end, he had to help me home and he had to take care of me. some caretaker i am.
c'est la vie. the next few days were a lot of me being overly-worried about him, calling, texting, etc. god, i feel crazy sometimes. i am so overwhelming i think. friday night was a good example of this. my roommate steven was having his video release party, after working for months on a music video for a well-known band. before the party, i was working all day. barista boy texted me, promising me he would visit. i was elated. i love showing of the coffee crush. three hours later, i was not so elated. he hadnt showed up or texted. i got off work soon after and tried to get ahold of him. "forgot class went late! missed text! buses late!" all the excuses came flying over the cell phone air waves, with the force of a paper airplane thrown half-heartedly. i gritted my teeth. well, come hang out tonight, i said. two hours and several shift drinks and no texts later, i left my work and went to the comet to meet afton. a couple of other friends showed up and we started forming a beerimid of happy hour priced olympia cans. buzzed, i texted him again. nothing. we all went home and i started complaining to a co-worker, and next thing i know we are buying cheap wine, cooks champagne and (yes, really) tropicana orange juice. yes, this is my friday night. cooks and tropicana, being buzzed and pissed off at some boy who may or may not be my boyfriend, and then (ta-da!) stumbling over to rancho bravo tacos*. and its only 7pm.
lets just say that by the time party o'clock came around, and all of steven's friends, child-hood friends, friend's parents, family and (eeek) the elite class of friends-of-the-family had arrived, i was DRUNK. and loud. and passing around open bottles of champagne in a sad attempt to try to get someone to be as drunk as i was. no go. i ended up dancing at the late-night dance party (after all the aforementioned groups of people had left and it was just us goblin kids around and no one to be ashamed in front of), or rather, swaying a lot. my roommate's lady friend (who we all sort of dislike extremely) was there and i apparently glared at her like a psycho all night. great. i ended up passing out early, missing the one text i had been waiting all day and night for. FML.
saturday was a funny day, mostly full of comforting a friend-in-crisis. this girl has had it tough. one of her roommates has become increasingly snotty and disrespectful. this roommates accuses my friend of constantly being messy, although doesnt really try to be tidy herself. she blames household problems on my friend and scapegoats her for everything. worst of all, the roommate's boyfriend is always around, lounging in the shared living room, having "intimate" moments in the middle of common living spaces, making my poor friend uncomfortable and just pretty damn annoyed. and so, on saturday afternoon, my friend asked to crash at my house for a bit. i was totally cool with this, and helped her throw some of her stuff in my bedroom before we both went out for different errands and stuff.
part two. i forgot that my friend was staying at my house. i forgot all about all her stuff in my room. i was too focused on, yes, let's be honest, hanging out with the boy on saturday night, drinking beers at the stumbling monk with some of his co-workers and eventually, stumbling home with him. this were getting a bit heated in the bedroom when i heard a noise. thinking it was my cat opening the door, i looked over. no, not a cat. it was my shy, not-very-comfortable-around-boys friend, who had just walked into an extremely awkward scene while looking for her laptop cord. the same friend who couldnt take one more extremely awkward scene and had fled her house and was staying at mine for that very reason. second FML of the weekend.
appendix!
rancho bravo: its a freakin' taco truck... indoors! apparently, the old taco truck in wallingford thought it lucrative to expand to capitol hill. and whats better than an authentic mexican food taco truck? one that you can stand inside and sway in! the brave little taco truck took over what used to be PETA's number one target: the KFC fast food restaurant on 10th & pine. now its delicious, cash-only, post-drinking food. open until 3 am on weekends. genius!
Monday, April 13, 2009
the new economy
its still cold here in seattle. which means the kids of capitol hill are still freezing their tushes off at night, living in these big old crappy houses, paying like nothing for rent but wasting the rest of their tiny paychecks on useless space heaters and booze to ward off the feeling of cold feet.
april. what happened to global warming? what happened to spring? the other day i was weighing the pros and cons of my semi-dating slash not dating slash man-friend situation, and we decided on one thing. "its still cold," frey said, shrugging. "might as well keep him around at least until it gets warmer at night."
good point.
speaking of which. in light of The New Economy*, one must consider ways to make money, feed oneself and what to do for entertainment and hobbies. for cheap and/or free. here are a few ideas:
1. as mentioned before, sell your clothing. not stripping. take clothes that you are currently not wearing, preferably semi-fashionable and with no apparent deodorant rings (i learned this the hard way), and walk to (in this order) buffalo exchange, crossroads, red light and then crossroads again. in this cascading order, the pickier stores will buy the best stuff for higher prices, the vintage items will trickle down to red light and crossroads will have a different clothing buyer every eight hours, so who cares. they take anything.
