When I was a senior in college, Julie, Claire, Katie and I took a road trip to Las Vegas for spring break. This trip was fabulous, but the mistake was driving there. Nevada should be nick-named the shit-hole of the US. I am not surprised it's a testing ground for nuclear weapons. It is brown. It is desert. It is vast. The towns are spooky. There were nuclear bunkers. There was a brown lake with no trees, just expanses of brown hills surrounding it. And it lasts for HOURS. Hours of dry, brown terrain with roads that never curve. As an Oregonian who is always surrounded by green, I felt like my soul had died and my looks weren't far behind. To entertain ourselves and to try to forget how much longer we had to drive in this soul-sucking land, we listened to music. We car-danced. We gossiped. We slept. And eventually we were seeing mirages in the distance.
"What is that?" I asked, looking to our right.
"It's like a lake... I think." Julie observed.
"But it's white, why is it white?" I asked.
"Maybe it's sand? Lots of white sand?" Katie chimed in.
"It's jizz. God's jizz." Claire stated from the back seat.
Eventually, after hours of driving in which Claire almost got a speeding ticket, we finally saw Vegas rising out of the desert. It was beautiful. It was civilization. And it was VEGAS, the playground for adults we had been dreaming of. If you have never been to Vegas, go. If you have never been to Vegas and you are a GIRL, you must DEFINITELY GO. It will be the cheapest vacation you ever go on if you do this ONE thing: Dress like a slut.
Okay maybe "slut" is too strong of a word. You just need to make sure you look as hot as you can. Wear short skirts, and high heels, and do your hair and put on all that make-up, and you will get almost everything for free. Entrance into clubs... CHECK. Drinks... CHECK. And those things are NOT cheap. I bought one drink while I was in Vegas, it was a shot of tequila. It was $10 and it was the worst shot of tequila I have ever had... well except maybe that one at Gypsy that tasted like gasoline. But anyways, a club cover fee is around $30 for guys. My advise to you is to USE YOUR HOT GIRL DISGUISES, and you will get far in Vegas.
And we did exactly that. We got hot. We wore our hooker heels. We did our hair. We drank champagne out of the bottle like Lady Gaga before going out. We got into the club "Pure" in Caesars Palace for free. And that is when the party started.
As we were not VIP's, we had to stand. Our hooker heels were like sharks eating away at our feet, so we started talking to some friendly Chinese guys who bought us something called "Tokyo Towers." Ironic? We practiced saying Hello in Chinese as we continued to drink and our feet felt like they were disappearing. After all that drinking Julie and I decided to head off to the bathroom, and when we came back, everyone was gone.
We were distressed for a minute until we were distracted by a couple guys, one of which had an British accent. So, after a few more drinks, of course I started making out with him. SIDE NOTE: I love kissing. I think of it as a recreational activity, somewhat like tennis. It is fun for both people and completely harmless. After a fun tennis match, he decided we needed to go on a walk downstairs in the casino. We sat down at some slot machines, and continued making out for a while. That's when he said it:
"I think I'm falling in love with you."
I pulled away from him like he'd bit me and stared. I was stunned, and extremely confused. "What?"
"I think I'm in love with you." He said again, staring at me intently.
I snorted, but then took a look at his face and looked away. What. Is. He. Saying. "What?" I repeated. He continued to gaze tenderly into my eyes. I was grasping for anything that wouldn't make this true. "It's because you're drunk." I said. He shook his head. I looked around frantically, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. "It's because of these!" I exclaimed, grasping my breasts. He shook his head yet again.
"I really think I'm falling in love with you. Come back to my room with me." Ahhhhh... I stalled him by kissing him again. While he continued to proclaim his love for me I got out my phone and texted Katie, COME FIND ME NOW.
"Do you want to come back to my room?" he asked me. I was desperatly waiting for Katie to text me back. "Ahh, haha, I don't know..." I said. Suddenly my phone vibrated, Where are you?
I looked around. I'm next to some slot machines. "I just think you're so beautiful, I've never met anyone like you." The English guy was saying. I smiled and kissed him again to stall for more time.
