Verde.Verdad.

So, I kicked off a month or so of awesomeness last week by taking off Wednesday-Friday. I went up to Boston to drop Nana and my aunt off at the airport — leaving around 5:30 a.m. – then I slept when I got back home around 9 a.m. I did a lot of gardening, some experimental cooking (my pizza was DELISH!) cleaned my apartment, got my car fixed, went bike riding with Patrick, helped Clamp landscape and generally did a whole lot of nothing special. It was great.

But that’s just the beginning. This week marks the first Summer Friday, which means until Labor Day I only have to work until 12:45 on Fridays. Truly awesome. It also happens to be Memorial Day and Dan’s birthday. Back on Cinco de Mayo, Mons and Brendon were discussing their super awesome UK vacation with Dave and I, which included “people singing and banging on tables.” That made me long for Shanties. So, I talked Dan into spending his birthday with me and my crazy friends, drinking, singing and possibly throwing up off a dock down at the Gris. This meant I would need to take off Tuesday! So, not only do I finally get to return to shanties, I’ll also be able to get drunk, sleep late in a cozy inn, and then get up and have breakfast.

Even better, I didn’t even have to argue with Dan or convince him to go to shanties. I thought it would be like pulling teeth AND I had a whole back-up plan where I would tell his mother about it, because I think she’d like it, and then she’d want to go and he wouldn’t want us gossiping about him, so he’d go. I did not have to resort to any such tactics!

Then it’ll be back to work for three days, before heading down to Philly for my aunt’s wedding. She is, for some reason, having it on a Sunday. Since I’ll be in Philly that means I have to take off Monday, which means ANOTHER short week for me!

Also, while booking my room at the Gris I booked a couple of campground sites for my birthday! This makes me even more excited because my birthday generally signals that summer is drawing to an end and so I tend to be in the habit of forcing other people to celebrate for a protracted amount of time. Also, thanks to Leap Year, my birthday went from being on a crappy Wednesday last year, to being on a Friday, so I get to take the day off and head up to the camground early. And, the following weekend is Labor Day, which means another long weekend and Dave’s birthday, therefore another party.  

Somewhere in there will be July 4th, giving us another day off. But here’s the real deal: last Tuesday I was ready to pull my hair out. A 4 o’clock meeting went until almost 6 o’clock. I missed my train and had to hurry to get my OOO message set-up along with any number of other small, stupid tasks before I left to catch another train. Which meant I got home late, and considering I had to drive an hour after I got home only to get up at 5 a.m. to drive 2 hours to Boston - in traffic - I was not excited. I was particularly annoyed because Friday and Monday had been spent arguing with some shady vendor who kept claiming things that weren’t true, insisted they were “doing you a favor” by even bothering to license the art to us, and all sorts of other nonsense. One of the programs I use wasn’t working so I couldn’t get the invoices off my desk before I left, and a whole array of other issues (most of them other people’s issues that became mine) and I was slowly going insane.

I really needed a break. I would still like to be independently wealthy but if not, I’ll take a month of not having to work a full week. It helps keep me sane.

So, I’ve been reading I Love You, Beth Cooper which was a big book this summer. I’m always behind the times - mostly because I have stacks upon stacks of free books on my desk and spend probably 30 minutes each week agonizing over which is next on my list to read.

Anyway, the book is hilarious and everything it was supposed to be. It’s about poor Denis Cooverman and crazy Beth Cooper. Denis, the class valedictorian, decides not to waste his graduation speech on cliches about the future and instead says all the things he always wanted to say, including, “I love you, Beth Cooper.” And then it follows Denis through the rest of his crazy night.

My favorite thing about the book is that I see in Beth Cooper the same things I saw in all the “popular” girls in high school. I formed a few strange ”friendships” with some of these girls, and I use the term loosely, because I don’t think most of them were actually capable of friendship. I never saw such backstabbing and insecurity in all my life. It was, well…lame.

One girl begged me not to tell anyone she was going for her driving test because if she failed, her friends would know and they would make fun of her and she jsut couldn’t stand that. Another, far more hilarious, girl would quietly dish the dirt on all of her “friends” to me during our sociology class. She also beat the crap out of her cheating boyfriend -who, incidentally, cheated with her “friend” who had also stolen a potential BF away from the girl with the driving test issues - in gym class, and I’ve never seen anything so awesome before or since. And if the stories other people told were true, she would take her friend’s boyfriend out to breakfast just so she could cause drama and watch her friend lose her marbles later.

