Day 93
So, I will not say that I am completely sober but I am much closer to it than I was yesterday. I will recount as much as I can remember of yesterday after I sum up today. Well, what I remember of today. It must be true that alcohol kills brain cells or is it too much Midol?
Today:
I went to the deli to get a sandwich. On the way there I ran into my bodyguard who still had a temporary tattoo of a tiger on his forehead and his eyes were all puffy. I pointed out and ridiculed both. He wasn't very amused. What is more troubling is that he didn't care that he had a tiger on his forehead. I wonder what the people at the cookie shop thought of it and if they said anything.
So, I get to the deli and there are like four different lines. I ask the guy at the end of one of the lines if it is the sandwich line. He said, "You want a sammy?" What the fuck? Do people who are over 6 years of age say "sammy"? Jesus, if he wasn't so cute I would've teased him severe. I stood behind him smiling while looking at his ass. I smiled for two reasons:
1. I was not anywhere near as hung over as my bodyguard. And, I looked like Jennifer Aniston back in the day with my hair and hat combo (well, a slightly curvier version of her).
2. There was dill pickle potato chips. Seriously, nothing is more delightful than a bag of Old Dutch potato chips with fake dill on them, even if the bag has French on it. Someday, I will figure out why I hate French...well, maybe not. It's nice to have an outlet for blind rage that isn't skinny pretty people.
You know you're cheap when: you walk two blocks and up 3 flights of stairs to get a glass of water rather than pay for a bottle.
After I bought my sandwich I went outside to eat it and people watch for a bit. A friend of mine came by who was also part of last night's drunken fairy-athon. She looked nice in a business-y type outfit. Turns out she had been working since 8:30 that morning. That meant that she only got like 2 hours of sleep. I felt less victorious when I thought of how awesome she is at putting on a tough face after a hard night of drinking. Did I mention she hauled by booze-filled backpack for me the night before AND got home at like 4:30 am? She is super woman. One day I will be that capable. Nah, too much hard work.
After our chat I packed up the rest of my lunch and moved to the library building where I was the girl in the silent study area crinkling up paper and opening chip bags. This would've been hilarious except the person who was most annoyed was myself. What rude behavior for a library, seriously, it's not a fast food joint. I am a disgrace.
When I arrived home I had a chat with my father who was sitting in a restaurant eating banana pie so therefore using a scary low voice. I realized today that he is forever saying, "Remember the time..." and these stories always go on quite awhile with me saying, "yup" several times and involve some sort of mild tragedy which is not uncommon subject matter but the fact that he always brings up the weather conditions at the time of the incidents is a little unnerving. Maybe he's right, life is just a series of nasty events with uncontrollable weather. But, I also learned from this conversation that he is planning on letting me use his car while I am back home visiting but he will take it away if I don't help him clean the pantry. Lesson: Just because you get older doesn't mean you'll ever make it to a grown up.
Tonight I worked a double shift. First I was a floor person in the bar (translation: pretend that you are useful for four hours). I basically fiddled with broken Christmas lights and knives and washed a few glasses. Then I was moved to work in a private party which was made up of 97 percent young Asians, mostly girls in skimpy, yet trendy dresses that were way too short and none of them were fat. This meeting was allegedly for some kind of charity where you get a kid for 30 bucks a month but they don't live with you and you don't get to name them or see them ever.
Working was all fine and good until the moment I realized that the young bartender was not doing any work. I realized this after my 26th trip to bring supplies to and fro. As I was just about to make my last trip I checked in with him and his shitty faux hawk. "Just making one last trip anything else?" He said, "Did you clean the dishwasher area?" He said wringing out a rag. I hadn't seen him do so much as wipe the counter. I left the room and I hope he heard all the "goddamn asshole fuck's" that came out of my mouth. It scared the shit out of the Asian girls, or was it the fact that I was triple their size and shoving a cart around and punching the wall?
Yesterday:
Here is the short version of yesterday:
I went to high school. A friend of mine works with this program at an inner city school where kids come (voluntarily) to hang out and write. The fun started from the very beginning when we were given criminal background check forms and were made to sign in and wear stickers that said, "Visitor." After meeting the goofy teacher guy we stopped by the library where a fat kid with curly hair was sitting his friend came racing in (trenchcoated and ponytailed) hollering, "The one day that I finish my Spanish homework..."
We were led to the teacher's lounge where the students met up. My friend introduced me and I took a seat that made farty type sounds when I fidgeted (I am a fidgeter) and I wondered if the students could hear it. A rag tag group of about 12 assembled. Everyone had silly names like, Rain, Terrace, and Wolfgang. What the hell were people thinking 15 years ago when they named their kids? The first item up was to read a page from an Alice Munro story. The girl with an excellent name (Emily) started to read from the page in a shy voice. She stumbled over the longer, foreign-looking words and stopped after the first paragraph and said point blank that she was done. I don't blame her there were some tough words in that. She asked the girl next to her, "What is a sorority?"
