Help

This is in my house.



Please send help.

I beg of you.

Thank you.

p.s. how much raw cookie dough can one person eat before they get sick? I need to know.

Another multiple

Her short and chunky frame is thrust down the hallway while her angry little arms swing diagonally like that picture of bigfoot, bouncing the floor and me out of my chair.

I hear the ca-thwap ca-thwap ca-thwap of her open-toed, inappropriate for winter slingback shoes smacking her heels 30 seconds before she passes my cubicle.

The air about her is stuffed with smugness and superiority.

Comments overheard are narcissistic and offensive.

She didn't give me a corner piece of cake.

I hate her.

______________________________________________

A couple Friday's ago we had a little storm blow through San Diego. I personally never saw any rain since this is the desert and you have to be lucky to witness any real precipitation fall from the heavens. But the skies were incredible and the air was crisp and cold, unlike this week where it's been in the 80's and so dry my face is peeling off in sheets. Has gone nicely with the hacking and the snotting.

Two Saturday's ago I walked out of the house at 8:30 in the morning and the first thing I thought was, holy shit, it smells like snow out here. Which is a very different smell than rain or smog or smoggy rain. And sure enough, 10 minutes later as I was crossing a large bridge over a small lake I saw what turned out to be a teeny tiny mini-flurry of very rare snow-flakes streaming straight at my windshield. Might seem like no biggie to you folks who live in areas with serious weather but I was so excited I nearly crashed my car.

These are some pic's I snapped on those 2 days with my little digital. Too bad I didn't have my big-daddy Nikon D50 with my special lenses with me, but I think they sort of turned out cool anyway.

Here's the small batch of 10 with me playing with the settings:

Linky.

And a sampling of the wild sky:





_______________________________________________

I'm going to a small gathering for Diane tomorrow. K will be there as will the rest of her family that I haven't seen in over 2 years. Everyone knows about the rift but I have no idea what they've heard about the reasons for it. It's not the time or place to talk about any of it but I'm a wee bit concerned about going.

However, I will pay my respects and I deserve to be there, dammit. I've really tried in the last month to forgive K. in my own mind so I can purge this ghost and let it go. I hope tomorrow doesn't reverse any of that. We shall see. I can't stay long anyway since I have to pick up my mom from the airport at 2:30. Because she's coming for a visit and staying for a week. Oh, did you not hear me. I said a week. A WEEK!!

I have a feeling the next 7 days will involve drinking. Just a hunch.

Someone take my face, please

Thank you all so much for the kind words and most of all for the perspective you've given me this week. Diane told me at our visit in December that she was leaving this world without regret, then said she worried her mothering might not have always been the best which I disagreed with (anyone who cracks their 2 teenage daughters heads together when they're being bitches gets an A+ in my book), but I was glad to hear that she didn't have any monkeys hanging out on her back at the end of her life.

Thinking about my last day with her and from reading your comments (3 times each) it made me look at the subject of regret differently, since I've been beating my own ass pretty darn good the last couple of days. I've always thought that anyone without remorse or thoughts of self-accusation were lying to themselves. In fact, I still think it's dangerous to meet anyone who says they regret nothing they do because what stops them from perpetrating whatever harmful thing they want? They won't care so what's preventing them from eating a bag of puppies or worse? It's a scary thought, isn't it.

But perhaps there's a fine line between regret and truly letting go of things you cannot change. Maybe when you're on your death bed, or hell, in living your life too, it's not about fooling your own mind but accepting that things cannot be changed now. I know so many of us spend lifetimes kicking the shit out of ourselves over situations that happened a hundred million years ago. Circumstances beyond our control, or happenstances that took twists and turns and the universe was dictating the tides of change and whatever shit went down it's done and over with now. A bell cannot be unrung so stop squeezing it with all your might. You know?

Things happen the way they happen and it's time to stop staring backwards and pay attention to today while looking forward to tomorrow. Move on and savor every fucking minute you can. Of course, the threat of regret, having a moral compass and being a person who possesses sympathy and empathy keeps people from devouring that bag of puppies, but it's a waste of precious time and energy to wallow in the past. The most important thing is to learn from your mistakes or situations that went belly up but do not harbor regrets forever, dragging them around like invisible balls and chains. Eventually they'll weigh you down for real.

Life is too fucking short.