2. collect all the pennies and jars of change in your house and take 'em to coinstar. don't take jars of quarters, people will get mad (i.e. laundry, bus money, etc). but they probably won't notice if you take that creepy, beer-stained glass under the coffee table in the living room full of 43 cents. hey, it all adds up.
3. sell shit on craigslist. that weird bookshelf you found on the street? sell it! the lamp "from pier 1 imports, just bought it but it doesnt match my new paint job"? yep, that's a good story. someone will want the smashed lamp you took from your dorm lounge three years ago. profit!
4. get crafty. my neighbors found beads and feathers somewhere, no they are gluing them to headbands. $10. hey, these things sell at urban for my $20.
5. food bank. i hear they exist. i should look into this, actually.
6. food stamps. i tried to apply. but the application form that came in the mail got lost. oops.
7. cheap medical attention! country doctor, like 18th & republican. you go there for your eye infection, weird cold, refill on thyroid meds, whatever. its only $15 if you're poor.
8. planned parenthood. yes and yes. its free if you're poor! free birth control, free condoms (boys can go too!), free annual exam. better safe than sorry! better late than never! ha!
9. someday we will live in a place that has socialized medicine. well, at least i hope i can move to europe someday... haha bad joke. anyways, more cheap medical stuff, which SHOULD NOT BE A SECRET! quality food center pharmacy. ask about their $10 for 3 months worth of generic meds deal. so legit. fill out a application, show your prescription (which you can get at country doctor or PP, yay!) and you're good to go.
10. busking. find a talent, dress up a bit, go hit up pikes place market on a saturday. might work. or you might get shooed along by police. whatevs.
11. yard sale. my neighbors are about to move to new york, and they are going to sell all their stuff out on the sidewalk. nice!
12. actually, there are a lot of semi- to un-legit ways to make money. selling smuggled drugs and stripping are just two things i have actually, seriously considered. stripping might be a pain because i hate shaving my legs. ...and i'd probably have to shave a lot more than that, now that i think of it. hm. back to selling mescaline.
once you got the money-makin' and money-savin' thing down, its time to move into the money-free entertainment category. how to have fun for free!
1. play at the park. no joke, its sort of fun. i wish it was warm though.
2. watch movies online. and TV shows! yay!
3. get dumpstered snacks and watch aforementioned TV shows.
4. go to a karaoke night at a bar. pre-funk beforehand and maybe they won't notice you're not buying drinks...
5. actually just get a friend who has an actual job to buy a pitcher.
6. sing for your drinks. (have done it)
7. frye art museum. free, i've heard.
8. sort through all your old bus transfers and find the right color for today. ride the bus! its fun!
9. naps.
10. cuddling.
11. making out.
12. sex.
13. actually all those could have gone under one bullet.
14. making cookies out of things you find in your kitchen. aka really old lumpy sugar.
okay enough fuzzy, free ways to have fun. on to other things. frey left, by the way. ridiculously sad, not sure what to do with myself. i pick up my phone like once a day in a mad rush to text out: MUST TALK, PRESSE, NOW, FRITES AND BLOODY MARYS??? but then i remember that our french fry and cocktail traditions are over for the moment. frey packed up her bags, her cat, and left for san francisco a week ago. seems so much longer ago. the night before she left, the goblin kids and i moped around until someone suggested that we grab a coupla six-packs of fat tire. next thing we know, a fat tire night is in full-swing, all of us blasting our favorite songs, sing-along time, laughing at the old stories, shouting across the room when normal indoor voices would have sufficed, and wow, where did all this beer come from?
