Adult Children

I got a lot done today. I took the day off work because I’d already maxed out my hours for the week, so I was able to be productive and work on some school stuff, run errands, what have you.

I’ve been in this weird limbo place trying to decide if I should stay in L.A. or move somewhere else where I fit with the culture better. Here’s the way my friend put it, and I think it’s perfect.

“-people in New York and LA= smart, cultured, "aware" of things, open-minded, but usually self-centered asshole douches.

-the rest of the country= more concerned with football than what the hell is going on in the world. tricked into voting against their own self-interests, but usually NICE, GENUINE, HUMAN BEINGS who actually CARE about OTHER PEOPLE.

so, it is a dilemma for someone like me who has experienced the best and worst of both worlds.... and rather than become a part of either of them, I find it's easier to become an insane hermit who gets annoyed by (almost) everyone.”

At least someone else in this city “gets it.”

Today I had to call my old car insurance company and work out some kinks with checking accounts and all of that, because apparently some creep named Tyrone Johnson copied my debit card and blablabla, I don’t feel like getting into it because I have to go to the airport in a minute.

So I call ole’ Nationwide Insurance in the M-town and I am greeted by a very pleasant receptionist with a drawl so thick that I felt like I was swimming in it. She called me Miss Haley. I love that.

I told her, “You know, it is so good to hear a Southern accent, and it’s so nice to be called Miss Haley and ma’am- I moved to L.A. where people have no accent and no manners, and talking to you feels like I’m at home.”

Creepy.

I am creepy.

She said thanks and we went on about our business. I word-vomited a confession of homesickness all over the car insurance lady.

I stood in line at the post office today next to a really tall, white haired man who could have been in his 50’s, but apparently he thought he still had some game. I do dig older men and I do dig the 6’3”+ crowd, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Santa Claus’ manorexic stunt double wasn’t gonna cut it. Out of the blue he told me that he had one too many margaritas last night but later on today he was gonna bake it all off. Ug. I get really tired of baby boomers talking to me about smoking weed. L.A. is full of adult children.

Maybe I am on this kick because I just watched a video of myself giving a presentation to my classmates. I was dressed all fly in my suit and I didn’t even crack one joke- which is next to IMPOSSIBLE for me, because it’s much easier for me to be funny than for me to be professional. Anyway, today, as I watched this video, I had an epiphany about myself and realized that I am a suit-wearing woman going through a quarter life crisis, and somehow, this has made me really irritated with people who are 40 or 50 and talking to me about margaritas and herb.

What else. My cousin is coming to visit me tonight. I’m so excited. I baked him cookies. I try to avoid baking goods for men. I do not want to further marginalize myself as a woman. In fact, recently, a young man asked me to bake him a pie for his birthday, and I actually did it because I am somewhat of a nice person about 12% of the time, but somewhere along the line we never talked to each other again, so I brought it to work and my coworkers ate it. I WILL NEVER BAKE A STUPID MAN A PIE AGAIN! Unless it’s my dad. He doesn’t suck. But alas, I did make my cousin some cookies, and now my apartment smells like a storybook.

And now it is time to go to the LAX and pick him up. Ta-ta!

Today was a not-so-good day. I’d say the one thing in this world that can help a not-so-good day is a Reese’s McFlurry from Mickey Dee’s. After having a soul-searching morning at work, where I felt lost and dull and bored and frustrated for not having a “next step” in place for my life, I decided that in my tiny time frame between work and class, I could treat myself to a self-loathing Reese’s McFlurry.

Approach drive-through box.

(static)

“Welcome to McDonald’s. May I take yo awdah?”

R: Yes. I would like a Reese’s McFlurry.”

“We don’t have none.”

R: What?

“We don’t have none.”

R: WHAT?

“They was limited time only. That time is up.”

R: You just ruined my day.

(R drives away jaded)

True story. So I drove to class a little sad. I talked to my mom for a minute. For a while now, I’ve felt disconnected and distant, even though I’m a good faker and I participate fully – specifically in school. I imagine that scene in “Analyze This” where Billy Crystal goes postal on his patients and tells them exactly what he thinks, all to pan out to see him sitting there with his best counselor face on. Take this idea and apply it to class tonight.

I’m over it.

I’m over these mid 20’s students TEXTING during class. Are you effing kidding me? Act like a dang professional. We’re in grad school. We’re not in the seventh grade.

Pause.

I sit here watching an 80’s werewolf movie and regret a little bit that I wasn’t born sooner in life so that I could have fully enjoyed all of the ridiculous perks of the 1980’s. Awesome hair.

Commence.

A weird thing happened last night.

