When I first became vegan, it occurred to me that I was adopting a practicing set of beliefs and joining a community of others with similar morals and values. With a wary look over my shoulder, I realized that I was essentially adopting a religion **hands shooting up in front of me to protect my face from getting slapped**.
You know, I can't really say that I've ever had a loving relationship with The Concept of Religion.
Both of my parents grew up in Catholic households. My dad ended up being Satan incarnate, and my mom never really attached herself to any religion other than Hippie-ism, so my siblings and I were left to fend for ourselves on the religious front.
I'll never forget when I was in the third grade and my best friend at the time was washing her hands with me in the bathroom. She told me very matter-of-fact-ly that her family was from some specific branch of Christianity that sounded like "librarian" to me, and she asked me what my family's religion was. I blushed beet-red with insecurity and started mumbling about how "oh gosh, what was it? Must've slipped my mind today..." so she very helpfully started offering suggestions. I listened to the foreign words rolling off her tongue until one of them sounded even vaguely human. "Wait stop! That one! Yeah the 'M' one!"
She smiled knowingly at me and nodded her head. "Mormon? Yeah. You're mormon. I knew it."
I smiled back, glad to pretend to belong to something, even if I had no idea what the hell it was. It would take me many years to realize that that was actually the standard mode of operation for so many people claiming to belong to organized religion.
When I was about nine, my parents decided to take us all to a friend's church in Paso Robles. It was my first time in a House of God, and it ended up being my fault that our attendance there only lasted a few Sundays. I don't remember much of our few visits there. I recall the pastor Steve with the pierced ear preaching to us about the heaviness of adultery, and I remember scanning the pews for possible sinners sneaking out together to ravage each other in the bushes. As he quoted some choice verses from the Bible about the sanctity of marriage, I gazed out the eery stained glass windows, lost in my daydreams of forbidden romance with a creepy smile on my nine-year-old mouth. I'd seen more than my share of Days of Our Lives, and it was only too easy to imagine the seemingly chaste and pure pastor gently putting his white man's hands on the nape of the neck of the pastel-clad matron in front of me. While everyone read aloud from the Book of... uh... Genesis or something (yeah I don't know SHIT about the Bible, okay? I'll admit it) I smirked knowingly as the lady's pink shoulders leaned away from her husband, and I followed the thread of riveting energy from her fluttering bosom straight to the pointed finger of God's Words that Steve shook powerfully at us. Why, oh why is it that men of the cloth are so appealing on such a primitive level? It's like bringing home a blank white canvas: you just can't resist dipping your biggest brush in that can of glossy red paint and dragging it roughly and expertly across the immaculate surface, feeling the force of your fingers behind each muddying stroke. ... ... Anyone? Any takers? No? Okay, well the important thing is that I was obviously getting a lot out of my introduction to Christianity. Now I'll get to the part about how I'm pretty sure it was my fault my family stopped attending the church after only a couple months tops. After one of Steve's sermons (correct term?) I was deciding if he had any body piercings other than his ear, when he called for the usual Moment of Silent Prayer. I bowed my head along with all the other church cattle, and only half-noticed that a tiny bubble of gas was parading down my Holy intestines and out my Born-again bottom. In fact, I wouldn't have paid it any attention at all if it weren't for the remarkable acoustic reverberations that resounded resolutely throughout the silent hall like the little drummer boy's beat that heralded the Birth of Christ Our Saviour.
PPBBBBBBBTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!
One hundred anuses clenched simultaneously as the mouths of their owners fought to stifle their laughter, and the face of one nine-year-old girl flushed red as the nipples of the Virgin Mary. I did what any one would do when backed against a wall facing a shooting brigade of humiliation: I searched for a scapegoat to be my little bitch. I turned around to size up an ancient man behind me, and raised my eyebrows at him in feigned disgust, looking him up and down as if trying to decipher the outline of possible Depends under his pants. Luckily for me, my older sister was known at the time for being in a dire constant need for Bean-o, so I didn't even have to open my mouth to toss the blame in another direction. Everyone automatically assumed she'd been the culprit, and all I had to do was keep my sinner mouth shut for about ten years before the heat of embarrassment had died down enough to repent for my flatulence. I don't think we took a vote on the subject, but somehow none of us seemed to want to attend another Sunday service in a place where we would be forever dubbed The Family of the Farter, so our stint as Christians faded out as quickly as my unfortunate burst of air.
I grew up in a little white Christian town that could have easily passed for any midwestern Bible-thumping farming community. My neighbor was a cow. Like, an actual cow. Her name was Mandy, and we used to get our kicks by shocking ourselves on her electric fence when there weren't any appealing shows on our one TV station. Mandy was really cool, actually, but toward the end of her life she started looking a little haggard. She lost an eye, and no one bothered to put an eye patch on her so instead of rocking the pirate look she was doomed to live out her final days with an empty eye socket shrouded by sagging wet pink skin. In the true human spirit of ignoring any-and-every-thing that makes us uncomfortable and uneasy, we stopped visiting her and her thrilling fence. Poor, poor Mandy.
Around the time that Mandy was losing parts, I was having the standard identity crisis that everyone goes through in high school. I'd gotten over the fear of being unique that junior high had instilled in me, but I hadn't quite reached the conclusion that I was a sailor-mouthed artist with a horrendous sense of accidental fashion and a passion for vegetables (that realization didn't happen 'til five seconds ago, so I still had about ten years of cluelessness ahead of me). The circle of friends I was falling into was loosely formed from all the "smart" kids who for the most part were also socially adept. We were the ones who had GPA's above 4.0 and didn't drink or do DRUGS! but knew enough not to play with make-believe ponies across the parking lot and to keep our Magic cards safely hidden in our dresser drawers at home. Many of my friends attended church every Sunday as well as weekly Youth Group sessions together. The combination of my curiosity and their thirst to "save" souls led to my second attempt at becoming a Christian. (I swore off beans and any other gas-inducing foods during this period.)
I became a weekly fixture at my friends' youth group meetings. As we were lectured on the importance of abstinence, I glanced around at my peers. Half of the ones I recognized were complete whores. Oh okay, I know that's rude. Tramps. Ho-bags. I'm just saying. I may not have grown up knowing that Christ died for my sins, but I was born with THEE most rigid self-imposed morals of anyone I'd ever met. Granted, my moral cellular walls started breaking down at the ripe age of seventeen, but hey, at that point I was only about fifteen or sixteen, so I didn't know that was going to happen yet. No no no, at this point I was still the biggest prude in the room. I wondered if it bothered any of the fakers around me that they were pretending to lap up the shit their youth pastor was dishing out about saving sex for marriage while they were discreetly "sext"-ing their boyfriends behind their Bible covers. Did they feel any remorse for betraying the beliefs they claimed to uphold? I personally beat my head against a wall out of guilt any time I jay-walked or littered, and those weren't even things Brad Pitt cared about in the movie Seven. These kids around me, though... it was almost as if they were exempt to their own religion's moral code. They fingered the cross necklaces that hung at their throats against a backdrop of purple splotchy hickie marks from last night's bonfire escapades. They wore Spice-Girl-sized sunglasses to hide their puffy eyes in first period after a weekend of heavy drinking and sleep deprivation. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat in Youth Group whenever we played trivia games about fun Bible facts! and such. I was an outsider, a weakling fetus in the world of established Christians around me. I knew nothing about which quote was from which book of the Bible, or even what the hell they MEANT by "book." Isn't the Bible all one big book?!! What the fuck?!! I remember trembling with anxiety whenever a question was directed my way. Couldn't the youth pastor sense my desperation and take some pity on me?? Couldn't he just accept my sweaty face and stuttered gibberish responses and chalk it up to autism or something?? Fuck, man, I swear they loved to highlight my ignorance and then call on the girl with genital herpes next to me to swoop in in all her holiness to supply the answer I'd lacked. I got really frustrated with the injustice of it all. No, I didn't own a Bible, but the first time I let a boy put his hand under my shirt and unhook my bra, I repented the FUCK out of my sins. I went home that night, prayed for four hours, cried at my immorality, and dragged my sobbing frame to my brother's room to rasp one terrifying line of confession in his direction as he played guitar.
