A Touch of Self-Pity to Ring in the New Year

        New Years Eve this year falls on a Saturday.  I should be primping right now for an outrageous party, but instead I have spent most of the day curled up in a ball feeling ridiculously sorry for myself.  My life has taken an unexpected turn and I can’t see quite how to get out of it.  I used to be a very social person with a large circle of friends.  Almost every week we did something- going out dancing or bowling or staying in for Strange and Unusual Movie Night.  We always had “Girls Night + The Gays” where a whole gang of us would launch our selves upon society to “wreak havoc” as we used to say.  I love people and no matter how exhausted I was or how not-in-the-mood I felt, get me around my people and I could party till I dropped.  It didn’t matter that we were all in different places in life- some in school, some married and starting families, others involved in careers- we made the time to be together. 

       But an odd thing happened when I moved across the country.  I was of course gutted to leave friends who’ve been with me most of my life, but I was excited too to meet new people and gain new circles and see new places.  Not how it turned out, as a matter of fact.  I spent my first year and a half at my new university too busy to sleep or even breathe much less make friends.  I was slow to discover clubs and organizations, and by the time I found some amazing acquaintances… school was all over and I was out of the loop again.  Now for the last few months I have been living cheaply with family in the middle of what is technically referred to in cartography and geography circles as “Fucking Nowhere”.  I have no ability to meet new people and in any case I am too poor to afford the gas that would get me there.  I refer to my new home as the Fortress of Solitude, and inside it I feel like a neglected parrot about one second from tearing all her feathers out.

       I am still in touch with my old friends, but there are times when I feel so sad that I cannot actually see them that it’s almost physically painful.  I want to apologize to Mycole and Meredith especially- you ladies are my world and I need to be better at showing it.  My few acquaintances out here never think to invite me out or to parties, probably because I looked like such a social loner when I arrived.  I don’t know how to correct it, or if I can.  I am looking at a whole long year in the Fortress and unless I get accepted to grad school next fall, possibly longer!  My only breaks in the monotony of Netflicks, jigsaw puzzles, and disastrous cooking attempts have been my bi-monthly visits to my Boy.  Those help somewhat, but I still spend most of the time feeling like Anne Frank, if less productive.   A few months ago I would have thrilled to have this much free time to work on my writing or my jewelry designs, but I am starting to realize that my creativity dries up when I feel my life stalling. 

       I guess I have no purpose to this post other than to vent and maybe feel my fingers typing something other than a grad school essay or updating a resume for a job application.  It is more than time to shake it off, and I reserve the right to use any means necessary.  This kind of deep morbidity calls for an over-the-top fancy outfit and White Russians.  Lots and lots of White Russians.  Excuse me, dear readers, I am about to make tonight a party of one.  Slap party hats on the dog and all the house plants!  Kick Pandora on so loud I couldn’t talk to people even if they existed!  Find me a marabou-feathered boa!  SEEEEEEEEEQUINS!!!

       Oh yeah.  It will be epic. 

The Most Hideously Awkward Weekend of My Life So Far (A Boy Story)

            The following details the most horrific and scarring weekend of my entire life.  The cause of this trauma?  A boy I will simply call “The Tongue”.
 

It all started harmless enough.  I met this boy online (I know, save your lectures). He was a fellow English major and creative writer.  We lived a few hours apart, so when we got together, we met at big festively sorts of things where we would have an excuse to just wander around for hours sampling wine and weird food.  Both dates were utterly sexless, and by that I mean there was no kissing, hand holding, or burning glances.  I even paid for myself wherever we went.  It was like being out with your brother or cousin.  Mostly we just talked about writing and traveling and other sorts of polite chit chat.  He was funny, smart and we had interests in common, but as I told my mom afterward, we could be friends but I didn’t want to “do him”. 

