Garbage Drinking Should Come with a Warning Label

Last Sunday PDogg,714 and I went out for sushi and drinks at our favorite local sushi joint. It was just supposed to be dinner, a couple of drinks, and some chatter. What it turned into was an absolute shit show, well, for me anyway. I started the night off with a Cucumber vodka/saki martini with a splash of soda. One word. Yuck. As you may remember I'm a whiskey girl but every now and again I try to branch out and try something new. Bad idea. I decided to move on so had 2(ish) glasses of wine with the magical sushi. We all enjoyed dinner, paid our $95.00 tab and went to the watering hole to roll the dice. One shot of Dr. McGillicuddy's and 3 rolls of the dice. Off to Tony's. 2 Espresso martinis, 2 shots of whatever-the-fuck-that-is-red-and-kinda-fruity-I-think, and a conversation with a married couple who's husband is fucking his wife's friend because the wife's friend just found out her husband is gay and what do you think of that? My reply (only slightly slurred): "I'm gonna see you guys on Cold Case Files in like 5 years cuz one of ya's gonna get shot, chopped up into little bits and stuffed in a 55 gallon drum and they're gonna find you in some storage unit in Florida or some shit. Don't you guys know that threesomes never work? I think it's a recipe for disaster." Exit Tony's.

714 is basically a social smoker and usually smokes when she hangs out with me, what can I say, I'm a bad influence. We decide to stop at the 7-11 up the street. Now this 7-11 has been there for several years and in those several years I've been there several times. There is, in my defence, a new intersection in front of it now. The light turns green, I take a left, only I'm headed towards the wrong side of the island. Stupid fucking island. My co-pilots enthusiastically let me know so I do the natural thing and swerve, just a little then careen around a parked semi and into the parking lot where I park and begin fiddling around with the radio.

PDogg: "Uh, DelicateFlower, there's a cop behind you."
Me: Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle
PDogg: "There's a cop behind you."
Me: Fiddle, fiddle, hmmm, fiddle
PDogg: "THERE'S A COP BEHIND YOU!"
Me: "Oh, that's okay, we're parked."

Now, mind you, we are in a jeep with the top off. I look to my left and there the ociffer stands in the typical ociffer stance, feet shoulder width apart, arms folded, staring with his little beady eyes. Alright, in all fairness I don't THINK he had beady little eyes, mine were pretty slanted at the time so they just LOOKED smaller than normal. Anyway, so here's how THAT conversation went (or at least how I remember it).

Ociffer: "You know you were driving erratically back there."
Me: "Yeah, that's becuz there's a new intersection and I didn't see the island there and was going to be going down the street the wrong way."
Ociffer: "Have you been drinking tonight?"
Me: "I had A beer" (to myself: a list of all the other shit I had been drinking, but decided that in truth I HAD had only 1 (or 3) beers before I met the girls)
Me: "You need to see my license?"
Ociffer: "Yes."

He takes it and looks at it. He looks at me but says nothing.

Me: "You need to see my registration?"
Ociffer: "Yes."

He takes it and looks at it.

Ociffer: "This your vehicle?"

My inner voice, which blessedly remained INNER: "Is my name on the registration jackass?" Which, by the way, it isn't.

Me: "Well, kinda"
PDogg: "IT'S KINDA A SORE SUBJECT!"

714 now enters stage right, sees the cop talking to me and says, "Ohhh what'd I miss?"


Ociffer: "So where're you girls coming from?"
Me: "Tony's."
(Damn, slap on my head, you NEVER tell the cops where the fuck you're REALLY coming from, I KNOW that but that's how fucking buzzed I was. Goddamn truth serem!)

PDogg: "I'm okay to drive!"

As if the ociffer didn't ALREADY suspect that I was NOT okay to drive, thank you peanut gallery for re-enforcing the suspicion.

Ociffer, looking into the back seat to PDogg: "Why don't you have your seatbelt on?"
PDogg: "I did back there!" She points to the infamous intersection where this whole Ociffer/DelicateFlower/PDogg/714 party began.
Ociffer to PDogg: "You need to put it on now." She complies.

Ociffer to me: "You think you could put your cigarette out without burning me or littering?"

I comply by field stripping my butt and setting it on the dash.

Ociffer, looking into the jeep. "Where do you put all your other cigarettes? Where's your ashtray?"

Me:"I field strip them, sir, and new cars don't come with ashtrays anymore, you have to pay $35.00 extra for them."

I have no idea what an ashtray for a car costs. I have no idea where I got the exact price of $35.00, but it sounded good at the moment. I am also thinking to myself, man, I'm BUZZED!

Ociffer: "Why are you girls out on a Sunday night anyway?"

Now, I'm not sure, but I don't recall there being a curfew for 3 women in their 30's on a Sunday night. It wasn't even past 10, I don't think.

PDogg: "She's getting deployed!"
Ociffer: "You're in the military?"
Me: "Yes."
Ociffer: "You have your military ID on you?"
Me: "Of course. Do ya wanna see it?"
Ociffer: "Yes"

I fiddle some more, grab my military ID and hand it to him. In the same nanosecond I snatch it back out of his hand.