I was eating and watching a show about transgender teens. It occurred to me that I am an odd bird when I was shoveling down a bowl of “Boo Berry” cereal (my fave, which only comes out around Halloween time these days- LAME SAUCE) as I was watching Trisha transform to Ted and having her gynormous fatty breasticles surgically lopped off into a big bucket. These suckers were outrageous. Big yellow pockets of fat being sucked out and scraped off and dumped into a bucket. And all the while I’m gobbling down Boo Berries, never considering that this would make the average Joe puke.

I wish that I wanted medical school bad enough. I always wanted that. Just not bad enough. I wish the left side of my brain worked. I wish I had gone to business school. I hate being poor. Being poor sucks.

So as I’m eating Boo Berries and watching Trisha transform into Ted (alliteration!) I get a text message out of the blue from some guy I met at a bar. I only remember him (vaguely) because we took a picture that night. It was a group thing. This was months ago.

Life (and Big Rusty) has taught me that I will NOT date a boy that I met at a bar. Plus I’m sort of over that scene. Drunken brawls don’t appeal to me. Dating bar guys doesn’t appeal to me. I’m not sure where you actually meet good men in this city, but so far, the best route has been friends-of-friends. I actually dated a nice guy for a few months that way. We were better off friends. But that’s neither here nor there.

Let’s get back to bar-boy’s text.

The first few texts were casual and asking me how I was doing and how school is going and all of that. I was half paying attention. I was too into the second portion of the program where Landon became Elle and had gender reassignment surgery. Anyway, before you know it, bar-boy’s asking me to drive an hour away to his apartment so that we can “cuddle and watch movies.” Then he says, “And you can spend the night so you won’t have to drive home late by yourself on the 405.”

HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great! I’ll drive an hour ONE WAY (no traffic) to your crap neck-of-the-woods, and we’ll CUDDLE and WATCH movies. Because every heterosexual 20-something male wants to CUDDLE when you drive to his house at night by yourself at midnight.

Ug. I am so over it. The culture of L.A. men. Pathetic.

I said, “Sir, I politely decline. I am nobody’s professional booty call. Regards!”

Then there was a whole slew of “Rachel, I know you’re a good girl, I would never think that of you!” types of messages, to which I did not respond.

I don’t even really remember this guy. I have better relationships with people I’ve met on airplanes.

Anyway. Back to the culture of men in this city.

I keep thinking that maybe this isn’t a good fit for me. Now, getting married, having kids, all of that- it’s never been an expectation for me, but I do want all of that one day, I think, providing I’m with the right person. I just keep wondering if it’s statistically possible for me to meet the right person as long as I live here.

The thing is- I love L.A. I love my close friends (essentially all girls). I love the mountains and the ocean. I love Venice. I love the smell of the air by the beach. I love that I can wear whatever I want and nobody looks twice. I love that I can get lost in a crowd. I love that I can find people I know if I want to. I love that I can order avocado on everything. I love that you can’t smoke in restaurants or bars here. I love this city. I love that nobody looks the same. I love that this is the city of broken dreams. I don’t know why, regarding that part.

Anyway. So it’s like this. Most of the men out here are sleezes. The ones who really earn their keep by making an A during the romancing period (dates, thoughtfulness, random “thinking about you” messages, stuff like that) always fall flat. They wind up being crazy.

I shouldn’t keep harping in on this dating thing. I’ve got to save thoughts for my book. Plus I have been on two dates with a nice guy who doesn’t seem sleezy. Maybe herein lies my problem, though. No matter how many sleezes I meet, I never lose hope. I never think of myself as a romantic, but apparently I am. This paragraph makes me want to puke. Let’s move on.

So two good things happened today. I am having two visitors this month.

My sister is coming over the weekend, and I’m excited. We haven’t had one-on-one time in quite a while. Maybe the last time we did was when she and I sang karaoke at the NewsCorp Christmas party in NYC and blew Rupert Murdock away with our vocals. Anyway. I think it will be good. Something about being around family is healing. I miss my family a lot. I’d kill for a parent hug.

Next good thing. My cousin randomly said he’s coming in a few weekends. I am so excited. It’s weird, because he and I only just discovered each other a few years ago. I think that’s the best kind of family. The family you didn’t know you had, and all of a sudden you meet them, and you have this connection and this similarity, and you realize that you share the same blood and the same spirit. I am so excited. Plus, he hates everyone, so to come see me is a very big deal (He said this on the phone and I concurred).

I feel like there are so many things that I should be doing right now. I feel like I always have this lingering feeling, like I should be reading or writing or researching something (alliteration!). It’s a bad feeling. I hate it. It’d be nice to know that one day, when I wake up, nothing is due. But I think if I ever had that feeling, I’d hate it too, because I can’t just plant. I’m always moving forward. Blessing and curse.

What else, what else.

This blog is sort of negative. Maybe I should end it with a joke. Ok. Maybe this isn’t really a joke? It doesn’t matter. It’s funny.