it was good. just like the night we all met, two years ago. and the next day, her new McBoyfriend arrived at the airport, came to the house to help her load her car, and they drove off. us goblin house kids took a quick snapshot in front of the house, hugged her one-by-one, and then ran alongside her car as it drove off down the street. someone shouted, "just married!" as a joke and i called out to "write the ol' fam a lettah." but it did feel like we were giving one of our daughters away, in some sort of ridiculously backwards, old-timey shotgun wedding. weird.
anyways, frey is gone, hopefully soaking up the sun and her McBoyfriend and new coffee job. the house has been quiet since she left. josh is out, moved over to 20th & union or something. everyone else works a ton it seems. actually. work-wise, i have moved back into the poverty category. and thus the aforementioned list of ways to be poor and survive. i mean, its bad. i overdrew my account twice in the last two weeks, my credit card is basically maxed out and almost bounced a check. plus student loans. bam. one day, feeling the pangs of hunger, i looked through my drawers to see what i could sell. i sold my clothes. for money. to eat. welcome to the new economy.
and so, when a couple of shifts opened up at my A.R.J., i snatched them up. opening shift? no problem! 10 hour shift? yes, please! two doubles in one week? i'll take it. I AM DESPERATE. and have no problem sharing that. yes, working sixteen hours in one day makes me want to die, but when you are begging your roommates to for any random pennies they might want to get rid of so that you can haul a jar of coins to the change machine just to buy yourself a pita and hummus, things start to look a little different.
back to the dilemma of to date or not-to-date? things are... the same. always. i am enamored, i am pissed, i am confused, his phone dies for a week, i am over it, he shows up at my window at 3 in the morning from all the way across town throwing little pebbles and telling me he couldn't stand not seeing me for another second, i am flattered, he is drunk, it doesn't matter anymore. we go on. one day last week he came over, surprised to see a tall, freakish-ly good-looking french man sleeping on my couch. its a traveling couchsurfer*, i explain. he is not comforted, and asks me if he should be worried about "some european guy stealing his girlfriend." i just laugh at his sudden show of jealousy and wonder why he is calling me his girlfriend.
the next day we hung out with some of his friends, running around downtown. the convention center was hosting "sakura-con 09," which is about the most fucked-up shit i have ever encountered. like 10,000 anime fans gathered for a three day event in which apparently there are workshops and anime celebrities or something. oh, and EVERYONE dresses up. i wasn't surprised at the 400 sailor moons i observed. the 200 pokemon characters seemed somewhat appropriate too. there were several thousand obscure anime characters that i did not recognize, but the kids kept running across the place shouting, "OH EM GEE its ka-won-tee from dragon magic riders!" or something. but then there were a few super hero characters, TV personalities (i saw 3 stewies from family guy), and then the line bewteen anime and disney was blurred. at one point all the snow whites of the convention had gathered. cinderella (time two) joined in also. i can see how disney is animated. i was also pretty confused by indiana jones, three nuns and a girl in a green bathing suit. that didn't make sense. but then all was trumped when straight-up jesus came strolling by with a cross. anime? not so much. he had braces too.
anime fest 09. the boy and i strolled around, laughing, sipping vodka out of paper coffee cups and taking pictures. several of his friends joined us and while it was cool to meet them, the title girlfriend was busted out a few more times. weird. the day ended with dinner at pikes place market and a return to the hill. nice.
easter morning was all work, but afterwards i was itching to just curl up and watch movies. what's better than watching movies? watching them with a boy. what's better than cuddling and watching movies with a boy? building a roaring fire and having the whole house to yourselves. ha. well, at least you think the house is empty, and then you walk around in nothing but his tee-shirt and half of his housemates are having a pow-wow in the hallway. ah yes.
appendix!
*The New Economy: its a recession, let's be honest. money is tight, jobs suck, we are all poor, no matter what our conservative republican parents say ("people are just imagining this. things were fine under bush!" no, no they weren't.)