So knowing how much he liked to mock humanity at large, and realizing that none of my other friends would indulge me, I decided (with my mother’s urging) to invite The Tongue with us to the Renaissance Fair.  I pictured a long day of hilarity, sniggering, and stealth photography.  These events are what I imagine to be the one time of the year that all the nerds emerge from their basements and try to absorb their annual levels of Vitamin D.  The women all apparently absorb sunlight through their cleavage because I have never seen so many endless yards of exposed bosom (with a fair smattering of nipple slips).  It is as terrifying as it is absolutely entertaining.  There are men wearing steel codpieces in odd shapes, overweight bellydancers, sword swallowers, women dressed as fairies who haven’t been fairies for at least 300 lbs., slutty wenches, people wandering around with meade and giant turkey legs, jousting knights, and so on.  It really is amazingly fun, even if I reveal my nerd tendencies in confessing as much.

SO!  Since The Tongue lived equally far from me as the Renaissance Fair, I let him decide if he wanted to just meet us at the festival or come up the night before to my house and ride with my family.  I have since been informed that such an invitation was an open invitation to sex.  Go figure.  I thought I was providing a friendly alternative to riding alone, but it seems I was actually offering my body on a silver platter.  I do not understand straight men. 

The night before the festival, The Tongue arriveed and my mother set about feeding and fussing over him.  He brought me wine, plastic flowers, and a chocolate bar which was pretty sweet, but it still did not make me think he was being anything more than friendly (because I am an idiot).  Since he had arrived kind of late and we were all leaving early in the morning, the family went to bed en mass.  My room was near the guest room, and as I was heading to bed, I poked my head in to make sure he had everything he needed.  Just being good hostess-y, you know?  All very polite and platonic.  After chatting for a minute or so, he shocked me by lunging forward in the middle of a sentence and grabbing me by the shoulders. I had a brief vision of this big wet tongue lolling and undulating out at me before he put his mouth on my mouth.  I just sort of stood there, shocked and stunned and super uncomfortable.  Also his nasty hippie beard was really stabby.  When I got my brain back, I started giggling because it was all so impossibly awkward.  He pulled back and I said something like, “Sorry, I guess I never kissed anyone with a beard before”.  Then his voice went all husky and he said “Ohhhh, so you like that?  Yeahhh.” and started rubbing his jaw over my cheek in what I assume he thought was a sexy gesture, but really just made me want to run from the room.  I was trying to think of a polite way to leave without hurting his feelings when he made a sort of icky moaning sound and shoved me on the bed and jumped on me.  The kissing got absolutely no better.  He kept running his hands everywhere like he was frantically checking me for an injury.  It felt like a terrible joke and I was doing my best trying not to gag or giggle while trying to protect my teeth from his teeth.

After a minute or two of this, he stood up and whipped off his shirt which was bad for two reasons. One, he should never be shirtless- he has the body of a nine year old, and second- the hell? I don't go from zero to naked. OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod…. It seemed to take forever to extricate myself with him all the while making old people soup noises and poking me in the eye and asking me where I like "it" best. Nowhere, mister. He jumped up off me and I thought he had finally taken my total lack of response as a hint that he should stop.  On the contrary!  He just whipped off his pants in a triumphant “Tah Dah!” gesture to reveal ancient and voluminous boxers.  It was at that point that I found my backbone and said, "Yeah, I don't think this is going to go as far as you are hoping it will". I stood up and mumbled something about needing sleep so we weren’t tired the next day and ran away, shutting and locking my door. 

About 2 minutes later, he knocked on my door and I answered reluctantly.  He was still mostly naked, so I only let the door open a tiny crack.  He said, "I haven’t been with a girl in a while, so would you mind maybe ranking my performance just now? Like on a scale of 1-10 where 10 is the best you’ve had ever and 1 is the worst?" Okay seriously?? OMG!!!!!!! You are so in negative points just for this. I kept my face under control and made some excuse like "Actually, girls don’t really rank these things" (LIE) and then I practically had to shut the door in his face.  I got zero sleep that night, just dreading the next day and knowing I would have to spend the ENTIRE day with him.

