The Times I Almost Died (Part One)
It was my first season as a Forest Firefighter (not through the Forest Service, it was for the Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources). I had taken a summer engine crew position despite my father's oh-so-unsubtle pushing toward the less risky radio dispatcher job he had originally sent me to procure. He was worried at first, particularly since he had worked in roughly the same job during his forestry studies and understood the testosterone-fueled world I would be entering. I was stubborn, however, and assured him that the world had changed and that women would be welcomed and respected in any field. Right? Right?
Wrong.
Wait, I take that back. Wrong-ISH. Women who looked and acted exactly like men were treated with a bit of respect. Women who put out were tolerated, not respected at all but valued for their usefulness. They had no idea what to do with me when I refused to take either path and decided to try my own. I didn't let go of my femininity, but kept up as best as I could with my engine leader (you can call him Al) and worked hard to build up my upper-body strength so the boys wouldn't be able to mock my carrying of two hose rolls while they carried five. We hiked constantly, doing odd forestry jobs, and I learned to move fast through thick underbrush with heavy, spiked boots weighing down my feet. Al was a master in the forest, he ran blithely down the slick tops of fallen logs and leapt without fear into creeks that I had to wade carefully across. He was luckily one of the ones who reserved immediate judgment on me and allowed me to prove myself. By the end of the first year we got along great and I kept up with him on our forest treks, he even helped protect me the few times I needed it in the fire camps. My technique eventually paid off, I was able to gain respect without giving up my personality and was, after three years, an engine leader and respected by most of the guys, allowed to hang without compromise (though one of the guys kept daily challenging me to wrestle).
Some of the holdouts, however, really made it hard...
Neil was an older fellow, in his 60's and rather tiny. He had been a firefighter for over 30 years and was very respected by his coworkers (the male ones, that is). He was also a disgusting, lecherous old man who gave me goosebumps and who had been caught peeping multiple times. I first met him during our First Aid courses where he taught us CPR. I had to look away when he demonstrated on the mannequin - it was wet, mis-aimed, and far too enthusiastic. He was overly friendly to me and to the one other older woman in our district, but in private we heard that he thought our inclusion into firefighting was the worst kind of affirmative action and that he reminisced often about the rough-and-tumble boy's club of yon. Whenever he was at the same fire, I changed inside my sleeping bag even when in a separate tent.
Dennis went to high school with me and was a total bully back in the day. He joined a year after I did, luckily giving me seniority over him, and was assigned to be crew for the older woman. I laughed, he seethed. His resentment exploded one day when our two crews were assigned to do maintenance on one of the State's campgrounds, including repainting a shed. He snapped when he found out what the task was and yelled that he wasn't "going to do no more bitch work!"
Then I got my own engine and he got his own engine and I (yes, a bitch) kicked his ass in the relay races. HA haaaa! Some days, I am twelve.
Getting ahead of myself here, though...
The first time I almost died happened while I was still Al's crew person, during the first year of firefighting. It was a good fire season, we kept busy running all over Washington and Oregon putting out blazes. The State has a rule, though, that you are only allowed to work on a fire for 14 days, then you have to come home and recuperate (fires are exhausting, sometimes I'd only get 5 hours of sleep in the first three days and was going on pure adrenaline). We were home on a forced break and restless, so we got together with a neighboring district and planned a mock fire to help train some new recruits and work on technique. They set the fire in a big empty field surrounded by fire engines after looking at the weather report and carefully calculating the wind, humidity, etc. We thought we were prepared.
What we didn't know was that the field's previous life was as an artillery range and that there were shells and live ammunition littering the ground that we had just set aflame. As soon as we lit the first section, shots started firing in every direction. People dove for cover and started yelling as the fire grew happily and freely, igniting more and more ammunition (you could almost hear it laughing). We ran to set up a hose lay around the fire, sprinting up the hills with arm-loads of supplies and dodging other crews and inmate crews who were rushing to dig a trail to try and contain the wildly spreading fire. Everyone would have to drop their loads and duck from time to time as a new batch of ammunition was engulfed and exploded.
I ran back and forth from the engine countless times along the far edge of the fire, trying to keep an eye on the tall flames and losing track of Al completely. I went and got a full load of hose (I could carry 4 by then!) and an axe, dropped off the hose at the end of the line and was halfway back to the engine when the wind suddenly turned and drove the fire directly toward my side of the field. The wall of scorching grey-orange smoke engulfed me immediately, making it impossible to breathe and near-impossible to see through my madly weeping eyes. I turned away and ran toward the forest, diving for the ground once I felt a hint of softness under my feet. I buried my face in the underbrush, getting my nose as close as possible to the source of oxygen as the heat pounded on overhead. My mind reeled, I knew that if I had to deploy my aluminum-foil fire shelter in that dry environment, more than likely I would be baked like a potato in the flames. I couldn't see well enough to run, and had no idea which way to go even if I could manage to stand up.
After an eternity, the wind changed again and the heat was suddenly lifted. I looked up from my sprawled singed position, trying to get my bearings, and realized that I was surrounded by people who had exactly the same idea that I had and were just then raising their heads from the underbrush. Then I noticed their red jumpsuits. It was a full (10-person) inmate crew who had been interrupted from their trail digging duties by the fire's turn. I smiled in a friendly manner while subtly (frantically) scanning for their crew chief, who I discovered had been caught further up the line. So basically, it was ten inmates who had been convicted of serious crimes and little ol' me with no means of protection or prior experience with anything even remotely like this. I didn't even have my axe, I had dropped it when I dove for the forest and didn't see it anywhere. They looked at me with blank faces, sizing up this tiny soot-covered woman with empty arms and a crooked hard hat, and my brain suddenly clicked. I remembered that training is supreme in drastic situations and learned behavior could come in handy. I used my sternest voice, stood tall and took instant command, leading them up the trail to their relieved crew chief (all the while amazed that the number/strength inequality had not registered with any of them) and then ran back to my engine and found Al nearly frantic with worry that I had been lost or injured.
This took place in Olympia, of all places, and was a source of embarrassment for many years to come. When we were mopping up the fire, making sure it was completely out, I secretly grabbed a spent, charred chunk of shells and put them in my pocket to remember the day and the adventure. At least I hope they're spent, since they are now on my bookshelf.
Sleepytime
I dreamt last night that I was a middle-aged Japanese woman on holiday with her extended family. We were touring a large resort in a vaguely woodsy, remote area with no discernible features outside of the many brown, plain buildings that we were weaving through politely. Then we got to the water park. My entire Japanese family got tremendously excited and wanted to go in immediately (even though in my dream the slides ended about 20 feet above the surface, shooting people into a long free-fall before they hit the pool) but I got stuck waiting for grandmother to figure out the shower-before-swimming policy, then waiting and waiting and waiting for her to scrub the smell of pickled vegetable off of her (she carried them in her pockets and gave me one, but I didn't recognize the shape). Then I woke up.
I have strange dreams. Often.
Another time I dreamt that I got arrested, was handcuffed and pushed into the back of a police car. I was angry, shouting and banging the glass until I noticed that I wasn't alone in the back seat - there was a tiny brown-and-white hamster sitting patiently next to me with little tiny handcuffs on its front paws and a sad expression on its tiny face. We had a conversation, none of which I remember, and then I rolled down the window with my bound hands and flung the little guy to safety, singing "Boooorn freeee". And I woke up singing "Booooorrnnn Freeee". Had a bit of 'splaining to do to my roommates.
And then there was the dream where I was challenged to a fencing match in a giant, circus-like striped tent. I arrived to discover that my challenger was in fact a chicken, with a sword and vest. He was sassy, berating me and mocking my initial reluctance, so I threw down. We fought valiantly, it was a close battle in the beginning with swords flashing and fancy footwork on both sides. Then slowly I pulled ahead, the chicken's beady eyes took on a worried cast as I drove him to the very edge of the tent. The crowd was cheering madly, I was flush with victory. Then the chicken morphed into a big fat man, opened the tent, and jumped into a suddenly-adjoining pool and swam away.
Damn chickens.
Then of course there are the series of dreams that I'm sure many people have, where I am suddenly called to perform in a play/musical/movie and have absolutely no idea what my lines are (or many times even what my character is). I have to be pushed from scene to scene, fed lines, and am nothing more than a unstrung marionette parroting whatever is told to me. These are terrible, made even worse by the comments of my fellow cast members that "you're doing really well!!"
When I was younger, I decided to keep a dream journal since all the cool kids were doing it. The dreams that I wrote down were so confusing (one involved white water rafting and sheet cake) and disturbing (a series involving a bad guy with no pupils, only blue irises) that it only lasted a month. I tried in college to have one of my psych-studying friends interpret them using different methods. Her findings? That I was just a little odd and had a strong imagination. And Freud says water=sex so I have no idea what to do with that considering my water was never in conjunction with anything remotely sexy (fat man and grandmas? sheet cake?!). Now I see the dreams simply as unconscious storytelling and am trying to not take them all that seriously unless I need some good bizarre artistic inspiration. You should see my lovely painting of a mallard duck calmly walking away from a burning metropolis with a lit cigarette dangling from its beak.