*couchsurfer: i like traveling. i like travelers. i am signed up for couchsurfing.com. i let cool travelers stay on my couch, and when i travel, i crash on their couches. pretty legit.
april. what happened to global warming? what happened to spring? the other day i was weighing the pros and cons of my semi-dating slash not dating slash man-friend situation, and we decided on one thing. "its still cold," frey said, shrugging. "might as well keep him around at least until it gets warmer at night."
good point.
speaking of which. in light of The New Economy*, one must consider ways to make money, feed oneself and what to do for entertainment and hobbies. for cheap and/or free. here are a few ideas:
1. as mentioned before, sell your clothing. not stripping. take clothes that you are currently not wearing, preferably semi-fashionable and with no apparent deodorant rings (i learned this the hard way), and walk to (in this order) buffalo exchange, crossroads, red light and then crossroads again. in this cascading order, the pickier stores will buy the best stuff for higher prices, the vintage items will trickle down to red light and crossroads will have a different clothing buyer every eight hours, so who cares. they take anything.
2. collect all the pennies and jars of change in your house and take 'em to coinstar. don't take jars of quarters, people will get mad (i.e. laundry, bus money, etc). but they probably won't notice if you take that creepy, beer-stained glass under the coffee table in the living room full of 43 cents. hey, it all adds up.
3. sell shit on craigslist. that weird bookshelf you found on the street? sell it! the lamp "from pier 1 imports, just bought it but it doesnt match my new paint job"? yep, that's a good story. someone will want the smashed lamp you took from your dorm lounge three years ago. profit!
4. get crafty. my neighbors found beads and feathers somewhere, no they are gluing them to headbands. $10. hey, these things sell at urban for my $20.
5. food bank. i hear they exist. i should look into this, actually.
6. food stamps. i tried to apply. but the application form that came in the mail got lost. oops.
7. cheap medical attention! country doctor, like 18th & republican. you go there for your eye infection, weird cold, refill on thyroid meds, whatever. its only $15 if you're poor.
8. planned parenthood. yes and yes. its free if you're poor! free birth control, free condoms (boys can go too!), free annual exam. better safe than sorry! better late than never! ha!
9. someday we will live in a place that has socialized medicine. well, at least i hope i can move to europe someday... haha bad joke. anyways, more cheap medical stuff, which SHOULD NOT BE A SECRET! quality food center pharmacy. ask about their $10 for 3 months worth of generic meds deal. so legit. fill out a application, show your prescription (which you can get at country doctor or PP, yay!) and you're good to go.
10. busking. find a talent, dress up a bit, go hit up pikes place market on a saturday. might work. or you might get shooed along by police. whatevs.
11. yard sale. my neighbors are about to move to new york, and they are going to sell all their stuff out on the sidewalk. nice!
12. actually, there are a lot of semi- to un-legit ways to make money. selling smuggled drugs and stripping are just two things i have actually, seriously considered. stripping might be a pain because i hate shaving my legs. ...and i'd probably have to shave a lot more than that, now that i think of it. hm. back to selling mescaline.
once you got the money-makin' and money-savin' thing down, its time to move into the money-free entertainment category. how to have fun for free!
1. play at the park. no joke, its sort of fun. i wish it was warm though.
2. watch movies online. and TV shows! yay!
3. get dumpstered snacks and watch aforementioned TV shows.
4. go to a karaoke night at a bar. pre-funk beforehand and maybe they won't notice you're not buying drinks...
5. actually just get a friend who has an actual job to buy a pitcher.
6. sing for your drinks. (have done it)
7. frye art museum. free, i've heard.
8. sort through all your old bus transfers and find the right color for today. ride the bus! its fun!
9. naps.
10. cuddling.
11. making out.
12. sex.
13. actually all those could have gone under one bullet.
14. making cookies out of things you find in your kitchen. aka really old lumpy sugar.
okay enough fuzzy, free ways to have fun. on to other things. frey left, by the way. ridiculously sad, not sure what to do with myself. i pick up my phone like once a day in a mad rush to text out: MUST TALK, PRESSE, NOW, FRITES AND BLOODY MARYS??? but then i remember that our french fry and cocktail traditions are over for the moment. frey packed up her bags, her cat, and left for san francisco a week ago. seems so much longer ago. the night before she left, the goblin kids and i moped around until someone suggested that we grab a coupla six-packs of fat tire. next thing we know, a fat tire night is in full-swing, all of us blasting our favorite songs, sing-along time, laughing at the old stories, shouting across the room when normal indoor voices would have sufficed, and wow, where did all this beer come from?
