The change of background is completely misleading, because here in the states it's as cold as a witch's tit! Oh, sure, some people who live in CONUS call it "mild" or even "light jacket weather." Yeah, riiiight. I think not. Those of us who live in perpetual summer know differently. I can feel the sub-arctic temps cutting though my clothes like I'm up on the northern tundra. I mean, okay, I do get to wear winter clothes (bonus!), but even fashion cannot totally make up for the inhospitable temps. To make everything worse, I'm having tons of trouble getting everything on my list. A shopper's work is never done. Still, big sigh, Christmas and the holidays have been great. Wii and Guitar Hero III great, that's right!
But, yes, about the vacation. I adore staying up until three AM and then getting up late to do really fun things all day. I love getting to hang with the fam (even though the togetherness can get a leetle cloying at times). Blah, blah, blah - you know me, I consider myself lucky to have my family. I could go on in a sickly sweet manner, but I'll skip on ahead for you people who are prone to cavities. More importantly - I WANT TO GO OUT. wah. Maybe I'm just too old to be with the folks this much, or to live under their roof, but I'm definitely itching for some non-family friendly fun. It's not even the adult beverage part, either. I just fuckin' want to swear and say terrible things and yes, get a little shitty, and play cards all night and...and, god, I can't wait to get to DC. I think I'm becoming too independent for my own good. Can one be too independent? I think no work means that I have time to think entirely too much.
Tomorrow I prepare for the all out grudge match that will be waged between my body and I in our nation's capital this weekend. I have to look pretty to withstand that, after all.
Dudes - I have reached the depths of fashion despair. No joke. I have zed fashionable shoes that are suitable for winter. I mean, for god's sake; I wore new ballet flats for a trip from Hawaii to Alabama. It was just because the toes are closed, and so help me, because they are super cute. I wore them in public the other day with a sock - a SOCK with ballet flats - because I am so vain, and so unprepared. Aside: It's kind of okay, though, my jeans were covering all traces of the sock, but I still knew. I was the one to feel the stain of it on my soul.
Still, this leaves me with something of a dilemma (the no shoes thing, not the fact that they're adorable beyond all belief), because now I'm going to be heading to DC to hang with my very fashionable friend, K. Clearly the situation is going to deteriorate if the lack of shoes continues (see mention of shameful sock incident). My solution - GO SHOPPING!
It's almost always the right solution for anything.
Well, so far getting off the rock has been superb. What with R and I starting things off right by banging down shots of absinthe at the Majuro airport, how could it turn out any other way? And even though I only had a little time in Hawaii, I communed with my favorite mall to my heart's content. Ahh, shopping. But inevitably, with the good goes hand and hand with the bad. Alas, along with the delights of rampant commercialism come the chores that you have to do back here in civilization.
Most of it is trifling stuff, you know, stock up on deodorant, get some new pants, that kind of thing. Less trifling are the doctor's appointments. I always have to go to about a million different ones because, hey, any hospital that lets someone get gangrene, call me crazy - I don't trust 'em! Anyway, today's appointment was one of my least favorite of them all - the lady parts doctor. Otherwise known as some strange person that's going to be up close and personal with my special no-no place. Normally I need quite a few drinks before I let that happen.
Ordinarily this person would be a woman, because going to a male gynecologist is like going to a mechanic who doesn't own a car, right? That's my opinion, but my mother convinced me different this time. Her doctor is apparently soo good. Well, I'll admit the dude was personable, until he got down to the nitty gritty of the examination. I won't get too graphic, don't worry, but I'll for sure be going to a woman next time and every time after that. This MAN sat down, and with little to no warning shoved cold metal right up in there. I mean, he stuck that speculum in like a drunken frat boy going for the glory. Uncomfortable, to say the least. I felt like reaching over, grabbing him by the balls and yanking hard without warning. How's that feel, buddy? You might feel a slight pinch!! Luckily for him (and his balls) I have better restraint than that. I won't even cover anything else - I have the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. Buuuuhhhuh.
Maybe Kwaj life isn't too bad - at least I don't have to let strangers grope my crotch - unless it's for fun.
This weekend was completely fabulous in the way that the best weekends on Kwaj can be. It started out with a birthday party at the ARC and degenerated merrily from there.
