Still hitchin' the toe out, but not so far- Pt. 3.
I feel:: contemplative
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Tori Amos~Winter
Where I left off: I was headed for a baby shower and had told D that I would call him when it was over.
I arrived at the baby shower a bit late, but not too late for the beginning of the festivities. Everyone had to cut off a piece of ribbon in the length they thought that was as big around as Jenny's pregnant belly (Jenny was the girl who was being given the baby shower.) Needless to say, mine was way off. After that, she got to open her presents and I was appointed to be the present/trash handler. So, I sat at her feet on the floor and handed her her presents while she sat in the recliner and opened them. She got a shitload of stuff for her soon-to-be-born baby girl. (She's going to name her Avery.) We all signed a matte that was around a picture frame where Avery's picture would soon be. Jenny said she was going to frame it later and put it in the baby's room so that she would have that memory of everyone she loved being at her baby shower.
After the present-opening, it was time to get our eat on. Jenny's mother, Linda, was hosting the baby shower and she had gone all out with the sweets. She made this huge strawberry cake and little cupcakes with lots of white icing and pastel sprinkles on top of them. (When she began to cut that delicious pastry and said, "Who wants some strawberry cake?" I was the first one to yell from the living room, "Mememe!!!") She had a serving bowl full of things like mints, Hershey's kisses, M&Ms (peanut), white chocolate-dipped pretzels...I can't remember what all else. She also had made some sort of chocolate pie, which I couldn't eat because by the time I found it, I was so geeked out on sugar that I was visibly shaking. She had also interspersed different colored Snowballs throughout the table. Y'all remember those, right? They're big and gooshy with creamy stuff on the inside. Very sweet. Cause sugar comas. Not only did I eat a staggering amount of sugar-coated, chocolate-coated everything, I also had like 3 cups of coffee (with sugar because there was no Splenda or Equal) So, by the time I left to come home, I was literally so geeked that my jaw was clenched and my hands were holding the steering wheel of my car like vice grips. I was reminded of the [sarcasm] "good old days" [/sarcasm] when I used to do a lot of cocaine. It had a similar effect. I thought about calling D on the drive home, but then I thought better of it, thinking to myself, "I can't subject him to all of this. I'll be talking 90 miles an hour without stopping for a breath and I'll sound like a fucking loon." I talk some crazy shit when I'm on a sugar high.
So, I went home and forced myself to lay down in my bed. I had trouble relaxing at first. You know when you're trying to go to sleep, but when you close your eyes, they don't want to stay closed. They keep spasming from your effort of trying to keep them closed. I finally had to pull the covers completely over my head so that I was in complete darkness (I have a really thick comfortor.) and lay my fingers on my eyelids to keep them shut. Well, as things that go up must eventually come down, so did I. About 45 minutes later. During that 45 minutes, I just laid there underneath my comfortor holding my eyelids shut with my brain going everywhere like a pinball machine ball. I couldn't concentrate on anything for very long. I was actually, actively trying not to think about anything, but you know when you "try" not to think, that's all you can do is think. I finally fell asleep and was out for a good two hours or so. When I woke up, I felt like I was moving through jello. Like someone had given me a good shot of Thorazine. I made it to the bathroom and caught sight of myself in the mirror. Yikes. I looked like I was majorly strung out. Pupils dilated, dark circles under my eyes, skin paler than normal (I'm pretty pale anyway, so you can imagine how pale I was right then.) and my eyelids were at half mast like I had been smoking pot. Just for shits and giggles, I walked (shuffled) into the kitchen and took a reading of my blood sugar: 40. (My blood sugar monitor was flashing: DANGER DANGER DANGER!!!) People start passing out and seizing at around 30 or 35. No wonder I was feeling like shit-on-a-stick.
