The world is fractured and I keep feeling lost
since he died. Time falters forward, pausing occasionally
to look for him. I glance over my shoulder
when I hear a twig break or a door sigh
the way he used to, though I try not to,
and I miss him again. He was a dream, an idyll and ideal
and now a martyr. His crusade for love
left him damaged and afraid, alone in his mind.
I couldn’t reach him in time and so he left
without me, escaping on eager, trembling wings.
I remember him when a conversation stutters,
when a star tumbles to the ground,
when a beautiful girl cries. Mercy
and grace must surely be his, if anyone’s. I believe
he came to rest among angels who understood him,
and now he shines in the diffuse indigo night
for everyone, and not just for me. I believe this
because as I stumble through the pieces of this world,
only the heavens make sense.
Tag Archives: friendship
How Not To Be A Workout Buddy
So you’ve decided to get serious about going to the gym? You know, one of the best things you can do to improve your exercise routine is to get yourself a workout buddy. Studies have shown that people who exercise with a partner are more likely to reach their fitness goals. After all, no app, tool, or supplement can give you the kind of motivation you’ll get from a workout partner who really knows you:
Little Blind Girl: Hey, I know we’re supposed to go to the gym right now, but Skeeter’s Taco Shack is having this contest called “Guess the Fish” where you eat free if you can—
Friend: Nope. The last time we skipped our workout, you made me swear on Season Two of Grey’s Anatomy that I would never let you do that again, so go squeeze your doughy butt into some spandex. We’re hitting the gym.
Little Blind Girl: Nah, I’m gonna bail. Sorry, but there is nothing that could get me into my gym clothes right now.
Friend: (thinks for a second) Remember how you wore your fishnet stockings to that party the other night, but they’d gotten so tight that you had little criss-cross marks all over your legs the next day?
Little Blind Girl: Hand me that sports bra.
When you exercise with a buddy, gym time isn’t just more fun; it’s also more effective. Your friend will know when you’re not challenging yourself and can give you that extra push you need:
(while going for a run )
Friend: You sure you can’t go any faster? Okay, okay. Oh, hey, I’ve got a call. (talking into cell phone) Hello? Oh, hi, Grandma. How’d the surgery go? (pause) Me? I’m just out for a run with the Little Blind Girl. (pause) Sure, you can join us!
Little Blind Girl: Very funny.
Friend: (still talking into phone) No, Grandma, your wheelchair won’t slow us down.
Little Blind Girl: Your phone isn’t even on!
Don’t forget that you and your exercise buddy can help each other outside the gym, too. After all, no matter how much energy you put into your workout, you won’t see results if you don’t maintain a healthy diet:
(at Skeeter’s Taco Shack )
Little Blind Girl: Well, Skeeter, I’m impressed by the addition of sushi to your menu, especially at that price, but today I’m more in the mood for the pasta carbonara platter—with extra parmesan, of course— and if you could bump the portion size up to “Last Meal On Death Row,” that’d be great.
Friend: Guess how long you’d have to stay on the rowing machine to burn off all those calories?
Little Blind Girl: I’ll have the grilled chicken breast, please. No sauce.
And when all that effort finally starts paying off, no one will appreciate your hard-earned hard body more than the person who was with you for every rep:
Little Blind Girl: Check out my new arm muscles!
Friend: All right. (puts hand on Little Blind Girl’s bicep) Okay, flex.
Little Blind Girl: I am flexing!
Friend: Oh. Are you sure?
The buddy system isn’t just for crossing the street. When it comes to diet and exercise, there’s nothing like a partner to keep you motivated and on track. So if you’re serious about fitness, make sure that when you head to the gym, you bring along the most important equipment of all: a friend.
[Image is in the public domain via pixabay.com]
The Friend Card
Among any group of really good friends, you will always find some version of the Friend Card. The Friend Card is sort of like the Bat Signal; you can only use it in an emergency, but when you do, your friends have to drop what they’re doing, get in their bat-mobiles, and come help you however they can. They don’t have to show up in a superhero costume (although bonus points if they do), but they do have to show up.
