Slacker!

I’m not even sure how long it has been since I have blogged here – my guess is maybe a little over 2 months?

In late October I had the surgery for my hand that I didn’t really want, but had to have.  I was out of work for three weeks as a result.  It was a nice little break, but I was pretty bored by the time two weeks rolled around.  I had big plans to go walk around JP/somewhere in Boston at least once a day, but what I found was happening was I would go walking and have a nice little time.  At some point in my wanderings, my hand would start to hurt so then I would be far away from home with an achy hand and no painkillers (I was off prescribed painkillers 2 days after my surgery, and for about 5 days post surgery I was only taking a Tylenol to sleep through the night somewhat comfortably).

So, I stopped walking around and instead played Dance Dance Revolution for a couple hours a day (and I’m still not that good).  That way, I could get some exercise and my blood moving in the comfort of my home AND play video games – two activities I rather enjoy.

When I returned to work, the manager approached me to go into general manager training.  It’s a 9 month class – at the end of it, I could (would?) be eligible to be hired and have the keys to my own store.  The huuuuge catch to this, though, is that you MUST be willing to relocate.  And, in 9 months, no one really knows what will happen – maybe I could stay in Boston, but maybe I’d end up in Idaho.  I’m still sitting on this one and considering it, but I am super deterred by the likely relocation to a destination not of my choosing.

So, I am a keyholder now which is kind of fun.  I get to do a lot of different things, which is really right up my alley.  Work is OK – it has worked out really well for a job that was initially a temporary thing.  It has also added some stability to my work-life which is also something I really badly needed.  My daily stress level has gone down A LOT.

=========

Probably some time in mid-November, my brother called me and proposed that he and I surprise my parents for Christmas.  I thought it was a brilliant idea, because they are REALLY difficult to shop for.  He was willing to donate his frequent flier miles to the cause and I was willing to donate some time off to the cause.  It all worked out really well!

I flew in on the 21st and hung out with my bro until we somehow presented me to them.  (How this was going to happen was a big question mark – how did we sneak me into the house?  How did we wrap me into a big box that neither of us had and get me into the house? Etc.)

Perhaps the best part was the second night I was there.  My brother had a meeting or something to go to in the evening, so I took advantage of the quiet apartment and called my parents to talk – I am pretty bad at keeping in touch regularly, but I’ve been good about it lately, so I felt it would be suspicious to not talk to them for an entire week.  I sat down on my brother’s couch and called them from not even 2 miles away.

As some of you may know, there was a sizable snowstorm happening around Christmas in Minnesota.  Due to this snowstorm, my parents canceled their Christmas Eve plans (to drive out to my aunt and uncle’s house way west of the Cities).  This was a PERFECT opportunity and one that my brother and I had been crossing our fingers and toes for since my arrival on Monday night.  It was perfect!  Now, he and I would go over there Christmas Eve, he would go in, say hi, say he forgot something in the car (me!), then come out and get me.  I would go in, they were squint at my for a moment because it was so far out of their realities that I would show up at the door then they would recognize me and SURPRISE!  It was so wonderful because that is, in fact, EXACTLY, what happened.

We surprised me parents and it was so great – we all hugged and they got fake-uppity (“I can’t believe you were talking to us while you were at your brother’s house on Tuesday night!”) and then I helped quickly get another place set at the dinner table and a salad ready.  If I’m going to intrude, I might as well be helpful about it, yeah?

From then on, I stayed at my parents house until I left the following Monday.  It was so good.  I also made a meal for them that my dad didn’t completely dislike, which I felt was a good accomplishment.

===========

I have been putting a lot of thought into the people I have/have kept in my life recently.  I feel like a lot of random things have come up and made me really consider roles that people have in my life – are they stressing me out?  Am I excited to have them in my life?  Do I want to share silly stories as much as issues I’m having with them?  Do I feel supported and supportive of them?  Do I actually like them?  Do I want them in my life?

While I was home, all these questions came to ahead for me.  I have this person I was friend with in high school – for awhile we were very close, but then we drifted.  Fine, people change, whatever.  I was unhappy with our drifting, but such is life.  I got over it.  Over the past few years, we have occasionally gotten together or had a phone  call or whatever just to check in and see how life is going.  It’s been nice – it was clear that we’ll never really be close friends again, but it was good to just see what was up.  While I was home, we made plans to go to breakfast and catch up.  She was supposed to come pick me up at 10am.  I set aside some time, knowing that I probably wouldn’t see her, but I woke up and got dressed and ready to go.  10:10am rolls around and I knew in my gut that she wasn’t coming.  I don’t know what it was – intuition, I suppose.  Around then, I started thinking of other things I could do with my time that I have wanted to do or needed to do since being home.

