Currently Chasing: A Bed to Myself

I currently live on a bottom bunk. I haven't had bunk beds since I was a kid living in California. I remember sitting on the top bunk being a smart ass to my step father. I also remember him getting ready to backhand me, me moving out of the way just in time, and him shattering the bedroom light with his hand instaed. I remember thinking..damn dude...that was one hell of an abusive smack you were about to plant on my face. If I had been allowed to use the phone, I might have called child services. For the smack of course, and the fact that there were three kids living in one tiny bedroom.

Little did I realize, those would be the good ol' days. Now I'm living six to a room and I'm once again in a bunk bed. I got a bottom bunk though, because rank has its privledges. Those privledges don't include a closet of my own or the opportunity to dress with the light on, but as it turns out 15 years in the Navy scores you a bottom bunk. Awesome.

I got some new roommates recently, which is perfect. One of them loves to cry. She'll cry all night. Sometimes she'll go to the bathroom and cry. Luckily I live right next to the bathroom so I can still hear it. She'll cry in her sleep. Sometimes she'll stay out late crying at the chapel, and then she'll come home and cry a bit more. It's like one of those silent cries. The kind where you don't really want anyone to know you are crying but you refuse to just blow your nose and instead insist on continuing to reinhale your nose juices at irregular intervals. And when someone tries to be quiet while doing something, I for some reason pay even more attention...trying to catch a few seconds of sleep in between her sniffs.

I also now have a roommate who snores. At least it is at a low, steady pitch. One of those noises that you can kind of drown out as background. But every now and then I cue in on it and there I am trying to time my breathing to hers. And she loves to apolgize. Her alarm went off the other day. Everyone but the crier was already up, but for some reason she continued to apolgize.
"Oh geez, I'm so sorry. Holy shit, is that my alarm? Wow, I thought I turned it off. Man, I'm sorry. Seriously you guys, I thought I turned it off. How long was it going off? I'm sorry. How does this thing work anyway? I thought I had it set properly and then here it is just going off and waking up God and country. Wow, I don't know what went on there."
If the alarm didn't wake us, her war and peace apology speech sure would have.

Next door to me is a grandmother. I know this because every single night without fail she calls her grandchildren. For a while it was just one nightly phone call. And I would patiently wait for it to finish, all the while sighing under my breath and making sucking noises with my mouth (not like she could hear any of this) and sometimes whispering to my roommates about how rude this woman was. So one night in particular her conversation dragged on a little longer than normal, but finally, around 10:30 we heard her say goodnight. We unfurrowed our eyebrows and decided to get to some sleep...when all of a sudden we hear.
"Hey baby, it's grandma."

Holy shit, did this woman just sprout another grandchild? It's usually one call a night...who the hell was this second grandkid? One of my roommates had had enough and decided to bang against the wall. We heard her say something, get up...walk to her door and continue her conversation in the hallway...where we could of course still hear every single word she said. Just cause you can't hear doesn't mean everyone else is deaf as well.

Thankfully there is a roommate I totally adore and she is what keeps me sane. Although there are times when I'm watching a scary movie about a little girl who happens to be a vampire, and all the lights are out and she decides to move around on the top bunk, not meaning to, but nevertheless shaking the bottom bunk - making me think I'm being attacked ... this feeling made stronger by the subtle roar from one side of the room and the silent cries from the other -

And don't even get me started on the girl who 'cleans out her throat' in the bathroom each morning. I swear the sound of her drinking a bit of water and then violently hacking it up is down right nauseating. It's possible that sometimes the crying I hear at night, is my own.

Currently Chasing: Non-Cons

I’m not an advocate of confrontation. I don’t enjoy it. I get embarrassed easily when it comes to situations where people are getting confronted or called on their behavior. It’s something that’s been with me all my life. It’s why I learned to tell jokes. It’s why I’m a nice person even when people don’t deserve for me to be. It’s why I’ve learned to be a good mediator. And it’s most likely why I get walked on by most of my boyfriends. I learned this trait from my mother, who is so non-confrontational that she won’t even answer the damn phone.

It’s been a problem since I was a teenager. I would babysit my brothers and they would fight. I couldn’t stand the confrontation. Once I just wrapped window shutter cords around both of their necks and told them that if they didn’t stop fighting I’d leave them there until they suffocate. This was probably not a good way to handle a tense situation. What I’m telling you here is that I go to EXTREME measures to avoid confrontation.

It seems though, that I befriend and also date the most confrontational people in the world. One of my best friends makes it her job to call out every single dumb ass in the world. We were at a bar once and this guy was trying to talk to me. She leaned over and told him that we weren’t going to a part of whatever miscarriage he had going on. GEEZUS! Then he asked what the D on my necklace stood for, and before I could tell him, she leaned over and said DYKE. We are together. Go the fuck away.

And with that, he did. I said damn girl, did you have to be so mean? She responded with, he’s Canadian, if you aren’t rude to them they will stick around all night. And they are bad tippers. This is the same girl who worked for me at one point and when I asked her not to eat in the office, she told me to suck a fat dick. And there you go. My friends.