Not all Friend Card-worthy emergencies are harrowing tales of woe, of course. A lot of them are the kind you eventually end up laughing about. For me, the memories of times I’ve played the Friend Card have turned into some of my favorite stories to tell. For instance, there was the time I went on a date and had to have a friend come to the restaurant to rescue me:
The Time I Went On A Date And Had To Have A Friend Come Rescue Me
It’s not that the date went badly, it’s that I’d worn an old pair of pants that split down the back seam halfway through the night. Yes, it was hilarious. Are you done laughing yet? Okay, how about now? Good. So, in the Not Great column, I was in a crowded restaurant with my “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” underwear on full display (stop judging me). In the Could Be Worse column, I was in the ladies’ room when it happened, which I’ve always taken as proof that God is a chick.
After I got done freaking out, I called a girlfriend who was about my size, invoked the Friend Card, and skulked in a stall until she could bring me some pants that didn’t violate public decency laws. It took a comparative eon and a few months off my life, but my friend finally got to the restaurant and headed discreetly to the bathroom, where she handed me a nice pair of her own pants to change into and then immediately left so I could continue my date. She even snuck my ripped pants out with her so my date wouldn’t see them—star power!
The rest of the night went very well, and I’m ashamed to say that my friend’s pants got pretty badly wrinkled by the time I returned them the next day. No, that’s not true. I’m actually not ashamed at all. So, under the circumstances, I think that was a solid use of the Friend Card and a fine performance by my friend. She still makes fun of me for it, but she gets to because she came through in the clutch. And because I wrinkled her pants.
Then, of course, there’s the time I decided it was a good idea to skip the salon and bleach my hair at home:
The Time I Decided It Was A Good Idea To Skip The Salon And Bleach My Hair At Home
I was trying to save money, and I’d thoroughly researched home hair bleaching techniques on the internet. With what I now realize was undue faith in YouTube tutorials, I followed the instructions exactly, settled myself by an open window, and tried to ignore the way my scalp had caught fire. When it was time to check under the hood, so to speak, I looked in the bathroom mirror and omigod my hair is orange panic panic panic ask google what to do—
I followed my Google search result’s instructions for mixing and applying a violet-colored toner to cancel out the (pumpkin freaking orange) brassiness, though with a little less faith than I’d had in the YouTube tutorials from the previous step. I washed out the toner, looked in the bathroom mirror and omigod my hair is purple panic panic panic why does the internet hate me panic panic just shave it all off and buy a wig–
Before I went completely V for Vendetta, I figured I might as well try playing the Friend Card. To set the scene, this was 5:40 on a Sunday evening and the stores all closed at 6:00. My friend took me to the drugstore, said nothing about the three scarves I had wound around my head, and calmed me down long enough to grab some hair dye in a fetching shade of normal. It worked thank you sweet baby jesus i’ll never bleach my own hair again and, although my hair was basically straw for the next two months, it was straw of a normal color. I’m calling that a win.
Of course, I’ve also been the one upon whom the Friend Card was played, and I think I’ve come through pretty well when it was my turn. I mean, not everyone would be willing to pry the nails out of a coffin-sized wooden box her friend found in the basement of her new house and open it up to see if there’s a body inside:
The Time I Pried The Nails Out Of A Coffin-Sized Wooden Box My Friend Found In Her Basement And Opened It To See If There Was A Body Inside
The problem with living in a big city is that, when you move into your new home and find a large wooden box nailed shut and stowed in a dark corner of the basement and you call the police because the box is just the right size to contain a body, they tell you to open it yourself and not to call back unless the box turns out to, in fact, contain a body. My friend learned this the hard way. She couldn’t bring herself to open the box, though, so she friend-carded me— and then I got to learn it the hard way, too.
My friend had tried her best to work up enough courage to open the box on her own. However, in a case of what turned out to be monumentally poor planning, we had just celebrated her last night in her old house with a horror movie marathon that included Nosferatu. After several hours of staring at the creepy mystery box and clutching a hammer that she was more ready to use as a weapon than as a tool, my friend finally caved and called me to come over and open it for her. By then, it was closing in on midnight.
Of course I came over, and I brought a crucifix, some garlic, a wooden stake, and my neighbor’s handgun (just in case). The wooden stake was really just one of my mixing spoons held the wrong way round and the garlic was the kind you buy in a jar, but I hadn’t had much notice. As I pried out the last nail, I wondered if this was the point in the movie when the entire audience starts yelling “Don’t do it! Just run!” and then I shoved off the lid before I could chicken out. My friend, who by this time had turned mint green, stood ready with the mixing spoon as I looked into the box to find….
