The Accident: Part 1

When I first told select friends and family about my blog project, many asked if I intended to write about The Accident. My initial response was "Of course not. This blog is about my Twenties and that whole thing happened when I was younger." Truth be told, I spent many, many years identified as The Girl The Accident Happened To. It is a badge I don't always feel honored wearing. The beauty of this project though, is that it is ever evolving. It forces me to face certain things that I choose to not always address with myself. I have written about the neglect I often felt as a child, and how that has shaped the Twenty-something I am today. So it only makes sense that I now face the experience that I am finding has much more to do with my current self than maybe any other.

During the summer of 1993, I was ten years old and the city was experiencing a wave of heat and gang-related crime. It would later be famously dubbed "The Summer of Violence." Gangs had long been a factor in the city but for the most part, stayed underground, or at least out of the attention of the media. That particular summer though, the street wars became more brazen and more violent, often occurring in broad daylight. News stories abounded with innocent bystanders losing their lives. Many small children, even infants, were killed or injured by the flying of stray bullets. The gangs also seemed to be targeting outside of their normal beefs. Even the Mayor's house had been subjected to a drive-by shooting.

Things were peaceful where Dad raised me and Sister, in our little hillside town at the base of a mountain range, thirty minutes from the city. Mom however, did live in the city when we were young. On our weekends to visit her, the nights were often riddled with the sound of gunfire and sirens. Rather than playing outside in the neighborhood after dinner, we would be locked down in the living room, forced to watch the stories of bloodshed on the evening news. At only six or seven years of age, Sister may have been too young to understand what was going on in the world around us. I on the other hand, was terrified. I would insist on sleeping in the hallway, away from the bedroom that faced the road. My heart would race at the sight of a car driving just a little too slowly down our street. Loud noises made me jump. Crime movies and TV shows kept me awake. I was actually scared of being shot. This fearful obsession of violence, specifically gun violence, plagued my mind for many years into my adolescence.

In the fall of 1999, I was sixteen years old, a Junior in high school, and an all-star volleyball player. I had an after school job at a pizza joint. Having my drivers license, I was able to drive myself out the canyon where we lived, to spend time with friends. I experimented with smoking weed, drinking beer, and had boyfriends. I was living the average and privileged life, not unlike many upper-middle class American teens. On the morning of Saturday, September 25th, I woke up in a foul mood. I was grumpy and jealous because my boyfriend was going to homecoming with his old girlfriend at her high school. I decided to distract myself and called my best friend Blue Eyes to see what she was up to for the day. Her family was spending the day moving. I asked Dad for the keys to his truck and headed down the canyon to spend time with them and lend a hand.

I loved (and still do love) Blue Eyes and her parents. Their family was somewhat of a surrogate for me growing up. They were hard working, honest people who valued family and integrity. They reminded me of my own. Their house was always warm and welcoming and I always felt at home with them. Blue Eyes' boyfriend (let us call him DumbFuck), was helping as well. Personally, I couldn't really stand him. I thought he was a poser and tried too hard to be cool. I found him abrasive and insulting. But he was my best friend's boyfriend, she loved him, and he was strong enough to assist with the moving of furniture so I played nice.

We had finally made our last trip hauling the remaining items into the new house so DumbFuck and I began to help Blue Eyes set up her bedroom as her parents took to unpacking the kitchen. Blue Eyes put on some music and rolled a big joint, exclaiming "I can't wait until we're done so we can smoke this and relax." As Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Pride and Joy" belted from the stereo, Blue Eyes began to hang posters of our favorite metal band while I hung curtains. DumbFuck, being the lazy ass he was, lounged near the head of the bed, up by the pillows, fidgeting with something. I was exhausted from the move so I took the curtain rod off the wall in front of me and sat down at the foot of the bed about four feet in front of him.

I was weaving the curtain rod into the material when it suddenly felt like we were in the middle of an earthquake. The room was shaking and my hearing was muffled. I saw Blue Eyes run out of the room in front of me. She appeared to be screaming but I couldn't hear any sound coming from her mouth. Suddenly, Blue Eyes' mother was sitting next to me at the foot of the bed, with her arms around me. I could feel the vibrations of her voice coming through her body, but it took several moments for me to actually make out her words. She kept whispering "Don't move. Just be still. It's okay." I couldn't understand why the hell she was comforting me and not her own daughter in the middle of an earthquake. It didn't make sense and I was confused. Just then, Blue Eyes' Father walked into the room behind us and said "They are on their way but need to know which gun it was."