I went back to my room and laid in my bed for about half an hour thinking about whether or not I should call D and whether or not I even wanted to go out that night. I mustered my resolve and called D, after all, I had promised Tanya that I would go out with her that night. He had just gotten out of the shower. He gave me directions again to his house, which I confirmed because I knew if I didn't I'd get lost. It's hell trying to drive in low blood sugar fog. I got dressed (Not "dressed up". We're talking jeans and a black wife-beater that had a Black Sabbath logo on the front.) and sort of fixed my make up and hair. I followed D's directions and it turned out that he lives out in freakin' BFE. His "back yard" is about an acre of land and his nearest neighbor is about 1/2 mile down the road.
Anyway, he got in my car and we headed for the club called "Sport's Page" where we were to meet Sally and Tanya. Tanya called while we were on the way there wanting to know where we were and said that parking was a bitch. That I would probably have to park like a couple of blocks away because all parking was on the street since the club was downtown. Then, she told me that she went on a shopping spree that day. I was all, "You must've gotten your refund check from school." She continued excitedly telling me what she'd gotten. Then, she got really animated when she talked about the leather, knee-high lace up kickyouinyourass black platform boots that she had gotten on sale. They had originally been $70.00, but had been marked down to $20.00. I was all, "And the heavens opened... and the angels sang Ha-lle-lu-jah!" (I really did sing "hallelujah" in the obligatory falsetto voice.)
We finally found the club. It was right next door to a club I had been to before called The Factory, which is a gay/lesbian bar. I circled the block once and found a parking space right in front of the bar. (Front parking space mojo rocks!) D and I emerged from my car, walked toward the door of the bar and found several women standing there discussing something. They all turned to look at me at one point, but I wasn't listening to what was being discussed. I was just irritated that they were standing in the doorway jabber-jawing and blocking my way. A few seconds later, one of the women came over to me and said, "I'm sorry, you must not have heard what we were talking about." Right then, I was still irritated and thought to myself, "Why would I even be the slightest bit interested about what you and your friends were talking about?" Then she said, "You have the most beautiful breasts." As usual, I never know what to say, especially to a comment like that and especially from a woman. I think I blushed and mumbled, "Thank you," then everyone laughed and we made our way inside the bar.
I spotted Sally and Tanya right off and headed straight for them. (When I got to the booth where Sally and Tanya were, I said teasingly, "Hey, Tanya, I got a front parking space." Her jaw dropped and she said frustrated, "GODDAMMIT! I HAD TO PARK LIKE TWO BLOCKS AWAY!! This is a running joke between the three of us. They always say I get the front-most parking spaces and when I'm not around, Sally gets them. What's funny/frustrating is that Tanya SHOULD be getting all the front parking spaces because SHE'S the one with the handicapped tag on her car.) I thought D was right behind me, but when I got to where they were sitting and turned around, he wasn't there. I searched and eventually found him bellied up to the bar ordering a pitcher of beer. I asked the bartender for a Jack and Diet, to which he replied, "Sorry, we only have beer." I made a sour face, then he said, "But I do have some of that Bacardi Raz malt liquor shit." So, I got one of those. It wasn't too bad. Not much alcohol content, so it was kind of like drinking a Rasberry soda.
The first thing I noticed when I sat down was that there was band equipment set up, but no band was playing. They had a big-screen television behind all the band equipment sitting a bit higher than everything else-on a shelf of some sort-playing a German documentary-in German. After that movie was over, they put in another one that looked like some sort of art/film school student project. It had clips of old silent movies and clips of an old movie of the Passion of the Christ. I think it also had some swastikas flashing on and off during several scenes, but I could be wrong about that. I wasn't actually watching it too closely. I mainly just craned my neck to see it when either Sally or Tanya would say something like, "Ohmigod!" or "That's really fucked up!" So, I think I only saw the really weird parts. Granted, I think the whole thing was pretty weird. I couldn't figure out what the point of it was or what the subject was or the plot, if there even was a plot. It was more like a movie that was a collage of clips of older movies. There was no sense of linear time. Nothing in it made any sense at all. I think I even saw a scene with a large phallic symbol and something representing balls at the bottom of it.
