Holiday Weekend
After celebrating yet another 21st birthday with friends tonight, I'll be getting up bright and early to head off to the sprawling metropolis of Slidell, having promised for a Father's Day present that I'd spend the day working on my Grandpa's house (that bitch Katrina). Then it's back to Baton Rouge to see a show at my favorite bar, and off to the beach first thing in the morning.
I'm so excited about spending Sunday and Monday in Gulf Shores. I love water, I love the beach, and I love the Whitakers (the family who has invited me along). I've been good friends with their oldest daughter since high school, and they've never been anything but undeservingly kind to me. Even when I was what could be construed as a pretty bad kid hanging around their honor roll/abstinent/don't drink/don't smoke/don't swear daughter, I felt welcome and appreciated in their home. It meant a lot to me.
So now I get to lay on the beach all day and sleep in their condo. I can see it now, self-serve margaritas all day and chicken spaghetti for dinner. Awesome.
(I'm granting myself a university holiday for Monday, I think it's sacrilegious to prevent us from leaving town by holding class on the 3rd)
For the Fourth it's back to the hometown. I'm a bit apprehensive about my first experience with my maternal grandparents' house since the rebuilding. Last time I was there I was picking my way through mud and debris in their living room. Word on the street is that they took the opportunity to make some significant changes, and change tends to freak me out a bit. But it'll be fun; I'll get to eat lots of free food and hang out with the fam.
So the point is, I'm looking forward to a much-deserved extended weekend of fun, sun, alcohol, and quality time with people I love. It's gonna be
fabulous.
Donkey
"His nickname is Donkey."
"Ooooh, is it because he's a democrat?"
"No, it's because his dick is huge."
As enticing as this introduction may have seemed, by the end of the night I wanted nothing to do with this frat boy with an apparently huge dick. I got a firsthand glimpse of how frat boys with huge dicks act when they want something--his idea of subtle pursual bordered on harassment. I guess he hasn't been told no in a while.
"No, I do not want to go home with you, and you're coming on too strong."
It seems as though this would have deterred him, but obviously I was too kind in my assessment of his intelligence. And the friend who had introduced us apparently decided any attempt to protect me from his overzealous advances would have been cockblocking, leaving me to fend off this drunk asshole trying to stick his tongue in my mouth all alone.
I struggled to be polite, yet honest, to no avail. I wanted to scream at him, "I am
not being coy, get the fuck away from me."
I should have been rude, I should have been blunt. I should have told my friend he was an asshole for not watching out for me and left. Instead I stuck it out, avoiding the guy as much as possible, and spending twenty minutes trying to get him away from my car so I could leave.
I emailed Best Friend Roommate the next morning, still upset. It takes a lot to ruin my good time--usually any event involving music and alcohol I'm pretty much guaranteed to enjoy no matter what.
My email ended with this: "My mood has been soured. I want a nice boy. I want respect, and intelligent conversation, and amazing sex with someone who knows what I like, not some drunk frat boy who wants to take me back to his disgusting room so he can cum in three strokes and never call me again."
(sorry Mom, if that hurt your eyes)
I don't know what I want, but it's not him.
Note: For clarification purposes, I did not go back to his frat house. I went home, alone, and got called a prude for it.
my how we all have grown
There are some people out there who are going to hate me for this post, namely Best Friend Roommate.
Oh no, you say? Oh yes.
Listen closely, can you hear it? That's my maniacal laugh, reaching all the way to Atlanta.
Here you'll notice Best Friend Roommate and I, circa 1998,
and some of our closest friends from high school, sometime around 2000 I imagine.
Now have a look at us, all prettied up.
(And Jared came out, as you can see)
Yes, some of us had a few tough times there aesthetically. For me it was from roughly 1991 to 2002-ish. Eventually the planets aligned, and I was at once in possession of contact lenses, a flat iron, and some moderate amount of skill in applying makeup. Gradually I developed a more advanced set of social skills, and the painful days of awkward ineptitude were behind me.
Come on Lauren, I could have cropped myself out and left you up there all alone. At least I subjected myself to internet mockery right along with you. I'm all about sharing the pain here.
i think too much, and write it all down
I know he's a bad idea.
I know that he's not ready, and that he'd hurt me no matter how hard he tried. And I know that there's an importance surrounding my feelings for him that I haven't experienced in years. I know that given the chance, I'd hold on and never let go.
I've been working on rebuilding myself, picking up the ruins of a relationship I thought would last forever. I told myself I was wrong, and that I was better off without him, repaired my broken heart and made a happy life with my newfound freedom. I told myself I'd never let anyone hold me back again.