Fortunately, in the light of day he seemed to have turned off his Lustful Octopus Mode.  I did my very best to avoid being alone with him, but my damned family is so very considerate and obliging that they kept shooing us off so we could be “alone”.  He kept his hands to himself, but unexpectedly kept saying things that were so pretentious, I just wanted to hit him in the face with a brick.  Like his 20 minute lecture on how wonderful it would be to live in the middle of the woods without electricity or corporate America.  Or his endless recitations of things he’s heard on NPR.  It sucked all the joy out of trying to make fun of jesters and pirates, but there really weren’t any moments that were too awful.  Until the drive home that is, when my family all loudly insisted that he should stay that night too, rather than driving home.  Since I had not had a chance to de-brief my mother on the previous night’s incident, she had no idea why I would not want this.  All I could do was sit in silence while my soul died inside me.

It had been a very long day, and everyone went to bed, with my mother dragging me into a corner for a moment to tell me with shining eyes that The Tongue was her absolute favorite of all my previous dates.  Wonderful.  I sort of waved goodnight at him and made a dash for my room, but I neglected to lock the door.  He just strolled right on in without knocking.  Fortunately, I happened to be on my computer at that moment checking messages and with some soothing music playing.  He started to reach for me, then heard the song and recognized it.  Seizing the opportunity, we talked about music and shared stupid Youtube videos until he was too exhausted to want to do anything else.  When I finally pushed him out around 4a.m. he reached out his tentacles again, but tripped on my rug and staggered.  I made a joke about him being so very sleepy and literally shoved him out the door. 

The next day the family all had to run some sort of errand and with winks and nudges, left the two of us alone until The Tongue had to leave to be in time for work.  I went to my mother with pleading in my eyes and mouthed “Don’t leave me alone!” but she just looked confused and amused, as if I were making a joke she didn’t quite get but wanted to be supportive anyway.  The Tongue, in an effort to woo my family, declared that his years of working at a restaurant would help him make me the most amazing breakfast ever, and he took to the kitchen to make me an omelet.  I stopped watching his preparations after he measured literally ¼ cup of oil into the frying pan.  My omelet looked as though it was covered in plastic laminate.  Tasted much that way too.  Fortunately, the cooking of my nasty-ass breakfast took up a great deal of time and when at last we were done, it left only a few minutes before he would have to leave for work.  I nearly had to shove him in his truck, while he kept gazing into my eyes and declaring that he wanted to call work and quit so he could stay with me in the mountains, basking in nature’s and my (*eye roll*) beauty forever.

         No thanks, creeper.  Off you go.

Boy Story- El Cheapo con Saliva

Here are the lessons I learned from El Cheapo con Saliva:

1-      Never date a man without his own car. 

2-      If you do, do not under any circumstances allow him to talk you into to driving to some remote (but “beautiful”) location in the middle of fucking nowhere.

3-      Do not trust him when he assures you positively that you can “just park wherever”.

4-      Do not leave your purse, phone, keys, and wallet inside the car.

5-      When you get cold because the walk on this romantic little path outside the range of Screaming For Help distance is taking place in December and you throw a fit and demand to go back, do not be surprised when your car is missing.

6-      When you call the police to report a stolen car, do not start yelling at the officer after he informs you that your Jeep was not stolen, but towed to the other side of town and that you will now have to walk there.  He will not be amused or sympathetic.  He will also not give you a ride.

7-      When you arrive at the abandoned towing station in the bad part of town, in the dark, and in subzero degree temperatures with your wimpy date who informs you that he is planning to abandon you the second a mugger approaches, remember to wear gloves so you have the feeling and dexterity in your hands to smack him.  Hard. 

8-      When you are presented with a bill for $150 to bail your Jeep out of jail, do not reasonably assume you will only have to pay half.  Not from a man who could not even bother to buy you dinner on the previous FOUR dates.  You imbecile.

9-      After you ignore him for a few days out of anger, thus prompting him to ask what is wrong and you tell him that he should’ve helped pay for the car’s bail, be sure to emphasize a clear desired dollar amount; do not leave this up to chance.

10-  When he apologetically asks you to come over, do not go with the expectation that money and sympathy will be forthcoming.

11-  Instead you should expect that, after a rather sloppy and disappointing groping session on the couch, you will prepare to leave by putting on your coat and jangling your keys and he will get a blank look on his face and then abruptly throw a $20 bill at you and say something classy like, “thanks for the snog”.