At 11am, she hadn’t shown up.  I wasn’t surprised or super disappointed or anything, but rather disheartened and kind of angry – I set aside *my* time to spend with someone who clearly didn’t care.  We don’t see each other often (well, ever, really), so I feel that blowing me off was a lot more loaded than if we kept in touch or saw each other often/at all.

I debated whether to even bother texting her – she didn’t take the time to let me know she wasn’t coming, why should I bother to initiate the conversation? In the end, I did text her.  I wanted to be extra clear with where I stood and where she stood with me.

11:10am
me: so…if you haven’t left yet, don’t worry about coming over. I have some other plans in about 30 minutes.
12:23pm
her: dude i’m so sorry i got drunk and threw up
2:04pm
me: that’s fine- something always seems to come up. It’s clear that i have expectations that you can’t or don’t care to meet. Take care.
her: I’m sorry you think I don’t care. I would like to see you but i understand if you don’t want to.
me: I don’t have time or patience right now. It’s my last day here- i’m spending it with my parents. Thank you for understanding.
her: I think you’re overreacting. I think friends cut each other more slack than that. If you get over it contact me. otherwise give my best to your parents.
me: I set aside time to see you. You never showed up or called/texted until almost 2.5 hours after our arranged meeting time. Something like this happened the last time we were in town at the same time. I feel let down.
her: that was not my intension. i told you I was sorry. i don’t know what else to tell you.
me: I accept your apology.
…aaaand end scene.  I left this interaction wondering if she would have even contacted me at all if I hadn’t done so.  I don’t think she would have.  About a week later, I talked to a friend who knows us both.  I relayed the text interaction as best as I could remember and my friend said, “That is ridiculous.”  I knew all along it was ridiculous, but it was just nice to hear that from someone that knows us both. I mean, seriously, “I think friends cut each other more slack than that” – yeah, they do, if they are ACTUALLY FRIENDS.  Another thing friends do is communicate when they’re running late or feeling ill or canceling and/or flaking out.

So, I will cut her some slack!  I just don’t want her in my life anymore.  Done!  Slack given!

What I am most unhappy with is that I set aside time for someone who didn’t care when I could have easily been spending time with people who did care and who I do want in my life.  As a result, I still haven’t eaten Village Salsa for a bit too long. Sad.

=========

I came back to Boston post-parental surprise.  I hung out here for a few days, enjoying the little orange cat and her adorable stand-off-ish-ness, sleeping  in my own bed, and having my own space back.

On New Year’s Eve, Joanna and I went up to Montpelier for a burlesque themed party.  The party was a fun success – Ace transformed his entire house, basically, to accommodate the people and the party.  He moved all the furniture out of his living room and office and built a stage for the living room.  It was a pretty excellent party.  My role was to figure out alcoholic beverages, so I figured a punch would be a good solution and I found a really good punch recipe to fulfill my assignment.  It was a black-cherry rum punch.  Deeelicious.  There was enough left over that I filled 2 24oz. Mason jars to bring home.  So, punch, anyone?

The following day, Joanna, Ace, and I had an incredibly lazy day of half-assed cleaning up, cooking, and sitting in bed and watching Glee.  In the evening, we headed over to a friend’s house with a sauna.  We sat in the sauna, rolled around in the snow, sat in the sauna, rolled around in the snow, sat in the sauna, then went in and drank tea and played Bananagrams until we were all basically falling asleep.  Then the three of us went back to Ace’s and slept soundly.  It was wonderful.

======

I have started physical therapy for my hand.  It’s not coming along as quickly as I want it to, but it seems that the surgery worked and repaired the ligament.  I’ll be in a splint, “for a long time” according to my doctor which I am so unhappy about.  I really doubt I’ll be able to play softball this year which is OK, but sad.  So now I need to figure out something else to do with my time that will get me out of the house, moving around, and meeting people.  I will probably never try football again, or at least until I have a titanium ligament or something – so maybe I should try to find a summer hockey league or something because, strangely, hockey equipment both allows me to wear my splint under the gloves and the gloves support my injury.

===========

So, that is what is going on with me.  Woo.

My past two days have been so wonderful.

