I Should've Just Stayed Home

Maybe I shouldn't have gone out last night in the first place. I was just in no mood. The only other time I ventured out of the house yesterday didn't go well either. I was attempting to pay rent. I had a check from the roomie who just moved out, some money orders for my part and then $12.92 in cash because I'd done the math wrong and luckily had found exactly that much in my purse, but they wouldn't take it. "We're not equipped to handle cash." Um, what? It's CASH. It's the only part of what I'm giving you that's actually MONEY. Take the goddamn rent and let me be on my way. "I'm sorry, we're just not equipped to deal with cash. There's a bank across the street," she offers in her most polite fake voice ever.

So, I go to the bank across the street and wait in line. The two tellers are politely apologizing again and again to the customers they're serving for the slowness of their computers. Occasionally, they extend a fake smile and apologize to me, too, "I'm so sorry. We'll be right with you." So nice, so kind, so fake. I smile my fake smile back in a way that says, "Oh, it's fine. It's just fine." But really I'm watching the clock because there are only a few minutes left before the leasing office closes. Like it matters anyway, I could turn it in tomorrow; I have the day off. When I get to the counter, I ask for a money order, but once it becomes clear that I don't bank there, a manager is called who offers an apology and a fake smile, "Oh, I'm so sorry, but we don't do money orders for non-customers." I don't mention that I'm put off that I've suddenly become a non-entity, "But I have cash!" I wave it around as if to entice them. "I'm sorry, but we don't do money orders for non-customers." Nice.

WTF, people. I have a thousand dollars in my pocket and nobody wants it?! Really? Fine.

So, I go back home where I belong to slip back into bed and watch even more episodes of Californication all rife with poor life choices and unrequited love, which may be the cause of the day's angst, for surely it has nothing to do with my own poor life choices and unrequited love or where I am in my cycle or how it's raining again in June for cryin' in a bucket, which is where I stay until I decide I have had about as much of me as I can take for one day and hop in the shower with every intention of going out.

I get myself all clean and smooth and shiny and sweet smelling. I put on my skinny jeans and high heel shoes and some slinky top, but it’s just not right. I change my clothes three times, including under garments, before I decide this is good enough, just go already. Hair straight and shiny, lips glossed, back of the ear softly perfumed, when I decide to see who I could chat with on FB. This could have been my cue to just stay home, but no, I carry on. I get a couple good conversations going with some of my best girlfriends. They all agree I should go out if I want to go out, but to trust my gut. Really, I don’t know any other way. My gut plays a big role in my life, but my gut didn’t seem to give a shit either way last night.

So, eventually I go. I drive with fun music on loud, but I get pissed off at the idiot driver going 40 over the Marquam bridge where I like to go really fast (okay 50), except for that one time where I wished I could stop to look at that HUGE orange moon low in the sky. But there was no huge moon for this idiot to be slowing down for; he was just going painfully slowly and people were passing him left and right. I shouted all sorts of obscenities at him and would’ve flipped him the bird if I’d thought it was safe to take my hand off the wheel while going over a double-decker bridge at night. This could have been my cue to take the first exit back home, but no, I carry on.

Although, when I get to the CL, I don’t get out. I stay in the car. I turn it off. I’m not even waiting for the song to get over singing with the radio at the top of my lungs. Nope. I’m just sitting there. Breathing. And I’m saying to myself, “Why are you here? Why don’t you just go home?” This could have been my cue to start the car back up, but no, I carry on. “You’re here, m’dear, because you’ve spent the entire day with you and Hank Moody and as much as you like you and Hank Moody, it’s time to see some new faces. Besides, there’s music. You LIKE music. You don’t even have to dance if you don’t want to (which was an oddly compelling argument given that I love dancing, always everyday all the time). You can just get a drink, take a seat, listen to some good music and go home.”

So, I go in, order myself a Long Island Iced Tea because it’s the most liquor I can get in one glass for my money, although one barely gives me a buzz anymore, so great have become my drinking skills. Still, I order it because it’s all the cash I have and I’m glad to have found somebody in town who’ll actually take my money. I spot one of my girlfriends and go over to say hi. Hi. She’s occupied with a handsome fellow, which I completely understand, so I make my way to the front door and chat up the doorman because he always acts like he likes me. He’s not my type at all. Maybe it’s the braids and the do rag or the giant clothes with the sports logos and the sneakers or that he’s 14 years younger than me and still showers me with attention, which simultaneously makes me feel flattered and like I’m a nasty old cougar, but he’s sweet so I give him a hug and a little kiss like I usually do and hang on his arm for a minute. I forget that I agreed to just sit down and listen to music.