it was good. just like the night we all met, two years ago. and the next day, her new McBoyfriend arrived at the airport, came to the house to help her load her car, and they drove off. us goblin house kids took a quick snapshot in front of the house, hugged her one-by-one, and then ran alongside her car as it drove off down the street. someone shouted, "just married!" as a joke and i called out to "write the ol' fam a lettah." but it did feel like we were giving one of our daughters away, in some sort of ridiculously backwards, old-timey shotgun wedding. weird.
anyways, frey is gone, hopefully soaking up the sun and her McBoyfriend and new coffee job. the house has been quiet since she left. josh is out, moved over to 20th & union or something. everyone else works a ton it seems. actually. work-wise, i have moved back into the poverty category. and thus the aforementioned list of ways to be poor and survive. i mean, its bad. i overdrew my account twice in the last two weeks, my credit card is basically maxed out and almost bounced a check. plus student loans. bam. one day, feeling the pangs of hunger, i looked through my drawers to see what i could sell. i sold my clothes. for money. to eat. welcome to the new economy.
and so, when a couple of shifts opened up at my A.R.J., i snatched them up. opening shift? no problem! 10 hour shift? yes, please! two doubles in one week? i'll take it. I AM DESPERATE. and have no problem sharing that. yes, working sixteen hours in one day makes me want to die, but when you are begging your roommates to for any random pennies they might want to get rid of so that you can haul a jar of coins to the change machine just to buy yourself a pita and hummus, things start to look a little different.
back to the dilemma of to date or not-to-date? things are... the same. always. i am enamored, i am pissed, i am confused, his phone dies for a week, i am over it, he shows up at my window at 3 in the morning from all the way across town throwing little pebbles and telling me he couldn't stand not seeing me for another second, i am flattered, he is drunk, it doesn't matter anymore. we go on. one day last week he came over, surprised to see a tall, freakish-ly good-looking french man sleeping on my couch. its a traveling couchsurfer*, i explain. he is not comforted, and asks me if he should be worried about "some european guy stealing his girlfriend." i just laugh at his sudden show of jealousy and wonder why he is calling me his girlfriend.
the next day we hung out with some of his friends, running around downtown. the convention center was hosting "sakura-con 09," which is about the most fucked-up shit i have ever encountered. like 10,000 anime fans gathered for a three day event in which apparently there are workshops and anime celebrities or something. oh, and EVERYONE dresses up. i wasn't surprised at the 400 sailor moons i observed. the 200 pokemon characters seemed somewhat appropriate too. there were several thousand obscure anime characters that i did not recognize, but the kids kept running across the place shouting, "OH EM GEE its ka-won-tee from dragon magic riders!" or something. but then there were a few super hero characters, TV personalities (i saw 3 stewies from family guy), and then the line bewteen anime and disney was blurred. at one point all the snow whites of the convention had gathered. cinderella (time two) joined in also. i can see how disney is animated. i was also pretty confused by indiana jones, three nuns and a girl in a green bathing suit. that didn't make sense. but then all was trumped when straight-up jesus came strolling by with a cross. anime? not so much. he had braces too.
anime fest 09. the boy and i strolled around, laughing, sipping vodka out of paper coffee cups and taking pictures. several of his friends joined us and while it was cool to meet them, the title girlfriend was busted out a few more times. weird. the day ended with dinner at pikes place market and a return to the hill. nice.
easter morning was all work, but afterwards i was itching to just curl up and watch movies. what's better than watching movies? watching them with a boy. what's better than cuddling and watching movies with a boy? building a roaring fire and having the whole house to yourselves. ha. well, at least you think the house is empty, and then you walk around in nothing but his tee-shirt and half of his housemates are having a pow-wow in the hallway. ah yes.
appendix!
*The New Economy: its a recession, let's be honest. money is tight, jobs suck, we are all poor, no matter what our conservative republican parents say ("people are just imagining this. things were fine under bush!" no, no they weren't.)