Potatoes. Dozens and dozens of potatoes. Turns out the house’s previous owner liked to buy them in bulk and store them in the basement in a creepy wooden box because apparently that makes them “keep” longer. He’d meant to take the box with him when he moved, which is why he nailed it shut, but that corner of the basement was badly lit and he didn’t see the box during his final walk-through. Still, I didn’t know that when I looked inside, so I totally get the Friend Card win on this one.
Everyone has played the Friend Card, and everyone has had the Friend Card played on them, and I’ve never heard of someone not coming through. In my opinion, it’s one of the better qualities of the human race, right up there with empathy, imagination, and the inability to throw out your kid’s crappy handmade presents. It gives me hope.
And to those of you who like to store your starchy tubers in giant scary coffins in the basement: LABEL . YOUR . BOXES! Seriously, who does that? Potatoes. Good grief.
[all images are in the public domain via pixabay.com]
Meet Super (Blind) Girl
I have a superpower. Now, if I had a choice as to what superpower I would have, it wouldn’t be this one. My first choice would be the ability to fly. After that, I think maybe super-healing (because chopping vegetables while blind never ends well) or maybe immortality, because awesome. It wasn’t up to me, though, so what I ended up with was this: when I’m out running errands, I have the ability to go into a store and walk right up to the thing I’m looking for, even when I have no idea where it is and I can’t see it or anything around it. Useful, but no one’s going to make a movie out of that anytime soon. I don’t think. Unless I can figure out how to sparkle while I do it.
Edward Cullen by Joel Kuiper, licensed by CC
My superpower became apparent a while ago when I was out with a friend shopping for a garlic press. We were at Overpriced Behemoth Box Store (not the actual name, unless we’re being honest) in which literally thousands of items of varying degrees of usefulness were shelved, hung, and piled up farther than the eye, or my eye at least, could see. We resigned ourselves to a minimum twenty-minute session of squinting and swearing, girded our loins, and went once more unto the breach. I forded a nearby aisle, picked something up at random to see what it was, and yes: it was indeed a garlic press. Or should I say, it was the garlic press, because not only was it the thing I was looking for, it was the only one in the entire store. All this while my Totally Sighted Friend was searching fruitlessly right beside me. Hand to God, and I have a witness.
It’s gotten to the point that my Totally Sighted Friend will take me to the grocery store, tell me what she needs, and then follow me around until I find it. One day she needed potatoes, so I wandered into the produce aisle, picked up a kumquat, put down the kumquat because I’ve never been sure what a kumquat is, thought I might like some cheese, and on the way to the cheese stand nearly ran into the potatoes. Totally Sighted Friend seriously and with opportunism aforethought just leaned on the cart and watched me amble around until I stopped and went, “Hey! Potatoes!” Which were right next to the onions I remembered I needed when two of them fell into my shopping cart. They were specifically yellow onions, too, which was the kind I wanted. That’s really what makes it a super-power: it’s so freaking specific.
copyright 2011-2016 by woodstock-chan on deviantart.com http://fav.me/d397ahb
Yea, verily, the life of a superhero is fraught with peril. As I walk this lonely road, gentle readers, do not envy me, but follow at a safe distance, because there’s a decent chance I’ll accidentally find whatever it is you’re looking for. By the way, I also have the power to draw smiley faces on the insides of basketballs, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to take that one on faith. 🙂
Confessions Part One: Things I Accidentally Stole From My Friends
Sinner; copyright zgrredek on Flickr
I think there’s an unspoken statute of limitations for things you accidentally steal from your friends. You know how it is, you borrow a friend’s shirt one day, you mean to wash it and give it back. Suddenly six months have gone by and you’re unpacking in your new apartment in a different city and you come across that shirt and you think, is it really worth mailing it back? I’ll just give it to her the next time I see her. Except, the next time you see her isn’t until someone is getting married and you’re so stressed about gifts and travel plans and horrible bridesmaids dresses that you forget all about the shirt. Then you get back home, you see the shirt, you do a face palm slap, and you think, I’ve really got to remember to take that with me the next time I’m going to see her. Except, the next time you see her is when there’s a funeral, and the last thing on your mind is your friend’s shirt. Unless it’s your friend’s funeral, at which point you’re pretty much out of luck.