It's true. I didn't see her one last time. It just didn't work out. And if I'm in that situation again I won't let that happen, I'll do more, try harder. But we had a wonderful time on that Saturday afternoon and we both got say how much we loved each other, how much we meant to each other, and I was able to tell her how special she was to me. I was lucky to have had the 30 + years of experiences with her. And that's what I will now carry with me forever.

_____________________________________________________

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Still sick. Still with the hacking and sneezing and FREAKING NOSE TICKLE. This fucking cold has been like a week-long allergy attack with a hangover and constipation. Don't think I'm kidding about the constipation, either, stupid cold medicine. And (once again) thank you for all the nice comments you left. I was going to reply on that post but I don't want to get my viral germs all over you nice people.

By Saturday morning I knew my crud had taken a turn for the worse and I drove my snotting ass to urgent care where I witnessed a teenager sobbing and holding her guts with her mother staring in the opposite direction, lips pursed in disgust, knuckles white from clutching her handbag in anger. Me thinks the head cheerleader had more fun than I did on Friday night but ended up feeling much worse by the morning. I felt like shit but at least I hadn't puked peppermint Schnapps for 5 hours straight and I wasn't going to be grounded until the age of 25.

I was finally called back to the triage area and after I refused to step on the scale (nurse: but you have to, me smiling: no I don't) the doc spent a quality 4 minutes with me and diagnosed acute bronchitis of which I said, "Really? Was it my impersonation of an asthmatic sea lion that gave it away?" That did not get a laugh, can you believe that? Someone in the medical profession who doesn't possess a sense of humor. Shocking. I. Know.

I, in fact, was actually told I have asthma late last year so I guess this bronchitis thing is nothing to scoff at since I got a wide-eyed and poignant warning from Dr. Chuckles that THIS IS SERIOUS, YOUNG LADY, TAKE THE MEDICATION AND KEEP YOUR INHALER CLOSE BY. Jeez, doc, OK. Chill out. ~bark~

I went to the pharmacy and got a bottle of bright red prescription extra special cough syrup that was supposed to be jam-packed with codeine but let me tell you, not a fucking deine have I found. Not only does it taste like liquid asshole but it doesn't give me even a hint of a buzz. I get a better high from the Vick's Vapor rub I've been slathering all over my chest. What a rip.

While I was at the drugstore a poor little old lady in front of me was arguing that her "diabeetus" strips couldn't possible cost that much and there's no way she'll pay that amount and the little girl with the white coat said, I'm sorry ma'am, but you did pay that much last month and your insurance sets the price then the entire 4 sentence exchange was repeated again and again and again. I felt bad for the geezer but fucking hell, just call your insurance company and get the fuck out of my way before I cough up a lung.

Then some dude was trying to give everyone behind the counter shit about having to wait another 5 minutes for his toe-jam cream or whatever and launched into a tirade about why does it take so long it's never taken longer than 10 minutes before and finally I'd had enough of humans so I raised my raspy voice and said "it took longer because it's a Saturday morning at the height of cold and flu season SO STOP GIVING THEM SHIT!" He looked a little scared, grabbed his paper bag and left. Everyone behind the counter smiled at me except I sort of scared the kid ringing me up too. Sheesh, people are so sensitive. ~hack~

Since I was again loaded up with drugs and lots of free time with the sneezing and the pouting I picked up some movies to pass the time while I was consumed with consumption in bed. I decided to get flicks that I would consider chick-ish, or at least things whitey wouldn't be interested in seeing since he had still gone on our mini-vacation to vist his friend where he was busy having fun and NOT CALLING TO CHECK ON ME. Ahem. (Sorry, babe, but you deserve a little sac pinching over that one.)

Anyway, I picked up 4 movies that I will now warn you NOT to get because they were each exceptionally awful in their own unique ways.

Brain-sucking dung:

John Tucker Must Die. What a pile of teenage excrement. You could practically smell the beer and sliced carrots laced crap. Despite this fact this one was the by far the least offensive shitbag I watched, it was still nearly unbearable and I think I lost about 5 IQ points in 90 minutes. Unbelievable characters. Unbelievable circumstances. Unbelievable that I paid for it.

Someone on the IMDB message boards had the audacity to compare this brainless pile of poo to Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Of which I say, listen you uneducated panty-sniffing heathen. John Tucker couldn't share the same air in the same country on the same planet as Ferris Bueller. John Tucker isn't worth the tiny shreds of shed skin on the soap scum floating in the used bathwater of Ferris Bueller. John Tucker is not, never was, has no hopes in every layer of hell that exists, ever going to come close to the perfection that is, FBDO. So SUCK IT hottboi105. You are an idiot.

