#36 dream a little dream.
“If you want to be a rapper, we cannot continue dating”
I said that to the mechanic, the beauty school boy, and I’m sure–according to the caliber of boys I’m interested in–it certainly won’t be the last time I say that.
What I’ve found early on is that if I have to roll my eyes, secretly wish myself out of where I am, or laugh when the boy I’m dating tells me what his aspirations are–I probably should save myself the embarrassment of night farting (reference to “follow your f(h)art”) and someone accidentally publicly shitting (“beauty school droppings”, “if you give a boy a bathroom”) and just… fucking… leave.
Along with the mechanic’s dream of becoming a rapper, he wanted to be a millionaire. “I just know if I keep, like, doin’ what I do–I’ll make it.” At this time, he was recently laid off from his laid-back Midas job because the owner’s of the store weren’t paying the rent (surprise) and with his track record littered with felonies, it didn’t help that he wasn’t really qualified for anything (surprise #2).
Pause. Ok. I know what you’re thinking.
“Chelsea, WTF are you doing with this tool?”
It’s not super complicated. I am an asshole when it comes to anything involving moving vehicles, my brakes were done for, and he dropped my $500 charge down to $200. I still needed four new tires, another set of brake pads… I think you see where I’m going with this.
The mechanic wanted to go back to school, study architecture and “make buildings and shit”. Not sure if he was literate, I told him how much math and, well, reading was involved in studying… anything, especially architecture… “And that’s where YOU can help me…”
Once upon a time, when I fell in love with a boy who was in love with himself…
One day out of the many shitty days we spent together, we adventured to a Guitar Center. He said for one, I should be so lucky because he was using the last of his gas to take me (queue loud sigh)–to a place I really had no desire to go to. After he had found out that I knew how to play the guitar, a long time ago and not very well, he was on the prowl to get a guitar into my hands.
Don’t be fooled to believe that he was actually interested in anything involving me… the only reason we were going to this Guitar Center is because of his entrancing trip to a Christian church earlier that week.
To feed his ‘holier-than-thou’ facade, he would make his way to church at least once a month and to all major Catholic holidays. One night on invitation, he went to this flashy Christian church in the valley where he subsequently fell in love.
“THE MUSIC–WAS AWESOME! There was, like, this guy…jumping up and down! I’m a Christian now.”
Not only did this church have over-produced musicians making loud praise music, they were also offering a position to any tom-dick-and-harry who could play an instrument–Hey do YOU play an instrument?? You have the chance to play with the church’s band for one whole weekend! and of course, the chance to show off in front of 500 impressionable patrons was a boner in itself for him.
“I’m going to get a guitar and just, like, work on one song till I get good. Then I’m going to do this talent show.”
“Can you even play guitar?”
“UH, YEAH, CHELSEA.”
So now I was at a Guitar Center, sitting on the bench, fender stratocaster in my hand, “I really don’t want to do this.”
“Just play.”
I sat there for about twenty minutes muting my strings playing some old Green Day songs. A cute worker came over and asked me questions until the beauty school boy interceded and flexed the worker away. He then berated me with his piercing eyes. I sighed and went back to my unsuccessful attempts to look cool.
“Are you going to play? I really don’t want to do this.”
“No.”
“Can you play?”
“YES, CHELSEA. I USED TO HAVE A STUDIO.”
“That doesn’t mean you can play.”
“YES, I HAD A GUITAR AND A DRUM SET AND WE WERE RECORDING….(this is where I tune out)…..AND I BOUGHT A MICROPHONE WITH (a list of characteristics that may or may not be important for the operation of a successful microphone)…AND RAPPING IS…”
“Wait. You don’t… rap, do you?” (Santa Claus belly laugh)
Pause.
“Well… I can.”
(Obligatory eye-roll)
“No…”
“What? I can and it’s something I plan on pursuing later in life.”
(Is about the time I wish I wasn’t here…)
“I hope you know that if you want to be a rapper, we cannot continue to date.”
Momentary silence.
“Why not?”
if you give a boy a bathroom.
i have never had anything happen to me like this…ever.
In fact, the only time I had ever heard of this happening was in a Dane Cook stand-up comedy routine. It was an on-going joke about him leaving an impression on the world and his fear that he would never be able to do that. So to ensure his legacy, he was suggesting committing to very eccentric, very outrageous, absurd life choices. But to give this next boy the benefit of the doubt, I’m sure he wasn’t consciously trying to make his mark in such a manner.