Joanna is on her way to California for a work event.  When I was figuring out when was the best time for surgery, it was either when I had it or in mid-November.  So, when setting this all up, I knew that 5 days post-op I would be left alone.

The recovery for this is long, but a lot of it is immobilization and physical therapy – I don’t need anymore bed rest or meds or exceptional treatment than I think I do.  I have been off any pain meds in a consistent way  (the other night I bumped my bandage in the middle of the night causing pain, so I took a /tylenol) for 3 days now.  I don’t know if that’s good or average or whatever, but I feel good about that both because I was displeased with the pain meds and I would rather not be in pain.

Anyway, so Joanna is at a work thing which leaves me one handed and fending for myself.

Until!

Ace came down to help me get everything done I wanted to do to be prepared for this.  He gave me 2 days of his company to go grocery shopping, run errands, and cook a huuuge amount of food.   So, Monday he and I went shopping and planned out a lot of varied meals for me.

While running errands, he revealed that he wanted to make me a sweatshirt with a larger left sleeve/cuff area so any and all devices/splints/casts/bulky surgical bandages on my arm can fit through.  I would like to note that this was definitely the best idea ever.

So, now I have a track (kind of) style jacket with a zipper installed along the arm and a piece of a cut up shirt sewn in for expansion that says, “Not for the faint hearted” on it.  It is so wonderful and it was such an excellent gift.

So Ace went home and Joanna is in California and I have a fridge full of delicious food and an awesome sweatshirt that fits my life right now.  Yay!

Ok, now I’m 2 days post-surgery and feeling OK.  I have a MASSIVE bandage in my hand that is a major inconvenience.  However, the good news is this:  Remember how I was going to have a tendon from my wrist harvested?  They didn’t need to do that!

Apparently there was enough healthy ligament tissue that they were able to do some sort of patch-up/sewing job.  This is good because should a reinjury occur (again), I still have 2 tendons to use!  More specifically, it means that I don’t have any hardware in my body which also reduces the possibility of having to eventually go back in and adjust or replace.  The bad part of this is instead, I have a pin sticking out of me (but still very well covered beneath my bandage) that will need to be yanked out.  Yuck.  The positive side of this is it’s temporary – the pin comes out on November 10th.

I never thought I would look forward to having a hard cast as much as I am now.

I will remain in post-surgical dressing until November 10th.  From there, I’ll get a cast for 4 weeks.  From there, I’ll be in a removable splint and in major physical therapy until some yet-to-be-determined date.

Even more depressing is I don’t think I said anything overly hilarious while coming out of general anesthesia.

This is turning out to be better than I expected which is such a pleasant surprise.

My life has been so…something lately.  Busy?  Hectic?  Draining?

I have had my hand in a splint since early August.  I re-injured an old injury and was wicked stubborn about it.  Originally, I over-extended a ligament.  The re-injury tore the ligament, the ulnar collateral ligament in my thumb.  When this is injury or torn, the thumb, which usually functions as a post so you are able to pick up a bottle of beer, for example, grip a doorknob, or grasp a key to insert and turn it into a lock.

So.  In early September, I went in to an orthopedic specialist.  The options presented to me were either casting it and hoping it would heal on it’s own…or surgery.  Just the idea of surgery scared/s me because it means that my body isn’t able to heal itself properly.  Sure, now the pain is gone and the muscles are starting to rebuild themselves but there is still instability in my thumb, which means it did not (and will not) heal properly without surgical intervention.  Upon re-injury, I immediately iced it and put it in a splint (that I had from the original injury about 10 years prior).  While it was the right thing to do, I really should have gone to a doctor earlier.  However, given that there was a month lag between injury and seeing a specialist about it, my orthopedist was REALLY nice about it given that I did everything I could to protect the injury short of going to the doctor.

Hoping for the best and bargaining a little bit with the doctor, instead of being casted immediately, we made a deal that I would get a new splint and come back to see her in 6 weeks to evaluate.

Have no disillusions, I left this initial doctor’s appointment *really* upset.  My body won’t heal and the surgery has a lengthy recovery time: 6 weeks in a cast, more time in a splint, physical therapy 1-2 times per week until I don’t need it anymore, and restriction on activities that involves my left hand for another 8 months on top of all that time.  Why, then, I ask myself, do I have to be involved in sports that involve my hands?  I can’t play football (although my feelings on it were not strong, anyway, and I’m not convinced I even like the sport), I can’t play hockey, I potentially won’t be able to play softball next season…I dislike soccer, and as much as I love candlepin bowling, it just doesn’t provide the kind of physical activity that I need to stay healthy and sane.

