Thursday, April 27, 2006

Cartwheels on the beach

So, this post is technically cheating because I wrote it in 2005, but it's applicable to my last couple weeks with East Coast peeps. And I'm sick and not feeling creative.

Weekends like this are amazing. A sense of community that re-energizes my soul. So glad I picked this reality, yet still believing it's not real, not necessarily true. I am incredibly lucky to keep finding and intersecting with such talented, giving, emotionally available people. One of my favorite exercises now, is one that used to make me feel the most isolated. I love removing myself from the crowd, standing to the side and watching it all unfurl around me. Then rejoining, welcomed back in to it all as if I was never missing. But I was, I was in a quiet, zen moment. Like watching a silent film with only my mental comments and then, jumping through the celluloid and participating in the vignettes of reality. I never believed I would be here, in this world, so loved, so loving, so connected, so secure and centered. This peace, this serene, this me.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

All Play

I want you all (the 2 of you out there) to tell me a story about your worst date ever. I'll go first.

I think the worst aspect of this story is that this terrible date was not a first date. We had actually been dating for a month. But then, I went to scavenger hunt and realized that my friends were more exciting when sleeping that he was on his best day. We had scheduled plans for when I got back. In retrospect, I should have just broken up with him immediately. Um, yeah. Instead, I tried to just get out of our plans. But when he protested, my Catholic guilt took over and I agreed to an early dinner. And here's where it all goes so terribly wrong.

Warning sign #1: He picks me up and informs me we are having dinner nowhere near my house. I said that I had to be at work early the next morning, and yet we are leaving the city (which apparently had no restaurants) to go to Manayunk (no offense Zo, just not what I had in mind).

Have you ever watched those couples at a restaurant where one person is talking incessantly and the other person is staring at you, telepathically wishing you would save them from their evening?

And then, he asks: “do you mind if we stop and drop off something before I take you home?”

Me: hell yes “um, again, have to get up early. Is it close?” (see catholic guilt)

Him: “30 minutes and I’ll have you home.”

Warning sign #2: for anyone in Philadelphia, we get on Roosevelt Blvd toward NE Philadelphia. I am in a car and now fully aware that there is nothing quick about this errand.

Warning sign #3: we eventually end up pulling into a Best Western parking lot. Huh, what? Worse, I see a sign announcing an open mic comedy night.

Me: “What the fuck are we doing?”

Him: “I have to give a check to someone and then we are out.”

Warning sign #4: we walk into a room of 50 guys and one other female. He hands over the check, I start walking out.

Him: “I have to run to the bathroom.”

Me: for some reason, I don’t ask for the car keys. No, I stay in the geek cave.

And for the moment you have been waiting for. While he’s in the bathroom, the MC yells from the stage, “hey red! What’s your name?”

Me: are you fucking kidding me? “wendyrella”

At this moment he returns, with a fucking beer! Not zero, not two, but one.

Me: “one beer???!!!!???”

Him: “you said you had to be at work early”

Me: I knew there was a reason I didn’t sleep with you!” clearly takes beer from his hand and drinks it.

Moment no one, most especially me, saw coming.

From the stage: “hey wendyrella, this next comic is going to make you get all soupy in your pants!”

OMG!

Him: “how does he know your name?”

Me: “because I fucked him while you were getting a beer. Can we fucking go?”

Longest. Car ride. Ever.

We pull up to my house, he tries to find parking.
Me: “What are you doing?”

Him: “looking for a spot.”

Me: “Yeah, you really think you are ever sleeping in my bed again?”

I walk in the house, tell Kwame the whole story, grab a beer.

Kwame: “and that’s the last we’ll be seeing of him!”

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

This post is useless without pics

Things I have done at East Coast Scavenger Hunts:

Had my picture taken by a stripper while I was wearing a thong, on the street, in broad daylight – not drunk

Asked the Astor Place tattoo parlor boys where I could get a cheap dildo while dressed in a plaid shirt, leggings and a “mullet” wig, after asking how much a mullet tattoo would cost – not drunk

Told a security guard I was a beauty pageant contestant while cutting through the Atlantic City Convention Center wearing a gold lame pant suit and a tiara – not drunk.

Left someone behind at the hotel the day after scavenger hunt, several hours away from the city, forcing him to go on his own “scavenger hunt” to get home– not drunk.

Held a beerbong to the lips of a dead deer while wearing a dickie – super drunk, but not my idea.