"You don't know what I've done!!!" I rattled shakily, weak with regret. "I've done something so bad... so bad...." I turned away and drudged heavily back down the hallway to my room, the weight of sorrow turning my feet to lead. It occurs to me now that my brother could only have assumed I'd murdered someone. Huh. I find it interesting that he didn't seem too concerned about it and merely shrugged, going back to strumming a Weezer-ish melody.
The first time I drank, it resulted in the same manner of mourning for my lost innocence. I was spending the night at a friend's house, and she was repeatedly harassing me and peer-pressuring me (it works, folks!) until I finally agreed to break into her parents' liquor cabinet with her just to shut her the fuck up. I gagged on Bacardi and grape juice, whispering liquory apologies to my conscience whenever my friend went to relieve her liquory bladder. I never forgave her for stealing my virtue, or myself for not having big enough balls to stand up for what I believed in.
Now, ten years later, I've traded in my strict moral code for the more reasonable rule of Hey, Just Try to Be a Good Person, Okay? Although one of my favorite hobbies is vigorous shit-talking, I find comfort in the fact that inside I have a heart of solid gold. I may be an alcoholic (hey I'm over two weeks sober, guys!) but I am full of compassion for others and love for my family and friends. It was that love and compassion that led me to veganism.
Vegans share so many qualities with religious fanatics. Every vegan wants everyone to be vegan, because according to us, the world would be saved. There are aggressive vegans out there on the streets picketing with heavy signs of MEAT IS MURDER! right next to the angry Christian dudes with their CHRIST IS LORD! messages. The most helpful lesson I learned from my brief stint as a Christian was the need to be informed of the facts surrounding your beliefs if you want to have any credibility in the face of adversity. I remember sitting in my US History class and eavesdropping on a conversation between two students in front of me. One was challenging the other's faith with the oh-so-classic battle of homosexuality being a product of nature vs. nurture. The nonbeliever was questioning his opponent's belief that gay men and women choose their sexual orientation and that in order to be "saved" it is necessary for them to reverse their preferences and adopt a heterosexual lifestyle. The believer was quaking in his boots, quoting various blurbs of Scripture outlawing one man laying with another man and other unhelpful bits of information. Here's the thing. I am one hundred percent a supporter of gay rights. (About every six months, I actually decide that I am a lesbian.) I can't wrap my head around the concept that so many people would ever want to deny other people the basic right to love a person of their choice. However, despite how messed-up it may be, there are shit loads of articles and studies and lectures and books available to the public in support of the idea that being gay is a choice, and a wrong one at that. As I sat there watching the kid try to sweat his way unwittingly out of a conversation that challenged his religious code, I started getting really upset that he could sit there and support the bashing of an entire lifestyle without at least bothering to check out the resources available on the subject and have some sort of ammunition to back up his protesting ideology.
When I became vegan, I had no idea that being bombarded at any moment by anti-vegan aggressors would be a part of my new path.
The first time it happened, I felt just like that ignorant fool in History class, unprepared and unable to articulate the breadth of realities that had bolstered my decision to ditch my omnivore self. Since then, you bet I've beefed up my artillery bag with one thousand easy-to-reference reasons to boycott the meat and dairy industries so I wouldn't be caught off-guard by a surprise attack from another veganism-skeptic on my next first date or at happy hour on a Monday afternoon. Someone once said something offhanded to me in an email and accidentally changed my whole life. I was relaying the difficulties I'd had over the holiday season with introducing my veganism to my family. My family is the most accepting family ever, and they don't give a fuck if I'm vegan or a gypsy or a pirate or whatever. What was upsetting me was that I felt so RUDE having to reject all the nonvegan foods that everyone was going through so much trouble to make and was lovingly presenting to me. I hated the snobbish feeling I felt I was exuding by not partaking in the BBQ'd meats or the reindeer cupcakes, and everytime someone pointed out that "Oh, you can't have that, huh" I was filling with a Grinch-y rage and shouting "I CAN HAVE WHATEVER I WANT-- AND I WANT TO SAVE THE ANIMALS!!!" I was complaining in my email to this acquaintance that the stress of seeming ungrateful and not maybe being understood was causing me a lot of unhappiness, and his response tilted the world on its axis to let in a blinding ray of pure white light that struck me straight in the heart:
The whole idea behind veganism is compassion. Have compassion for your family and yourself as you both adjust to your new lifestyle, just as you have a compassion for animals that has led you to become vegan in the first place.
Duh.
So simple, yet so profound. And with that bit of advice, everything came easier to me. Instead of feeling like I was fighting an uphill battle anymore, it all became love. I am going to do my part, because I believe in it, and I will show you how happy I am because of it, but you don't have to agree with me or feel the same way. You're going to eat that vegan cupcake I made and you're going to love it, but I'm not going to flaunt it in your face. I will make tiny little fist pumps when you're not looking and rejoice over the fact that by not putting butter or eggs in my pastries I'm doing my little part to protest the havoc we've wreaked on our environment and economy world-wide. It makes the salsa on my mushroom, rice, and spinach wrap taste that much sweeter when I know that by eating it I'm ultimately supporting the end of both world hunger and of the destruction of our natural resources. Let me tell ya, that sense of purpose is a pret-tay pret-tay tasty seasoning.
To sum it all up, I guess to each his own. Live and let live? Right? I mean, as much as I don't see how someone can argue against the personal and global benefits of a plant-based diet, I also know that the majority of people don't support my beliefs. Just as I don't believe that I will get shat upon for an eternity in the fiery halls of Hell if I have premarital sex or spew eleven curse words before I've even opened my eyes in the morning. All we can really do is support our own beliefs in our daily lives and do our best to coexist in peace and harmony with all the other beliefs floating around out there. I promise I won't paint MEAT IS MURDER! on your fur coat if you promise not to Sharpie TOFU IS FOR PUSSIES! on the vegan food cart that I am for sure going to be having sometime in the near future. Look at us coexisting so nonjudgementally. Jesus would be so proud.
Amen.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
(singlewhitefemale) has sent you a *wink*
About once a year, I down a bottle of wine, start feeling restless, and get the great idea to sign up for an internet dating site.