When I was a sophomore in college, we had just moved into these really nice, picture-perfect townhouses which, on the weekends, got ravaged by keggers and beer pong. I was on the prowl, taking boys like victims, middle-finger up, woman in revolt! We were at our neighbors playing an inevitable beer pong game when I start receiving these text messages…
“hey baby, what r u doin”
Rewind to a couple of nights ago, I had just ended it with this boy I was making out with and I was at this random party with a bunch of random acquaintances drinking until I knew people. For whatever reason, I have an unexplainable preference for extremely white, bald men who have tattoos and look / act like they’re black. Enter the scene, this faux fur-jacket wearing, flat-brimmed hat sporting, Fubu-shirting dream machine. I batted my eyes.
We drank, we flirted, we exchanged numbers. I even went out with him the next night to another random party with a bunch of random acquaintances and there we had the chance to finally… make some progress.
He was calling me after school trying to impress me with his knowledge of Greek playwrights (I was a theatre major at the time), simultaneously asking for help in his Oedipus essays and for just a little company during the lonely San Luis Obispo nights. I declined, slightly flattered, but had resolved to never being able to take him seriously because of his untied, over-sized shoes (DCs—and he wasn’t even a skater) and because of the way that other girls looked at me when they found out I was with him (that, however, was a good judgment call because he was, I guess, already in a relationship… with two other girls—a factoid I learned after this transaction). I hadn’t completely written him off as a good time because the moment he texted me during that beer pong game, I responded, “You. Come over.”
It just so happened that he was making his way back from the bars (which were conveniently located around the corner from my house) and he had wanted to see me. He walks in, slumps to the wall, looks at me with his devilish grin and I smile. We play a couple of games of beer pong, going outside for the occasional cigarette and personal time, and to tell you the truth I don’t even remember if we won or not, but that fact has nothing to do with the rest of this story.
In another neighbor’s house, Chelsea finds herself smitten with a tall, kind of stupid looking frat boy who has expressed some interest in her. She leans over to me, “I think Freddie is really cute.”
“Well, what’s stopping you?”’
“I haven’t really gotten that… opportunity… yet “
Done. I’m on it.
While in the courtyard, I invite Chelsea, Freddie, and Gangster Boy to get a tour of our house. “Yeah, guys, come in! They just look like the same house from the outside” (which is a….lie). Chelsea and Freddie head up stairs to “finish the tour” while Gangster Boy turns to me and asks if it’s cool to use my restroom. “Sure, man. Go to town.” I leave him there.
The next forty-five minutes was a cornucopia of chaos.
-Someone flipped their car off the freeway into our parking lot.
-We were all fighting whether we were too stoned/drunk to talk to the cops.
-Smoked more bowls.
-Drank more beer.
-Won a game of beer pong!
-Still no boy.
My friend, Melissa, and I decide to check in on him. The moment we walked into my house, a strong pervasive odor emitted from the open bathroom. He was lying on the couch, shoes off, passed out.
“UGH, it smells like …. Shit.”
“Shut up, Melissa. He drank too much and got sick. God, I hope he’s okay. That’s so embarrassing for him.”
She walks out and I go into motherly mode. I start to baby-talk him, coo over his drunken body, and then offer to take him to the restroom. He mumbles a “yes” and I throw every inch of strength I have to pull this 5’11 muscular boy (because all my ghetto boyfriends will be described as such) into the few feet where my bathroom is. I struggle to get him passed the door—just a few more steps and I toss his heavy body on the sink. Gasping for air in the darkness, my hand desperately scales the wall searching for the light switch. My hand brushes over it and I flip it on. I screamed.
Now, I don’t know if you have ever heard or if you had heard, even remember, Dane Cook’s legacy routine but the moment the light splashed on to the walls of our cubicle of a bathroom, I screamed:
OH MY GOD, SOMEONE MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE SHIT ALL OVER MY BATHROOM WALLS.
Brown fecal matter was spread all over the shower, all over the walls, all over the toilet, all over the floor. I flipped out. I went into stoned-paranoid/panic mode. “My fucking roommates are going to kill me,” I kept thinking. I was in such a state of complete shock that I don’t even remember grabbing cleaning supplies and cleaning everything with such precision and urgency.