And now I've got all these feelings for someone new, these feelings that push me to make plans and give of myself and trust someone I know cannot be trusted. I've got all these mixed emotions, and so far my sexual desire and emotional needs seem to be overriding common sense.
All these other guys I've dated...I've had no problem keeping them at a comfortable distance. Not a single one could coerce me into something as restrictive as exclusivity, now suddenly I've lost all interest in playing the field.
The part that scares me the most is that the single life has never really been me, at least not long term. I've always craved companionship, mutual respect and affection. I worry that perhaps this independence I've built is just a front designed to protect myself, and that giving it all up will really be nothing more than coming to terms with the girl I was all along.
He won't let me love him anyway. He's just a friend.
where the fuck is my muse
I was sitting here, feeling frustrated that I didn't have anything to post about. I would write a few sentences, then delete it, stare at the screen, start over. I got up and went to the kitchen, staring into the fridge, searching for inspiration. No dice. I decided to take a nap on the couch.
The next thing I knew, my dad was there, telling me the water was coming up fast at my grandpa's house and we had to do what we could to get everything up. I rushed with him to help, but I was confused and disoriented, and I'm afraid I wasn't of much help. We quickly returned to my apartment along with my mom and sister and several members of my extended family to seek shelter from the fast approaching storm. (There's a storm in the gulf? I had no idea. This is a déjà vu of Katrina.)
My apartment was crowded and I was still a little confused, but I thought to myself, "Oh my gosh, I need to write about this," so I found myself a place on the couch with my laptop and got going. Just then my dad came and sat next to me with a bowl of instant macaroni and cheese, which he offered me because the sauce had turned out too thin for him. I realized I was starving and accepted gratefully, but being the klutz that I am, spilled the thin cheese sauce all over my laptop. I freaked out and began wiping it up, and suddenly my dad and I are fighting about it, screaming at each other over cheese sauce. This is all nonsense, I'm so confused.
I went into the dining room where my mom and some nonspecific female members of my family were. They were talking about my parents' recent decision to divorce. I tried to force the fog from my mind, struggling to process this information, as it was news to me. I think I decided it was just too much for me at that time, and so I moved to my bedroom, where some of my cousins and my sister were sitting. They were discussing the hurricane, something else which quickly proved to be far beyond my capacity for understanding at the moment, and so I retreated into myself, feeling frustrated.
Then suddenly, my phone is ringing, and I'm struggling through the black fog to find it. I'm back on my couch, alone in the apartment, Modern Marvels educating me in my sleep. Someone's inviting me to go sit by the pool and drink beer.
It took me a moment to process that there was, in fact, no hurricane headed right for us in a repeat of Katrina, no impending divorce of my parents, no cheese sauce on my laptop, and no relatives taking over my apartment. For about half a second I was actually disappointed--it would have made a great post.
the will to live, and live well
This is perhaps the most inspiring thing I have read or heard of in my life. This woman, Ricky Buchanan, is amazing. Here's a very straightforward, non-self-pitying description of
her life, and a
blog of her daily activites and emotions.
I feel like I should go out and climb a mountain now, because I can. There are so many of us who never live up to our full potential, taking our abilities for granted and living in constant negativity, while people like this woman...I can't even describe it. Take a look around her site,
notdoneliving.net, and learn all about her. Go forth and witness the strength of humanity.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. Mahatma Gandhi
remember brad?
I was sixteen, and itching for any excuse to piss off my parents. I had a car and a job, a ticket to freedom in my book. I didn't like to be told what to do, and so I chose to do whatever I wanted. I couldn’t be bothered by such nuisances as curfews and being grounded, and I was smart enough to find my way around them most of the time.When we met I knew I just had to have him. He was seventeen and had been out of jail (jail!) for about three months. He smoked, drank, and sold. He took drugs I'd never even heard of. Vulnerable and insecure, he hid beneath a bad boy demeanor which I found irresistible. I was smitten.
I fell hard and fast…completely and totally in love. The emotional intimacy was accelerated by adolescent naiveté. My parents hated him, which only drove me closer. I remember, less than twenty four hours after losing my virginity to him, my mother asking me accusingly if we were having sex. I was eating a candy bar, and in retrospect, the paradox is amusing to me. I must have looked so much like a child to her in that moment, enjoying my chocolate, and yet she was asking me about sex, and I was not answering.