Six weeks passes very quickly, which is good considering I will be counting down the hours until I am done with my cast.  In that time, I did a lot of research on my injury and on the surgery.  Basically, a harvested tendon from my wrist will replace the torn ligament.

As you can see from Fig. A left image, the little blue-ish circle indicates the point of injury.  Note the red line in Fig. A right image; there is a vestigial tendon in some people’s wrists that will be harvested and affixed in the red line area of Fig. A right image.  That is what the surgery will do.

Great.

The good news is that it’s a life long solution.  If re-injury occurs, the same procedure is performed.

I am still waiting on a confirmation, but my tentative date is 10/28.  So soon!  I am starting to come up with a long list of things to do pre-surgery, such as clean the house, and figure out food that I can absolutely prepare with one hand only.  Suggestions?

Additionally, suggestions on cast color?  I don’t know what color to get.

I am approaching my one year anniversary of living in Boston/it’s tomorrow.

In these weeks, I have been trying to put some time aside to reflect a little bit on my life – where it is now, where I thought I would be, what I was hoping for and what I have actually accomplished (or not accomplished).

Aaaaand that isn’t going so well.  I’d start to write something and then I’d think it was stupid and cheesy.  I don’t really feel nostalgic or like I accomplished some big huge feat (although how I managed to not have more than a few weeks of joblessness in the past year actually probably was a huge feat).  I lived life and accumulated random free shit from Craigslist and found some really great things about the place I’m living now.

Let’s see what I’ve found that I like in absolutely no order:

Cookies:  Top of the Hub cookies.  I don’t even like cookies that much, but I like to go here to have them.  $13 for a plate of cookies IS a bit steep, but they’re served warm, soft, and with Chantilly cream (that is, whipped cream with either vanilla or brandy whipped in) all while overlooking Boston from the 52nd floor of the Pru.  I like telling people, both Bostonians and out-of-towners, about this little gem – it makes me feel good about knowing something about the city that people who have lived here for years don’t know about.

Directions: I have no idea HOW, but I have managed to learn my way around Boston well enough to give people directions.  However, I do call things awkward names sometimes like the “Boston-Providence Highway” (instead of “route 1″) or “Tree-mont” instead of “treh-mont” (Tremont).  I also stopped carrying a map with me at all times after about 2-3 months!

On the topic of calling things awkward names:  Soda vs Pop? Both sound stupid to me now.  I avoid using either of these words to refer to sweetened bubbly beverage when possible.  I default to “pop” when I’m around people I’m comfortable with.

Random Jobs: While it doesn’t lend itself to financial stability, I have actually really found that having all sorts of random and sometimes short-term jobs is really great for learning about a city.  I met a ton of people who were more than happy to share their information and stories about the places they grew up, what’s fun, what sucks, what is interesting to go to, etc.  It also helped me learn about different places in the city.  A notable night was when I was bartending a posh lawyer event from the 48th floor of the John Hancock Tower.  The group was running about 2 hours late, so I hung out and watched the world go by from the 48th floor.  Another notable time leads me to:

Missing the Obvious: For awhile, I worked at a valet company at the Brigham’s.  The office was located in Brigham and Women’s hospital.  The door I used to go into the hospital always led me by this somewhat large admissions area for a slew of things – radiology, respiration/ears/nose/throat stuff, some physical therapy…a bunch of stuff.

I had an orthopedics appointment at Brigham’s for my hand awhile ago.  On the phone, the person who made my appointment said that the orthopedic office was on the first floor and asked if I knew where it was.  I mentioned that I used to work there, so I had an idea.  She told me it was between the 5th and 6th door on the 1st pike (this does actually make sense).  I had an idea of where it was, but not exactly – I did walk around the hospital quite a bit while avoiding work/avoiding the awkwardness of trying to look busy with my supervisor looking over my shoulder.

On the day of my appointment, I get to the hospital a bit early so I’d have time to look at the layouts and/or ask for help.  Long story short, I ended up asking for help only to find out the orthopedic offices are a part of the large admissions area I walked by at least 6 times a day, if not more.  In fact, I even used the bathrooms right across the hall from the offices!  I had NO IDEA!  I was completely CLUELESS!  I’m not sure how I missed the HUGE sign proclaiming “ORTHOPEDICS CHECK-IN” 6+ times a day!