Next up and hide the sharp knives:

Friends With Money. Ugh. I didn't find out that this one was a Sundance submission until after I watched it or else I would have thrown it onto the ground of Hollywood video and run the other way. The story was like a book that had 100 chapters but every other page ended in a fragmented sentence with ellipses at the end and nothing was ever really resolved. I kept saying to myself, wha? Huh? What about? WHA? And the ending left more shit up in the air with also a way-too-convenient ending for Jennifer I Have The Acting Range Of A Turnip Aniston, which, glarg. Stupid.

And I could not get past Frances McDormands hair, which was actually part of the story-line but why bother? Her coif looks like wind-blown shit in every movie she does where she's just dialing it in (Laurel Canyon, Something's Gotta Give, North Country, Six Feet Under, need I go on?) I bet they had to add the story-line of her skanky hair into the movie after they started shooting because everyone was like, fucking A, Frankie, would you run a comb through that rats nest once and awhile? And she was like, I'm an Oscar winner and I went to Yale and I'm married to a Coen brother. I don't need to brush my hair. To which I say, yes, Frances, yes you do.

My biggest warning:

The Black Dahlia. This one really pissed me off. I was pissed that I didn't listen to my instincts and the few reviews that I had heard that is was just horrible and pissed that they took a mystery I happen to be fascinated with and trounced all over it like little nasty monkey children through a mud puddle. The first 20 seconds had me rolling my eyes when who's that kid, that kid some girls swoon over but he's fairly untalented and too skinny and also has hair issues? Oh yea, Josh Hartnett. When Josh was shown on screen swaggering about with his own voice doing a very bad imitation of a classic film noir movie from the 40's.

The storyline is confusing, the acting deplorable, the characters retarded, and it has virtually nothing to do with the original case. Well, it might have farther in but I couldn't take any more at about minute 31 and turned this piece of shite off. Anyone who gave this movie more than 2 stars on Netflix is not to be trusted. Just. Say. No.

I, um, can't explain why:

Step Up. I pretty much deserve everything I get for putting this into my DVD machine and hitting play. Be kind. I'm sick. ~hack~

Interlude

I had a post ready to go tonight, thanking everyone for the nice comments wishing me well while I'm sick (which I still do), then some complaining about still being sick, rounding out with movie reviews of stupid shit I watched this weekend, but that will all have to wait. I just received a phone call from my ex-friend K's brother that their mother passed away last night after her valiant battle against breast cancer. The woman I wrote about recently here.

I never got the chance to see her one last time and for that I will be forever guilty. I don't really have a good excuse, although I've come up with about 20 of them, all sounding weak and stupid once they leave my lips. I could have and didn't, for whatever pathetic reasons I told myself, I didn't. I hope you can forgive me, Diane. I'm sorry.

She was a rare find in this world of mediocrity. A woman who so thoroughly effected me that I would not be the person I am today without knowing her. And for that I will be forever indebted. She was an example of what we should try to be, hope to be. What I will spend the rest of my life working to be.

I don't really feel like writing anything else so I'll borrow one of my favorite poems, modified to fit this situation. That will have to do.

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message She is Dead,
Put crépe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

She was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,
I thought that love would last forever: 'I was wrong'

The stars are not wanted now, put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.


Diane, you will be missed.


(Picture taken 12/23/06. The last time I saw her.)

Which one of you infected me?

Well, that's what I get for having a tantrum at the universe for letting the great white shark go before I could see it. I'm sick as a dog. With the hacking and the runny nose and the weeping eyes and that horrible, annoying sinus tickle that makes you want to shove a rusty fork into your brain and swirl it around to make it stop. For the love of Christ, make it stop!

I drove my diseased ass to CVS this morning to get some type of medication I can take that won't induce a killer heart spasm since my stupid over-sensitive delicate system can't take any normal cold remedies like Alka-Seltzer or Nyquil. No decongestants of any kind. Thank you thyroid cancer! I thought I'd run it by the pharmacist before I bought anything since I don't get colds often and needed some help.

After being ignored at the drug counter for awhile I finally got her attention and explained my dilemma. I don't have a thyroid, blah blah, I'm on medication where I have to be hyperthyroid, yada yada, I can't take anything that has a stimulant in it like Sudafed so what can I take? Without missing a beat she says to me, "How about Sudafed?"

Fucking hell.