I remember walking all over New Orleans, all day, with his best friend, trying to figure out how to bail him out of jail. My curfew came and went and I was still in New Orleans. Eventually my mother called, having caught me in my lie that I was studying at a friend’s house. I told her I would be home in twenty minutes. I left Central Lockdown, having already paid his bail, still waiting for him to be released. When I arrived home forty minutes later, I told her I had actually been at his house (which I was forbidden to do, as I was of course grounded at the time, but this lie was better than the truth), and that I had had trouble getting my car started, explaining the delay of my arrival. We yelled and screamed and she told me I was grounded, which I had grown rather accustomed to ignoring anyway. She went to bed, and I waited a dangerously short amount of time for her to fall asleep, and then snuck back out. I drove back to New Orleans, walking alone several blocks from my car to the building in one of the least savory parts of the city to retrieve my delinquent boyfriend. That is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, and although I would never do it again, I don’t regret it a bit.
We were kids, insane kids at that, but there was something very grown-up about what we shared beyond just the sex. Inevitably, he broke my heart, and I was a mess for months. But he and I learned some very important things from one another—he, that it was okay to be vulnerable, to trust somebody; and me, to not trust so willingly.
What’s funny to me now is that we still email back and forth, and I still care very genuinely about his well-being, but he almost serves as a marker of change for me. Something like a line on the wall to record my height as I grow. I look back on the time I spent with him, and I see how different I am now from the girl he fell in love with, and how I’m still the same. I’ve taken a part of that first love with me and integrated it into who I am today. And through all the fights with my parents and the heartache of learning you just can’t fix a boy, I don’t regret a single kiss. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
and i know you know i'm fly
I think I've gotten quite accustomed over the last several months to getting what I want. The thing is, there hasn't been anything I've felt I just couldn't go without. Now, there is. I've found something I want pretty bad.
This is a strange feeling for me, to want somebody. It's been a long time, and I think that I like it. The problem is, that I don't yet have it. And I know it's not having what you want, it's wanting what you have, and I do want everything I've got. I'm happy. And I think I could be even happier, if maybe I just had this one thing.
So here's my big announcement, are y'all ready for this?
I think I'm gonna stop dating for a little while.
In my twisted logic, this seems like a good idea. Maybe it's a dysfunctional ideal of faithfulness to the object of my affection, or maybe an aversion to wasting energy pursuing guys who mean nothing to me when I've set my eyes on something much more significant. I'm gonna be giving up the free meals and frequent action for sitting around drinking beer and smoking pot with someone who makes me laugh, and makes me
want something for the first time in ages.
So, even if I don't ever see this turn into what I think I would like it to be, I'll have taken from it a reality check--dating is about quality, not quantity (unless you're in it for the free food, which I half was, so I feel justified). What's the point of having three dates a week if I
want none of them?
There's one that I want now. It's too bad we're not dating by any means. We're friends. And I don't think he has any idea how I feel, or maybe he does. Ironically, I think I like him too much to risk something as foolish as telling him.
The Summer of Charlotte
My chest was tight and my eyes were more than a little puffy when I woke up this morning. I'm not getting sick, I've just been smoking way too much pot (can I say that on the internet?)
And I've decided sleep is vastly overrated. Go to bed early, I miss out on all the fun; sleep late, I miss class. So I've decided that for the next two months I am going to transform myself into a superhuman being, able to be sustained on minimal amounts of sleep over an extended period of time. To compensate, I'm going to give in and buy a coffee maker. Generally I abstain from coffee, as my little body just can't seem to handle it in a normal manner. If you weren't aware, I'm quite petite (only 5'0"), and I tend to SPAZ OUT on coffee. Not that it isn't an enjoyable experience, as I feel like a chihuahua on speed, but I fear that others will not be quite so charmed by my excessive enthusiasm, and that would be awkward.
But the point of this post, is that I'm feeling great lately. I'm, like, totally popular, and loving work, and taking easy, interesting classes. I always seem to be happiest when I have lots of friends around, and despite Best Friend Roommate being gone and a lot of other friends on various adventures outside of Baton Rouge, I've got no reason to feel lonely. Ironic that a few weeks ago I was whining about how much summer sucks, and now I'm proclaiming it to be the best ever.
Louisiana Thanks You
As the writer of this
article says, I'm well aware that elsewhere in the country and the world this is old news. But here it's still very much an open wound. Many of the streets of my hometown are still lined with FEMA trailers--I still have family members living in them. Many of the calls I get at work are still laced with the trauma of Katrina. I'm glad our politicians are taking a break from being completely corrupt and incompetent to show our gratitude to all of those who graced us with their donations, support, and thoughts/prayers (if you're into that kind of thing.)
Thanks y'all.
Home
My dad’s birthday was yesterday, the day before Father’s Day, so I drove home yesterday afternoon to hang out with my parents. Going home is just not what it used to be.