Amazing Software Types While You Talk
from http://www.spamusement.com/ featuring poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines
theah-TAH
I'd never been a big fan of live theater. In junior high, my only exposure was being dragged along with a friend to see the "Phantom of the Opera" and I found it to be overly emotional and manipulative (and the "rock" song with synth background?! Still gives me shudders). High school brought a slightly greater interest (hello, actor boyfriend), but though I liked acting in and producing plays I still didn't watch hardly any. Of course living in a small town with few options other than the community version of "Oklahoma" may have helped out with that. I saw a few operas, a few musicals, and acted in a bunch of things, but nothing too life-changing and certainly nothing that would foreshadow spending five years of my post-graduation life working in the largest producing theater in Seattle.
College for me was a four-year attempt to find a way to make a viable living creating art. I explored television production, set design (big art!), theater design, and ultimately gave up entirely on the prospect and almost took a job as a journalist for an online tech paper. I was taking as many art classes as my schedule could handle, designing random shows left and right to get my creative fix, but theater designers almost have to be artistic gypsies with their constant travel and wearing of many brightly-colored scarves. Also, finger-cymbals. I came out of college with a long list of things I had ruled out as careers and a big empty space under "What do you want to be when you grow up?". My scenic design professor was a highly excitable little gypsy who was a big supporter of mine and completely understood why I couldn't do scenic design as a career. He had come to Seattle years ago and still had a contact in the theater world, and got me an interview for an internship with the props department. I had no idea what would be involved - I had never done props before (only scenic painting and some carpentry) and showed up for my first day wearing clothing that made anything other than a tour out of the question. I didn't know! I wore a nice shirt and slacks, everyone else was in jeans and well-worn t-shirts and covered in dust and paint. My uniform for the next five years, that.
"Props" is a job that has no actual job description. It is what you can do, or learn to do, or fake being able to accomplish. They will ask you to build anything and everything, and the more experience you have going into it, the better (though how one can possibly be experienced in building an upright string bass AND wiring a chandelier AND making realistic-looking fake marzipan - all of which I have actually done - is questionable). I had a little knowledge of tools, had a lot of skill with sculpture and carving, and painting experience. By the end of my first year I could plumb a bathroom, knew how sails were rigged (in miniature), had built my first set of living room furniture, and learned chip carving (such a lovely Nordic art form). Over the years I learned how to weld, upholster, build anything and everything (or fake it well), paint really fast, and use more tools than anyone should possibly need to know. Landlords love me.
The best projects that I can remember:
* Carving a roasted stuffed baby pig (slightly burnt and steaming) - the research for this one was disgusting, also when I had to carve squirrels roasted on a spit. ewww.
* Making a 7-foot-tall "stone" horse sculpture that the actor sat on and was wheeled on stage riding. I also painted the actor and his costume to look stone-ish. The audience gasped when he moved, it was great.
* Making marijuana plants to be subtly placed around the edge of some on stage landscaping. My coworkers kept coming by and giving advice to make it more realistic, followed by a "umm... I saw it on a movie one time, that's how I know."
* Carving 3 giant vases - one 7' 0", one 5' 6", one 4' ish - in the parking lot of the theater on an 8' long custom-built lathe. I wore a full Tyvek suit, gloves, scarf on my head, mask and goggles, but still ended every day with the full-body version of feeling of sand in my swimsuit. We had to make custom lathe tools as well, 4' long and steel, and a bench for short lil' me to stand on so I could reach the whole contraption. I looked like I was conducting a robotic exploding foam-clouded symphony in a spacesuit. Crowds gathered and oohed.
* Drawing Shakespearean-era head shot equivalents for a farce. This is hard - portraits in a medieval poofy-sleeved style with enough sass so they're still funny? Yikes. I added lots of feathers in their hats and hoped it worked for them.
* Making commemorative Franklin Mint-style plates of O.J. and Nicole Simpson (in a heart), a dying Rwandan woman, Chernobyl, and the falling of the Berlin Wall. It was some sort of cultural commentary, making a big '60's-style statement. I had fun with it (they didn't really give me too many constraints or guidance, just said to do something shocking). They ended up liking them a lot in the end - it's good to work for hippies sometimes!
* Creating a glowing magical staff for Prospero in the Tempest, using a napkin drawing from the designer of a squiggle and the words "magic, glow" scrawled by it. I made a huge jewel with a sparkling light inside, controlled by a switch hidden in the strange vines that swirled up the staff and held the jewel in place. The whole thing was painted to look iridescent and slightly metallic and looked great, but when we got into production the designer decided to use black light for an overall theme, and I had to repaint it so it glowed like a pubescent raver. I was a little sad.
* Painting murals all over the production shop during our down times, including a shrine to Ralph Wiggum ("Spray paint tastes like candy"), a James Dean portrait, and a scene of a man in a bathtub (from his viewpoint) showing his foot poking up out of the water next to a small '50's style TV reading "you deserve booty."
Party in the front, business in the back
I consider my hair to be another thing that I am able, nay, obligated to paint and chop on a regular basis. Not out of vanity, but as more of an experiment in color and style accomplished conveniently on my own head (I'd do it on other people, but am too opinionated to be a hairstylist and too wild to make up anyone other than drag queens). Hair is a canvas few can equal, flexible and able to be multi-hued with the option of just cutting it all off if it doesn't turn out well. I have personally gone extra light (white-blonde), dark (a brown/black called "espresso") (mmm), half-and-half, attempted to go blue (note: do not dye your hair with Kool-Aid).
As you may have surmised by now, my hair hasn't been its natural color since the early 90's. I'm not even sure at this point what the natural color would be if I let it grow out.
My longsuffering mother used to war with me over how tomboyish I was allowed to become. I wanted to be dirty and messy, she had other plans and was constantly trying to brush out my long, thick, pine-needle-bedecked hair. It hurt a lot. I hollered a lot. Finally, she decided to cut it all off and end the battle - and cut it herself no less (can you say revenge?)! My first grade photo is hilarious, I have short hair sticking out in many directions and if you look really close you can see a hint of tree sap still lingering on the edges. There was a (mercifully) short period in the late 80's where I attempted to rebel against the natural straightness and force my hair into the perms and spirals and walls of tall teased goodness that were populating the schools. I had to stop after three perms in a two-week period left my head burning and my hair still angrily straight. That was my one attempt at peer pressured style conformation, now that I think about it. An International News sweatshirt (pink with white lettering) and frazzled hair. Then my priorities shifted back closer to reality and I started growing it out, allowing it to finally reach my waist in a long blonde curtain that still tangled on occasion and was normally in a ponytail (hey, soccer plus marching band does not equal glamour). This was the last time it was "natural", my senior year of high school.
When I left home, I didn't think about my hair at all (this didn't go over so well in Texas). Almost no one is natural there - it was an offense for me to have long, unstyled locks and no makeup (I also wore my pajamas to class but that was a more overt slacker call to arms). My so-called friends at the end of freshman year kidnapped me and forced me to cut it off at my chin, dyed it blonder, and tried to teach me the wonder of curlers and hairspray. Having gone there already in junior high, I merely reapplied my no-touch styling technique to the shorter cut. The "friends" all went into sorority houses the next year, so I was spared the worry of hurting their feelings with my non-crispy head. Coming out of college, I started to lose the tomboy inclination a little and was concerned with how I looked (somehow the Texans had rubbed off on me). I grew out my hair and experimented with dyeing it brown/black. I loved it, finally felt that my hair looked right with my coloring (natural blonde + dark brows and lashes always made people ask me if I dyed it). This led to further experimentation - layered cuts, highlights. Dyeing back to blonde but with surfer-bright streaks. My parents never knew what I would look like when I came to visit. They gave up on trying to keep a current picture around and instead started marking time by my hair color ("Oh yeah, the bleach-blonde summer of '99"). The age of experimentation came to a head when I went in to get a haircut and decided to go ahead and chop it all off. Yes, all. I had no research, no photos of inspiration, just a thought that had been bubbling in the back of my mind saying how great it would be to have boy-short hair (it's fun, showers take no time, people will think I'm a lesbian and I won't have to worry so much about being flirted with).
The kind lady at Rudy's looked at me with horror when I asked her to break out the big shears. She cut a little bit (to my ears) and asked if I wanted more. I said yes, lots. She cut a little more. I finally indicated a length of about 1 to 1 1/2 inches on top and told her to taper it down to nothing. I loved it. I found styling products that let me chunk it up into a semi-punk 'do, made it dark brown. When I went to visit my parents for the first time, I met them in the church service and when I stood next to my mother, she didn't recognize me. My nephew thought I was one of my brother's friends. Then once he found out it was me, he wanted to get his hair cut like mine! The lesbian man-aversion idea didn't work, though. I got hit on even more with the new hair, the only change was that there were men AND women doing the hitting. But I found that dancing was much easier without the mass to whip around and that I was unfortunately no longer able to leave the house without putting some sort of product in my hair (unless I wanted to look like a big fuzzy Q-tip). I kept it for over a year, then started growing everything back out to the current length. I like being able to wear ponytails again, but it is tempting sometimes when the length is irritating me, particularly on hot days or when it's hanging down in my eyes, to grab the scissors and go to town. Not sure that I'd ever go that short again, though - imagine the year-plus growout where my hair was in a constant awkward-teenage state (not quite a girl, not yet a woman).
It's funny, I can tell my mental state by what haircut/color was in evidence at the time. I wonder if this is common? Of course these would be different for different people, but I have heard of several women who have cut off most of their hair as a statement of various things. Or dyed it blonde (to, of course, have more fun) or brown (to be taken seriously, a.k.a. have less fun). Girls are weird. But I figured it out:
Long, tangled, natural = Tomboy. Rebellious.