Me: "Oops, sorry, that's my LLBean card."

I hand him the right piece of plastic.

He looks at me, hands back all my stuff...I'm not sure if he said anything after that. I suppose there HAS to have been some kind of "drive safe" or "be careful" but I really don't recall that. I DO recall driving out of the parking lot to the sound of peals of laughter coming from the jeep. God, I hope HE didn't hear it!

This is where the fork in the road was. This is where most normal people would have just gone home. This is where it gets even MORE hazy. Because this is where we decided to go to the next place and have 4 Bubblegum Bombs and 3 beers.

The next day I got up for work and was sicker than I've ever been after a night of drinking. I puked my guts out long enough and hard enough that I really thought that I'd given myself a hernia. I even checked to see if I could feel any of my guts spilling out of places they shouldn't spill out of.

Either I'm too old to drink like that, or I need to drink like that more often but either way I rejoice and yet I weep that every Sunday can't be like that one.

Wow, Didn't See THAT Coming!

I have a friend who happens to be a faithful reader of this blog and who sometimes gives me shit for not thinking that she's "cool enough" to have a nickname and make it into the stories I post. I have pondered this for some time now, and just recently have discovered WHY. We all have the same group of friends just made up of different people. In otherwords, every circle of friends has the same generic make up. There's always a moocher, a drama king/queen (or both!), the successful one, the quiet one, the rowdy one, you catch my drift.

This particular friend is one that I consider the "Successful One" (which is NOT how she'll be referred to from here on out, but I get a little ahead of myself). She is, like me, in her mid 30's, but UNLIKE me, she has a fulltime job, owns her own home, and is basically just doing well for herself. She's brilliant and funny and cute. She's also, I'm pretty sure, a bit of a closet kind of freak. Now, before you go jumping to conclusions that her closets are riddled with all kinds of deviant contraptions and she goes out at night in places no one knows about and does all kinds of freaky things with freaky people, that's not what I mean. What I mean is, like all of us she has her own Freak Flag, but UNLIKE SOME of us, she only lets it fly at certain times. Therefore I shall dub thee, "Room 714". (How many of you will catch this? hmmmmm)

I have another friend who also has been absent from these pages. JC (I call him this because I think he reminds me a bit of Jim Carrey sometimes) has been a friend of mine since high school, well actually I've pretty much known him my whole life. Great guy. He's the friend you have that outwardly never appears to have changed. I left my hometown for almost 10 years. I come back and good ol' JC is still good ol' JC. He's smart as a whip but you'd never guess it unless you know him. He also happens to let his Freak Flag fly. Often. Publicly. Without shame. Without regret. God I love that guy!

Can you see where I'm going with this yet? C'mon...

Rm 714 and JC have just made their coupling official. And while I'm extremely happy for both of them, I will be the first to admit that no, I did NOT see that coming. Rm 714 tried half heartedly to keep it a little hush hush I think, but like I told her, she's dating a Townie now and her business is now town business.

714, I know you're going to read this, and you'll know you're you and you'll probably blush just a little bit but know that I think it's great!

Hell Has Just Experienced its First Frost

Something I can't explain is happening to me. I think it's been a gradual process, and one that is ultimately good, but makes me stop in my tracks and wonder out loud..."What the FUCK?".

I've mentioned before that although I really don't like to run, I've become a part time runner. I will run 5 miles a day 3-5 times per week and 2-4miles on the other days. I bought new running clothes, new sneakers, a new ipod, and even shelled out the 30 bucks for the Nike ipod thingamajig that goes in my sneaker and attaches to my ipod so I can track my workouts. For all you skeptics out there...it DOES keep me motivated.

After I finished my 5 mile run this morning, I found myself at the store purchasing Runners World Magazine. I am far from a professional runner, but am slowly turning into an avid one. So thumbing through the pages I got to thinking that maybe I should get a bike. Let me clarify...a bicycle. I am waging an inner battle right now as to the prudency of such a purchase.

Back in a day when I scoured a different land and had a much different shape (hey, round is a shape) I had decided to buy a bicycle. I worked about 5 miles from my home and the route I traveled every day to get there seemed pretty flat. I bought a bike, gathered some gear, and the next morning set out 30 minutes early for work. I pedaled about a quarter mile from the house, turned around, and went and got the car. I can't remember what the hell happened to that bike...

The bicycle has nothing to do with Hell, however. Over the last year or so I've had some friends who have expressed interest in running and training for marathons and crap. These girls deserve a lot of credit and respect as they have logged many miles and many road races. I have been invited to run a few of these races and mocked them the girls as well as the races. Of course, at that time I could barely run "out to the car" without dyin. Tonight, however, I think I was just persuaded to run my very first adult road race. Granted, it is only a 5k, but I agreed to this race without putting up very much of a fight at all. 5k is only 3.1 miles. Did you see that? ONLY 3.1 miles. As if now I laugh in the face of a mere 3 miles.

What the hell is this healthy kind of kick that's suddenly taken over my life? I don't smoke anymore, I run all the time, I cut back on drinking, I don't eat pretty much ANY junk food, when will this madness end? I'm kinda hoping never cuz I'm starting to feel pretty good.