So last night I’m at a movie with a guy friend and we are watching Kick Ass. Great flick by the way. The movie is all about confrontation. Now, occasionally my seat will get kicked when I’m in a theater, but I do my best to ignore it. And sometimes there will be a crying baby, or a loud eater, or God Forbid, a texter, and I just let it go. But last night the people behind us decided to kick my friend’s seat. And this is a guy who LIVES for confrontation. He once got cut off by someone on the freeway, and instead of just going on with his life, he sped up, got in front of the car, and then slowed down to a snail’s pace. When the car tried to pass again, he sped up…then would slow down. He did this for AN HOUR! He also refused to let a car merge once. He made it his mission to keep this guy from merging. So much so that the guy was literally yelling out the window that he was going to fucking kill us. I was in the passenger side pretending not to hear. Meanwhile my guy friend was in the driver‘s side with his middle finger out telling the guy to suck a fat dick. What is this fascination with fat dicks all of a sudden?

Anyway, back to the movie. So he gets kicked. I see him turn around…I grab his knee. He knows I hate him being confrontational. He turns back around and enjoys the movie. He gets kicked again, he turns around and says, WTF? I grab his knee. He turns back around to enjoy the movie. The third time he stands up, turns around and says, kick my seat again and I’m gonna kick your ass. He sits back down…he can hear them all talking…he turns and says, I’ll beat the shit out of all of you. I am steady pretending to enjoy my popcorn. It’s NOT working. I want to just go back there and apologize and tell them that he doesn’t mean it. That he’s just had a long day. I want to defuse the situation, but I don’t. I just sit there.

At the end of the movie I glance behind us. He did a very good job of confronting them. And trust me, those three little girls will never kick another seat.

Currently Chasing: A Ranking Board

I hear my coworker talking today about a smoking hot girl. Now of course I want to know who he’s talking about, and if she’s in this building, and is she cuter than me and you know, just all of the normal bullshit that comes along with being a seemingly secure, but truly insecure female.

He tells me that he’s talking about a beautiful blond college student that is coming to a party with him this weekend. Immediately the jokes start:

“Does she know you’re broke?”

“Yes, she knows,” he said.

“Does she know you do tricks to pay your rent?”

“Yep, she’s aware,” he said.

“Do you think maybe you’re just a project for her?”

“Wow, I’ve never been called a project before,” he said.

“What college does she go to? Is it legit? Is she just playing you before she cuts out your organs and sells them on the internet?”

“I looked up the college, it’s legit.”

“Maybe she just saw ‘she’s out of my league,’ and thought it was an endearing movie and has decided to cast herself in the sequel,” I said.

“That is probably exactly it,” he responded back.

This is seconds before he rips ‘the fart heard round the office’ and follows it up with the phrase, ‘that’s rank.’

So now I’m curious.

Hey J, I’m gonna blog about this. Tell me how you met her, I yell out.

She emailed me on Myspace, he said. Which is odd he adds, because I’m hardly ever on there anymore. (which leads me to wonder why the hell this smoking hot girl is on there either.)

“And she’s hot?” I add.

“Yes, very hot,” he says.

“And blond?” I add.

“Yep, blond ,” he said.

“And you’ve seen her in person?” I ask.

“Nope, not yet, just photos,” he responds…wishing immediately that he could take that back and pissed that he gave me the ammo.

I hope she ranks higher than J’s fart. I hope for her sake, she wears a gas mask. And I hope for J’s sake, that’s the only mask she’ll need.

Currently Chasing: My Own Parking Spot

So news flash: It's been snowing. It's the only time in my life when I've been dissapointed the more each inch reveals itself.

So I decide that it's in my best interest to go out and start shoveling...a little here, a little there...eventually making it easier on me in the long run. And so I do.

I dig my car out of it's confines and now it sits. I want to drive to the mall. I want to drive to the grocery store. (I mean, I bought a gallon of ice cream in prep for the storm, but that sucker has long since been demo'd.) I need more ice cream. I need more ramen noodles. I need more cereal. I need!

Here's the deal. I can't move my car. You see, even though I own my home, what I don't own, is a parking spot of my own. And for that reason I am trapped! I don't want to give up my parking spot and I know it will happen! These people are vultures.

Earlier today my neighbor left. He put up a barrier in front of the spot he dug out. An SUV sat on his horn for thirty straight minutes until my neighbors wife came out and removed the barrier. He could have gotten out of his fucking gas guzzler and moved the fucking thing himself. But he wanted to make sure we all suffered...Twice! Once during the initial digging out of the spot, and the second being victims of his rant and rave!

Life is too short people. Just be nice! A friend of mine was in traffic the other day. A girl was trying to merge. My friend, known mostly for her anger and sarcasm, basically told the woman to eat a dick. The women in turn got very very calm. She looked at my friend and said, please be nice. My friend was put in check and she knew it. She let the kind angel in the Honda merge. Hell, she let every stranger, including the ones who had mustaches, merge.

It's time for manners. I mean, if you read the last blog (including comments)...then you know, we all get checked from time to time. I want to feed my daughter. She deserves more for dinner than little smokeys marinated in texas pete. She deserves the best. Hamburger Helper for God's sake. And dare I say it...some mint and chip.

So I'm going to take a chance. I'm going to leave my spot. And I'm not even going to put a chair there to block it. I'm going to go on faith that the people around me will take pity on a single mom just trying to make it in this cold cruel world. And if faith doesn't work, then I'm posting my daughter in that spot holding a sign that simply says...please, be nice. YOU FUCKING BITCHES!