Mom-short, natural = Subdued, school nervousness. Attempt to be girly.
Perm-fried, teased, natural = BIG attempt to be girly, unhappy with self and hurting head.
Long, natural = Tomboy again, but less. Unconcerned with hair. Happier.
Friends-short, blonde = Pressured, unhappy. Experimenting with conformity (blech)
Multi-length, Multi-colored = Experimenting with self, playing with personal presentation (what side of me do I show today?)
SHORT, brown = Seeing what it's like to jump off a cliff. Enjoying the experience. Giving the finger to peer pressure. Rebellious and trying to show my identity without social predefined boundaries.
Longer, brown = Realizing that the statement has been made. Now enjoying being girlyish with tomboy undercurrent. Happy.
SHARK!
While attending school in Texas, I made the happy realization that it was cheaper to fly down to tropical Cancun than to fly up to my parents in semi-Arctic Washington for Spring Break. What was a girl to do? I went down there twice with different humanitarian groups (cheap AND rustic), once building part of a dormitory in a hospital (ain't nothing like mixing concrete with shovels in the middle of the hot, hot street) and the other time working with kids and repainting part of their school. Both trips were packed with work, but the Mexican guys we stayed and worked with made sure that we got out and at least saw some of the coastline and countryside. They brought us to their family rancheros, to local celebrations, and on one memorable occasion, on an exploration of the non-tourist waters of the Carribbean.
There is an island off of the coast of Cancun. (There are probably more than one but one was all we saw, so shhh) This island is not incredibly well-known or well-traveled. To get to this particular island, you have to know someone with a strong boat and a lot of free time. The island has gorgeous natural beaches free of the pale, bloated tourist corpses that are found littering most of the hotel sand. I found a foot-long perfect conch shell just sitting there on the beach as we wandered around. I played Lord of the Flies and accused our guide of having ass-mar. He didn't get it but smiled anyways.
During our wanderings, I noticed that the docks in one section looked a little funny. There were fences that extended out from the main path and formed gigantic pens in the water. A man noticed my interest and offered to let me swim with his shark for $5.00. I then saw a silhouette of an 8-foot-long shark, complete with knife fin and overwhelming sense of bad-things-about-to-happen. I asked him if he had just offered to let me die a horrible death for $5.00. He smiled and hopped into the pen, eventually corralling the shadow and lifting up its weakly thrashing head to reveal the oval gaping mouth of a nurse shark. To further illustrate his point, he put his hand in its mouth as all of us gringos and gringas simultaneously flinched. But how often do you get the opportunity to swim with sharks?
After a long discussion with myself about how giving him money would further the imprisonment of these animals and encourage the local population to go further and further in the entertainment of those freaks to the north, I caved. I couldn't pass it up - I'd seen sharks in the ocean before and wanted to get close to them but had never had the absolute knowledge that I wouldn't be eaten. That puts a damper on things sometimes. So I compromised with my conscience and gave him a lecture about the treatment of his shark (which he of course said was happy, well-exercised, etc.) and then jumped in the water. It was pretty deep in there, there was a small section where I could stand but mostly I was treading water trying to see the tell-tale fin pop up. The shark was continuing to circle (of course) slowly under the water, doing its best to avoid any contact with its "owner" or the mysterious white kicking blob that had just plopped into its world. I swam up alongside it, peeking under the water at my new buddy and tentatively touching its alien skin. The man sensed that I wouldn't pick up the shark (which I guess was his idea of a good time), so he jumped in with us and cornered the shark again, both arms around its body, and swung it around into my reluctant arms. I could barely hold on to the squirming beast and tried desperately to avoid the toothless-but-still-scary head. My friends snapped photos and I quickly released the shark, ashamed that I had forced it into a pose that must have been horribly embarrassing for its shark ego (it weighed far more than me, teeth or no it was probably higher up the food chain).
Other Cancun memories involved wild-pony riding with nothing but a blanket for a saddle and a small rope for a bridle, swimming in a caldera formed by a bubble in the rock that had the very tip sheared off, allowing rain water to come through the tiny hole and make a gorgeous, clear lake that you had to go far underground to find, and climbing the big Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza and trying to reenact the old Reebok commercial by running to the top (warning: the steps are VERY HIGH, we collapsed at the top and took two hours to sheepishly get back down).
I still think every bride would love to register for booze
My friends are strange. That needs to be stated, possibly capitalized, underlined, animated so that it dances about. M is probably the most normal of them, and even she spent years as an artist doing portraits of men’s naughty bits and has a very twisted sense of humor (and for some reason refuses to read this journal because she feels strange about reading my "private thoughts") (which means I can talk about her LOTS and make up stories about her without any fear of discovery! HAAA!) (this does not mean that I make stuff up, I don't, really) (heee, now you're paranoid) (Pa-rentheses!). The rest are a collection of quirky, creative, neurotic, psychotic, wonderful people who bring unpredictable adventures to my life and often leave me wondering how I/we are still alive/sane/employed/in possession of all of my/our limbs.
M and I somehow fell in with a group of guys who went to school at a big university out east, through one of our teachers at college (yes, I hang out with my teacher – shaddup). J is the leader of the pack, the head honcho and muse. He’s a very atypical Irish man (except for the drinking) who wears mostly vintage leisure suits in odd patterns accessorized by the largest ghetto jewelry he can get his hands on. He is incredibly hyper and intelligent and has been a wonderful source for architectural knowledge and sustainable design and random hip-hop factoids, plus there’s nothing like driving around in his gigantic bouncing hydraulicized custom-painted hooptie.
This was one of the first times we had been invited to the casa de J. It is a house in progress, an investment he made with a friend that he has been remodeling for the past couple of years. The main floor has no sheetrock, it’s just slats of wood over hollow walls with no furniture besides a small row of theater seats facing a large window and a futon in the other room by his huge book collection. Kind of looks like the house in “Fight Club” with slightly less creepiness (only slightly). At the time there was also an old chimney hole that connected the top floor to the side of the living room, covered by an inadequate chunk of wood. M and I were a little nervous to be partying with a teacher, and a strange one at that, so we shared a bottle of wine and a few random mini-booze-bottle concoctions (those are dangerous). TIPSY. On the way out the door, I grabbed a couple of fig leaves from the neighbor’s tree and played fully-clothed David, tucking a giant leaf in the front of my pants and then promptly forgetting about it. That’s a great way to meet new people, by the way, and a wonderful icebreaker.
“Umm, your pants seem to be sprouting something.”
There were six of us total, a couple from out of town and a single guy who had begun drinking apparently at dawn. He was hilarious, I saw him physically jump a shrub and pummel it after J insinuated the shrub was talking smack. He also instigated the chimney-climbing fashion show by rappelling down the chimney hole in one of J’s costumes (a 1980's-style Domino’s Pizza uniform if I remember right). I modeled a bright green Member’s Only jacket and fuzzy bucket hat during my descent and managed to get splinters in many odd places. I forget what the other outfits were, things got a bit blurry. I do remember salsa dancing to gangsta rap (works remarkably well if enough alcohol is consumed), asking if the guy at the liquor store did a gift registry (weddings, babies, I thought it was brilliant), and J and the lady from the couple stealing a shopping cart and racing down the sidewalk being pirates.
We hit probably three different bars, drinking anything placed near us and somehow picking up an old high school classmate of mine along the way who I hadn’t seen for close to ten years. I had met him the night before while out on the town with M, and decided not to argue with whatever forces had caused me to run into him twice in two nights (after no contact for so many years), so he tagged along with our group despite my warnings of possible booze-related mayhem. I felt so bad, he ended up going back to J’s house with us and didn’t make it home before his work shift started early the next morning (he worked in a fancy hotel and had to borrow a tie and hope that the reek of cigarettes and beer wasn’t too obvious). Sometime after last call during the blurry stagger home, I inheirited a traffic cone and hat. The oddest part, besides the fact that I don't remember getting either present, is that the cone was in perfect condition and from SeaTac airport. I lost the hat.
The evening ended with M being drunker than I had ever seen her before or since, chasing J around propositioning him blatantly. He refused politely, prompting her to make “Why are you so tight with your shit?!” the mantra of the evening – she even wrote it in permanent marker on an inter-classroom envelope containing grades that J had to turn in the next day. We wove, fell, tripped, laughed, and somehow all made it home alive with hurting heads and splinters from drunken spelunking that tormented me the next day until I remembered and turned them into proud evidence of surviving an evening of excess.
This group also introduced me to the concept of "keg rodeo", where an empty keg (with saddle) is suspended by four ropes tied to four vehicles pointed in opposing directions and pulled forward until the ropes are taut. Then someone who feels no pain gets on, and four masochists each grab a rope and push and pull until the inevitable "Wheeee!.... THUMP" is heard.
The Stalker Story
This is an account of the first date that I did for the aforementioned dating competition. Nobody actually went to jail, but I did get a little scared and have yet to go to the library without backup.
PRE-DATE:
I met dude #1 on theStranger.com (should have been an immediate warning sign). He talked a good game about the local hip-hop scene and wrote very well. His letters were frequent and confident with a lot of attitude (a good quote: “Did I mention you have nice legs? Does that sound creepy to say over the Internet? If so, did I mention you write concisely? Both are attractive.”), and he asked me out on the same day we started talking. I knew he was a librarian and cat-owner, but decided not to hold that against him. Seemed in fact like a wonderful bizarre-date opportunity.