Hilarious? Yes.

Normal? Not so much.

Anyway, every time Beth Cooper talks about her stupid, crappy, coked-out creep of a boyfriend or they gossip about some other girl in their school, I think, “Yeah, that’s about right.”

But other parts don’t ring true at all. The complete divide between groups for instance because popularity often reaches across all boundaries (or at least it did in my school). You could be a stoner and a jock, or just be a stoner who befriended jocks if you’re funny. It didn’t matter. And although there are some horror stories about the giant d-bags from the class a couple years ahead of mine, I can’t think of any true bullies or poor geeks who got swirlies or beat up on a daily basis. And plenty of kids who started out as little soccer players morphed into wannabe rock and rollers or stoners or big fat lumps… And, more importantly, our entire senior class was brought together in the end. We shot each other with water-guns in traffic, at church, from the bushes, and in garages. We even sort of, maybe, broke into each other’s homes.

Anyway, this has got me thinking about all the stupid things we do in high school… about the embarrassing crushes and ridiculous behavior that went along with those crushes. About how we let people treat us crappy because we’re 16 and stupid and don’t know any better. And it’s got me oddly reminiscing about this story I wrote once in my creative writing class about a random day I’d had, that I hope I never find again.

It happened to be about the one time I met the Shorts Thief when we were that age - he doesn’t remember it but I do, mostly because I wrote about it later. Crazy J and I picked him up and then went to Crazy’s house. Nothing interesting happened and I don’t think I hung around for long. And at the time, I was still in a daze of hormone induced adoration for Crazy. The whole thing was too embarrassing to even talk about now but sometimes I think about confiding to The Shorts Thief about it. Then I decide against it.

I think about how I compared the two in the stupid, saccharine piece of crap I read to the class and I’m a bit embarrassed. I vaguely remember comparing ST to a Backstreet Boy, which is probably fair enough, because he’s still a handsome fellow, dimpled chin and all, and since I was probably 16 and he was 18, the BSB is an accurate measuring point.

Now I can’t imagine why I ever would have favored Crazy J over ST. Now I see my entire friendship with Crazy and the years of tortured, angsty teenage lameness I suffered over him as a means to an end. If it hadn’t been for all of that BS, I would have met the Shorts Thief… even if it did take about 13 years for us to finally really meet and get together.

A couple of weeks ago a bad night of drinking - and not adhering to the “beer before liquor, never been sicker” rule - led to me being insanely ill and him very sweetly taking care of me and not even making fun of me until the next day, after he made me breakfast and tea and all that good stuff. That morning, as he was climbing into bed, half laughing at me, I said, “Hello Handsome.” He replied with the usual, “Hi Beautiful.” This is generally how we greet each other when we are being sincere (instead of making fun of each other unmercifully). At moments like that, I feel guilty for ever having been stupid enough to not like him. And I kind of hope that I find the ridiculous story I wrote lo those many years ago (damn near 10 now) just so I can perform a ceremonial burning of it.

I’m not a particularly romantic person. I’m not one to profess my undying love for anyone, because I know that love, like all emotions, is perfectly capable of fizzling or exploding in a fireworks display of hatred and loathing. And I’m almost certain that there is more than one “perfect person” out there for each of us but my point is this…

We do, say and believe some seriously embarassing crap in high school.

I don’t know what will happen with Shorts Thief or with anything else in my life, for that matter, but I do know that I’m often embarrassed at some of the terrible decisions I made concerning Crazy J, earlier in my life, and the only thing that keeps me from regretting those many years is that I figure they were all leading up to the day I finally gave him the heave-ho once and for all ,and then convinced his friend to give me a back rub.

And no matter how much fun I had back then, I’m glad I’m not that stupid anymore.

Due to some less-than-great planning on my part I’ve been home for two weekends in a row. I failed to recognize that this past weekend was Easter when I decided to go home the previous weekend to do laundry and drink myself silly and celebrate St. Patty’s Day.

