Archive for September, 2007

Dos

September 30, 2007 | Filed under: Humdrum, Whoopdie Doo

To my all time favorite blond,

You turn two today. I could go on and on about how much you’ve grown and that you are adamant about saying no or that you have a Pavlovian reaction to give me a kiss every time you see me sitting there or that you still let me hold you like a baby and that I can honestly say that you’re one of the most well behaved people I have ever met in life. I could go on and on about how incredibly awesome you are and how much I adore you. But I won’t. Instead I’ll keep it simple and say that I miss you and you’re awesome and that kissing thing will never get old.

Have a wonderful birthday, my dear.

Love,
Heather

Judgment

September 26, 2007 | Filed under: Comes And Goes, This side of the Hudson

“There are no facts, only interpretations.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

I’m from a ridiculously small town. And I’m not saying this as a pretentious Washingtonian with a crackberry stuck up my ass, while I recite the names of all the members of Congress that have breathed within seven inches of me. I’m saying this as a person who lived in a town complete with cow tipping, horse farms and bigots (oh my!).

I sound judgmental and full of disdain but this is a natural reaction to being forced to sit for two hours in town court along with a 19 year old in handcuffs because he threatened two 15 year olds with an aluminum baseball bat. Threatening high school freshman, trespassing at the local middle school and stealing from the mall are all the really exciting things to do. Nothing says fun like stealing a cheap paisley print, polyester shirt from JCPenney only to match it with a pair of sparkly pinstriped black pants from the ten-dollar rack at Express. Add a dash of country apple body spray from Bath and Body Works and acrylic nails and you’ve got about 20% of the girls I went to high school with.

I was incredibly pissy for the duration of Monday. Though it really had nothing to do with who I was seated with and the type of crimes – a word I’m using rather loosely because ‘parking on the pavement’ isn’t a crime, it’s called being resourceful when finding a parking spot – that were committed, but because I was there for a ‘lane violation’. I’d tell you what a ‘lane violation’ is but I’m not sure of the specifics except that if some asshole speeds up when you’re changing lanes and slams into your bumper it’s totally your fault since the motherfucker totally came out of nowhere.

I started thinking about how incredibly disgruntle I was on Monday afternoon, Monday evening and Tuesday morning after I had given away $100 to the town of East Bumblefuck, New York for a violation that wasn’t even my fault. I had been stewing about it and then getting angrier even when I was told to cheer up and that I should have worn something with more cleavage, because I hate wasting my time and I hate being from a place where there is really nothing better to do than have residents come to court for a speeding ticket and/or steal from TJMaxx. More shockingly I really hate that I was this judgmental and that in the past six years there has been more than one occasion during which I proclaimed myself ‘too good for this place’. Not completely out of disdain but because I feel the need to be separated from the things that drove me insane for most of my life. Separated from the boredom and the bigotry and the fact that I once thought that nothing was better than JCPenney.

I’m going through some weird phase right now and that has taken over in the insanity department hence the introspection, judgment and lack of Holy fuck, I got DRUNK last night, talk.

This weekend I’ll get drunk and then maybe I’ll be willing to discuss that other time that I went to court. That time that I came to find out that they’re totally serious about the whole “No drinking and/or purchasing of alcohol until you’re 21 years of age” law. Yeah, that’s a good story.

Like hell

September 23, 2007 | Filed under: Mmhmm That's Right, Sucks like a vacuum

“One’s friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.” ~George Santayana

When I first moved, I put the word ‘moved’ in air quotes because I still had an apartment and my bills and a constantly sober roommate who looked at me with disdain every other night. My bed and furniture was still there and the metropolitan police department still remembered my license plate number and the exact location of my vehicle, thus the seven parking tickets received between May and July. So really, I hadn’t moved.

I went back for a weekend whenever I felt moved to do so, which meant a rather consistent relationship with friends even though I was technically living 400 miles away. When my lease finally ended and I packed up the last of my crap including several incomplete sets of sheets and items of clothing that haven’t fit since 2001, I still remained confident that I’d keep up with my friends due to the advancements in technology including this thing called email and something else called a cell phone.

I hate being one to divide my friends into categories as it seems so very third grade, one is my first best friend the other is my second best friend, type bull shit. Yet there are distinct differences between those who knew you from through your awkward, fat, sweater vest, clarinet playing days and those who knew you during your awkward, fat, lush, JCrew days. And these are two completely different groups of people who probably wouldn’t think they were discussing the same person when retelling their favorite stories about me.

The above isn’t to say that I’ve changed by leaps and bounds and that six years of not living in a ridiculously small town has turned me into a new, grown up woman. It means that there is a profound difference between the 17 year old me – the me that never left the house and spent hours in her room alone reading and writing in a full on pity party for one full of loathsome teenage angst – and the 23 year old me – the me that enjoys being out for drinks or a good foodie dinner out and likes Sephora and can’t resist a sale at Banana Republic.

The 17 year old lived at home and though she wasn’t ok with being ridiculously unpopular she just went with it. The 23 year old has lived in an amazing city for six years and has friends that she adores and - oh my God this is going to sound so trite – has friends that have literally been the one thing that has held her together. The latter group knows what my ugly crying face looks like and that I don’t do the dishes until the last cup is dirty and how I feel about sex and what size bra I wear and that I’m not allowed in Nordstrom alone and my favorite vodka and are proud of me when I do something great and cry with me when everything hurts. They know the little things that I was keeping to myself for my entire adolescence while sitting in my bedroom alone.