*couchsurfer: i like traveling. i like travelers. i am signed up for couchsurfing.com. i let cool travelers stay on my couch, and when i travel, i crash on their couches. pretty legit.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
redefining old definitions
friday night was a good night. well, it started out perfect. i came home from work, and frey, ruth, jerad and micah were all headed out to the comet for afternoon $1 PBRs. i joined in, and pretty soon we had a beeramid* stacked up in the middle of the table. i turned to frey at one point to mention that i had seen one of our mutual friends come in to my restaurant job. i casually threw in the fact she was with a new man-friend.
silence.
i had opened my big mouth again, and forgot who i was talking about. this friend of ours isn't just anyone. she is micah's two-time ex-girlfriend. and he's not dealing with it well. and i just said the worst thing possible, and now the shit was about to hit the fan. and hit the fan it did. for forty-five minutes we watched micah build the beeramid up to epic proportions, getting more and more cynical and bitter as the beers went down. we all looked around at each other nervously. 'i just am terrified to see her, terrified to hear about her dating someone and honestly, i just can't even deal with hearing her name,' he slurred before excusing himself from our presence and returning home.
true love? or tainted love? i don't know. as we discussed it, frey's phone rang. her face, a bit flushed from the beer, turned a shade of scarlet that wasn't embarrassment or warmth. something new. she ran outside to answer it. no need to ask who it was. frey has about the best situation out of all of us. after years of not really getting into the dating scene of having to wallow in shitty situations, she meets a guy at a coffee convention. they hit it off and begin an adorably innocent phone correspondence. they get to see each other a few other times, in LA, and then in portland for various coffee events. by the end of the portland rendezvous, frey has decided to quit her job, move to san francisco, and date this boy. its a coffee shop fairytale.
there's a lot more to the story, of course, but its nice to something working out. i am truly excited for frey, and her new McBoyfriend. i feel like everyone in my life is in some sort of drama right now, whether good or bad. john came upstairs the other day and suddenly asked me if i would give him advice. surprised, i put down my laptop and looked at him. he has been dating a terrific girl for ... well forever, it seems. after we talked about the pros and cons he decided to go over to his lady's house and talk. i saw him today. they are good. le sigh. then there's nik. his on-again, off-again lady lover came back into his life after tearing it up for a year. nik wonders aloud, is it me or her? did i set myself up to be treated badly? maybe if they can each learn to love themselves, they can turn and offer love to one another in a healthier way, i suggested. he calls her up. last, my friend cortney. she started dating sweet little barista brandon about five months ago. he is a 'friend of the family,' and a well-respected guy at my house. their adorable romance seemed fine, but cortney would confide in me that she felt like she was more invested then he was. after a few months of feeling shitty about being the only one who was saying 'i love you' and meaning it, they broke things off. at first, all of us friends prepared for another split of micah and his ex-girlfriend proportions. we wondered about parties, schedules, started thinking about how to arrange things so no awkward interactions would have to happen. but magically, things are fine! cortney called me on saturday to see if i wanted to play pool, but i was already with brandon. i told her and apologized. but surprisingly, she said she would show up anyways. we all hung out, they are friends, things don't have to change. wow. a good breakup? perhaps it is possible.
back to life. ive been thinking lately. maybe i have lost my standards for relationships. these days, my only requirements include things such as 1. he doesn't steal money from you. 2. he doesn't verbally abuse you. and 3. you speak mostly the same language and/or live in the same country. i mean, that only narrows down the pool a bit. whatever happened to similar interests, liking his family, being great friends, understanding his past, communication skills, and, oh yeah, being head-over-heels for a guy? i mean, really, head-over-heels. seriously.
as my man-friend and i flopped back on his bed last night, reaching for one-another and kissing and 'that was great' sorta stuff happening, i got bold. 'what are we doing?' i asked. 'i mean, what is this? i really like you, but im starting to wonder what this situation is? what should i call it?' my words crashed together as i got more and more nervous. silence. my heart dropped. so bad. i shook his arm, wondering if he had fallen asleep. 'i just... well, what are you thinking?' i whisper. 'i don't know.' he mumbles, not looking me in the eye. i shake his arm again, hoping, like a magic-eight ball, that it will wield a different answer. 'i don't know.' he repeats. i roll over and stare at the ceiling. i know damn well what his answer means. i don't know, means, i don't want to date you. for some reason, that hurts a lot.