It all started five years ago, when we urged a friend to sign up for a free trial on eHarmony. We all lounged around the living room in various stages of hangovers, adjusting our sprawls every once in a while to relieve gravity's pressure on our aching livers. After about an hour of participating loudly while she answered five thousand questions about her personality and preferences, she received a dickslap to the ego in the form of this message:
We regret to inform you that we found no matches for
you in our database.
We were appalled. Nay, we were outraged. While my friend Googled animal shelters in our area to start collecting cats for the lifetime of solitude ahead of her (don't worry, I swapped fortunes with her and now she's practically married), we all threw trash at the concept of meeting strangers through a computer monitor and expecting to find some sort of lasting romance. We returned to nursing our hangovers with diet coke and burritos, and I cursed the site along with the others, only briefly wondering if I too would be deemed "match-less."
A year later I sought the answer to my secret inquiry. I was living in a house full of Hot Girls downtown, and it turned me even more antisocial than normal. All of a sudden I was reverting to my childhood habit of living not only in my room, but specifically on my bed. (Let it be known that because of this tendency, there have been at least fifty-seven occasions in my life where I've thought, "It's like I have a bedroom!!!!.... Oh....") I consumed my meals while watching Dancing with the Stars and straightening my hair, all the while perma-propped up against my pillow. My bladder was my biggest curse. Though the bathroom was a mere nine feet from my bedroom door, the possibility of being seen by others became a fear so great that it consumed me and gave birth to a variety of odd behaviors. I developed a keen sense of hearing so that I could keep tabs on everyone's activities throughout the house. When someone went into her bedroom and closed the door, I catapulted from my bed and launched my bursting bladder into the bathroom. When someone turned on the shower, I threw my work clothes on and crashed like a maniac on crack around my room gathering all necessary belongings before sprinting through the hall and out the front door. I frequently forgot things in my feverish escape, and whenever I found myself hobbling the mile-long walk to work barefoot and bra-less I would call my sister for emergency supplies. When I returned home from work to a house full of bros and bro-hos partying it up, I would feign a headache and slip into my room in complete darkness, holding my breath for three hours so as not to make a noise and raise suspicion. I only broke out of my statued silence to deal with my jerk of a bladder, and out of the desperation harnessed by agoraphobia, I trained myself to pee into a plastic cup and toss the liquid into the bushes outside my window. (I know you're all wondering if this is true or not. I'll never tell.) During one of my self-appointed bed-arrests, I had a flashback to that day in college when my friend tried her hand at eHarmony. (You're still thinking about the peeing-in-the-cup thing, aren't you? Don't worry, I was just exaggerating. Or was I...?) I paused Dancing with the Stars mid-rumba twirl and logged on to the website.
If you've never gone onto one of these sites, I highly recommend it. I'm not saying JOIN the fucking thing, just take a look at it maybe. You seriously answer about a million questions about yourself-- things that you'd never even think to ASK yourself about yourself. yourselfyourselfyourselfyourselfyourself. (Sorry, just had to get that outta my system.) ANYway, I sat there in the darkness, my face lit up like a leprechaun in the eerie green light from my computer screen, rubbing my hands together gleefully and cackling with joy about being allowed to type pages and pages about bullshit and actually have someone READ it!! (Oh wait... sucka!! Just kidding, I love you, please don't leave.) At the end of the questionnaire, my glowing green finger lingered above the SUBMIT button. What if I too didn't fit into any boxes? I mean, wait a second, I'm WAY weirder than my friend, so if she couldn't be matched up with anyone, what the fuck are they gonna do with me?!! I hit the ENTER key and held my breath. Well, wait, I was already holding my breath so that my housemates wouldn't hear me, so I guess I just continued to do exactly what I was already doing, but... uh... my heart was beating louder. In anticipation. That's it. It turns out, I fit into a box. I felt a rush of relief mixed with a bad taste of disappointment at not being as much of a renegade as I'd always secretly prided myself on being. (Dude, seriously? Stop worrying about if I peed in the cup. You're making me regret writing that, so I'll forget it if you will, 'kay? Deal.) I started scrolling through my Matches. There were some good-looking guys in there, all of them pretty close to the Santa Barbara area. And then I started freaking out at that realization. If I can see them... they can see ME!! Uh oh, I didn't like that one bit. I was paranoid that I was going to see someone on there that I knew from Real Life. Nevermind that he would've been equally guilty of participating in an embarrassingly vulnerable activity-- oh no, for some reason it felt like I was committing social suicide. Call it insecurity? I immediately canceled my account and shut my laptop screen, glancing around frantically in my pitch-black room to make sure no ghosts were snickering at me in judgement.
About a year later I was living with my sister on the edge of town. As I tossed my empty wine bottle into the recycling, I got that familiar sense of "Well what do I do now?" I had a mental arm wrestling match with my ego, and although I can't really tell who the winner was, it resulted in my signing up for match.com. I popped my knuckles and settled in for the exhilaration of filling out the questionnaire:
Your significant other takes you to a coworker's dinner party where you know no one. Are you most likely to...
a.) stick to his side, avoiding all interaction with strangers.
b.) introduce yourself to everyone, making several new friends by the end of the evening.
c.) try to put yourself out there socially to make your partner at ease, but frequently check your watch and be relieved when the night is over.
I love this shit.
When I received my matches, I did the same scroll-through as before, but although I was still scared of the possibility of seeing someone I recognized, I decided to keep my account and see what happened. For about a week, I checked my messages and got excited by all the attention I was receiving. Ninety percent of that attention was from men over the age of forty, waving gooberishly from their photos with bug-eyed expressions and sleeveless stained T-shirts. By the way, in case you aren't familiar with internet dating etiquette, the standard protocol to follow if you are interested in a member is to either "wink" at him or her or to send a message. "Wink"ing is the cyberspace equivalent to making eye contact across a bar. "Message"ing is about the same as walking balls-out up to someone and asking for his or her number. Each time I checked my page, I had about ten winks from homeless-looking old guys, and maybe one or two messages in which a sensitive misunderstood soul would relay his loveless plight and implore me to consider all our similarities and interests. My reactions to both of these was pretty similar. After .15 seconds of feeling flattered, I'd shudder and dismiss the guy, thinking, "Dude why the fuck are you talking to me, I don't even KNOW you!" I think I failed to understand the whole thing about meeting people on the internet.
Six months later, I'd forgotten the site even existed. I was managing at an Italian restaurant downtown, and it was the end of the night so I'd gone upstairs to the office to start counting the day's profits. The busser knocked on the office door. "Uh... (singlewhitefemale)? There's a guy downstairs asking to speak to you."
I sighed. Sometimes I hated being a manager. What was it, did he find a piece of glass in his fettuccine alfredo or something? We'd come soooooo close to having no problems tonight, damnit! I trudged begrudgingly down the stairs to face the complainer with my hands half-up in automatic defense. The busser pointed out the small guy with stylish hair and I got my best how-can-I-help-you smile on my tired face. "Hi, I'm the manager, what can I do for you?"
He shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. "Hey, how's it goin.... I uh... I hate to do this to you, but someone once did it to me, so I feel like I gotta. Are you, by any chance, on match.com?"