Energizer Bunny arrested - charged with battery.

Attention, Target Shoppers.

I am supposed to be reading my therapy book, but I have a few different things I’d like to write about before delving back into “Evocative Empathy.”

Because I am on the verge of having full-fledge AD/HD, I shall create an outline to avoid further distraction:

1. I hate screaming effing children
2. I made a new buddy at Target

Numero One.

My friends know that there is nothing I hate more than a screaming kid. I might be the most restless, tightly wound person that I know, which could add to my disdain for screaming children; but for whatever reason, I can’t handle it. I no longer shop at Target on Saturdays because I hate screaming kids so much. When I hear a kid screaming, I want to run over to the family and punch the mom in the face. Let me explain.

It’s always like this. There’s some stupid screaming a-hole kid, and the mom is pushing the kid in the basket, trying to appease him by saying, “Now, now, little Johnny, don’t do that --- quiet down. Would you like some candy? Would you like a toy?”

Really?

Explain to me why it makes sense to reward a kid for horrendous behavior.

Here, kid. Scream your butt off in public for no apparent reason, and I will give you a gift for ruing everyone’s day and damaging their eardrums.

I can’t handle it.

I think I may have some sort of hearing issue, anyway, because there’s a certain pitch in some people’s voices that makes me want to pull all of my hair out. I also can’t deal with loud talkers. My heart starts beating really fast and I get that crazy werewolf look in my eye like I will freaking beat you to death if you keep up that pitch.

I sleep with earplugs in every night. EVERY night.
I also have to wear earplugs when I take tests because I can’t handle the sound of scribbling pens and flipping papers. I can’t handle it. I CAN’T HANDLE IT, I TELL YOU!

Now, if I know I’m going to be going somewhere with even the REMOTE possibility of a screaming kid, I bring my Ipod, I plant those earbuds deep in my ears, and I crank up Otis Redding or Elvis at maximum volume.

I find myself at the grocery store picking out frozen pizza, watching a screaming kids’ mouth flailing open like a demon possessed bird, and as “Sittin on the Dock of the Bay” is blaring in my brain, I don’t seem to feel near as rattled. I almost feel like I know this wonderful, sneaky secret for calming my nerves, which doesn’t involve mind-altering substances. Go team!

Now, on to point number two. My new buddy at Target.

A few weeks ago, I was jamming out to “Suspicious Minds,” blocking out the screamers, and pondering which deodorant to buy. I was standing next to a lady who was sniffing every single brand. Secret. Sniff, sniff, sniff. Degree. Sniff, sniff, sniff. She sniffed every flavor of every deodorant [yes, I call them flavors].

Then she says to me, “One of them smelled like bug spray last time.”

I pulled out an earbud, let it drop, and “we can’t build our dreams with suspicious miiiiiinds” faintly echoed on my chest.

“What?” I asked.

“Last time, I bought one, and it smelled like bug spray. I don’t want to buy that one again.”

This was weird. I was sniffing deodorant, too, so why did she feel like she had to justify the fact that she was a deo-sniffer?

Mind you, it has never occurred to me that this is an odd behavior. If I’m going to buy something, I want to know what I am purchasing. So if it’s deodorant that needs to be sniffed, by golly, I will sniff it.

I found it weird that for some reason, she felt like she had to justify to me WHY she was sniffing deodorant. I wonder if I gave her my “judger” face.

I said, “Well, the clear solution here is to avoid buying the one that says ‘bug spray scented’ on it.”

She sort of half laughed and we continued sniffing deodorants.

Isn’t it weird how people do these things? I spend approximately 80% of my travel time dancing and/or singing at the top of my lungs in my car. I also “sing” the various orchestral parts of songs. It never occurs to me that other people could be watching and thinking I look ridiculous. I think if this thought ever DOES occur to me, I will not care.

I had like 30 other things I was going to write about in this blog, but I started it a few weeks ago, and I want to move on to my Baton Rouge blog, so I will go ahead and post this one and the BTR one shall follow. Thank you- that is all.

Southbay Sucks

I’ve spent the majority of my morning making “pros” and “cons” lists for my future. I think I get this from PawPaw Haley. He makes lists for everything and puts labels on everything. I’m like that, too. I feel like a lot of times I have cotton candy for brains and I can’t sort out the clear picture. List-making helps me to gain clarity and helps me to stay productive. If I have a list, I can check things off of it, and because I gain such incredible satisfaction from checking things off of my list, I’m almost guaranteed to get something done just so I can make that triumphant little line through whatever it is I set out to accomplish.

This could make me the most pathetic person in the world… or perhaps I’m awesome because of this.

I’d like to talk about the past couple of days that I have had that have not involved list making or planning or accomplishing. They’ve been great.