Four more days until East Coast Scavenger IX

Monday, April 10, 2006

Sunshowers

It was a beautiful Saturday in September. The kind with blue skies that beg you to follow them. Only I didn’t want sun, I wanted to hide. So he shuttered all the windows and turned on the shower. And we retreated half dressed, under covers, listening to the sound of rain on porcelain.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Position needs filling

I wrote these words to someone about six months ago.

"I'm losing the feeling of us, of you, of what that felt like. And so instead of intense pain, I feel a phantom pain from a lost limb. And I don't know which is worse. Because it bothers me that we can move to this place. This out of love place. Because this is where we truly let go, b/c I am letting go. And we won't know each other the way we used to. I can't decide which I would rather have. This new place is less painful, but it leaves me feeling cold. I know I'm not doing an adequate job explaining the philosophical tidbits of this. Because this isn't just about you and I, it's the larger picture. We forget people, we move on, we replace. It's what we do. We only look for people to fill the archetypal roles of "significant other".

And then I did it, I moved on. I replaced him with someone else, someone different, but someone who essentially fell into the pattern of relationship. Phone calls, text messages, emails were transferred from one to the other. And now that person is gone. And it occurs to me that I miss him more than I thought I would. But I think it's just because I am sick of this cycle. This is why I have been dubbed a "terrible breaker upper". It isn't because I can't let go, it's knowing that I can which devastates me.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Karma's a Bitch

Actual reasons I have broken up with someone:
- he changed the gears on my bike to a much easier setting when he borrowed it.
- he tried to do the "girlfriend grip" (hand on the back of the neck while walking, as if to guide the girl) on me.

Actual way I have broken up with someone:
- from a payphone outside of a mall because I wanted to hang out with Dorothy more than I wanted to go on this date. The conversation did indeed include the phrases, "it's not you, it's me" and "seriously, I'm insane". Insult to injury is that Dot & I then went to our favorite bar and he was there. We didn't speak.

Current dating status:
- single

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

That Disneyworld Feeling

I don’t like to look in mirrors. Because I’m never too sure what message my brain will be sending me, it’s just safer to judge my appearance by shadows and get on with my day. And I almost never look in a mirror when I am out in public, because really, there’s nothing I can do about how I look at that point, so why ruin the mood? Which is what makes my decision to stand in front of a full length mirror in a public bathroom in Disneyworld an anomaly. Just to set the scene, I am unbelievably hung over, unshowered, rained upon and wearing some odd combination of clothes because it was colder than anticipated. To my right is my roommate, also hung over, unshowered and wearing recently purchased Mickey Mouse sweatpants under her skirt because of said cold. And if I’m not mistaken, she’s wearing socks with sandals. And this was before moving to the West Coast. So there we stand, looking in the mirror, watching the people around us. The people who came to Disneyworld on purpose.* And as I take in their very tourist essence, I turn and say, “We look fucking awesome!” And I meant it. Because underneath all the alcohol sweat and mouseketeer wear, we were still the coolest people in the Park. So, whenever you are feeling Schlitz cute, I recommend heading to someplace that allows you to have that Disneyworld feeling. I’ll be at Walmart after work if anyone needs anything.

*My brother lived in Orlando for way too long and so, I inevitably ended up with many free passes to the Park. And seriously, not a lot to do in Orlando. Plus MGM is cool.

Heather, bulimia is so 87

It made sense to start with Smith. It enabled me to get two salient points about myself out of the way. One, I used to have a habit of swallowing bottles of pills and two, I am capable of love. The entries aren’t particularly well written, probably because I am so out of practice. And also, I don’t really know how to explain my relationship with Smith in an easy to follow fashion. I’m not even sure I understand it now. As for the pills part, those stories will come. And don’t worry, it won’t all be heady and sad. I can be pretty funny when describing my suicides. I mean, having an argument with myself after swallowing a bottle of tricyclics and wanting to leave a note which said simply Eskimo, is pretty ridiculous. If only because it was so 87. And there’s more. But that will be another day.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Schlitz cute

Once at a party where you turned in drink tickets for random beers, the following conversation took place.

Dot: How come you got a budweiser and I got a Schlitz?

Lisa: Because I'm cute!

Dot to boy handing out beers: You think I'm only Schlitz cute???

Today is one of those days where I am feeling only Schlitz cute. A few hundred lakes short of beautiful. The sort of day that if I had to go shopping, I'd only be able to go to Walmart. It sucks to be a girl sometimes.