My sister and I met our parents at their favorite bar, a little hole in the wall called The Kingfish. To begin to describe the weirdness, every conversation, every activity, every location in that town is pervaded by a constant hum of Katrina. At Kingfish, the water line is marked on the wall, just below the top of the bar, with “Katrina Blows” scrawled in black ink. Most of the talk centers around rebuilding, and jokes about living in FEMA trailers and other newly acquired facts of life are commonplace. What used to be normal no longer is, what used to be a nightmare has now become daily life. If you’re feeling sadistic, or just curious, I stumbled across a
blog that details the damage and recovery efforts in Slidell in particular, and one of my cousins has an
album on flikr with several photos of my grandparents’ house. It’s depressing as shit.
But I digress, the experience of home is multifaceted. Suddenly I’m old enough to be drinking in a bar with my parents, their friends telling me horrible dirty jokes about transvestites and naked men in refrigerators. I’m hearing all about peoples’ kids whom I used to babysit, who are totally teenagers now, which weirds me out to no end. Home never fails to make me feel old.
We left the bar and went to a restaurant with some of the best boiled seafood I’ve ever had. It occurred to me, in the bathroom of all places, that I have been coming to this restaurant with my parents for as long as I can remember. And hurricane or no hurricane, it hasn’t changed a bit. But here I am, home from college, drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. I can remember being in this exact same room dozens of times throughout my life. And, drunk on light beer, my internal dialogue begins to speculate philosophically about change and growth and my need for anchors of the past.
And oh man, I got to eat gumbo and boiled crawfish and dungeness crabs like you just can’t get in Baton Rouge unless you wanna drive out to the boonies. And today, I actually went over to my grandparents’ old house, for only the third time in more than a year, to see the progress my parents had made on it (it had several feet of water). I usually avoid going over there at all costs, because it depresses me, but it’s really starting to look great. I think my grandma would have loved it.
We ate Popeye’s for lunch, and I got in my car, and drove home. Home to Baton Rouge. Because that’s where I live now, and that’s what normal is for me now. And that, in itself, is a little abnormal.
i hope so
Oh baby you
You got what I need
But you say I'm just a friend
But you say I'm just a friendI’m really struggling to behave myself here. I feel a connection with you that’s comparable to friendships I’ve spent years building, despite the fact that I’ve only known you a few months. I can spend hours with you talking about anything, just chilling, rambling, almost always laughing. I feel such a strong attraction towards you, and I know you must feel it too. I’m certain that taking this valued friendship and turning it into a sexual relationship can only lead to disaster, and I’m not sure if I care.
The tension here is killing me. I can’t stop thinking about it. If there’s any guy out there I’d be willing to settle down for right now, it’s you. Then again, we're both a little unstable right now and I'm not really capable of making any promises too far into the future. It could be amazing, or it could be a huge mistake. Is that worth risking a friendship?
a sense of impending culture shock
I've been researching grad schools recently, and the prospect is mind-boggling. I'm torn between ranking and price, for one thing, and also struggling to assess just how far outside of my comfort zone (the South) I'm willing to go. This is a monumental decision for me. I'm paying for it myself. I want to be proud of my degree and know that my education will prepare me for leadership in the field, and I don't want to graduate with $50,000 in debt. I want to try something different, live somewhere new, broaden my horizons, and at the same time I'm more than a little terrified of moving thousands of miles away.
In my heart I know that this is likely to be more than a two-year commitment. The odds that I'll graduate and be done with the place are slim to none. I'll be making a life there while I'm in school, who's to say that I won't make phenomenal friends, find a great job, or fall in love with some amazing guy I can't bear to leave. I feel like I'm making a major life change here, and I tend to freak out about change.
I think in my mind, I'm afraid of saying goodbye. I equate moving across the country with putting distance between myself and who I once was. I won't live with my best friend anymore, or around the corner from my ex, or a mere hour and a half from my family and the town where I grew up. I won't live in Louisiana anymore. And while the prospect of riding off into the sunset for a new life in a far away, exotic place (like the West Coast) is exciting, and will probably be great for me, the number of miles between here and there is directly proportional to the amount of fear I'm overcome with at the thought.
But the fact is, Best Friend Roommate will move away for her own big future, and the ex has a new girlfriend and a new life, and I'm not a kid anymore. Whether I want it to or not, my world will always be changing. It's a matter of sitting back, wishing it with all of my might to stay still, or embracing it as potential for growth. I know I've got to go. It's just a matter of how far.
My Big Fat Baptist Wedding
I'm going to a Baptist wedding this weekend. In Georgia.
There will be no reception, there will be no dancing, there will be no bar. There will be an "ice cream social." What. The. Fuck.