DATE (Sunday, 2/15/04):
A little history here before I get to the date: I went out on Friday with a very outgoing musician (night owl) and went out with a friend Saturday night to see a late show (“Monster” is the best Valentine’s movie ever), basically had not slept more than four hours a night all weekend thus far. I’d also spent the days getting up early and running around with my parents, which is a trial in itself just fielding their questions/comments/closeted biting personal attacks on my love life. Basically, I was a very tired lady. So, I met with friends right before the date and drank five big cups of black coffee in quick succession while they pep-talked me with stories they’d heard of blind dates found mangled in wilderness areas, the mounting instability of the American psyche, etc. I was wearing low-rise black pants, high black boots, a tightish shirt that allows the color of my bra to peek through in the right light (baby blue, I like colorful things in inappropriate places), and a cropped black leather jacket. I was twitchy and hyper and dressed to scare the librarian piss out of him. Game was on.
I waited just outside of Gravity Bar, which is a very trendy little juice bar and restaurant containing any wheatgrass or tahini product your heart could desire. This was all HIS choice, I suggested a greasy burger (and veggie burger) joint nearer to the movie but he got really anxious and wanted to make sure the restaurant was up to par. He walked in from the street and was going so fast that he blew by me and inside the restaurant before I could say his name. I saw him go straight up to a table he had obviously already scoped out with a single brunette and introduce himself (with unfavorable results, he’s okay-looking but very socially challenged), then pretended to look in my purse as he turned to see me and finally walked the right direction. He looked nothing at all like I thought he would - the picture he sent was somewhat accurate, but all the confidence and game was nowhere to be seen. He was wearing a black long sleeve knit shirt and jeans (Seattle metrosexual), and didn’t make eye contact at all for the first half hour. He was also sweating so bad that any time he said a “t” or “p” sound little beads of wet would spatter off his top lip onto the stylish etched plexi tabletop. We talked about the library that he works in, and he described his job in careful, methodological detail that I now cannot for the life of me recall, since I zoned after the first mention of Excel and the wonder of spreadsheets.
This man talked like he’d prepared and memorized a list of questions in advance (probably had them sorted by topic, first letter, dewey decimal, etc.). One of us would start a topic, I’d get going and then ask him something, and he’d go silent and there would be an awkward pause. Then he’d ask a scripted question that hadn’t followed the flow of conversation at all. The boy could NOT change topics easily, even if they were completely spent or irrelevant. For example: Vegetarianism. Him: “How do you handle being a vegetarian? I have a few friends who are also vegetarian. I have thought about becoming a vegetarian.” Me: Blather about nutrition and diet, get bored mid-sentence, change things around by saying that my brother is a nutritionist/personal trainer and we got in a huge debate about milk and eggs when we went snowboarding together. Tell short but entertaining story about my snowboarding experience and subsequent fun teaching myself how to fall in ways that made getting back up easier and less bruising. Include reenactments. Ask if he’s ever done it or any other winter sports. Him: “No. So, do you cook at home a lot? Do you know of any good vegetarian cookbooks?” Aaargh. Blather about not using them and cooking by experimentation, vaguely remember line of hippie cookbooks that seem popular and manage to recall one title. He is happy with this, almost looks at me. Asks about vegetarian restaurants in town. I tell him a few of the decent ones even though he is obviously not paying attention (instead he is fighting with his tofu, staring down his brown rice). Then and only then are we are allowed to move on to winter sports, of which he has still done none.
I asked him if he’s ever been in any fights. He got scared, told me about his aikido (NON-combative, he stressed) and that he has to pretend to attack, but not really attack. He told me that one time when biking he almost had to jump off the bike when it looked like he was going to hit someone, but he ended up just brushing against them. This was his best story. I could tell he had been saving it. This made me laugh, and I fake-coughed until the spell passed (he didn’t notice, as he was still not gazing anywhere near my direction).
I asked him about a local hip-hop night that we had discussed previously via e-mail, not believing now that he had ever attended such an event. The truth finally came out – he has been a couple of times, but only really likes the tongue-in-cheek 80’s mixes the DJ throws on from time to time (think Men at Work and Missy in the same song) and just puts up with the actual hip-hop part. Snoop Dogg fan my ass. He leaves early because there’s too many gangstas out there when it gets late. He also has two purebred cats that he adopted, but NOT from the animal shelter, he was careful to emphasize. As a proud pound mutt-of-many-colors owner for the past three years, I smiled and nodded and made a mental note to innocently talk about my dog later on in the night and emphasize her sketchy, sketchy pedigree and street-dog life history. And her tendency to eat cats and other small things that run fast.
We went to an indie movie after dinner, which was initially highlighted by his apparent inability to answer any of the questions I asked him during the previews or talk at all once the lights went out. I understand not talking during the movie, but previews are fair game in my world. He just sat there staring at the glorified commercials on the screen, pretending not to hear me or perhaps mesmerized by the big pretty pictures. Then the main feature started. Something clicked in his mind (I heard it, I swear) and he turned toward me and put his hand up towards my face, resting it on my shoulder. He said “Do you mind if I put my arm around you?” I giggled, thinking that he meant the hand that was already on my shoulder and said “No, it’s all right.” He then did the most awkward lengthy reach over my shoulders and rested his arm down heavily, bonking my head and pinning my hair down in the process. I continued to giggle at the absurdity of the situation – his arm was crooked around my neck in a way that must have been terribly uncomfortable and in no way conducive to proper blood flow. I thought he was perhaps doing aikido and I would soon be called upon to fall over in a noncombative way. The movie was long, and I had to go to the bathroom halfway through (FIVE cups, people) and laughed all the way out and back, gaining me irritated looks the concession girls sprawled out in the foyer. He re-draped immediately once I got back and kept that uncomfortable position through the whole movie.
Afterwards he walked me to his car, asked me out again, and asked if he could kiss me. He was standing about five feet away, turned slightly to the side and still only looking at me sporadically. I said “sure” and he darted over and delicately placed a mis-aimed peck on half of my lips, then said “bye” and ran off.
I considered this my small part in the socialization process of Seattle men. Somebody’s gotta learn ‘em.
Part 2 (Monday):
HOLY SHIT - this drama just got good. He emailed me again last night after our date, saying:
"[thanks, yada yada] You're very attractive, by the way. I usually see a first meeting arranged online more as a "pre-date interview" than a "first date." (shucks, I just exhausted my quotation quota). Forgive my clunky mechnanics trying to communicate physical interest. I warm up soon enough. This could happen with you very naturally. You're a hottie. A smart, artsy hottie..." Then asking if I wanted to go out next Saturday.
I emailed him just a little while ago that I had a good time but thought that I was a little wild for him (what with the drinking and socializing regularly and all). I wrote it really carefully and tried to let him down easy, saying that I didn't want to hurt him unintentionally with my carefree ways. I made him a list of my bad qualities, mostly highlighting the disorganization and recklessness, and said "While these qualities can be entertaining, I've found that a lot of people also find them very annoying when trying to plan things with me or when trying to find me on a Friday night. Some day I'm sure I'll calm down and get to be more responsible and trackable, but I think you're way ahead of me in this arena. If you would like to get to know each other as friends though, that might be less troublesome (it's much easier to laugh off a friend's flakiness than a date's flakiness).
Please don't think that I hate you or anything, I had a great time yesterday and I really am not having any fun writing this. I just don't want to hurt you and think that I would if we dated more (unintentionally, but still). Let me know if you want to continue as friends, and if you don't I completely understand and wish you the best of luck." Reasonable, I thought, and communicating polite respect but also communicating lack of desire to pursue a romantic relationship. Possibly should have told him a little about the no-chemistry,
SO....
Just a minute or two ago I get this message (directly following a phone attempt by him that I didn't pick up):
"People ALWAYS do this. They see the sweet face and polite behavior and assume I want to go steady. Don't project, okay? :)
I get out and about, too. To be honest, I'm very curious about sex right now. I'm not a complete virgin, but my experience is limited. These things don't make me overly vulnerable to rejection...but that seems to be the assumption. It's a waste of my time to fight it, I've learned. I hope you're not making this assumption. I'm not interested in being a husband anytime soon. I'm not interested in being a serious boyfriend until after this summer, when work has settled down.
Are you saying you only want to be my friend? If so, I'll understand. And don't be so roundabout about saying it...
But if you're saying you just think we have different priorities, you might be wrong. If things get physical, it won't hurt me if you dissapear. I'm a big boy, really. You have a profile posted for a reason, I think, and it's not to start a collection of guy friends. I'm interested in you. Work with that."
Despite the smiley face, this is an angry angry letter and it's completely destroying any sort of positive feelings I had for the guy. You want sex, say so in your profile - I never would have answered his letters. I never even mentioned wanting a husband or serious boyfriend in my letters or profile, I have no idea where he is coming from with this. I just said we weren't compatible (dear GOD are we not compatible).
He just called again. Hopefully I haven't awakened some sort of monster. Thank all that's holy he doesn't know my last name.
He called twice more, leaving messages that got increasingly angry and told me to "get my story straight" (?).
