You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Idiot Things I do' category.
I am day 3 into a curious experiment I am conducting with myself: a 30 day break from booze.
I’m not exactly sure what prompted this, I mean, there was no DUI, no waking-up in a gutter covered in my own sick, no terrific hang-over for the umpteenth time in a row, no blackouts, no….nothing really. I just woke up Sunday morning and decided.
And of course, everyone thinks I’m off my rocker. I’m so completely known as the Mick-whiskey-swigging-girl that when I mentioned this endeavor to a few friends, they seemed slightly taken aback. As if “why would you ever do such a thing?”
I remember reading an article a few years back about a journalist who did the same. She challenged herself to 30 days of utter sobriety. She chronicled every day and wow, did she make it seem hard. She actually didn’t make it.
For me, mostly, it’s the social aspect that will make this challenging. I like to entertain, people come over, I offer a beverage of their choosing. Sailor and I tend to keep a lot of booze in the house. Good booze too. I still plan to offer a drink, it’s how I roll, but I shall decline partaking myself because I am going to do this….although I have no idea why.
The funny part is that I am going to a Champagne Tuesday gathering this evening. I’ll be the one sipping the soda water. I figure this will be a good first test (while I’m still strong…ask me to try this later around day 25). And really, there’s a little anxiety floating around in my noggin. Not sure why. Kind of like a feeling that I am missing out on a limited offer.
Maybe I should deconstruct that one and figure it out…while I’m sitting around utterly sober in a gaggle of girls sipping the bubbly…27 days and counting…
Morbidity and Mortality, or M & M’s, is a practice where doctors discuss the events surrounding the death of a patient and how they may either prevent futures deaths of that nature or how to perform a better job in general when faced with such events. It sounds sick and twisted, but I get how it can be a useful practice. If we did a post-mortem on all our mistakes in life, we’d be the better for it.
So I’m managing a contract on behalf the school. Lot’s of undergrads, young students, kids really, some of them girls. Thankfully, I have a pretty even-keeled bunch. My cohorts, however, have a much different group of students. And that is where the problem lies. I’m 36, I have years of experience managing companies and people, my fellow managers are 23 without such experience.
There is a young girl, recently turned 21, who is on another team and is going through some “stuff”. My fellow managers have not yet noticed only to say that she is behind on work and may need replacing. They don’t know what to say, what to do, and they are going to turn it over to school faculty to deal with. Clearly, this is something I don’t need to be involving myself with. I am busy with school, busy with life, and no time to be dealing with the turmoils of a 21 year old girl.
But said 21 year old girl is in a class with me and when she got out of her seat the other day, we happened to lock eyes and then I saw it: she’s ready to break. And by break, I mean, utterly ready to lose her shit…mind…shit, whatever…
So I invited her out for a drink, forced her really. I heard her story: break up with her first serious boyfriend, ending an unhealthy friendship, moving out on her own, a sick parent…basically everything that throws you into a tail-spin. She tried to justify it by saying she was just stressed. I told her it was deeper than that and that she was a mess. She admitted she was and began to cry.
I don’t have time for crying. I don’t have time for this girl’s problems. I’m so swamped with school and life at any given time that I can barely keep my head above water. I don’t have time for this girl and her tears.
But she got to me.
She did, she got to me. I know what it’s like to have your world fall down around your ears while trying to deny to yourself that your world isn’t falling down around your ears. I know what it’s like to be cut-off, to not have anyone to talk to. I know what it’s like to be so overwhelmed by the coming weeks that you can’t see your way through the next 24 hours. She got to me.
Mostly though, I know what it is like to be surrounded by women, older women, women with experience, who have been there…and frankly, these women, they could give a damn that you’re there now, in the trenches. They make you dig your own trench, even if that trench is being dug in the wrong direction. Because they are busy with their own lives, or they feel there is something to be learned by digging a trench alone, which truth be told, teaches you nothing. Digging a trench may make you stronger, endure more, but it doesn’t make you smarter, doesn’t prevent you from making the same mistakes that required the trench digging in the first place.
And while I hate those women, I also want to be them. I don’t have time for this. This 21 year old girl and her problems. My own problems are much bigger. But she got to me.
So I heard her out, she received a talking to, and then we made a plan. We planned how she was going to get through the next 24 hours. Then the next 48. Then the weekend. Come Sunday night, the planning starts anew.
She has my number with strict instructions to call if she needs to melt down. Another thing I don’t have time for and I fervently hope she keeps it together and doesn’t call. But if she does calls, I know I’m sucker enough to answer.
We’ll be meeting for coffee once a week until the end of term. Even if she thinks she’s better, I’ll be the judge and the meetings will stop when I say they stop. Another damn thing I don’t have time for.