I was talking to my long-time friend from back home a couple of days ago, and he asked me if I could ever just “live in the moment.” I didn’t even have to think about it. I said “No,” emphatically, as if those who live in the moment are complete imbeciles. Something about him asking me that, though, made me challenge myself to just enjoy the moment for a day or two, so I did.

On Saturday, my friend came over and we drove down to the Hermosa Festival to check out all of the crafts fair type of crap people were selling. It was sort of an interesting experience, because many of the folks down there were very “south bay.” I used to dig the south bay a lot because there were so many young people there, but after experiencing 2009, the year from hell, my perceptions have changed.

I feel like when I first moved to L.A. a year ago, I was more naïve. I had come here enamored with all L.A. had to offer and I was so in love with the eccentricity of it all that I did not even see the douche baggery that some areas of town reflected. After dealing with a lot of superficial a-holes out here, though, I’ve lost a lot of the dewy eyed romanticism about this city.

I am still passionately in love with L.A. Living here has been the closest thing to feeling ‘in love’ that I’ve ever experienced, but let me tell you, there are certain areas of town with a certain type of inhabitant that I can no longer deal with.

As my friend and I walked around through the little tents of wooden sculptures and sunglasses, I couldn’t help but notice this “south bay” type of person EVERYWHERE. All of the guys walking around shirtless and statuesque, wearing board shorts and Ed Hardy hats with flat bills and Rainbow flip flops and douchey Ray Bans. Women with their expensive weaved hair and bikinis and cute little dogs in strollers talking about completely empty pointless stupid crap. I thought I was going to lose my mind. All of a sudden, I realized that I was stuck in sororityville. The south bay is like one big Greek “brotherhood.” Everybody says “Brah” and all of that, and people have a chip on their shoulder like they’re sportier and cooler than everyone else. I couldn’t deal with it. We left after 20 minutes and got sushi.

After enjoying our sushi, I told my buddy that I was done with the Pi Kappy whatever whatevers and I had to get out of there before I went bat sheet postal, and we drove down to Venice. Approaching all of those crazy folk made me feel normal again.

It’s weird, because I fit that ding-dong stereotype. I have the bleached hair and the accessories and all of that nonsense… But the thing is, I enjoy being flashy because it’s fun, not because I am trying to fake everyone else out about my level of “coolness.” I feel pretty post modern most of the time, because I don’t fit in with the Greek hoes, I don’t fit in with the ultra conservatives or the ultra liberals, I’m definitely no hippie (I drive an SUV and leave the lights on), and I’m a closet shy person. I am not sure how I would categorize myself. But back to the topic at hand - I just know that I’d pick the homeless crazies in Venice over the douches in board shorts in Hermosa any day of the week.

We drove down Vista del Mar with reggae cranked up and the windows down and my hair was flying all over the place. It felt nice to feel the sun on my face. It felt even better to smell the beach. It felt great to smile.

We walked around Venice and saw all of the fantastic weirdness that Venice has to offer. People played guitars and made art and just walked around and didn’t care if others were looking at them or not. They just were. It could be the LSD or what have you, but at least they weren’t calling everybody “brah.”

We saw a crazy man promoting the “Venice Freak Show,” walking around with a two headed turtle. This is the first two-headed turtle I’ve seen. I felt sort of bad for him. He was cute in his own un-categorizable, ugly duckling-esque way. I know what it’s like to feel like I have no place. I am a two-headed turtle. Now is no time for lamenting, though. Let us proceed.

I’ve heard the Venice drum circle on countless occasions, but I’ve always been on some sort of Type A, list-making mission, and I’ve never walked out onto the sand to observe these guys beat their drums. Plus, I’ve always been a little bit scared to hang out with the drummers, because I look like I just walked out of white people Barbie ville and I didn’t want the hippies to judge me for looking plastic. I was feeling rather artsy that day, so I bought a JT/Sinatra straw hat and wore it on my head like my crown of glory. I was empowered. My friend and I made the venture close to the ocean. We sat down on the sand and listened to the drummers beat on their bongos, their snares- whatever they had that could take sound. There was even a crazy hippie wee man beating the heck out of a cowbell.

This wasn’t the cool part.

I could feel the percussion in my chest. All of a sudden, I sort of felt transported to a different time in my life, where I actively made music. I remembered the music. I missed playing with the Memphis Youth Symphony in Europe and I missed singing with the candy makers in New Orleans when I was on choir tour in the 8th grade. It made me miss singing with my sisters and cousins at our great grandma’s funeral and it made me miss being one of the only white people singing at “Minorities in Motion” in high school. I missed it. I missed being a part of the music. I closed my eyes and listened to these people making music together and I thought about being in Africa when I was a kid- and that’s all I could think about- people being together, making music- and it didn’t matter if it was perfect or coordinated or cookie cutter—it mattered that they were doing it together. When I opened my eyes I saw this beautiful young woman in the middle of the drum circle. She was thin and wearing a short skirt and a thin t-shirt and she had a huge picked afro and she began dancing with her arms in the air. Something about seeing the sun in her hair and all around her made her look like she was glowing. I thought about that quote by St. Iraneus,

“The Glory of God is man fully alive.”