My brain dropped through my open mouth and hit my teeth on the way out. I was too surprised to even blush. "...Um... yes? I guess? Yes, I am." I looked around, terrified, making sure that everyone was refilling the sugar caddies well out of the range of overhearing us. "So...?"
He laughed nervously. "Sorry, I just recognized you when you were waiting on us, and I think you're really cute. I talked to you a couple of times on there."
I tried to focus on his features, as if I were wearing someone else's prescription glasses and I had to tilt my head just right to make out his shape. Nope, definitely didn't recognize him. "Sorry, it's been a long time since I've been on there." (He interrupted me all-too eagerly with an emphatic "Me too!") "What's your name on the site?" I watched him pretend to forget it, then raise a finger like it'd just come back to him as he recited it. Oh fuck, I recognized the name. Oh fuuuuuuuuck! That was the guy who'd sent me like thirty looooong messages about how he has two cats and a dog and how he's a really nice guy and he thinks we'd be perfect soulmates and all that shit!! Aaahhhh!!! I started sweating as I saw the servers edging closer and closer toward us, finished with their sidework. "Oh uh yeah, yeah, I remember you. Well it's nice meeting you, let me uh--" I frantically searched my apron for a pen and scrap of paper, "--here's my number, I gotta keep closing up but thanks for coming to say hi and everything." I blacked out with social anxiety while he said his goodbye, and it wasn't until I was back upstairs with my sweaty hands palm-down on the desk in front of me that I realized I had just given my number, unsolicited, to some dude that I had absolutely no interest in. I reasoned with myself that it had seemed like the only thing to do to get him to leave, and I tried to convince myself that he'd never call.
Fourteen text messages and six phone calls later, I'd caved and agreed to go out with him. He invited me to dinner, so I faked some dinner plans and suggested we go out later for drinks. When he rolled up in his huge-ass truck (overcompensating, anyone?) and stepped into my driveway, I had a fleeting moment of optimism. He's CUTE! Oh my gosh wait, he's way cuter than I remembered him being! And he has a nice man-blazer on and he's not wearing mountain sandals! Hey, this actually might BE something! He helped me up the six-foot ladder into the passenger side of his colossal beast-ride. And turned on his playlist.
"I'm just really into epic 80's ballads right now." Blink. Blink-blink. Blink.
I tried to fight back the vomit that had urped up into my mouth. If there's one genre of music I detest as a rule, that, my friend, is it. I'll even take country over that shit. Strike one. Now, my sister used to have a nervous blinking habit, so I know I should be more forgiving of it. My brother used to nudge me and start winking, so I'd start nodding, and we'd say, "Hey sis, it's your turn!" When she'd finally get the Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod reference she'd be in tears, and my pride at being included in one of my brother's jokes was aaaaalmost washed out by the sympathy I felt for her. Almost but not quite. So I tried really hard to overlook the fact that every time he looked at me I started imagining what it would be like to view the world with a permanent strobe light flashing on everything. Strike two? Maybe?
We went to a really chic place off State Street and got some fancy mojitos. As an alcoholic, I found it painful to try to pace myself to his frequency of sips. I figured that on a first date it might not be appropriate to outdrink your companion tenfold, so I distracted my parched addiction by stabbing at the mint leaves with my straw while we participated in The Awkward Getting-to-Know-You Talk administered by people on first dates. Surprisingly enough, I started really enjoying myself. And then I realized that of COURSE I was enjoying myself, because it was the ultimate playing field for the narcissist. He was Fresh Meat for all the stories and thoughts that I'd love to bore my friends and family with but oh wait I already have. He fiiiiiiiinally pansy-gulped the last of his mojito and I swiftly ordered another round from our server using Universal Alcoholic Hand Gestures from across the room. I took one quick hit from the straw the second the server handed me my drink, and bolstered by the tinges of a buzz, I turned to my date. He was smiling sleepily at his drink and giggling like the Coppertone baby girl on the side of my sunscreen bottle at home. "I'm not really much of a drinker. This is so strong!" Okay, if that blinky thing was only half a strike, this is DEFINITELY strike two. There's nothing an alcoholic hates more than hanging out with people who make her feel like an alcoholic. I debated chugging half his drink when he left me to go to the bathroom, but I behaved, if for no other reason than to practice my good manners. When he came back, he asked if I'd wanna go for a stroll and get some air. Dear lord, is he gonna puke? I nodded a lie, and we moseyed along State St., chatting more about our families and jobs. He wasn't THAT bad. I found myself laughing, even enjoying myself at times. I tried to do that thing that all women do because we're crazy, where we try to visualize our lives with a guy we've just met, picturing sitting across the table from him at breakfast every morning and taking him to family Christmases. There was just no way. However, when he mentioned the earliness of the hour and asked if I'd like to maybe watch the Batman movie The Dark Knight at his house, I didn't feel a complete fight-or-flight response (refer to my earlier blog where I mention how I'm a retard and don't know how to end a night until everyone else is done, too). We went out to his house in Goleta for part II of our date. I was impressed by the fact that not only did he live alone, he also had a guest bedroom. I have literally never seen that before--or since-- in Santa Barbara. Then I smelled the sheer amount of cat and dog presence in his place, and I quickly forgot about everything but fresh air and my own tiny shared studio with my sister. I managed to breathe through the entire movie, but it was NOT easy. His shih tzu, though adorable, SUCKED. She kept jumping up on my legs and into my lap and my face/neck area and being as much of a pesky dog as possible. Look, I'm just not a dog person. And I definitely saw him try to discreetly use a paper towel to pick up a piece of dog poop that was just lying there all casual-like on the carpet next to the bathroom. I used to think I was a cat person, but then his two cats came over and made me rethink the title. They rubbed their saliva-encrusted fur on my shoulders, my calves, my fingers, my FACE... **spine-rattling shudder**. Finally, one posted up for a nap on the back of my neck, and the other across my bladder. I spent the last half hour of the movie motionless, perfecting the art of crying on the inside. Strike three. As soon as the credits rolled across the screen, I fake-yawned and jumped up, startling both felines into angular states of all claws and teeth. After they'd stopped yarling at me, I fake-apologized profusely and started edging toward the door. I left my date with Santa Barbara's Ace Ventura with an inch-thick layer of matted animal fur on my dress and a vendetta against internet dating.
Okay, yes, that vendetta ended about a year later, right before I moved to Encinitas. I was reading my favorite vegan 'zine when I came across an add for veggiedate.com-- the perfect site for veg-friendly people to mingle!! Yes, I am a nerd, and yes, I signed up. Not really with any intentions, though. I was thinking it might help me to make a few connections before moving down here, and I was worried it would be as difficult to find fellow vegans as it was in Santa Barbara. It didn't, and it isn't. Though most of the people on the site gave me nightmares (I'd never before seen the style combination of dreadlocks, kimonos, and baby-fuzz mustaches), there were a couple of people who made me optimistic and excited about my new lifestyle as a vegan. Once I moved, I forgot all about the site, and submerged myself in the bustle of the Real World.