Suddenly, a sense of extreme awareness electrified through my body. I felt the ooze of warm and thick liquid running down my neck, my back, and my arm. I had been shot, at point blank range, in the back of my head. Could it be that my obsessive childhood fear had somehow premonition-ed this?

All or nothing

So much for my rejuvenating weekend of solitude. Moments after developing my plan to give myself a time out, Sister called to tell me that we're taking Dad out to lunch today (Sunday). I suppose somewhere in my fucked up logic, I figured that if I couldn't have the whole weekend to myself, I might as well throw out the whole idea. Friday, it didn't take much for me to talk myself into having a happy hour beer with my friends. It also didn't take much for me to then partake in the dinner my neighbors / landlords were hosting that night, where I naturally stayed up too late and drank one too many Mango Mojitos (they were delicious). Where did that get me? Waking up for work with a slight hangover, then back to drinking more beer and eating bar food with Sister yesterday.

Why do I do that? All or nothing? Why couldn't I have just told myself that since lunch with Dad was in the cards, I'd have to make extra sure my solitary time was well spent? Instead, I let myself have an attitude that one little kink in my plans meant "screw it all." Now, it is Sunday and I only have 2 hours until I need to start preparing to meet up with them. My apartment is not clean, I have not done the things I needed to do, and more importantly, I do not feel well rested for the daunting work week ahead.

I do this all or nothing with much of my life. If work is going crazy and I am unable to 100% focus on a certain task, I just say "fuck it" and play solitaire in between phone calls rather than using what little spare time I have to be productive. If I am going to go out for a drink, I usually just say "fuck it" and end up drinking many more than just one. If I eat junk food at lunch, I just say "fuck it" and continue to eat like crap the rest of day, if not the rest of the week. If I am attracted to one person, I am completely incapable of being attracted to anyone else. I am such a serial monogamous person, that I can't casually date, talk to, or have an interest on more than one man at one time.

Which brings me back to hot new guy from last weekend. I haven't been as neurotic as I could be, but he still has yet to call or text to ask me out, or just to communicate at all. Therefore I have been over-analyzing and replaying all of our meeting in my head. When discussing the timing of our next meet up, he did mention that it likely would not have been this last week as he was really busy. So I hope that he is just waiting to call until he can actually propose a time to get together again. Normally, if a guy hasn't called me within eight days of getting my number, I would pretty much forget about him. But (big but here), when he left my apartment last Saturday, he called me on his walk to tell me that he thinks I'm awesome and can't wait to see me. He later also sent a text that it was the best walk of shame ever. Now, call me crazy, but if a guy wants to get the hell out a girl's apartment and never see her again, he isn't going to dawdle, drinking coffee and hanging out with her for five hours. (Exception to this would be if she was giving up the pu-nanny, which I wasn't) And he sure as shit isn't going to call her and text her that same day. He would bail at his earliest opportunity and he would just never communicate with her again.

It has now been eight days since that communication from him. There could be any number of reasons he hasn't reached out. He could truly be as busy as he said he would likely be. As mentioned, he could be waiting to call until he can set up a legitimate date. He could also be confused, wondering why I haven't been blowing him up all week. He could have lost my number (though that would be a pathetic excuse). So now what? Do I shoot him a text asking how his week was, and risk sounding impatient? Or do I just wait and risk never hearing from him again? I met him one night. If I don't hear from him, I'll eventually forget about him and get over it. But for awhile there will undoubtedly be some "What's wrong me? What happened?" thoughts going on and I will beat myself up, trying to figure out what I could have done differently to encourage a different outcome..

Again, it's all or nothing. I make a move, or I don't. And in the meantime, this interest that I've had for a man I've spent a total of twelve hours with and put me in blinders. And I haven't found anyone even attractive since. No wonder I am still single. I put all my eggs into the basket of one person, I met one time.

This all or nothing, give up, sort of attitude is reckless, damaging and immature.

Purify

 

I am fried to a crisp. My brain is on cruise control, yet stuck in turbo. Since having a blowout with Phoenix, a fucking tree landing on my car, and work being absolute mayhem, I have barely been able to sleep. Let alone do my laundry, dishes, or grocery shopping like a responsible and functioning member of society. And to think I had a hot new suitor follow me home from the bar last weekend: Gross.