I reiterate again that no, you stupid fuckface, I cannot take Sudafed, so she tells me to take Tylenol. OK, I know you look like you're 16 but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're an educated person and a licensed pharmacist, so let's start over. I NEED COLD MEDICATION NOT SOMETHING FOR A HEADACHE!! Then I sneezed on her face.

Alright, I didn't sneeze on her face but I wanted to. I ended up collecting a pathetic basket full of things like Kleenex and nasal spray and I did end up getting some liquid Nyquil-type Tylenol shit that was supposed to take care of my runny nose and cough and general achyness and was all laced with something called "Cool Burst" which tasted like liquid Bengay and coats the throat with a thick syrup making it feel like I was sucking on an iceberg in a wind tunnel for about 20 minutes. Not. Pleasant.

It did make me drowsy but only enough to miss any of the daytime TV that doesn't suck, drifting in and out of a nap peppered with trippy dreams and waking back up just as soon as my cable went out. Sigh. I should probably spend the weekend in bed but I'm determined to go on this mini-vacation and have some fucking fun. So, off we go tomorrow to salvage the trip we planned over a month ago and hopefully my ear drums won't burst at 35 thousand feet and whitey's friends won't look at me like a leper.

Now excuse me while I have another coughing fit. And have a good weekend, kids!

**UPDATE:

I didn't freaking go!! I tried. I took a shower and shaved my legs and everything. But then I got woozy and I'm hacking every 2 seconds and BLAH. We decided I'm too sick. I'm SO DAMN UPSET but I'm getting worse and how not fun would it be to travel and have what's supposed to be a great weekend ruined by watching snot drip down my swollen face? So I put whitey on the plane so at least he can have a good weekend with his friend and we'll try for a do-over in a couple weeks.

I'm gonna go pout for the next 48 hours now.

Hi. The universe hates me.

Idea hatched - check

Research done - check

Dates picked - check

Time off approved - check

Plane tickets purchased - check

Hotel reservations - check

Car reserved - check

Spending money we don't really have - check

Arrangements to hook up with friends in bay area - check

Camera batteries charged - check

Itinerary confirmed - check

Talked about fun weekend plans to everyone I know - check

Wardrobe planned - check

14 million loads of laundry done - check

Worked ass off in house so can take weekend away - check

Barely containing ever-growing excitement in anticipation of seeing a mind-blowing on my top 10 favorites list of magnificent creatures of which this one I'll probably never get to witness with my own eyeballs in person ever in my lifetime except for now lucky me - check check check

Cruise by website to see if any events happening while we're there - check

FUCKING GOD DAMN FUCKING HELL SHIT FUCK!!! - check

Hi. My mother hated me.

Oi. Vey. Why doesn't someone stop me before I post crap like I did the other day? While I support what I said, I firmly believe most people suck and always will, the way I finished my little rant left me cringing. "Most likely forever." Gawd. Sometimes I want to kick my own ass. I don't like to pull words I've committed to because it's how I felt at the time. What I fail to remember is that I'll feel differently in another 10 minutes, then 10 minutes after that, and so on. So, yea, ahem. Thanks for the feedback is what I'm trying to say.

~~~~~

Also - something is wrong with blogger, wrong with the "old" version of blogger I'm using (since I'm afraid of change and won't switch to the new one), or my company is effing with my head because I can't seem to post from work. If this posts it was attempt #4. And I can't edit anything I've started nor will any of the buttons work - not the preview, not the italics, not the very important spell checker, nothing. So if there are typos in this thing, which there will be because I have to read and fix every entry 9 fucking times, I apologize. My grammar and spelling sucks but I can usually correct most of it, unless it was done on purpose. Ha.

~~~~~

Anywho, in my crankyness I totally forgot to tell you what happened on Sunday while I was doing my impersonation of Cinderfuckin'rella spending a thousand hours cleaning and packing and folding and dancing with animated mice in pants. I'd bought some extra yoog storage containers to house all of my stuffed animals because hi, I'm 11 years old and can't get rid of any of them. So, in the middle of my chorey day I found myself rooting around in the (fucking silverfish) garage, again.

My precious plushies have been kept in dusty garbage bags and now required additional protection so they may rot in expensive molded-plastic bins instead of flimsy trash sacks. As I ripped open one stinky bag crammed full of among other things, bears and dogs and 2 very large stuffed with ancient sawdust county fair snakes (why?) I saw it. One of the contributors to my weird childhood and vivid nightmares. The thing I'd hoped was gone forever. The near-living entity I'd imagined had been sucked back into the evil realm from which it came.

