new year

so 2008 is over and looking back over the last 12 months it's kind of amazing to see how much has happened in one little one-legged life. i have many more stories to tell and will be telling them much more regularly now that i have a computer and fairly reliable wireless service at home, but one thing is for sure: through drug addiction, marriage, divorce, florida, old churches, jail, love, loss, and finally a hobbit hole of my very own and a job that keeps me in check every day, this year has been absolutely incredible. incredible can mean many things, not necessarily positive; it can mean just unbelievable and otherworldly and just too strange for words. and that is how my last 12 months have been. and i'm grateful because every single day i can see how where i've been and what i've seen has gotten me here.

resolutions are for suckers, but i will say that this year i would like to curb my drinking and find a relationship full of stability and kindness and intelligence that doesn't take away from who i am as a person. that last part is kind of wishful thinking, i've been happy being single for the first time in basically 8 years, but if i am going to get involved with someone i want it to be like that. mostly the curbing of the drinking though. i kicked coke all on my own, a little help but mostly just isolation and purposeful lack of access. kicking alcohol doesn't seem likely right now, but not leaving my shit all over town like a drunken vagabond would probably be a good thing. this holiday season has left me broken in many ways and i'm ready to put the pieces back together, pick myself up by my little bootstrap (ha) and move on. no more dislocated knees or lost iphones or left credit cards. for a while at least. i feel like i've let some people down by my actions and as i slowly drift into a life that makes sense i think it's time to stop being such a selfish drunken prick. this is entirely possible and i can feel myself getting there day by day. it's a nice feeling.

so...i have a bunch of stories from connecticut and florida. but i have some things on my mind lately, so i'm going to talk about them instead.

lately i've been wondering about aging and growing up and acting your age. i don't know if this is actually valid, because i know a lot of 30-40 year olds (and older) who act like they're 12, and a few 20-30 year olds who act like they're 40. age doesn't seem to matter much when it comes to behaving nicely to the people around you. i've had a few experiences lately with some old friends and new coworkers that have really made me question these things.

i guess the main thing i'm noticing is that there is a certain breed of person who will live perpetually and continuously in high school. these people were usually "popular", and apparently being older in a world where most people truly don't give a fuck just doesn't sit right with them. they have to constantly put the people around them down, make them feel inadequate, string them along with false friendships and talk a lot of shit behind everyone (friend or foe)'s backs. it's bizarre. and counterproductive. and hurtful.

i am a lucky, lucky girl. i've been through a lot of bizarre and interesting and disturbing experiences, and i've come out the other end of it all with an amazing crew of people. many of them i've known for 10 years, some even more, and they are for the most part caring and accepting and able to see me for the crazy/silly/drunk/sometimes overly emotional person that i am without too much judgement. as i said, i'm a lucky, lucky girl. knowing this has made the decision to let other people, who have not been quite as supportive, go. it's hard to see people you've known forever, and who you thought were your dearest friends at some point, for who they truly are. but if i was able to give up a limb with relatively little fanfare, i figure giving up a few douchebags shouldn't be too hard.

i love my life. i have a fantastic job, an adorable apartment, the most precious little chocolate cake monkey on the planet, an incredibly loving family, and a group of friends who i love. i suppose this era of my life has been about coming full circle and making things right. and unfortunately making things right means leaving certain things behind, whether it be drugs, never missing a party, or sucky people. i'm ready for it. i hope you all are too.

xoxo
-e

don't like

this is a deviation, as i'm about to write some thoughts about the present, but so it goes sometimes.

last night i went to a concert at the shittiest venue ever, webster hall, in new york. i love the kings of leon a whole bunch, but i seemed to forget that i absolutely hate being in crowds of people. especially crowds of people with drinks. especially drunk crowds of people with drinks. on top of that, i have a fake leg and the other one is broken, so being in a drunk crowd of people with drinks isn't really ideal.

all i have to say is that people really suck. more people stepped on my feet, kicked me, told me i was in their way, and spilled shit on me than ever before in my life. and did it all unapologetically. it was pretty rotten. i'm sorry, but i think i'm pretty tough when it comes to my physical situation; i rarely ask for special consideration (unless it means my friends and i don't have to stand in long lines, but who wouldn't do that once in a while?) and if anything i try to ignore the situation and act like a maniac as much as possible. but if there is one place where i feel like perhaps people should have a little courtesy, it's in a place where people are running around acting like morons. but i suppose that's the point: they're running around acting like morons. it was really appalling to see how little manners people have. if i saw a disabled person being shoved and kicked around on the verge of tears, i would try and figure out how to help. but that's just me.