On the topic of that:  health/insurance: As a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I am legally required to have health insurance or face a hefty penalty come tax time.  Soon after moving here, I applied for state insurance and was approved for some pretty good insurance for a great price (my current premium is $0/month (that is not a typo)).  This is all wonderful and relevant because, if you don’t know, have a sordid past with a ligament in my left thumb.  About 10 years ago, I injured it playing soccer.  It hurt for a while until I finally went to a doctor and ended up having it casted and then in a removable splint and then an even smaller splint for about 2.5-3 months.

In early August, I was trying to play flag football.  I went long for a pass, stuck up my left hand to try and catch it and, essentially, replicated the original injury.  Luckily, I had one of my original 10-year-old splints, so I went home, iced it, and splinted it.  4 weeks later, it wasn’t better so I went to the orthopedist (see:  Missing the Obvious).  Long and emotional story short, I will most likely be getting surgery…hopefully in late October or early November.  My UCL ligament is chronically torn.  The surgery requires harvesting a tendon (from my inner left wrist) and affixing it in the area of my torn ligament.  Great?  Yeah?  Apparently, the affixing involves drilling holes in my bones which, not gonna lie, is scary…so…while that isn’t something that I’m thrilled about or particularly like about Boston, what I DO like is that my insurance is really, really good and had many, many doctors and specialists in-network which leads to very, very low medical costs for me.   That is something I really do enjoy – having medical insurance that is good and not wicked expensive.

Wicked: A colloquialism that I thought sounded weird.  It’s synonymous with “really”.  (Example:  The movie was wicked good.)  However, around month 7 or 8 of my living here, I had the most peculiar urge to use “wicked” (properly) in a sentence.  I suppressed the urge for a long time; in the past week or two have allowed myself to try out “wicked” as a part of my vernacular.

Cooking: Obviously, no one else is going to regularly cook for me now (thanks, parents) so I have had a lot of time and opportunity to cook.   I really like cooking and enjoy having a random repertoire of all sorts of food.  My favorite thing to make now doesn’t even really have a name for it.  I ordered it at a Chinese restaurant and liked it so much I decided to try making it on my own.

I use:

-A ton of leafy green such as kale, mustard green, dandelion greens, non-lettuce greens.  (I’ve never used beet greens because I don’t like them.  They’re too bitter.)

-Onion.  Cut into large-ish pieces and sauteed.  Garlic, too.

-Edamame.  Trader Joe’s pre-shelled edamame, $1.79 for 12 oz (or something like that)

-tofu. cut into small cubes, made crispy in a frying pan with chili powder, salt, and oil.

Combine onion, garlic, tofu, edamame, and greens.  Season the shit out of it (the greens absorb flavor like crazy).  Let it all cook/steam in a large pan until the greens are wicked limp.  Serve with rice, or quinoa, or cous cous.  High in fiber and deliciousness.  Easy on budget.

Sports: I don’t think I would have made friends outside of Joanna’s contacts if it wasn’t for playing softball.  I tried to do flag football, but you can see how that turned out what with now needing surgery.  So, I’m glad that I’m sporty.  Woo!

So.

Tomorrow marks the year anniversary of moving to JP.  Crazy.  AND!  Tomorrow will also mark the year anniversary of Ginny, the cutest cat in the world (if not universe?) joining our lives.  Maybe I’ll give her some tuna to celebrate?  Maybe we can all eat tuna to celebrate.

Today was a good day.

I had softball and made 2 great plays.  That was exciting -  I think I’m definitely much happier being an infielder than outfielder.  I also think I react to the game more appropriately because I don’t have the time to stand around while waiting for a fly ball to contemplate how much it would suck to just barely miss the ball and have it land on my face.  I’d rather stand in front of a line drive, to be honest.

Now I am sitting out on the back porch with my computer appreciating the quiet Sunday evening of JP.

I’m really quite pleased with life right now.

mock me, please.

I’m going to be honest about it and come outright and say it:  I’m no skilled electrician or anything like that.

A couple weeks ago, all of the light bulbs in a ceiling light/fan fixture burned out.  I felt I did the responsible thing by taking one of the bulbs, going to the store, and getting new bulbs to replace the burned out ones.  The store I happened to go to didn’t have the 60 watt, only 40 watt, but I figured it was a small concession to make to not have to stop at one more store.  Plus, with 3 bulbs, there can’t be that much of a difference, can there?