While those movies were running, D managed to finish off his pitcher of beer. Then, the first band, The Nasty Abbots, came up and started to play. I have to confess, I didn't like them too much. Not that I'm a music snob or anything, it's just that not everyone can like every kind of music. I did try to watch them, although it was kind of hard because I was sitting with my back to them and had to twist my body and my neck around even to see them. By the time the second band, Fits and Starts, came on I had a full-fledged headache from being in that twisted position. There were parts of songs that Fits and Starts did that I liked and parts that I didn't. I think the singer was trying to go for the whole "Iggy Pop" thing and I respect that, but damn, he was just screaming so loud and it sounded like he had the mic IN his mouth. He was screaming so hard that the veins on his neck were standing out. Maybe it's just me, but isn't there a fine line between good screaming vocals and bad screaming vocals? I was expecting him to rip off his shirt at any second and start cutting his chest with shards of glass from abandoned beer bottles. The bassist was good. He had a Rickenbaker bass, which I liked and it had a good sound. I couldn't see the guitarist very well from where I was sitting, but he was pretty active. I saw him several times fall to the floor, ala Jimi Hendrix, and play his guitar like he was having an orgasm. The singer was all over the place. He walked all around the bar, stood on chairs and tables. He even took his mic stand with him instead of disconnecting his mic from it. I think he left it on one of the tables in the middle of the bar during one of their songs. My final estimation of Fits and Starts: practice a lot more, get tighter, bring down the vocals-a lot, get a good sound guy-the sound guy is your friend.
By the time the second band had begun to play, D's father had shown up. He had called him earlier. He was hanging out at a biker bar called Longbranch.(When his dad first sat down, D chided him good-naturedly and said laughing, "Were the dancers unrolling their titties for you?" accompanied by his action of mimicing the unrolling of a breast. His dad just rolled his eyes. I, however, was so embarrassed and laughing so hard that I had to turn my head and put my hands over my face. I laughed so hard that I caused myself a hot flash. Then, everyone started laughing at me, which made me laugh even harder.) He sat down at our table just as D was bringing a second pitcher of beer from the bar. (He drank that whole pitcher as well, minus one glass, which his father drank.) Then, the two of them began bashing the band. While I can understand poking a little fun, theirs went a bit too far. At one point, D yelled out to the singer, "Take off your clothes!" At which point Tanya shot a look at him that was just deadly. I knew right then that she was really pissed off. So, I leaned toward D and said, "You're hurting Tanya's feelings." Surprised, he said,"Oh, I'm sorry." Afterwards, he still occasionally made fun of the band, not so harshly, but his father continued on a tirade even after the band had finished playing. He was pretty drunk, but I thought that was a bit much.
Another thing that embarrassed me while the second band was playing was that the lady who had caught me at the door when we were first coming in and had complimented me on my breasts kept staring at me from her table, from where she had a direct line of view of me. She would get D's attention, he would get my attention by saying something like, "I think she wants to take you home with her." (D's dad said right after that, "I think she wants to take you home for her AND her husband. *sigh* That's kind of scary.) Then, she would do something like yell across the room about how impressed she was with my breasts. She did this practically all night. Jeez, I know I have big breasts. I carry them around with me all the time. I like compliments when they're given in a non-insulting way, but all I could think of when my face wasn't crimson and hiding behind my hands was, "Gimme a break, already." I think she got a kick out of embarrassing me. I think everyone else at the table got a kick out of me being embarrassed as well. Well, at least everyone got a good laugh, including me.
We got kicked out of the bar because they were closing. Tanya wanted to go to Midtown and it seemed like D wanted to go as well. I didn't really feel like going to Midtown and told him so. He looked around at Sally, Tanya and his father and said, "Well, I guess I'm not going to Midtown." Sally said she was hungry and had mentioned going to IHOP. When we walked out to the sidewalk from the bar, I yelled at her (because she was kind of a long way off already), "Are you going to IHOP?" She yelled back, "Yeah, are y'all going to go?" I asked D if he was hungry, to which he replied, "I'm starving." So, off we went to get food.