When you’ve borrowed an item and you forget (or “forget”) to give it back, I propose a time limit of three years during which time, if the item is demanded, you must return it as expeditiously as possible. If the item is not demanded within those three years, you’re free to consider it yours and keep it guilt-free. I have taken it upon myself to test this theory before making a public proposal, because that’s just how much I care. Also because I kept forgetting to give the things back. The statute of limitations has passed on each of the items in the test group, and I now consider them mine. Here’s what I accidentally stole from my friends:
- A rock band T-shirt: this is the quintessential item that you borrow and never end up returning, partly because you honestly don’t remember and partly because you subconsciously don’t want to remember because the T-shirt is so cool. Mine is from the now-disbanded Marvelous 3, the most rawk-tastic band around when I was in college, and since they’re no longer together, there will be no more T-shirts ever. The lead singer was Butch Walker, who is still around and making music (which is also rawk-tastic), but it’s not quite the same when you can’t just blow off your classes, drive for hours to some skanky club, and get back late afternoon the next day just in time to take a Phenomenology exam you didn’t study for. Sorry, Michelle: the shirt’s mine now!
- Books: another very common entry on the list of Stuff People Borrow And Never End Up Giving Back. At least one friend of mine has a policy of never lending books to anyone, even immediate relatives, for this very reason. I borrowed 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez from an ex-boyfriend who, if I’m honest, I’m pretty sure had never read it and only kept it around to impress chicks. I wasn’t dating him for his mind. Anyway, I read the book and it was life-alteringly fantastic, which frankly my ex-boyfriend wasn’t, so I kept the book and got rid of him.
- Lipstick: this one is mostly limited to women, though not always. There’s a magic shade for each woman, and there’s no predicting it based on coloring or skin tone or anything. You could have identical twins and each would have a different magic shade of lipstick. It’s the shade that, when you put it on, it doesn’t just suit you perfectly, it makes you feel beautiful. It gives you confidence just to know you’re wearing it. When you go to replace it, it will inevitably have been discontinued. I borrowed a tube of lipstick from a friend and it was my magic shade. She let me use it for a long time because it’s part of the Girlfriend Code to help your girlfriends look fabulous, and eventually I think we both forgot it wasn’t originally mine. I still have it, though there isn’t much left, because I’ve been hoarding it for things like dates where the guy actually takes me to a nice place. As you can tell by the fact that there’s still some left, that doesn’t happen very often. But when it does, I’m ready.
So here it is, my confession: I accidentally steal things from friends. To be fair, though, they accidentally steal things from me, too. It’s kind of nice, really. When you’ve all been friends long enough, your stuff tends to end up mixed together through some sort of friendship diffusion effect. You’re over for dinner, and you comment on your friend’s candlesticks, and then you both squint at them and realize at the same moment–they used to be yours! That’s OK, though, because you borrowed the necklace you’re wearing from her five years ago. It all works out in the end. Man, it feels good to get that off my chest!
Close Encounters of the Chain-Bookstore Kind
My friends and I were in a bookstore once–one of those big national-chain-type bookstores where you need to use your GPS to find your way around. Actually, this was long enough ago that you had to leave a booktrail to follow back–you know, where you take a book you like and leave it facing cover-out so that you can follow the books like a breadcrumb trail back to the front door, The Sound and the Fury to American Gods to The Maltese Falcon and so on…if you’re with friends you know well enough, you can also use this method to find each other in the store. Anyway, one of my friends was being hit on by this totally obnoxious guy who was being a condescending jerk to her just because he was very good looking, which would have been less offensive if he hadn’t been spouting really bad existentialist philosophy at the time.
Disclaimer: I have nothing against existentialist philosophy, as long as it’s done well, preferably in a French accent while smoking a cigarette. Sadly, this was both crappy and in a Middle America kind of accent. Not that I have anything against Middle America, it’s just not known for its existentialist philosophy. Crap. This is bound to offend someone. Don’t hate me.
So my friends and I stood watching this for a while, because it wasn’t a big town and that counted as entertainment, when suddenly I’d had enough. I mean, there’s only so much douchiness you take, especially when it’s being dished out to your friends. So I ran around a display, rushed breathlessly up to my friend, and said, “Oh my God! It’s really you! I can’t believe it! No one’s going to believe me when I tell them about this! Can I have your autograph?!” And my friend graciously signed her name as Douchebag Hairdo gawped moronically on the sidelines. Friends: 50 million. Douchebag Hairdo: 0.
