Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Heatstroke in Wriglyville
While I was volunteering at theatre festival in Chicago, I got heat stoke. I spent a couple of hours resting in the air conditioning, before someone was able to give me a ride north over to the red line train stop. As I am riding in the car, I feel all right, as soon as I get out of the car, the heat hits me and I instantly feel nauseous. I empty the entire contents of my stomach on to the pavement of a back alley in Wriglyville, and my companion reassures me, "It's okay, there's a Cubs' game going on."
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Take Me Out To The Ballgame...
I had this brilliant idea to take my parents out to a Detroit Tigers game. After I bought the tickets I realized that I may have made a huge mistake. Detroit is about three hours from where we live, neither of my parents travel very well or get out of the greater Grand Rapids area very often, so it was going to be a test. I remember one time I had my mother drive me to the Detroit International Airport and after being in the car with her for three hours I wanted to strangle her.
"Lynn, you're driving me nuts constantly changing the radio while you're driving," She'd say.
"You're driving me nuts nagging at me while I'm driving!" Don't get me wrong, after my mother finally got through menopause she was not as much of a raging, nagging bitch, but holy crap she is one of the worse back seat drivers I have ever seen in my life, aside from my father's mother who would constantly nag at my grandfather to slow down to 25 miles in a 50 mph zone. It wasn't too big of a surprise when my dad found him trying to fashion some sort of noose out of twine, I'd be trying to get away from that woman too, if I were him.
Anyway, we had not even left yet, and my mother was fussing over getting the car loaded with snacks and getting on the road. The game starts at 4pm. If we left at 1pm we would have plenty of time to get there, but because my mother has been a mother for most of her life now, she has to have everything absolutely together and ready to go. I remember as a child missing out on doing things with my friends because it "was too spur of the moment." Needless to say I did not have too many friends growing up. I am not in a hurry to get on the road at noon, because we will be in the car for six hours.
The drive over to Detroit goes by relatively well, but we did miss our exit because my mother did believe me when I told her to what exit to take. We find the lot I have already paid for the car to sit in and we go into the ball park and find our seats. I have realized that I need a drink at this point. When I was in college and my parents would come to visit on Sundays, I would pre drink before they came over so I would be in a better mood. My parents don't drink; growing up, I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen them drink. This contrasts nicely with my dad's brother (everybody's got a druncle) who is president of his AA group.
My only regret during the game is that I did not get another beer. No matter, the Tigers won and it was a beautiful day.
The only annoying part was that on the way home, my dad was convinced that I had directed my mother the wrong way on the freeway. There's a reason he always has to ride in the back seat.
"Lynn, you're driving me nuts constantly changing the radio while you're driving," She'd say.
"You're driving me nuts nagging at me while I'm driving!" Don't get me wrong, after my mother finally got through menopause she was not as much of a raging, nagging bitch, but holy crap she is one of the worse back seat drivers I have ever seen in my life, aside from my father's mother who would constantly nag at my grandfather to slow down to 25 miles in a 50 mph zone. It wasn't too big of a surprise when my dad found him trying to fashion some sort of noose out of twine, I'd be trying to get away from that woman too, if I were him.
Anyway, we had not even left yet, and my mother was fussing over getting the car loaded with snacks and getting on the road. The game starts at 4pm. If we left at 1pm we would have plenty of time to get there, but because my mother has been a mother for most of her life now, she has to have everything absolutely together and ready to go. I remember as a child missing out on doing things with my friends because it "was too spur of the moment." Needless to say I did not have too many friends growing up. I am not in a hurry to get on the road at noon, because we will be in the car for six hours.
The drive over to Detroit goes by relatively well, but we did miss our exit because my mother did believe me when I told her to what exit to take. We find the lot I have already paid for the car to sit in and we go into the ball park and find our seats. I have realized that I need a drink at this point. When I was in college and my parents would come to visit on Sundays, I would pre drink before they came over so I would be in a better mood. My parents don't drink; growing up, I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen them drink. This contrasts nicely with my dad's brother (everybody's got a druncle) who is president of his AA group.
My only regret during the game is that I did not get another beer. No matter, the Tigers won and it was a beautiful day.
The only annoying part was that on the way home, my dad was convinced that I had directed my mother the wrong way on the freeway. There's a reason he always has to ride in the back seat.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Business cards
I have two sided business cards, on one side I have all my information on it with my name, mailing address, phone number, email, and website. On the other side, the printer suggested that you put some sort of personal saying or slogan, and I just put my website address on the back of it. Honestly, what the hell am I going to put on the back of my card? Fucking shit up since 1985? A costumer that can dress herself? I don't have herpes...yet?