....to be continued.
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Tori Amos~Winter
Where I left off: I was headed for a baby shower and had told D that I would call him when it was over.
I arrived at the baby shower a bit late, but not too late for the beginning of the festivities. Everyone had to cut off a piece of ribbon in the length they thought that was as big around as Jenny's pregnant belly (Jenny was the girl who was being given the baby shower.) Needless to say, mine was way off. After that, she got to open her presents and I was appointed to be the present/trash handler. So, I sat at her feet on the floor and handed her her presents while she sat in the recliner and opened them. She got a shitload of stuff for her soon-to-be-born baby girl. (She's going to name her Avery.) We all signed a matte that was around a picture frame where Avery's picture would soon be. Jenny said she was going to frame it later and put it in the baby's room so that she would have that memory of everyone she loved being at her baby shower.
After the present-opening, it was time to get our eat on. Jenny's mother, Linda, was hosting the baby shower and she had gone all out with the sweets. She made this huge strawberry cake and little cupcakes with lots of white icing and pastel sprinkles on top of them. (When she began to cut that delicious pastry and said, "Who wants some strawberry cake?" I was the first one to yell from the living room, "Mememe!!!") She had a serving bowl full of things like mints, Hershey's kisses, M&Ms (peanut), white chocolate-dipped pretzels...I can't remember what all else. She also had made some sort of chocolate pie, which I couldn't eat because by the time I found it, I was so geeked out on sugar that I was visibly shaking. She had also interspersed different colored Snowballs throughout the table. Y'all remember those, right? They're big and gooshy with creamy stuff on the inside. Very sweet. Cause sugar comas. Not only did I eat a staggering amount of sugar-coated, chocolate-coated everything, I also had like 3 cups of coffee (with sugar because there was no Splenda or Equal) So, by the time I left to come home, I was literally so geeked that my jaw was clenched and my hands were holding the steering wheel of my car like vice grips. I was reminded of the [sarcasm] "good old days" [/sarcasm] when I used to do a lot of cocaine. It had a similar effect. I thought about calling D on the drive home, but then I thought better of it, thinking to myself, "I can't subject him to all of this. I'll be talking 90 miles an hour without stopping for a breath and I'll sound like a fucking loon." I talk some crazy shit when I'm on a sugar high.
So, I went home and forced myself to lay down in my bed. I had trouble relaxing at first. You know when you're trying to go to sleep, but when you close your eyes, they don't want to stay closed. They keep spasming from your effort of trying to keep them closed. I finally had to pull the covers completely over my head so that I was in complete darkness (I have a really thick comfortor.) and lay my fingers on my eyelids to keep them shut. Well, as things that go up must eventually come down, so did I. About 45 minutes later. During that 45 minutes, I just laid there underneath my comfortor holding my eyelids shut with my brain going everywhere like a pinball machine ball. I couldn't concentrate on anything for very long. I was actually, actively trying not to think about anything, but you know when you "try" not to think, that's all you can do is think. I finally fell asleep and was out for a good two hours or so. When I woke up, I felt like I was moving through jello. Like someone had given me a good shot of Thorazine. I made it to the bathroom and caught sight of myself in the mirror. Yikes. I looked like I was majorly strung out. Pupils dilated, dark circles under my eyes, skin paler than normal (I'm pretty pale anyway, so you can imagine how pale I was right then.) and my eyelids were at half mast like I had been smoking pot. Just for shits and giggles, I walked (shuffled) into the kitchen and took a reading of my blood sugar: 40. (My blood sugar monitor was flashing: DANGER DANGER DANGER!!!) People start passing out and seizing at around 30 or 35. No wonder I was feeling like shit-on-a-stick.