“God, it smells like… shit in here…” He mumbled from the sink.
“WELL, MAYBE IF SOMEONE HADN’T SHIT THEN SPREAD IT ALL OVER OUR FUCKING WALLS, WE WOULDN’T BE SMELLING THAT SMELL, WOULD WE? I SAID, WOULD WE?”
That night ended with him sleeping on my couch, lying on a plastic bag, stripped of any poop-infested articles of clothing and I went to bed, confused, shocked, appalled, in hysterical laughter.
The next morning Chelsea wakes up and walks herself slowly to my loft bedroom. She shuffles to my bed, sits down, gently whispers my name for me to wake up.
“Chelsea, Chelsea. Kendal (one of our neighbors) just called me.”
“And…?”
“Well, like, she went on Freddie’s Facebook today and like…”
“YES?”
“Well, like, she said she doesn’t know if she believes it or not but…”
“WHAT?”
“…It said that he was gay.”
“What?”
“Yeah, like, uhm, I think I hooked up with a gay guy last night.”
“Well, that’s okay. At least you didn’t have to clean up fecal matter when someone decided to shit all over our walls.”
frog and the teaches of peaches.
This story is for my college roommate, Chelsea.
Back in college, Tuesday nights were by far the best nights to drink quickly described by the 3 Ts.
-Tacos ($1 each)
-Trivia (all the rage, as I’m coming to learn)
-Two-fers (my favorite part of the night. one of the more sketchy bars offers two for one drinks from 9pm-1am and there was always lots of dancing–two enthusiastic thumbs up)
One fateful Tuesday night, Chelsea and I were fighting the homework / party teeter totter. Usually the teeter totter went as follows:
“Chelsea, I have sooo much homework tonight. I cannot possibly go out.”
“But Chelssss (yes, we both have the same name), come ONNN. I didn’t get to go out Friday!”
“Wait, yes you did!”
“But we didn’t get to go out TOGETHER..”
After four years of being roommates, Chelsea has learned to say ‘no’ to me because I often talk her into terrible ideas where she’s ended up missing work or class or hooking up with someone who is extremely interesting (a second of foreshadowing). Anyway, tonight she let me win and that’s very important in the events to come.
Chelsea only agreed to go to the bar for ONE drink. My goal is to distract her into at least three or four drinks so the night becomes… a party.
It’s not too hard to drink at this bar. In light of the 3 T’s, our favorite bar–Frog and Peach–has $1 pint night. Entering in on our second beer, this tall, handsome mutton-chopped gentleman strolls up to Chelsea. They begin talking about …oh, “I saw you across the room..” “you have entrancing eyes…” bullshit. I’m more or less drunk, convincing some boy to buy me my regular whiskey and coke and bumming imported cigarettes from this old bloke, Keith, who used to live in London for 100 years or whatever and I just let Chelsea do her goddamned thing so she would forget we were supposed to be leaving.
An hour or so later, mid-cigarette bumming, whiskey drinking, and made-up story telling rant, this boy with one of those… reggae beanies… walks up and asks, “Girl, would you like to smoke?”
“Absolutely, sir, what have you got?”
This boy wasn’t by any means… attractive. Nor, did I particularly think his stance on herbal remedies was enthralling but Keith was moving in too close and I was definitely seeking a scapegoat… “Oh, Keith, have you met my slightly hobo-looking boyfriend? Yeah, he plays guitar unnecessarily in public places and we’re in love.” Boom. My new hobo boyfriend asks me if I want a drink. “You better make that a double, kind sir.”
Fast-forward two beers, two whiskey and cokes, and a shot later, Mutton-Chops and Hobo are starting to look really awesome. They happen to know each other (cool), they’re roommates (what a small fucking world!), and they’re still buying our drinks (I couldn’t have asked for more). Mutton-Chops and Chelsea, by this time, have been sucking face in the corner while I’ve been sucking up the vomit rising in my throat–a nice combo of mixing drinks and having the Hobo boyfriend kissing my neck telling me I’m beautiful. It was almost 2 am and in Chelsea’s drunken hospitality offers our place as a retreat for the night. Chelsea and Mutton-Chops run back to my house.
“Oh, wait a second. I need to go get my guitar.” Hobo goes back inside. Oh, you thought I was kidding about that unnecessary public guitar playing? No. I was not.