Enter stupid guys. Guys who are also not my type, but not sweet like the doorman who actually knows my name.

“Hey, baby. What’s yo name?”

“What you up to tonight?”

“What you got going on?”

One of them actually remembers that we had this conversation last week and asks me how work is going. Fine, busy, I say.

“So, what you up to tonight? What you got going on?”

Sometimes I just turn it back on them to move the conversation along, “Not much. Things are good. How ‘bout you? How you doing?”

And I swear to god the very next words out of his mouth are, “So, what you up to tonight? What you got going on?”

Really? Seriously? Didn’t we just do that?

“It don’t have to be nothin’ serious. It can be all casual,” he says.

“I’ve got enough of nothin’ serious. I’ve got enough casual.”

“Well, alright. Let’s get married then. Just for tonight.”

Really? Seriously?

And I swear to god the very next words out of his mouth are, “So, what you up to tonight? What you got going on?”

I should’ve just stayed home.

Setting the Alarm: There's Nothing to Understand

Here are bits of wit, whimsy and wisdom and I bet a bit of news from across the pond, gathered in the fleeting moments while I set the alarm at night. Each bullet point comes from a different night, yet strangely, delightfully makes some sense when strung together.

• Look at every newspaper and you can't get away from this clash of culture
• One and a half million dollars
• They were charged
• In which condition is he safe?
• There's nothing to understand. Speak plainly to me.
• The Dalai Lama

Setting the Alarm: It's Almost Like Euphoria

Here are bits of wit, whimsy and wisdom and I bet a bit of news from this week from across the pond, gathered in the fleeting moments while I set the alarm at night, edited ever so slightly for continuity. Each bullet point comes from a different night, yet strangely, delightfully makes some sense when strung together.

• These rods are the only thing keeping them from falling into a pit.
• It may not be easy, but we need to forget.
• You know, it's almost like euphoria. You can't understand what's going on...
• Of people's problems.
• It's so slow.

Setting the Alarm

For reasons I can't quite and don't care to explain, I started writing down the snippets of radio I hear when setting my alarm at night. I have this little ritual, some might call a compulsion, around setting my alarm. I set the time, which is not the same every day because sometimes I go to bed so late that I'm certain an extra half hour of hitting the snooze button will make all the difference in my day. Right, so I set the alarm, turn the little knob to the actual time, then back to the alarm, back to actual time, then back to alarm time. It's this little dance of three where I assure myself that I have actually set the alarm for A.M. and not P.M. and where I realize that I better sleep fast because there are just not enough hours between now and morning. In college we used to bid each other this blessing, "May the Lord multiply your hours of sleep, dominus possum pax probiscus, post mortem, et tu brute, puella carborundum," taken from a Ray Stevens song we seemed to have loved called The Hair Cut. In that little moment of time on the radio settings between alarm, radio and radio alarm, a tiny yet always complete bit of language makes its way to my ears. I always have my radio set to 91.5fm, which is OPB radio before midnight and the BBC News after midnight. It seems needless to say that the bits I always catch have come all the way from Greenwich Mean Time.

Here are the bits of wit, whimsy and wisdom, and I suppose a bit of news, from this week from across the pond, edited ever so slightly for continuity. Each bullet point comes from a different night, yet strangely, delightfully makes some sense when strung together.

• And that kinda stuff


• Which is offensive to minorities


• Surfaces


• Represents the type of technology that North Korea or even Iran might be able to develop. Today it may be good to travel, hopefully.


• And fired up crowds attended rallies to cheer the President


• The balance right


• Variety is nothing more than diversity

She Lives...For Better or Worse

Oh, for crying in a bucket. Even I'm tired of looking at this old post. Geez, Louise. You'd think I'd dropped off the face of the planet. If only I had an excuse that good.

