Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Bingeing Barbarians

Well now I've done it. I drank an espresso drink eight hours ago, so I am filled with insomnia and confined to the parts of my mom's house called Middle Earth because Hannah and Josh are sleeping like normal people. Every once in a while I venture into the Dark Parts of the house to look for an eraser or my hot pink lipstick, but after knocking over a glass of water and tripping over a power cord (both events causing wakeful fits of profanity) I decided to not be THEE shittiest person in the world and jail myself to my (my mom's) bedroom.

I feel like I've been spinning perpetually in a constant state of half-dreams for the last week. I left Encinitas Monday morning, tried to familiarize myself with the concept of being jobless and homeless in San Luis for a couple of days, then hopped on a train to Santa Barbara early Thursday morning to work four days at my old restaurant in Santa Barbara, only to return today in such a haze that I'm currently defying gravity.

Oh, Santa Barbara.

Now that I've actually lived somewhere else as an adult, I am finally able to see that the liver-blackening antics of this paradise-town are not in fact "standard" for communities in general. I know it all stems from the UCSB campus being a mere twenty minutes away. In Isla Vista we all brush our teeth with Peppermint Schnapps and stagger to a breakfast of Bloody Mary's and mimosas to chase away our hangovers from the previous night's keg stands and beer pong tournaments. When we turn twenty-one, we don our "nice" drinking clothes and smoking jackets and cram into overcrowded cab vans and carpool to the bars and clubs that light up State Street after dark. We don't mature from the vomiting, fist-fighting buffoons that litter the beachy streets of I.V.-- nay, we merely take our shit-storms to the clean sidewalks downtown and pay hundreds of dollars to give our debauchery some nice scenery. We Pre-Party at home to save money on liquor so that we can afford $15 nachos from Freebirds at three in the morning. Then we wake up with salsa in the corners of our mouths, brush our teeth with Peppermint Schnapps, and start the cycle yet again.

When I moved to Encinitas I had the idea in my head that I wanted to get healthy-- you know, really explore the benefits of a vegan diet, lose a few pounds, quit smoking, and lay off the empty calories I was used to beer-bonging into my ever-extending belly. And I did, kinda. In the beginning of my stay there I was really good, actually. Mostly because I hadn't made any drinking buddies yet except for my six-foot brother-in-law, and he can hold his liquor like a Sumo wrestler. Somehow it's just not the same when you're the only one saying wanna-be-profound shit after three shots of tequila. When I moved into my own place, I started baby-stepping my way back into my old drinking routine. The one where I casually open a bottle of wine while writing my first blog or dancing to Shakira by myself in my living room. And then before I knew it, I was having three beers every night after work or polishing off a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon in a matter of two hours and still acting like it was perfectly acceptable behavior. (Because I enjoy my own company so much and in fact have full-on conversations with myself and my mouth, I forget that most people view drinking alone as a sign of depression or steadfast alcoholism.) It wasn't until I started making friends and actually drinking with peers in public that I started to view my drinking habit in a different light. In Santa Barbara, when we all get together at night, the unspoken agreement is that everyone is going to get shit-faced. You can invite someone over to watch The Biggest Loser, and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will show up with a 30-pack of Natty Light. If your friend invites you over for Craft Night, you automatically go to the store to grab three bottles of champagne for the occasion. That's just how we do it.