On the long walk home, Hobo tells me where he’s from, what college he went to, why he moved out to the central valley–all things that if I would have deemed them interesting, I would have remembered. “Oh, wait, like, it’s kind of like that song…” Picks up guitar. Strums. Searches for a pitch.
“Dude, I’ve got to piss and I’m not waiting around.”
He continues to talk on about the ganja and about… mankind… I literally considered falling asleep in a bush to avoid the annoying drone of hippie talk spewing out of his peace-loving mouth.
“…that’s how I got the job at Mutton-Chop’s house.”
“Excuse me, you work for Mutton-Chops?”
“Well, yeah, kind of. I clean, I make meals, I garden, I massage, I’m like the butler.”
“Uh, oh, uh, so like… do they pay you?”
“Just in love. It’s like a communal house. It’s not even really a house, it’s kind of like a mansion. Yeah, it’s really cool. They like to have parties which I’ll like play my guitar at and like, yeah, just everybody loves each other.”
“Where do you sleep?”
“Sometimes on the couch, sometimes next to Mutton Chops.”
Pensive silence.
“Yeah, like, him and I have a REALLY close bond. Like, his girlfriend, him, and I will share a bed sometimes and it’s like… we’re all in the relationship.”
“HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND.”
“Yeah, well, like, it’s cool. Because they’re like… polyamorous.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah, like, he has sex with, like, whoever.”
“Like just girls?”
“Or sometimes guys. It’s just like, love, and appreciating someone else’s beauty.”
me = !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Oh my God! He sleeps with guys! WHATTT!”
“Yeah, like, it’s not a big deal.”
“No, that is. Like, his girlfriend puts up with that?!”
“Yeah, like, they’ve got like a really healthy relationship and it’s like, just I care enough for you to experience somebody else.”
“Chelsea is going to fucking kill me.”
(Side note: The Gays are awesome but in a story to come tomorrow, you’ll understand as to why I react this way)
So, we get back to my house. It just so happens we are fortunate enough to learn the inner-workings of the hippies. They both are wearing pajamas under their clothes, they both do not wear deodorant in fear of catching the cancer, and they both brushed their teeth with the same toothbrush that the Hobo has packed for them. Where it was packed? I do not know. Nor did I ask any further questions.
The next morning, Mutton-Chops left.. and also left his Hobo butler-friend for us to drive to a bus stop. In the car, he played us this song he made up … which sounded very similar-if not identical- to Pete Yorn’s “Young Folks.” We dropped him off and I looked to Chelsea.
“Please, don’t be mad at me.”
“Be mad at you? Last night was fun! Drank a lot more than I was supposed to…”
“Yeah, ok, Mutton-Chops has a girlfriend. Hobo is his butler and sometimes they sleep next to each other and the Hobo says it’s like they’re in a relationship and they have a communal house where people pay each other in love and they have polyamorous parties where everybody sleeps with everybody and like, everybody is okay with that.”
“Uhm, WHAT”
“Like, Chelsea, I am sorry but you’re the one who invited them over and I was just…
“SO… like…. they sleep with guys… too?”
“Uhm, noooo….not Hobo. Mutton-Chops does though.”
Silence.
the principles of quantitatively dating a mechanic.
We were a whirlwind of incompatibility that lasted for, what the brothers like to say, “a hot minute.”
In a face- to -face encounter, I would describe the hours of conversation revolving around his shitty Crips tattoos and all the jokes based on the fact he thought he could rap (which I never witnessed, THANK GOD), or I might have played the many voice mails left by his crazy baby mama mostly describing me as a “slutty ass bitch slut who doesn’t stop callin’ her maahhn,” or the two months after I ended it when I received creepy text/voice messages asking me on creepy dates to places like Saddle Ranch… and the beach….
but since we really don’t have that luxury, I am going to let these three last text messages sum up pretty much everything for you. Madden highlights by yours truly.