He also wrote this:
"P.S. And you said you *weren't* a flake already. Get your story straight, woman! And maybe uncheck the "serious relationship" box on your profile... Don't pigeonhole me as a sensitive nice guy this early. Please? :)"
And this:
"I'm still keeping Saturday night open, for you. You can let a good man buy you dinner and show you some affection, or you can go get drunk with friends you already know. Be smart about this. No bullshit stories about how wild you are. I don't care. I like you. I know I like you. Let a good thing happen, here."
PSYCHO. I said I wasn't a flake in a very joking manner after I had forgotten to give him my phone number in a letter (before our date), and then added that I wasn't able to refute the flake accusation at that time, but that it was still wrong. He's somehow managed to become patronizing and an asshole while simultaneously thinking he's still going to get some.
I'm taking my profile off that service and hopefully he'll get the hint.
(Tuesday)
Here's my response to his emails and phone calls on Monday:
"Dude #1,
I've been nothing but honest with you. Do you realize that your one attempt to find a discrepancy with what I said has only resulted in a misunderstood joke? I said I wasn't a flake after I had forgotten to give you my number, if I remember right, and it was sarcasm. I meant everything that I wrote before, and still think that though we might work as friends it would be difficult to be in a relationship with our different lifestyles. I have a lot of experience with this, believe me, it never works and is a serious consideration when thinking about who to date (which is why I talk about my spontinaeity, love of adventure, etc. in my profile - to avoid this sort of problem).
As for your diatribe on dating, my view is that people start dating to check each other out for the potential of a more serious relationship. If you "date" people for sex, it's not dating and you should have put on your profile that you were only interested in "play" or "discreet fun" or whatever words they're using now. I am completely offended that you think I posted my profile to gain a collection of boy-toys or to find sexual partners. This is not the hard part for me, it's finding people that are worth talking to and getting to know on a deeper level. I didn't project onto you or pigeonhole you, I merely assumed that you date as most normal people date and that you wouldn't want to continue a relationship that I knew would not be able to go anywhere due to some huge discrepancies in personality. Silly me.
Basically, I'm saying that I did not misrepresent myself or what I was looking for on any level, apparently YOU did. I take back any offer of friendship and don't honestly want to hear from you again on any medium. Good luck developing the asshole side of your personality, you've got a good start here.
-Jay"
From him (via three separate emails so far today):
"I did not mean to suggest you were looking for a collection of boy toys. I was not propositioning you. I want to get to know you as a person. I'm also interested in dating and think there might be potential in that direction. My lifestyle is stable right now because it has to be...I'd do things on a whim more if I could. Please don't hold my obligations to take care of myself against me.
I'm new at this. I'm doing the best I can. I'm not an asshole. I want to go out with you again and I'm asking you not to give up on me so fast.
I want to talk to you on the phone when you have some time. I'd prefer to do it sooner, rather than later. I just rambled something to the effect of this on your voicemail.
There's nothing I can do to convince you I'm worth getting to know--or to convince you I want to get to know you---than ask you to talk to me. I don't want to sort this out via e-mail. I'm sarcastic and I tend to communicate off the top of my head, and I'd prefer things not to get all muddled. Talk to me.
You're an attractive woman. You can get attention from a handful of men on any day of the week. I have to work for it. I'm doing that. Please acknowledge my effort to do the right thing here. Please know I'm sincere about maintaining contact.
If you want me to give up and don't have the time or energy to explain why, forward this message right back to me.
Or get to know me."
(CREEPY, Running away now.)
At this point I decided to ignore him entirely, not picking up or writing anything back. Usually this works, but dude has some major issues.
Wednesday was full of more emails and phone calls, basially reiterating what was said before with slightly escalating levels of anger.
Here's a rough transcript of the call I got from him last night (Thurs):
"Just trying again at a later hour, I want to talk to you on the phone, not stalking you or anything, just want to talk to you on the phone. Really. So if you see your phone ringing and see that it's me, pick up the phone. I think I deserve to be talked to on the phone... so... there
I think it's really fucking stupid that you can't pick up your phone. Maybe you're on a date or something I don't know, I've called just a couple different times, it sounds like you don't want to talk to me and I think you're making a mistake
I'm not an asshole, I'm a good man, an honest man.
I keep going out on first dates with these upper-middle class girls who are I think having difficulty identifying with me because I know I am having difficulty identifying with them. I didn't start dating until recently. I know A lot of these girls like you started going out with guys at 16-17 and you've developed opinions about how men act and I get included in those things and
I'm not the same as a lot of guys, I started doing this late. I guess I keep calling because I want you to hear ME, I don't want to get brushed off so easily I know I'm worth more than that. I want to talk to a real person on the phone and I want that person to listen to me, and You're out being wild and having fun and I'm getting ready for work, being tired and boring and un-wild and it's fucked up, it's really fucked up cause no one's giving me a chance. I'm up on cap hill and most of the girls are out like you, out being wild and having fun. Students, artists, writers, people who get checks from home to pay their rent. And that's not me, and I think that's the kind of person I need to focus on and I'm learning that
Right now I'm yammering into your fucking voice mail instead of talking to you and you don't care probabbly listening thinking I'm a creep or a jerk or whatever and that's fucked up too
Maybe some night when you're out at Chop Suey or something and I'm there and you'll see me and you see me and if I walk up and say hello and offer to buy you a drink you won't be creeped out.
I'm a good person, I'm a good person on your voice mail
I'm fucking tired of spoiled princesses like you"
So here's my reply:
"Dude,
I am giving you one more chance to stop calling and writing me, and if you disregard this one as well I am going to contact the police. Your message volume and content has not only made me uncomfortable, it has scared me. I'm not interested in any further explanation or debate here, I just want you to stop harassing me. I'm hoping that deep down you mean well and did not intend to harass me at this level. Prove me right by respecting my wishes leave me alone.
-Jay"
Aaaand, of course he responds (no reading comprehension skills in addition to all the shit he's been throwing at me?! Gee, maybe I am making a huge mistake passing this guy up.):
"Thanks for responding. Sorry I made you uncomfortable.
I'm a good man. Just lonely, and clumsy with my feelings right now.
Take care,
Dude"
He e-mailed again a month later, just checking to see if I had changed my mind.
I hadn't.
He got angry again, mailed three separate letters saying that I was passing up a good thing. I repeated the cop threat, and haven't heard from him since (but haven't been to the new library yet either, damn him for keeping me from our new Koolhaas!).
Big hair, big belt buckles, BIG glass of booze
Being at the wrong place at the wrong time has always resulted in some of my better adventures, but not many have been as purely entertaining and morbidly fascinating as what happened after I was nominated to organize our 10-year high school reunion.
Side note: I was not the class president or a holder of any sort of official office. My only claim to high school fame was a stint as the President of the Drama Club (who's cool? me) and instigator of a bizarre SNL-themed pep assembly that nearly resulted in two friends doing Hans and Frans getting beaten up by the football team. I was also semi-notorious for painting a banner with Calvin (of the "and Hobbes" fame) bare-assed and hyping some sports event. And I wore Hammer pants. good lord.
But my sister is best friends with the wife of the class president, and that perilous hometown connection combined with his lack of will and organization resulted in my assuming of the task (even though prior to this I was doubting even attending the event, much less being its cheerleader).
So I did sassy invitations (best line: "See who got bald! Who got fat! Who has lots of kids!"), booked the only semi-reputable pub and pool hall as well as a park for the next day's picnic, and tried to guilt-trip as many of my high school buddies as possible to come and keep me company. It turned out to be a fairly well-attended event, with people coming from Utah and California and probably farther (I was supposed to be keeping track of such things, writing recent addresses and contact information, responsibly noting who attended. Unfortunately I started drinking rather early in the night and after diligently recording the addresses of my friends and roughly the first five attendees, I forgot about it completely) (unless the scribbles on the following pages were me attempting to write further addresses, in which case I remembered but began to write in tongues).
The hicks turned out in full force, all wearing roughly the same tough-guy clothing that they had worn ten years ago. They looked 40 and were uniformly plump. The women had obviously bought into the T.V. evangelist mode of personal decor and spent the evening in a side room discussing their multiple children. A few of the popular crowd showed up, older and far humbler now that metabolisms had slowed and universal recognition of their popularity had not been achieved. They all were much friendlier and attempted minor conversation (once they remembered who I was) (though I still think some of them were pretending to remember). One ex-bully showed up unexpectedly with his beautiful fiance in tow - the boy who was known for once putting a nerd's head through a bus window was now mellowed by his Mormonism and gave all of us sincere hugs and a broad smile. It was eerie, I tried to be nice but couldn't help giving him the side-eye. I think he talked to me as well, but by this time I was buzzed and concentrating on thoroughly losing yet another pool game (I had named all the balls and had to be restrained from yelling in agony each time another was lost to the greedy, insatiable holes of doom) (I, obviously, never EVER sent them into the holes of doom. I am too kind and charitable.)
Most of the rest of the people had moved beyond their high school identities and were there to party. We mingled with folks we'd never mingled with before, talked about events that were never discussed back then. I learned secrets about classmates that blew my impressions of normal high-school entertainment to smithereens (of course, it may just be that I didn't fully understand what "running train" meant back then), and got drunk in the way that only that particular mix of discomfort and nostalgia can inspire.