In Encinitas, however, I noticed that something strange was happening. When my new friends invited me over for bonfires and music, I would show up with two jumbo-sized wine boxes (naturally) and would already have a pint-sized glass filled for myself before I'd even sit down. I would chug and offer the wine, chug and offer, and then somewhere around the last eighth of the second box I'd realize that no one else had touched a drop. Everyone was... bonfiring... and musicking.... What. The. Fuck. Suddenly I became the only one shouting curse words and passing out mid-sentence with my chin on my chest, while everyone else remembered every semi-retarded half-thought I'd slurred laughingly into a blurring room. It took me way too long to realize that what I considered Normal Behavior was actually just Santa Barbaric. It took me quite some time to adjust to this more controlled, more sincere form of interacting with others. Not that everyone didn't have the most fun ever, because actually everyone I met was hilarious, intelligent, and talented, and I always felt my heart exploding with happiness and joy at being included in their gatherings. No... it was just different.... Different because everyone REMEMBERS their interactions and drinking is just a way to relax a little and laugh a little more uninhibitedly. I ended up sticking like glue to the one person I met who could drink like I could and she quickly became my partner in crime. I knew we were soulmates the first time we hung out, just the two of us, under the guise of doing some art and maybe writing a little. We went to VONS to get "a snack" and both matched each other's steps straight to the liquor aisle. We each reached for a bottle of the cheapest sparkling wine... and then without speaking, we locked eyes and both reached together for that third "just in case" bottle whose necessity is understood only by a true Boozer. From that moment on, we knew we spoke the same language. There's a certain code exchanged among heavy drinkers. When we plan to "grab a beer after work," it goes without saying that we're going to take $3 shots of Jack 'til the bar closes and we're the last ones left, smoking cigarettes with the bouncers in the employees-only back room and helping the bartenders wipe up the empty bar. "Let's just stay in and have a mellow night" means we're going to drink copious amounts of wine and share deeply personal secrets and try to figure out the meaning of life while knocking over glasses and staining our shirts with purple splotches. My personal favorite is, "Oh I didn't accomplish a lot today," because that clearly means that we were too hungover to do anything but maybe venture out to get a greasy burrito and watch abc.com shows 'til early evening rolls around and it's time to drag our aching livers into hippie pants and go to work. Much of my last two months in Encinitas was spent in this way, and right before I left for San Luis I could feel the fingertips of Santa Barbara's (singlewhitefemale) begin to warm, like her dusty corpse was beginning to revive itself with each drop of Hefeweizen coursing through her stagnant veins.

It seems, though, that over the course of the last nine months, even I had forgotten the potency of the party scene in my native land. As I mentioned before, I went to Santa Barbara for the last four days to pocket some money and visit my favorite people still there. My brother and his girlfriend also went to visit, and we had a royal reunion with all the remaining members of our crew from the past seven years. All I can really say is... well...



FUCK.


I can't BELIEVE how much people drink there. I was comPLETEly unprepared for it. My liver is still giving me the finger, and I didn't even TRY to hang with the locals after the first day. I've always been the biggest drinker around. I'm always the instigator, buying people shots just because I can't bear the sight of an empty glass in the hands of someone next to me. But this last weekend proved to me that I had completely forgotten the kind of heavy drinking that I used to be a part of. Jesus Christ, those people are fucking NUTS. My first night there we all went out with complete confidence that we could hang just like the old days. My brother ended up having to apologize for purposely spitting an entire beer onto our friend's brand-new leather shoes (he still has no idea why he would have done this) and I almost got kicked out of a late night eatery for public debauchery because they had NOTHING VEGAN and I was spinning so badly I was knocking into the hostess while berating her establishment for putting egg in  every single goddamn item on their menu. The next day, we all lay in a row on our friend Allison's floor like Charlie's elderly grandparents in Willy Wonka, moving only to half-raise our arms when passing around the camera that documented all the previous night's sins. The second night only half of us could even make it out of the house, and I couldn't force myself to drink more than a single Stella. While looking for our friend who was supposedly vomiting in a parking lot somewhere, I stumbled upon the oddest scene I have seen since... well I guess since I left Santa Barbara. It was like something out of a zombie movie. Drunk bodies were scattering across the parking lot with jerky movements. Straight ahead, a girl pissed herself standing in direct streetlamp-light, the image of her vagina free to bore itself into the retinas of any still-living person's eyes. I was one of those lucky people. To her right, a lifeless body sat staring at her in a wheelchair, close enough to be sprayed by the urine reflecting off the cement wall behind her. To my right was another lifeless body in a wheelchair, this one surrounded by gangsters in basketball jerseys smoking illegal substances and rubbing their crotches on half-naked lady legs in heels who slurred in response, their zombie-rotted tongues inhibiting their speech. And then to my left... mute forms with full bladders climbing recklessly up the walls of a port-a-potty, snarling at its occupant to come out either to free the toilet up or so they could rip out his intestines for an after-drink snack (at this point, who knows?). I should hardly mention that by the time I found my friend, it was only to see that our other friend was shaking her boobs like a pair of maracas and that the smile she gave him was through eyes deadened by five shots of tequila and that last tall Guinness I'd left her drinking at the bar. After pacing like an enraged caged feline for a few moments to shake out the creeps that had been rattling up and down my spine, I reassessed the horror film around me and realized that, actually, this was completely normal for a Saturday night in Santa Barbara, and the thing that was wrong was ME. I could no longer maintain the level of debauchery necessary to blend in to the lifestyle of my past.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with my affection for booze. I mean, it's been such a close acquaintance of mine for so long now that it is literally ingrained into my muscle memory to reach for a glass of wine while cooking, a beer after work, and a shot when something exciting happens (or not). Every time I "quit" drinking I'm just mimicking The Boy Who Cried "Wolf," and I know no one believes it at this point, especially me. But maybe things will just happen naturally as I slowly change my lifestyle accidentally? I mean, we all know my motto is WHATEVER HAPPENS HAPPENS, so I guess I should actually lean into that and not try to figure everything out as much as I do. Here in SLO, I haven't had a drink. Granted I've only been here like four days total, but for me that's pretty monumental. There's something about being surrounded by my mom's energy that makes me not want to drink. Like, if I'm hungover I'll let her down. But more than anything, I think I know the worst/best of my drinking days are over. I'm not going to pretend anymore that I don't have a huge crush on refreshing alcoholic beverages, but I think it was an eye-opening experience to be smack-dab in the middle of my former environment and realize that I no longer fit in it like I used to.