That’s what it’s about. Being fully alive.

I spent three days in a row like that. Not having a schedule or a list or planning ahead- just focusing on the here and now and being fully aware and fully alive.

It felt good. It felt foreign.

The next day, I went back to Hermosa with Fisty, and we bought some cool stuff. Then we got a free pint of ice cream from Baskin Robbins. We drove down to the beach and lay on the sand and ate the crap out of that Jamoca Almond Fudge. It was wonderful.

After a while, we went back to my house. We went to church downtown that night and then stopped at this Mexican restaurant by my apartment that I love.

We ate nachos and some mariachis came right near our table like bats out of hell and started playing their horns at MAXIMUM VOLUME. We started to come unglued. I haven’t laughed like that in forever. It felt great. I could feel the music again. It’s weird to think that I haven’t made any sort of music in years now. Something inside of me quit at some point. I just quit.

Anyway, at the end of our meal, our waiter came out and brought us our bill, and in big cursive characters, it said, “50% OFF!” He said to us (in thick Spanish accent), “I give you 50% off because you are the two most beautiful women in this restaurant. I would give you more- you deserve free-but this is all I can do.”

What?

WHAT?

When you’ve had the worst summer of your life and you’re about to abandon all hope for the human race, somebody makes you feel good about yourself and does something kind for no reason at all. That, my friends, is restoration.

I lied.

I’m blogging again. My hiatus only lasted about five seconds. The advice of a wise writer kept me from blogging so that I could fully divulge my inner thoughts in a journal. The problem with this is that I don’t write in my journal a whole lot because it makes my hand feel like a gimpy claw. I could solve this gimpy hand problem by typing my entries, but I’m too paranoid to journal in a Word document. I’m scared some creeper is going to come busting into my apartment in the middle of the night, molest me, steal all of my peanut butter, take my sole copy of “PeeWee’s Big Adventure,” and run out of my front door with my computer. Then he’ll go back to his crappy Inglehood abode, eat my peanut butter out of the jar while wearing his whitey tighties, pull up my Word journals, throw his head back, and laugh his head off at my agony. Please note that he is wearing a Zoro mask. He has fat fingers, is balding, and sits at his kitchen table under one single light bulb hanging from a fraying wire.

Ug. What an a-hole.

Moving right along. If I blog, I can be just revealing enough to vent, but mindful that other people may read my material, which keeps me from being too personal. Ug. My mind always does this. It never shuts off. Thank you for melatonin. Otherwise, I’d be back in my insomniac abyss of thoughts trampling around in my brain like a heard of elephants.

I have had a weird summer.

It started out with the summer school I class from hell. I don’t know what the deal is. I took summer school every summer during college because I couldn’t wait to get the CRAP out of undergrad. I never saw myself going to grad school. EVER. I despised school. It seemed like one big butt kissing contest with no real point. But alas, here I am. So. What was I talking about? Oh yes. Summer session I.

Summer school in graduate school is not at all like undergrad. It’s sort of like walking through a floor of coals barefoot, drinking fire and razor blades, juggling those medieval balls that have spikes all over them, etc. Summer session = the hemorrhoids of graduate school.

First of all, I took a special ed class. Mistake number one. I guess it’s like when those guys who grow up working in their Uncle Vinny’s garage are somehow forced to go to trade tech school to learn to be a mechanic, and these kids were dippin’ carbs when they were 4, so they feel completely frustrated because they could teach the dang class.

It isn’t my style to be critical of faculty who are only about 2 years older than me and who clearly have no effin idea what they are talking about and who have never taught in their lives, so I won’t.

However, I will be happy to share that I have been exposed to the special ed genre MY ENTIRE LIFE and do not need a counseling class to educate me on things that are already etched into my DNA. Not that I’m special ed. But I know a thing or two.

Let me recap for you one of the worst days of my life this past year. It was June 10, 2009. This already sounds like the beginning of Dragnet. Great show, bee tee dubbleyou.

Here is what I wrote to my friend that day:

“Today was the worst day of my life. So I go to work and all day I’m thinking, "am I ready for this presentation?" I have exactly ONE HOUR to get to school and make the presentation of my lifetime and I’m the last one to leave the office at 6 and I get to my car and it is DEAD. As a DOORNAIL.