Fucking shit up and making bad choices
I am originally from a small town in Michigan. Michigan, if you have never had the opportunity to visit, is the Great Lakes State and very beautiful to go boating on the fresh water lakes during the summer. However, during the winter, it is a cold snowy miserable place. The economic status of Michigan has been shitty for several years now. I decided upon graduation from high school to go to public state university in Michigan that had a wide range of academic programs, the premier land grant university, and numerous study abroad programs to every continent, and had started out as an agricultural college. I moved onto a campus of over 40,000 students from a small of less than 4,000 people. It was a little hard for me to adjust. The summer after my freshman year, I decided to go to the west coast to find a job and a change of scenery.
In Los Angeles, I was running away from my boyfriend. Why Los Angeles? It seemed like the most distant place I could be at the moment I chose to leave. And I had heard that it didn’t snow there and I fucking hate snow. Cold miserable crap. A good place to go; nothing at all like where I was from, and so there fore, the men should be nothing like my ex boyfriend. They should be extremely attractive and absolutely unwilling to bring up the word marriage in any sort of context. I’m 19 years old at the time and I do not want to think about marriage in any way, shape, or form.
My first year at college was a hard transition for me. Before I went away to college, I had never lived any where except for my home town. I had never been out of the country. I had never been to a city larger than Grand Rapids. I had just broken up with my best friend and when we graduated from high school, we were not speaking to each other. It was a hard time for me, I felt completely alone. And so, the solution to my loneliness was to start up a relationship with someone I did not really find attractive, but liked me, and I liked people that liked me.
My clingy, needy ex boyfriend, who really meant the best, but, did not remotely understand me, not that I really ever gave him a chance. And to be fair, at the time, I don’t think I remotely understood myself either. I had no idea what I wanted or what I needed or what was the best course of action for me at the time. I just had no fucking clue. So a relationship is a great solution for this.
I never really truly opened up to him and shared my innermost deep and dark secrets. I simply did not feel like sharing. I don’t know if he knew that I had never had another serious boyfriend but him, but then again, I can’t ever remember having it brought up. He was always more than willing to talk about his past relationship with girls, but I never had much to say. Maybe he liked it that way, I don’t really know. Maybe he was merely waiting for me to finally open up and say everything that I was thinking and feeling and all of my deepest darkest desires, like being screwed on the kitchen table first thing in the morning. I kind of tried. But not really. It was my first really serious relationship and I had no idea what I was doing. When it comes to relationships, I still have no idea what I’m doing.
I had a serious relationship with this guy for nine months. He would come and visit me every weekend that he didn’t need to work. He worked two jobs averaging around 65 hours per week. He was older than I was and seemed to know what he wanted and I was floundering around, not sure I was any where near where I really wanted to be. He brought up marriage more than I ever care to think about. It made me uncomfortable. I wanted to go out and see the world, and do things that I couldn’t do in my home town. And he seemed more content to just do what ever I wanted. Despite all this, he was the first person that I said, “I love you” to.
After a very hot and heavy make out session on my floor, we were curled up together against the January cold.
“I have been thinking a lot about this lately,” he said. I was too subdued from the recent release of endorphins to really think too hard about what he could have been thinking about, so I merely gazed up at him. “I love you,” he said. I was caught so off guard that I didn’t know what to say so I just said a filtered version of what I was thinking.
“That’s so endearing.” If I finally got to the point where I was so hyped up on emotions that I was going to tell some one that I loved them and they responded with, “How endearing,” my confidence in our relationship would be shaken. Looking back, I’m amazed he didn’t just leave me then, but maybe he knew that I would come around.
A couple of days later, I called him on the phone, my heart was racing. He answered the phone.
“I have something to tell you,” I said.
“What?”
“I love you.” It was the biggest rush I have felt to this day.
However, did I really mean it? No. I merely did it to spare his feelings because as a woman, I felt that I needed to reassure him that he was wanted. Or rather, I did it because I thought that it was the sort of natural development that people have…oh fuck, I really don’t know why I did it and played along with it for so many months. I think it was mostly because I felt so insecure in myself that here was some poor soul who was willing to not only spend time with and say that he enjoyed my company, but that he loved me.