Don't get me wrong-- I fucking love Santa Barbara. And I had the most fun in the last four days that I can ever remember having. I know this because I laughed so much that my lack-of-abs are still sore. I'm actually going back to work a few more shifts this weekend, and I can't WAIT to see everyone's faces again. But I guess I should pay attention to the zombie-fearing part of me that doesn't want to lose my grip on reality so readily in the name of fun. Plus, I mean, zombies aren't vegan, so....

Or maybe I should just start training secretly in my mom's bedroom when everyone is sleeping. I'll see how many shots I can down in a five-minute time-frame before the room starts spinning and I spit up kale all over my mom's favorite floral bedspread. Yeah, I should probably just do that. Santa Barbara here I come!!!!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Happy Earth Hamper

Any time I freak out about being planless, jobless, and worried that I'm not worried enough about being both of these things, I think I need to pull out My Super Special Notebook of Secret Things that I carry with me at all times and re-read this month's horoscope that I've taped to its cover:
An important journey may bring you closer to the answers you’re in search of. If you take an actual trip, be aware of how your surroundings reflect your inner environment. In a more philosophical sense, this month is an adventure that will bring you face-to-face with some of your goals. It’s likely you’ll feel even more inspired and capable of reaching those seemingly unobtainable dreams. You can do it! This is a successful time for you. Pay attention to those inner promptings, as random as they may seem; there’s value in their message and freedom in the pursuit of them. 
Okay, so I’m here. I worked my last double-shift as a cafe manager the day before yesterday and hopped (limped heavily) into my mom’s Yaris at six yesterday morning with the last of my scraggly physical possessions to start this next chapter of my life in her neck of the woods in San Luis Obispo. 
Naturally, the first order of business after unloading my dirty laundry, cookbooks, and dead hamster Edward (story will follow later) out of my mother's car was to play a prank on my sister Hannah and her husband, who I would now be sharing my mom's house with. 
A few weeks ago my sister Shawnie told me that one of her Organic Mother friends had posted on Facebook that she wanted to quit toilet paper and had appealed to the Facebook masses for any alternatives. She received a number of suggestions. Apparently many world-savers cut up old T-shirts into squares which they use as "toilet cloths" to be washed and reused. My brother-in-law is from Illinois, and I know that because I don't eat meat and rub crystals under my arms instead of deodorant (I don't really, that's called a HYPERBOLE), he views me as a severely nutty Californian hippie. I take fifteen-minute showers daily, drink booze 'til I forget my whereabouts, and smoke to satisfy my oral fixation, but HE doesn't have to know that. In fact, I have no doubt he wouldn't be surprised if I announced that I take part in Naked Mondays and wash my hair with compost. So it was only obvious to me that now that I will be sharing a one-bathroom apartment with my sister and him, I needed to pretend that I wipe my ass with cloth squares and leave the used fabric to stew in a trash can next to the bathtub until Laundry Day. 