How the fuck am I supposed to find you if that is all you can tell me?! Katie texted me back. Shit. I need to be more specific. While English dude was continuing to dote on me I squinted around through my drunken eyes and found a sign. There is a sign, it says Liberty Pizza Company. I finally put something coherent together for her. "Yes, I've had so much fun with you." I say to English dude to keep his attention. "You are really cool too."
He smiled at me again. "Are you sure you don't want to come back with me?"
"Yeah... I dunno, I need to find my friends..." I need Katie to find me NOW! I kissed him a couple more times and then FINALLY I heard Katie's voice. She was with our friend Alex. I vaguely wondered where Claire and Julie were, but then she was dragging me away from English dude and he was looking after me longingly. I waved and yelled, "It was nice to meet you!" and then he was out of sight as Katie dragged me around the corner.
"Wait here." She put me in a chair in front of some gambling-for-sports TV's. "I have to find Claire and Julie." I did as I was told and waited, tired with drunkenness, curled up in the chair. Eventually she came back for me, and Claire and Julie were stumbling around about as drunk as I was... We were all very happy to see each other. Apparently they had both had their own make out sessions. Claire called hers Edward Cullen and Julie called hers 'guy Claire knew from high school.' And that was how we ended the night, walking back to our hotel... although I did have to sit down on the casino floor to take off my hooker heels that were finally taking me down.
Vegas rocks my shoes off.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Congrats on the Sex
Have you ever seen the music video called, "I Just Had Sex," by Lonely Island and Akon? If you haven't, here is a quick synopsis: The dudes from Lonely Island and Akon spend about three entire minutes with HUGE grins on their faces singing about they just had sex and how mind-blowing it was, how they would have sex with almost anything, how their dreams came true, and the finale is fireworks shooting out from between their legs. Surprisingly accurate to men in real life.
Somewhere in this mess of awesomeness is a scene where they have a cake that says, "CONGRATS ON THE SEX." From the first moment that Claire and I watched this video together we knew... we would have to create a contest. Contest rules: The first person to have sex in 2012 would receive a cake EXACTLY like the one in this video. Not only would you get to have sex, you would receive the bragging rights of being the first one to have sex and celebrate those rights with the cake of your choice. The ultimate dream. Now, as hard as Claire, Julie, and I tried to pursue this dream, it was our friend Stephanie that ended up winning the prize. We had all (excluding Julie) explored a dating website, OkCupid.com. Claire quit after 2 weeks of men badgering her, I quit after 3 weeks and one lousy date where the guy talked about himself the entire time, but surprisingly, this website actually worked for Stephanie. Stephanie found the perfect girlfriend.
Stephanie's parents don't know that she is gay. Which is surprising, as she looks similar to a man; short hair, loose-fitted jeans, leather jackets. My parents came to visit me once with my little brother. While I was getting ready in the bathroom, I overhear Brayden say to Stephanie, "Are you a boy or a girl?" I froze, horrified. I could just see my parents, frozen as well, wide-eyed, terrified for their modesty, ready to puke. Brayden has said some pretty crazy stuff over his 6 years of life, including, "Dad! Look at that fat man!" and "Are you Santa Clause?" and "Why can't girls pee standing up?" but none of these were directed towards a friend. Stephanie ended up responding with, "I'm a girl. I know it's hard to tell but it's okay." I could feel my parents cautiously release some of the tension, heard Brayden say, "Oh. Look what I can do!" then a thump and some ooooh's and aaah's. I decided I looked good enough for public view and ran to the living room and excused ourselves from my friends.
When Stephanie finally decided it was time to introduce the girlfriend, Amy, to her parents, she made me go too. "If I bring two friends to this, it will look less suspicious than just one." She wasn't going to actually TELL her parents she is gay, because they are extremely homophobic people, so she was just going to bring us both to her sister's dance performance and introduce her as a friend. I was sitting between Stephanie and her mom when it happened.
"So Amy, how did you two meet?" Stephanie's mom asked. My smile froze yet again on my face.
ONLINE DATING!!! my mind was screaming. SHE IS GAY. THIS IS HER GIRLFRIEND. ONLINE DATING!!!
Amy kept it cool though. "At a party." I nodded my head wisely, like I was there and witnessed the whole thing. "It was at our friend Lisa's party a couple weeks ago."