12-  Expect to feel like a very cheap hooker.

Stomach Cancer or Hysterical Pregnancy? Cast your vote now!

           I have had this problem since pretty much the beginning of October where I am unable to consume real food.  My diet has consisted of mostly cold cereal for two months.  Any deviation from this plan makes me horribly nauseated and I spend most of the rest of the day praying that death will take me.  Bright side:  I have lost 10 lbs thanks to my new Carbs Only diet.  Down side: I am downright sick of this shit. 

At first I thought I hoped it was a bug, because my only other choice… was not worth thinking about.  Unfortunately television says that any stomach upset, headache, weird food craving or backache means an unwanted pregnancy, and I could not help leaping to the worse possible conclusions.  I have hysterical pregnancies all the time but mostly when I am in relationships that I know are not going anywhere and I dread the idea of being tied to a moron forever by my being in the .01% of women who are failed by The Pill.  My current Boy does not fall under such a category, but we are nowhere near the kid stage, so I went ahead and panicked anyway.  As in all other times of deepest crisis, I called my BFF Meredith hoping she would talk me out of my paranoia.  Instead, she told me to take a pregnancy test.  Damnit. 

If that is not the longest three minutes in the universe, I don’t know what else could be.  Both tests I took were negatory (thankyouGodthankyouthankyou) but that left me with endless queasiness and again, the inability to eat more than Rice Checks three meals a day.  And also the nagging doubt that a pregnancy test from the Dollar Tree may not be as accurate as the box claimed…  In an effort to comfort me with my anxiety, Meredith sent me this hilarious link that gives you helpful tips to know if you are pregnant or not.  Give it a looksee:

http://thestir.cafemom.com/pregnancy/127960/lesson_25_are_you_pregnant

Since I don’t match the criteria exactly (although it is not unheard of me to spontaneously want to make 18 deviled eggs at 3AM), I must look for a new explanation for why my internal organs are forming a coup against me. 

            Yesterday’s appallingly stupid attempt to eat a full Thanksgiving dinner and my resultant 13 hour bout of misery and self loathing (Note: writhing in pain is great for the abs!) has led me to lean toward a more dramatic conclusion- stomach cancer.  Extreme, I know, but let me tell you why.  I have been to the hospital 10 times over my short 24 years of existence for various ailments and tragedies, including asthma, broken bones, tonsillectomies, wisdom teeth extraction, surgery, etc.  The odd thing is not so much the frequency at which I find myself sitting on a gurney with a hose in my arm, but the fact that I have only ever had to go to the hospital in the month of November.  Period!  I dread the entire month and spend most of my days trying not to step on slippery surfaces or be in a moving vehicle until the month has passed.  My most vivid Thanksgiving memories are of my family callously cooking a lavish traditional dinner while I lie on the couch staring disconsolately at my Campbells Chicken and Star soup, which is all that the lingering effects of the anesthesia will let me sip on without throwing up.  

            So knowing my medical history as I do, I refuse to go to a doctor until November is over.  With my luck, if I see someone before December 1, my diagnosis will be stomach cancer requiring the immediate removal of all my lovely insides.  After that date, my diagnosis is much more likely to be something harmless, like persistent indigestion.  In the meantime, I plan to watch marathons of House or Grey’s Anatomy to see if they spark even more exciting ideas for self-diagnosis.  Hey, at least it’s not Web MD!

Boy Story- Father Stephen

       I have dated a lot of people, few of them long term, but all of them distinctly memorable for their own unique reasons.  I think of myself as a fairly nice and understanding person, ready to forgive minor faux pas, but most of my dates have gone so hideously and disastrously awry, it’s almost impossible to believe it was real.  I began to write them down when I would email my dear friend Meredith the blow-by-blow at the end of the date. She would send her own nightmare boy stories back to me and before long, we had enough dating disasters between us for a book.  At first I found the whole thing very frustrating and disappointing, but now I confess, I almost can’t wait to see how the guys screw things up. 