I recently had a friend tell me I needed to be more pro-active on dating sites. Instead of waiting to be winked at by greasy middle-aged serial masturbators, I should really sort through my matches and be the winkER to any guys I see as plausible options. The funny thing is that I'd think hiding behind my keyboard and pictures of myself that I choose for people to see would be the ultimate dream for someone with social anxiety like myself. I love texting versus actually TALKING on the phone, and any time I can write a facebook message instead of talking with someone face-to-face, I'm gonna opt for it. I think... though... that what attracts me most to people is the vibe that the person gives off. Does that make sense? Not like I'm reading the color of his aura or something, but there has to be some sort of self-amused, half-uncertain energy wafting off of a person in order for me to register him as someone I could be interested in. A hundred times per shift, I hear the girls at work whispering and giggling about how "hot" some guy is, and I am always so bored by their selections. Yes, that guy is generically attractive in an extreme way. Give me a ginger with a beard who accidentally snorts when I make a joke to him and then blushes and tries to hide his head while he signs his credit card receipt and I'm taking my bra off and hopping over the counter to be his new girlfriend.
Huh. Well, I dunno, Internet Dating. It looks like we're at a standstill right now, and I'm not sure I'll ever drunk dial you again. If I do, it won't be for at least ninety-five days, and you'd better bust out your big guns for me or I swear I'll give up on you entirely. Maybe when I'm forty I'll join cougardate.com or something. Actually, that sounds pret-tay, pret-tay good to me....
*wink*
It all started five years ago, when we urged a friend to sign up for a free trial on eHarmony. We all lounged around the living room in various stages of hangovers, adjusting our sprawls every once in a while to relieve gravity's pressure on our aching livers. After about an hour of participating loudly while she answered five thousand questions about her personality and preferences, she received a dickslap to the ego in the form of this message:
We regret to inform you that we found no matches for
you in our database.
We were appalled. Nay, we were outraged. While my friend Googled animal shelters in our area to start collecting cats for the lifetime of solitude ahead of her (don't worry, I swapped fortunes with her and now she's practically married), we all threw trash at the concept of meeting strangers through a computer monitor and expecting to find some sort of lasting romance. We returned to nursing our hangovers with diet coke and burritos, and I cursed the site along with the others, only briefly wondering if I too would be deemed "match-less."
A year later I sought the answer to my secret inquiry. I was living in a house full of Hot Girls downtown, and it turned me even more antisocial than normal. All of a sudden I was reverting to my childhood habit of living not only in my room, but specifically on my bed. (Let it be known that because of this tendency, there have been at least fifty-seven occasions in my life where I've thought, "It's like I have a bedroom!!!!.... Oh....") I consumed my meals while watching Dancing with the Stars and straightening my hair, all the while perma-propped up against my pillow. My bladder was my biggest curse. Though the bathroom was a mere nine feet from my bedroom door, the possibility of being seen by others became a fear so great that it consumed me and gave birth to a variety of odd behaviors. I developed a keen sense of hearing so that I could keep tabs on everyone's activities throughout the house. When someone went into her bedroom and closed the door, I catapulted from my bed and launched my bursting bladder into the bathroom. When someone turned on the shower, I threw my work clothes on and crashed like a maniac on crack around my room gathering all necessary belongings before sprinting through the hall and out the front door. I frequently forgot things in my feverish escape, and whenever I found myself hobbling the mile-long walk to work barefoot and bra-less I would call my sister for emergency supplies. When I returned home from work to a house full of bros and bro-hos partying it up, I would feign a headache and slip into my room in complete darkness, holding my breath for three hours so as not to make a noise and raise suspicion. I only broke out of my statued silence to deal with my jerk of a bladder, and out of the desperation harnessed by agoraphobia, I trained myself to pee into a plastic cup and toss the liquid into the bushes outside my window. (I know you're all wondering if this is true or not. I'll never tell.) During one of my self-appointed bed-arrests, I had a flashback to that day in college when my friend tried her hand at eHarmony. (You're still thinking about the peeing-in-the-cup thing, aren't you? Don't worry, I was just exaggerating. Or was I...?) I paused Dancing with the Stars mid-rumba twirl and logged on to the website.
If you've never gone onto one of these sites, I highly recommend it. I'm not saying JOIN the fucking thing, just take a look at it maybe. You seriously answer about a million questions about yourself-- things that you'd never even think to ASK yourself about yourself. yourselfyourselfyourselfyourselfyourself. (Sorry, just had to get that outta my system.) ANYway, I sat there in the darkness, my face lit up like a leprechaun in the eerie green light from my computer screen, rubbing my hands together gleefully and cackling with joy about being allowed to type pages and pages about bullshit and actually have someone READ it!! (Oh wait... sucka!! Just kidding, I love you, please don't leave.) At the end of the questionnaire, my glowing green finger lingered above the SUBMIT button. What if I too didn't fit into any boxes? I mean, wait a second, I'm WAY weirder than my friend, so if she couldn't be matched up with anyone, what the fuck are they gonna do with me?!! I hit the ENTER key and held my breath. Well, wait, I was already holding my breath so that my housemates wouldn't hear me, so I guess I just continued to do exactly what I was already doing, but... uh... my heart was beating louder. In anticipation. That's it. It turns out, I fit into a box. I felt a rush of relief mixed with a bad taste of disappointment at not being as much of a renegade as I'd always secretly prided myself on being. (Dude, seriously? Stop worrying about if I peed in the cup. You're making me regret writing that, so I'll forget it if you will, 'kay? Deal.) I started scrolling through my Matches. There were some good-looking guys in there, all of them pretty close to the Santa Barbara area. And then I started freaking out at that realization. If I can see them... they can see ME!! Uh oh, I didn't like that one bit. I was paranoid that I was going to see someone on there that I knew from Real Life. Nevermind that he would've been equally guilty of participating in an embarrassingly vulnerable activity-- oh no, for some reason it felt like I was committing social suicide. Call it insecurity? I immediately canceled my account and shut my laptop screen, glancing around frantically in my pitch-black room to make sure no ghosts were snickering at me in judgement.
About a year later I was living with my sister on the edge of town. As I tossed my empty wine bottle into the recycling, I got that familiar sense of "Well what do I do now?" I had a mental arm wrestling match with my ego, and although I can't really tell who the winner was, it resulted in my signing up for match.com. I popped my knuckles and settled in for the exhilaration of filling out the questionnaire:
Your significant other takes you to a coworker's dinner party where you know no one. Are you most likely to...
a.) stick to his side, avoiding all interaction with strangers.
b.) introduce yourself to everyone, making several new friends by the end of the evening.
c.) try to put yourself out there socially to make your partner at ease, but frequently check your watch and be relieved when the night is over.
I love this shit.