i had lunch with a friend the other day. we haven't talked in so long, even though out of my entire friend group, we have always understood each other so well. heck, we have even dated each others' friends. actually, quite often. and in the end, we have always been there for each other. but the last year of my life seems to have separated us. when i left for south america, i broke things off with his good guy friend. it was a bad situation. his guy friend was the ex-boyfriend of the girl he was currently dating. if that makes sense. so while each of us was dating someone, our respective dates were in between fuming at each other and pining for one another. at times, my friend and i felt like props in their crazy post relationship game of war. my friend's lady even started posting rude things about me on myspace, which i couldn't quite take seriously from a 25-year-old who was acting like it was the height of seventh grade. so i quit, stepped away from all that. i knew the girl was hurting my friend, but he was in it for the long haul. i guess they broke up when i went backpacking in march. but by the end of summer, she had reappeared in his life, much to the dismay of all of us friends. they on-again, off-again courtship proceeded into fall, and then winter. we stopped seeing our friend, even though he used to be part of the core group of us kids. and then, in january, things changed. his lady-friend took a vacation. the next day, our buddy was back in action, going out to bars, watching movies, playing pool, going to shows. one night, him, micah, ruth and i went to a show at neumos, got drunk on PBRs, ran up and down broadway and ended up falling asleep in a pile of chips and salsa on the couch in the living room. it was one of the best nights of 2009 for me.
and then, we were back in action. long talks on the front steps about what was going on in our lives. getting coffee. one night, he took me out to the movies and we snuck in beer and candy, throwing popcorn like kids. yesterday, we went out to lunch. throughout everything, i had been avoiding the topic of his lady-friend. but now i jumped boldly into the question. 'so, are you going to keep seeing her, or what?' he looked at me, and shook his head. 'its just that, well, i spent a year and a half trying to wallow through this relationship. and the minute she leaves for this trip, i feel the most free and happy i have felt in a year and a half. i need to feel this way always.'
i want that too. i hope he can be free and happy finally. maybe its time for a little redefining on both our parts.
appendix!
beeramid: do i really need to explain this? a pyramid of beer cans. most impressive when built with such quality beers as PBR, rainier or keystone (light).
silence.
i had opened my big mouth again, and forgot who i was talking about. this friend of ours isn't just anyone. she is micah's two-time ex-girlfriend. and he's not dealing with it well. and i just said the worst thing possible, and now the shit was about to hit the fan. and hit the fan it did. for forty-five minutes we watched micah build the beeramid up to epic proportions, getting more and more cynical and bitter as the beers went down. we all looked around at each other nervously. 'i just am terrified to see her, terrified to hear about her dating someone and honestly, i just can't even deal with hearing her name,' he slurred before excusing himself from our presence and returning home.
true love? or tainted love? i don't know. as we discussed it, frey's phone rang. her face, a bit flushed from the beer, turned a shade of scarlet that wasn't embarrassment or warmth. something new. she ran outside to answer it. no need to ask who it was. frey has about the best situation out of all of us. after years of not really getting into the dating scene of having to wallow in shitty situations, she meets a guy at a coffee convention. they hit it off and begin an adorably innocent phone correspondence. they get to see each other a few other times, in LA, and then in portland for various coffee events. by the end of the portland rendezvous, frey has decided to quit her job, move to san francisco, and date this boy. its a coffee shop fairytale.