You know that when one of the hosts of a party asks you to make six trays of jello shots that the night is all set to be an exercise in drunken debauchery. Proving that I am always right, it was exactly that. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be back in college, hey, just play some drinking games. They will show you that not only are you most assuredly not able to handle the amount of drinking that is required, but that you are not the same person that you were in college. This is especially evident the next morning. I think that it wasn't so much the flip cup that did me in as the speed quarters.
I was doing really well, hearing that !plink! sound with gratifying regularity, until about halfway through the game I couldn't sink a quarter into the cup to save my life. Or my sobriety. I think that part of the problem was the fact that drinking doesn't help your accuracy, duh, but mostly it was my frantic panic that really stopped me from hitting the mark. I was trying to bounce the quarters in faster and faster, which, not surprisingly, doesn't work that well. It didn't help that everyone was simultaneously shrieking in my ear, "Get it! Get it! GET ONE IN!!!!!" J was the only one trying to actually help, telling my quietly, "Just take your time - make a good shot. You can do it, just take your time!" I think everyone else was just amusing themselves at my expense. They certainly seemed gleeful enough when I lost repeatedly and had to drink and take a jello shot. Yeeeaaaahh, didn't make it too late that night. I also had the dubious honor of tossing my cookies at the Vet's Hall. Not realizing that it was pretty obvious what had happened, when asked if I had just yarked, I denied it and blamed the innocent and unknowing LE, who had had the misfortune to be the one come out of the bathroom with me. Smooth, real smooth.
Sunday night was a lot more quiet, but no less fun. It was the night of the annual locals' Christmas party at Emon. I was really glad to go with SM and Lando since this was the first time that I would actually be celebrating the holiday now that the season is upon us. Skipping the faux Christmas tree lighting has really screwed me up; I don't think I've fully realized that, yes, December 25th and vacation are right around the corner. Anyways, the party was really nice, very family oriented. Any time I get to rock the LA to sleep, it is a good night. Hey, let's face it - after Saturday I needed a break. Plus, it's really nice to see how friends have formed a Kwaj family, especially at this time of year. Still, since I am the person that I am, I couldn't leave it with a relaxing beach party. No, after hanging out with SM until she couldn't keep her eyes open any more, I headed out to the Vet's Hall for some fun that was not so family friendly.
There were only a couple of people there when I arrived, but it was the usual crowd, and with Diggety there, well, it seemed loud enough to hold twice as many people. With a round of Ship, Captain, Crew things were off to a rollicking start. Of course, compared to me, most of the people in the bar were quite a bit more rollicking than I was. One dude actually went so far as to wring a bar rag soaked with beer (and god knows what else) right into his mouth. I was screaming and covering my eyes, but everyone else was hooting and hollering and snapping pics. I guess I was just too, shall we say, lucid, to really enjoy watching someone swallow down putrid leavings from various cleanups. The three ring circus of my imagination was busy furnishing vivid images of the creepie crawlies residing on that scrap of cloth instead of wondering whether it was a true Kodak moment. It makes me wonder how appropriate I am sometimes when I'm a lot more under the weather than I was at that moment. Of course, my shenanigans are doubtless all daring and funny rather than appallingly awful. Because I rock! Riiiight. After that, things quieted down with Diggety and I (having decided that I really, really needed the practice) idly plonking quarters into a cup and gossiping like blue haired septugenarians with nothing better to spend their time on. V showed up once her shift was over, and in between conversations about the definition of sluttishness, affirmations of friendship, and shots, we just had a really great time chating with everyone and helping the T-ster fuck with D. The next thing you know, it was four in the morning, and also time for me to pack it in for the night. I left the others singing at the top of their lungs about a honkey tonk bar and rode home under a starry summer sky.
Lately things have been wearing on me. All the little things about Kwaj that are hard to deal with seem to press down on you harder the instant you truly decide to leave. Then sometimes you have weekends like this and you remember why you live here, and what fun it can be. I don't regret my decision to move home to NJ; it's time. But there are also times when I can glimpse a shadow of the homesickness that I'm going to feel when it's zero degrees and rainy in NJ with months of winter ahead of me. It will be then that I truly realize that things like living on Kwaj only come around once in a lifetime. For now I am content to revel in the love of my friends here and my own love of the landscape. Home will be there when it's time for me to say goodbye to living in the tropics permanently.
