Blame the liquor if you missed me.
I had a truly fantastic vacation. I hardly know where to begin. The fun started Friday night, right after I got home from work. My parents left to go to Chincoteague around noon, so I came home to an empty house (although there were signs that their departure had been made rather hastily: the vacuum cleaner's cord was trailing from the living room down the hall to my parents' room). I fed the cats, then rushed over to Dirk's house to fetch him. I called my parents at the cottage they rented to let them know I was alive.
I'm not really clear about what happened after that. I have managed to piece together that there was a lot of sex and a lot of booze. Not the good stuff, that came later. Strawberry Zinfandel and Zima. Basically, it was a two-person party. We might have watched part of "Pleasantville," but that might have been Saturday night, too.
I was feeling domestic when I woke up, so I cooked for Dirk. I made him biscuits and eggs. After a leisurely morning (remember, we're those lucky sorts who don't get hangovers), we went over to Dirk's house to prepare for practice. Aaron just recently got his new head (a Marshal JCM something-or-other), and he drove himself to practice because there isn't room in the Skattermobile to hold that plus the other equipment easily.
We recorded that session. I don't remember if I mentioned Dirk's new toy: a 4-track recorder. It only cost him $100, used, in perfect condition. He also bought two microphones and cables, to aide in recording. They put one of the microphones in front of the amps, to get the guitars and bass, and another in the back, to get the vocals (from a floor monitor) and the drums.
Back in the Bad Old Days, when my ex was lead singer, we actually recorded at a ‘professional' studio. It was in this really horrible Roach Motel-ish place called Clear Sound, and the guy recording us hadn't slept at all the night before. In fact, I think he took cat naps while he was mixing the recording (every member of the band had a copy of the CD). The recording we did on Saturday, with a $100 4-track, was infinitely superior to the one we payed out the ass to get recorded. This is what I'm going to be sending out to people. You can hear the vocals and drums clearly, and the guitars and bass sound pretty good, too. And we sound damn good.
I lost my CD from the Bad Old Days....I don't much miss it. We sounded awful, my ex had/has a voice that could remove varnish from furniture, and the quality of the recording put me in mind of a stereo playing in the tank of a porta-potty.
After practice, Dirk and got more booze and ordered Chinese. Aaron came over to my place while we were eating, but he only wanted a fortune cookie. I hadn't seen what booze Dirk had bought until after dinner when he brought it out. More Strawberry Zinfandel for me, and a bottle of something called "Thunderbird" for him. Just seeing that name didn't look promising. I warned him, before he even took a sip, that he probably wasn't going to like it. He took a sip and this look of outright horror spread across his face. He handed me the bottle.
I took a sip, to see what could be so horrible. It tasted like cheap white wine had been mixed with...cheap rum and rubbing alcohol. This was rotgut at its finest, a rival to the legendary "Ripple." So, I told Dirk I'd drink it and he could drink my Strawberry Zinfandel. I'd been getting sick of Zinfandel anyway, simply because it has a low alcohol content and I have to drink the whole damn bottle to catch a buzz. The flavor of the Thunderbird didn't bother me one bit when I noticed that it had twice as much alcohol as that Strawberry shit.
Fuck drinking for flavor.
Dirk was desperately trying to print up something, but it wasn't working out, and I was too drunk to be of much help. So Aaron and I ended up talking. We discussed his breakup with Sonia, and how her getting pregnant had changed his priorities. I ended up telling him about the abortion, but not in a sad, I'm-so-sorry-I-did-that way. I've always been bugged by him telling me that I say I'd get an abortion if I got pregnant, but it would be different if I got pregnant. I generally keep my mouth shut when he says this, simply because I didn't want the abortion to become common knowledge.
However, consuming the better part of a bottle of Thunderbird got the better of me. I remember narrowing my eyes and hissing, "What would you know? I've been pregnant, and I got an abortion."
The look of surprise was gratifying. I didn't mean to sound hostile, but I'd taken his attitude as a direct attack on my ability to follow through when I said I'd do something. We talked about it for a while, and I found out that his attitude came from the fact that he and Sonia had always agreed that if she got pregnant, she'd get an abortion. When it came down to the wire, however, she decided she wanted to keep the kid. Fine, it's her body, her kid. You can't force someone to have an abortion, and it certainly isn't right to want to do so. But she really screwed Aaron over by not even hinting that she'd want to keep the kid if she got pregnant.