My brain is far too engrossed in money, rental cars, work, needing to make more money, lack of getting laid, and for fuck's sake - men, to completely nurture my inner needs. So I am taking a hiatus this weekend. I am in the middle of a 10 day work stretch with my only day off being this coming Sunday. Rather than celebrating my Friday and Saturday nights with the usual IPA and Patron, I am staging a sit-in at my apartment. I will clean, like actually clean: sweep, mop, dust, vacuum, organize... I will also finish the Hunger Games trilogy so I can finally say I read them all. I will shop for nourishing food and feed myself wholesome meals and not tostada shells with BBQ sauce. I may even get a little exercise this weekend. Then again, that may be a little ambitious as the forecast is calling for triple digits in my locale this weekend.

So it might be, I have to ignore some people I love but I desperately have to hit the reset button on my being this weekend. Even if it is just enough to get me through the second half of my long work stretch. A little detox on my mind, body, and home so to speak. The only thing that could derail this plan would be a call from the hot new suitor (Still thinking of an alias for him...). I have yet to hear from him about making plans for our "proper, sober date". I am not quite sure how I feel about not hearing from him. On one hand, I feel that a man will get in touch with a woman he wants to see. On the other, I feel like I should give him the benefit of the doubt. It has only been 6 days since I saw him. And when we discussed potential timing of said date, he mentioned a handful of activities he already has going on this week. Patience, Grasshopper...

Anything but boredom

I did it. I chopped off my hair. An entire foot of it, actually. It was my first professional hair cut in almost a decade. And I got professional highlights for the first time in my entire life. To me, that is just crazy. I have never been a spa or gussied-up type of girl. I usually just trim half an inch or so off my flat, lifeless, boring mane every few months. The new hair makes me feel a little more "adult". Grown women get their hair done, right? It also has given me a good dose of confidence that I seem to have been lacking lately.

On Friday, just hours after writing my last post, an odd and somewhat traumatizing incident occurred. I was on the phone with a client when a mini-tornado swept through my office parking lot. I glanced over and saw a coworker struggling to close the glass door that was swinging open and threatening to blow away, right off its hinges. Then, in eerily perfect unison, I hear the gasp of several other coworkers and a cry of "C, your car!" I politely excused myself from the call I was on and hobbled over to see the wreckage. A fucking tree was on my car. On top of my goddamn car. Surprisingly, I didn't completely lose my shit. The hilarity of what my eyes were seeing was just too strange and too odd to get all worked up about.

By the time I arrived at my regular stomping ground for a beer, I was done. I was ready to tie one on. My friends and other regulars raved about my hair and expressed their sympathies for my now defunct ride. I caught up with an old friend who has moved back to our little town for the summer and we agreed to meet later in the evening to get a little shitty. And shitty we got. After, oh I don't know, three or four shots of Patron, I noticed a very tall and very handsome bearded man in our establishment. He was a new face and obviously not a local in our town. When my beer needed a refill, I slid up to the empty bar stool next to the hottie and placed my order with the bartender. While waiting, I felt brazen enough to introduce myself and compliment my new friend on his astounding karaoke skills. (I am nowhere near confident when it comes to approaching good looking guys. I blame my assurance on my new hair and the fact that I simply just didn't give a fuck after the tree vs. car shenanigans.)

Hot new guy seemed absolutely shocked that I had approached him and rewarded me by purchasing my beer when it arrived... as well as inviting me to keep chatting with him. Just as I thought, he was not a local in my town. He lives in the big city and had been at a picturesque wedding in my neck of the woods. After closing the reception, the party turned into a bar crawl and he had found his way into the bar my friends and I were at. Eventually, his friend popped over to say their limo back to the city was on its way to pick everyone up. We exchanged numbers and he expressed his disgust over having to leave the conversation with me. So I did something a little nuts and said "Stay here then." He kissed me. Then did a walk of shame from my apartment to meet his friends for brunch the next morning.

Now, in my last post I exclaimed how badly I needed to get laid. But as luck would have it on that fateful night, Aunt Flow showed up to make sure I didn't put out. Which is probably for all the better. We kissed and cuddled and made out like a pair of horny teenagers but we didn't get intimate and I told him I was glad for that. I said "I think I'd like to see you again, but if we had sex last night, that probably wouldn't happen." He laughed and tried to convince me otherwise. We chatted a lot and seemed to have great conversation that flowed and he didn't hightail it out of my apartment at the crack of dawn. In fact, we woke up early and laid in bed, talking and drinking coffee for a solid five hours before parting ways. He even called me on the walk to tell me he thinks I'm awesome and he cannot wait to take me out on a proper and "sober date".

