Reason #5: (I’m a) Sloppy Drunk

I don’t always drink too much, or drink the right combination to make me STOKED ON LIFE and not withdrawn and sad-bastardy. 

But sometimes, I do drink too much. I double-fist cheap beer and hard liquor, and I am STOKED.ON.LIFE.

To express my happiness, I make joyful noise unto the Lord. However, my friends say this noise sounds a lot like a screeching Jackee from 227. To emphasize my points (and they ARE all hella important, like convincing my friends that I never said I would sleep with Biz Markie over Ludacris), I pound my hands on the bar. Sometimes I pound them in the wrong space, and I knock pint glasses over. Then when the bartender mops up the spilled beer and brings me more, I tell him that I love him–”no, man. for real. sincerely.” 

I think that this drunken lust for life works for some girls–(IF everyone else is drinking, also. There’s some things more annoying than being sober in the presence of a slurry, enthusiastic drunk person, but not many). A tiny, cute girl smiling, laughing, throwing her head back and then swooping it down on the bar because she cannot deal with the hilarity, whooping it up, even screeching like Jackee, would probably make guys like her. But whatfor girls of larger bones and “unusual” features?

Well, all their joyful noise does is “scare” the people standing behind them, a boy and a girl out for a quiet beer. Also–is it ever cute to pass out on the floor of the bathroom?

Reason #4: Not Working Out

“Toned” is to the millenium what “hardbody” was to a Bret Easton Ellis novel. I’m not really sure what one has to do to get “toned.” Like, is it cardio, weights, or just plain Pilates? I tried all three for a week each. But my not-scoring is not just about not being toned. It’s about not being present in the gym. This is where people pick each other up. Today I talked to a Russian dude who has lived in the US for five years, the same amount of time that I’ve been in this particular city. He has a wife and two kids, and lives in the apartment complex that I just sneak into for the pool. He’s into like, working out and stuff. We talked about gyms. I asked him which gym has the hottest chicks. He said [Gym A], “because that is where I pick my wife.” Nice. I asked him what I should do to score with this Czech dude that I like. He said, “Vodka.” My face crumpled. If it were just about buying dranks, then I would be swimming in QP (quality poon) instead of this shitty pool with dead bugs in it.

Reason #3: High Standards

Most times I have pretty low standards. That’ll be another entry. But recently, thanks to too much free time and too much Little House on the Prairie, I’ve been talking excessively, if not exclusively, about pioneer folk of the 1860s and all the things they could do.

Laura Ingalls was clearly Daddy’s Little Girl, and why not, when your Pa can build a log cabin in two days, fill an attic with bear meat and woodsy-game jerky, dig a well, butcher a hog (and save the bladder for you to play with), make his own bullets, wrestle a panther, pick out the perfect Calico for your new dress, walk 300 miles and back to do some extra farm work so you’ll get your own tin cup for Christmas, charm “savage” Indians, AND play a mean fiddle.

I told my ladies that I only want a dude who can build his own log cabin in two days. I’ve been quizzing menfolk about can they not only butcher a hog, but also boil it, cure it, AND fry up the pickled fat-pork (preferably in one day). “No, I can cook, though. I watch cooking shows all the time. I’m really good,” says one dude. Man, I fucking love to eat, but I am unimpressed by the average dude who boasts of cooking skills. I can slice my own tomatoes and put basil atop (yawn), but I cannot chop down my own trees or nail them sturdily together.

The problem is, to get a sweet dude like Pa Ingalls, I’d have to have a pretty impressive skill-set myself. Ma Ingalls could crochet, embroider, and cook up something called cornmeal mush. She made several long journeys in a covered wagon without Midol. She survived malaria and scarlet fever, and wore a corset the entire time.

Reason #2

I got out these books from the library yesterday:

Snakes of Virginia

Familiar Insects of America

Little House on the Prairie.

Reason #1: The Lesbian Vibe

I had a shaved head for a while in high school. Sometimes with pink or orange bangs. I wore combat boots, usually with fishnet stockings and miniskirts. I didn’t always shave my legs.

Then I went off to a notoriously less-bian liberal arts college. I wore a Bikini Kill t-shirt on the first day. My best friends, in high school and college, were less-bians. I went to the Gay Prom.

So I can understand why someone might think I dig chicks. But you must understand that a Chelsea haircut in the mid-’90s was happening, for all sorts of punx n’ would-be-skinz, and random alternative raver sorts in oversized ringer-tees, giant ball-chain necklaces, and jncos.

My mantra became some quote attributed to Anais Nin about “creating your own world.” Like, you just act in accordance to your beliefs, real world be damned. In my “own” world, chicks did not have to act or look a certain way in order to be straight (or gay). I could totally get a (non-hippie) boyfriend whilst sporting hairy legs and a scowl. My friend Eileen could wear minidresses and tights, no lipstick and a fucked-up home bleach job, and totally get a girlfriend, being neither femme nor butch.

But the problem is that most other people are not living in your/my own world. Eileen did not get a girlfriend during her stay at the notoriously less-bian liberal arts college. She transferred. I stayed, too fucked-up and afraid of change (and general education requirements) to find another school, once this one had revealed itself to be a finishing school for the children of the rich and famous rather than the sweet liberal/radical utopia I had expected.

I had a couple boyfriends in my teenage years. Sure, the first one dumped me because he was gay. The next ones were not gay, though. I think part of why they liked me was this VIBE I had, that I was not consciously creating. It was just a side effect of “living in my own world,” taking ideology to heart. I was different from other girls, and I expected that boys I went out with would be different from other boys. When they weren’t, I got pissed. I fumed at the gay boyfriend when he sent me flowers (red roses I think) for Valentine’s Day, because his mom said that “girls like to get flowers.”

Did I mention that for a while in ninth grade I was stalked by a Samantha Ronson-esque figure, a just-sprung-from-juvie girl who tried to get with me? She apparently “sensed” something about me. She couldn’t stand my best friend, though (who later came out as a lesbian).

I remain nearly as puzzled as I was on the first day of ninth grade, still wearing long hair and CoverSlicks lip gloss, when the SR figure tapped me on my shoulder while I was at my locker and said, “Do you want to fight me? Because you were looking at me funny when you walked by me in the hallway.” I didn’t think I had looked at her at all.