text message 1/3
your a fucking bitch (it’s “you’re”), cause i have kids well fuck you then (not just one kid, plural kids with plural on the baby mamas), and im not a lier (we’ll wait to the end of this barrage of texts to see if that’s true or not), alisa (baby mama #2) is and your (you’re) a fucking cold hearted bitch, have a nice fucking life (well, i’m trying to but…),
text message 2/3
you act like your (you’re) so perfect (because i am), well why dont you go get your hair done how it is supossed (supposed) to be done (?? what do you mean by that?), like from a black hair dresser (Ohhhh right, I wish!), and then your hair
text message 3/3
will be done, bitch, i really liked you (i can tell), i wanted to be with you, but its cool, im fucking like 5 bitches (awesome, let’s date), so fuck you than (then)
game highlights:
- exuberant usage of the word fuck
- obscene abuse of the possessive noun
- and this line: “well why dont you go get get your hair done how it is supossed to be done, like from a black hair dresser, and then your hair will be done, bitch, i really liked you…”
(originally posted 11/12/2009 via http://chelseabrowntoffski.tumblr.com/post/241729637/why-you-probably-shouldnt-date-your-mechanic)
beauty school drop(pings)
Once upon a time, I fell in love with a boy who was in love with himself.
At a very white, muscular 6’2, his arms littered in stylish tattoos, I found myself incredibly… smitten with his ghetto swagger and black man slang. He was what we Southern Californians call a “Bro”–a term defined indefinitely by the flat brimmed hat, the Famous Stars and Straps clothing, and the vocab of a 5 yr old. I met him at a beauty school and the moment he came licking his lips toward me, I knew I was in for some trouble.
Pros:
-liked to drink (thumbs up!)
-paid for everything
-owned a car
-was a tattoo artist (thumbs couldn’t go any higher)
Cons:
-liked to drink (Wayyy too much. Then drive immediately afterward. He also was prone to bragging about my “dyson” and indulging in other sorts of humiliating facts about our sexy life to complete strangers)
-paid for everything (Then would complain about always having to pay for everything. ESPECIALLY my drinks if we ever went out which I might add, I only had one or two at the most because I–like himself–needed to drive home).
-owned a car (That never drove to my house. After he would complain about paying for everything, he would insist on me driving to his place in the valley–15 mins away–then we sit around his house and he’d flex)
-was a tattoo artist (which meant that A. his income was completely dependent on how many people he could fit into the week with school and B. that lots of girls were constantly trying to bang him which normally I wouldn’t care about, but he made me feel like maybe I should be caring)
Regularly, I would have bounce-housed out of this situation but I had a couple of things at stake.
-I genuinely loved watching him interact with other people.
-My mom (as he was one of her beauty school students) liked him a lot and really wanted me to give him a chance.
-he was only half way done with my tattoo (which I had gotten at a killer deal on)
-I have a terrible time ending things (reference to ‘follow your f(h)art”)
I even tried ending it several times but he was so charming and arrogant, seven no’s = a yes and you know how that old song and dance goes.
The first time I tried to break up with him we were at a Kinkos.
That day was totally annoying. I had slept over and we had woken up early (7am-ish) to avoid running into his parents. We spent the night prior drinking our little hearts out–finishing the bottle of jack we bought and playing several, several games of beer and pool. We were tired, we were irritated, and we both had some serious bowel movements. All throughout breakfast, we took our turns silently dry heaving over our meals and excusing ourselves for the bathroom until he suggests that he perhaps tattoo me that day…
just an excuse to see me more and just an excuse for me not to risk dying on the way home.
So we separately drove to a Kinkos around the corner from his house and he showed me how to use their computers. Mid-search for the perfect picture, he taps my shoulder, “Baby, I got to go to the bathroom. This stuff is kicking…” I wave him off because the internet is charging me by the milli-second and I can’t chance wasting time. Ten minutes later, I printed everything out. Five minutes later, I stood by the color copier waiting for him. Three minutes later, I considered texting him… but Nooo, come on. He had to go to the bathroom, that’s pretty embarrassing already. Twenty-five minutes from my initial arrival, as I’m walking out, he calls me.
“Hey baby, where you at?”
“UHM, AT KINKOS. WHERE IVE BEEN FOR THE LAST 25 MINS”
“Oh cool… you coming back to my place?”
“Wait, you’re not here?”
“No, I’m at home.”
“But you said you had to go to the bathroom?”
“I did.”
“They have a bathroom here…”
“I know.”
“Uhm, WHEN WERE YOU GOING TO TELL ME THAT YOU WENT TO YOUR HOUSE?”
“I just did.”
A very pissed off silence.
“Well… are you coming over?”
“I’ll have to think about that one. I have to go.”
Click. No way, man. You just left me at a Kinkos. I will not be going with you ANYWHERE EVER AGAIN.