I went back to my room and laid in my bed for about half an hour thinking about whether or not I should call D and whether or not I even wanted to go out that night. I mustered my resolve and called D, after all, I had promised Tanya that I would go out with her that night. He had just gotten out of the shower. He gave me directions again to his house, which I confirmed because I knew if I didn't I'd get lost. It's hell trying to drive in low blood sugar fog. I got dressed (Not "dressed up". We're talking jeans and a black wife-beater that had a Black Sabbath logo on the front.) and sort of fixed my make up and hair. I followed D's directions and it turned out that he lives out in freakin' BFE. His "back yard" is about an acre of land and his nearest neighbor is about 1/2 mile down the road.
Anyway, he got in my car and we headed for the club called "Sport's Page" where we were to meet Sally and Tanya. Tanya called while we were on the way there wanting to know where we were and said that parking was a bitch. That I would probably have to park like a couple of blocks away because all parking was on the street since the club was downtown. Then, she told me that she went on a shopping spree that day. I was all, "You must've gotten your refund check from school." She continued excitedly telling me what she'd gotten. Then, she got really animated when she talked about the leather, knee-high lace up kickyouinyourass black platform boots that she had gotten on sale. They had originally been $70.00, but had been marked down to $20.00. I was all, "And the heavens opened... and the angels sang Ha-lle-lu-jah!" (I really did sing "hallelujah" in the obligatory falsetto voice.)
We finally found the club. It was right next door to a club I had been to before called The Factory, which is a gay/lesbian bar. I circled the block once and found a parking space right in front of the bar. (Front parking space mojo rocks!) D and I emerged from my car, walked toward the door of the bar and found several women standing there discussing something. They all turned to look at me at one point, but I wasn't listening to what was being discussed. I was just irritated that they were standing in the doorway jabber-jawing and blocking my way. A few seconds later, one of the women came over to me and said, "I'm sorry, you must not have heard what we were talking about." Right then, I was still irritated and thought to myself, "Why would I even be the slightest bit interested about what you and your friends were talking about?" Then she said, "You have the most beautiful breasts." As usual, I never know what to say, especially to a comment like that and especially from a woman. I think I blushed and mumbled, "Thank you," then everyone laughed and we made our way inside the bar.
I spotted Sally and Tanya right off and headed straight for them. (When I got to the booth where Sally and Tanya were, I said teasingly, "Hey, Tanya, I got a front parking space." Her jaw dropped and she said frustrated, "GODDAMMIT! I HAD TO PARK LIKE TWO BLOCKS AWAY!! This is a running joke between the three of us. They always say I get the front-most parking spaces and when I'm not around, Sally gets them. What's funny/frustrating is that Tanya SHOULD be getting all the front parking spaces because SHE'S the one with the handicapped tag on her car.) I thought D was right behind me, but when I got to where they were sitting and turned around, he wasn't there. I searched and eventually found him bellied up to the bar ordering a pitcher of beer. I asked the bartender for a Jack and Diet, to which he replied, "Sorry, we only have beer." I made a sour face, then he said, "But I do have some of that Bacardi Raz malt liquor shit." So, I got one of those. It wasn't too bad. Not much alcohol content, so it was kind of like drinking a Rasberry soda.
The first thing I noticed when I sat down was that there was band equipment set up, but no band was playing. They had a big-screen television behind all the band equipment sitting a bit higher than everything else-on a shelf of some sort-playing a German documentary-in German. After that movie was over, they put in another one that looked like some sort of art/film school student project. It had clips of old silent movies and clips of an old movie of the Passion of the Christ. I think it also had some swastikas flashing on and off during several scenes, but I could be wrong about that. I wasn't actually watching it too closely. I mainly just craned my neck to see it when either Sally or Tanya would say something like, "Ohmigod!" or "That's really fucked up!" So, I think I only saw the really weird parts. Granted, I think the whole thing was pretty weird. I couldn't figure out what the point of it was or what the subject was or the plot, if there even was a plot. It was more like a movie that was a collage of clips of older movies. There was no sense of linear time. Nothing in it made any sense at all. I think I even saw a scene with a large phallic symbol and something representing balls at the bottom of it.