Big Boobs Bounce No More!

This one goes out to all you big breasted broads out there who like to be active but end up knocking yourself nearly unconscious with your giant knockers. I have been amply endowed pretty much my whole life and have spent much of that time searching in vain for a good-keep-my-tits-from-bouncing-so-much-and-possibly-giving-me-a-black-eye sports bra. Well ladies...I've found it. Champion is the champion of sports bras for those of us with REAL tits. Big cups, straps that X in the back, underwire...I didn't feel like running this morning but I had just gotten my new bra in the mail the day before. Let me tell ya, these bad boys didn't go anywhere. B-e-a-utiful!

Which brings me to another point...I think all this running is making my boobies shrink a little (not that I'm complaining) but I can't lick my own nipple as well as I used to...

We're Losing Sight of What's Real

Normally I don't watch any kind of bullshit afternoon shows. Dr. Phil is a crackpot, I don't give a shit about anyone that wants to get paid to air their dirty laundry in front of the whole world on those idiot judge shows, and if I wanted to sit around and listen to people bitch about how awful this world is and how screwed up people are I'd just call my friends Doom and Gloom and catch up with them! But today, today was a different sort of day. A day where I have realized that I am getting older and maybe a bit wiser.

Oprah. Yes, Oprah. Her show that I have so many times passed by, caught my eye today. Evidently, plastic surgery in China for a great many different self proclaimed "flaws" has been booming. The number 1 of course is the "westernization" of the Asian eye. I have to admit that on occasion I have thought about having this surgery myself. Though I no longer seriously entertain the idea of going under the knife just to have eyelids, I still think about it every now and again. Another surgery gaining popularity is leg lengthening. The bones below the knee are sawed in half and metal plates and screws are then placed between them and on the outside of the leg. Over a period of 6 months or so the screws are screwed and this somehow makes the leg longer. Recipients of this surgery not only gain 2-4" or so, but can continue to grow?!!?

Fat is being sucked out of thighs and butts and injected into lips and cheeks to contour the Asian face. Barbie has made her way to Shanghai and nearly all the little Chinese girls are smitten with Barbie and though they know they will never look exactly like Barbie, they've accepted the physical challenge to emulate her.

Many (non Asian) people may wonder why this is? People like my mother who thinks Asians are beautiful and exotic looking with their straight black hair and almond shaped eyes. Well, that's because you're not Asian. Try growing up like this.

My whole life I wanted to be blond, blue-eyed, and taller. The pretty white kids never got made fun of. Nobody ever walked up to them, pulled back the corners of their eyes and mocked some lousy Godzilla, no such language, Oriental kind of language at them. No one ever called them a chink, gook, charlie, fish head, Jap, or flat face. No one ever asked the pretty white girls to "say Me love you long time just once". No one ever accused my white counterparts of having a sideways pussy. Every single day of my life, sometimes several times a day, I'm asked, to my face, "So what are you?" or some variation of that. Where are you from? What nationality are you? (Which, for all the ignoranus' out there, you're actually referring to my ethnicity, I'm just sayin'). Most of the time I can laugh it off, cuz really, these conversations can be very entertaining.

Ignoranus: "So, where you from?" (not where ARE you from...)
Me: Massachusetts
Ignoranus: "No, where you FROM" (because changing the emphasis on a word will change the answer)

or

Ignoranus: "What nationality are you?"
Me: "American"
Ignoranus: "No you're not" (because you asked a question you already knew the answer to)


And I ramble...

...but back to the point I was trying to make in the first place.

We are willing to risk life and limb going under the knife so that we can look different and more acceptable to society. But who the fuck is so important in society that we have to listen to them anyway? Pretty, skinny, clear skin, shapely, big boobs, small nose, fat, whatever.

We have made ourselves so impressionable to the opinions of others we have begun to lose who we are. I say NO MORE! No more diet pills, diet sprinkles, prepackaged diet meals, diet shakes, lo fat diets, no carb diets, weigh this, measure that, this pill will possibly make you skinny but will definitely make your anus leak, that pill might help you shed a few pounds but will definitely make you shed many dollars.

This pill contains fish oil which will help your skin bones and memory... oh yeah, but we won't tell you that it also contains lethal amounts of PCBs too. (Oops, our bad.) Use this cream on your ass and the wrinkles on your face will go away. Use this salve on your face and cellulite on your ass will go away...

Enough is enough. I love me, I love who I am, and I'm lovin what I look like. I'm not entirely happy with the size/shape of my body, but hey, I did this to myself. So, I have to undo it myself. I quit smoking 17 days ago. I run 5 miles a day, 4 days a week. I run no less than 2 miles the other 2 days a week. I watch what I eat and I no longer listen to the multi gozillion dollar weight loss industry who has sucked up lots of my money but never gave me any satisfying results.

You are beautiful (unless you have a face not even your mother can love, then you're just fucked) at least on the inside. Be yourself, have fun, eat drink and be merry! God loves you the way you are and so do I!

The soap box is closed.