I sit in my car and fume. I, of course, was completely embarrassed that I would even consider hanging out with a guy (let alone sleep with one) that would leave you places and go home and expect you to instinctively know that they left to go home. He calls me three times consecutively. I ignore each one. What I should have done? Drive home. What I did? Answer on the fourth call.
“WHAT.”
“Are you leaving?!?!”
“Uhm, yeah.”
“But… WHY?!”
“Because…. you just left me at a kinkos.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I’m leaving.”
“Please, don’t go… please.. I’m begging you..”
“You know, this is really telling… like if you would leave me at a Kinkos, where else would you fucking leave me…”
“Come on, please, I’m begging you…”
“NO, this is shady shit and I’m not putting up with it…”
“Please, Chelsea, understand….”
“NO, I don’t even know where the fuck I am. I’m irritated. I don’t fucking feel well. You’re a tool…”
“CHELSEA–I SHIT MYSELF”
after I laughed for a good ten-twenty minutes, I drove over to his house. Now, looking back, what I realized is that that incident is the only reason why I kept him around three weeks longer than I should have. Because I’m a sucker for a complete asshole who’s humbled–for a second– because he shat his pants.
jumping the border.
When I first moved back to Simi Valley, I made friends with a girl from work named Lisa. Lisa was another halfie (like myself) and loved dancing and drinking and dancing whilst drinking… we meshed well. It was not until a good month into our friendship in the middle of a conversation about , she blurts out…
“I’ve never had sex”.
My immediate response: Uhm, well…You’ve got to lose that if you want to keep hanging out.
Not that I’m promoting promiscuity but if you’re 23 and living with your parents and in community college for the fourth year without closing in on a degree, then you should have at least, for your dignity’s sake, pop your cherry.
The thing about Lisa wasn’t that she had never had the opportunity–which is always the case for girls–damn hollywood with their Nicholas Sparks novel-inspired movies (shakes fist). It was that she, well, coming from a small conservative town in Southern California always thought she would wait until marriage to have sex. It was then that I realized that we could never be friends…
…just kidding. But no, seriously, she needed to lose her virginity because and only because:
1)she was already S-ing the D
2)didn’t date Christian boys
I had to go into great detail explaining why that doesn’t make sense and for all you girls in high school/early college years who are doing the same thing as Poor Lisa, let me tell you, you’re being an idiot.
If you’re going to wait until marriage to have sex (it’s not my bag, but hey, whatever tickles your fancy) then you absolutely cannot make out in the dark, you cannot touch the sexy parts whilst pressing against each other in cars, and you cannot, absolutely CANNOT play a little game called “Solo Una Puntita.”
Because if Lisa wants to date a boy who isn’t Christian and who is getting his penis polished by everything but her pin cushion, he will leave her for someone who will give him that. Also, on the other end, if Lisa finds someone who wants to wait until marriage and mid-pre game, she’s like “Yeah. Do it,” he might just turn to her and go, “Uhm, no. How dare you suggest we do such a thing! We can never pre-game again.” (the latter would probably never happen, but if you were to find a boy who would willingly agree to have sex only after marriage, that reality would be a little more understandable. Plus I’ve heard horror stories)
Her reply: “But I’m Christian” “I want it to be special” “It’s already been this long.” No. No. No. Most people (mostly Christian/religious people) who wait until marriage to have sex but still perform oral duties are absolute retards. Because they’re being hypocrites and they’re still being sinners. Deal with it. Secondly, sex is what you make it. It can be special with love and sweet kisses, or it could be fun and completely meaningless or more often than not, boring and disappointing. And lastly, I nearly shit myself when she said “it’s already been this long…” Lisa–I said–I don’t hang out with quitters.
After an hour of breaking it down and Lisa fighting me ever step of the way… I drew a diagram.
Lisa was going to have to make a decision right at that moment (mainly because I was making her) to jump the border. All or nothing. You can’t have your cake and eat it too (that was a ‘Holiday in the Sun’ reference, if you didn’t know).
Don’t worry, two weeks later when my best friend Holly moved here, I made Lisa tell her and Holly responded with:
Well, we can’t hang out till you lose it.
follow your f(h)art.
The two initial moves I made after graduating college:
1) scour craigslist for paid internships
2) sign up for a free internet dating website
That seems to be the way of things, right? Get yourself together. Get a job and a relationship. Income, Stability, Commitment, Trust, Mortgage, Marriage, etc.