Then K came in. K was a Drama Girl in high school (I wasn't much of one, despite my presidential reign). Back in the day she wore purple leggings, quoted... um,... nerd things, and hated me for somehow winning the top ubernerd ranking. New Improved K had chopped her permed hair to a slick, layered bob, lost at least 50 pounds and was aerobic-instructor thin, and was wearing clothes so tight you could see her religion (agnostic). She hugged me like we were separated at birth and almost immediately started scouting whatever available-looking men were around. I decided to help her and point out the divorcees and those who I thought would be there soon. There were only 5 single men - the ex-jocks who still got together every weekend to play basketball and talk about who they had "scored" with. They were busy trying to pick up the locals that frequented our pub of choice, since the only single women were me, my pal Super Bon-Bon (who had signed on as sanity patrol for me, and because she thought starting a lesbian rumor would be hilarious), and a couple of other girls that wanted nothing to do with them. K caught up with our alcohol consumption level quickly, and I lost track of her in the crowd of flannel and overfilled Levis. There are photos, however, that suggest a bob-haired impromptu pole dance and a parking lot tryst (with a not-so-single man). But the same photo collection shows me blurry-eyed and drooling, laughing uproariously at a wall, so I think they may be tampered with by unknown forces. Evil forces.
The next day's picnic was mellow, with many sunglasses and averted eyes. I didn't see K again or many of the men from the previous night. I ended up juggling the babies of long-lost friends and having long talks about people and places I hadn't thought about in years. It was nice, to check in. I'm developing an elaborate plan for the 20th reunion (which will be organized by someone other than me unless they want to all come to Seattle and go somewhere that I choose) (I've narrowed it down to Denny's or The Cuff) and next time will remember to bring a voice recorder, camera, and an alibi.
Never camp with a wookie
I have a long-held tradition of leaving town for my birthday, conveniently planning a camping trip that will take my friends far away from the land of cake and balloons and focusing on the me. I also don't remind anyone of the birthday, and for the past few years have celebrated quietly and almost anonymously in the arms of mama nature (sometimes a friend remembers, but it's usually after a lot of alcohol and I rarely have to suffer through the entire birthday song before they either forget the words or pass out).
A few years ago, I decided to treat my friends to a long weekend in Long Beach. We car-camped at the state park, which meant that everyone dug out their largest, least-practical tents and comfortable bedding and the food was quite un-camperly. The bonfire raged the entire weekend, trying to salvage a patina of the great outdoors among our giant house-tents and fancy cheeses.
It is worthwhile to expound on the nature of this particular group of people. I was accompanied by Patty, who is one of my oldest and dearest friends despite the fact that our lives have veered into vastly different directions over the years. She would absolutely hate to live my life (in the city, surrounded by people and activities and drenched in art, working random artsy freelance jobs) and I would go crazy living hers (living secluded by a lake, working with numbers year-round, social life focused on home and family). She is the best person for me to take camping, as our different viewpoints usually mean that she will remember supplies I have forgotten and vice versa (now my twisted mind is chiming in, "she completes me... "[tear]). Kristin and Mike are two other longtime friends from my hometown who relocated to Seattle roughly the same time I did. They are not avid campers, but I convinced them that having the cars nearby (and a site near the bathrooms and showers) would allow for easy escape if they were attacked by a really big bug or something of equal traumatic value. The other two campers were a high school classmate that I had only recently gotten back in touch with, and a friend of his who was his vice president in their Star Wars Fan Club. The classmate and fan club president (I'll call him Darth) was and is the heaviest drinker I have ever met. He started in the morning, and didn't pass out until well after midnight. You could hear the echo of his kidneys and liver quietly weeping anytime you were within a yard of the man. His friend (who kinda looked like Chewbacca) carried a flask of whiskey with him and was of the loud-drunken-asshole variety. Everyone hated him immediately, partially because of his attempt to ingratiate himself through insults aimed at our appearances, beliefs, and all that we held dear. We managed to ignore him for a long while, until the drinking started and boundaries became vague.
On to that.
I should warn you right off that my memories of the night are a bit sideways. There are parts I don't remember. There are parts that I thought I remembered but were later pointed out to be physically/temporally impossible. There are parts that I have attempted to completely block out but that Patty insists on bringing back up on every subsequent camping trip. grr.
But anyways. We arrive in stages, with the early group of Patty, Kristin, Mike and I doing the healthy thing and going on a lovely scenic hike. When we get back to the site, the superfans have arrived and are beginning to pool the alcohol on the picnic table. Once we add ours, the mass of colorful bottles covers fully half the table, with racks of beer underneath. It is shaping up to be a good night. Immediately, detail-oriented Patty notices that I have somehow DARED to bring the same brand of rum that she did and is highly offended at my nerve. She challenges me to a fight, drinking contest, and possibly duel at twenty paces (slightly hampered by lack of things to duel with, other than rocks and squirrels). We begin a race to finish our full fifths of rum, using as few mixers as we could stand.
Soon, Patty decides that it's time to wrestle. She is weaving, the circle that she draws in the sand of the campsite looks like a new kind of amoeba and does not intersect with itself, which is fine considering that she only manages to keep one foot inside. She starts trash-talking, I start giggling uncontrollably and push her out of the circle. Patty hugs me and tries to pick me up. I lick her cheek and continue to giggle as she drops me and starts cursing. She tries to work out the duel details (sticks? thumb wrestling?) as I, flush with victory, decide to challenge Darth to a wrestling match. Darth is about 250 lbs. I fall down.
We are now at roughly half a bottle each, with the other campers doing their best to keep pace. Chewbacca decides that he needs to give us a sobriety test, and moves his finger in front of our eyes (only given his similar level of intoxication, it is a motion that goes in front, around, below, and almost IN our eyes). We attempt to walk a line and almost fall into the fire. We cannot remember the alphabet, forwards or backwards. I claim perfect sobriety despite the fact that I am swaying like bamboo in the wind. Patty loudly challenges everyone to wrestle, calls us all weaklings. I begin to think that maybe Chewbacca has just been misunderstood and is actually a nice guy (he was, after all, wise enough to agree with my sobriety judgement).
At 3/4 of a bottle, I am sitting next to the bonfire sharing a blanket with Chewbacca (I call him Chewy for short). Patty has been in the bathroom for half an hour. Once I realize this through the rum-fog, I go rescue her from her codependent relationship with the campground toilet and we somehow mutually support each other back to her tent. She lays down halfway out the tent door (for ease of vomiting). I have yet to release any of the alcohol currently reorganizing my digestive tract.
Nearing the end of my bottle, we begin to spout poetry in a way that only the truly intoxicated can appreciate. We recite early 90's booty rap lyrics William Shatner-style. I am sliding out of my chair, supported by only the hairy arm of my new soul-mate, and still can remember every line of Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative". I am proud, victorious. Still falling down a lot. Mix-a-Lot becomes "I like... big BUTTS... and... I cannot... LIE", sing-spoken dramatically. Shortly after this memory I (mercifully) black out completely.
Accoring to pictures, I make s'mores that end up in my hair, on my clothes, and somehow amazingly smeared in my shoe. According to witnesses, I also finished my bottle, finished other unprotected drinks, and went swimming. In the Pacific Ocean. In May. I have not been able to discover for certain if a swimsuit was involved.
I snap back into reality around the bonfire again, soaking wet, kissing Chewy (now in my mind the Epitome of Man). I am sad that the bottle is empty and my friends will not let me have any more. They are eyeing me strangely (one said later that my walking in the sand was eerily reminiscent of the "mime in a windstorm" act) and soon we all give up and collapse into our tents.
The next morning I do not realize for quite a long time that the wonderful, sensitive, ruggedly handsome Chewy of the night before is actually the same hairy abrasive jerk of the current morning. I avoid eye contact and am surrounded by friends in a manner usually reserved for herd animals in the wild (horns out, everyone).
From that night on, camping has always involved a high number of babysitters when alcohol is present. I have also never again reached that level of intoxication, or partied with anyone who could discuss the Clone Wars with any kind of authority. Life is better this way.
Prepare for schadenfreude...
Today... roommates!
I truly have atrocious luck when it comes to picking people to live with. The psychological issues are vast and varied, though I have only had to have one arrested (so far). Some people have one roommate-from-hell story, lucky me managed to score five.
Moving from my parents' house in uberrural Southwest Washington to the preppy cultural wilderness of San Antonio, Texas was something that I looked forward to for months. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into, knew exactly one person in the entire state (and did not know her well or expect to see her often), and had never lived away from home for longer than a couple of weeks. Which is of course the only way to fly! I have a bit of an adventure seeking problem. Currently looking for a support group but they're all busy skydiving into alligator pits blindfolded.
I settled into my room and met the first test of my college career, otherwise known as Candace. She smoked and claimed not to, which was hard to pull off in a room constantly full of a low fragrant haze. She had a horrible boyfriend who made fun of me and was balding in a way that was impossible not to look at (which come to think of it may be why he didn't like me). I'm not a full-head-of-hair snob, but it was unevenly patchy and looked a bit like mange. He would stay the night while I was there, and the ten feet between our twin beds did not assist me in retaining my aural innocence. After a long struggle to overcome my naturally noncombative nature, I quietly asked that he not stay over anymore and that she smoke outside. She yelled and screamed and started spending more and more nights over at his apartment off-campus. It was about a month after this that my mother called me, distraught that I had let my savings account slip into a negative balance. I was surprised at this, and immediately called the bank to see what I had missed. This began a long investigation that resulted in the discovery that Candace had stolen a blank checkbook of mine and she and her boyfriend had been forging checks (my full name is very girlie, how HE passed for me I'll never know) all over town, writing over the amount and accumulating cash that totaled above $3000. I got the campus and city police involved, and she was arrested once we got the final incriminating piece of evidence:
She had written a large check and messed up on the date, and when she scribbled in the correction she used HER initials (on my check, of course) to approve it.