More and more these days I find myself looking forward, to vacation, to April, to Jersey, to new Baby Crazy. I've been busy turning over a new leaf, you see, and moving (right before I move again, what fun!), and various other sundry nonsense that's been taking up my time. But turning over a new leaf isn't always pleasant, and so often I slip into daydreams about when this or when that. Then I remembered that I'm still living here, and that I shouldn't waste it - not a second's worth. So in that vein, here's a story that's gotten neglected in the whirlwind that is suddenly my life. Picture it...
A quiet Sunday evening, ripe for POKER!! I was so excited about the party, since, as we all know, I have a perfect poker face and am very stoic and secretive. Ha, yeah, right. I was actually doing really well that night, though. Winning pots and amassing a good many chips is more than I normally do, but apparently I am now lucky at cards and unlucky in love. Celibacy is unlucky, right? Anyways, like I said, I was making a pretty good showing for myself until JS managed to deke me out with a fifty dollar raise. As the cards played out I realized that I had had the winning hand!! Arg, that was so aggravating. In fact, it was quite aggravating enough to get into my head and send my newfound skill at cards tumbling into the realm of brief and extinct. I promptly managed to loose every fictional dollar I had won, and wasn't happy about it, either. Keep in mind, too, that while all of this was going on I was drinking steadily. That would not ordinarily pose a problem, with my Kwaj tolerance, but for two factors: one - I was not drinking beer, but vodka, and two - JF the smart ass was making my drinks. These drinks were strong enough to knock out a donkey, let alone one chubby gamester. Especially me. Vodka is not my friend, I must remember this.
So, here I am, sucking back vodka Red Bulls with the quickness, and mayhem followed the drink right up the straw and into my brain. It was a direct hit - BLADOW! Blackout. I guess that's misleading. It wasn't an instant blackout, but more a slow, gentle glide into the darkness. I remember playing with the girls, chasing them around and trying to give them kisses as the "Kissy Monster." I remember making L show me all her Barbies, vaguely. But then things start to fuzz out slowly, like a TV with bad reception. I don't know how I came to be back with the adults, but once I was it was all fun and hijinks. While SS was gone I grabbed her martini and quaffed it in one gulp. To add insult to injury, I then ate every single olive that was in her glass!! Apparently she was quite indignant, and with good reason - I would have been, too, if somone had been so bold with my liquor.
I, of course, had made good on my getaway by that point, and was engaged in helping LE battle with The King of All Smartasses, otherwise known as the arbiter and originator of my current predicament. Well, LE dropped out, wherupon TKoAS porceeded to repeatedly make me hit myself in the face with my own first. I'm sure those of you with older siblings are familiar with the frustration this causes. I bacame overwhelmed with said frustation and started trying to knowck his block off for real, for real, swinging wild roundhouses and uppercuts with all my crazy as a shithouse rat drunkeness. KF said that I was swinging with all my might, all the while yelling and grunting, "Ugh, UGH!!" I was really going for it. No doubt I would have done him quite an injury if I had manage to connect, or stay on my feet, even. That last missed roundhouse was one too many, and my shaky equalibrium was not up to the challenge. Too bad, sine it was all his fault that I was three sheets to the wind. He deserved to get hit.
Needless to say, I was not really up the the challenge of biking home alone, either, nor was I able to speak English at this point. Luckily, TKoAS forgave me my violence and decided to escort me home. I proceeded to go the wrong way and run afoul of a sneaky, sneaky ditch. It just leapt right up and gobbled me whole. Swine ditch! Miraculously I emerge unhurt and made it home without further mishaps. I think. Not content with the buckets of booze I had imbibed at the poker party, I decided to drink a little straight rum with my bedtime movie. GOD! I even remember wincing after every sip.
No wonder I threw up before Bigej the next day. So. Classy.
I sometimes think that I'm fated to worry over my weight forever, world without end, amen.
I had a dream one night that a thin girl who looks just like me lived inside me, snugged up underneath my ribcage, right next to my heart. She was dressed in the latest fashion, cute top, cute skirt, cute shoes. But she wasn't happy, this thin, hot version of me. No. She was desolate, raging and sobbing and wailing and beating on my ribs trying to get me to listen to her. We needed to switch places, she and I. Why couldn't I hear, why couldn't I see her? Why wasn't I listening to all the smart things she had to say about portion control and yummy veggies and exercise and bikinis, bikinis, for God's sakes?!? She just couldn't get through, even though she did her best to tug sharply on my heartstrings when I had that plate of fries, that burger, that second helping. I felt the twinges, but pushed her edicts aside in favor of moremoremore.