Friends are awesome. Can I just say? Also: everyone deserves to have that happen to them at least once in their lives. Except maybe for Douchebag Hairdos.
Does going to a Richard Marx concert hurt my street cred?
Dirty Dancing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A while ago, I posted about my friend who mysteriously got engaged. Well, during my hiatus, she got married, and I was there for her bachelorette party the night before. Now, for those of you who are under thirty, you probably have quite a different picture in your heads when I say “bachelorette party”. What actually happened was that we rented a hotel room and some eighties movies, drank beer, and gossiped while watching Dirty Dancing. We’re wild women and cannot be tamed.
At the time, I had been on a Richard Marx kick for about a week. I don’t remember what started it, but I was seriously rediscovering his work leading up to the party. This isn’t a tangent, and here’s why:
Little Blind Girl: (squints at screen) I haven’t seen this movie in forever. Come to think of it, I think the last time I watched it, I could actually see the screen.
Mysteriously Engaged Friend: D*mn, I didn’t realize this movie was that old!
LBG: (hits Mysteriously Engaged Friend with pillow)
Non-engaged Friend 1: Poor Patrick Swayze. He looks so young.
Non-engaged Friend 2: Dude could really dance. Look at him! And the hot blonde chick who plays the dance instructor, too. Say what you want, the people in this movie had serious skills.
LBG: If you say anything along the lines of “Not like in the dance movies the kids watch these days”, the next pillow is coming at you.
MEF: You know, I think the blonde chick got married to Richard Marx.
LBG: Seriously? I’ve been listening to his music for, like, a week solid. That’s so weird!
NEF 1: That you’ve been listening to Richard Marx? Yeah, that is weird!
LBG: (hits NEF 1 with pillow)
NEF 2: I wonder if they’re still married.
NEF 1: Does anyone have internet access? We could look it up online.
MEF: (guiltily) I’m already online.
LBG: Really? Now? What site are you on?
MEF: Second Life.
(pause)
NEF 2: You’re playing a character in a fictional online world during your bachelorette party the night before you get married?
MEF: Yes.
NEF 1: LBG, you’re officially off the hook as lamest person here.
LBG: I knew we should have gone with strippers.
Richard Marx (album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
And that’s how the eighties kids roll. FYI, we did look up the hot blonde chick who played the dance instructor, and she is still married to Richard Marx and they’ve stayed together for approximately ever, which I think was a good omen right before a wedding. Ever since then, I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for Richard Marx, and I’m going to see him in concert in December with Non-engaged Friend 1. I’m pretty sure this is going to destroy any street cred I’ve gathered with my professed love for Nirvana and John Lennon, but I don’t care. His music makes me smile. Plus, I had my first slow dance to one of his songs. When it was first released. I played it over and over until the cassette tape broke. The first reader who makes a snarky comment about any of this gets an online pillow attack!
Quiz: Am I a girl or not?
I’ve been home sick for a couple of days. For the most part I’ve just been curled up miserably, waiting for the worst of it to pass. When that palls, though, I’ve been reading trashy articles on What Guys Like and How To Tell If He’s The One. I always get it wrong–I don’t know what guys like and I couldn’t tell if he’s the one if you put a gun to my head. It’s left me with some confusion: am I a girl or not?
So, in honor of all the quizzes I’ve been doing about What Jeans Are Best For Your Body Shape and Which Sex Goddess Are You, I’ve created a quiz for all those who are with me on the whole Cosmo-doesn’t-always-speak-for-me front. If you like, you can take this quiz pretending you’re me and see if you think I’m a girl, or you can take it for yourself. Either way, have fun, and tell me your results! I promise I won’t make fun of you. To your face. And for heaven’s sake: this is meant as a joke!
A. You’ve been dating a guy for three months. You think he’s great, he thinks you’re beautiful without your makeup, all is paradise. He takes you out somewhere special and, after dinner, hands you a gift: an emerald bracelet. You think:
- How thoughtful! And so beautiful! I wonder if there’s a matching necklace coming in another three months…
- Gonna have to take out a rider on the homeowner’s insurance for this one.
- When have I ever worn a bracelet around him?
- That’s really expensive for a three month ‘anniversary.’ And who celebrates three month anniversaries, anyway?
- I hope he doesn’t mind that I only got him a subscription to Real Simple.
B. You’re out about town, running some errands. You pass a new shoe store and:
- Go in, duh!