I get home and install the new lightbulbs.  Again, I’m not trained in this but in the past, I have been successful at lightbulb installation.  I get all the new bulbs screwed in and flip the switch.

They don’t work.  But the fan works, so clearly, that means that it’s the bulbs I had just purchased, right?

I continue on in my life without that particular room well lit, always thinking, “Crap, I should go get more bulbs.”  The other night, Joanna and I were out running errands and we stopped at Home Depot to pick some up.  They carry the 60 watt bulbs, though, so maybe that was the issue and these bulbs will work.

At home, I go to install them.  I make sure the light switch is flipped so the lights, had they worked, would have been off.  I change one bulb and had a genius/stupid idea: what if I pulled each of the pull cords (light and fan) once, and THEN tried to see if the lights work.

So, I did.  And they did.

Good.  I’m glad I have had this experience now.  I will NEVER again forget to pull the little cords first.

CA –> NYC –> VT

Now that I’ve been home for a couple hours, I have some time to sit down and talk about what I’ve been up to lately.

3 weekends ago, I went go Santa Barbara for a wedding.  I already talked about that a little bit, but I left out one of the best stories of all.

I met a good chunk of Joanna’s extended family when I went out to San Deigo for Thanksgiving last year.  As mentioned before, I flew into LAX and go there kind of late – so we got into her grandparents house kind of late, too.

Before going out there, we both knew we were going to be in “the girls” room – that’s the room that Joanna’s mom and aunt shared as children.  We knew there were 2 twin beds in there.  Prior to flying out, I had joked about pushing the beds together for whatever stupid reason.  I mean, really, I’m happy when I get a bed when I’m crashing at someone’s house and I am absolutely not picky at all.

We tiptoe into their house at 2am trying really hard not to wake her grandmother, who is a light sleeper.  Her grandparents left appropriate lighting on for us to find our way to the room.  So, we tiptoe in through the front door, go down the hallway to the last door on the right.  We’re both in a bit of a rush because not only do we have to be awake and functioning in another 5 hours, but we both also really have to be.  Joanna walks in first and I follow her – we take a look at the room and freeze.  The twin beds, I kid you not, are pushed together.

Her grandparents pushed the twin beds together so we could sleep next to each other.

HOW FREAKING CUTE IS THAT.

The next morning, I walked past her grandparents bedroom.  I, of course, took a peek in and noted that they, too, sleep on twin beds pushed together.

—————-

Two weekends ago, I went to NYC Pride with Ace and Joanna.  (Ace is Joanna’s natural building friend/boss from Vermont.)  It was a last minute trip meaning Joanna came home late Thursday night and pitched the idea to me.  I was not sold – a friend of ours was having a birthday brunch on Saturday and I had softball on Sunday late afternoon.  Going would mean really tight scheduling and missing a going away party for someone else.  Friday, Joanna asked me if I was going to go.  It was kind of a reckless decision on all of our parts, but I figured, someone else is driving, we have a place to stay in the city, there is a specific benefit that we’re all interested in attending, and if I could get a cheap bus back…why not?

Naturally, everything came together well.  Saturday afternoon, Ace drove down from Vermont and picked us up in Boston.  We ended up leaving around 6pm, which means we arrived in NYC at 10pm.  We found his relative’s house (where we were staying), an AMAZING parking spot right out front, hung out for a bit then took off.

We went to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project benefit at a place called The Hose. (I think?)  It was a small space jammed with all sorts of sweaty dancing people.  It was beautiful (and hot and definitely smelly).  After dancing for an hour or so,  we all needed a break and something to eat.  It was probably around 1am, then, so we ventured out and ate some food and hung out.  Around 2 we headed back – it’s New York, everything was still open and people were still out.  When in New York, do as the New Yorker, right?

Upon re-entrance, it was even hotter and smellier and more crowded.  It was overwhelming, so I left my friends inside while I went out and sat on the sidewalk to chill out for a bit.  Long story short, I met this girl who went to Smith who bought me two drinks and kept inviting me back to her apartment (in Western Mass) to hang out upon finding out that I live in Boston.  She also knew that if you stood by the bar in the club that all the ventilation fans were there so it was manageable to hang out and not feel deprived of oxygen.  I hung out with her for a bit increasingly feeling the effects of the shot of tequila she bought me and all her friends plus the cranberry vodka.  Around 3am, maybe, I went outside and met my friends and we got ready to go home.  Again, we were all waking up at 8am the next morning to get our busy days started.

