Spring is rolling in and That Girl is beginning to realize how much has changed in a year... how much SHE has changed in a year. At this time last year, she was 70 pounds heavier, incredibly unhappy, in a dead in town with a job that just fired her... she was trying to survive. At the end of this very long and unseasonably cold winter, That Girl is anticipating spring with an anxiety she hasn't felt in a long, long while. To quote The Byrds' famous hit Turn turn turn, to every season, there is a change, and a time for every purpose under heaven. (okay, I removed all the "turn, turn, turns"... I think you got it smart folks!)
Things are changing and I'm always really insecure with change. I am a control freak and I like being able to at least have a finger on a situation if not both hands around it's neck. I have started a new job that came with its' fair share of challenges in the past weeks. And... sigh... there's a new man in my life. This alone brings an incredible amount of anxiety, insecurity and reckless thinking and day dreaming.
Let me introduce you to A. We met when I walked into that trashy little bar mentioned in the last post. He's a regular but before you get the wrong idea, he's there for the cheap booze and free entertainment... just like me. He's clean cut, handsome in a familiar way and was apparently immediately smitten as he watched me walk confidently into the bar, best friend, W taking the lead. As W walked up and said hello (she already knew A), she stuck out her hand to shake his. She was greeted with a disappointing smirk and open arms, an invitation for a hug. She obliged and I immediately became aware that he was whispering in her ear as he was leaned down and she is significantly shorter than he. I just had this feeling that he was asking about me. And he was. He introduced himself with a firm, soft skinned, handshake.
We stood having drinks and making idle chit chat for a good portion of the evening. I was really comfortable talking and joking around him which is highly unusual as it has been my experience that when I feel attracted to somebody the filter between my brain and my mouth that generally doesn't exist comes out of nowhere with a fierce vengeance and I can't seem to put a sentence together. It's as if all my years as an awkward teenager compound into moments of sheer stupidity and I end up looking like a total ass. But somehow, with A around, I didn't have a problem... making an ass out of myself! You see, as the evening neared to an end, A looked at both W and myself and said, "So, what are you ladies doing later?" to which I promptly responded without missing a beat, "Your mom if she's lucky!"
A, W and the others erupted with laughter and I became overwhelmed with embarrassment. I felt my face turning red, a shade of red that you can only find in the big box full of Crayolas. I immediately apologized... what if his mother was dead? Why do I always think that a "your mom" joke is appropriate humor? (Remind me to fill you in on the your mom joke shouted down the hallway of the high school I used to teach at when a students whose mother was on the school board yelled "What are we doing in class today?"... you do the math on how that one worked out!)
Within moments of A leaving the bar that night, he texted W and said, "Your friend is really cute." She of course told me about the text because that's what friends do. I smiled. He was cute, too.
The next evening, we went back to the same place and secretly I hoped that he would be there. He wasn't immediately but as we neared the end of our first drinks, he strolled in and right past us as he appeared to be looking for someone else and he was on his cell phone. Not wanting to appear... well, stupid... I didn't try to flag him down or anything. A few minutes later, there he was, sliding into the booth next to W, across from me. We chit chatted, discussed our plans for the evening and commented on the locals.
I'm not quite sure what it was or is, but somewhere between two sentences that were ending and beginning paragraphs, there was a line break, a moment of silence that was filled with my brown eyes meeting his. My stomach didn't flutter, my lady parts didn't quiver, my palms didn't sweat. Instead, my shoulders relaxed, my breathing slowed and so did my heartbeat. Somewhere between the period and the capital letter, there was a sense of peace that I've never felt before. I'm not sure that I blinked. I know that he didn't.
9 days, over a thousand text messages, a few hours of phone calls and an email later and I keep waking up with a smile on my face and fear in the back of my mind.
A lives 200 miles away. A didn't graduate high school although he is highly intelligent and tells me that he wants to go back and get his GED. A makes me think about things that I haven't thought about ever... like actually deserving love. A thinks I'm beautiful.
Sigh... I'm not THAT girl... the girl that swoons over men... the girl that ignores her head and lets her heart lead her feet... the girl that lets magic interrupt her paragraphs. Geez... it's only been 9 days and this guys gotta grip around my head already. Don't get me wrong... A isn't perfect by any means. In fact, there are a few parts of his past that aren't very appealing (nothing terrible, I promise!) but can I hold his past against him? Not unless I expect him to hold mine against me, I suppose.
It's spring... the season of love, or in this case, a really REALLY big like. I can't help but wonder... can I be that girl?
RENT: five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes... how do you measure a year in a life? how about love.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Tales from the Lipped
That Girl has been a very, very busy beaver lately (pun intended!). My weekends have been full of one hilarious event after another... events that make me contemplate the need to shock the gene pool like it's being prepped for the summer season! You see, people have not stopped amazing me. Each and every moment is full of another astonishingly stupid human move!
Encounter at IHOP on a Saturday night:
Let's set the scene. It's nearly 2am. I've had a couple of beers... literally a beer or two. Pulling up in front of the local IHOP, I'm greeted (and blinded) by four police cruisers, cherries blazing.