So, here's what I've been up to since January 8th (my last post):

• I did indeed have Lasik surgery (see photo). I am now seeing clearly out of my very own eyes! Well, my right one anyway. The left one is coming along nicely, but it had more work done on it so it's taking longer to catch up. I highly recommend this procedure, surgery is really too strong a word for a 34 second encounter with a laser. Run don't walk to your nearest trusted Lasik center now, unless of course you're happy with your vision.
• I got a new job! I now work at the Best Place Ever! I'm the Transition Coordinator for an alternative school in NoPo. I work with high school seniors and help them figure out what comes next, 'cuz graduation is not an ending, it's really a new beginning. gack.
• Six weeks later I was asked to fill in for someone on maternity leave. So for the last 12 weeks of the school year I'm a Career and Academic Advisor in Career Services at the Best Place Ever!
• Six weeks later they gave my Transition Coordinator position to someone else during the restructuring process without even letting me apply for my own position like everyone else had, er, got to do. Umm...hey...I was uh, I was the Transition Coordinator. Didja not notice that? Well, they did notice that and they love me and so they're trying to scrape together enough money to come up with a full-time job for me starting in July. So everything could turn out perfectly with a full-time tailor-made job starting in July, when the pregnant lady comes back, OR I could be out of work and unable to pay rent. I'm holding out for Option A, but if you know of a good job for me, do let me know. I'm fabulous. Trust me.
• In March, at the one year mark of the day I left my husband and started the emotional rollercoaster that is an intentional separation, he called me a day before our agreed upon State of the Union Address and said, "Are you happier? Because you seem happier." I sheepishly replied that I was and he said, "Then I guess we don't really have anything to talk about." So he filed taxes and I said I would file for divorce, but I haven't yet. I don't like the word divorce as it relates to me. I haven't been able to start calling him "my ex" either. These terms have such negative connotations that don't really apply here. I'm proud of us for navigating these uncharted waters without breaking a single dish, bankrupting ourselves and keeping our friendship intact. I think it's pretty impressive. And now I shall utter the words of my father, words I shudder to utter (har har) (changed slightly to reflect the appropriate gender), "I love him, but I just can't live with him." Damn. I have become my father. Ack. Phift.
• I have become pretty good at drinking, but have discovered that I suck at singing karaoke, although that hasn't stopped me from trying and having tons of fun.
• I'm a horrendous bowler, although, thankfully, bowling does not require skill to be fun.
• I've reunited with a whole host of old high school friends through Facebook, duh, which has been more fun that it has a right to be. There's something powerful about hanging out with people who've known you since you were a kid. We're having a great time saying things like, "Oh, you were so hot in HS. I so should've done you back then." Followed by, "Really? You thought I was hot?" Followed by, "OMG, duh!" We get together every month now, except for David and Sol and Amy who NEVER SHOW UP! Whuck's up with that?!!! The only problem is, everyone is married and therefore presumably unavailable, which I lament because I would very much like to be having tons and tons of sex.
• I have perfected my Joey Tribiani, "How you doin'?" look. It is evidently so powerful that it caused a tall, shiny black Cubano in a bar to make out with me on the dance floor. And then another time it caused a nicely dressed black man on a passing train to get off at the next stop, wait for me and then hand me his phone number as soon as the door to my train opened. I must use the force wisely, so great is its power.
• I have begun to believe, for the second time ever, that I am beautiful and attractive and sexy and fun, nevermind my weight or age. I say very little about this, but it is the biggest, most monumental change I've encountered thus far. I must note that Mr. Karin always adored me, treated me like a princess, praised the virtues of my ample hips and thighs, seemed unphased by my sad little breasts and loved to kiss that spot between them. So, I cannot properly explain why self-appreciation of my figure is only happening now. Feel free to offer your theories in the comments.
• I am happy. Most of the time I am happy. When I do get in a funk, which happens, I notice that my funks are less funky and they subside quickly.

Lasik Surgery--Yes or No?

I have an appointment today to see if I'm a good candidate for Lasik surgery, that is, corrective eye surgery so I can finally be free of these damn glasses, which I've been wearing for 35 years. Well, not this pair the whole time, but you know what I mean.

Please note the photographic history of my glasses and that I've left out that vain year in high school where I refused to wear them, preferring to squint instead.

From everything I've read and heard, qualified professionals using state-of-the-art technology aside, the greatest factors influencing success involve the patient's expectations going into the procedure. If one is expecting to have perfect vision immediately without any "touch ups" and to never wear glasses for any reason ever again, then one might be dissappointed with the results. However, if one is happy to have their vision improved to extent that they no longer need corrective lenses 16 hours a day, though may require reading or driving glasses now or in the future, then one might be thoroughly delighted.