The class continued with us free writing and sharing and the teacher man ordering pizza loudly on the phone in the same room. The pizza arrived and we took a break and met back up, less successfully than the first time. Though, all of the students who braved reading their work were far more brilliant writers than the grad students I read work from. I didn't tell them this, but I should've. After a short while longer we were finished. The teacher man lined up who he was giving rides home to the kids (apparently little girls in Canada can ride home with male teachers). There was one little buck-toothed possibly Korean (I am horrid at Asian regional identification) girl who was on the phone with her mother. She handed the phone off to the teacher man who played the nice guy while this girl's mother told him that she had not known where her daughter was and that she had called the police. My friend told me later that going straight to the police was common for Asian immigrant parents. Wow, when I was a kid the cops called my parents not the other way around.
To celebrate my friend's birthday and American (the only) Thanksgiving and to ditch out on formal dinner at the rez (that shit is ridiculous, I dressed up for high school prom and my cousin's wedding that's all I think I should have to look good for) I decided to go to a party called, "Dance of the Centaurs." This party was to be held at this giant house owned by a creepy white-haired old hippie who is in constant threat of being shut down for too many derelicts.
Before the party a few of us girls (and one guy) met up at a friend's apartment to get our fairy-ness ready. The friend's apartment is quite nice except everywhere you look there are small mountains of belongings in garbage and plastic bags because she had (has?) bed bugs. But, we all took a gamble. There was much glitter and lipstick. There was green eyeshadow on the boy and jewels glued to our heads. There were dresses assembled with a tablecloth and a stapler. All to the soundtrack of Bette Midler. Who knew that being a girly freak would be so much fun? I wonder if I am losing my edge. Who cares I got to wear a twirly skirt! Alright, Old Yeller me already.
After we all got on a crowded bus looking like freaks and I made a grandmother move to a different seat because I said, "Fuck' eight too many times we made it to the party. Here are a few snippets of what I remember:
-From the bus stop to the house we ran into a friend of ours standing on a street corner reading a bible.
-The old guy who runs the house looked over at me with sex in his eyes and said in a deep voice, "You want to do the house the greatest favor you could do it?" I said, "What is the favor?" "Get people to sign the petition." (to keep the house from government-mandated disbandment).
-The guy who I heard is into crystals (not meth, more like real goofy rocks) had a sit down with me and I asked him about this crystal shit. He told me a long boring story that I can't remember and whipped out a hunk of quartz from a velvet pouch. He put it in my hand. I said, "Alright, give me luck and courage." He put his hand over mine and closed his eyes this went on for a bit. I wonder if it worked.
-The following was at the party: stickers with horses on them, a German named Max who works on a mountain, a girl wearing a ridiculous tea cozy as a helmet, nobody with a visible tail, an orange cat that attacked people who tried to pet it, a pot of homemade sangria, a friend wearing a unicorn horn fashioned out of a short story, a huge spread of what is called "raw foods", people sitting on the floor passing around hand drums, people hula hooping, a glowing vibrator, folks drinking out of jars, people doing Kung Fu in a kitchen, and other things.
-For a time I was quite taken with a guy who brewed the beer for the party and was wearing a tye-dyed jumpsuit of sorts. Okay, it looked like a haphazard diaper with tendrils. All was well until another girl, also named Emily, showed up and made it quite clear that she could and may kick my ass for speaking to him. Moments like this make me wish that I had known right and left enough to get into Tae Kwon Do when I was a kid. It was quite embarrassing when your younger brother can tell right from left and you can't. (still can't)
-My friend Bill and I made a bet that one of us would make out with a stranger before the other one. We each bet on ourselves. I won the bet but while kissing my stranger outside along the stone path he said, "Can I ask you something?" "Do I have to answer?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Maybe." And he said, "How big is too big?" And, started pulling my hand toward his junk. My bodyguard came by at that moment. His interruption may have saved the guys' testicles. What a scum bag. I often brag about how many people I have kissed but if I really think about it almost 86 percent of these cases wind up with losers like these. I should've spit in his eye.
-My bodyguard and I had two options: 1. Stay on our friend's couch. or 2. Take a cab home. I pleaded to stay with our friend. My bodyguard said he wanted to brush his teeth. So, we took a cab and on the way home he whined about it. I pointed out that it was his idea to take a cab and he blamed it on me. I was pissed until we were walking home and he started talking in a Scottish accent making a running commentary of the walk and the stars. It was creepy and wonderful until he called me a "lad."
Well, that's all I can remember.
-Canadian Castaway
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