The problem was that I was really fucking tired when I arrived here, having only slept two hours the previous night because I have wonderful friends in Encinitas who cooked me a gourmet vegan feast and I couldn't leave their shining beautiful faces 'til three in the morning. Anyway, I was crabby and within my first two hours of being here had made both my little sister AND my mother cry, and was just generally being a raging psychotic cunt. It happens. After I fed my irritable hungry belly-beast, I decided to let my sister in on my plan to trick her husband with my good ol' classic poopy hamper gag. She was all for it, so we got a metal trash can and filled it with soiled kitchen towels and a rag that she rubbed in the mud to achieve some eerily realistic skid marks. I hand-wrote a sign that read HAPPY EARTH HAMPER (SORRY IT DOESN'T HAVE A LID!) and decorated it with lots of hearts and smiley faces. We arranged the faux poo cloths in the most unattractive manner, and then Hannah earned three gold stars by crumbling and smearing parts of a chocolate-and-peanut-butter energy bar in all the most believable places. I howled with laughter 'til my stomach reminded me it has no muscle and then silently beamed with pride at our creation. 
When her husband Josh came home from work, I was giddily holding my breath and breaking out in spontaneous nervous laughter at all the inappropriate times. Unfortunately, he apparently has the bladder of a determined camel and did not use the restroom-- I mean not even ONCE!-- the entire evening. So I fell asleep sitting on my mom's bed with my legs propped five feet above my head on a stool while reading The Ayurvedic Cookbook and temporarily forgot about my shenanigans. 
This morning Hannah told me Josh had been thoroughly put-out by the bucket of shit rags in the middle of the bathroom floor. **fist pumps** In his defense, he didn't vomit or yell or come into the room where I slept and slap me on the mouth. I mean, I would have set fire to a kerosene lamp and chucked it into the bathroom behind me as I ran screaming from the vicinity if I ever stumbled upon a Happy Earth Hamper.  So props, buddy. He was just irritated that he kept almost knocking it over and Hannah kept hearing him say "What THE FUCK!" over and over as he tried to shave and brush his teeth while little brown turd rollies were waving at him over the rim of the trash can. Heh. Heh. Heh. I was quite excited about this, and instead of applying for any jobs today I spent my time placing his bottle of body-wash perfectly propped against the darkest brown spot on the turquoise rag on top of the "hamper" to make it look like I'd accidentally knocked it in there while taking one of my wastefully long showers. I hugged myself with glee when I noticed he'd removed it the next time he used the bathroom, and I elatedly imagined the stream of obscenities that must have slipped through his pursed lips and the amount of scrubbing he must've given his hands afterward. With one last proud sigh and lingering glance at my first Installation Piece, I sauntered into the sitting room and announced that Hey, guess what, that was a joke, I don't really smear my numero dos-es on towels and leave them lying around for your viewing pleasure. Surprise!!
I was very disappointed when he just said, "Oh. Okay."
I guess what I've learned from this is that 1.) my humor is under-appreciated and 2.) I need a creative outlet and/or job. 
I'm nervous to enter the service industry again because it is an energy-sucking whore who needs constant attention and doesn't give a damn about your personal life... but I like to buy delicious organic produce and grains and legumes, and for some reason that simple food is the most expensive. Today I went on an almost six-mile round-trip walking adventure to the New Frontiers Natural Market for the first time. That place is my boyfriend. My fellow shoppers were sending me raised eyebrows and shaking their heads at me as I stole kisses from the loose-lipped leaves of the organic romaine lettuce and ran my finger passionately down the spine of the bulk-foods bins, firmly wrapping my hand around the shafts of the red plastic scoops for the quinoa, millet, and couscous. **shudder of ecstasy**


I am deciding to view my lack of concern for having no monetary income as a sign of impending success. It's true, guys. It's all happening. 