"Yeah" I added stupidly.
"Well that is wonderful." Said Stephanie's mom, and returned to watching the show.
When I went to Fred Meyer to buy Stephanie her chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, I asked the woman behind the bakery counter if she had anything to write on cakes with.
"Well I could write it for you if you want." She recommended.
"Umm... Well this isn't really something you normally write on a cake."
She looked at me suspiciously. "What do you mean?"
"Well it's just this joke my and my friends have... I don't know if I should tell you." I look at her critically. She's about my age, she seems chill, maybe she could handle it. "But you look cool. I guess I could ask you. Have you ever seen that music video called 'I Just Had Sex' by Akon?"
She gets a politely confused look on her face and says, "No... I haven't." Ahh shit. I can feel myself start to slightly blush. I'm saying the word 'sex' to strangers, and she hasn't even seen the video so she is less cool than I thought.
I decide to continue on though. "Well in the video there is this cake that says, 'Congrats on the sex'... could you write that?"
Now she looks stunned. Maybe it's worse than I thought. Maybe she was a nun before going in the bakery business. I hear nuns bake fruitcakes sometimes. Or is that just monks? She looks slightly awkward and says, "Even if I could write that, I don't really want that phrase going through the check-out line in my handwriting."
Time for a quick getaway as my embarrassment is slowly heightening. "Ahh, that's okay, thanks anyways. Where can I find something to write on a cake with?"
"The baking aisle." Now I can tell she thinks I'm crude AND stupid.
"Thanks, you have a great day." I practically run to the baking aisle, grab some cake gel and check out. Outside of Stephanie's apartment I write "CONGRATS ON THE SEX" on her cake in white gel which I bought because it looks like sperm, but after seeing it on the cake it's less funny because they are gay and there is no sperm.
Stephanie and Amy love the cake, and we rejoice and eat it in celebration of sex. And it tastes like chocolate heaven, even with the sperm.
Somewhere in this mess of awesomeness is a scene where they have a cake that says, "CONGRATS ON THE SEX." From the first moment that Claire and I watched this video together we knew... we would have to create a contest. Contest rules: The first person to have sex in 2012 would receive a cake EXACTLY like the one in this video. Not only would you get to have sex, you would receive the bragging rights of being the first one to have sex and celebrate those rights with the cake of your choice. The ultimate dream. Now, as hard as Claire, Julie, and I tried to pursue this dream, it was our friend Stephanie that ended up winning the prize. We had all (excluding Julie) explored a dating website, OkCupid.com. Claire quit after 2 weeks of men badgering her, I quit after 3 weeks and one lousy date where the guy talked about himself the entire time, but surprisingly, this website actually worked for Stephanie. Stephanie found the perfect girlfriend.
Stephanie's parents don't know that she is gay. Which is surprising, as she looks similar to a man; short hair, loose-fitted jeans, leather jackets. My parents came to visit me once with my little brother. While I was getting ready in the bathroom, I overhear Brayden say to Stephanie, "Are you a boy or a girl?" I froze, horrified. I could just see my parents, frozen as well, wide-eyed, terrified for their modesty, ready to puke. Brayden has said some pretty crazy stuff over his 6 years of life, including, "Dad! Look at that fat man!" and "Are you Santa Clause?" and "Why can't girls pee standing up?" but none of these were directed towards a friend. Stephanie ended up responding with, "I'm a girl. I know it's hard to tell but it's okay." I could feel my parents cautiously release some of the tension, heard Brayden say, "Oh. Look what I can do!" then a thump and some ooooh's and aaah's. I decided I looked good enough for public view and ran to the living room and excused ourselves from my friends.
When Stephanie finally decided it was time to introduce the girlfriend, Amy, to her parents, she made me go too. "If I bring two friends to this, it will look less suspicious than just one." She wasn't going to actually TELL her parents she is gay, because they are extremely homophobic people, so she was just going to bring us both to her sister's dance performance and introduce her as a friend. I was sitting between Stephanie and her mom when it happened.
"So Amy, how did you two meet?" Stephanie's mom asked. My smile froze yet again on my face.