So I call my coworker because she and I left within 5 minutes of each other and she drives up to my car and I ask her if she has any jumper cables. So she hands me some flairs. And I say, "No, those are flairs. Do you have any JUMPER CABLES? You know, they look like CABLES?" and she finally finds some. So at this point this sweet little old Asian man is walking down the street, and I say to him, "HEY! Can you jump off my car?"

So he says yes. But somehow we have to maneuver our cars to where they are 69ing on this ridiculously busy street because both of their batteries were on the left or something. So I’m standing in the middle of 6th, directing traffic in business casual, like a complete idiot, and the guy gets in my car and jumps it off for like 3 seconds and then it dies again. Then the man says, "Your generator is broken." and I said, "Sir. Generators are used during hurricanes. I don't think that cars have generators." he says, "yes, your generator is broken."

Insert nervous breakdown.

So I tell my coworker to just go ahead and go home b/c she needed to be with her kid and I tell the Asian man thanks for diagnosing my "broken generator" and I call triple A.

So in the meantime I am sitting in my car, sweating profusely, uncomfortable as crap because I HATE BUSINESS CASUAL, having the blood sugar drop of a lifetime, and thinking, "I am a rock star. No dad. No boyfriend. No husband. No knowledge of auto mechanics. Broken car. Presentation in 20 minutes. Go me."

So the triple A man shows up in his tow truck. His name was Francesco. We have a nice little drive back to my neck of the woods and talk about his daughter, whose picture was proudly displayed on the dashboard, right under a sparkling, dangling rosary. His daughter was in the second grade but looked like she was about 28 and 213 lbs. with pigtails. We talk about the dodgers, we talk about traffic. Nice guy, that Francesco. He drives me to the service station, which is closed, but the gas station part is open, so I write a note to the service station people and say HELP! FIX MY CAR!!! and I left my keys with the gas station man, hoping that somehow he wouldn’t hotwire it and leave me royally screwed.

So then I ask the tow truck man to drop me off at my class, which he technically was not allowed to do. But I told him how beautiful his daughter was and he took a liking to me.

He pulls up in front of my building and I’m hauling ass to my classroom, 45 minutes late, haven't eaten, looking like un-showered, 7 a.m. busted CRAP, and I sit down in my class, with my entire body perspiring and my hair feeling like it’s on fire.

We give the presentation, and the entire time I’m shaking and sick because I haven’t eaten since breakfast and I feel like I smell like summer camp, and all of my colleagues have time management issues and take way too long presenting, so by the time I covered my section, there were only 5 minutes left, and I sped through everything like a completely incoherent, AD/HD bat out of hell, and I wrapped up with my saying, "Today was the WORST. DAY. OF. MY. LIFE."

And so introduces the beginning of my summer. I’m sure that I could go on and on about other things that happened.

For instance, I dated my first genuinely crazy person.

Now, I’ve dated some crazy folk. Those with some moderate emotional issues, those with daddy issues, those who were abused kids and grew up to be damaged, those with alcoholic parents and addictions to this and that and what have you. But never have I dated someone who should clearly be put in the loony bin.

This is the thing that’s weird about L.A. People are fantastic at faking sanity. They are charming and glamorous. They’re good looking and volunteer at nonprofit organizations. They pay their bills on time and have well manicured lawns. They have gym memberships and “go green” and recycle. They’re registered voters. And they’re crazy as hell.

They can only appear to be normal for so long. Then you find out that they are BAT SHEET CRAZEE.

I’ve dated a couple of typical L.A. duds, but I’ve dated some nice folk, too. I have tried to keep it light because I’m in school and I work and I don’t have a lot of time to commit to anything or anyone else, but I gave it a shot for a little bit this summer, and I’m telling you, I need to invest in an AK47 and I should probably buy a Rottweiler now. I’d write more about this, but I just don’t have the energy to open this can of worms, and I’d prefer to keep all of the gory details on layaway for the book I’m writing.

What else, what else.

Oh yes. I saw Kiefer Sutherland, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Diane Keaton all within a one week span recently. It was weird. This is what I love about L.A. Even thought there are tons of insane people who need serious interventions and I will probably never date anyone ever again because this last guy was such a sociopathic nut job; L.A. is cool, because there’s something very tinsely that’s still here in Tinsel Town, even though everything has been outsourced and imported and exported and the business is in the toilet. You see these “celebs” in your home on Friday night on TNT or when you’re at Kroger in the checkout and they’re on the cover of “People” or when you’re at the movie theater, but when you live in LA, you also see them parked at a red light next to you on Fairfax or you see Diane Keaton walking around the food court at the mall. They’re just plain old people who are a part of your community. I love that. I am not sure why, but it makes me feel very American, and I like that feeling.

I’m going to go to bed now. I’m glad I’m writing again. I think it’s good for my mental health. Until next time, friends.

