beach thoughts, part II

As a kid, thanks to repeated viewings of the old western Gunsmoke, I always had a grand ol' idea of Dodge City, Kansas, so I was nothing less than thrilled the first time my family decided to visit. The occasion might have been a family reunion, but it could also have been a wedding or a funeral; these things all tend to blur together in my mind. 

I expected to find handsome sheriff Matt Dillon keeping the law, shooting the bad guys off their horses with a pistol from a hundred feet away. I imagined saloons with swinging doors, dusty cowboy hats, busty women in lacy dresses, and flame-haired Miss Kitty slinging suds behind the bar. I imagined boozy ne'er-do-wells sweating it out for the night in lockup while doofy Deputy Chester paced around the police station, ignoring the drunkard's taunts.

So I was disappointed to find just another lazy, humid, impossibly sunny Kansas town, a west with all of the wild tamed out of it by phony old-timey storefronts and a watered-down imitation of Boot Hill. There might have even been a staged gunfight in the dusty streets, the excitement of which was quenched considerably when the men who just got "shot" stood back up and dusted of their trousers only moments later, sporting not so much as a bloodstain. 

But I do remember having lunch at a dirty, divey bar/grill with my family, which even then was the kind of place I felt at home. This was the first time I encountered a functional shuffleboard (unlike the relic in my grandmother's attic that had been weighted down by decades of dust and junk), and though I didn't know the rules I derived endless enjoyment from sliding those metal pucks across the lacquered wooden plank dusted with sand. It was also the first time I ate a patty melt, and I still remember the way the white sandwich bread, heavy with butter and grease, squished like a wet sponge between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I've still never had a bar burger so delicious.

I also remember my aunt's backyard, where there was a single cactus standing tall amidst a patch of dead, brownish grass, a gnarly old plant that was deep green and almost menacing. I had never seen a cactus that big before, only the little ones sold in grocery stores, the kind with thin, almost soft needles that my mom had to dig out of my back a few years earlier when, without considering this particular consequence, my dad brought one home as a present for my brother and me. I wanted to touch it, but I knew it would hurt me, so I regarded this cactus with something approaching reverence.

And that summer in Dodge City, that cactus was as wild as the west got. Whenever possible, I always did like for things to be exotic.

South Padre sunrise

South Padre sunrise, a few minutes later

beach thoughts, part I

I'm on South Padre Island with my brother. Today while lying on the beach I recorded the following boozily meditative thoughts. Or perhaps meditatively boozy. Or maybe just drunk and sun-soaked. (Most likely the latter.)

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Before you get old enough to know better, you might consider it a good thing to be strange; I know I did. "Why be like everyone else?" I might have said, and then I might've sucked down another mustard packet and insisted everyone join me for a fifth shot of Jager. 

But I'm 28 years old (only three weeks away from 29), and I just mistakenly stuck my hand in a coil of seagull shit thinking it was a auger shell. Lemme tell ya: Slowly becoming strange is not for the faint of heart. 

I'm cooking in the sun while visiting South Padre Island with my brother, who is enjoying the waves and is the most relaxed I've seen him in years. It's 2 p.m., and despite having vowed never to drink again a mere 24 hours ago, I'm already half a bottle of pinot grigio in. Lacking a corkscrew, I was smart enough to make sure it was screw-top.

And every day I can feel myself growing stranger. At times I think personal choices have fucked me out of the status quo; at times I think it's bad luck; at times genetics. It's most likely a combination of the three. And there is not a day I don't wish I could sear it right the fuck out of me.

To be stupid and happy; oh, to be stupid and happy.

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An older couple playing in the water. And yes, they are playing, splashing and riding the waves and all. I like to think they're here as a last resort because she's a drunk and he's a pervert: "Honey, if this doesn't save us, nothing will." And I think it just might save them. It just might.