Anyhow… since many of us were home in old G-bury this weekend, and Clamp and I had carpooled up from Norwalk together, we had plenty of time to talk about rounding some people up and going out on Saturday night. Since the bars in town are either in restaurants or are The Diamond and therefore overpriced and filled with people we graduated with, we decided to try and infiltrate the Irish Club. Technically you’re supposed to be accompanied by a member and unfortunately, on this evening, The Shorts Thief was bartending at an event upstairs instead of in the actual bar. So we didn’t have anyone to vouch for us.

So, Clamp and I showed up to scope the place out. We signed in at the guest register, sat down at the bar, ordered our beer and then Clamp ordered a Car Bomb. The barmaid told us they don’t serve them there because it’s politically incorrect and so he tried to get her to do an Irish Flag shot. I think he made it up and it looked nothing like an Irish Flag but he drank it anyway. I told Dave, via text, that we were in and we carried on.

A couple of beers and a discussion about the robotics program in Zurich later, Dave and Colla showed up, Dave loudly announcing “This is the best kept secret in Glastonbury.” So, we got a table, and continued to drink the night away. Dave was his usually profane self despite the sign that sad foul language would not be tolerated.

We managed not to get kicked out before Dan got off of work and came downstairs, had a beer with us and informed us that many Afghanis look Asian because Genghis Khan raped their country or something (a tid-bit he’d picked up at the party).

Anyway, I couldn’t finish my beer before they locked up so I made Dan drink it because, in his words, “We don’t want a repeat of last weekend.”

All in all, it was a good night, even without any music and so Dave is now thinking about becoming a member, even though he lives 45 minutes away. I think he just wants to trot out his family tree for the admissions board or something.

Seriously though, if I’d realized five years ago that I could walk three minutes down the road from my grandmother’s and drink, Allison and I would have been spending many nights there, and then just wandered back to Nana’s and fell asleep on the couch.

This place is great and here is how I like to think of it: what they get right about the whole Irish Pub feel is the mixture of friendliness and crotchetiness. These are not fawning, smiling, flirty bartenders. They chat with you, and they pour your drinks but they are not Tom Cruise and this is not “Cocktail.”

The patrons are the same way. They range from, I’d say, early 30s to their 80s. You don’t sit in a regular’s seat and they will be happy to talk to you or buy you a drink but don’t mess with them, because it is their turf and they can toss you out on your ass anytime they would like. Also, they have a food closet full of McVities and Cadbury and blood sausages and God knows what other unholy things the British Isles have come up with.

I’ve been trying to get Dan to introduce the blackened cider and the Baby Guinness behind the bar to lend a bit of authenticity. Maybe they’ll hire me as their consultant if those are a success. I’ll teach them all about the finer points of Irish cuisine which include things like porridge, Irish beef (I’ll take it over Kobi anyday), bangers, Bubble and Squeak, Toad in a Hole and other ridiculous sounding things - many of which don’t involve corned beef or cabbage in any way.

I hope Dave joins. This is my new favorite Hartford area hangout.

So, last weekend I made my film debut… or maybe that comes a few weeks down the road when the movie is finished and edited and available for viewing but nonetheless, I was in front of a movie camera last weekend.

 This all came about when a friend of mine who makes short films was looking for a concept for a short film that could be used as a demo/sit-com pilot/contest entry. He had an idea but I thought I had a better one and told him so… And he agreed so he started working on the script, I did a little bit of editing and several months later we finally filmed it.

It’s about a celebrity in rehab… but not like Dr. Drew’s show. This celebrity is surrounded by non-celebrity weirdos… and one celebrity who happens to be stalking her.

Originally, I didn’t want to be in the movie but somehow I got talked into a couple of lines and surprise, surprise I did a fabulous job playing the angry girl in rehab who can’t stand the new starlet.

Apparently, my friend has now seen some of the raw footage and says I look quite good on camera, thanks to my cheekbones. Also, I was surprised because I left my tinted moisturizer at home and so pretty much rocked my screen debut wearing Oil of Olay nightcream so I expected to look a bit splotchy. Also, I intentionally wore a dark hoodie, figuring it would make me look angrier and probably frumpier which I figure someone in rehab should be… and I figured the color would wash me out, so hooray for me.