Aaron might have a new girlfriend soon, by the way. We're all rooting for him.
Dirk was kind of hurt because I spent the evening talking to Aaron as opposed to helping him print up that stuff, but I couldn't see straight. If I can't see straight, I can't be of much help on the computer. Dirk was alright by the time I got to bed.
We woke up just in time for me to bring Dirk to work, and say goodbye to him. I was really sad that I couldn't watch the fireworks with him, and I almost canceled my trip. Eventually, after cleaning up the bottles (so my aunt wouldn't happen across them while she was feeding the cats), I left for Chincoteague.
It was a boring drive, except for the sheer terror of the Bay Bridge. I hate that bridge.
I got the cottage at 4:00 in the afternoon, though it was a little hard to find. I pulled over twice and cursed the inadequacy of the directions I'd been given. I was welcomed by my mother, Cathy and Ma*.
*Back when we lived overseas, my parents were great friends with another Navy family, the Murrays. They lost touch for years until I was about seventeen, when my father went to Puerto Rico on business and found them living there. They moved to Rhode Island when I was eighteen, and stayed with us for a few days on their way north. The Murrays, as they'll be mentioned in this entry, are Cathy, Mike, Ma, and Shawn. Ma is Cathy's mother, Mike is Cathy's husband, and Shawn is one of their sons. Shawn is 17 right now.
We drove over to Assateague, where we saw the ponies, and got back in time for he guys to get back from their boat trip. My mother was prompting me to hug everyone.
I'm not going to go into a day-by-day account of what was done in Chincoteague. In varying forms there was drinking, boating, lots of good food, and good company. Of the Murrays, I've always gotten along best with Mike. Possibly because he's a lot like me.
Most notable was a dream I had.
I was on a train, sitting behind a girl with chestnut curls. Her dress was antique, something you'd expect in a trashy romance novel set in 18th century England. She was pretty, but she was quiet. I ran into her in the train's bathroom (which looked like a large public restroom — impossible on a train), and we made polite conversation. I decided I liked her a lot, despite the fact that she seemed always to stare at my face while I talked.We got back to our seats, and I leaned forward to murmur something in her ear. She jumped as though I'd burned her, and gave me an accusing look. I suddenly felt as though I'd tried to feel her up, or something. Then she gestured to her ear, and I understood: she couldn't hear, and my nearness had startled her without any visual cues. I looked at her sadly and said, "I'm sorry. I'm stupid." Then I sat back down.
I realized that she was sitting next to C--, though he hadn't spoken a word to me. We got to the station, and it turned out that we were all going to the same place. We'd all been hired by the same office in the same company. We'd be working side-by-side. I saw the way the deaf girl was looking at C— and I felt sorry for her. I sat next to C— a couple days later and said, "You know she loves you, right?"
"Yeah." He didn't look at me.
"Do you care?"
"I don't care about anything anymore. You know that."I fought waking up. I just didn't want it to happen. I felt like something more significant than a dream was ending.
I went to the low-tide mud flats at Assateague, and Shawn came along. My parents lied to him and told him that he could get clams at the mud flats simply by feeling around in the mud with his feet. He was angry when I told him that just wasn't possible. You need a clam rake. He was rather sarcastic and loud. I haven't laughed that hard in years. The other people (who had clam rakes) on the mud flats must have thought we were on crack.
The last night I was there was the most interesting. For once, because I wanted to leave early the next morning, I wasn't drunk. And Shawn got unexpectedly interesting. I might have mentioned that he looks like a young, buff, Marlon Brando. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it might help you picture him a bit better.
I'm not going into detail; suffice to say he suddenly quit seeing me as a source of irritation, and -to put it bluntly- I became ‘fuckable' in his eyes. I don't know why this happens to me sometimes; C— and I used to call it the "fatal flaw". I'm usually not even flirting with the guy when it happens, but suddenly his eyes will light up and he'll get that fixed look on his face that all guys get when they're about to kiss someone for the first time. That's what Shawn did.