so perhaps we can all take a moment to remember that we are not the only human beings on this planet and that karma is, in fact, a bitch. because next time i'm kicking you back and spilling a drink right over the top of your annoying hipster head.

xoxo
-e

north carolina

dear world,

after bonnaroo, which was wild and spectacular and dirty and hot, FH and his two friends and i headed back north. we stopped in ashville, north carolina at one of the friends' house and decided to take copious amounts of acid and drink ourselves into a stupor. things that happened: one boy attempted skateboarding down a 45 degree driveway with speedbumps and broke his arm, FH and i got kicked out of a movie theater/beer garden for being too loud and waving my leg in the air, someone ripped the cord out of the faceplate of my sirius satellite radio and we were left without decent music for the rest of the drive home, and we were eventually kicked out of the house by friend's roommates. deservedly.

we moved on to the next thing, which was visiting FH's friend Big Baldy in Charlotte. we arrived at the bar where he works, which was literally a double-wide trailer off the side of the highway, and quickly got to work on drinking heavily. FH and i were fine, but friend (who from now on we'll call Mr. Peanuts) was so heavily intoxicated and broken from his prior fall off the skateboard, that he stumbled into the bar, went into the bathroom and didn't come out. for a looooong time. we got worried so we knocked on the door, which swung open to MP sitting on the john with his pants around his ankles attempting to snort a big pile of coke off of his bare-ass thighs while eating a handful of peanuts. let's just say that even the people in the double-wide trailer were not amused, and he was sent back to the car for the rest of the evening. the rest of us drank and drank until it was time to go crash, at which point we all went to a BB's friend's house down the road to drink some more and talk about life. now, let me explain something about BB. he's a huge (and i mean HUGE) bald guy with a long red beard and a monster tattoo across his massive stomach that i didn't get a detailed look at, but i'm pretty sure has something to do with the confederate flag and some other slightly racist southern shit. i quickly realized that he was probably a clansman, but at this point i was in charlotte north carolina with a dirty little man i was supposedly about to marry and i hadn't had a sober minute in years, so i just decided to go with it. i learned later on that he was to be our minister. no fucking joke. so we chilled at BB's friend's house and they decided to take more acid. always a fun thing to do at 1 am with people you just met. i suppose it's a testament to my ability to always have fun no matter where i am or who i'm with, but i actually had a pretty rad time that evening.

soooo...it was going to be BB's birthday and we were going to get married, so what else do people do in the south on occasions such as this but have a bonfire in a trailer park?!? of course!!! the wedding took place in a huge field under a little canopy next to a bonfire. i knew exactly four people there at the beginning of the night...by the end i had about thirty new friends and had burned my exboyfriends sneakers in the fire. there were babies and dogs and lots and lots of wifebeaters. (i mean the shirts, but i suppose there might have been an actual real live one or two there as well, considering the situation.) instead of flowers i held a can of bud light, and our vows consisted of promises to blow each other on a regular basis. it was all very classy.

all i remember after that is waking up hearing that Mr. Peanuts had slept on the couch and peed all over it. we loaded up the car and headed north pretty quickly after that.

xoxo
-e

and then...

dear world,

so i shacked up with the dirty little man in an old church in a remote hippie town in connecticut. it was ok...much like with the afore-mentioned lunatic portuguese fellow, the entire relationship was primarily based around debauchery, with a shitload of natty ice and a small pup named monkey thrown in for good measure. (and we will definitely be getting to thelonious monkey at a later date.)

let me just say that i'm kind of leaving out the entire part where i was dating another portuguese fellow, who happened to be future-husband's friend, when i met FH. FH and i ended up hooking up on mike ice's floor (just one of the random stupidly-nicknamed losers i managed to find and befriend along the way) one night and deciding at 7 am to go to a music festival in tennessee called bonnaroo. it is there, while he sold acid and i enjoyed the amazing music of the police, tool, lily allen, and dr. dog, that we decided to stop in north carolina and get married. but that's for another day. i will say, however, that portuguese fellow #2 was none too pleased about the situation and there was much puffing up of chests and threats of beatdowns thrown all around. i think someone eventually ended up with a black eye. it was pretty awesome.