Tomorrow I have big plans to make the six-mile trek to see my new boyfriend and maybe buy a refreshing strawberry kombucha from him, finally see the new Harry Potter movie before it leaves theaters and I have to kill myself, clear a space in my mom's backyard to put up the tent that will be the designated "other room" for anyone who needs a time-out from family, and finish reading Hunger Games because now that it's about to be made into a movie and every 14-year-old girl has read it I think I wanna read it too. I guess... maybe the next day I should figure out this whole Life thing and at least draw something or fill out an application or something. Maybe. 


It's all happening. 

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin

My stolen internet is skipping out again, so I’m just gonna type this and hope that someday soon I’ll be able to post it. Ironically I’m PMS-ing again (last time I mention my ovaries today, promise) and I’m in the kind of mood where Eminem is too soap box-y and all I can handle listening to are trumpety renditions of Bob Dylan classics. Fallopian tubes!!! (A-ha! Didn’t mention ovaries, see?!)
Countdown two weeks ‘til I’m officially leaving Encinitas. I’m debating getting rid of the majority of my physical possessions. Not like I have a lot of stuff or anything, but the stuff I DO have is really just... stuff. It’s hard though, I’m definitely one of those people who attaches sentimental value to useless crap. I got this dining room table at a thrift store in Santa Barbara for $80, and it lived in the rain and served as a beer pong table in my brother’s backyard for months, and it’s now lived with me in three different states of mental stability and three different homes. I feel LOYALTY towards it. Okay, you know what? The table is going with me! (I’m going to pretend that this entirely useful piece of furniture is the problem, not the stack of a hundred dragon books that I’ll never read again or the collection of Buddha-shaped beer bottles or closetful of “hope” clothes that I pretend I’ll be able to fit into sometime in the near future. 
I’m definitely about to get myself into an interesting situation, that’s for sure. My mom’s little house in SLO is a collection of complementing blue-and-amber glass baubles, glittering white animal statues, and colorful scraps of thoughts and wishes. If you could get into my mom’s psyche to visualize her mental essence... well-- you can, actually, that’s exactly what her house is. It’s gotta be the most artist-y spot per square inch in the Northern hemisphere. I’m hoping to walk in her front door and projectile-vomit acrylic paint directly onto a blank canvas waiting for me under the plastic white moosehead with rainbow butterfly wings that greets guests in the sitting room. I’m just feeling sooooo drawn to that creative energy lately. My heart keeps trying to get my attention by swelling with anxiety and knocking against my ribcage with stress about having no money, no plan, and no home; but either I’ve finally drunk away all my brain cells or there is some higher power trying to soothe away my fears and sweaty eyebrows and pull me steadfastly toward an exciting life change because I’m probably not neeeeeeearly as worried as I shoooooould be.... 
I think I just can’t wait to get out of this fucking restaurant business, even if all that’s waiting for me is... well... the restaurant business. I’ll take just ONE MONTH of scraping together a simple living no matter how worried I am about paying bills and stuff if it means I will receive zero phone calls about which 17-year-old made the 40-year-old manager cry or can you please work a thousand hours this week because it’s so-and-so’s dad’s birthday and hey a goat stomped on that employee’s leg and guess what that other guy read his schedule wrong and somehow that’s your fault! I thought that by working in a health-oriented cafe, I would be surrounded by a higher level of mental health as well. But it turns out, the restaurant industry is the fucking restaurant industry. All I really achieved was the realization that I am NOT. CUT OUT. FOR. IT. Which, actually, is a pretty big realization when it’s what you’ve been accidentally dedicating your life to for seven years. It’s just all I’ve known, and all I’ve felt comfortable doing because I have the most Debbie-Downerish Jiminy Cricket on my shoulder that’s always telling me I’ll never succeed in the art world or anything more independent and personal than babysitting someone else’s business. I should probably poke the cricket’s eyes out, but that just doesn’t seem very vegan-ly I guess. 