Where I was going with this, is not where I ended up. I wanted to say that I feel like I’ve been an adequate friend and that despite my best efforts to see everyone, every time I’m in DC, I can’t because I’m one person with very few nights. Where I have ended up is realizing that my best friends in the world are in DC and I can’t ever shake this awful feeling I’ve had since I decided to move back here. I keep saying that it’s for the best and this was a good decision, excellent opportunity and it was and is. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to be sitting with LB or Kimber or JB or Pammy or Kris with a bottle of wine at some bar in Georgetown or Capitol Hill. The settling in here and being OK with my life hasn’t stopped me from missing my best friends in the world like hell.

Protocol

September 19, 2007 | Filed under: Great moments in narcissism, The Great Moving Caper

“When we ask advice we are usually looking for an accomplice.”  ~Charles Varlet de La Grange

A few weeks before moving, I found out that people in Upstate NY had been read my blog, noted that I had occasionally enjoyed a fermented beverage and then told my mother. Causing memories of the fifth grade to come flooding back to me because telling on someone is about as grade school as it gets. Telling on someone to their mother when you are over 30 means you deserve a sharp jab to the ribs and possibly some animal crackers and a juice box. Cry baby. Though I suppose that their lives were so incredibly vapid and coma inducing that they decided to share in my life. Which for the record, is about as interesting as watching someone pick their nose.

The other night The Roommate and I were discussing sharing and how we know very little about each other. In fact I didn’t even know what she did for a living until two days ago. So we shared the superficial stuff like middle names and how when I see a bottle of wine just sitting there with wine still in it, I feel compelled to drink it. She agreed, because then we split two bottles of wine. The quandary that has presented itself is whether or not to divulge that I get great pleasure out of writing about my life on the internet. While there is possibility that she’s already aware and is waiting for me to just tell her there is also the tiny bit of me that is protective.

It’s not like this is a secret or something as I do recall the glorious year of having my full name as my URL because I thought, “who the hell would use Google?” But part of me has some odd privacy issue wherein it is perfectly acceptable to tell tales of drunken debauchery and general lack of intellect with a heap of ignorance and stupidity to several hundred people. And though I’m sure it is perfectly fine to tell The Roommate the same, there’s something about her reading about it on the internet that makes me want to remove every instance of the ‘C’ word and all of those times I mentioned vomit.

It’s some sort of odd boundary issue. The kind that plagues me when I meet someone new. How much is too much to know? It’s like any other relationship; you want to share as much as possible but there will come a point when that person will annoy to the point of making your brain come out of your ears and you’ll want so badly to write about wanting to kick that person in the crotch. But you can’t, because they read your fucking blog. And then you’re left with internalized feelings of detest and dreaming of tap dancing on that person’s head because Really? Your mother taught you to put the toilet paper on the roll like that?

Settling in

September 16, 2007 | Filed under: The Great Moving Caper, This side of the Hudson

“I like corny, I’m looking for corny in my life” – Kate Winslet

I moved again this weekend. Which is really nothing out of the ordinary at this point given how fluid things have been as of late. But I moved and it was by far one of the easiest moves I’ve had in ages. Any other move – granted, I’m counting moves between dorm rooms for two and a half years – has involved a soul sucking process of packing and wondering how seven pairs of socks up and disappeared and realizing that I own seven ugly shirts, none of which fit. Each move more soul sucking than the previous time, which is probably why I’m a soulless, callous, bitch; because I keep fucking moving.

And each time, I think of how wonderful and charming my neighborhood is and how much I adore it and want to snuggle up to it and never leave. Then comes the regret of moving to said neighborhood because the people suck and the meter people have sticks shoved so far up their asses that they can’t see straight. This is why I now get hives and queasy every time I step foot on Capitol Hill.

This time it’s different as I really do like my neighborhood and want to curl up next to it and never leave. It’s not a place where I would find it unfathomable to purchase real estate in. It’s cute and charming and I want to snuggle most every part of it, save for the homeless man next to the organic food place who keeps calling me baby while snapping at me. Everything else gets a hug but he gets a swift kick to his ‘happy place’.

Besides neighborhood love, I’ve had another great epiphany: Despite the fact that it will be a balmy 36 degrees this evening and that I’m desperate for my sweaters and that eventually it will snow for 15 days straight, and around every corner is a person from high school; it’s really not that bad. There’s something enjoyable about small city life and that I can just run to a parent’s house when in dire straights. And I really haven’t given everything here including my friends…Oh yes, I do have friends here. I just never see and/or speak to them because I’m hell bent on going to DC as frequently as possible to see my other friends. Anyway, I haven’t given them or the area or – hell – my job a fair chance because I’m too busy wanting something else instead of accepting what I have and just dealing with it. That said, it is September, always the start of something new and possibly adventurous. I’m going to make every attempt to stop complaining about having to be here. No one forced me here. I came on my own volition and can leave whenever I damn well please but I’m staying. So, no more complaining. I won’t even complain in January when my toes are frost bitten and I’m scraping seven layers of ice off my car and my nipples are permanently hardened. Not even then.