That's What She Said

I guess I tend to think of myself as a couple of years younger than I actually am. When I hear something about 20-21 year olds, I empathize with them in ways that I don’t when someone mentions a girl in her “mid-twenties”. I’m constantly referring to senior year of college as “last year”, as in, in the last 12 months, even though it was a good few years ago.

In the ER this past summer, I was asked how long it’s been since my last tetanus shot.

“Ummmm....,” I shrugged, “Beginning of high school I suppose? So...5 years ago?”

And the woman just stared at me. “How old are you again?” she asked, incredulously.

“23,” I said, and again, she looked at me blankly, waiting for me to put it all together. Which I didn’t. (I may have been distracted by the fleshy tip of my finger dangling on a thread from its proper position ON my finger, but still).

“So...that would be...eight or nine years ago then?” she encouraged me to keep thinking.

Finally, “OH! Yes...eight years ago...eight years ago I started high school...Damn.”

I don’t know why I have such a mental block about aging. Or why I’m clinging to an age group that is no longer mine. Perhaps it’s because when I was a teenager, trapped in the daily suffocating HELL known as wealthy suburban high school, I wanted nothing more than to be 19-21. Why that age range I can’t say exactly, but it seemed to represent a freedom and control over one’s life without the responsibilities of actually being an adult. And looking back, that’s really what it was.

It’s not to say that my life is all that burdensome nowadays. I have my bills to pay and a few other grown-up obligations. But overall, it’s not too taxing and there isn’t anything tangible about 20 that I miss. Still I guess since I had dreamed and wished so hard to be 20, I can’t seem to grasp that I’ve passed it. What age do I want to be now? I don’t know. That’s why I’m so confused. And really, I am. Confused.

Just yesterday I was chatting with Erin about the fax machine in my office, which was teetering on the brink of death.

me: man
so i was all like, ‘too bad, fax machine is broken, lets just get a new one!’
but now i realize that means i'll have to figure out how to use the new one
ugh
i hate technology
Erin: me tooooooo
man, i thought i would be OLD when i started saying that kind of shit
but here we are.

Confused. What age am I? What age should I be? I have the sense of humor of a fifth-grader and a fear of technology that rivals my Grandpa’s. Identity. Crisis.

I have a birthday coming up in a few weeks. I’ve always been the baby in my class with the summer birthday, so for my friends, my anxieties over 24 are easily dismissed. They’ve already reached that age and don’t want to hear it. And really, to be fair, I’m not concerned about “being 24” and there being some social stigma that the best days are somehow behind me. I mean, that’s ridiculous. It’s more that I don’t know what to expect from 24 or where it means I should be in my life. Or where I thought I’d be at 24 because I never really planned for this. I fear the answer is that I should have a little bit more direction. Less floating. More focus.

Bummer. I guess well...that’s what makes it more fun to let my mind just pretend I’m still 20 and live accordingly in my own personal Never Never Land .

I'm having sleep troubles! Of all things!

So Zack's gone and waaaaaah poor me, so lonely little Austin. But really, I've been pretty okay. No crying, no tearing of the hair or gnashing of the teeth. Gold star, right? Totally!

Except that I haven't had a good night's sleep in days and it's beginning to piss me the hell off. Because damn; I like sleep. And I sort of depend on sleep to get me through my eight hours of bleary-eyed staring at a computer screen, where I work and write my love notes to you, lovely Internet.

First thing's first. I am going to stop letting my damn cats sleep with me. They are annoying (ELLA) and needy (SAPPHO) and are only cute at 10:30 when I go to bed and they are curled up together at my feet but not so much at FOUR FUCKING O'CLOCK when they are JUMPING ON MY FACE. Because...well, because they are idiots. (Or maybe I'm the idiot. Yeah, that's probably it.) Anyway, the cats are officially Kicked Out.