The plan was to take the bus back.  We knew that the busses didn’t run that frequently, but didn’t know their exact schedule.  We decided to just keep walking down the street until a bus came upon us.  Naturally, we ended up walking back the entire way (about 30 seconds before we reached our desired bus stop, the bus pulled up).

But, as we were walking past Union Square around 4am, there was this kind of large group of people drunkenly dancing and bobbing around to the musical stylings of the late Michael Jackson.  Seeing as how his death was announced just 2 days before, the entire weekend everywhere was dedicated to playing his music all the time.  No exception was some person with a computer and speakers at 4am in Union Square.  We stopped for a couple minutes.  There was this girl who proclaimed, rather loudly, that, “Michael brought us all together!”  That was both a true and hilarious statement.

We walked in the door around 4:15.  I was definitely unintentionally drunk (it sucks being a lighweight) and needing to wake up in about 3.5 hours to get ready to catch my bus back.

The three of us, to some extent, were all awoken at 7:30am when the phone rang.  Loudly.  I couldn’t go back to sleep at all, so I tossed and turned, uncomfortably tired.  Suck.

I got to the bus station with breakfast (an egg, spinach, dill, cheddar wrap) and plenty of time to spare.  Joanna took me to the station so I wouldn’t get lost (woo!).  I got on the bus and proceeded to have an uncomfortable 4 hour ride back to Boston.  I was only able to sleep for about 30 minutes.  The remaining 3.5 hours was spent thinking about how I was so tired but couldn’t get to sleep.  Worst. Bus ride.  Ever.

And to top it all off, we lost our softball game by 1 run.  It was SUCH a close game, too.

————————-

This weekend, I went up for Montpelier to hang out with Ace and Joanna again.  The idea was to go to First Friday, which is a big queer dance party held in Burlington the first Friday of each month.  A friend of Ace’s was also DJing and had given us an assignment: the last song of her set would be Thriller.  We were to learn the Thriller dance and dance it.

Here is how that played out:

I met up with Ace and Joanna at a bookstore that he works at sometimes.  He got off work at 6.  We had to leave Montpelier around 9 to get to Burlington by about 9:45-10.

Here are the things we had to accomplish in thost three hours:

-walk home

-get ready and go swimming

-come home, get ready to go out

-order food and eat it

-learn Thriller

-practise Thriller

-drive to Burlington

So, by the time we got home from swimming, it was 8:15pm which didn’t leave us much time to fit in anything else.  So, we ordered food and decided to eat it on the drive.  We got dressed then watched a random YouTube video of a Thriller tutorial 3 times.  We tried, somewhat successfully, to dance along and be coordinated.  Ace took notes on the order of movements but only got halfway through them before we absolutely HAD to leave.  Pick up food.  Eat food.  Last 20 minutes of the drive, watch Thriller and sort of talk through the order of movements.

In the parking lot of the place, we ran through the dance once more but only sort of because not one of the three of us remembered all the moves.  Go in and dance.  Forget about Thriller until the DJ announced that if anyone knew the Thiller dance to step up on stage and rock it.

Step up on stage.  Kind of rock it?  Get applauded.

I think, really, what they were applauding was how well we were all dressed.  (Seriously.)

——-

So that’s been the last couple weeks of my life, or at least the really exciting parts.

I am writing from sunny Montecito, California.

Joanna and I are out here going to her best friend’s brother’s wedding (clearly, I’m the Plus 1).  It’s a beach wedding taking place in Santa Barbara.

I got in early Friday morning at 1am.  My flight out of Boston was delayed 2 hours, so my arrival went from 11pm in LA to 1am in LA, which translates to 4am in Boston.  I was able to doze a bit on the plane, but nothing significant.  I was SO TIRED when we landed.  I felt pathetic because I couldn’t even manage to follow the signs to the baggage claim.  I ended up in the ticketing area and couldn’t find my way out of there, so Joanna picked me up at the departures area.

We stayed the first night in her grandparents house about 40 minutes north of LAX.  I went to sleep between 2am and 2:30 and had to wake up at 8am to get up to Santa Barbara to go on a group winery tour with the wedding party.  I’m usually a morning person, but I could not get my act together.  My thoughts were slow, I felt like my speech was slurred, and I just was not able to function.  It was awful.

We met up with everyone at their hotel in Santa Barbara.  The bride and groom, very smartly, rented a bus to cart us all around that day.  We went to the first winery and I was very impressed with the tour.  We tasted 7 wines and I actually liked a red wine.  Unfortunately, it was a Private Selection Syrah which means that in order to even be eligible to purchase a bottle of it, you had to join the winery’s wine club.  Even with that, a single bottle was $48.  I guess I have good taste?