 Anyway, I digress… the movie making process if funny, especially when it’s being done with one camera, so for the most part, people deliver their lines separately and are filmed individually. It takes a long time. I didn’t have to remember much in the way of lines, and the “angry bitch” part comes pretty naturally to me, so I’m thinking I pulled it off pretty well.

 I’m also thinking about becoming a characer actor. I mean, really… if I could make money playing angry girls on Law and Order and CSI spinoffs I could live pretty large. I should start responding to some of those Craigslist castings… By this time next year I could be one of those people you recognize but can’t really name.

 How awesome would that be?

I did not love it. It took me a bit longer to get through than a book that size normally does and I was glad to finish it so I can pick out my next book.

The truth is I’m mildly jealous that she spent a year traveling and I’d like to be able to spend even just a few weeks in an Ashram - not that I have any business in one - eating Indian food or pal-ing around Italy stuffing myself or making friends among the locals in Bali. Not because I’m on a spiritual quest but just because it sounds like a good time…

I do, however, see why people who have managed to mess up their lives the way Elizabeth Gilbert did would appreciate the book… or even people who are prone to self-loathing and depression. So far, I’ve been quite the opposite and hope that my seratonin levels see fit to keep me that way. (Oh, but I have thought about taking up meditation - it sounds like fun.)

Speaking of hormones and chemicals…

(If you’re a man, made squeamish by lady talk, you’ll want to leave now.)

Thanks to a fairly recent diagnosis of a not particularly serious heart condition, I’ve had to stop taking the birth control pills I started taking many moons ago for medical reasons (mainly that I’d get stressed out while I was working my arse off in college and my “cycle” would go haywire).  

This means I have recently been reintroduced into the world of unstable hormones. I can deal with cramps or playing the guessing game every month but what really sucks is the PMS breakouts.

I’ve never been prone to acne but I am now recalling that, yes, there was, in fact, a time when I was occasionally plagued with blemishes brought on by hormonal rages. Being older now, and having forgotten what it’s like to have a zit, I am TOTALLY freaked out by this.

And here is the thing…when your skin is other wise blemish free and you get one big honking zit once a month, it’s all you can think about! It’s a bit like torture… mind control, even. I am so freaked out by this whole thing that I called up my cousin who has been beleaguered by bad skin for many years and asked her what the spot treatment stuff she seems to like is and then detailed the four or so unwelcome visitors I’ve had since taking myself off the wonder pill.

I am sitting here, eagerly awaiting my trip to the grocery store this evening so that I can run home and smear chemicals all over my face and reclaim my skin. Maybe I’ll look into some sort of herbal regimen to help me out but right now I DEMAND a quick fix.

So, I started reading Eat, Pray, Love this morning, which is a big change after the sucker-punch to the psyche that was the last book I read (Shutter Island - no wonder Leo & Marty are gearing up to make it their next fan-effing-tastic movie).

Now, this sort of self-indulgent chick book is not my usual fare. If I want some contemplative and melancholic, I’ll re-read Dog Years. (I gave my copy of this to Patrick and said, “You will love this.” For the first few chapters, he did NOT love it. I kept telling him to push through it and then I got the following phone messages: “I’m halfway through Dog Years and I’m crying in the cafe.” Then a few days later: “Have you ever been on the last few pages of a book and refused to read them because you didn’t want it to end…Yeah, well, that’s me right now.”)

But, Oprah lead me to Toni Morrison with her book club reading of Song of Solomon and since she’s been pushing EPL like there is no tomorrow, I thought I’d give it a shot. Also, some of the ladies around work really loved it. So, I asked for it for Christmas.

Then an item about this appeared on Gawker.  Further investigation revealed what Gawker - and, to some degree, I - thinks about this book: “…we like to think of as Self-Aggrandize, Whine, Repeatedly Thank Guru.