My favorite part of meeting him was when I initially did the twenty question interrogation to find out why he was single. He said there is a running joke among his friends that he is always the guy a girl dates just before she meets someone she wants to marry. I was astounded and said I use the term Wife Fluffer for myself, as most of my demons end up married or close to it soon after their relationship with me ends. His response? "Well, I think we should date then. Because if things don't work out between the two of us, at least we'll meet the loves of our lives right after." Brilliant. After spending some time today, stalking him out on facebook and linkdn, I found that he is actually legit. His job, interests, education, and upbringing are exactly as he said they were. Oh, and he is also not on any sex offender registries.

So we'll see. Maybe he won't call and I can continue on with my whining ramblings. Or maybe he will and I'll have some good or bad dating posts in the near future.  

To whore, or not to whore?

While I very obviously have no shame about men and such, I tend to refrain from delving too much into the best parts of it: S.E.X. Perhaps I want you all to think I'm sweet and virginal. And perhaps I just want those moments to be sacred and not read by the masses. But truth be told, I am bored. And I need to get laid. Badly. I'm talking yelling, hollering, ass-slapping, going all night, nooky.

When I was younger... shit, who am I kidding? As recently as the end of times with The Wrecking Ball, I would sometimes find myself looking for validation with my cooter. Lately, not so much. In many ways, I feel like I enjoy sex more when it is monogamous and has meaning behind it. And as I get older, I find myself more sensitive to the idea of not being taken seriously because I drink beer with the boys. The last thing I need is to actually give the haters reason to think I'm just "one of those girls." Yet, It has been a good six months since anyone other than my OB/GYN has been anywhere near my bits. Currently, there are few things I would love more than to break this dry spell.
*Yes, I know. There was The Writer. Unfortunately, due to his insecurities and neurosis about his 135,678 unique and unheard of health problems (hypochondriac much?), and the uncanny ability for said issues to turn me off, we only did it a handful of times when we first started dating. And it was never very fulfilling. Yeah, that relationship was doomed.

But here's my dilemma. Even if I managed to allow myself a booty call just to clean the pipes, I don't exactly have ready access to any subjects. Sure, I have a handful of the aforementioned man-friends. But there is NO way I would subject myself to any extra curricular activities with any of them. They are actually my friends. Even the few that are single, I respect and frankly, think of them as family, thus have no desire to see their junk. And Phoenix? Hell, he'd be lucky to get friend-zoned at this point.

What about the option of getting shit faced and going home with a random? Unfortunately, I live and play in a small "everyone knows everyone's business" type of community. It most certainly has it's perks. Just not in the way of finding an easy, non-awkward, and discreet lay. If I were to execute the random bar hook up, I would have to venture to the Big City and bring my conquest home to Trinity and her gay roommate. They wouldn't mind one bit. Hell, they'd probably encourage it. But something about turning 30 leaves me unwilling to get on all fours on my BFF's couch.

So I guess that leaves me to do things the old fashioned (and more respectable) way. While draining my C batteries, I might have to actually find a guy who likes me and wants to date me. Between my love for my small and close-knit town, and my dedication to my career, my hopes of meeting someone "organically" seem to be dwindling. Sure, I have recently declared that I may not be ready to give the whole relationship thing a go right now. But that was before I got horny. Things suddenly seem a little more urgent. Perhaps a new haircut, new dress, and new match.com account?

Face Plant to Freedom

So...um...yeah. Phoenix is sort of fucked up. I will spare you the play-by-play but here's the gist:

Last Saturday, after way too much inhebriation at a friend's party, Phoenix offered to walk me home. During the walk, some drunken slurs were made from both sides. Ultimately, he became downright nasty and mean. His behavior and his words actually scared me. It was as if he turned into some sort of vicious stranger.  He wound up leaving me to find my way, disoriented in the middle of an unfamiliar neighborhood, at two in the fucking morning. Who does that? Seriously. What kind of stand up man in his Thirties leaves his female friend to fend for herself, lost, at two in the morning?