While those movies were running, D managed to finish off his pitcher of beer. Then, the first band, The Nasty Abbots, came up and started to play. I have to confess, I didn't like them too much. Not that I'm a music snob or anything, it's just that not everyone can like every kind of music. I did try to watch them, although it was kind of hard because I was sitting with my back to them and had to twist my body and my neck around even to see them. By the time the second band, Fits and Starts, came on I had a full-fledged headache from being in that twisted position. There were parts of songs that Fits and Starts did that I liked and parts that I didn't. I think the singer was trying to go for the whole "Iggy Pop" thing and I respect that, but damn, he was just screaming so loud and it sounded like he had the mic IN his mouth. He was screaming so hard that the veins on his neck were standing out. Maybe it's just me, but isn't there a fine line between good screaming vocals and bad screaming vocals? I was expecting him to rip off his shirt at any second and start cutting his chest with shards of glass from abandoned beer bottles. The bassist was good. He had a Rickenbaker bass, which I liked and it had a good sound. I couldn't see the guitarist very well from where I was sitting, but he was pretty active. I saw him several times fall to the floor, ala Jimi Hendrix, and play his guitar like he was having an orgasm. The singer was all over the place. He walked all around the bar, stood on chairs and tables. He even took his mic stand with him instead of disconnecting his mic from it. I think he left it on one of the tables in the middle of the bar during one of their songs. My final estimation of Fits and Starts: practice a lot more, get tighter, bring down the vocals-a lot, get a good sound guy-the sound guy is your friend.
By the time the second band had begun to play, D's father had shown up. He had called him earlier. He was hanging out at a biker bar called Longbranch.(When his dad first sat down, D chided him good-naturedly and said laughing, "Were the dancers unrolling their titties for you?" accompanied by his action of mimicing the unrolling of a breast. His dad just rolled his eyes. I, however, was so embarrassed and laughing so hard that I had to turn my head and put my hands over my face. I laughed so hard that I caused myself a hot flash. Then, everyone started laughing at me, which made me laugh even harder.) He sat down at our table just as D was bringing a second pitcher of beer from the bar. (He drank that whole pitcher as well, minus one glass, which his father drank.) Then, the two of them began bashing the band. While I can understand poking a little fun, theirs went a bit too far. At one point, D yelled out to the singer, "Take off your clothes!" At which point Tanya shot a look at him that was just deadly. I knew right then that she was really pissed off. So, I leaned toward D and said, "You're hurting Tanya's feelings." Surprised, he said,"Oh, I'm sorry." Afterwards, he still occasionally made fun of the band, not so harshly, but his father continued on a tirade even after the band had finished playing. He was pretty drunk, but I thought that was a bit much.
Another thing that embarrassed me while the second band was playing was that the lady who had caught me at the door when we were first coming in and had complimented me on my breasts kept staring at me from her table, from where she had a direct line of view of me. She would get D's attention, he would get my attention by saying something like, "I think she wants to take you home with her." (D's dad said right after that, "I think she wants to take you home for her AND her husband. *sigh* That's kind of scary.) Then, she would do something like yell across the room about how impressed she was with my breasts. She did this practically all night. Jeez, I know I have big breasts. I carry them around with me all the time. I like compliments when they're given in a non-insulting way, but all I could think of when my face wasn't crimson and hiding behind my hands was, "Gimme a break, already." I think she got a kick out of embarrassing me. I think everyone else at the table got a kick out of me being embarrassed as well. Well, at least everyone got a good laugh, including me.
We got kicked out of the bar because they were closing. Tanya wanted to go to Midtown and it seemed like D wanted to go as well. I didn't really feel like going to Midtown and told him so. He looked around at Sally, Tanya and his father and said, "Well, I guess I'm not going to Midtown." Sally said she was hungry and had mentioned going to IHOP. When we walked out to the sidewalk from the bar, I yelled at her (because she was kind of a long way off already), "Are you going to IHOP?" She yelled back, "Yeah, are y'all going to go?" I asked D if he was hungry, to which he replied, "I'm starving." So, off we went to get food.
....to be continued.
posted by Anais Nin at
2:01 PM
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