By nature, I’m not a particularly good or even nice person. I try, but I usually fail. But Sailor is a nice person, the nicest I know, and I am surrounded by so many nice and good people I wonder why I can’t be the same. My instinct is to take care of myself, my needs, and be selfish with my time. Sure, the girl got to me, but the instinct to pull away remains the same. To not be a nice person. I’m willing to admit that this now, what I’m doing with this girl, is abnormal behavior.
But I’m in it now. I’m hoping for the best. I hope she can pull it around. I know she will because I will make her. I’ve gone out on a limb, now I expect acorns. I’m hoping my involvement remains minimal. I’m hoping this won’t be a massive time suck. I’m hoping there are no more tears.
Because while I want to be a better person, I don’t have the time for it.
So I’m the The Hague right now and it’s strange for me because it is not some place I would have actively sought to travel to if not for the fact I am on a school sponsored trip and, hence, on someone else’s dime.
Sure, The Hague has always seemed interesting, I’m not knocking that, but it has never been high on my list of places to visit.
But I’m here, ill prepared, exhausted and basically following someone else’s directive of where and when to go. This is a highly unusual travel situation for me and it should be fun to see how it all turns out.
Maybe while I am here I can also figure out why it is called THE Hague as opposed to A Hague or THAT Hague.
More to follow.
So finals are over and I’m sitting here a little numb. Crazy amounts of information is still pin-balling around inside my noggin. I’m now in a place where I find myself mentally performing the post-mortem of the term.
The strange thing for most adult students I know is that we all tend to go overboard in the amount of work we put towards school. And at the end of every term, we all promise ourselves not to be so crazy about things next time. Not to take it all so damn seriously.
Yeah, right. Even I don’t believe that one.
Regardless, the brain will calm down. Eventually. A healthy pour (or two) of Red Breast 12 year whiskey that fantastic human being gave me to celebrate the end of term will certainly rectify that situation. As will sleeping in, reading a trashy book that is NOT about Azerbaijan or anything relative to the Caucasus region, seeing some films at the dollar show, and waiting, patiently, for Sailor Man to come home next week.
The dog is getting a bath, the house is getting a good scrubbing, laundry will be done, and grocery shopping will commence. In a word, life will go back to relative normal.
And it all starts right now as I file all my papers from the term and sit and stare at the wall for awhile.
Hell, yeah.
So Sailor and I have been hitched for 5 years now. If you follow traditional gift giving standards, it’s our “Wood Anniversary”.
It’s a strange anniversary depiction because in our 8 years together, we’ve lived in 7 homes, in 4 cities, over 4 states covering 2000 miles. It really ought be the “New Tire Anniversary” or the “Moving Box Anniversary” or the “Chiropractic Anniversary from all the Moving Boxes Anniversary”.
How or why Sailor stays married to me, Dog only knows. Maybe all the time we spend apart helps the endeavor, maybe he doesn’t realize yet how truly evil I am, or maybe he does and he is just a glutton for punishment. Either way, he’s made it pretty clear he plans on sticking things out, which means I am in a rush trying to think up an anniversary present.
Suggestions are encouraged and appreciated.
The pooch shot out the front door last night, when I forgot to close it fully, and promptly darted across the street to see if the young rapscallion pup was out to play.
I tiptoed into The Neighbors’ backyard to retrieve said pooch when I heard music. Poking my head up enough to peer into the window, I saw it.
My alien neighbor family was singing and laughing around the piano. Executive Polo was leading the singing with what looked like a damn smart cocktail in hand. Skort Mama was knitting-yes knitting- while listening to young Sally and Bobby play a duet while harmonizing with dear old dad.
I never would have believed it had not my other neighbor caught me sneaking out of their yard. I had barely begun trying to explain my voyuerism when she pointed to their window: “Yeah, strange, isn’t it?”
Sister, no truer words have been spoken…
Sailor and I have been in the crappy rental house for 9 months now and we have yet to hook up the TV. Mostly because we’re too busy to watch, anything we’re interested in is online anyway, and we generally find that there are much more interesting things to do with our time.
Like spy on the neighbors.
Actually, the neighbors in this hood kind of suck and aren’t at all interesting, but there’s a single exception and that is the family across the street. The house is enormous and beautiful and the landscaping is wild and gorgeous. I feel only mildly guilty that they have to look at such a crap-hole like our rental. The view from my porch being infinitely better.
But the residents of the abode is what gets me. They’re perfect. Husband, wife, two kids (boy and girl), replete with dog. They are charming. They are cheerful. They are kind. And they are the best neighbors ever.
I hate them immensely.