The Boy. The EVIL BOY. With THE FACE! The face that was now staring back at me with the crazy eyes and creepy frozen smile and stuffing spilling out here and there oozing like alien blood. The demented doll I wrote about here. The pillowy puppet that I'm sure tried to kill me in my sleep if only I'd let a toe fall over the edge of the bed but HA HA, SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER, I DIDN'T!! I smothered and sweltered under those covers because you weren't going to feed on this bitch's flesh. NO WAY.

After re-reading that long-ago entry I realized I'd messed up a few details, but hey, it's been about 20 years since I laid eyes on this thing. 20 glorious years. But observe, I was NOT WRONG about the maniacal and evil. And it was the only thing in the bag chewed and shat upon by a rat. SATAN'S RAT, no doubt.

(click to engorge and see explanatory notes)



How'd you like to wake up to this?



I DIDN'T THINK SO!

I picked a bad day to give up carbs

I got disappointing news about a supposed friend last week. Yet another person I thought I could trust acting like some double agent with diarrhea of the mouth. It's left me sour and scowling and will take a few days to shake the crank off. That paired with the 12 fucking hours I spent cleaning out the closets and boxing up 2 giant bookshelves of dusty books on Sunday (the day of rest my ass) and today I'm serving up hot plate full of crab to everyone. With a side of piss & vinegar. Hold the piss you say? NO! You'll get piss and you'll like it!

Why? Why is it sometimes so fucking hard to be friends with some people? I swear to Christ it's like juggling 3 working chainsaws, a pissed off badgers and 9 flaming tampons while you're walking across a tightrope greased with bacon fat sprinkled with broken glass and rusty staples and your underwear is up your butt.

I put the emphasis on sometimes because it's not all the time. Some people are a breeze to be around. You laugh easily and there are no awkward silences and you have an unspoken arrangement that they'd hold your hair back after consuming too many "free drinks" in Vegas and they would never let walk out of the house wearing red & purple together.

However, they are the exceptions to the rule. And I think this is more of a girl thing than a boy thing so maybe it's an estrogen thing? Although my very best gay boy has similar problems so it can't just be because you have lady parts are you a bitch. Just hang out in the Castro on a Friday night. There are way more cat fights down there than in a girl's high school locker room at when half have PMS at the same time.

Anyway, people are nuts is what I'm trying to say.

Friends come and go for a gajillion different reasons. Friends for a season, a reason, a bank heist, yada yada yada. I've had intense friendships that burned out like a hot flame and others that meandered for years without much there. I've had girlfriends in my life for 30 plus years that turned into psycho fuckers who did things I never thought they'd do. I've had others who can pick up where we left off without a request to kiss their ass in penance for time apart.

But the older I get the harder I find it is to make a good, true friend. A not gonna fuck me over someday friend. A real, sustaining friendship that isn't interrupted by insanity or general assory. Because inevitably, in most cases, some stupid remark is made or a giant betrayal is perpetrated or any manner of situations in between and the relationship is changed. In an instant. Just like that.

I know I'm more sensitive than normal most people. I'm reactive and emotional and cranky. And I might, once-in-awhile maybe perhaps I'll deny it if asked, take things the wrong way. Or sort of kind of very infrequently so shut up, over-analyze a wee tiny bit. And I'm far from guiltless. But I'm also a good person. I care. I give good advice. I'm loyal to a fault. And I'm smart. I pride myself on having a highly tuned bullshit meter and I can smell a rat from a mile away. I'm sort of like a German shepard but I don't shed, lick my butt, or stink. (Much.)

But I'm not so good with the sneaky snakes who wind their way around my neck talking pretty in my ear then bite a chunk out of my face. The charmers that feed me what I want to hear with sugar on top but poison underneath, or at least a hairy piece of candy from the bottom of their purse. The people who gain your trust with interest and promises all the while crossing their fingers behind their backs. Rats I can sniff out, evil bastards, not so much.

Years ago while I was talking to a co-worker, who happened to become one of those hot flame people (but not in a sexual way, much to my chagrin), he put it better than I've ever heard. He explained that he puts everyone he meets over here (he gestures to his right) and those people will stay over here (gestures to his right) unless they fuck up. You fuck up? You get moved over there (gestures to his left.) Simple, no?