Also, my subconscious decided to jump start an irrational fear that SOMEONE IS TOTALLY GOING TO COME IN MY SLIDING GLASS DOOR AND RAPE ME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT just as I'm about to drift off. From 34 stories up, they are going to do this. With their springy legs and Stretch Armstrong arms and Spider-Man abilities to climb up buildings and shit. Ha. But still, I stumble out of bed to close and lock my slider (which we rarely close and never lock) and am then awake. Wide Awake. Not anywhere close to sleep anymore. Shit. (Note To Self: Would be good if this fear made itself known before going to bed so as to avoid leaving bed to assuage it. Would also be good if you knew how to work the lock.)

And have I mentioned that I thrash around in my big ol' empty bed looking for a comfortable position? (Moment of Truth here, folks: I'll admit that being able to throw my arms and legs out with abandon was an appealing thought before Zack left...uhhh...not that I do that when he's there, no, definitely not). I spend a lot of time trying to figure out a way to be comfy. Which takes foreverrrrrr. All that flopping around is a really good way to wake oneself up. I should know.

Alright dudes, I am boring myself talking about this so I'm sorry I'm putting you through it, too. I'm going to go have a damn beer and shut my damn mouth. And then sleep. A lot. Weeee!

Anyone who knows me knows I’m prone to injuries. Generally self inflicted, or a result of my own stupidity, I am constantly waking up with scrapes, bruises, splints, bandages. On any given day at any given time, there is something wrong with me. I’m not sure exactly when this ‘condition’ of mine began, but I think I can trace it back to my first couple of years of college when I began indulging in alcoholic beverages, the ones that impair your sense of balance and motor skills, things necessary if you want maintain the “wholeness” of your body.

Over the past few years, I’ve face-planted on my chin (my already scarred chin). I frolicked my way down a sidewalk where I fell on my ankle, severely spraining it and damaging myself for life. I’ve had multiple bruises the size of cantaloupes decorating my thighs and ass. And I deftly chopped off the tip of my finger as a birthday present to myself. My knees are permanently purple from bruises and scars (hardwood floors + vodka + dancing = wipeout). I walk around in jeans with rips on both legs. No point in getting new ones, it’s just bound to happen again.

Musing over this topic (I’m concerned because I’m more than due for an injury, it’s been a few weeks), I decided the best solution for me may be to look into a personal, well, bubble. Ya know, something soft and squishy to surround me and protect me from my environment (and myself). A mobile bubble, I imagine something of a clear beach ball, maybe? As I discussed this with Erin, I started to get really excited about the things I could do with my bubble. It would be endless fun, living in a bubble. Erin and I even came up with a list of fantastic activities I could participate in if I had my own springy sphere.

Things I could do in my bubble:

• Float on the lake, or walk on water, if you will.
• Roll down a giant hill.
• Let Erin to take me to a Flaming Lips concert and have the audience pass me around over their heads.
• Attach a parachute to the bubble and free fall off a building.
• Be a toy for whales and dolphins.
• Clambake the bubble!

But as were happily brainstorming the bubble list, things that I couldn’t do with in the bubble started popping up in the conversation...

Things I could not do in a bubble:

• Ride an elevator, or any type of public transportation.
• Lay down flat.
• Enter a cave, go spelunking.
• Be in the sun (lest you become a ball of fire, ant-magnifying-glass-style).
• Approach cacti.
• Climb the hill I want to roll down.
• Go swimming.
• Use a ladder.
• Play hide and go seek.

It seems that perhaps the cons outweigh the pros of the bubble. But that might only be temporary. Who knows what injury is in store for me next and how imperative it will become for me to seek extra protection if I have any interest in seeing 30.

Time: The present (9:00 pm, Tuesday evening)
Setting: Where else? The living room.
Characters: yours truly and my trusty Fahrer-ha sidekick.

Stuffing my face with some lovely dark chocolate covered cherries (thanks Moz, Niki), I was overwhelmed by the sweet/tart combination.

Me: I thought this cherry mix was supposed to have like..almonds in it, or something. I really need some nuts to like..break it up!

Erin: BWAHAHA. That's what she said!