- Leave an impression of your nose against the glass, but don’t actually go in. You can tell just by looking that the shoes in the store are outside your budget.
- Think, I should probably get some new nude pumps one of these days…and keep walking. You’re probably good for another 6 months or so.
- Think, if I wore any of the shoes in the window of that store, I would snap my ankles before I made it to the sidewalk. Why do women do that to themselves?
- Think, Isn’t that where the kitchen supplies store was? Now where am I going to get a decent pasta maker?
C. You have three free hours that must, for various reasons, be spent at a very large shopping mall, and for once you have some disposable income. You:
- Thank the shopping gods that you wore a button-down shirt (won’t mess up the hair when changing in dressing rooms), take a look over the mall directory, and map out a plan of campaign.
- Take a minute to think about what you actually need to buy, make all your purchases in a department store, then buy a magazine and stow away in the Food Court.
- Take a look at what you want to buy in the stores, then look online with your smartphone and find out that you can buy it for half that much online, finally leaving without purchasing anything.
- Look only at the bargain racks of every store you enter, leaving with five bags full of various items you may or may not actually need that cost you a total of $37.29.
- Hit the kitchenware first. Hey, you’ve been looking for a decent pasta maker ever since that shoe store replaced the kitchen supply store in your neighborhood.
D. One of your girlfriends has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend and is a sobbing mess on her living room floor. You, as one of her dearest friends:
- Rush over armed with ice cream, wine, and movies, collecting the rest of your friends on the way for maximum comfort.
- Rush over armed with minor explosives and the blueprints to the bastard’s house, collecting the rest of your friends on the way for an all-out assault.
- Post a comforting, supportive message on Facebook, then finish eating dinner.
- Finish eating dinner, then post a comforting, supportive message on Facebook.
- Talk to her on the phone about how much better off she is without him, and offer to make her some spaghetti with your new pasta maker. You can really taste the difference!
E. You’re at work and a very large insect scuttles across the carpet right by your office door. You:
- Shriek and beg one of your male coworkers to kill it. You can handle cantankerous clients and hostile takeover bids, but you’re terrified of bugs.
- Shriek and beg one of your male coworkers to kill it not because you’re terrified of bugs, but because you don’t want to get bug guts on your shoes by stomping on it.
- Stomp on it.
- Make fun of your female coworkers who shrieked, and then stomp on it.
- Catch the bug in an improvised container and drop it out the window. You don’t want to push the eggs into the carpet where they can hatch.
Answers:
Mostly 1’s: Congratulations, you’re a Cosmo-approved girl! I’ve never met one of you, but I’ve heard rumors of your existence for years. If we ever meet, please tell me: what is the point of a manicure if it chips within five minutes of leaving the salon?
Mostly 2’s: You’re me. Sorry about that. You may or may not qualify as a girl. Expensive jewelry makes you a little nervous, you love shoes but only buy them rarely, and you’ve taken to heart the saying that the female of the species is deadlier than the male.
Mostly 3’s: Even I think you’re boring. Wear a little pink from time to time, and would the occasional ruffle or velvet bow kill you? You’re female! Have fun with it! And if you don’t want to wear pink, I don’t blame you at all. I don’t like pink, either. Or ruffles. Or velvet bows. But then, I may not actually be a girl.
Mostly 4’s: You may be a dude. That’s fine, if that’s what you’re going for. It’s really less about the trappings and more about the fun of being a chick with other chicks and having fun being chicks together. However, if your best girlfriend breaks up with her long-term boyfriend, you must go over there and comfort her. Facebook isn’t going to cut it.
Mostly 5’s: You’re my sister. She’s a mom, which is a special subset of being a girl. She’s smart, sexy, sensible, and scary all at the same time. It’s a superpower you get when you give birth. Or adopt. Just go easy on the pasta makers.
So, are you a girl or not? I think my official result is that I’m a girl, but with reservations. I’m going to a remedial class on pearls and twinsets, but I think I’m going to blow it off for an evening showing of Prometheus. What were your results? If you’re a guy and you got the result that you’re my sister, I’m really not sure what to tell you, except that the post is already filled. By a chick. God, Gloria Steinem’s going to put a hit out on me!