Well, not so simple for chicks. At least not for this chick. I don't have a right or left side with a clear division in the middle. I have categories. Lots and lots of categories. It's like trying to keep a sock drawer as big as a football field organized. Friends you can only tell so much to, others you can't travel with, one person is good at listening, the next will tell you the exact opposite of what you should do but they make me laugh. Etc. Etc. It's fucking exhausting but it's how it goes.

The thing that's bothering me right now is the amount of new people coming into my life who seem like they're cool only to discover they are far from cool. They are on another continent from cool. In fact, I'm fairly certain they are on some mission from middle earth to jack with my head, or at least the world's head, I won't take all the credit. Bottom line. They end up sucking the high hard one.

In light of that fact, my ability to move people around gets easier and easier. Which sometimes disturbs me. Or maybe this is a good thing? I don't know. Am I protecting myself or being hasty? I'd like to think it's the former. I've been fucked over so many times by people who poured love all over me like a bucket of Tang then punched me right in the eye from out of nowhere that now I'm less trusting than ever. Add the internet to that and yikes, it's a wonder I talk to anyone. I get a whiff of rat? You get moved into a new category.

I still think there are good people out there, you know, one or two, and of course I give chances, too many sometimes, but there's also an endless supply of kooks and assholes. And let me tell you, if some people show me a hint of either of those things I'm moving you from over here, to over there, and you will never get back over here. You might be able to move a few spaces from over there to over there, but you won't ever get back over HERE. That I can promise you.

I will most likely show respect.

I will most likely stay friendly.

But my feelings will have changed.

Most likely forever.

Happy...New Year?

It was the last day of 1982. I was 15.3 years old and dumb as shit. Without benefit of any measurable wisdom or possession of a fully formed brain, my head was a labyrinth of Swiss cheese and painfully slow synapses firing at about the rate of a snail oozing down a dry sidewalk in the noon day sun. This, however, did not stop me from forming a plot. A plan. A wicked proposal to bestow upon my parents a fabrication so transparent it could have been arrested for indecent exposure. A huge mistake.

I was a grade-A, semi-professional fibber and usually got away with it. But my inflated teenage ego and cheese brain didn't seem to grasp the idea that this was New Year's fucking Eve and I was at the prime age to get myself into big ass trouble. Of which my father knew better. Much better than I. He was wrapped around my finger but no dummy when it came to me, a holiday known for debauchery, and the liquor cabinet. This nights points would all go to dad. And then some.

By the time I was a sophomore in High School I hadn't had much experience with booze. A childhood of sipping drinks from my parents and one super-lame episode of taking miniscule tastes of Gin, Vodka and Scotch, all from square tupperware containers covered in saran wrap snuck out of a friends house. Then "acting" as if wasted from a negligible amount of alcohol. All at the tender age of stupidlevin. So it was fair to say I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.

At that time in my life I was bff's with a girl who lived directly across the street. A strange girl named Debbie who was lost in the middle of a large blended family of insane step-siblings, insane full siblings, one unfortunate product of the marriage, and bizarre absentee parents who drove matching Mercedes and kept very large sex toys on their dresser. This family was the talk of the neighborhood and hanging out at their house was like being in a live-action soap opera. It was great.

Debbie was one year my junior but a total gamer. In fact, she'd grow up to be a much bigger gamer than me, although her weekend habits came with a huge dose of crazy. One episode was so heinous that I was through with her after witnessing one particularly bad screaming freak-out over nothing. But on this night Debbie and I were still tight and decided that since both sets of parents were going to be out for the night we'd do some of our own partying.

Debbie was already at my house to play some "board games" and witnessed the warning speech I received from my dad. Before my parental units had left for their shindig my father looked me right in the face and said, "Betty. Do not touch the alcohol. Betty. Do you hear me? Do. Not. Touch. The. Alcohol. BETTY! You're not going to touch the alcohol are you? DON'T TOUCH THE ALCOHOL!!"

I batted my eyelashes and clicked my tongue, cocked my head sideways and with righteous indignation said, "Like, oh mah gawd, Dad. Like NO WAY. Like, I don't even like like the taste of Al-Coh-Haul. Like, COME ON. NO WAY. JEEZE."

And he smirked at me wearing a disbelieving "uh huh, right" look on his face and with an air of suspicion told me to be a good girl and they'd see me later. My mother never said a word but I'm sure they'd talked about it. They proceeded to leave in a cloud of Chanel No. 5 and Old Spice and left me alone with Debbie and a liquor cabinet stuffed to the edges with bottles. No good could come of this.