I love bacon. Bacon bacon bacon. I love bacon on everything. In everything. Bacon by itself. Bacon with breakfast, swimming in syrup. Bacon in salads, defiling their purity. Bacon on a sandwich, delicately woven into a perfect bacony meaty patty. Bacon is a gift to humans, a salty, fatty delicious gift, and no one should ever refuse such a gift.



Lately, however, I’ve had to grapple with the idea of giving up meat. It’s that whole we’re-destroying-the-world-and-there-is-something-we-can-do-about-it thing. Read any article that’s serious about helping the environment and you’ll find that decreasing the amount of meat you eat has a more positive impact on the earth than recycling plastics and driving hybrids combined. And ya know, it’s good for your body and stuff too.

FROWN. But what about baaaaaaaacon? I’m the girl who on a recent trip to Vegas, where buffets rule, wanted nothing more than to stand in front of a giant catering tray filled with the fatty meaty strips. It’s all I could talk about. I can’t give up bacon. “Just say no” to bacon? HA! The mere idea of it is difficult to resist, and we’re not even talking rejecting it when the smell is wafting ever so enticingly from a nearby griddle. I mean, what chance do I really have?

Still, bacon-obsessed and forced to consider betraying my true love for reasons greater than I, an inner conflict rages over the thought of forsaking this porky delight. I feel guilty that I don’t even want to do it (sorry Mother Earth). And then that guilt mixes with the always present guilt of eating bacon at all (you know that’s why it’s so good). And the result is just one big guilty bacon mess that only makes me want to eat it all the more!

Sigh. What's a girl to do? Distraught that I may have to put an end to my bacon indulgences, I contemplated my problem on the train the other day, where it occurred to me that perhaps I shall bargain with the environment (Monty Hall was my child nickname).

“Earth,” I said, “I’ll (one day) give you beef, chicken, and all other pork products, but in return, you must give me bacon. A compromise, you see. Give up everything but bacon. How does that sound?”

And with that, the universe answered my question.
“BACoN,” it said.

“BACoN” here, “BACoN” there. It appeared written in light blue graffiti on the wall of two buildings I pass everyday. That’s right. Someone was speaking to me! Tagging walls with pork product pleasantries.
“Yes, Megan, of course you can keep eating bacon!”

So with that little wink from the gods, I begin my journey. Less chicken. Less beef. And enough bacon to keep my ass plump and porky.

Ask my friends and they'll tell you that I have been toying with the idea of prostitution for awhile now. Faced with the ugly truth that I can't support my ramen and whiskey fueled lifestyle with legitimate paychecks any longer, the time came to look to my other assets. Which I did, only to discover I have alarmingly few (thank you, liberal arts education). And then one day, pondering my personal economic crisis and wandering the dirty streets of Humboldt Park for my own filthy reasons, I noticed two hookers, sipping as sexily as one can on 7/11 slurpees, get picked up by a striking man in a white Cadillac. Hello, meal ticket. I might not look the part, but show me a Frederick's of Hollywood, a pair of Candies slingbacks and somewhere to stash my self-respect and Catholic upbringing, and you'd have a passing whore working the corners of Logan Square. You're welcome, gentlemen; world.

I proposed the career change to my urban family. First they laughed. Then they paused. Then they began listing the cons to my spectacular idea: disease, murder, drugs, arrests, vile pimps (like that handsome fucker up there), a whole slew of mental abuse issues, botched back alley abortions, blah blah blah. But there remained the tremendous pro of tax free dollars and not having to know how to make a goddamn spreadsheet in Excel to move up in the world. What eventually broke me was the surfacing of memories from one weird night in which I was mistaken for a legitimate hooker no less than three times, and actually found myself praying to whatever God was punishing me to spare me from what seemed to be my certain abduction, rape, and death by dismembering. No joke.