Upon entering the establishment, I was greeted by a girl holding a towel against her bleeding face. Interesting, I think to myself. As we are seated, I look towards the restroom to see a police officer holding open the door and a girl washing her eyes out with soap and water. What the fuck happened here, you ask? Well, apparently, a small food fight turned into a domestic battery incident as the girl in the bathroom had apparently thrown a glass that shattered as it hit the other girl in the face. Then, there was apparently some pepper spray, blood splatter and a whole lot of commotion. Really? It all started with a tasty little sausage link to the forehead and ends with the emergency room, assault and battery charges and a face full of cayenne pepper. Sounds like an eventful evening to me! Stay classy ladies!
Oh, speaking of classy ladies, I've been notincing a lot of VPL's (visible panty lines) lately. In fact, as I picked at my scrambled eggs, the restaurant began to fill up with bar goers. Here's a wise word to all my well-rounded...uh...er... or just round women out there: just because it went on a mannequin doesn't mean that it should go on you! Leggings should not be painted onto legs that look like they are tree trunks that just survived a hail storm. Oh, and they definitely shouldn't be trying to conceal your granny panties because we can all see that your panties are migrating towards your ass crack , or they are ruffled. Either way... um... textured panties (whether natural or because you're a fat ass) don't belong under spandex pants. I know they say that fashion can hurt but I think they were referring to ultra high stilettos, not MY EYES!
A weekend away... slummin' it!
This past weekend, I traveled to a city just a few hours away to visit a very dear friend. Upon arriving late Friday night, we ventured out for a few cocktails. We were tired. I'd already worked eight hours and then driven three. She had been off work for nearly 6 hours anticipating my arrival. We decided to go to a divey little bar with cheap booze where she knew that we didn't have to do any sort of "maintenance" before leaving the house.
Side note: I love divey bars. I really enjoy being with salt of the earth people as they tend to be incredibly entertaining. This particular evening and the one that followed left my gut as sore as a Canadian whore's vagina after the closing ceremony of the winter Olympics.
Upon entering the bar, we were greeted by the smell of cheap cigarettes and Walmart. When I say that this bar was divey, I mean, it was trailer park central... and not the good ol' double wides, but the aluminum can variety. We were by far the best looking and classiest ladies in the bar. I could have shit my pants and still been a step up from at least a third of the patrons.
It was kareoke night. Oh how I love white trash kareoke! I spent the evening listening to a woman who had some pipes but really thought that she WAS Whitney Houston. I wanted to tell the woman that crack is whack and that she should keep her day job but instead I just giggled and lip synched as she wailed and warbled her way through "I Will Always Love You". She was a Kareoke Queen...
The show wasn't over though. It was filled with people taking the stage, which was really a patch of dirty tile next to the pool tables, singing one bad rendition of a good song after another. This was their American Idol moment... repeated every Friday and Saturday night. My ears were bleeding and my mouth was running a million miles a minute. I spewed a running commentary regarding the performers, their lack of singing ability and filled the moments in between with my own song lyrics (generally crude).
The highlight of the kareoke encounter included a death metal version of Micheal Jackson's "Beat It" and a boy-on-boy duet of "Nightshift" by the Commodores. The scream-o "Beat It" boy screamed better than the man that sang like he was Elton John... the only problem was that the Elton impersonator couldn't sing, nor could he read and therefore only said about half of each fucking word. Really? Really. The boy-on-boy duet was pretty fucking amazing, as it was quickly turned into "The Mother Fuckin' Nightshift". I like to think of it as an urbanization of a classic. Thank you boys for the creativity! It was a delight to my ears... especially in comparison to any of the other vocal vomiters...er...singers.
The truth is, I don't really have the balls to do kareoke. I know I can't sing well. Why would I try? I barely sing outloud in the shower, let alone in a crowded bar. I could have laughed all night at the dumbasses that really though they were fucking good! The sad part is that I could tell that this WAS their moment, the moment they lived for every fucking Friday and Saturday! How sad for them...
The weekend was topped with more trailer park moments... the kind that make you rethink ordering another drink at the fear of becoming what you're surrounded by. Example: 50+ year old woman, shit faced drunk, fighting against gravity will all she had. She began her evening with one man and ended it with another. Neither gentleman was eye candy... in fact, more like eye composte. Her dirty jean jacket and stained denim jeans (wedged firmly between her ass cheeks... the pants, not the jacket) were only the tip of the iceberg. She danced, and then fell down. She stood up and then fell down. She walked over to our table as we took bets on how long it would be before she fell down again... looked at us and slurred "eeny, meeny, miney, mo".
"You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around," I replied. She fell down. I guess that's what it's all about.
I've done the kareoke thing. I won't be doing it again any time soon. I mean, really, there's not a stage that's ready for another rendition of Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time". Instead, I think I'll just keep on being a dancing queen.