Before we got down to the business of being very stupid I needed to prepare myself. I'd heard something about not drinking on an empty stomach and devised another brilliant plan to line my guts with what I thought would be the perfect antidote to the drinking I was planning on doing. So I scarfed down a huge toasted bagel loaded with three quarters of a brick of cream cheese. Did you know dairy totally curdles in a system drowning in booze? Neither did I.

After my really smart dinner we opened the cupboard and chose our poison. Vodka.

Straight Vodka.

After deciding that it tasted like rubbing alcohol and burned the first layer of skin off my tender lips we got a little inventive. First we added some orange juice then mixed it with some Coke. Ah, OK, now we're getting somewhere. I was still pretty full from that bagel but you can't just sit around and drink without having some appetizers, right? A few green olives, some left-over Christmas cookies and a few sweet pickles. Perfect.

After we'd consumed Jebus knows how much Vodka we decided to go gallivanting around the neighborhood. What a perfect way for 2 teenage girls to spend New Years Eve. Traipsing up and down dark streets without anyone knowing where we were. This plan was getting even more genius by the minute.

We went over to Debbie's house first where we discovered her insane slightly molesting older step brother had swiped an unopened bottle of Triple Sec and hid it in his closet. Thanks to her hooligan weird little brothers, they'd stolen the bottle from the older brother and gave it to us. They were in for quite the ass-pounding later on but for now it was all ours. I'd never heard of the stuff but it looked OK and I'd pretty much numbed my taste buds to nothing by now anyway so what the hell, crack it open and let's give it a try.

More drinking ensued, but we didn't feel like hanging out with 2 annoying grade school boys who's idea of a good time was farting in our faces so Debbie thought it would be fun to go hang out at another kids house somewhere in the neighborhood.

Now, mind you, when I say "somewhere in the neighborhood" I'm not talking about a quaint little area where your friends live a stones throw away. We didn't reside in little houses all nestled together like sardines in a can. Every house was huge, they sat on lots anywhere from 1 to 3 acres, we didn't even have sidewalks, and it was hilly. Really fucking hilly.

I didn't really know who this chick was except she was also a freshmen and after we got to her place I realized it was the same house who'd found my runaway doggie a couple years before and planned on keeping her and totally ignored the lost dog sigs we'd plastered all over a 5 mile radius. Except I'd found out they had her by accident when I was crying about it on the bus and some kid heard me talking and told me their neighbor had found a dog like that so I didn't like this girl out of principal because the hell? Tried to keep my fucking puppy. Didn't stop me from raiding her parents liquor cabinet, though.

Let's take a count of consumed drinks, shall we? There'd been anywhere from 2 to 9 shots of Vodka consumed at my house. We'd each taken many hearty swigs of Triple Sec at Debbie's house then proceeded to drink more from the bottle as we walked the thousand miles to the dog nappers house. So that makes...um...2 very drunk teenagers.

Now, since our Swiss Cheese Very Stupid brains were floating around in our dumb heads on a sea of booze, we thought it would be cool to drink some more. As we stared at all the bottles to choose from someone, I will not take credit for this although I don't remember who came up with it, said, "Let's make Suicides." Then someone, again, I will not take cop to this, asked, "What's a Suicide?" And it was told by someone, I don't know who, that a Suicide was a drink consisting of all the liquors you have. Brilliant.

We fished through the kitchen and found the perfect containers for our refreshment. Giant plastic cups the size of a claw-foot bathtub. Someone began pouring. A splash of this, a glug of that, a drop, a snort, a recipe for fucking disaster that's what that was. We raised our Very Bad Idea's Suicide's in the air, toasted the holiday, and began to drink. I'm sure I proclaimed it tasted great but really, at that point you could have served me a steaming pint of dog shit and I would have thanked you kindly for the sweet elixir.

As my eyes began to swim in my head Debbie and I bailed on the beotch and managed to stumble back to her house, where we found ourselves standing outside her bedroom window swaying in front of the bushes and trying to figure out how we were going to get our drunk asses back in. A karate chop was executed and a screen was murdered and we sommersaulted through the opening onto her floor laughing like morons.

Things get really fuzzy from here but I distinctly remember her evil little brothers coming in to the very spinny room and yelling about how bad I stunk then force-feeding me toothpaste straight from the tube to mask the smell of the 4 gallons of rotgut I'd consumed. Debbie was nowhere to be found so I can only imagine what she was up to. And I think I kissed a dog on the mouth.