She didn't give up, though. She knew that what she was fighting for was worth fighting for. So, she kept struggling and screaming until last week I finally thought, "Hey, I should do something about my gelatinous corpulence, yeah!" I promptly started on the South Beach diet, and, oh, but it's hard. Not so much the specific regulations of the diet, but the fact that I have to keep myself in check at every single mealtime and all the snacktimes in between. It's just been so long since I had any kind of dicipline in my eating habits that this particular regime feels as strict as a nun's life, boring and with the reward a long time off.
Still, even though I've been at it less than a week and I'm not anywhere near my eventual goal, I feel thinner. And healthier, and happier. Even though I struggle with what to eat at lunch and dinner, I'm a lot cheerier than I've been in a long, long time. It's easy to get so bogged down in the minutae of everyday life that you forget what's really important to you. For me, now and seemingly always, that's loosing weight. Thank goodness I'm finally on track, that's all I can say.
The thin girl inside me is grateful, too. She exhausted herself in the battle to be heard, and now that she has, it's time for a nap. Since it's to be a long nap, she's kicked off her Steve Maddens and curled up to doze with my heart as her pillow. As she slips into sleep, I imagine she's thinking about the clothes she'll wear, darling undies and boys and the spotlight and all manner of lovely things that will, in time, be hers. I imagine that she's smiling. When she and I have swapped skins, and the fat girl is inside, happy to hide away in the dark, I know that she will listen when the girl under her ribs tells her to be kind, to be careful of others' feelings, not to be too arrogant. She'll remember what it's like to be lost, to be forgotten and ignored. She will listen to her twin self, just as I now listen to mine.
I once again sit staring, stupefied, at the computer screen and desperately rake my grey matter for some hint of an interesting entry. It's not for any readership that I do this, but a desire to simply write something that I can look at with pleasure and think, "That's good." I don't know, sometimes I look at all the blogs out there and read other people's work and despair of ever really measuring up. I'll never be as funny, as witty, as true, as talented. Sometimes, though, they inspire me. I try to hold the good to my heart and not let doubt creep in, but at times it gets very hard. Especially when I can't seem to write anything at all.
I wanted to write about the Bigej trip this weekend, but when I sat down to do so, it was as if all the words I was writing were the ones I'd written before, no hook, no vitality. They just sat there on the page like a lazy lay. I hate it when that happens. Now I've already forgotten most of the funny things that happened that I wanted to write about!! So frustrating. The most wise RQ suggested that I write about something other than my weekend or a daily mental chronicle of my life, but I'm drawing a complete blank, truthfully. I think I may just be incredibly vacuous. Shallow, with no hope of redemption. Yeah, let me check... Nope, there's a whole lotta nothing rattling around in there. Whether or not it's just my surroundings, or that everything in my life has just been blogged to death, it doesn't matter. Knowing the reason for the problem doesn't solve it. I find myself craving change, if only for new fodder. I even hate this entry...
Duuuuude. I am hung the fuck over today, that's for sure. Looking back on it, I see now that I made several crucial mistakes last night, a school night. There are some things you should never do if you have to go to work at the butt-crack of dawn the next morning, and I did all of them. Silly chit.
On a weeknight you should never:
1. Start early.
2. Start before you've had some sustenence to mitigate the effects of an early start.
3. Answer the question, "Do you have tomorrow off?" with, "No, but I'm drinking like I do!"
4. Drink for hours on end in multiple locations.
5. Try to keep up with the Coastie drinking next to you.
6. Play Ship, Captain, Crew until you have tons of chips so you're forced to drink for free.
7. Do shots.
8. Give in to friends' exortations to stay for "just one more!"
9. Decide to make some after dinner dinner once you finally pry yourself away from the party.
And finally, never:
10. Pass out on your government issued loveseat practically sitting up with the TV blaring on and on in the background only to wake up at four and get only three hours of real sleep in a bed.
Learn from my pain, dear readers, and take what I say as gospel. Your head, stomach and liver will thank you for it the next day. I promise.
