Noah's Ark, only drunker and with keg stands

I attended my second Christmas party of the season Friday night. I ventured away from the city and tested the suburb party waters. The longer I spend in the city, the more I feel like I belong. I prefer skyscrapers to strip malls, Zagat rated to extra value meals, and the ease and security in knowing I live at most six miles from anything-- the Capitol, work, art museums and zoos-- it's all five minutes away. I don't even mind paying for parking anymore. E has to entice me to leave the city: free booze and a DD just happened to be the magic answer that night.

At the party we hug and kiss hello everyone we know, which happened to be a short list as we were friends of friends. I make friends easily so I wasn't daunted that we didn't know most of the people there. I was actually excited about the idea.

Until we met everyone.

"Hi, I'm Carol and this is Bob."

"Hi, I'm Richard and this is Denise."

"Hi, I'm Andy and this is Beth."

Um, when exactly did people come in pairs? When exactly did I become one of three single people in a house full of marrieds!? E and I and a girl from Alabama. All standing by the trash. Right where we belonged.

I'm too young to be the only single person in a room. Or am I? When we walked in the door, a girl-- who had the remarkable talent of actually trashing out a Banana Republic dress by adding porn heels and black lace-- squealed at me and and cooed, "This is my house!" She was younger than me and clearly playing house. I should be so lucky to ever own a house like that, much less a starter home with my new husband where I was the Bridezilla of the Year as rumored by dirty whispers anytime she left the room.

I thought I had a few more years before this started happening. I wasn't ready for it. Not just yet.

Could I get that on a t-shirt somewhere?

I have just added the following to my online profile:

Musicians need not apply-- please keep your shitty band to yourself.

This will accomplish a few things:

• Keeping those shitty musicians away from me. Writing their rent checks isn't sexy, no matter how many song dedications you get.
• Those that read this and think I'm bitchy will also not contact me. If they don't find this funny, they will not understand me nor my sense of humor at all. Call it a preemptive strike.
• Those that did read this and laugh are people that I actually want to talk to.

I like using my online profile as a social experiment. It's fun when the mood strikes me and I change my profile to read something small and weird about me and see if it's accepted or not.

Plus it helps that my service is free, so I'm not wasting money on my eccentricities.

God bless you!

When I first bought The Big Lebowski DVD in 2001, I ran to my then-boyfriend's DVD player, popped it in, and watched the scene where The Dude drops his joint in his lap, squeals like a girl, pours beer in his lap to extinguish the J, and consequently crashes his car into a garbage can. I replayed that scene for at least twenty minutes while rolling on the floor laughing. My boyfriend just laughed at me in amusement.

I had the same reaction to this video. Thanks Two Drink Girl.



Yup, it's still funny.

Awakening

She woke up from her nap cradled between the arms of her brown leather reading chair. She hadn't meant to fall asleep-- she was worried it would mess up her hair which had already been perfectly curled-- but the pacific combination of the afternoon sun and the French film on TV quarreled with her.

She yawned and swung her legs off the arm of the chair and padded her way to the coat closet where her party dress hung on the doorknob. The sun which had previously lulled her to sleep had already put itself to bed. Nothing about the day was warm anymore as she shivered and dropped her jeans in the hallway and stepped out of them. Living alone afforded her such luxuries. She bent forward and tugged her hoodie off, spending a moment to examine her toenails and deciding they needed one more coat if time alloted.

In front of her coat closet, she tied the long black ribbon-- the only thing that held up her party dress-- at the nape of her neck. She raised a hand to her head and mussed up a few curls as she walked to her closet and awoke her party stilletos from their box.

Crossing back into the living room to the guilty culprit, her brown leather armchair, she paused as she caught herself in the mirror's reflection. Out of the corner of her eye, she didn't recognize herself. Now facing the mirror, she still had difficulty with the image before her. The image was beautiful.

She wasn't used to beautiful. She was used to "cute." She was used to "average, but with a great personality." But the image in the mirror wouldn't allow for such words. The hair was perfect, the dress was perfect, the complexion, thankfully, was perfect. For the first time in her life, she thought of herself as beautiful.

"Right now, in this moment, this is the best I have ever looked in my life," she said to herself.

At the party, everyone confirmed her suspicions. Her very gay boss grabbed her, pronounced her belle of the ball, and twirled her-- a favorite activity she usually reserved for behind closed blinds. Men looked her her differently, as if they were hungry. That is what desire must look like, she thought. Desire looks like hunger.