anyway, one time FH told me that his crackhead cousin, whom he hadn't seen in a few years, was coming over to our little den of sin. he was going to bring a friend of his who was a tattoo artist and said guy would do tattoos for free if we provided him with a space to do it in and some beer. sounded good to me (and let me just say that at this point i hadn't had a sober day in about 7 years so almost anything sounded good to me), so i went along for the ride. as a bunch of friends and FH and i are chilling, listening to music, etc., a knock comes on the door. i look out the window and see the three largest human beings i have ever seen on this planet. there was a male and two females, and i am not joking, i thought the balcony/deck outside our second-floor apartment was going to collapse. i'm talking somewhere around 400 pounds apiece, and this is not an exaggeration. luckily i was highly inebriated at this point, so i said "screw the floorboards, let's get tattooed!". i'm nothing if not down for whatever every minute of every day. i'm trying to work on that. anyway, crackhead cousin was behind the 3 mammoth beasts, and was actually pretty normal looking in comparison, but looks can be deceiving because he promptly disappeared into the only bathroom in the place for about an hour, came out to the stares of everyone in the place, said "what?" in an accusing tone, and put his dirty spoon in the sink. that began a night of incredible stupidity, crackiness, and oddity that has rarely been matched.

so the male mammoth turned out to be the "tattoo artist", and apparently one of the females was a "piercer". i use these terms loosely. what happens next defies words...let's just say i blacked out and woke up with this: it was supposed to be a skull and crossbones with microphones and headphones, but it has now earned the adorable nickname "dildos and earmuffs". sigh.

apparently sometime after that, crackhead cousin stole the mammoths' car, slipped one of them ecstasy and told her it was vicodin, and disappeared. FH lent the two remaining mammoths my car to go find crackhead and his mammoth friend who he had apparently kidnapped before drugging, and they didn't return for about 12 hours. so i wake up to a missing car, a missing crackhead and mammoth, and the worst tattoo known to man. and now i have a permanent reminder of why it is not a good idea to A. let crackheads into your apartment, B. get tattoos done by random people let alone in your house, and C. be a fucking retard.

the end.

xoxo,
e

let's start from the very beginning

dear world,

one time i lost my mind. instead of taking opportunities for music and success and the generally amazing life that was to be my destiny post-graduation, i decided to shack up with a lunatic portuguese fellow for about 8 months and engage in a neverending cycle of debauchery, narcissism, and self-destruction. it was not one of my greatest moments, let's put it that way.

it was soon after that debacle ended that i met my future husband.

one night i was at a bar with a group of friends, and this crazy guy with the words "piss" and "vomit" tattooed on his arms intrigued me. he was very small and very dirty, but of course my taste in men has never been seen as classy or typical. or healthy. somehow, after many shots and beers, we ended up sitting at the bar with my fake leg in his hands and a full beer being emptied into it. apparently it had always been his dream to drink a beer out of a prosthetic leg...unfortunately, there's a hole at the bottom of the socket which serves to hold the suction cup that keeps the leg attached to my baby leg. the end result of future husband's attempt at a dream come true was beer all over the floor and his pants, and a rusty leg that had to be taken into the shop the next day. when i took the leg in to my trusty doc, al, he was appalled. not only by the beer-smelling leg, but also by the lovely array of squirting penises and other vulgar pictures that had mysteriously appeared on the bottom and top of the foot. al promptly took a belt sander to it and, that, my friends, is why i now have a foot that looks like i have acquired an accute case of leprosy.

xoxo,
e

so...what's up?!?

dear world,

i fell off the edge of you for a minute, but i managed to cling on to a small tree branch and claw my way back up. so a few cuts and bruises, but nothing a little love and patience won't cure.

if i explained all things i saw while hanging from that weak little branch, it would take months to get through it all. so that's what i'm going to do...tell a story a day until all the stories are told and then start moving forward from the present. it might take a while. but believe me, it's worth it...oh world, you're too big and beautiful and scary and amazing for words, and i've been so fortunate to see so many strange and wonderful people and places that make you what you are.

so for now, dear world, here's to the beginning of a beautiful new friendship.

xoxo,
e