People report joy in being able to read the clock first thing in the morning, having clear, unobstructed peripheral vision for the first time or being able to swim or scuba dive with greater ease and safety. All these things sound good to me, too. I'm also looking forward to walking in the rain without needing windshield wipers, coming in from the cold without waiting for the requisite defrogging pause, being able to actually see myself when I put on makeup, being able to see anything when performing on stage and last, but certainly not least for I am still vain, showing off my eyes, the one feature I don't hate about my body.

I have personally known three people who've had this procedure done. Two say they think it's the best investment they ever made and they only wish they'd done it sooner. One regrets it completely, complaining daily about dry eyes and having to wear reading glasses.

I'm 99% sure I'll move forward with the surgery, if I'm a good candidate, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the matter. I've overcome any fear I may have had about the safety of the procedure and the sheer gross-out factor, mainly because I've seen it done and it only lasts a few minutes et voila, clear vision. Magic! Cost was prohibitive before, but I'm now I'm in a position to consider it.

So, what do you think? Lasik surgery--yes or no?

And Then There's Me

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
My dad’s favorite cousin, who I met for the first time in 2001.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
Yesterday. I cry a lot.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
Usually. I especially like my teacher whiteboard writing. Impressively neat.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
I used to really, really like a French dip sandwich with horseradish, but I
don’t eat meat anymore (you know, the whole dead cow thing) and there
just isn’t a suitable replacement.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
No, thank God.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Yeah, I like me.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
Me? No, never.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yep.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
Not unless I was forced at gunpoint or was paid an obscene amount of
money.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Raisin anything.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
I don’t have any shoes that tie, but when I do I always untie them, which makes me a good person.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
Oh, yes. Physically? No, I can’t even open a jar of peanut butter. However, I think of myself as resilient.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Soy Delicious Chocolate Peanut Butter and Coconut Bliss Chocolate
Fudge. Heaven.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Teeth (if they’re smiling, if not, then hair).

15. RED OR PINK?
Red!

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
I keep holding on to a good 50 extra pounds even though I know how to
lose them. The good news is I’ve been holding steady for years and not
gaining, which was my custom in my twenties.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
That’s easy---my mom, greatest woman who ever lived.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO DO THIS?
That’s really not necessary.

19. WHAT COLOR SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Black fuzzy slippers, but only because my feet are cold. If I had my druthers, I’d never wear shoes again, much as I love them as a fashion statement.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?
A small piece of chocolate and an apple, in the car on the way home. (Why do I still drive? This is ridiculous. I should be taking the bus for crying out loud.)

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
That obscenely loud kitchen exhaust fan from the restaurant down below.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Burnt Umber.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Cigarette smoke in my non-smoking building. I love it. (I think I forgot to take my happy pill today.)

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
Mr. Karin

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
I do. Rebel Rocks!

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Gymnastics, figure skating, almost any Olympic event.

27. HAIR COLOR?
Well, blonde, but only because I color it.

28. EYE COLOR?
Hazel: green brown, with flecks of gold

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
I wish, but can’t, try as I might. What I’d really like is corrective surgery!

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
Linguine with sautéed veggies and parmesan cheese. I live on that.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Suspense, but not horror. I just rented the remake of Amityville Horror even though it traumatized me when I watched the first one at a far too young age when it first came out. As my brother ran out the door on a date, my mom yelled, “Take your sister with you!” So he and his girlfriend watched 10 with Bo Derek and I was thrown into Amityville Horror. Scarred me for life. Amityville is a town not far from where I lived at the time. But I rented it this time just to see Ryan Reynolds sportin’ a seriously cut 6-pack. O.M.G!

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Amityville Horror, a waste of a talented cast; however...Ryan Reynold's seriously cut 6-pack!

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Karin is wearing a multi-colored halter in jewel tones of fuchsia, orange and umber.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Summer, please.

35. HUGS OR KISSES?
No A-frame hugs, but full on hug-me-like-you-mean-it hugs. My brother’s are the best.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT?
Cheesecake (there are even some outstanding vegan ones out there!)

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
No idea.38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Well, half my fan base has already done it. (That is, Rebel has.)

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. Fascinating!

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
No mouse pad.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
I heart Chuck and Dexter.

42. FAVORITE SOUND?
My mom saying, “Hey, Sugar.”

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Oh, the Beatles!

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
8,000 miles away in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa. Woot!

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
Oh, I sing and act and play with color. I want to be in a show with Liev Schreiber someday; he’s brilliant. Not likely to happen as I don’t live in LA or NY and don’t audition, but eh, these are mere details.

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Catskill, NY and 2 months early.

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
I always like to know more about M5K.