there's a lot more to the story, of course, but its nice to something working out. i am truly excited for frey, and her new McBoyfriend. i feel like everyone in my life is in some sort of drama right now, whether good or bad. john came upstairs the other day and suddenly asked me if i would give him advice. surprised, i put down my laptop and looked at him. he has been dating a terrific girl for ... well forever, it seems. after we talked about the pros and cons he decided to go over to his lady's house and talk. i saw him today. they are good. le sigh. then there's nik. his on-again, off-again lady lover came back into his life after tearing it up for a year. nik wonders aloud, is it me or her? did i set myself up to be treated badly? maybe if they can each learn to love themselves, they can turn and offer love to one another in a healthier way, i suggested. he calls her up. last, my friend cortney. she started dating sweet little barista brandon about five months ago. he is a 'friend of the family,' and a well-respected guy at my house. their adorable romance seemed fine, but cortney would confide in me that she felt like she was more invested then he was. after a few months of feeling shitty about being the only one who was saying 'i love you' and meaning it, they broke things off. at first, all of us friends prepared for another split of micah and his ex-girlfriend proportions. we wondered about parties, schedules, started thinking about how to arrange things so no awkward interactions would have to happen. but magically, things are fine! cortney called me on saturday to see if i wanted to play pool, but i was already with brandon. i told her and apologized. but surprisingly, she said she would show up anyways. we all hung out, they are friends, things don't have to change. wow. a good breakup? perhaps it is possible.
back to life. ive been thinking lately. maybe i have lost my standards for relationships. these days, my only requirements include things such as 1. he doesn't steal money from you. 2. he doesn't verbally abuse you. and 3. you speak mostly the same language and/or live in the same country. i mean, that only narrows down the pool a bit. whatever happened to similar interests, liking his family, being great friends, understanding his past, communication skills, and, oh yeah, being head-over-heels for a guy? i mean, really, head-over-heels. seriously.
as my man-friend and i flopped back on his bed last night, reaching for one-another and kissing and 'that was great' sorta stuff happening, i got bold. 'what are we doing?' i asked. 'i mean, what is this? i really like you, but im starting to wonder what this situation is? what should i call it?' my words crashed together as i got more and more nervous. silence. my heart dropped. so bad. i shook his arm, wondering if he had fallen asleep. 'i just... well, what are you thinking?' i whisper. 'i don't know.' he mumbles, not looking me in the eye. i shake his arm again, hoping, like a magic-eight ball, that it will wield a different answer. 'i don't know.' he repeats. i roll over and stare at the ceiling. i know damn well what his answer means. i don't know, means, i don't want to date you. for some reason, that hurts a lot.
i had lunch with a friend the other day. we haven't talked in so long, even though out of my entire friend group, we have always understood each other so well. heck, we have even dated each others' friends. actually, quite often. and in the end, we have always been there for each other. but the last year of my life seems to have separated us. when i left for south america, i broke things off with his good guy friend. it was a bad situation. his guy friend was the ex-boyfriend of the girl he was currently dating. if that makes sense. so while each of us was dating someone, our respective dates were in between fuming at each other and pining for one another. at times, my friend and i felt like props in their crazy post relationship game of war. my friend's lady even started posting rude things about me on myspace, which i couldn't quite take seriously from a 25-year-old who was acting like it was the height of seventh grade. so i quit, stepped away from all that. i knew the girl was hurting my friend, but he was in it for the long haul. i guess they broke up when i went backpacking in march. but by the end of summer, she had reappeared in his life, much to the dismay of all of us friends. they on-again, off-again courtship proceeded into fall, and then winter. we stopped seeing our friend, even though he used to be part of the core group of us kids. and then, in january, things changed. his lady-friend took a vacation. the next day, our buddy was back in action, going out to bars, watching movies, playing pool, going to shows. one night, him, micah, ruth and i went to a show at neumos, got drunk on PBRs, ran up and down broadway and ended up falling asleep in a pile of chips and salsa on the couch in the living room. it was one of the best nights of 2009 for me.
and then, we were back in action. long talks on the front steps about what was going on in our lives. getting coffee. one night, he took me out to the movies and we snuck in beer and candy, throwing popcorn like kids. yesterday, we went out to lunch. throughout everything, i had been avoiding the topic of his lady-friend. but now i jumped boldly into the question. 'so, are you going to keep seeing her, or what?' he looked at me, and shook his head. 'its just that, well, i spent a year and a half trying to wallow through this relationship. and the minute she leaves for this trip, i feel the most free and happy i have felt in a year and a half. i need to feel this way always.'
i want that too. i hope he can be free and happy finally. maybe its time for a little redefining on both our parts.
appendix!
beeramid: do i really need to explain this? a pyramid of beer cans. most impressive when built with such quality beers as PBR, rainier or keystone (light).
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