Now my family likes to have a good time. It's the Bride's who are the Baptists. My family wants part in no such thing. The last time we all got together there was a memorable incident involving a dime bag and a hotel bathroom. I'm giving them an hour, max, of the whole ice cream thing before they head out in search of some liquor.
It's not that we need to drink to be happy (well, most of us), and it's not that we need to drink to get along (although it certainly does help). We just like to drink. A lot. What's a good family gathering without making memories of the time all the kids bonged out the bathroom, or Aunt Kim got so drunk she propositioned the bartender (along with every other man in the room) to sleep with her right in front of her husband. We drink, we smoke, we talk too loud and dance too much. We use the Lord's name in vain and curse like a bunch of sailors. At best, we're Lutheran's. At worst, we're heathens. The Baptists never even saw it coming.
you give love a bad name
I'm a good guy's worst nightmare, fickle and heartless. I don't know what I want, but I relentlessly pursue whatever I can get, only to dismiss it arbitrarily. I'll let you take me out, buy me drinks, sleep in my bed, but don't you dare get too attached. Like me, want me, but dear God don't need me. I'm not ready to be your concept of monogamy.
I don't want you placing all your cards on me, because I can't promise I'll pull through.
Present yourself as a challenge, and I'm all about winning the game. Show me the game's already been won, and I'm terrified of a prize I haven't earned. I'll run, or worse, stay.
You don't want me, I'm a mess. I seem so innocent. I'm not.
I looked in the mirror last night, and saw that
I was the disaster. And I felt lonely.
technoarti tags: personal life love romance and relationships
Shacker
There's a new boy around. And he likes me.
And I've managed to give him the impression that I am a
lady. The kind of lady who gets doors opened for her and is appreciated for so much more than her exceptional oral talents alone.
We'll see where this new alter ego takes us.
technorati tags:romance and relationships personal
crush
I can pinpoint the exact moment when it began. It was about five minutes into sixth period (Health class), the first day of my freshman year of high school. I scanned the room, determined to find a new boyfriend to complete the rite of passage into adolescence, looking for possible victims. And there he was. I was smitten.
It turns out he was in my next class, as well,
Gifted English. I thought, “Gifted! He’s in Gifted with me! Now I’ll get to talk to him!” As if I would ever do such a thing as talk to a boy I had a crush on. My friends did such kind things as say, “Why do you like him? He looks like a monkey!” and proceeded to corner him after class, asking him if he thought I was pretty. I’m sure you can imagine the level of success such tactics yielded.
I crushed on him on and off all throughout high school. Through first loves and casual romantic encounters with his friends, I never took my eye off of him. Graduation rolled around and we headed off to different schools. I figured I’d never see him again.
Then fate smiled on me one drunken October night. It was my sophomore year, and I was sitting outside a Halloween party, drunkenly engaging in enthusiastic conversation with a new BFF (I tend to make a lot of those when I’m intoxicated), oblivious to the fact that I was burning holes in my fairy wings with a cigarette. When up walks my long lost crush.
“No way!” I shouted, “What are you doing here?” Somewhere along the line I’d gotten to be a lot more outgoing than in the high school days (I’m sure the alcohol helped).
We sat and talked like we’d been great friends in high school, not casual acquaintances with lopsided lustful tension. Turns out he was planning on transferring to LSU the next semester. I see him all the time now, and we often irritate our friends by engaging in intellectual discussion, usually regarding politics, while everyone else is playing Beer Pong and talking about football. He’s the new President of College Republicans, perhaps my most despised campus organization, and I still think he’s cool. I like him that much. And he doesn’t look like a monkey anymore (I never thought he did, but my friends now concede that he’s grown into his looks).
He has never once expressed any romantic interest in me, resulting in no small amount of personal distress on my part. I’m not sure he really dates at all, which provides me with some minute measure of comfort. But I will always think of him as the one that could have been, should have been, maybe someday will be, perfect for me.
technoarti tags: personal life love romance and relationships
no more
There are some things I'm sick of blogging about. Like ex boyfriends and their new girlfriends and whether we're friends and why not and how I feel about it. And what he did to me, and why I'm still angry, and what I've done to show him I'm still angry, etc. etc. etc.
My eyes are puffy and my body is weary today. I'm physically and emotionally exhausted from a late night post-bar let's-talk-about-all-our-feelings conversation with him. And maybe it's a little better now. That's all. It's a start, and I'm so tired of feeling angry.
technoarti tags: personal life love romance and relationships
Suck it, Blogger
Blogger/BlogSpot was messed up for a while this morning, causing pages to load extremely slowly, or not at all. Sorry for any inconvenience.
technorati tags: computers and internet