Friends don’t let friends drive moving vans
Two friends (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This is the story of how a friendship was born:
We all have different ways of dealing with stress. Some people drink, some people turn to religion, some people become extreme couponers. Me, I swear profusely and laugh at completely inappropriate things. Until recently, I had my own office at work, so it wasn’t a big deal. Then we made a new hire, and she got put in with me. I was a little worried about this. I’m not exactly–what’s that term?–safe for work. Why would The Powers That Be hire a young and impressionable girl and then deliberately put her in an office with me? I’m still not sure. But they did.
I was good for about twenty minutes before I dropped my first expletive. For me, that’s extremely impressive. I’ve been known to utter sentences that contained more obscenities than non-obscenities. I’ve crafted phrases that have used profanity as subject, verb, and object. For a second, I was really afraid I was going to get a formal complaint. I apologized for my impropriety. My new officemate looked at me and said, “What? Oh, I didn’t even notice.”
Huge f*&%ing sigh of relief!
Since then, I have learned her preferences in candy, lunch destinations, and breakfast muffins, and she has learned the true extent of my shameful addiction to caffeine as well as the depths to which I am willing to sink for the sake of making a joke. I probably still should have been trying to behave myself around her so she wouldn’t run screaming from the office and file a complaint about the vile cretins surrounding her. However, when you see each other at 7 AM and spend hours together going through paperwork to get a report in by the deadline, barriers tend to go down. I was a little disturbed by the fact that she prefers Ryan Gosling to Johnny Depp, but she’s about five minutes old, so I let it pass. JD can be too much for some people. It’s okay.
Duct-tape Moving Van (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Officemate–she’s really more of an Office Sister at this point–moved house this past weekend, which is why I haven’t updated for a while: I helped. Well, I tried to help. I’m not what you might call muscular, so I’m no good with moving furniture. But I can pack like a champ, so that’s mostly what I did. I packed and vacuumed. I stayed at Office Sister’s place overnight so I could get up at dawn and pack some more. Leading up to it, I thought, “Cool! We’ll hang out, pack some boxes, drink some wine, make inappropriate comments when our supervisors can’t overhear–it’ll be great!”
I’m going to change my name from Little Blind Girl to Little Stupid Girl. I know better than to think things like that. Disaster 1: The refrigerator Office Sister and Office Brother-in-Law ordered didn’t fit the space they had so carefully measured. Disaster 2: The microwave didn’t fit, either. The freaking microwave! Disaster 3: Saturday evening traffic in a major metropolis. Disaster 4: Half a dozen people who had promised to help canceled. Disaster 5: God finally decided to smite us with torrential rain and intermittent tornados. I’m not saying we didn’t deserve it, but seriously, who gets tornados when they’re moving? And on, and on, and on.
Exhaustion, tears, the occasional natural disaster: this is how a friendship is born. No amount of stress at work can bind two people together quite like driving through tornados and packing away your Office Sister’s bras. By the time the moving truck had been emptied at the new house and all the furniture had been set up, there was just no point in pretending to be refined and proper. You can’t move house without swearing and, what’s more important, you can’t move house without revealing who you really are. Sometimes literally, if you interrupt someone just after a shower because you’re looking for somewhere to brush your teeth and everything’s already packed up. You just can’t help seeing each other in all your glory.
And it was pretty cool.
English: Clayton Farmhouse Drive (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So my Office Sister is all moved into her new home, her first actual house, and she’s the cutest thing on two legs with her funny, patient husband and her loudmouth cat (shrieked the entire way to the new house. Hour and a half. Oh, my God!) and I don’t even remember how many boxes of couscous we ended up unpacking. And three different kinds of salsa. And at least twenty pillows. And that’s it; we’re friends. Done. End of story, professionalism be d%&*ed. You can’t lay hands on someone’s lingerie and then look them in the eye without laughing.
And that’s the story of how a friendship was born.
My doctor wishes I wouldn’t post this
La Maldicion de la Bestia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
During movie night a while ago, a new friend was invited to join our sacred circle. Movie night for us involves finding the most cliched, predictable movies available and watching them while yelling insults, throwing things at the screen, drinking boxed wine, and eating horrifically unhealthy snacks. We don’t invite just anyone to join us while we do this. We make sure they have really good aim first. Then we make them buy the wine.
So we’re getting ready for movie night. We picked a werewolf movie, one of those where the werewolf is the love interest and there’s some sort of vague but agonizing destiny the lovers must overcome. We give bonus points to the movies if they contain gratuitous violence, so we had high hopes for this one. We like to take bets on how the movie is going to end before it even starts; winner picks the next movie. But the really important part about movie night is the snacks.