ONLINE DATING!!! my mind was screaming. SHE IS GAY. THIS IS HER GIRLFRIEND. ONLINE DATING!!!
Amy kept it cool though. "At a party." I nodded my head wisely, like I was there and witnessed the whole thing. "It was at our friend Lisa's party a couple weeks ago."
"Yeah" I added stupidly.
"Well that is wonderful." Said Stephanie's mom, and returned to watching the show.
When I went to Fred Meyer to buy Stephanie her chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, I asked the woman behind the bakery counter if she had anything to write on cakes with.
"Well I could write it for you if you want." She recommended.
"Umm... Well this isn't really something you normally write on a cake."
She looked at me suspiciously. "What do you mean?"
"Well it's just this joke my and my friends have... I don't know if I should tell you." I look at her critically. She's about my age, she seems chill, maybe she could handle it. "But you look cool. I guess I could ask you. Have you ever seen that music video called 'I Just Had Sex' by Akon?"
She gets a politely confused look on her face and says, "No... I haven't." Ahh shit. I can feel myself start to slightly blush. I'm saying the word 'sex' to strangers, and she hasn't even seen the video so she is less cool than I thought.
I decide to continue on though. "Well in the video there is this cake that says, 'Congrats on the sex'... could you write that?"
Now she looks stunned. Maybe it's worse than I thought. Maybe she was a nun before going in the bakery business. I hear nuns bake fruitcakes sometimes. Or is that just monks? She looks slightly awkward and says, "Even if I could write that, I don't really want that phrase going through the check-out line in my handwriting."
Time for a quick getaway as my embarrassment is slowly heightening. "Ahh, that's okay, thanks anyways. Where can I find something to write on a cake with?"
"The baking aisle." Now I can tell she thinks I'm crude AND stupid.
"Thanks, you have a great day." I practically run to the baking aisle, grab some cake gel and check out. Outside of Stephanie's apartment I write "CONGRATS ON THE SEX" on her cake in white gel which I bought because it looks like sperm, but after seeing it on the cake it's less funny because they are gay and there is no sperm.
Stephanie and Amy love the cake, and we rejoice and eat it in celebration of sex. And it tastes like chocolate heaven, even with the sperm.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Master Chef
Claire and I used to also live with Julie. Those days were fantastic. Julie is an excellent cook and whenever she would get bored she would end up making us these incredible dinners with several courses complete with wine and dessert, and sometimes she would even print out a menu to make us feel fancy. They were always mouthwatering dishes, such as stuffed mushrooms and grilled asparagus and chicken a la delicious, etc. Sometimes Claire would cook too, and although she was good, we could both agree that Julie was on a whole other level.
I cooked once during the 6 months we lived together. I tend to get extremely stressed out when I cook; I don't like shopping for the groceries and I will tolerate the cooking part, normally with small mistakes. I love the eating part but this, the best part, only lasts for about 15 minutes. And to me, that is just a waste of time, cooking for hours for minutes of eating. But sometimes you have to suck it up and do something nice for people, so I decided one Friday night to make chicken skewers. I stabbed chicken, peppers, and mushrooms onto some sticks with only minor bleeding, and seasoned them well past Julie's normal tolerance of spice. Perhaps this was why we ended up drinking so many martinis, to cool the fires in our mouths.
We all agreed that our favorite parts of martinis are the olives, so we decided to soak some olives in gin before putting them in our drinks. Maybe that had something to do with it too. After drinking several martinis each, all three of us are pretty wasted and spend about a half an hour telling each other how awesome we all were. At one point someone spills their drink and Claire of course shouts "ZAMBONI!" Immediately someone is required to suck up the alcohol, which I do, then Julie and I soak up the rest of it with bread and eat it.
Eventually we are all dancing around to Lady Gaga, and at one point Julie gets really mad at Claire. I believe it has to do with a fight regarding the degree of awesome Claire is. Julie runs to Claire's room and grabs her jade plant and is waving it around, spilling dirt everywhere and yelling, "SAY IT! SAY YOU ARE AWESOME!" while Claire is screaming, "MY GRANDMOTHER'S JADE PLANT! PUT IT DOWN! THAT'S MY GRANDMOTHER'S JADE PLANT!" I am sitting on the bed, calmly wiping the dirt from Claire's comforter onto the floor. Suddenly I realize the trouble Claire's grandmother's jade plant is in, and this is when I tackle Julie, rip the plant out of her hands and give it to Claire to put in a safe place until Julie forgets why she is in Claire's room. Then we all go to bed.