       
       I wish to share my stories with you, my dear reading public, in what I shall simply call ‘Boy Stories’.  NOTE:  All the names have been changed to, well, keep me from having to remember the real names.  I tend to go for titles or elaborate nicknames that usually have something to do with the crime so committed.  For my first Boy Story, I thought I would describe my first boyfriend… Father Stephen. 

       I met Father Stephen at a birthday party during that phase in my life where I was attracted to men who I knew would make my father apoplectic.  The first time I saw him, he looked like a Hot Topic ad.  He was a white, thin, toothpick of a guy in threatening punk gear and spiked hair, dripping chains from his pockets and sneering in that sexy Billy Idol way I have always admired so much.  I flirted, he flirted back and before long, I had my own punk in shining armor.  He freaked my father out completely along with all my other strict Mormon neighbors in the tiny town of Springville, Utah.  I was utterly delighted, and even more so by the fact that he turned out to be articulate and funny beneath the swaggering and eyeliner.

       As our relationship blossomed that summer and thoughts instantly turned to marriage (as they do in Utah), Stephen had an unfortunate “Come to Jesus Moment”.  Before I was really aware of what was happening, all the bad-ass clothes were replaced with polos and khakis.  The chains were gone, the wrist bands thrown away, the hair combed smooth.  I was horrified by the transformation, and even more by his expectation that I clean up to, so I could be the squeaky Mormon Barbie to his Ken. 

       “I would appreciate it if you didn’t wear shirts so low,” he told me one day on the way to a party.

       “Why?” I asked looking down at my peeking cleavage, “collar bones not your thing?”

       “Just do it, please,” he said angrily, “I want to keep my thoughts pure”. 

       I hadn’t had any problem with him thinking “unpure” thoughts about me until he put it like that.  Why don’t you just come over here and put a scarlet letter ‘A’ for ‘A Boob Flashing Whore Meant to Bring Down the Thoughts of Good Men’?   

       We drove the rest of the way in tense silence, me fuming, he feeling all self-righteous or whatever.  The party was for a friend of his in his church, a church that I did not realize he was attending. 

       After being introduced as the girlfriend, the birthday girl asked, “Why haven’t I ever seen you on Sundays?”  I was about to reply that I lived two cities away and hoped that would smooth over the uncomfortable moment of me having to reveal my status as “godless heathen” when Father Stephen got in ahead of me.

“I have been trying to get her to come with me for ages, but I haven’t given up yet.”  I have no idea what my face said, but the Birthday Girl was pretty quick to change the conversation and make her escape.  

       Later, in the car, I asked him why he had been all secretive about his re-conversion.  His expression became aloof and condescending, when with great dignity he said, “I am not sure I want to tell you about it.”

       Miffed but too annoyed  to fight about it then, I said, “okay, you don’t have to.’

He turned to me almost in agitation, “It’s not that I don’t want to tell anyone about it, you understand.” 

       “So tell me,” I said.

       “I can’t.”  With a sigh he said very solemnly, “I guess the best way to explain why I can’t tell you is Matthew chapter 7, verse 6.”  Seeing my blank stare, he restated, “’don’t cast your pearls before swine.’”

Two days later he asked if I would marry him. 

He asked to marry the godless swine. 

Oh, no thank you.

The Wretch Concentered All in Self

I have always shrunk away from the notion of blogging, no matter how much gasoline it would add to my narcissistic flame.  I think it was because every housewife has one.  Most of the time, they are painful- full of family photos, inspirational quotes, and cookie recipes.  Such blogs are incredibly boring and of absolutely no interest to anyone, and I do mean anyone.  “Buy a journal”, I want to tell them, “and stop subjecting me to the pathetic monotony of your existence!” only, you know, nicer.  Despite urgings from friends and family, I did not want to become that which I made fun of. 

By stating all this of course, I have painted myself as a spineless sellout.  However I hope to take back the blog from the housewives and the angsty teens, making it what it should be- an online shrine to my ego.  Bow down and worship at the online alter of my brilliance, read in amazement at the ridiculous things that happen to me, marvel at my ingenious thoughts, gasp in reverent wonder at my writing skill.  And be sure to, like, say hi, because I hate to think I am just writing to myself here.   

Hippo out.