When I received my matches, I did the same scroll-through as before, but although I was still scared of the possibility of seeing someone I recognized, I decided to keep my account and see what happened. For about a week, I checked my messages and got excited by all the attention I was receiving. Ninety percent of that attention was from men over the age of forty, waving gooberishly from their photos with bug-eyed expressions and sleeveless stained T-shirts. By the way, in case you aren't familiar with internet dating etiquette, the standard protocol to follow if you are interested in a member is to either "wink" at him or her or to send a message. "Wink"ing is the cyberspace equivalent to making eye contact across a bar. "Message"ing is about the same as walking balls-out up to someone and asking for his or her number. Each time I checked my page, I had about ten winks from homeless-looking old guys, and maybe one or two messages in which a sensitive misunderstood soul would relay his loveless plight and implore me to consider all our similarities and interests. My reactions to both of these was pretty similar. After .15 seconds of feeling flattered, I'd shudder and dismiss the guy, thinking, "Dude why the fuck are you talking to me, I don't even KNOW you!" I think I failed to understand the whole thing about meeting people on the internet.
Six months later, I'd forgotten the site even existed. I was managing at an Italian restaurant downtown, and it was the end of the night so I'd gone upstairs to the office to start counting the day's profits. The busser knocked on the office door. "Uh... (singlewhitefemale)? There's a guy downstairs asking to speak to you."
I sighed. Sometimes I hated being a manager. What was it, did he find a piece of glass in his fettuccine alfredo or something? We'd come soooooo close to having no problems tonight, damnit! I trudged begrudgingly down the stairs to face the complainer with my hands half-up in automatic defense. The busser pointed out the small guy with stylish hair and I got my best how-can-I-help-you smile on my tired face. "Hi, I'm the manager, what can I do for you?"
He shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. "Hey, how's it goin.... I uh... I hate to do this to you, but someone once did it to me, so I feel like I gotta. Are you, by any chance, on match.com?"
My brain dropped through my open mouth and hit my teeth on the way out. I was too surprised to even blush. "...Um... yes? I guess? Yes, I am." I looked around, terrified, making sure that everyone was refilling the sugar caddies well out of the range of overhearing us. "So...?"
He laughed nervously. "Sorry, I just recognized you when you were waiting on us, and I think you're really cute. I talked to you a couple of times on there."
I tried to focus on his features, as if I were wearing someone else's prescription glasses and I had to tilt my head just right to make out his shape. Nope, definitely didn't recognize him. "Sorry, it's been a long time since I've been on there." (He interrupted me all-too eagerly with an emphatic "Me too!") "What's your name on the site?" I watched him pretend to forget it, then raise a finger like it'd just come back to him as he recited it. Oh fuck, I recognized the name. Oh fuuuuuuuuck! That was the guy who'd sent me like thirty looooong messages about how he has two cats and a dog and how he's a really nice guy and he thinks we'd be perfect soulmates and all that shit!! Aaahhhh!!! I started sweating as I saw the servers edging closer and closer toward us, finished with their sidework. "Oh uh yeah, yeah, I remember you. Well it's nice meeting you, let me uh--" I frantically searched my apron for a pen and scrap of paper, "--here's my number, I gotta keep closing up but thanks for coming to say hi and everything." I blacked out with social anxiety while he said his goodbye, and it wasn't until I was back upstairs with my sweaty hands palm-down on the desk in front of me that I realized I had just given my number, unsolicited, to some dude that I had absolutely no interest in. I reasoned with myself that it had seemed like the only thing to do to get him to leave, and I tried to convince myself that he'd never call.
Fourteen text messages and six phone calls later, I'd caved and agreed to go out with him. He invited me to dinner, so I faked some dinner plans and suggested we go out later for drinks. When he rolled up in his huge-ass truck (overcompensating, anyone?) and stepped into my driveway, I had a fleeting moment of optimism. He's CUTE! Oh my gosh wait, he's way cuter than I remembered him being! And he has a nice man-blazer on and he's not wearing mountain sandals! Hey, this actually might BE something! He helped me up the six-foot ladder into the passenger side of his colossal beast-ride. And turned on his playlist.
"I'm just really into epic 80's ballads right now." Blink. Blink-blink. Blink.
I tried to fight back the vomit that had urped up into my mouth. If there's one genre of music I detest as a rule, that, my friend, is it. I'll even take country over that shit. Strike one. Now, my sister used to have a nervous blinking habit, so I know I should be more forgiving of it. My brother used to nudge me and start winking, so I'd start nodding, and we'd say, "Hey sis, it's your turn!" When she'd finally get the Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod reference she'd be in tears, and my pride at being included in one of my brother's jokes was aaaaalmost washed out by the sympathy I felt for her. Almost but not quite. So I tried really hard to overlook the fact that every time he looked at me I started imagining what it would be like to view the world with a permanent strobe light flashing on everything. Strike two? Maybe?
We went to a really chic place off State Street and got some fancy mojitos. As an alcoholic, I found it painful to try to pace myself to his frequency of sips. I figured that on a first date it might not be appropriate to outdrink your companion tenfold, so I distracted my parched addiction by stabbing at the mint leaves with my straw while we participated in The Awkward Getting-to-Know-You Talk administered by people on first dates. Surprisingly enough, I started really enjoying myself. And then I realized that of COURSE I was enjoying myself, because it was the ultimate playing field for the narcissist. He was Fresh Meat for all the stories and thoughts that I'd love to bore my friends and family with but oh wait I already have. He fiiiiiiiinally pansy-gulped the last of his mojito and I swiftly ordered another round from our server using Universal Alcoholic Hand Gestures from across the room. I took one quick hit from the straw the second the server handed me my drink, and bolstered by the tinges of a buzz, I turned to my date. He was smiling sleepily at his drink and giggling like the Coppertone baby girl on the side of my sunscreen bottle at home. "I'm not really much of a drinker. This is so strong!" Okay, if that blinky thing was only half a strike, this is DEFINITELY strike two. There's nothing an alcoholic hates more than hanging out with people who make her feel like an alcoholic. I debated chugging half his drink when he left me to go to the bathroom, but I behaved, if for no other reason than to practice my good manners. When he came back, he asked if I'd wanna go for a stroll and get some air. Dear lord, is he gonna puke? I nodded a lie, and we moseyed along State St., chatting more about our families and jobs. He wasn't THAT bad. I found myself laughing, even enjoying myself at times. I tried to do that thing that all women do because we're crazy, where we try to visualize our lives with a guy we've just met, picturing sitting across the table from him at breakfast every morning and taking him to family Christmases. There was just no way. However, when he mentioned the earliness of the hour and asked if I'd like to maybe watch the Batman movie The Dark Knight at his house, I didn't feel a complete fight-or-flight response (refer to my earlier blog where I mention how I'm a retard and don't know how to end a night until everyone else is done, too). We went out to his house in Goleta for part II of our date. I was impressed by the fact that not only did he live alone, he also had a guest bedroom. I have literally never seen that before--or since-- in Santa Barbara. Then I smelled the sheer amount of cat and dog presence in his place, and I quickly forgot about everything but fresh air and my own tiny shared studio with my sister. I managed to breathe through the entire movie, but it was NOT easy. His shih tzu, though adorable, SUCKED. She kept jumping up on my legs and into my lap and my face/neck area and being as much of a pesky dog as possible. Look, I'm just not a dog person. And I definitely saw him try to discreetly use a paper towel to pick up a piece of dog poop that was just lying there all casual-like on the carpet next to the bathroom. I used to think I was a cat person, but then his two cats came over and made me rethink the title. They rubbed their saliva-encrusted fur on my shoulders, my calves, my fingers, my FACE... **spine-rattling shudder**. Finally, one posted up for a nap on the back of my neck, and the other across my bladder. I spent the last half hour of the movie motionless, perfecting the art of crying on the inside. Strike three. As soon as the credits rolled across the screen, I fake-yawned and jumped up, startling both felines into angular states of all claws and teeth. After they'd stopped yarling at me, I fake-apologized profusely and started edging toward the door. I left my date with Santa Barbara's Ace Ventura with an inch-thick layer of matted animal fur on my dress and a vendetta against internet dating.