After that, the whole sex thing fell by the wayside. But what remained was the problem of my bank account and my laziness. I still wanted to make a quick buck. I reevaluated. Certainly there was a way to whore yourself to the world without actually putting a P in a V. After a triumphant weekend of lending shoulders to cry on, posing as a sounding board, and helping with all sorts of friendly issues, it became clear that my greatest contribution to the human race would be to act as its friend. It's best friend even, if it was willing to pay that much. Here's one satisfied friend's testimonial: "I've had a lack of best friends in my life, and I enjoy talking to Erin so much because she has the ability to fill all of the roles that were always seperated into different people....she's like the one-stop shopping of friends." -Jake M., friend

Couldn't have said it better myself. You too, Reader, can be as lucky as that fine gentleman. For a nominal fee, I will allow you to rent out my friendly skills. Need a shoulder to lean on? A date to a high school reunion? Want to go see a movie, but too afraid to go alone? Have an extra ticket to the ball game? Afraid of looking like a loser on a Saturday night? Dying to try a new restaurant? Just want to spend a nice evening building a fort out of couch cushions in your living room and telling ghost stories?

Have I got a deal for you.

So, Cape Cod, y'all.

I left Friday morning and the plane ride Made. Me. Nuts. Let me break it down for you.

The first person-to-person encounter I witnessed was some bitchy lady not wanting to put her computer bag under her seat to make room in the super-over-crowded plane for another woman's too-big-for-under-the-seat carry-on. I guess she just...didn't feel like it? Way to be a team player. Awesome. I spent my first ten minutes on the plane glaring holes into the back of her little pinhead. Then, before we even got off the ground, I laid my head against the window and fell asleep. Until we landed in Detroit for my layover. Turns out that nap would really come in handy because the second leg of the trip was when it all went to shit. Bitchy computer bag lady was just my warm-up.

I shuffled my two enormously heavy bags (I'm a nice wife and carried Zack's suits for him so he wouldn't have to check a bag...off to Minneapolis from Cape Cod, remember?) down the narrow aisle of the plane and finally - sweet Jesus, FINALLY - got to my seat, which was by the window. An elderly Filipino couple were already seated in the aisle and middle seats next to mine. The man got up to let me by, but the woman, oh she looked up at me all smug and said "You go over" and gestured over her lap. Uhhhh..?

"I don't actually think that will work. I won't fit there."

Gestures again to the impossibly narrow space between her knees and the seat, "You go over."

"Ma'am, I'm really not going to fit. I think you're going to have to get up to let me pass."

And thankfully, she did.

Now cut to the surround-sound wailing of two babies at either end of the plane. And the mom with her two school-aged children giggling behind me and KICKING MY SEAT. Incessant with the kicking and the TALKING REALLY LOUD OVER THE PLANE ENGINE. Oh my glorious, glorious iPod. That tiny little box of wonder saved me from life in prison on murder charges because had I not been able to tune those fuckers out I might have had to fling myself over the seat and strangle them in rage. But the iPod was my happy place.

And then...then...

Oh my holy Lord. I can't even properly describe to you what was definitely the most offensive and horrifying fart I have ever had the displeasure of smelling. I mean, this was an epic, clinging fart that undulated throughout the cabin in waves. I'm pretty sure that I smelled like a fart until my next shower. And no amount of turning my head or shifting my position helped lessen its stink. It finally began to die down as we landed in Providence (oh, the irony of landing in Providence was not lost on me, friends). So of course once we are at the gate and the plane's engines are off (so it's getting all hot in the cabin because we're smashed in like sardines and everyone's trying to will their way off the plane by moving toward the door before it's actually opened) the horrible fart returns because my life isn't bad enough in this moment.

And then I blew up the plane.

But what really happened was that I shuffled off the plane in much the same manner as I had shuffled on (now cursing Zack and his FUCKING NEED FOR THREE SUITS BECAUSE WHO REALLY NEEDS THREE SUITS OH MY GOD) and I waited for Zack's plane to arrive, 40 minutes after my own. And when it did I relayed to him my FUCKING story about the FUCKING people on my FUCKING plane, complete with extensive hand flailing and yelling for dramatic effect.

And he was all cute and sympathetic and appropriately outraged at my suffering and it made me slightly less mad about carrying his heavy-ass suits.

And thus we began our weekend.