When the police came to let her pick up the rest of her stuff, I stood and watched. She didn't meet my eyes and looked like a shell of her former self (there was no sign of the boyfriend). Her grandmother told me that she thought Candace was trying to support a cocaine habit. Yee-haw, welcome to Texas!
The next college odd one was Sarah. We had a couple of mutual friends and ended up rooming together at the last minute when our other arrangements fell through. She seemed nice at first, but was socially awkward and didn't have many friends. I started to come home to her sitting on her bed, throwing a tennis ball full-force against the wall, letting it bounce back to her, then chucking it again. She did this absent-mindedly in the center of the room and didn't seem to notice when I came in or out. I would have to time my crossings carefully to avoid the tiny yellow sphere o' psychoses. She was also fascinated with forensic detectives and had full series of mystery books. I asked her about them once (they took up almost all of her shelf space) and she said that her heroine was Kay something (one of the characters, I suppose) and that she really really wanted to be a detective. Then I discovered that she had already started training by observing our suitemates. The two rooms shared a bathroom, and she would sit on the bathroom floor next to their cracked-open door and listen in on their conversations. I sabotaged her at every opportunity, being extra-loud and closing doors whenever I could (I was a little hesitant to attempt direct confrontation, as her tennis-ball-expressed anger spurts were getting more violent). The final straw was when a girl I knew down the hall got overwhelmed with schoolwork and attempted suicide. She was another surveillance project of Sarah's, and the look of glee masked with false concern as they carried the girl down the hall in a stretcher made me more frightened than I'd ever been in my life.
Next was Carrie, who I moved in with mid-semester to escape the madness of Sarah. Carrie was a fellow musician and seemed stable, but soon fell into a deep depression (I never knew the cause, but she was a semi-closeted lesbian and I think the strain of it really grew during that time). She started spending day and night in our room, eating. I'd come home and find her cracker crumbs on my bed. I started spending more and more time away, studying in the library when it was open and student lounges when it wasn't. She began to bring strange women over to our room and asked if they could spend the night. We came to a head over that, I stood firm and she started hating me, blaming me for all of her troubles and grumbling under her breath. I heard most of her complaints (none true) from our mutual friends in the orchestra and gave up entirely on getting along. The kicker with her was that immediately after I fled the state for the summer, she took the boxes that I had designated for storage (that a friend of mine was going to bring downstairs for me and store) and gave them to Goodwill. All of my rather large CD collection, my clothing, my bedding... When I got back in the fall and discovered what she had done, I cursed loudly in public for the first time in my young life. Full out, screamed "FUCK" in the middle of the packed mail room. May have also been the first time I had used that particular word. Excellent start for an enduring cursing career (of course, now I prefer "fuck-ass" for its greater descriptive qualities).
I don't remember the name of my last roommate in college, she spent the two weeks we lived together lying on her bed, wrapped in extra clothing and blankets despite the heat, wearing big earphones and listening to her radio. Then her parents took her away and put her in a mental hospital. Which was too bad, I kind of liked her...
Since then the luck has improved, though this last round left me with a roommate that almost beats them all. She came in as a friend-of-a-friend, joining my friend Kate and I (and our dog and cat) in a 3-bedroom house. Immediately and without asking, she brought all of her personal decorations into the living room and displayed them prominently. These included a copper candle spiral that was vaguely '80's and geometric, a giant smoky candle that read "Gingerbread" but smelled more like "Evil", and (I still shudder typing this) a cartoony stuffed animal armadillo. I have been studying interior design for a long time, and while I am not a perfectionist, that house looked pretty good in its semi-modernist, funky style. Not "funky" as in "hey, let's add a stuffed cartoon armadillo funky" though. (The funny thing is, if it was a real, taxidermied armadillo I might have been okay with it.) I put up with the copper monstrosity, but I very politely put the armadillo back in her bedroom. Under things, where she couldn't find it for a while. She initiated a nightly tradition of sitting in our common living room and eating really loud. If I tried to use the television for a night and watch a movie, she would join me and talk to me about non-movie-related things. And if I had friends over to make dinner or hang out, she would join us without asking and jump into the conversation no matter what we were discussing. My friends stopped wanting to come over. I spent most of my time in my room. She stayed up late and woke up early, and managed to drive both my friend and I out of the house and into individual apartments.
But now my roommate is wonderful and hairy and as long as I have a vaccuum that works, we get along just fine. I'm trying to work out a way to get her to help me with chores, but she shows no interest in the washer and dryer (except when the dryer makes strange noises and she hides from it) and the dishes are a little high up. Plus she likes the taste of the soap and chews on sponges that I happen to drop. She does excellent work as a spare pillow, though, so I suppose I'll keep her.
"W-O-M spells victory!"
In a random but tremendously serendipitous time/place merging (who am I to deem them wrong or right?), I had the distinct pleasure of being elected guide of a large whitewater raft containing many of my beloved friends and ushering them down the Deschutes River in Oregon. They still talk to me, but just barely.
The position was awarded to me because I was the only person out of our 7-man (well, actually 5-woman 2-man) raft who had been rafting before... TWICE. Who knew two times down a river equaled expertise? And to be honest, all that I remember from my first trip was being amazed that I had made it out alive. Steering? A mystery. River maneuvering? Beyond my comprehension. But I grabbed the oar with gusto and promptly steered us into a tree.
A big tree. With many low-hanging branches that trapped the raft and us in a very uncomfortable position, laying flat on our backs with dead sticks poking in uncomfortable places. I hollered "BACK" and tried to rally the troops into paddling us out of it, but they were already mutinous and cursing. Eventually we made our way down the river, me giggling and messing up my left and rights (this is not good when there are many large rocks to be paddled around and we turned into them instead of away from them). I did my best to inspire blind confidence out of my crew, but my crew was my friends and they knew me far too well for that to go over with any success. I don't think the giggling helped much either. I named our raft the "Well-Oiled Machine" and made up cheer-rific catch phrases for the "WOM" that soon had the crew threatening to beat me with their paddles.
Soon, despite my best intentions, we developed a sense of the river and actually made it through a few sections with the current, passing some of our fellow boats. We became giddy with our success and I practiced spins on the smooth sections of the river, finally figuring out the system and discovering tricks to get us into the rougher water without the rest of my crew figuring out what I was doing (some of them were slightly less adventurous than I, but I decided that was only a result of their lack of experience and that they would come around if I exposed them to enough danger). The Deschutes has at least four large sections of rapids, each with terribly memorable names that I can't for the life of me recount. One was related to the Devil, that much I remember... The first big one that we encountered was very scary and we took it straight on, like the WOM that we were. We executed it flawlessly, bumps in all the right places and nobody fell overboard. By the fourth one, my friends were listening to me exclusively, concentrating on paddling when needed and keeping their feet in the boat while I chose the course.
Suckers.
The final rapid on the Deschutes is called the Boxcar. This one I remember because it is gigantic and scary and the name makes absolutely no sense. All of the rafts in our group pulled to the side of the river before the rapid and the guides (yes, they called me their guide!) walked downriver to look at it from the side and plot their path. There was a large rock formation in the center of the river, and the main current swept just to the right of it, cascading down into a giant whirlpool to the immediate right. The left side of the rock was slower and had more obstructions, so I decided to take the current to the right and try and sweep past the whirlpool (there was also a large drop as the current hit the rock - it seemed like it was over 10 feet but that could have been the viewing angle). There were locals sitting in beach chairs overlooking Boxcar, laughing at the rafts being thrown around by the river and occasionally getting up to rescue the folks that went overboard. I hiked back down to the raft and gave a very brief explanation of the rapid and our route to my trusting friends.
I didn't tell them that I was planning to take it backwards.
I had experimented with the concept on the last rapid, flipping us around mid-bounce and going in reverse for the last half of it. My friends hollered, but I passed it off to them as a mistake. We also took part of it sideways, but the manuevering was much more difficult and the threat of submerging was higher (but the bounces were better and I managed to get everyone splashed).
We approached Boxcar cautiously, giving the raft ahead of us plenty of time to get clear of the melee. Finally I yelled "ALL FORWARD" and we took off like a shot towards the center rock, hearts beating wildly and mad smiles on our faces (you have to be a little mad, I think, to pit a piece of rubber against a gigantic frothing river). The crew paused a little when I didn't tell them the expected "right back/left forward" command... I yelled "ALL FORWARD" again and their residual WOM training overpowered the doubt a little longer - then we hit the rock. I leaned all of my weight on my paddle and whipped the raft around, ignoring the yelling from my cohorts. Once they figured it all out we steered down the curve of the central current backwards and used our momentum to whip around again at the base of the drop and face the remainder of the rapid going roughly the right way. They were yelling, screaming with glee at the thrill of the bounce, the unorthodox ride that had taken us over the most exhilarating part of the rapid and left us breathless and glowing.