What was wrong with me? After I had a boyfriend that loved me and I grew discontent. For some reason I had this idea that as a person in your late teens and early twenties that you are supposed to have sex with people you barely know and you come out of each situation wiser and hipper and cooler. Which is complete bullshit. None of that happens, you just feel like a chewed up piece or gum and feel embarrassed to tell anyone what happened. While you are riding in the car with this person that you have just had sex with, you politely listen to him tell you about this prostitute that he did cocaine with and then had sex with, and this should have been a tip off that you are probably going to have to make a trip to the drugstore for some thing to get rid of crabs. It then occurs to you that if anyone in the world knew more of your secrets that you do not want leaked to the media when you running for a public office, it would be your pharmacist, the guy who is ringing up your order of feminine itch cream and lice shampoo.
Any way, the real reason you sleep around is because you are so confused you don’t know what you want and so you throw away completely good, secure opportunities while you still can. This man, who wanted nothing more from me than what I absolutely couldn’t give him with out murdering him in his sleep several years later, just wanted what any normal, sane person wants: a spouse and children. Children, who would carry on our likeness into the future generations, which is absolutely terrifying. Children are terrifying. The future president is shitting himself as we speak.
Poor man. He was nice guy who meant well, but either way, I broke up with him. All of the dinners, gifts, weekend trips, and hours on the telephone were all wasted with one final goodbye. A week later I had a one night stand with a man who never told me his name and then I moved to California. It made perfectly logical sense at the time, just like drinking an entire bottle of Canadian Whiskey right after I ate a Big Mac.
In Los Angeles, I was running away from my boyfriend. Why Los Angeles? It seemed like the most distant place I could be at the moment I chose to leave. And I had heard that it didn’t snow there and I fucking hate snow. Cold miserable crap. A good place to go; nothing at all like where I was from, and so there fore, the men should be nothing like my ex boyfriend. They should be extremely attractive and absolutely unwilling to bring up the word marriage in any sort of context. I’m 19 years old at the time and I do not want to think about marriage in any way, shape, or form.
My first year at college was a hard transition for me. Before I went away to college, I had never lived any where except for my home town. I had never been out of the country. I had never been to a city larger than Grand Rapids. I had just broken up with my best friend and when we graduated from high school, we were not speaking to each other. It was a hard time for me, I felt completely alone. And so, the solution to my loneliness was to start up a relationship with someone I did not really find attractive, but liked me, and I liked people that liked me.
My clingy, needy ex boyfriend, who really meant the best, but, did not remotely understand me, not that I really ever gave him a chance. And to be fair, at the time, I don’t think I remotely understood myself either. I had no idea what I wanted or what I needed or what was the best course of action for me at the time. I just had no fucking clue. So a relationship is a great solution for this.
I never really truly opened up to him and shared my innermost deep and dark secrets. I simply did not feel like sharing. I don’t know if he knew that I had never had another serious boyfriend but him, but then again, I can’t ever remember having it brought up. He was always more than willing to talk about his past relationship with girls, but I never had much to say. Maybe he liked it that way, I don’t really know. Maybe he was merely waiting for me to finally open up and say everything that I was thinking and feeling and all of my deepest darkest desires, like being screwed on the kitchen table first thing in the morning. I kind of tried. But not really. It was my first really serious relationship and I had no idea what I was doing. When it comes to relationships, I still have no idea what I’m doing.
I had a serious relationship with this guy for nine months. He would come and visit me every weekend that he didn’t need to work. He worked two jobs averaging around 65 hours per week. He was older than I was and seemed to know what he wanted and I was floundering around, not sure I was any where near where I really wanted to be. He brought up marriage more than I ever care to think about. It made me uncomfortable. I wanted to go out and see the world, and do things that I couldn’t do in my home town. And he seemed more content to just do what ever I wanted. Despite all this, he was the first person that I said, “I love you” to.
After a very hot and heavy make out session on my floor, we were curled up together against the January cold.
“I have been thinking a lot about this lately,” he said. I was too subdued from the recent release of endorphins to really think too hard about what he could have been thinking about, so I merely gazed up at him. “I love you,” he said. I was caught so off guard that I didn’t know what to say so I just said a filtered version of what I was thinking.
“That’s so endearing.” If I finally got to the point where I was so hyped up on emotions that I was going to tell some one that I loved them and they responded with, “How endearing,” my confidence in our relationship would be shaken. Looking back, I’m amazed he didn’t just leave me then, but maybe he knew that I would come around.
A couple of days later, I called him on the phone, my heart was racing. He answered the phone.
“I have something to tell you,” I said.
“What?”
“I love you.” It was the biggest rush I have felt to this day.