***

So, I’m another couple of train rides into the book. I’ve decided to reserve judgement for the end because I know that I have a tendency to find the depressed to be whiny… because, like Gilbert herself, I’m a New England WASP who doesn’t have time for that sort of nonsense. (My deomons tend more toward restlessness… which is why I move so often and keep a stock pile of random crap so I can redecorate my apartment at will, and how I ended up with like 8 or 9 piercings in my life, and why I love getting my haircut and why I can’t decide if I want to get married, make babies and live on a farm or… shack up on a farm and travel the world… or both… and why my dream retirement consists on me in an RV roaming North America, etc…)

But, the redeeming factor for the book is a sense of humor. And today, she may have won me over by using the following lines from the world’s most romantic song, and not explaining it to anyone who doesn’t get it:

“Give to me your leather. Take from me my lace.”

If this year’s big sports wins are any indicator, Hilary Clinton will be our next president. Not because she’s the best candidate or because the American people go out and actually vote for her but because my grandfather appears to be fixing all major contests to go his way since he passed away.

Somewhere, he’s hanging on a cloud, with other old coots making sure the Sox pull out the Series and the Giants win the Superbowl. I’ll also be putting my money on the UConn Huskies come March Madness. If my logic plays out you can pretty much bet we’ll have our first female president next year because Papa swore up and down he was going to campaign for her if she won the nomination.

Get ready folks.

It would be virtually impossible for 2008 to be worse than 2007 for me.

 I mean, 2007 had its moments, for sure, but basically it was a year consumed by worrying about my grandfather, and after he died, worrying about my grandmother. Add into that the couple of months where I nearly lost my mind trying to find a new apartment and car, and basically 2007 was a hot mess.

But the new year is looking up. It started with a bang…by which I mean, Dan and I sat around at his mom’s - while we were catsitting - got drunk on wine and champagne, watched Anthony Bourdain and some bad television and then I fell asleep promptly after midnight but not before anouncing that I had the spins.

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, napped and then got up again and went on with life. Sounds like a good start to me.

I’ve since gotten a promotion, and the accompanying raise, started launching The Cut with Mons, and soon I’ll have Drag Queen Bingo and Roller Derby to look forward to. If I could find a way to combine those two things, I’d piss myself with joy.

I’ve had a few really great nights, and simple, ridiculous joys since the new year started.

1) I found the Zoo Tycoon installation CD after several months of mourning the tragic loss of my previous progress - it was my own fault, but still, it was sad. So, when I found the CD I was overjoyed and have pretty much not stopped playing since.

2) I went with Dan to his mom’s birthday party, which she held in a bowling alley - 5th grade style. AWESOME! I haven’t been bowling in a few years, so I was pretty psyched when I managed to break 100 on my first game. Then the whole thing spiraled out of control and my game went in the toilet. Nonetheless, I got to meet aunt and uncles I’ve never met before, and got to bond with them over my terrible bowling skills/the muscle I pulled in my arse.

3) White Trash Karaoke! Oh God, I love it.

4) I joined the YMCA - last night. I got a tour of their ridiculously expansive facilities. I will get to attend Bootcamp, Ninja Skills 101 and variosu otehr fantastic classes for a lovely low price. Also, they’ve got a pool and a gymnastics gym. I’m sure I’m even worse at gymnastics now than I was when I was 8 but that won’t stop me…

5) Daily Show - If you saw the episode of the Daily Show with crazy Jonah Goldberg you’ll envy the fact that I was in that studio audience. Seeing the entire 18 minute interview slapfight was worth standing out in the cold for…ever.

If there were one movie star I could be for a week (or a year), without a doubt, I would choose Uma Thurman. It’s not just because she’s a super tall, super lean beauty (in case you’ve never seen me - I am 5′3″ and on the curvy side, even when I’m kickboxing the shit out of bags and people 3 or 4 times a week and I’m OK with that but just like I occasionally want to be a hot Latin beauty like Selma Hayek - instead of Uber-Aryan - I occasionally feel like being statuesque). Mostly I want to be Uma Thurman because she is the most ass-kickingest movie star on the planet.

A few weeks ago I watched The Karate Kid for the first time in, oh, say, 15 years. I appreciated it in a new way after reading about Bif and his Kung-Fu training in Lamb. Then, a few days ago I watched back to back Kill Bill on Spike.