I meant to write this entry a few days after my fave musical couple left island, but you know how things can be - one thing leads to another, you get busy and all of a sudden it's been two weeks. Time has a way of slipping by without notice, especially here. It took the desecration of the best patio ever (screens all gone, lizards confused...ack!) for me to realize that they were gone for good, PCSed, out of here. Quite the bummer, really. I mean, I know that I'll see them in the states, but their departure defintely has left a hole in our little circle, and a huge one in our band.
When I was thinking about what I would put in my little goodbye letter it occured to me that J and S are some of the people who have not only been here the whole time that I have, but whom I've actually been friends with for that whole time. I remember first seeing them at one of their performances at Kaleidoscope. They were so talented and quirky and bouncy that I just knew we were going to fit perfectly together - kindred spirits. Sure enough they proved to be just as sweet as the melodies in J's songs. When Paco introduced me to them I felt instantly comfortable. They are the kind of couple who posses the knack of making others around them feel at home, and I think it's because they themselves are so happy in their life that it is so easy for them to welcome others into it. Who else would invite a slightly inebriated girl up to dance on stage with them while they sang duets in straw hats? That was when I barely knew them!
There are a thousand memories that go along with our friendship, nights on the best patio ever, drunken J with a huge clock necklace on invading the DJ booth at the Yuk, beach birthday nights with ruined cakes, poker nights full of confidences between the girls and shouts from the guys, wink winks, choir concert rehersals, surfing game conversations, dinners and TV and endless nighs melting into the couch while we all laughed and laughed and laughed. The funny thing is, even though I've known and liked and considered them friends for ages, it was only once they told me that they were leaving that I really realized how much I valued them. Luckily for me the original date was pushed back by six months and I had a chance to spend the time with them that I suddenly realized I wanted to. The threat of a PCS was the best thing that ever happened to our friendship.
J&S, I'll miss your unstinting support and understanding. Our conversations were never dull and never lagged for lack of topics. Even though I'll miss you here, I'm glad that you're back in the states now and finally catching up to the rest of the world! I know the "cell phones" seem like a stange and wonderous concept, but you'll adjust, I promise. Hee. Seriously, though, our group is not the same without you. I truly hope that Kitty is adjusting to the weird white stuff on the ground and the sub-arctic temperatures in Minnesota, because, hey, I'm sure you're both loving it! With as much talent and humor as you both have, you'll do well wherever you are.
The patio scene here will never be the same. Toodles!
When I first moved here I remember thinking that I would never get used to the unrelenting heat. Even though I'd lived here before and even though I had been back recently (for two summers on Roi), the combination of the humidity and temperature made me want to want to crawl into an air conditioner and suck all the chill right out of it. It was that enervating.
Somewhere along the way, that changed. I don't know when it happened, but I know it wasn't a quick process. In fact, I just realized it a little while ago one night riding home from somewhere or other. The nights that used to seem so hot now seem ideal - the air silky perfect against my skin. I guess I've adapted to island life, and lord knows I do love it here. And yet, and yet...
I miss home. Sometimes I miss it so badly that I want to cry with all that is missing. No Sunday afternoons watching the game, no trips to Philly, no crisp fall evenings, no sledding at midnight, no (real) cheesesteaks, no Connie's, no Jersey girls, no, well, Jersey. And despite the fact that I've made wonderful friendships here, and that they are important, as I held the LA last night at the soccer game, I thought of other babies that I'm not getting to cuddle. I've never even met the little italian princess, the pickle-man is getting bigger by the day, and two friends have gotten married without me being there. And you know what? I'm not really oaky with that. Oh, not them getting married, of course, but the whole missing out deal. Things are changing for my girls in NJ, and here I am, almost exactly the same as I was three years ago.
I sometimes feel that the crazy tornado that was my life in Jersey touched down on Kwaj, deposited me here and then whirled on, taking my friends with it. They're still on the ride, but I seem to be stuck. Stuck not moving forward, still struggling with my weight, still without a real career, bogged in mire, stuck good and tight. I think it's finally time to leave. Of course, I've known that I was going to leave in April for a while, but I think that my heart is finally catching up with my head. I no longer quail at the thought of never seeing Bigej again, or the beach, or the palm trees. Yes, I will miss it. But for now, I miss NJ more. I find myself now looking forward instead of back, forward to new adventures in an old place.
Springtime cannot come fast enough. Today, anyways.