Anyway, the first order of business I hope to tackle is setting up shop in my mom’s art gallery so I can be producing art while her gallery is open for viewers because right now it’s closed most of the time. I’m pondering ways to hide cryptic sex and candy references somehow on the building’s facade so passersby will all of a sudden feel compelled to go check the gallery out, though they won’t know why. I guess then out of guilt I’ll have to have sex with them and give them vegan chocolate bars... but I’m hoping the art will stimulate them enough that it will never come to that. I then plan to start an Etsy site with wearable vegan propaganda-ish art and paintings and cards and anything my art-parched fingers come up with. (Everyone’s been telling me for SO long to start an Etsy page, so even if nothing comes from it I’ll at least feel smug and accomplished on some hazy level.) Next step is using my mom’s status as a prolific member of the Downtown Association to ogre-stomp my way into a spot at the local farmers’ market (I once heard someone on a bus say it’s the largest one on the West Coast, so I have henceforth insomuch nevertheless forever quoted that bit of news as a FACT) where I will post up with my vegan wares and flap my T-shirts in people’s faces as they’re waiting in line for some ribs with BBQ sauce. In the very least, my mom and I will get a kick out of our vegetable banners and glorified animal paintings, and we can people-watch while we sit and eat food from that one really yummy vegan Indian food stand. Once I’ve got these three things going on, I will spend my free time exercising (I’ve got forty pounds of cheap white wine and Hefeweizen to shed from my thighs), reading, and cooking. I have a list of about five hundred vegan-related books I want to read and documentaries I want to watch. Skinny Bitch ended up being one of the most enjoyable/informative reads I’ve experienced lately... but that might just be because I usually only read novels meant for horny teenagers.... I really can’t wait to buckle down with The Sexual Politics of Meat, but I feel like I have to get through this text-book-style guide to veganism I’ve been pretending to read for about seven months now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s GREAT-- very educational, full of aaaaaall the tools a person needs to be healthy and thrive on a plant-based diet. I just don’t know how long the author’s gonna make me wait before Edward shows up (Team Edward!!), and at page 167 I’m finding it hard to care about how much I’ll need to increase my calcium intake when I’m pregnant or breastfeeding. 
Oh no. 
Okay, I’m sorry, this is completely not related... and also sorry I’m even telling you this... but I just found... The Whisker. **gasp!!** Oh God, WHY GOD?!!! I don’t know if this is... normal... but I’ve definitely asked other female friends if they’ve ever experienced this and at least two out of fifty have, so... here goes. 
Every few months or so, I’ll be casually stroking my chin while staring at a wall (or computer screen), and my finger will touch a hair that doesn’t feel the same as all the other innocent peach fuzzy face hairs on my chin. No... no this hair is strong, determined, and manlier than the grunts I let out when lifting a bus tray full of dirty dishes. This ain’t no girly face hair... this here is (da dunh dunh DAAAAA!!!) A WHISKER!!! **somebody screams** It is so fucking mortifying!! If I’m ever in public when I realize that the little Hair of Satan has grown back, I can no longer behave in any sort of normal way, like everyone in the goddamn room KNOWS it’s there, and they’ve all been sadly shaking their heads at me and spitting up quietly in their napkins when the light hits my chin just right. Jesus. SO not okay. I should probably wield a pair of tweezers at all times just to avoid the catastrophic bout of extreme self-consciousness that ensues from Its discovery a few times a year. Well. I’m sorry to have ruined your appetite with my unsolicited body hair confession. But hey, animals have a looooot of whisker-hair... so maybe this will make a cheeseburger seem a little less tempting?? Ahhhh okay okay, far stretch, I know, I was just trying to pretend my scatter-brained paragraph had some sort of reason for existing other than to cause me to lose friends. 
Okay, I guess I’ve kinda killed my chances to blog about legitmate shit now, so I’m just gonna finish devouring my $15 Whole Foods salad (only maybe worth it) and pretend I don’t need to start packing and organizing the clutterfuck that is my studio.
 Oh. P.S. Sam and Sara-- if you ever visit me whenever I have a home again, I PROMISE I will have clean, human-sized towels for you to use when you shower. For real. And I might even get a shower curtain that doesn’t have things growing on it. But let’s take it one step at a time. I miss you guys!
P.P.S. I think I am on a potty-mouth bender right now, so I would not advise any Mormons to read this particular posting. Shitshitfuckfuckfuck.