However, did I really mean it? No. I merely did it to spare his feelings because as a woman, I felt that I needed to reassure him that he was wanted. Or rather, I did it because I thought that it was the sort of natural development that people have…oh fuck, I really don’t know why I did it and played along with it for so many months. I think it was mostly because I felt so insecure in myself that here was some poor soul who was willing to not only spend time with and say that he enjoyed my company, but that he loved me.
What was wrong with me? After I had a boyfriend that loved me and I grew discontent. For some reason I had this idea that as a person in your late teens and early twenties that you are supposed to have sex with people you barely know and you come out of each situation wiser and hipper and cooler. Which is complete bullshit. None of that happens, you just feel like a chewed up piece or gum and feel embarrassed to tell anyone what happened. While you are riding in the car with this person that you have just had sex with, you politely listen to him tell you about this prostitute that he did cocaine with and then had sex with, and this should have been a tip off that you are probably going to have to make a trip to the drugstore for some thing to get rid of crabs. It then occurs to you that if anyone in the world knew more of your secrets that you do not want leaked to the media when you running for a public office, it would be your pharmacist, the guy who is ringing up your order of feminine itch cream and lice shampoo.
Any way, the real reason you sleep around is because you are so confused you don’t know what you want and so you throw away completely good, secure opportunities while you still can. This man, who wanted nothing more from me than what I absolutely couldn’t give him with out murdering him in his sleep several years later, just wanted what any normal, sane person wants: a spouse and children. Children, who would carry on our likeness into the future generations, which is absolutely terrifying. Children are terrifying. The future president is shitting himself as we speak.
Poor man. He was nice guy who meant well, but either way, I broke up with him. All of the dinners, gifts, weekend trips, and hours on the telephone were all wasted with one final goodbye. A week later I had a one night stand with a man who never told me his name and then I moved to California. It made perfectly logical sense at the time, just like drinking an entire bottle of Canadian Whiskey right after I ate a Big Mac.
Roommates
Home. The place I was raised, but had never really gone back to live. I mean, home is comfortable because I know it. However, there is nothing I really want there. I moved back in with my parents after six years of being away from home. Months before, I had ranted to my friend Alex:
“I don’t want to move back in with my parents! I haven’t lived with my parents for years!”
“I don’t want to move in with my parents either, but I’m going to have to,” he said.
“Holy shit, I fucking hate this! I have two degrees and I don’t have a job! What am I going to do?”
“Move in with your parents.”
“But then I would have to quit smoking.”
“Quit smoking and move in with your parents already!” I had other friends who did not have the option of moving in with their parents, and wish that they did and when I finally moved back in, after skipping out on paying the last month’s rent at this house that I had rented (without any formal written lease), I realized that it wasn’t so bad.
In the past year, I had had 14 roommates. I had brought in the year by living alone in a single dorm room on the north side of my college’s campus. It was a cute little room; however, it was also over 900 dollars a month and had a community bathroom. When you live in a dorm that has a community kitchen and bathroom, it’s like have 30 roommates all at once. Once, I was pulling another all nighter, and I made a trip back to my room only to find that someone had vomited in the hallway. Holy shit people!! There are 15 toilets in the bathroom! How hard is it to make it into at least one of them?
I then went and lived in the west, in a small crappy apartment that none of the windows would open, with eight different roommates. Out of the eight, there was only one that was insane and did not get along with anybody, which is pretty good considering the odds. Our apartment came with steel frame beds in each of the tiny bed rooms and there was also a built in desk and closet. The entire interior was white, except for a rust colored sofa which sat against one of the walls in the living room. As an artist, I hated how sterile the apartment was, so under the built in desk in my room, I did a painting. I spent a great deal of time painting at my desk when I was not at work. It was one of the most productive times of my life.
and I moved into a house off campus with four roommates. Here it was great and we all had a lot of fun, even though our dead beat land lord left his dog with us, while he moved to the east coast to celebrate his mid life crisis. The poor, unloved dog got fleas and they infested the whole house, and so we had to bug bomb the entire house. Two roommates moved out, two new ones moved in, and life went on. Finally, I had run out of luck and money. I finished up my classes early, and moved out of there to Saint Louis.
I lived with a lot of friends and different people, but I never lived with one of my lovers. I feel that is one experience that I am missing out on and perhaps is a good reason to go out into the dating world again, despite the fact that I don’t want to.
After dealing with roommates that were psychotic, neurotic, and just plain disgusting, I moved back in with my parents. And I realized, after all the insanity, I was back with the cool and collected sanity of the people who had raised me. And it was good.