I retired

I quit blogging a few months ago, in case you haven't noticed. It isn't that I lost interest or quit writing, I just decided to take a hiatus until I figure my life out. I am also a little scared that I'll never become licensed if I keep this monkey business up. Maybe I'll blog again one day, but as for now, Seacrest out.

Random Acts of Kindness

Before I begin this blog about the things in life that I appreciate, I would like to begin by word-vomiting as usual. Engage.

Tonight I became increasingly irritated in class as people spoke about nothing (no surprise), everyone wasted my time by adding their two cents worth about irrelevant issues/topics, and my heart was pounding so loudly that I could hear it in my ears. I couldn't figure out if this was because I was having a blood sugar drop or because I was really mad. My stomach was growling so loudly that I was scared all of my classmates thought that I stashed a baby lion into my purse. I have decided that I do not connect with most "educators." This is because they are pompous and stupid and find their identity in ideas which only work in theory and not practice. This irritates me. It's like people who are single who complain about it and do nothing to find a spouse, or fat people who talk about losing weight but do nothing to be skinny, or people complaining about not having this or that but not doing anything to get there. I often get irritated with people who do not deal in reality. Anyway, in addition to being unrealistic, people in education throw around the word "educator" a lot. Drives me freaking nuts. Sometimes I really miss my program in Memphis, because I was learning to be a mental health professional instead of an educator. I have no idea what I am doing in my program right now. I feel like I'm learning how to implement school policy instead of diagnose bipolar disorder. I just have to be mindful that this is only a bridge to the long-term goal; this is not permanente, no sirree.

Anyway, with all of my stress-management deficits have come a lot of weird behaviors. Most of my friends will tell you that I am a bit anal retentive. I always lock doors, I always wear a seat belt, I'm always 5 minutes early, I have never done drugs, I check my door knobs over and over, I use a lot of Purelle, bla bla. In essence, I am obsessive compulsive. So I have left my door to my apartment unlocked twice, which is completely unlike me; I left my flat iron on today for 13 hours, which I have never done, and I keep losing my thoughts mid-sentence. I am losing my ever loving mind.

Ok, so now I will progress.

I recognize that I spend a lot of time being negative in my blogs, and I do this because it is my way of venting. It's sort of like letting all of that nasty crap from your cereal bowls and casserole dishes clog up your sink, and then your apartment starts smelling like feet, and you think to yourself, "Why the crap does my apartment smell like mank and a boys' locker room?" and then you see all of the murky water in your sink and you think, "Silly me, I have forgotten to engage in the routine maintenance of turning my garbage disposal on." And then you flip the switch. And then your apartment no longer smells like mank.

I use this illustration as the reason that most of my blogs sound angry. I blog to vent; because if I didn't, my life would smell like mank. So, in general, I wouldn't consider myself a brooding person, but I do like to blog in order to keep up my routine emotional maintenance checks.

Moving onward. I went out to Venice with my college friends the other night, John and Casey. John is now a New York broker and Casey is livin' the dream out here with me in L.A. So John made a comment about how I seem angrier now than I did in college. He also commented on how I used to have pink hair and how I used to never go out and I'd stay in my room studying all the time, which was an absolutely accurate assessment of me while I was at LSU. Then I started thinking about this anger thing. I used to carry all of my own burdens around in the pit of my stomach; which led me to substantial anxiety and physiological problems, so now I feel better about expressing exactly what I'm going through. The problem with this is that this makes a lot of people uncomfortable. The second problem with this is that I don't really care if they become uncomfortable or not. Clearly a J, not a P. Also, over the past several days, people have told me that:

a) I have no feelings.
b) I am a bad girlfriend (a bystander told me this).
c) _____________(insert offensive comment here that leaves me feeling a bit sad with a twist of apathy)

This still has left me with a head full of thoughts swirling around; therefore, I have decided to take a different shift in this entry.

I would like to focus on my life over the past two weeks. My entry will capitalize on random acts of kindness. This gives you, my dear audience/readers, some insight into my more observant and calm side, not the one raging with estrogen, swinging a sword, ready to chop someone's head off.

And here we go.

I was feeling really screwy after Easter. I don't want to emphasize the details here, because it would negate the point of my "random acts of kindness" speech, but I feel like my first demonstration will not be as effective if I don't give some background. After Easter, I felt sad, and empty, and tired, and I couldn't really pinpoint why. I have a tendency to blame things on lack of sleep, or hormones, or some other variable, and it's hard for me to sit down, be introspective, and really understand the whys, because I am sometimes scared that if I do this, I will get sucked back into the terribly low self-esteem black hole that used to dominate me so much. But at some point, I sent my dear friend Rinzee (in Memphis) an email that expressed how I was feeling, and I woke up to a beautiful email from her on Sunday morning. I drank my coffee and cried. It felt good to know that someone knew my heart and my pain and conflict and loved me through it anyway. I am convinced that there are only two or three people like this in a lifetime.