Even now that Julie has moved out (she is going to LA for the summer), she still feels at home in our apartment, as she should. She came over a few weeks ago for a Friday night dinner, which she ended up making. Our kitchen is your kitchen, Master Chef. She made gourmet burgers out of whatever she could find in our fridge. We were, of course, also having drinks. I don't remember what Julie and I were drinking but I do remember very clearly that Claire had a mason jar full of whiskey on ice. I remember this because, as Julie is blabbering away on her phone to her friend about their upcoming wine trip, Claire says to me, "This might be too much whiskey. I might pour some back in the bottle."
I stare. "What?"
"I might put some back..."
"Claire. Claire, it's Friday night," I say to her, genuinely shocked and worried about what she was saying.
"I know, but it's already 8:00 and I'm tired and we're going out big tomorrow night..."
Throughout this whole conversation Julie has visibly stopped listening to whatever her friend Elizabeth was saying, staring at Claire with the same shock on her face that I felt in my heart. Julie is saying, "Yeah, okay. Yep. Right. Okay." but she is bursting to say something.
I stare some more. "Claire... What are you saying?? It's Friday night! Stop being a grandma."
Suddenly Julie hangs up the phone and screams, "I THOUGHT YOU WERE A CARTER, NOT A LITTLE BITCH!" There is smoke coming out of her nostrils and her head just burst into flames.
Claire's eyes get huge and she looks from me to Julie, pauses, then takes a drink of her whiskey and breathes a sigh of relief. "Thanks guys. I needed that."
I cooked once during the 6 months we lived together. I tend to get extremely stressed out when I cook; I don't like shopping for the groceries and I will tolerate the cooking part, normally with small mistakes. I love the eating part but this, the best part, only lasts for about 15 minutes. And to me, that is just a waste of time, cooking for hours for minutes of eating. But sometimes you have to suck it up and do something nice for people, so I decided one Friday night to make chicken skewers. I stabbed chicken, peppers, and mushrooms onto some sticks with only minor bleeding, and seasoned them well past Julie's normal tolerance of spice. Perhaps this was why we ended up drinking so many martinis, to cool the fires in our mouths.
We all agreed that our favorite parts of martinis are the olives, so we decided to soak some olives in gin before putting them in our drinks. Maybe that had something to do with it too. After drinking several martinis each, all three of us are pretty wasted and spend about a half an hour telling each other how awesome we all were. At one point someone spills their drink and Claire of course shouts "ZAMBONI!" Immediately someone is required to suck up the alcohol, which I do, then Julie and I soak up the rest of it with bread and eat it.
Eventually we are all dancing around to Lady Gaga, and at one point Julie gets really mad at Claire. I believe it has to do with a fight regarding the degree of awesome Claire is. Julie runs to Claire's room and grabs her jade plant and is waving it around, spilling dirt everywhere and yelling, "SAY IT! SAY YOU ARE AWESOME!" while Claire is screaming, "MY GRANDMOTHER'S JADE PLANT! PUT IT DOWN! THAT'S MY GRANDMOTHER'S JADE PLANT!" I am sitting on the bed, calmly wiping the dirt from Claire's comforter onto the floor. Suddenly I realize the trouble Claire's grandmother's jade plant is in, and this is when I tackle Julie, rip the plant out of her hands and give it to Claire to put in a safe place until Julie forgets why she is in Claire's room. Then we all go to bed.
Even now that Julie has moved out (she is going to LA for the summer), she still feels at home in our apartment, as she should. She came over a few weeks ago for a Friday night dinner, which she ended up making. Our kitchen is your kitchen, Master Chef. She made gourmet burgers out of whatever she could find in our fridge. We were, of course, also having drinks. I don't remember what Julie and I were drinking but I do remember very clearly that Claire had a mason jar full of whiskey on ice. I remember this because, as Julie is blabbering away on her phone to her friend about their upcoming wine trip, Claire says to me, "This might be too much whiskey. I might pour some back in the bottle."