After that tour, we sat outside and ate lunch (turkey and brie sandwich on a croissant).  At that point, I was informed of a hilarious misunderstanding I had:  We weren’t only touring one winery.  We were touring 3.  I seriously had no idea, and a few other people didn’t either.  After lunch, we packed back into the bus and went to another winery that really sucked.  Because we lingered with eating lunch, we only had 2o minutes there, which was fine because it sucked.  Of the 7 wines, only 2 of them were even remotely OK.  Most people agreed that their wine would be good in sangria.  However, the second winery also grew peaches that were REALLY REALLY good.

After a few people purchases peaches, we headed to the third winery.  I think most people were wine-d out by this time (including myself).  We were all sleepy (the bachelor and bachelorette parties were the night before) and it was a long day being carted around to try wines.  Back in the bus, we headed back to the hotel where we all met.

From there, Joanna and I took off to her aunt and uncles house (where we’re staying through tomorrow morning).  They live in Montecito, which is maybe 5 miles south of Santa Barbara.

The house. Is.  Beautiful.  It’s an almost villa-style house complete with a pool and hot tub in the courtyard.  They made us dinner last night and it was a legit 3 course meal, complete with bread-and-butter plates, salad plates and forks, dinner plates and forks and knives, and a dessert plate and fork.

The wedding is in about 5 hours.  I think Joanna and I are going to head into Santa Barbara soon for lunch and walk on the beach.  Then it’s off to celebrate the great american institution of marriage.  Oh joy.

I sold my car.  I am happy and sad about this.  Happy because it’s gone on to be fixed for someone who needs a car.  Sad because I really, really liked that car.    Even though people far and wide come together to agree that a Chevy Cavalier is a piece of crap, it was my piece of crap that go me to and from Ohio, Kentucky, and Massachusetts as well as various other  adventures.  But, it was broken and I have a replacement now that I will surely learn to love just as much once the brake fluid stops leaking.

——–

There were a few REALLY hot days here a couple weeks ago.  The seedlings and little spoutlings (you can clearly tell I’m not a gardener) had not been planted, yet, and were still in the little peet moss pots.  They died – I couldn’t keep them wet enough and they dried out and died.

I did replant them, though, and a few are showing signs of life.  The rest I removed and re-planted carrots and added zucchini to the garden.  I really like what seeds look like – they’re so interesting.  I like green onion seeds the best because they’re just these little black strangely shaped things that, when they grow up, turn into delicious onions.

———–

The month of June is NUTS for me, a little  bit, particularly scheduling-wise  The first three weekends involve a friend visiting from home (yay!), Pride (yay!), and then a beach wedding in Santa Barbara (maybe yay? But I can wear flip-flops!  To the wedding!).  Joanna is working on a straw bale installation project for the first 2.5 work weeks in rural upstate New York, but back part of the weekends.

Plus, I begin my “mid-twenties” soon.  How did that happen?  Only one more year until reduced car insurance rates!

——–

I want a chin-up bar.  I’m not sure if I’d use it or not while it was in my own home, but I always enjoy playing on them in other people’s homes.  I already know where I would put it (the bathroom doorway, as it’s one of the few centralized and accessible doorways in the house).

I might have found some softball-friends to go rock climbing with. (And I am wishing so bad that the REI Boston will expand and put a climbing wall in because I can climb for free at REI.  Framingham has a lame and never-open rock climbing wall that isn’t worth the 30 minute drive.  Really, I think I was just spoiled with REI Bloomington’s huuuge wall.)

I also might play women’s flag football in the fall, also with some softball people.  There is also a hockey team I could potentially play on, but we’ll see about that because hockey is expensive and usually far away.

———

I am really excited for the summer – I think it will be a lot of fun.  There are excellent beaches that are maybe 45 minutes away.  There is a lot of biking to do.  There is so much to explore in Boston (I’m pumped for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum which I have purposefully put off just so I can see the courtyard in bloom).

I’m excited for Haymarket, too.  I got a watermelon the other day and, between Joanna and I, we ate almost the entire thing in one day.  There were super cheap berries (Two 2-pound packages of strawberries for $3 and they didn’t even look that bad) last week.

Unfortunately, I am not nearly as excited to do laundry and clean up the house today…