I was standing in the back of the raft the whole time, with little to hold on to. The paddlers had the center seats to tuck their feet under, I was unsupported at the point with nothing more than a rope to grab when things got rough. So when we hit that final bump after coming though Boxcar (just when I had begun to relax and was concentrating on steering us out unharmed), I was unprepared. I flew into the air and over the side of the boat with paddle still in hand, miraculously grabbing the rope as I came down behind the raft (I have no idea how high I went, just that I was up there long enough to think "Hey, I should grab that rope"). My friends pulled me in, but the shorts I was wearing lost their drawstring in the current and had their own timetable for coming out of the river. That did not correspond with my body's timetable for the same event. Yes, the locals saw my heinie. Having one hand on my paddle and one hand on my friend, I was not able to remedy the situation until halfway on the boat. I suppose it's all some sort of river-god revenge for my backwards Boxcar, but it was a little embarrassing to be hanging out for that long when I knew full well the beach chair boys were paying close attention!
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, besides the teasing and frequent declarations of "Woman, I can't believe you took us down that shit BACKWARDS." Oddly enough, I have never been asked to repeat my guide duty and still hear of it whenever we see each other again. But I still think they're glad to have done it, there's no faking the looks that were on their faces after we came through the spray.
I wanna be a long-haul trucker
This is a story from back in February, when I made the unfortunate decision to join a team of blind-daters in a competition destined to make for a very strange spring.
The first man I met turned into a stalker that it took over two months to ditch (despite repeated threats of police intervention), this date happened a couple weeks afterwards and was my last contribution to the team before going into traumatized dating hibernation for a few months. Oh, the contest pit five teams of four people against each other in a race to finish four blind dates gathered from various sites on the internet. Dates were to be pulled from Match.com, JDate (a Jewish dating service), Blackplanet.com, and one wild card that had to be approved by the judges. My stalker date was from TheStranger.com and this guy hailed from Blackplanet. At least one of the team members had to get a kiss.
I don't remember what the prize was.
I will put the stalker story up here some day, promise... I just have to get warmed up a bit and stomp down those silly impulses to hide under a rock whenever I think about him (even better: under a rock, in a box, wrapped in steel, in a safe at the bottom of the ocean ON VENUS).
DATE #2: (In which I completely fail to ruin a blind date despite a promising start)
I have to admit I went into this date trying to get out of it – I only placed the ad that this guy responded to for a contest and the contest was long over, but he had gotten my attention with his emails and convinced me that he might be worth meeting (if only to see what kind of grown man uses “u” instead of “you” and “ur” instead of “you’re”, and formulates sentences like “if we go out and just you and me, I don't care about anything or anyone than the person I'm with and the word "embarasment" most of the times isn't in my vocab, coz the only thing that matters is the were enjoying ourselves and are comfy with each other to the MAX.). But I was determined to sabotage the date military-style and make sure that he wouldn’t ask me out again.
To that end, I did some research…
He said:
“I like a woman with a nice figure and got to have them hips and a butt;)...lol”(No problems there, since I have the hips and butt of a 12-year-old boy. My family legacy is that of minimal booty, never thought that would be a bonus…)
“like a nice looking gal, great personality, fun ,outgoin and can keep me on my toes thinking what she gonna do next to supprise me. Basically keep me interested with her, coz I got one bad habbit--I get bored fast.”(I also have a close-to-ADD attention span, and am therefore an expert at what exactly gets the attention gnats bored easily. Things I employed: staring into space for a couple seconds before talking (each and every time), getting distracted and disrupting the flow of conversation so he’d have to restart it from the beginning, keeping my answers short, predictable, and uninteresting.)
“If I hesitate about anything or anyone, or they bring up negative comments, then it just kills all the excitment of getting to know someone new.”(We both worked in similar fields, so I got him talking about problem clients and actually made him badmouth my profession in a roundabout way (score!). I tried to be as bitchy as possible without being overt, but he kept looking at my chest so I don’t think he got it.)
“Oh I forgot to tell you one of my bigest passions is EATING, love to eat good food and cooking lets me be creative ;), so yeah I cook every now and then.”(And for this, I brought out my secret weapon… tofu. I extolled the wonders of tofu “even though it’s kind of like eating a sponge sometimes” and talked about how my mom (who taught me how to cook) cooks Spanish rice by adding ketchup to normal rice.)
Now for the date. I met him on a Wednesday evening at Gameworks, a preteen watering hole with video games galore. We said hi and looked at the game packages, but the cheapest was $20 and we both balked and decided to retire to the bar on the top floor and talk for a while. The sales girl mentioned that there was a special starting at 9, but it was 7 and I thought there would be no way in hell we’d still be around by then (he was very shy and didn’t make much eye contact, I was foreseeing a short, generic, awkward date). We sat at a bar overlooking the game floor – Dance Dance Revolution to be exact – and he started talking. I was able to pay attention for the first half hour or so, when he talked about his job and a little about his family. The second half hour I subtly watched the DDR people (one 50’s-aged guy who did okay, multiple 30-40 year old women who did not, one 20’s-aged Japanese guy who should have sold tickets to his bopping, twirling feet-of-fire) and played the game where I only am allowed to say “oh” and “really”, but with different intonations to imply different meanings. “Really?” “ohhh…” “Oh!” “…really.” Ask me anything about his last few relationships. Anything. I tried not to talk a lot, which wasn’t hard given his constant barrage, and tried to keep my stories to the lower-tier ones (good lord, I talked about tofu for about ten minutes). The image I was aiming for was semi-shy, normal, boring girl with no badonka-donk and little to make me stand out from the crowd.
How it all went sideways:
1. I wore a red shirt and tightish jeans (I wasn’t thinking, it’s my standard going-out look). My jacket was on for the first half of the date, but I got warm and took it off. He didn’t look at my face again for over an hour.
2. I started drinking heavily. His incessant talking was getting to me, and I went to the bathroom a couple of times with my phone in my hand, debating whether or not to call for rescue. Alcohol seemed like a better solution in the end. Problem is that booze makes me more animated and brings humor to any situation. Plus I spilled my fourth drink onto the front of my shirt a little and it further emphasized the problem discussed in #1.
3. It got to be 9 p.m. somehow and he wanted to play video games.We went downstairs and he bought an unlimited pass for the rest of the night. I was fully expecting to be out of there by 9, and didn’t realize at first that now I was stuck until 11. Luckily the booze also makes me ignorant and happy. We started out by playing a few games of pool. Something about the combo of wielding a big stick and hitting things always makes me sassy, and the boring-girl façade started to slip a little. I talked smack. I picked my ball-archrival and threatened its honor and extended family. We moved on to basketball (which I did amazingly well at considering I haven’t played in years and was not at my best coordination-wise) and a soccer-kicking thing (didn’t go as well, was wearing heels and am not used to power-kicking anything other than club gigolos with that handicap) and a very aged, laughingly-rendered shooting game that he claimed was his favorite. I died embarrassingly often (I have an issue with avoiding grenades, apparently), but with the unlimited game card and a stubborn aversion to ducking we managed to beat the game and he began to guide me about with his hand on my waist. Who knew all it takes to win a man is shooting hundreds of blocky anonymous henchmen? There was also an off-road vehicle driving game and another brutal machine-gun game, but I began to get restless and was looking for something that would truly test me and my alcohol-induced feelings of grandeur.
Then I spotted it – the 18-wheeler challenge, complete with miniature fake truck cab, gi-normous shift pattern and really long bench seat! I squealed like a schoolgirl, grabbed the game card and ran towards my new destiny. It’s always been a dream of mine to be a long-haul truck driver for a few months, to live the truck-stop life and drive like a maniac (plus they have those cool built-in beds and LOUD HORNS. mmmm.). At this point I had given up any pretense and was working from the id. My ass hit the vinyl and I was one with the game. My date had no idea how to deal with this new development, he eventually decided to find it charming but seemed a little disturbed at the personality transformation. Shy soy-lover to hollering, cussing trucker wannabe. Don’t know why that bothered him…
The club closed before I could finish my game (giving me another opportunity to give a blue-collar verbal barrage as the poor game-dude had to push me out the door), and the date walked me to my car with his arm planted over my shoulders. The rush from the game had worn off a little and I searched my brain for any other way I could make him stop liking me (or at least get his arm off), but I had already burned any of the bridges to freedom I had established earlier with my drink-induced honesty. And my subtle attempts to walk slightly apart from him only resulted in his following and our walking on a diagonal. Dammit. I said goodbye and he has already been trying to get together again, which leaves me with the less-favorable e-mail breakup option. I guess I’m not meant for a life of dating subterfuge.
(Denouement: He wanted me to meet his mother, despite the fact that I had not agreed to a second date with him based on school schedule craziness. I finally told him that I didn't have time to date anyone and sorry for wasting his time. He said he didn't mind being part-time and still wanted me to meet his mother.)
Dear Baby, Welcome to Blogsville. Population = You.
Hey there computer land! I feel I should warn the everybody - this blog is a direct result of spending 8 hours in front of a computer all day in a very uneventful receptionist position that will last... less than two more weeks. So expect a lot of postings until then but I can't guarantee that life in the real world won't be a-calling after that date! I like the real world. But until then, virtual will have to suffice, and I've been wanting to write some of the interesting shit that happens to me down for quite a while. So heeeere you go -