I stare. "What?"
"I might put some back..."
"Claire. Claire, it's Friday night," I say to her, genuinely shocked and worried about what she was saying.
"I know, but it's already 8:00 and I'm tired and we're going out big tomorrow night..."
Throughout this whole conversation Julie has visibly stopped listening to whatever her friend Elizabeth was saying, staring at Claire with the same shock on her face that I felt in my heart. Julie is saying, "Yeah, okay. Yep. Right. Okay." but she is bursting to say something.
I stare some more. "Claire... What are you saying?? It's Friday night! Stop being a grandma."
Suddenly Julie hangs up the phone and screams, "I THOUGHT YOU WERE A CARTER, NOT A LITTLE BITCH!" There is smoke coming out of her nostrils and her head just burst into flames.
Claire's eyes get huge and she looks from me to Julie, pauses, then takes a drink of her whiskey and breathes a sigh of relief. "Thanks guys. I needed that."
Reality
I started this blog when I was an idealistic senior in college with views about the world that I thought couldn't be marred. Even the title, "Chasing Fireflies" sounds romantic in an innocent way, but this title is a lie. If you think about it even a little bit, you would realize that FIRST: I live in the Northwest. There are no fireflies here. I have never caught a firefly, let a lone chased one. I'm naming blogs with ideas that I don't even know about but think sound inspiring, just like the naivety that comes with thinking that the world only offers answers to dreams. SECOND: Chasing fireflies in real life would probably be a bummer. It probably takes hours to actually catch one. And when you do, even though it's ass is glowing, you're still holding a bug.
It has now been two years since I last wrote, and I am much wiser and slightly more jaded. I know the drag of going to a 9:00 to 5:00 job every weekday with only 5 sick days and no vacation, of paying rent and utilites and the cable bill and gas and insurance and bar tabs every month, of living in a flea-infested apartment, of using a dating website, of seeing a headless mouse, of heading off to a foreign land just to be overcome with homesickness. So I have decided to stop writing about ideals (even though I do have them) and start writing about reality. Because even though reality is less inspiring than dreams, I'm tired of trying to create these "moments" that are special and important enough to include in a blog. When you are just living life instead of traveling to new places and getting that drugged-up, high feeling from that beautiful royal palace, or this rock formation, or that hot Brazilian guy who's making sexy eyes at you, you understand that it isn't those ideal moments that create your life, it's all the crap in between. Without all the reality, those moments wouldn't be as spiritually orgasmic, which is why we need to appreciate the mundane parts of life so we can have really good orgasms.
Hopefully your reality is interesting enough to get you to the next "moment," which doesn't seem to be a problem in my life, as I live in Portland with my best friend, Claire, and have many other close friends nearby. There are things to do in Portland constantly; for instance, right now we have the Rose Festival going on. There were fireworks on last Friday night, so we decided to go watch them. We arrived at 8:00. The fireworks were to be at 10:00. Not suprisingly, it was raining when we got there so what did we do? Spend an hour in the beer gardens, and then another hour hanging out in a bar down the street. Oh there was a fair going on, but we weren't to be bothered with lame rides and bouncy cover bands. As we took a seat in the bar, a friendly drunk old man began berating us.
I need to take a moment and describe Claire. These are some of my favorite things Claire has said recently that I saved in my phone until I found a better place to record them, like here:
"I'm good at alcohol."
"In one mile, I-5 spreads her legs like the whore she is."
"Are these stinging nettles?" Me
"No.... are you wearing pants?" Claire
"Yes."
"Then no, they're not."
And finally, the conversation that happened with this drunk old friendly man:
"You girls are so beautiful, where are your men tonight? You must have men crawling all over you all the time. I come to this bar a lot and I have never seen girls as beautiful as you two. You must have great boyfriends!" Old Drunk Man exclaims, his face pink with happiness and alcohol.
"Oh you know, we have yet to find --" I begin.
"How do you know we're not lesbians??" Claire interrupts.