I had just spent the last five months going insane writing my Senior Project which happened to be a complete deconstruction of my state of mind during this process of “growing up” and “moving on”. Indulging myself in wine and Sex and the City, I didn’t take much time to harvest any suitors. After leaving this bleak five month existence, I decided it was time to air punch the dating scene–here I am! Nerdy, miley cyrus lovin, whiskey drinkin, surprisingly charming me! Southern California–LA–bring forth your most eligible bachelors.
Pause for a hot minute. Let’s rewind the past few months of dating.
The Ex- on and off. intermittent phone calls. i miss you. i love you. you were the only one for me etc. Followed by bouts of hooking up with numerous people.
The Jackass- One of those WTF moments. Entirely sex oriented. He was a lot more interesting than me too which pissed me off. I am sure it was weird that I was closer in age to his children than to him.
The 37 yr old- He had that surfer drone, that ‘anything goes’ attitude, and he was only in town for the weekends. He looked almost identical to the Jackass and didn’t piss me off because he was in no way more interesting than I was. It was a good idea for a second.
The Co Worker- he was brilliant at mind games. Always a mysterious text message, months apart. “Hi.” “What are you doing tonight?” without a returned response. This is about the time I learned to block phone numbers.
Ze German- Could barely speak a word of English. I spent a good amount of time telling him to stop talking, if he did. But he got annoying and after he broke into my house, I decided I’d rather be alone. Forever.
Canada- Oh, the sexual tension that grew from four years of internet banter. We ripped apart our inferior classmates and the copulation was fantastic, but– two assholes don’t make a right.
Even though I wasn’t the one who ended these soirees every time, there had always been a sign. The inevitable sign. Not like Jesus-In-My-Pancakes, Bleeding Virgin Mary Christmas Statue signs, but something a bit more… unconventional.
Ok, so in an episode of sex and the city carrie was laying in bed with Big when all of a sudden she…
well, she, well, she farted and that changed everything.
Farting to me is a bad omen. My friend (the friend who also swears by the dating website) was talking about her new relationship and about how she was in the “farting is comfortable” stage. That is not a stage for me. In fact, that will never be a stage for me. I don’t fart with my family, I don’t fart with my friends, and I certainly do not fart in front of the boy who will be treating me like the Princess I am for the duration of our relation. Despite my inclination towards “balls” jokes and South Park references, farting and talking about farting were so far below me.
In every instance above, there was a fart. Mostly in bed. Mostly when I was waking up. The first night the Jackass and I shared a bed, I jumped awake to a violent fart–the violent fart emitting from me and thus shaking the giant air mattress we both lay on. The Co Worker had been taking care of me and when I awoke to him copping a feel, one slipped out in stress. Ze German, however, ended up being more on purpose considering I didn’t actually want him to be there anymore and saying it in English didn’t mean anything because he would just say “vhat? say eet again.” Three long air drafts. Get ze hint?
So, here I was. Months of very successful encounters later signing up for a website that my friend swore by because she met so many gorgeous, interesting, artsy girls with whom she made passionate love to and I wanted to be making passionate love to gorgeous, interesting, artsy boys with whom I probably deserved and would probably consider marrying the first five minutes into meeting them.
But it wasn’t meeting them that was the problem, it was the ending that I always suffered with. I have never been one to end a relationship–don’t get me wrong, I will, but I don’t like to. In some cases it feels virtually impossible to end things– the thinking—oh, holding out for a little longer will work, dwelling on all the “good times”, the fighting the natural incline and decline of human relations, and maybe it’s then, that moment where I feel I can’t do what I need to do that my body was physically rejects the interaction through one of my less vocal orifices.
Farting is a my heinous social crime. It’s got to be the most embarrassing thing when you wake up after you hooked up with the cutest boy ever and you just let one out and it’s like a rush of blood to your face, what the fuckkk, do i laugh, do i cry, do i try to pretend that didn’t happen, it was cute, it was mortifying, i should laugh, i should acknowledge this, he’s still sleeping, he’s just pretending, omg he heard, i have to say something, it’ll be ruined, carrie and big and you’ll never be able to be sexy again because you just got comfortable and let one rip.
So farting is real for me. It’s really disgusting and it’s really, real, in the sense I’m sure I’m going to be alone forever. Oh well. Makes for a good story.