Everytime I watch Kill Bill it makes me want to run out and learn Kung Fu and get myself a Hatori Hanzo sword (or just a Siamese cat to name Hatori Hanzo) and start kicking some serious arse. When you add the Zen-awesomeness of Mr. Miagi in there, my urge to learn martial arts grows even more. (Also, factor in the fact that I watched Jennifer Lopez beat the crap out of that douche in Enough a few weeks before that and I’d already been thinking about taking up Krav Maga and  you’ve got a perfect storm of asskicking.)

Now, so as not to sound like a complete philistine, I will say that I’d already been thinking about taking up a martial art. Since my kickboing instructor left my work gym, I’ve been at a loss for asskicking opportunities. Even though that class was just once a week for 45 minutes, more often than not I was the only one who showed up which meant I got to spend 40 minutes or so chasing him around the room kicking and punching my way into a sweaty, violent frenzy. (I once scared a very nice Australian man who happened to be nearby with my asskicking abilities and it made me smile.) So, in the absence of my instructor I’ve left that gym and have been looking for some other way to get my “kicks.”

Clamp and I tried this one scary place that appeared to be run by an ex-Israeli Army soldier who I have started calling Uri. I’m steering clear of him. Then I tried a Tae Kwan Do place that has regular kickboxing classes that you can drop into. It was definitely a step back in terms of my skill level with kickboxing. Too much cardio not enough kickboxing. It’ll do in a pinch - especially since you can just drop in and pay by the class - but it’s not a longterm solution. So, I’ve been thinking about taking up a martial art.

Last time I was at Dan’s we were joking around, wrestling and I started slap fighting with him. “That is not a good defense,” he mocked. Like most guys who have never attended a kickboxing class with me, he assumes I just jump around Billy Blanks-style and basically do aerobics. So I started talking about how I was thinking about taking up a martial art and how I was worried about the more formal aspects of it because I don’t generally take much seriously. While he was talking about all the reasons they would probably kick me out of the class I punched him in the ribs - not overly hard but enough to give it a little kick. “Was that better?” I asked him. “Yeah…that was better.”

This is much like the time, while we were both slightly intoxicated, Dave (6′3″ at least 100 lbs heavier than me, if not more) tried to knock my bag out of my hand. I then just started wailing on him, punching him in the gut and kicking him in the leg. He was so shocked that he didn’t know what to do.   

Then, the other day, my friend Soo told me about a friend of hers who was a martial arts champion who was one of the select few westerners invited to study Kung Fu with the Shaolin monks. He ended up getting sick and had to come home and has lingering problems that prevent him from really continuing with martial arts the way he had in the past. Now I want him to be my own personal Mr. Miagi. He doesn’t live far from me, so it’s not entirely out of the question.

But I figure he doesn’t want anything to do with a lazy white girl, especially since the guys from Kobra Kai are generally pretty nice to me, so I’m looking for a place to sign up. I don’t know exactly which martial art I’d like to study and there are tons of places around my house so many options are open to me.  All I know is that when I’m done training no one better give me a reason to snatch the eye out of their head because I will go all sorts of Pei Mei on them.

On Friday night, shortly after showing up at my Nana’s (I had an early morning appt. on Saturday near her house to have my stitches removed) we started watching one of my favorite shows, Friday Night Lights. While watching this gem of a tv show, we saw commercials for the new American Gladiators at which point I informed my grandmother that I would be going into training very soon so I could be on this show.

Actually, I just wish my weekly workout regimen could include going up against the Gladiators. I mean, it would be way more fun to joust and play “Hit and Run” than it is to, say, just plain run (which is for suckers and people without achey knees).

Fast forward to Sunday night and there I am, curled up on the couch with one of the many massive grapefruits my uncle shipped up from Texas and watching the modern equivalent of Gladiator combat.

IT - IS - AWESOME!

But the best part is Toa, the Gladiator to end all Gladiators.

Unless you happen to have seen the most fantastic movie ever to come out of New Zealand that wasn’t made my Peter Jackson (aka Whale Rider) you probably don’t have the same affinity Pacific Islanders that I do. But Toa is fantastic and when he’s being introduced does this crazy, chest thumping chant that ends with him sticking out his tongue and widening his eyes (you can learn about the reasons for all of this by watching the aforementioned movie). I don’t know if Toa is actually Maori - alas his Gladiator bio only references an “island paradise” - but he basically just looks like the Rock who is Samoan…er…I think.