"Oh... are you two together?" Old Drunk Man says, looking stunned and confused.
"No, we're not! Claire, why do you say things like that? We are not lesbians."
You see, Claire works as a substitute paraeducator for the Portland School District, which means she subs in special education classrooms for the people who help out in them. Which also means that her bullshit tolerance on a Friday night is exactly nonexistant. We were playing "Find That Alcohol Bottle," a game we invented on the spot where one of us would pick a bottle among the hundreds against the bar wall, and the other would have to find it in a reasonable amount of time. Old Drunk Man kept interrupting our game with little antics about the distinct lack of males surrounding us. So when we ordered onion rings as a snack and Old Drunk Man said, "You guys are going to eat that?" Claire held her knife backwards in her hand, pointed it in his direction, gave him a serious glare, and said, "Yeah, we are, so back off dude." Old Drunk Man was confused at her threats but laughed it off. And later he interrupted our next game of "Guess This Celebrity" when he looked at us and said, "Wow, you guys ate all of it!" and Claire again gave him a serious glare and said, "You calling us fat?" Again, Old Drunk Man looked confused but then promptly invited us up to his private residence above the bar to watch the fireworks. Apparently he found Claire's threats to be sexy. I almost started hiccuping from trying to contain the hystarical laughter bubbling dangeroulsy inside me. We declined and he left to magnify his inebriation at another bar. I could finally laugh freely. It must have lasted half an hour.
We ended the night by oohing and ahhhing at the fireworks while some middle-aged homeless people stood in the doorway behind us and smoked pot, which made their experience much more incredible than ours was; they seemed to be truly blown away with the spectacle in front of us, while we were just mildly interested. They appeared distracted as well, as we overheard the phrase, "There was this huge trout." Classy way to end the night. The only thing missing was Julie.
Julie is our other best friend. That night, she was in California on a wine adventure... meaning she had been drinking since noon, was drunk by 4:00 and calling me to describe her wine tasting experience around 5:00. "ASHLEY, you should so be here, I have been to like twelve wineries and only had to pay $8 because I keep telling people I just graduated! YOU SHOULD TRY THAT! And I keep telling people that you would like this Chardonnay or you would like the Mexican restaurant we are going to for dinner tonight. I told them, 'My friend Ashley loves Mexican food. She can speak fluent Spanish.' and they seemed really impressed! Then I tried this horseradish that was really really spicy, and I told them, 'My friend Claire likes really spicy things. My friend Ashley likes medium spicy. And I like no spicy, so my tongue is BURNING!' But I think we are going to walk to dinner now. I can't remember where I parked."
Julie has this habit of talking about Claire and I when she isn't with us to people who don't care. By the time I came back from Spain and met her friends from her Masters program, they had to ask me, "Are you the one who was in Spain or the one who was in Korea (Claire)?" Which, you know, makes me feel special but I'm sure annoys the crap out of the average human being.
And so, what is the moral of these stories? I have awesome friends. Dose of reality number one.
It has now been two years since I last wrote, and I am much wiser and slightly more jaded. I know the drag of going to a 9:00 to 5:00 job every weekday with only 5 sick days and no vacation, of paying rent and utilites and the cable bill and gas and insurance and bar tabs every month, of living in a flea-infested apartment, of using a dating website, of seeing a headless mouse, of heading off to a foreign land just to be overcome with homesickness. So I have decided to stop writing about ideals (even though I do have them) and start writing about reality. Because even though reality is less inspiring than dreams, I'm tired of trying to create these "moments" that are special and important enough to include in a blog. When you are just living life instead of traveling to new places and getting that drugged-up, high feeling from that beautiful royal palace, or this rock formation, or that hot Brazilian guy who's making sexy eyes at you, you understand that it isn't those ideal moments that create your life, it's all the crap in between. Without all the reality, those moments wouldn't be as spiritually orgasmic, which is why we need to appreciate the mundane parts of life so we can have really good orgasms.