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Out in the water my foot came down on something unnaturally squishy and smooth, the same between-the-toes squish as the wad of used toilet paper I smashed with my bare foot in a bathroom stall while camping one time (or maybe it was St. Patrick's Day). I don't know what the ocean squish was, not even a little bit. It didn't move enough to be a fish. Then again, I don't know what most of the food at Korma Sutra is either, but I still love it. Sometimes it's best just to go with things.

a very shiny bedguest

I've been working my ass off since July, and while my constant companions have been stress, anxiety, and the strange creatures who inhabit coffee shops after 10 p.m., I've finally managed to quit my day job and strike out on my own as a freelance writer. It probably will not be sustainable long term (I'm neither naive nor a dreamer), but I'm going to take advantage of it as long as I can. Which means, for one thing, the return this silly blog. 

Today I will share this new phrase I just made up: shiny bedguest. Its Urban Dictionary entry would read: "A beautiful individual with whom you share your sleeping space. Can apply to lovers, pets, hookups, friends." Such as: Last night I hooked up with this chick; this morning I discovered she was a very shiny bedguest indeed. OR I have a shiny bedguest this weekend, so I will probably need some more Oreos.

I also spent some time in San Diego last weekend feeling very lovey-dovey toward the beach and the sunset. But now I'm home and will get back to being generally bitchy and strange; in other words, the regularly scheduled programming.

Sunset over the Pacific Ocean

Happy tree on Coronado Beach

the worst kind: part 1

Today my neighbor will learn that she lives next to a criminal, an unrepentant, lifelong criminal – the worst fucking kind.

She never should’ve left her door unlocked. Or rather, she never should’ve let me know she left her door unlocked. She should’ve slid her key in the lock and twisted it half a turn clockwise. She should’ve made a show of it, holding the key at eye level as though to say, “Don’t even think about it.” 

Instead she nodded at me from down the hall and said, “You might want to bring an umbrella.”

She’s a heavy-set, middle-aged woman, the oldest person in the building by probably 20 years. She’s always giving this type of advice to the rest of us. If it’s going to snow, she’ll tell us to bundle up; if it’s going to be hot, she’ll warn us that “it’s a real scorcher.” I don’t know whether she has any kids of her own.

“I don’t mind getting wet,” I said.

reasons i'm not going to my high school reunion

The self-appointed "committee" keeps spamming me via Facebook and e-mail, so I know it's coming: My ten-year high school reunion, something that in my mind is akin to the ten-year anniversary of my narrow escape from being forced to shank someone in prison.

Granted, I hated them all at the time (or at the very least 85 percent of them), but I stopped caring about them approximately nine years ago and began devoting my energy to more important things, like popping zits and brushing my cat.

Here are the other reasons I'm not going to my high school reunion:

1. I can live without chugging a bottle of champagne, smashing it on the ground, brandishing it like a weapon and screaming, "You're all cunts, all of you! I still hate you all!"

2. What will I wear? If I dress too formally, it will look like I'm trying too hard; if I wear flip-flops and jorts (read: dress how I normally do), everyone will assume I live in a van down by the river; if I wear a simple, casual dress, it won't fit quite right and my black bra will hang out because it always does, and everyone will assume I bought it at Target. And they'll be right -- I will have totally panicked at the last minute, purchased it at Target on my way to the venue and put it on in the parking lot. There is no way to win.

3. I don't remember most of my junior and senior years of high school. Confession: I smoked a lot of pot. But also I'm not sure I want to remember -- I was in a fucked-up relationship with a real sorry excuse for a male human at the time, and I'm afraid returning to the scene of the crime, so to speak, will cause long-dead emotions to rise from their graves like zombies, gnaw my flesh and slurp my brains like spaghetti.

4. Some of my former classmates are going to be fat and ugly now. Some of them are going to be bald; others are going to be wearing mom jeans. Due to excessive tanning, others are going to resemble a leather handbag that was left in the rain, then the sun, and then rediscovered in a dumpster by a homeless lady who uses it to haul around aluminum cans and bits of wadded-up tissue. Still others are going to be smoking hot, and I'll probably want to check out their asses. Do I care who falls into which category? Not especially. I'd much rather use my imagination.