We’d been having movie night pretty regularly for a while, so we were operating at pro level. New Girl sat on the couch while the rest of us got the snacks ready. The key to enjoying movie night properly is to start out with decent wine. Then, when the spices have deadened your taste buds and the alcohol starts making its way into your system, switch to boxed wine. At that point, you won’t be able to tell the difference, and it’s much cheaper. Obviously, though, you have to choose spicy snacks to make this work properly. So my friends and I are taking out our supplies and putting together our snacks, all talking with each other and not really paying attention because we’ve done this so often. It went a little something like this:
Little Blind Girl: (Pulls out Nacho Cheesier Doritos bags) I predict that Werewolf Girl will have some sort of clan-approved Werewolf Mate that she’ll have to kill in order to be with Human Hottie.
Friend 1: (Heats up Texas Chili, Extra Hot, adding picante sauce) No, Werewolf Girl will be trying to deny her nature to be with Sanctimonious Loverboy, then she’ll go all wolfy and embrace her true destiny and kill the love interest.
Friend 2: (Adds Taco Seasoning to Texas Chili, Extra Hot; stirs) Yeah, and then she’ll be all consumed with remorse and fight her Wolf King brother, who’s been egging her on. She kills him and lopes off into the distance to be alone with her broken heart.
Friend 3: (Heats up storebought Nacho Dip, stirs in chunks of cheddar) No, she’ll bite Human Hottie and turn him into a werewolf. Then he goes all feral and kills her best friend, and then she has to kill him. Then she lopes off into the distance to be alone with her broken heart.
LBG: (adds chili-taco mix to Doritos bags, shakes enthusiastically, pours into large bowl) No, you’ve got to have the love triangle. Werewolf Mate tries to kill Human Hottie to try to get with Wolf Girl, then she kills Werewolf Mate in front of Human Hottie, who gets all traumatized and can’t look at her. Then she lopes off into the distance to be alone with her broken heart.
Friend 1: (pours cheese mixture over Chili Taco Doritos mix in bowl) Then Human Hottie finds her and convinces her that she can overcome her wolfy instincts and they can be together, and then they have a really awkwardly posed kiss and live happily ever after.
Friend 2: (dumps 2 tubs of sour cream over Cheese Chili Taco Dorito mix) You’re such a hopeless romantic! No. They have a really awkwardly posed kiss and then, as the screen fades to black, you hear a bunch of wolves starting to howl all around them.
Friend 3: (empties enormous tub of extra-spicy salsa over hot mess in bowl) No, no, no! After Wolf Girl lopes off into the distance to be alone with her broken heart, Human Hottie tries to follow her, despite being grievously wounded from his fight with Werewolf Mate. Just as he catches a glimpse of her and she looks at him, the moon comes out from behind the clouds and they realize they’re surrounded by the rest of the wolf clan. Cut to credits.
Friend 4: (scatters whole hot peppers throughout bowl, mixes up the hot mess, and reaches for the freaky hot green sauce) You know, maybe we should ask New Girl if she wants freaky hot green sauce on her Chili Taco Dorito Nachos. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
(We all look over at New Girl, who is staring in bewildered, uncomprehending horror at the Gigantic Bowl of Hot Mess on the kitchen table)
New Girl: Um, no, that’s okay, I think I’m just going to eat some fruit.
(Bewildered, uncomprehending horror from group of friends, which we cleverly cover with a change of topic)
LBG: So, New Girl, how do you think the movie will end?
New Girl: I think Wolf Girl and Human Hottie will have a movie night, eat Chili Taco Dorito Nachos, and immediately have fatal heart attacks.
(Pause)
LBG: I don’t remember seeing that in any of the promos.
Friend 1: Isn’t there a story where the heroine chokes on an apple?
Friend 2: That’s Snow White. No werewolves.
Friend 1: My point still stands.
Friend 3: What point would that be?
Friend 1: Never trust fruit. That stuff will kill you.
Turns out, movie night isn’t for everyone. But, you know, that just means more Chili Taco Dorito Nachos for the rest of us. I don’t remember how the movie ended or who won that particular round, which is usually the sign of a successful movie night. New Girl got over her horror and tried the nachos. I think I even had a slice of apple. But you don’t want to go overboard with that kind of thing. Aren’t apples what got us kicked out of the Garden of Eden in the first place?
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