Hopefully your reality is interesting enough to get you to the next "moment," which doesn't seem to be a problem in my life, as I live in Portland with my best friend, Claire, and have many other close friends nearby. There are things to do in Portland constantly; for instance, right now we have the Rose Festival going on. There were fireworks on last Friday night, so we decided to go watch them. We arrived at 8:00. The fireworks were to be at 10:00. Not suprisingly, it was raining when we got there so what did we do? Spend an hour in the beer gardens, and then another hour hanging out in a bar down the street. Oh there was a fair going on, but we weren't to be bothered with lame rides and bouncy cover bands. As we took a seat in the bar, a friendly drunk old man began berating us.
I need to take a moment and describe Claire. These are some of my favorite things Claire has said recently that I saved in my phone until I found a better place to record them, like here:
"I'm good at alcohol."
"In one mile, I-5 spreads her legs like the whore she is."
"Are these stinging nettles?" Me
"No.... are you wearing pants?" Claire
"Yes."
"Then no, they're not."
And finally, the conversation that happened with this drunk old friendly man:
"You girls are so beautiful, where are your men tonight? You must have men crawling all over you all the time. I come to this bar a lot and I have never seen girls as beautiful as you two. You must have great boyfriends!" Old Drunk Man exclaims, his face pink with happiness and alcohol.
"Oh you know, we have yet to find --" I begin.
"How do you know we're not lesbians??" Claire interrupts.
"Oh... are you two together?" Old Drunk Man says, looking stunned and confused.
"No, we're not! Claire, why do you say things like that? We are not lesbians."
You see, Claire works as a substitute paraeducator for the Portland School District, which means she subs in special education classrooms for the people who help out in them. Which also means that her bullshit tolerance on a Friday night is exactly nonexistant. We were playing "Find That Alcohol Bottle," a game we invented on the spot where one of us would pick a bottle among the hundreds against the bar wall, and the other would have to find it in a reasonable amount of time. Old Drunk Man kept interrupting our game with little antics about the distinct lack of males surrounding us. So when we ordered onion rings as a snack and Old Drunk Man said, "You guys are going to eat that?" Claire held her knife backwards in her hand, pointed it in his direction, gave him a serious glare, and said, "Yeah, we are, so back off dude." Old Drunk Man was confused at her threats but laughed it off. And later he interrupted our next game of "Guess This Celebrity" when he looked at us and said, "Wow, you guys ate all of it!" and Claire again gave him a serious glare and said, "You calling us fat?" Again, Old Drunk Man looked confused but then promptly invited us up to his private residence above the bar to watch the fireworks. Apparently he found Claire's threats to be sexy. I almost started hiccuping from trying to contain the hystarical laughter bubbling dangeroulsy inside me. We declined and he left to magnify his inebriation at another bar. I could finally laugh freely. It must have lasted half an hour.
We ended the night by oohing and ahhhing at the fireworks while some middle-aged homeless people stood in the doorway behind us and smoked pot, which made their experience much more incredible than ours was; they seemed to be truly blown away with the spectacle in front of us, while we were just mildly interested. They appeared distracted as well, as we overheard the phrase, "There was this huge trout." Classy way to end the night. The only thing missing was Julie.
Julie is our other best friend. That night, she was in California on a wine adventure... meaning she had been drinking since noon, was drunk by 4:00 and calling me to describe her wine tasting experience around 5:00. "ASHLEY, you should so be here, I have been to like twelve wineries and only had to pay $8 because I keep telling people I just graduated! YOU SHOULD TRY THAT! And I keep telling people that you would like this Chardonnay or you would like the Mexican restaurant we are going to for dinner tonight. I told them, 'My friend Ashley loves Mexican food. She can speak fluent Spanish.' and they seemed really impressed! Then I tried this horseradish that was really really spicy, and I told them, 'My friend Claire likes really spicy things. My friend Ashley likes medium spicy. And I like no spicy, so my tongue is BURNING!' But I think we are going to walk to dinner now. I can't remember where I parked."
Julie has this habit of talking about Claire and I when she isn't with us to people who don't care. By the time I came back from Spain and met her friends from her Masters program, they had to ask me, "Are you the one who was in Spain or the one who was in Korea (Claire)?" Which, you know, makes me feel special but I'm sure annoys the crap out of the average human being.
And so, what is the moral of these stories? I have awesome friends. Dose of reality number one.
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