He didn't get to kiss me, though. I realized that he'd been dropping hints for the past half hour or so, and I'd been completely oblivious. Doing some quick thinking, I hugged him, told him that it was tempting, but that I had a boyfriend back home. I didn't mention the fact that I really wasn't attracted to him and that I certainly don't make a point of dallying with younger guys. He looked sad, and I felt the -ah- "proof" of his intentions pressing against my lower stomach when I hugged him. Walking to my room and locking the door was astonishingly easy. I think he'd have been hurt if he knew just how easy.
God save me from teenage boys.
I've noticed that this shit usually happens when I'm talking about sex. I never learned to be self-conscious about it, and to be quite honest, I know a lot about sex. So I tend to go into school-teacher mode about the likelihood of an under-twenty female becoming orgasmic and the benefits of masturbation. I don't usually introduce the topic of conversation; it's generally in response to something the other person said. I won't even relate it to myself, most of the time. But it seems to drive some guys wild.
The drive home wasn't much different from the drive to Chincoteague. Oh, I forgot to mention this: remember the cat from last year? The one who was missing part/most of its hind legs? It's still alive. Apparently one of the guys who works at the dock adopted it. It's even friendly now....I hope it has a happy life.
I got back home, napped for a bit, then picked Dirk up from work. I made some pasta, we ate that (along with the leftover Chinese), and got a bit more drunk. For the record, this was Wednesday night. Thursday, I brought Dirk to work, napped on and off all day, brought him lunch at work, and cooked dinner. If Dirk and I move in together, Dirk's going to have to get used to the fact that all of the meals (healthy) that I know how to prepare for dinner are based around a pot of rice. Vegetarian, I can learn. I can't live without rice.
Thursday night was our last night to party, and it went with a blast. We got Mudslide mix, Pina Colada mix (both with the alcohol already added), and a small bottle of vodka. Aaron came over, and we watched the rest of Pleasantville (now overdue from the video rental place), and American History X. If you never saw it, you have to see that movie. It's stunning. A blow right between the eyes of any preconceived notions you might have about racism.
Dirk went to bed early, if I remember correctly. Either that, or he went online. Anyway, Aaron and I ended up talking again, mostly about how Sonia screwed him over, and how she wants him to pay more child support but doesn't want him to have any custody of their child. I told him what I've always thought: she should have realized how good she had it, and she shouldn't have been a slut. She's going to regret that one day, probably when she hits her thirties and finds herself a single parent with no-one to turn to, and no-one interested in screwing her because her looks have gone.
This is not to say I dislike all sluts. Nor do I deem a person a slut because of their sexual promiscuity. Sonia is a slut because not only does she spread it for any and all, but because she does so in the hope of getting a free ride (financially). I guess, really, I should call her a whore.
My parents came home Friday, after I woke Dirk up early so we could clean the house and mow the lawn. We were gone when they came home, supposedly to vacuum the car. Instead, I listened while Dirk made my personal copy of the recording, napped a bit, and watched Dirk vacuum the car.
We saw the Southpark movie Friday night. It's hilarious. See it. It's like someone took all the funny parts from the best episodes and made a movie. Except, obviously, they didn't use rehashed stuff from the series.
Saturday was practice, and more news. We've gotten the later time slot, so we can rehearse from 7-11 p.m. We also have a potential show in a month, at the 9:30 Club. That's still tentative, and I'll let you know. I expect all D.C. area readers to be there, even if you don't like punk. Capiche?
Richard (the guy organizing the show) walked in while we were playing and told us he was really impressed with the way we sound.
Sunday, we looked at used cars, and Dirk and I went on a picnic. I love picnics, and I could never get anyone to go on one with me (like my ex) before. We got sandwich stuff, and cookies, and cheap soda, and chips ‘n' salsa. After we were done, we put the leftover food back in the car and watched the sunset on the river while we were feeding the geese. Canadian geese can get aggressive for food, did you know that?
It was the perfect ending to a damn-near perfect week. The sunset was blue and white and gold and orange, with pink streaks to the east. It was all reflected from the water and I was momentarily lost in a world of color. I didn't want it to end.
But now I'm back in my pretty blue suit, typing away at this gov't issue computer. I owe a lot of people e-mail, and I'm going to get to it....hopefully today. More likely tomorrow. I hope you guys had a good week.