I woke up, passed out, woke up, spun in a tight circle, passed out, woke up, watched a giant poster of a crashing wave threaten to drown me, then hauled my wasted self to the open window where I hurled a technicolor yawn onto the nextdoor neighbors iceplant 10 feet away. I think there was a sonic boom reported about the same time.

The next morning, after a fitful, sloshy sleep, I woke up next to Debbie, both of us fully clothed in dirty pants and puke-stained shirts and felt like someone had put a foot up my ass, poured lighter fluid and battery acid down my throat, threw fiberglass into my eyes, stuffed my ears with a thousand tiny crashing cymbals, put my nipples into a set of jumper cables, lined the insde of my shoes with thumbtacks, rolled a cement block across my back, pulled both arms out of their sockets, and ran over my entire head with a tour bus full of fat fucking frenzied Falco fans.

I quickly prayed for death than changed my mind and opted to guzzle a glass of tepid tap water from a dirty bathroom sink instead and started the trek home. 2 minutes later as I was barfing that entire glass of water on Debbie's driveway, and pushing my eyeballs back into my skull, I was forming a dazzling lie to tell my parents. Food poisoning. Yes! That's what this clearly was. They'll buy that for sure.

I dragged my corpse up the 90 degree hill that was my side of the street and through the kitchen door where I was greeted by my mother who just slowly shook her head at me as I stammered something through my drooling maw that sounded normal inside my pounding head but came out reminiscent of a belching bullfrog being squeezed through a keyhole.

Gaaaaaarrrrrr bluuuuurgh raaaalllllloooooob. I'm sick.

She looked at my bruised face and ratted hair. Surveyed the purple circles crawling across my eyes like rabid slugs and gave a sniff of suspicion towards my walking-distillery self. Then she sent me to bed where I remained until dinner time alternately shaking and sweating with a few trips to the toilet where my body wretched and heaved until every drop of moisture was expelled through a variety of orifi.

No one came to check on me the whole day which normally would have concerned me because, wtf? I had food poisoning here. But I was so sick and slightly worried that I might die at any moment so I didn't much notice the absence of parental concern. About 6:00, our normal dinner time, I was called to the table. I tried to refuse but my mother was adamant. Get your ass in here NOW.

I shuffled down the hallway trying to keep all of my skin from sliding off and within a few steps the overwhelming aroma of some nasty Italian concoction smashed me square in the face. You might have well stuck a clove of garlic up my nose and simmered the house in tomato sauce.

I gingerly sat down at the table where my father was already seated, clenching his jaw and sending a steaming stream of fury my way. I was 90% retarded at this point and still didn't get it. Had no idea my jig was long up. Until my mother sat a piping hot, greasy, cheese smothered, dripping, repulsive, the most disgusting food I've ever seen something she'd never made before and never made again, plate of oily pungent putrid chicken parmesan in front of me.

It was a red nightmare.

That I had to eat.

She made it.

To gross me out.

On purpose.

It worked.

I sighed and held my taxed tummy and took a bite. Chewing with a half-hearted effort I attempted to ignore the flavor explosion in my mouth. A mouth that should have avoided any and all food for at least 24 hours. A mouth that was ready to give up solids forever.

I managed to gulp a few bites down before I gave my mother the saddest most sincere Bambi eyes I could muster and breathlessly begged to be excused. My father continued to fume and was about to deny my request when my mother pulled an extremely uncharacteristic move of actually being on my side and throwing me a bone of sympathy, of which I can literally count on one hand in my whole life that she's done this, and laser-beamed my dad across the table. Before he could squeak a word out she let me go back to bed, leaving the congealing mess of a dinner behind.

I slept for 12 hours straight and gingerly approached my mom the next day since she wasn't chopping me into tiny pieces with one look like my dad was. She barely held back her laughter and asked me if I really expected them to believe my cacamamie story and by the way, dad MARKED THE BOTTLES YOU IDIOT CHILD.

I was shocked! She also told me that my dad was so mad he'd gone on and on the whole day hoping that I'd puke again and again and again. I was pissed about that for a long time but I get it now. How could I have been so stupid? Swiss cheese brain, that's how. Stupid, dumb, botarded 15 year-old asshat Swiss cheese damn brain. Stupid.

I waited a whole year before I did that again.

Day 1

I don't feel any different.

I think this New Year thing is broken.