No. Retract. I don’t. I’m too utterly fascinated to hate them. Let’s start with the kids. Teenagers who please-thank you-and ma’am me to death. What’s not the love? The puppy (a Pitbull mix) aside from being cute as hell (is Hell cute? hmmmm), is terrifically well-behaved. The wife, aka Skort Mama (I’ve yet to see her in anything else), is long, lean, tanned, and sinewy, like she plays tennis all day long. Only she doesn’t. I never fail to see her gardening. All the time. She’s doing it as I type this.
Put the peice de resistance is the husband. I like to call him “Executive Polo”. The man is in possession of a bazillion different polo shirts. I know this to be true because I’m keeping a log. No joke. Day 59 and not a single repeat. Khakis too. Every day. Perfectly pressed. Utterly perfect.
It freaks me the hell out.
Executive Polo helps me haul groceries out of the car and up to my porch in a downpour. In 70 feet, I’m drenched. He only has a single drop of rain on the left lens of glasses. WTF?
Executive Polo and Skort Mama are weeding the garden (by my calculations it takes up the front yard and is about 1500 sf). It’s nearly 90 degrees out and they’ve been at it for hours. I walk across the street to drop off mail mistakenly delivered to my house and Executive Polo (yup, sporting khakis and the shirt), has not one drop of sweat, not the faintest stain of flush, and not a single damn speck dirt on his knees! In fact, his khakis are still retaining a crease! He looks like he could go straight out to dinner. And of course, Skort Mama smells like the flowers she’s been snipping for an arrangement for a sick friend.
What is dangerously close to being the final straw was last night, when talking to another neighbor whose dog strayed into my yard and who had clearly rolled in poo, Executive Polo arrives home. The dog breaks free, makes a beeline for EP and is circling him like crazy rubbing his filthy being all over the poor man’s legs.
And you guessed it. The shit didn’t stick.
I repeat: Shit does not stick to this man!!
Sailor thinks I’m nuts, but he’s been gone the entire summer. He has not seen what I have seen. And clearly I can not take it anymore. Either this family is dipped in Scotch Guard or the Stepfords are living across the street. I’m about two steps away from peering in their windows at night to confirm my suspicions that they don’t sleep but rather plug-in for recharging.
Seriously, if they weren’t so pretty, and nice, and so effing delightful, I’d have to find a way to eliminate them.
There’s only so much I can take.
I’ve seen this theory bouncing about on the Internet that for every old, white man in politics that dies, an equally powerful black man in entertainment dies as well. I’m trying to find the thread again, so if anyone comes across it, let me know and I’ll post it here.
The theory goes that these tandom deaths balance the universe. Such as when Ronald Reagan died (6/5/2004), Ray Charles passed away (6/10/2004). When James Brown passed on (12/25/2006), Gerald Ford kicked the bucket (12/26/2006). You get the picture…
So we’ve had a couple doozies the last few days: Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes. Too soon for the both of them, really. But this leaves me wondering: Which old, white man in US politics can we expect to kick it in the very near future? Sailor Man thinks the political death of John Edwards suffices, but he’s not old, so I’m not convinced. Possibly Ted Stevens, the evidence seems pretty stacked against him and he is 85…hmmmmm….
Maybe the horribly tragic death of Bernie Mac balances the lack of a counter-part when Jesse Helms passed on last month. And Isaac Hayes, damn, that’s just sad. I can’t imagine why this great entertainer had to go so soon. But who do you suppose his counter-balance is? Does the Helms/Mac-Edwards/Hayes cover it, or should we be waiting for the other shoe to drop?
Death Pool anyone?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sick and wrong, I’m horrible, I’m evil, yadda, yadda, yadda…learn to laugh, it makes life a lot more bearable…
I bit the bullet and went to see the Doc this week. The tops of my feet have sun poisoning from sailing, I’ve got a nagging splinter in my right heel from a drunken game of kickball played after a funeral, my left elbow is all weird after some guerilla-style soccer with the neighbor kids, the right side of my neck developed a twitch after a pick-up game of volleyball a few days ago, and I pulled a muscle in my back again after lifting.
The Doc clucks at me with his thick brogue while he manages to excavate the elusive splinter from my foot:
“What the hell are you doing to yourself?”
“I play hard.”
“You’re falling apart!”
“Because I play harder than most.”
“I’m going to prescribe you some X, Y, and Z.”
“But I don’t want X, Y, or Z, they make me feel more stupid than normal.”
“You like being in pain?”
“No.”
“Are you willing to go back to PT?”
“It only ever makes me feel worse.”
“Well, if you’re not going to take pain medication or do the physical therapy, then why don’t you stop all these shenanigans that put you in this state?”
“Well, what fun would that be?”