Armed with confidence and heady from spirits, she left and made her way to where old money lives and new money parties. Inside her favorite bar, she was flanked with winks and drink offers. She accepted the winks and turned down the drinks. Never in her life had she been approached by so many attractive men during such a short time span. One man in particular was kind and introduced her around to his circle of friends.

It was the exact moment her confidence waned. The other girls took her hand and smiled, but she didn't match their appearance. She wasn't tan, her hair wasn't platinum, and her skirt covered the entirety of her ass in addition to most of her thighs. But she suspected one wouldn't use the word thighs around the other girls, they solely had legs.

She excused herself from the group. He reached out and extended his hand to her and she took it and squeezed it until the space between them refilled with new people as she made her way through the crowds to the restroom. Instead of using the bathroom, she shook the last few ices cubes in her highball glass and drank the rest of the fiery liquid while staring at herself in the wall-length mirror. She shook the cubes again and set the glass down on the marble counter.

"You're ugly," she spoke harshly.

And she was awake.

Party at My Place

So, one of my neighbors is currently toking.

Scratch that. One of my neighbors is currently blazing the chronic.

I stepped outside for my dog's evening walk and almost fell over. It smells like someone has been smoking for a week and just now decided to open a window. It smells like I am currently in that room where they have been smoking for a week.

Passing the other dog walkers, we all wave our mittens in front of our faces and declare, "Phew!" The dogs, however, seem happier. Mine is on my balcony with her cookie, smelling the cold night air and is... becoming paranoid.

Maybe I should invite my parents over.

Where the hell are all the normal people?

I just received this IM from Married Work Guy:


Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Losing My Words

"I'm not a scumbag."

I took a sip and looked at him. I didn't really know what to say to that. I met him in a bar. There was a guy passed out on the other side of the table we were sitting at. Chances are he's a scumbag. Instead of responding, I remained silent.

"When I first came up to you, you narrowed your eyes, took a long drink, and asked me evenly, 'So what are you, the wingman?'"

I nodded.

"I told you I'm nobody's wingman. I do what I want to do."

I nodded again. The line made me laugh-- he won points for that.

"I went to the bathroom and you started talking to another group. I came back and asked you why. You said you didn't think I was coming back."

I didn't remember this, but I was on gin and tonic number six. It sounded exactly like something I would say, so I chose to believe him.

"When I kissed you, you pushed me away. You liked that I kissed you though."

I didn't think I pushed him away. Did I? Was it subconscious?

"I have been nothing but decent to you, and you are acting like I'm a scumbag. I just want your number. An e-mail address. No pressure."

Before I could respond, E charged up, "Is he being a douche?" She looked at him accusingly, "Are you being a douche?"

"No," I cut in. "He's been nothing but decent." I used his words; I still didn't have any of my own. Pacified, E returned to her own man of the night.

"I'm not a scumbag," he repeated.

Anxiety rose up in me, overtaking my entire body. I couldn't even give him my e-mail address.

***

Sunday morning I was sitting in the dining room of my mother's house. My mother was sitting Indian-style on the carpet, crying in front of an open window. My step-father had lied to her again. This was nothing new: I found my childhood diary a month before and apparently I've been writing since I was nine years old that my mother wanted to leave my step-father.

"I'm a prisoner in my own house," she cried.

My mother has always had a flair for drama.

"I paid for this house. If I leave him, then he'll get half. Half of my house. I love my house. It's the prettiest prison I could have."

Again. Flair.

"Maybe I'll just use reverse psychology on him. I'll feed him fatty foods and buy him cigarettes. That way he'll get cancer and die."

While I almost fell out of my chair for what my mother just admitted to me, she seemed to like the idea, "My friends' husbands lost the battle to cancer in about three months. That's not very long."

I debated saying she would feel really terrible if he did actually get cancer and die. That watching someone suffer is never fun. But I was curious to see how far she would take things.

"I think he has sleep apnea. Do you know what that is? He isn't getting enough oxygen when he sleeps. He could stop breathing and die from that. That would be quick."

No wonder. No wonder I end things over mouth-breathing and lava lamps and bad kissing. No wonder I spend more time testing men than I do trusting them. No wonder the idea of getting hurt by them gives me anxiety attacks. No wonder I am such a mess.

No effing wonder.