A lot of times, I feel like people will hang in there with me as long as I'm fun or entertaining or being funny, but as soon as I start falling apart, they're outta there like the prodigal son's posse. Rinzee is one of those thick-and-thin friends; and she never offers unsolicited advice. She only offers unconditional love. Not many people are like that. Her email started my week off with me feeling valued and validated.

On Sunday night, Kris drove me South for forever, and I felt like he was taking me into the woods to slit my throat (I say this in jest, right?), but we drove for a long while until we got to this incredible place in Palos Verdes. There was this lookout over the ocean where we stood and watched the sun set. There was a lighthouse in the distance on the left and Malibu was clear and vague on the right. The sky was lit up with oranges and purples and vibrant warmth and we watched it creep down below the ocean. It was incredible. I don't think I've taken the time to really focus on the calm and captivating essence of a sunset in several years; maybe not since the last time I was in Hawaii, which was when I was about 18. It's been so long since I've calmed down and really been in that moment. I'm always pushing so far ahead that I constantly miss the present. At that point in time, I felt peaceful and whole and complete, and for a few minutes, I fully encompassed myself in the "here and now." Fritz Perls, much?

On Tuesday, my boss and I drove up to Santa Barbara for work. She bought my lunch and we sat outside and enjoyed the warmth. She asked me to drive her BMW back to LA, which honestly terrified the crap out of me, but I did it anyway. Then I thought about how trusting it was of her to let me drive her wicked expensive car. Then I thought back on the past few bosses I had, and how they let me drive their cars. I remember leaving during lunch at my teaching job a few years ago and how my principal let me drive her bright red 1970's corvette stingray. I kept thinking about those guys in "Feris Beuller's Day Off," but I didn't take the same liberties. Anyway, even though I was scared to drive her car, I did it, and I thought that it was incredibly kind and trusting of her to let me do so. That same day, after work, I ran a few errands with her, and she bought some coffee. Apparently you get a free cup of Joe at Peet's just like you do at Starbucks, so she gave me the free cup. I thought that was really kind. Then we drove around Rodeo Drive just for kicks. In that same day, my boss gave $20 to a woman who was clearly of low-socioeconomic status, to put it politically correctly (please, like i care about political correctness.). The point is, I saw a lot of things that my boss did which were really kind and thoughtful, and it made me appreciate her.

On Wednesday, a bouquet of fresh cut roses were in my office. My coworker brought the office roses from her back yard and put them on everyone's desks in vases. They brightened up our entire workspace. My first really significant boyfriend used to send me flowers every time we fought. This made me equate flowers with a crappy way to make amends. I guess this is sort of like Pavlov's dogs slobbering when they heard the bell. Someone would give me flowers, and I'd associate them with fighting. Same thing. Unless I got flowers from my dad or if I had surgery or something- that'd be different. So anyway, the flowers thing sort of irritated me until I got these out of the blue, for no reason at all, other than someone was being kind. She grows them in her yard. She didn't go out and spend money or do anything fancy; she was simply thoughtful, and those flowers made my day.

On Thursday, I was still feeling a little lost. Sometimes I feel like I'm having some sort of alien abduction experience, like I'm lost and confused and have no idea what I am doing in this life. I think a lot of people feel like this. Well, on Thursday night, I got a little package in the mail from Rinzee. She made me a CD. These were some of the best songs I've heard in a long time. I cried again. I just had this epiphany as I was typing. I started thinking about that scene in "Fried Green Tomatoes" at the very end.

YOU REMINDED ME...

ABOUT WHAT THE MOST
IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE IS.

DO YOU KNOW
WHAT I THINK IT IS ?
NO, MA'AM.

FRIENDS...
BEST FRIENDS.

I don't totally agree with this statement, but there's something about feeling valued and loved and unique that drives us to be better people. Getting a CD full of songs that say "You matter to me," makes me want to be a better person. Man, I have the best friends anyone could ever ask for.

In fact, that leads me to Friday. I was walking into work when my dear friend Ryan from Memphis called me out of the blue. I haven't talked to him since my grandfather died. It meant a lot to me that he called for no reason.

Today I got a letter in the mail from my dad. He wrote me a thank you note for Easter. It made me get a little misty-eyed. He is the most faithful person ever when it comes to sending me mail. He also writes ridiculous notes in Haley-code that only he and I would get- or maybe my sisters would pick up on a phrase here and there. Isn't there something hilarious and terrific about inside jokes? I don't care if they are exclusive. I love them.

This concludes my recognition of people being kind. I'd so much rather someone be thoughtful for no reason than for someone to try to woo me to impress me with a bunch of nonsense. I am really blessed (insert cheesy "aaaawwwww" here).