Okay, yes, that vendetta ended about a year later, right before I moved to Encinitas. I was reading my favorite vegan 'zine when I came across an add for veggiedate.com-- the perfect site for veg-friendly people to mingle!! Yes, I am a nerd, and yes, I signed up. Not really with any intentions, though. I was thinking it might help me to make a few connections before moving down here, and I was worried it would be as difficult to find fellow vegans as it was in Santa Barbara. It didn't, and it isn't. Though most of the people on the site gave me nightmares (I'd never before seen the style combination of dreadlocks, kimonos, and baby-fuzz mustaches), there were a couple of people who made me optimistic and excited about my new lifestyle as a vegan. Once I moved, I forgot all about the site, and submerged myself in the bustle of the Real World.
I recently had a friend tell me I needed to be more pro-active on dating sites. Instead of waiting to be winked at by greasy middle-aged serial masturbators, I should really sort through my matches and be the winkER to any guys I see as plausible options. The funny thing is that I'd think hiding behind my keyboard and pictures of myself that I choose for people to see would be the ultimate dream for someone with social anxiety like myself. I love texting versus actually TALKING on the phone, and any time I can write a facebook message instead of talking with someone face-to-face, I'm gonna opt for it. I think... though... that what attracts me most to people is the vibe that the person gives off. Does that make sense? Not like I'm reading the color of his aura or something, but there has to be some sort of self-amused, half-uncertain energy wafting off of a person in order for me to register him as someone I could be interested in. A hundred times per shift, I hear the girls at work whispering and giggling about how "hot" some guy is, and I am always so bored by their selections. Yes, that guy is generically attractive in an extreme way. Give me a ginger with a beard who accidentally snorts when I make a joke to him and then blushes and tries to hide his head while he signs his credit card receipt and I'm taking my bra off and hopping over the counter to be his new girlfriend.
Huh. Well, I dunno, Internet Dating. It looks like we're at a standstill right now, and I'm not sure I'll ever drunk dial you again. If I do, it won't be for at least ninety-five days, and you'd better bust out your big guns for me or I swear I'll give up on you entirely. Maybe when I'm forty I'll join cougardate.com or something. Actually, that sounds pret-tay, pret-tay good to me....
*wink*
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
100 days of sober 'tude
Alright, I'm doin' it.
Yesterday I made a pact with myself, a friend, God, Jack Daniels, and of course, the half-drunk-thirty-pounds-heavier-pink-and-pasty reflection that's been eyeing me irritated-ly in the mirror lately.
ONE HUNDRED DAYS SANS BOOZE.
Of course, yesterday I initiated this pact with the additional "OR CIGARETTES" and then out of angst and fear promptly smoked two cigarettes while fantasizing about the curvature of a glassy green bottle of cheap sparkling wine... the lure of the glittery foil adorning her smooth bottleneck that catches the light just right and dances its reflection into my thirst-struck irises ... the pop! of ecstasy that erupts from her circular rim when I force her cork open with the determined finesse of my thumbs.... the melting movement she has perfected of shaping herself to my trembling champagne flute, rigid against her ambiguous liquid form as I slowly raise her effervescent presence to my quivering lips.... **raging liver boner**
Needless to say, I had to walk away from my daydream biting down hard on one fist while lighting up about five Parliaments.
I can do it though. I CAN DO IT, GUYS!!
I proudly presented my plan for alcohol abstinence to my favorite drinking buddy, and she agreed that it was time for a much-needed reprieve from our binge-gulping stints. Thus ensued A GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT! to not drink for thirty days. Being poetic and slightly retarded, I raised the bar for my personal goal to one hundred days, thus shittily referencing my favorite writer we studied in all my years in Spanish class.
It's a funny thing, alcoholism. On a daily basis, I flirt with the idea that I may or may not be a legitimate alcoholic. Someone will tell me about the great price they got on apples at the Leucadian farmers market and I'll say, "I don't think that drinking alone makes me an alcoholic. I enjoy my own company, okay?!!!" And as that person backs away slowly deleting my phone number, I cross my arms and frown defensively, mentally tallying the running score: ALCOHOLISM : 1, (singlewhitefemale) : 0.
When I have a day off I rejoice in the resplendent possibility spread out before me. Maybe start off with a little jaunt to 24-hour gym for a lil bit of elliptical time, know what I'm sayin'? On my walk home I towel off my sweaty red face and dig my bottle opener out of my purse in preparation for the post-cardio beer reward that I'm about to pour down my sweaty red throat. I stretch my lack-of-muscles on my living room floor and scoot the glass bottle around my feet with each shift of position. By now I've perfected the art of guzzling beer from a bottle shoved in my cleavage while focusing on my third eye's sight as I hold the Downward Dog pose for as long as I can chug back all the calories I burned in thirty minutes of exercise. ALCOHOLISM : 2, (singlewhitefemale) : 0.
I love going to breakfast at Swami's Cafe down the street from my house. They have a vegan curry dish with tofu, rice, vegetables, and a side salad whose whopping enormity sets my primitive fears to rest about not having enough food for survival's sake. Usually I dump the salad and basil vinaigrette on top of the mountain of yellow-sauced veggies and eat about a third of it before packaging it up and dreaming about the epic post-nap leftovers lunch I'm about to commit to later in the day. However, the last time I visited the cafe for my favorite breakfast, it turns out that I may have still been quite inebriated from the night before. We'd all gotten together to celebrate our favorite dude's birthday with a bonfire gathering, and the sight of that many faces of people I loved all crowded into one hippy abode proved to be a little too much for my tolerance. I giggled with joy as I hugged a hello to everyone, simultaneously opening a 2-liter bottle of cheap-ass white wine and dumping it into a pint glass. I spent the entire evening chugging what most people assumed was a huge glass of water while surprise-patting female coworkers on their bottoms, interjecting wrong lyrics into the talented circle of musicians and singers lit up by the fire's light, declaring my love for showers in an anti-Burning Man fashion, and making secret trips to the kitchen to refill my bucket of wine all casual-like while everyone was reaching for the guacamole. At one point I lost my beer stein and resorted to sloshing my third bottle of wine into a plastic Magic Bullet blender capsule. The last thing I remember was announcing loudly to an empty chair that I'd written a song and then heckling the musical genius to my left when he couldn't sight-read my mind and predict which chords I would need him to play next in accompaniment. My friends say the last thing I ACTUALLY did was hijack the hand of an unlucky male coworker and curl up into a fetal position, shouting "A GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT!" as he high-tailed it away from me as fast as his feet would carry him. Anyway... um... what was I saying? Oh yeah yeah yeah, so the next morning I woke up feeling remarkably fanTAStic, and we all went to breakfast at Swami's to compare notes about the night before. I ordered my curry dish in French and marveled at how uneven the ground seemed and how much my head wanted to float on up under my legs in a bout of antigravity acrobatics. We all reminisced about how much fun we'd had, but I kept interrupting with fits of possessed cackling and spraying my neighbors with spittle, and for some reason everyone kept remarking on my inability to control my voice modulation levels. An hour passed and I was shriek-laughing like a banshee at a fly on my leg and polishing off the last cube of tofu from the ten-thousand-calorie plate of food I'd just consumed; it was then that I hiccoughed and realized that I was still shit-faced at 1:00 PM and drunk-eating like a pregnant Kirstie Alley after a two-week fast. ALCOHOLISM : 3, (singlewhitefemale) : 0.
