We just got back from happy hour. Yes, it is 10:30 PM. We are hopelessly old. This is the most social interaction I've had since we moved to Connecticut. It was fun, though. The people from Marc's workplace are decent. They have an awful lot of inside jokes, though. I guess someday we'll be part of the inside jokes, and then some other employee's wife will feel left out of the action. And so the circle of life spins round and round. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. Suburban happy hour is a weird mix of drinking and joking and wondering if you're sober enough to drive home. Or, if your husband is sober enough to drive home. He was.
We played youngins vs. old folks at the 21st birthday bash Saturday night. (I guess turning 21 isn't the triumph is used to be, at least not when you've spent a year or so in London already.) It was me, Marc, and my brother against my parents and their friend Ray. It was a long, long game of the 20th Anniversary Edition. And it went a little something like this:
Q: What heavy metal band set a world record by playing concerts on three continents in a single day?
Matt: Hmm, Motley Crue?
Kate: Guns and Roses.
Marc: Beats me.
A: Def Leppard.
Q: What punk pioneer insisted on having dwarfs dressed as the Snow White characters backstage during shows?
Mom: Punk what?
Dad: I, I don't know.
Ray: Maybe Motley Crue?
Dad: Oh, Motley Crue. We had them before!
Mom: Was there a Mr. Motley?
A: Iggy Pop
My younger-but-bigger brother turns twenty-one on Sunday. This blows my mind in ways I cannot describe without sounding maudlin. By the time I was twenty-one, I'd, well, I'd done a lot of things I'd rather not think of my younger-but-bigger brother doing. I'm delivering two pies to distract myself with images of him, five years old, eating half of a pie straight off the pie plate at my grandmother's house on Thanksgiving. Chocolate chip pie took care of today. Tomorrow will be banana cream day.
In other news of distraction, I counted the squares on our bedroom quilt today in an effort to perfectly center the blankets on the bed.
Despite the fact that I've long maligned public knitters (so grossly alterna), I've always secretly lusted after their ability. Especially since my grandmother died halfway through my crochet lessons. So I signed up for a beginners' knitting class at AC Moore next month. I guess it was mostly so I'd be able to make my own stuff like this. And a little more indie cred never hurt anybody, right? I'll still never bring my needles to brunch, though (ugh).
If you've already seen this, then I'm sorry. If you're in a sensitive situation, beware, there is sound involved.
Is it wrong to feel personally insulted when the yellow O chair arrives after a 12-week wait, freshly upholstered in tweedy Canadian goodness, and it's got an 8 inch gash right through the fabric? I am someone you can walk right over, apparently. Is it wrong to expect just one transaction in my life to proceed without incident? Have I built up some sort of tragic consumption karma, whereby everything entering my life will be missing knobs, scratched up just so, or otherwise defect-ridden? Oh, to have a focus. Something to get my mind off of all the gashiness!
First and foremost, it's really fucking cold out. Please, don't suggest that we "go for a walk," "visit a funky little town," or "move to California." We've tried it all. (Except California.) It was nice to see Felicia today. Well, it was nice to see her during the parts of the day when we were indoors, sipping hot cider, shopping for books, or eating ice cream (in a perverse way, frozen treats were far less excruciating than I'd anticipated). During the parts of the day when we were trudging around Providence in search of eats, it was not quite so nice. But if this is the price we pay to see Felicia before she heads back to Chicago (psycho), we'll accept that.
Side note to self: try to find out why Providence has thirty-four Japanese restaurants within a tolerable 9°F walk of each other.
If you want to visit, let's aim for a July timeframe, shall we? By then, the icicle on my nose will probably have thawed. My wool-turtleneck-induced acne will have cleared up. I won't feel quite so guilty when you call out sheepishly from the back seat, "Could you turn on my seat heater?" (There isn't one.) We might even be able to meet up at the beach.
On second thought, I hate the beach. And if you come now, you might get to see all-wheel-drive in action. We've got the spare bedroom all set up, and we're a short fifteen minute drive from the casinos! We established this tonight when we stopped to waste some money on the way home from Providence. That's another story. I hate that stupid animatronic old Mohegan lady with the bad mojo.
I'm totally down, and for all the wrong reasons. Please don't think this is a plea for sympathy. I'm a little mooshamoosh, or understimulated, or something. If I haven't called or written, it's because there isn't much to say. Also, I'm a horrible phone person.
So, a story.
My first boyfriend, Jamie, was four years old. He lived at number 39, I was at 63. We kissed behind a table in nursery school and our parents thought it was this big cute thing. We knew better. It was fate.
Years passed anxiously then, and Jamie and I grew more serious. When we were 9 or 10, he started pressuring me to kiss with my mouth open. I was reluctant. I suggested we teach his little brother more swear words. It was an effective distraction. We used a flashlight to make a strobe effect while we took turns dancing in his parents' basement, among the mirrored beer signs and lots of brown. Eventually, he got bored. He broke his ankle and called to tell me about it.
He was nursed back to health by Tracy (from the intervening number 43). We all rode bikes together when he'd recovered. She had a ten speed. I had a banana seat. She and Jamie could lap me, riding around the block. I was scared of the place where the ditch crossed the street. They would happily jump the gap while I hung back, dismounted, and lifted my bike across.
I persuaded Shelley (from somewhere around 50) to help me win Jamie back. She went at my cause with a fervor. But it was suddenly obvious one day, as I was making my bed after a sleepover, that I would never get him back. I was startled by the dull void of heartbreak, and I gave up. Weeks later, Shelley called with the exciting news. She and Jamie were girlfriend and boyfriend. She said he realized it was she that he had loved all along. We were all 12.
Marc had his first yoga class last night. Actually, it was "Yoga Fusion," whatever the hell that means. I think it means chaotic yoga, if you can picture that. I've never seen so many poses covered in a one-hour class. Instead of focusing on, well, anything, the instructor simply calls out a new pose about every five seconds. We went through some sun salutations at a reasonable pace, and then did some quick balancing and floor work. Yuck.
After class, in the car, I made an easily-misunderstood comment to Marc: "I couldn't look at you -- I was afraid I would start laughing." Sometimes I get all excited about the humor in a particular situation, at a time when humor is entirely inappropriate. I feel the blood boiling up in my face, my cheeks start twitching, and I can't, under any circumstances, make eye-contact with anyone who might be in a similar state, or I will totally lose it.
The earliest instance I can remember being afflicted like was at the peak of hormonal high school. I was riding in the backseat of my friend Chris' car after a homecoming dance. He had taken my other friend Heather, and the three of us were heading to TGI Friday's. I don't know how it came up, but here's the statement that set me off: "So, that's why the tip of my dad's nose is totally fake." I bit my lip and sat way, way back in my seat. A few minutes later, as the car was crossing the truss deck Patroon Island Bridge, I saw Heather's face in the sideview mirror. Her jaw was clenched, and there was a single tear running down her cheek. She saw me looking at her, and we burst into hysterical, unstoppable laughter simultaneously. When we regained control, Heather told Chris I kicked her seat.
If you want in on this year's valentine extravaganza, drop me an e-mail with your snail-mail address. You will receive in return 1 (one) custom-made valentine thereby ensuring that you will not go heartless this February. Please specify glittery and happy or glittery and cynical.
Please dispose of Christmas Trees by carefully throwing it over your balcony. This will prevent sap and needles from littering the hallways.
As if we didn't already feel like we live in a dormitory...
Also, from further down the column:
Earn $150.00 off one months rent when you refer someone and they move in by January 15th!
That would be Wednesday. Takers?
Recent Photographs
Recent Entries
one more thing.Search the know