5. I have nothing to say to these people. I haven't seen them in ten years. I don't want to see pictures of their kids. I don't care where they work, if they still live at home, or if they, as sheltered Midwestern kids from the suburbs, tried to make it in the "big city" and either failed or were wildly successful. At this point, it's the same as hearing this shit from some stranger I just met at the grocery store who won't shut the fuck up when all I want to do is go home so I can put my ice cream in the freezer.

6. Facebook. Enough said.

congratulations, you melancholy fuck, you fucking made it.

Today I received an invitation to a bridal shower in honor of a good friend of mine. And that's fantastic -- she is a smart, sexy, funny woman who has found a wonderful man to share her life with, and I couldn't be happier for her.

But then, like the ants that keep coming back in my kitchen despite my repeated attempts to murder them with bleach, the word "single-ism" crawled all over my goodwill like those 20-times-their-body-weight-carrying sons of bitches on a forgotten cupcake. 

I couldn't shake the feeling: It seems unfair that individuals who have already found the loves of their lives also get rewarded with lavish showers, parties and tax breaks.

As a single, 28-year-old girl who is not -- and has never been -- engaged, my only option if I want a new sheet set, accent rug or non-stick frying pan is to buy it myself. I don't get to walk around Target with a scanner gun ticking expensive household items off my wish list. I don't get to invite friends over for mimosas and cheese cubes and be presented with gifts from said list. Instead I -- with my single income -- get to live in an apartment where people fuck hookers outside my bedroom window and I routinely find empty bottles of gin and women's earrings in the parking lot -- true story.

And I know this sounds bitter; it's not supposed to. I never thought I'd still be single at 28, but here I am, and it's really not as bad as I'd imagined; in fact, I like to think of it as an adventure. Is it possible that I'll still be single at 38, 48, 58? I suppose, and my thoughts and feelings about that possibility revise themselves every day. Regardless, I know I'll survive (and hey, I might even be awesome).

But I still cannot abide a society that not only punishes but seems to frown upon people who, through choice or circumstance, end up remaining single. Case in point: Ever notice that when discussing someone who's maybe a little "different" or possibly "crazy," one of the first things people say is, "Well, he/she has never been married," as though this indicates some sort of fucked-up personal failing? 

And this greater societal belief, that there's something inherently wrong with being single, has rubbed off on our traditions so that we reward people for finding love and companionship and ignore people who do what takes some real goddamn courage: Slog through life, deal with plodding day-to-day bullshit, solve problems, overcome sadness and insecurities, grieve, cry, scream, laugh and never stop trying, all on their own, with no one to rely on but themselves.

That's not to say that if the opportunity for love and a shared life presented itself, I wouldn't jump on it. (Another thing that takes some fucking balls: Loving again after you've been burned.) But in the meantime, I propose that once a year on -- what's today? -- June 10, single people should get wasted with all their single friends, pat each other on the back and say, "Congratulations, you melancholy fuck, you fucking made it."

And then the next day, we'll all get some goddamn coffee and go print off our friends' registries at Target.

(Note: I do not intend to make it sound as though I believe marriage is a solution to one's problems, and I would much rather be single than in a fucked-up relationship. I am simply tired of being made to feel that I've somehow failed because I'm not married.)

better play it safe around power lines

This isn't a joke, she said. This morning I saw a squirrel on the power line, and it ran halfway across and then part of the wire must have been exposed, or something, because it got cooked. I mean, like, singed alive. You could smell it on the air, that rotten smell of burnt hair and cooked flesh -- there's no other smell like it. Like if a fire could come on as quickly as a rainstorm, or if running your nails across a chalkboard had a smell, it would smell the way this smelled.

You're drunk, he said. Or you're high, still, from last night. There wasn't any squirrel getting cooked alive on any power line.

She slammed the curling iron into the sink. The sound of the hot metal barrel against the cool ceramic bowl was startling, and several water droplets hissed and then evaporated, vanishing as though vanquished, as though forced.

I saw what I saw, she said. Don't tell me I'm wrong.