Alright alright alright. So it would appear that I might have a bit of a drinking problem. But I got this, guys. So far it's only been two days, and yes, in those two days I have thought about drinking five thousand six hundred and seventy-eight times, but-- BUT--- I did NOT!!! And it WILL get easier ( I think...?)!! I've already filled the void I feel with a new addiction to scratcher tickets and coconut water, and though I haven't won any money yet and am still consuming hundreds of liquid calories daily, I feel pret-tay, pret-tay good about it.
In ninety-eight days' time, I predict the new score will be ALCOHOLISM : 0, (singlewhitefemale) : 100.
Yesterday I made a pact with myself, a friend, God, Jack Daniels, and of course, the half-drunk-thirty-pounds-heavier-pink-and-pasty reflection that's been eyeing me irritated-ly in the mirror lately.
ONE HUNDRED DAYS SANS BOOZE.
Of course, yesterday I initiated this pact with the additional "OR CIGARETTES" and then out of angst and fear promptly smoked two cigarettes while fantasizing about the curvature of a glassy green bottle of cheap sparkling wine... the lure of the glittery foil adorning her smooth bottleneck that catches the light just right and dances its reflection into my thirst-struck irises ... the pop! of ecstasy that erupts from her circular rim when I force her cork open with the determined finesse of my thumbs.... the melting movement she has perfected of shaping herself to my trembling champagne flute, rigid against her ambiguous liquid form as I slowly raise her effervescent presence to my quivering lips.... **raging liver boner**
Needless to say, I had to walk away from my daydream biting down hard on one fist while lighting up about five Parliaments.
I can do it though. I CAN DO IT, GUYS!!
I proudly presented my plan for alcohol abstinence to my favorite drinking buddy, and she agreed that it was time for a much-needed reprieve from our binge-gulping stints. Thus ensued A GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT! to not drink for thirty days. Being poetic and slightly retarded, I raised the bar for my personal goal to one hundred days, thus shittily referencing my favorite writer we studied in all my years in Spanish class.
It's a funny thing, alcoholism. On a daily basis, I flirt with the idea that I may or may not be a legitimate alcoholic. Someone will tell me about the great price they got on apples at the Leucadian farmers market and I'll say, "I don't think that drinking alone makes me an alcoholic. I enjoy my own company, okay?!!!" And as that person backs away slowly deleting my phone number, I cross my arms and frown defensively, mentally tallying the running score: ALCOHOLISM : 1, (singlewhitefemale) : 0.
When I have a day off I rejoice in the resplendent possibility spread out before me. Maybe start off with a little jaunt to 24-hour gym for a lil bit of elliptical time, know what I'm sayin'? On my walk home I towel off my sweaty red face and dig my bottle opener out of my purse in preparation for the post-cardio beer reward that I'm about to pour down my sweaty red throat. I stretch my lack-of-muscles on my living room floor and scoot the glass bottle around my feet with each shift of position. By now I've perfected the art of guzzling beer from a bottle shoved in my cleavage while focusing on my third eye's sight as I hold the Downward Dog pose for as long as I can chug back all the calories I burned in thirty minutes of exercise. ALCOHOLISM : 2, (singlewhitefemale) : 0.
I love going to breakfast at Swami's Cafe down the street from my house. They have a vegan curry dish with tofu, rice, vegetables, and a side salad whose whopping enormity sets my primitive fears to rest about not having enough food for survival's sake. Usually I dump the salad and basil vinaigrette on top of the mountain of yellow-sauced veggies and eat about a third of it before packaging it up and dreaming about the epic post-nap leftovers lunch I'm about to commit to later in the day. However, the last time I visited the cafe for my favorite breakfast, it turns out that I may have still been quite inebriated from the night before. We'd all gotten together to celebrate our favorite dude's birthday with a bonfire gathering, and the sight of that many faces of people I loved all crowded into one hippy abode proved to be a little too much for my tolerance. I giggled with joy as I hugged a hello to everyone, simultaneously opening a 2-liter bottle of cheap-ass white wine and dumping it into a pint glass. I spent the entire evening chugging what most people assumed was a huge glass of water while surprise-patting female coworkers on their bottoms, interjecting wrong lyrics into the talented circle of musicians and singers lit up by the fire's light, declaring my love for showers in an anti-Burning Man fashion, and making secret trips to the kitchen to refill my bucket of wine all casual-like while everyone was reaching for the guacamole. At one point I lost my beer stein and resorted to sloshing my third bottle of wine into a plastic Magic Bullet blender capsule. The last thing I remember was announcing loudly to an empty chair that I'd written a song and then heckling the musical genius to my left when he couldn't sight-read my mind and predict which chords I would need him to play next in accompaniment. My friends say the last thing I ACTUALLY did was hijack the hand of an unlucky male coworker and curl up into a fetal position, shouting "A GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT!" as he high-tailed it away from me as fast as his feet would carry him. Anyway... um... what was I saying? Oh yeah yeah yeah, so the next morning I woke up feeling remarkably fanTAStic, and we all went to breakfast at Swami's to compare notes about the night before. I ordered my curry dish in French and marveled at how uneven the ground seemed and how much my head wanted to float on up under my legs in a bout of antigravity acrobatics. We all reminisced about how much fun we'd had, but I kept interrupting with fits of possessed cackling and spraying my neighbors with spittle, and for some reason everyone kept remarking on my inability to control my voice modulation levels. An hour passed and I was shriek-laughing like a banshee at a fly on my leg and polishing off the last cube of tofu from the ten-thousand-calorie plate of food I'd just consumed; it was then that I hiccoughed and realized that I was still shit-faced at 1:00 PM and drunk-eating like a pregnant Kirstie Alley after a two-week fast. ALCOHOLISM : 3, (singlewhitefemale) : 0.
Alright alright alright. So it would appear that I might have a bit of a drinking problem. But I got this, guys. So far it's only been two days, and yes, in those two days I have thought about drinking five thousand six hundred and seventy-eight times, but-- BUT--- I did NOT!!! And it WILL get easier ( I think...?)!! I've already filled the void I feel with a new addiction to scratcher tickets and coconut water, and though I haven't won any money yet and am still consuming hundreds of liquid calories daily, I feel pret-tay, pret-tay good about it.
In ninety-eight days' time, I predict the new score will be ALCOHOLISM : 0, (singlewhitefemale) : 100.
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