“I don’t want to move back in with my parents! I haven’t lived with my parents for years!”
“I don’t want to move in with my parents either, but I’m going to have to,” he said.
“Holy shit, I fucking hate this! I have two degrees and I don’t have a job! What am I going to do?”
“Move in with your parents.”
“But then I would have to quit smoking.”
“Quit smoking and move in with your parents already!” I had other friends who did not have the option of moving in with their parents, and wish that they did and when I finally moved back in, after skipping out on paying the last month’s rent at this house that I had rented (without any formal written lease), I realized that it wasn’t so bad.
In the past year, I had had 14 roommates. I had brought in the year by living alone in a single dorm room on the north side of my college’s campus. It was a cute little room; however, it was also over 900 dollars a month and had a community bathroom. When you live in a dorm that has a community kitchen and bathroom, it’s like have 30 roommates all at once. Once, I was pulling another all nighter, and I made a trip back to my room only to find that someone had vomited in the hallway. Holy shit people!! There are 15 toilets in the bathroom! How hard is it to make it into at least one of them?
I then went and lived in the west, in a small crappy apartment that none of the windows would open, with eight different roommates. Out of the eight, there was only one that was insane and did not get along with anybody, which is pretty good considering the odds. Our apartment came with steel frame beds in each of the tiny bed rooms and there was also a built in desk and closet. The entire interior was white, except for a rust colored sofa which sat against one of the walls in the living room. As an artist, I hated how sterile the apartment was, so under the built in desk in my room, I did a painting. I spent a great deal of time painting at my desk when I was not at work. It was one of the most productive times of my life.
and I moved into a house off campus with four roommates. Here it was great and we all had a lot of fun, even though our dead beat land lord left his dog with us, while he moved to the east coast to celebrate his mid life crisis. The poor, unloved dog got fleas and they infested the whole house, and so we had to bug bomb the entire house. Two roommates moved out, two new ones moved in, and life went on. Finally, I had run out of luck and money. I finished up my classes early, and moved out of there to Saint Louis.
I lived with a lot of friends and different people, but I never lived with one of my lovers. I feel that is one experience that I am missing out on and perhaps is a good reason to go out into the dating world again, despite the fact that I don’t want to.
After dealing with roommates that were psychotic, neurotic, and just plain disgusting, I moved back in with my parents. And I realized, after all the insanity, I was back with the cool and collected sanity of the people who had raised me. And it was good.
Growing a "Beard"
My brother, when was in his mid twenties, decided to grow a fully beard. I, however, being a woman, cannot grow facial hair. However, I do not want to miss out on growing out some sort of hair, so rather than try to unsuccessfully grow facial hair; I decided to grow out my pubic hair. Ever since I hit puberty, and noticed that I had hair in my pubic area, I have shaved it. Over the years I have tried several different trim patterns, but not until I was 24 did I ever try to grow it out as long as it could go.
I did not shave for a month. I would admire my pubic hair. It had grown in quite full, just like a beard. A magnificent patch of blonde pubic hair that would make the dirtiest, unshaven hippy spit in jealous anger. I could comb into different styles, however, it was still not quite long enough to braid it and tie ribbons in it. Anyways, after a couple of weeks of a full pubic area of hair, I couldn’t take it any more, and I shaved it all off. It was fascinating to watch as I shaved the hair away, how it thinned out and eventually washed down the drain of the shower.
I did not shave for a month. I would admire my pubic hair. It had grown in quite full, just like a beard. A magnificent patch of blonde pubic hair that would make the dirtiest, unshaven hippy spit in jealous anger. I could comb into different styles, however, it was still not quite long enough to braid it and tie ribbons in it. Anyways, after a couple of weeks of a full pubic area of hair, I couldn’t take it any more, and I shaved it all off. It was fascinating to watch as I shaved the hair away, how it thinned out and eventually washed down the drain of the shower.
The Stink Off
In Russia, during the summer time, the hot water is shut off to certain apartment buildings at different times during the summer so that maintenance can be performed on the hot water pipes. This leaves certain apartments without hot water for weeks. When I first arrived at my host family’s house in Russia, the hot water was turned off after two days. So, in order to make light of the situation, I and another student in my class had a competition to see who could go the longest without showering. I lasted a little over a week, however, the other student won only by four hours. On Saturday night, all of the students in our group went to a night club, and after dancing in a hot sweaty club all night, I couldn’t take it any more, and I begged one of the engineering students to let me use his shower. It was the best shower I had ever had in my life.
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