Encounter at IHOP on a Saturday night:
Let's set the scene. It's nearly 2am. I've had a couple of beers... literally a beer or two. Pulling up in front of the local IHOP, I'm greeted (and blinded) by four police cruisers, cherries blazing.
Upon entering the establishment, I was greeted by a girl holding a towel against her bleeding face. Interesting, I think to myself. As we are seated, I look towards the restroom to see a police officer holding open the door and a girl washing her eyes out with soap and water. What the fuck happened here, you ask? Well, apparently, a small food fight turned into a domestic battery incident as the girl in the bathroom had apparently thrown a glass that shattered as it hit the other girl in the face. Then, there was apparently some pepper spray, blood splatter and a whole lot of commotion. Really? It all started with a tasty little sausage link to the forehead and ends with the emergency room, assault and battery charges and a face full of cayenne pepper. Sounds like an eventful evening to me! Stay classy ladies!
Oh, speaking of classy ladies, I've been notincing a lot of VPL's (visible panty lines) lately. In fact, as I picked at my scrambled eggs, the restaurant began to fill up with bar goers. Here's a wise word to all my well-rounded...uh...er... or just round women out there: just because it went on a mannequin doesn't mean that it should go on you! Leggings should not be painted onto legs that look like they are tree trunks that just survived a hail storm. Oh, and they definitely shouldn't be trying to conceal your granny panties because we can all see that your panties are migrating towards your ass crack , or they are ruffled. Either way... um... textured panties (whether natural or because you're a fat ass) don't belong under spandex pants. I know they say that fashion can hurt but I think they were referring to ultra high stilettos, not MY EYES!
A weekend away... slummin' it!
This past weekend, I traveled to a city just a few hours away to visit a very dear friend. Upon arriving late Friday night, we ventured out for a few cocktails. We were tired. I'd already worked eight hours and then driven three. She had been off work for nearly 6 hours anticipating my arrival. We decided to go to a divey little bar with cheap booze where she knew that we didn't have to do any sort of "maintenance" before leaving the house.
Side note: I love divey bars. I really enjoy being with salt of the earth people as they tend to be incredibly entertaining. This particular evening and the one that followed left my gut as sore as a Canadian whore's vagina after the closing ceremony of the winter Olympics.
Upon entering the bar, we were greeted by the smell of cheap cigarettes and Walmart. When I say that this bar was divey, I mean, it was trailer park central... and not the good ol' double wides, but the aluminum can variety. We were by far the best looking and classiest ladies in the bar. I could have shit my pants and still been a step up from at least a third of the patrons.
It was kareoke night. Oh how I love white trash kareoke! I spent the evening listening to a woman who had some pipes but really thought that she WAS Whitney Houston. I wanted to tell the woman that crack is whack and that she should keep her day job but instead I just giggled and lip synched as she wailed and warbled her way through "I Will Always Love You". She was a Kareoke Queen...
The show wasn't over though. It was filled with people taking the stage, which was really a patch of dirty tile next to the pool tables, singing one bad rendition of a good song after another. This was their American Idol moment... repeated every Friday and Saturday night. My ears were bleeding and my mouth was running a million miles a minute. I spewed a running commentary regarding the performers, their lack of singing ability and filled the moments in between with my own song lyrics (generally crude).
The highlight of the kareoke encounter included a death metal version of Micheal Jackson's "Beat It" and a boy-on-boy duet of "Nightshift" by the Commodores. The scream-o "Beat It" boy screamed better than the man that sang like he was Elton John... the only problem was that the Elton impersonator couldn't sing, nor could he read and therefore only said about half of each fucking word. Really? Really. The boy-on-boy duet was pretty fucking amazing, as it was quickly turned into "The Mother Fuckin' Nightshift". I like to think of it as an urbanization of a classic. Thank you boys for the creativity! It was a delight to my ears... especially in comparison to any of the other vocal vomiters...er...singers.
The truth is, I don't really have the balls to do kareoke. I know I can't sing well. Why would I try? I barely sing outloud in the shower, let alone in a crowded bar. I could have laughed all night at the dumbasses that really though they were fucking good! The sad part is that I could tell that this WAS their moment, the moment they lived for every fucking Friday and Saturday! How sad for them...
The weekend was topped with more trailer park moments... the kind that make you rethink ordering another drink at the fear of becoming what you're surrounded by. Example: 50+ year old woman, shit faced drunk, fighting against gravity will all she had. She began her evening with one man and ended it with another. Neither gentleman was eye candy... in fact, more like eye composte. Her dirty jean jacket and stained denim jeans (wedged firmly between her ass cheeks... the pants, not the jacket) were only the tip of the iceberg. She danced, and then fell down. She stood up and then fell down. She walked over to our table as we took bets on how long it would be before she fell down again... looked at us and slurred "eeny, meeny, miney, mo".
"You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around," I replied. She fell down. I guess that's what it's all about.
I've done the kareoke thing. I won't be doing it again any time soon. I mean, really, there's not a stage that's ready for another rendition of Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time". Instead, I think I'll just keep on being a dancing queen.