In a way, I am relieved by it at this point. Though our conversations and bond appeared to be growing, we never became intimate so I do have that to be thankful for. And if I ever find myself struggling to divert my attention away from a particular someone, them behaving like a bipolar douche is sure to do the trick. I could sit here and over-analyze his every word, along with the drastic change in his behavior. But I really just don't care much. Anyone who can treat a person as awfully as that, is no person I care to get to know any better. I will admit that for me, there has been some awkwardness. I have been avoiding my regular haunt, as it is now his regular haunt as well. But that really isn't the end of the world either. For now, I need some distance from Phoenix. And not drinking so much (while saving a little bit of cash) isn't exactly a bad thing.

So, I'm free. And better off. For now.

Male Driven Insomnia

After spending nearly all of yesterday drinking entirely too much beer with Phoenix, we stumbled our way to our respective homes. Just minutes after I walked in the door, my text alert goes off. He is apparently not done with me for the evening. We exchange some friendly and flirtatious text banter for the next half hour or so, until I presume, he passed out. Lucky him, as my brain reeled for hours.

What should I wear when I see him next?  
Shit. I have so much cleaning to do before dinner on Wednesday. 
Ooh, perhpas I will make myself some new earrings by then. 
Wonder if he really is "off" with the girl in his old town? 
Goddammit.  Seeing him every day is really hindering my work out regimen.
Holy fuck.  I spend a lot of money having beer with him every day.
If I get butterflies from him hugging me, am I going to stop breathing when he finally kisses me?
I wonder if he drinks enough tequila on Wednesday, he won't want to do the twenty-block-walk home?

This internal dialogue went on until somewhere around 2 a.m. when I finally turned out the light, wrapped my arms around My Boy, and tried in vain to get some sleep. Yes, I have broken puppy training non-no #1. I have been letting My Boy sleep in bed with me. Due to his past reputation of chewing everything in the house, he is crated during the day, and until recently, at night while I sleep. But I'm a giant fucking softy.  What can I say? I feel guilty that he is in a crate for nine hour stretches and then stuck in there another seven overnight. I am also slowly trying to give him a bit of freedom and forcing him to cope with being around the tempting, chewy goodness of my shoes and computer cords, while not actually chewing them.

The problem is, My Boy is big. On one hand, having a big hairy being on my bed, helps me to not care so much about the big hairy being that isn't. Sometimes, his panting breath will lullaby me to a deep sleep. Last night was not one of those nights. Last night was a night of him laying perpendicular to me. Of kicking me in the face with his hind legs. Of him crowding the bed to where I woke with only one extremity still on the mattress. This is how I spent the little three hours of sleep I was trying to get.

I think these boys are trying to kill me.

It's Never That Simple

...but I am convinced there is nothing too much beer can't fix.

In my last post,I declared to the world that I was dropping my pursuit of Phoenix. Yeah, right. Two days after that, a group of us, including Phoenix, drank too much. It was the very first First Friday of summer in my small town. It is kind of a big deal. My town will take any excuse to party, even if it is something as simple as the first Friday of summer. We started at our usual happy-hour beer location and naturally, Phoenix showed his pretty head. He came right up to me before anyone else and did not leave my side the rest of the night.

Our group later found ourselves as part of the town party, streets barricaded and all. Of course, Phoenix and I were magnetically attached and after one (or two) too many beers, I flat out told him how much I love hugging him. He responded as if it were a challenge to see how much he could hug me in one night. My head was buried in his chest for much of the evening. I am not sure how we got on the conversation, but at one point, he mentioned something of a lady friend back home that he had been "on again, off again" with. Well, truth serum can be strong so the following conversation happened:

C: Can I ask you a question?
P: Of course.
C: Is your "on again, off again" thing the reason you have yet to make a move on me? Or are you just uninterested?
P: *Chuckle* It is definitely NOT that I am uninterested. I am very interested. And yes, that has been one reason. I talked to her when I went back home last weekend. She said she wouldn't commit to me so I should just start a new life here. But I am also slow moving at these things. And I am the new guy in town and you are the girl who knows everyone.
C: Okay, well we should hang out more then. Without our usual beer entourage. You know, have some pressure-free non-dates.
P: *Chuckle again* Yeah, I would like that.

And so it was. He walked me home that night, holding my hand. Rather than the usual stopping at the driveway to say goodbye, he wanted to come in to see and play with My Boy for awhile. We made plans to go out on Saturday (last night). We did. It was awesome. We also made plans for him to not only attend this week's community collaborative dinner at my abode, but also to contribute in it. In a few hours, we will be yet again, meeting at our usual spot. Still no kissing. Just holding hands and a lot of those wonderful, heart warming, hugs. I will take that.