White Legs Need Suntan (And Other Nonsense)

When it's 103 degrees with 95 percent humidity, one of the only things that brings respite (besides *ahem* central air conditioning) is a dip in one of the millions of pools scattered around Texas. Even the poorer apartment complexes have pools 'round these parts because if they didn't people might combust, leaving piles of ashes scattered about.

Sunning is one of the things I've found that really raises my spirit - something about that healthy dose of Vitamin D laced with skin cancer to really give a pick me up. I try to spend at least an hour (and do a few laps while I'm there) working on my tan and today was no different, except that I was privileged to a very special conversation authored by four girls no older than 17.

"Yeah, I'm late. Like, I had my period last month, but this month I didn't, which always means your pregnant."

"So that makes the baby like six weeks right? Which is one month. Cause you like skip your first period and then the baby starts growing which makes it one month. Yeah, six weeks for a baby is one month!"

"Yeah...OMG, you know that some people don't get put to sleep when they have the baby? Like most times they do cause it's so painful but sometimes they don't."

"OMG. You have to really like pain for that."

OMG, get these girls a human sexuality class....I need a drink.

So I went home, shared that gem with my mother and we settled in for a little Mystery Movie Marathon. This used to be one of our favorite past times and now my mother has discovered that she can get Miss Marple and Detective Frost on DVD. We spent a good four or five hours enjoying this.

(Detective Frost is miserable all the time. But he's also snarky and sarcastic in that undeniably British way, so I forgive his lack of love for his dead wife.)

(Simon says "Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, bitch!")

After my mother retired to bed I was left to enjoy my new favorite TV show, The House of Representatives.


I find that it's really just a room full of men (and a few women with facial hair and glasses they purchased in 1970) overusing a thesaurus but never really saying anything of note. It always seems to degrade into a heated debate between grey haired men who are only there to promote their books about impeaching the president.

I was about to doze off on the couch

(er...bed/office/reading lounge...)

from the all the side talk I realized it was time for me to start switching back and forth between Jay Leno

and David Letterman.

They have apparently begun sharing material, because both opening monologues contained jokes about Princess Chunk, the 44lb cat from New Jersey.

But only David has Paul Shaffer and his horrible sunglasses.

(Horrible, horrible sunglasses)

Thankfully, I still have my health. (And this ice cream.)

I wonder if I can learn more about birthing tomorrow at the pool. It's good to have something to look forward to, you know?

A Little More Composed

Let's not kid ourselves shall we? When am I ever completely composed? Probably never. Just accept it and we can all be friends.

Last night I dreamt that was hanging out with Bruce Springsteen (and the East Street Band as well). He was buying my friends and I drinks and kept putting his hand on my arm. On a piece of paper he had written "Good morning...Sorry I just wanted to see how that sounded." above a note asking us to mark how many more beer we wanted on the house. I was drinking Stella Artois, and Bruce's face kept looking older and older.

That must mean this is going to be a GOOD day. Somehow. I mean, I was hanging out with rock legends all night.

Yesterday's "thing" went well. I answered all of the scripted question about my integrity and problem solving skills with gusto and enthusiasm. I established a report with the manager. I asked relevant and seemingly intelligent questions about the corporation and it's matters ("I heard Starbucks is closing 600 stores, how will this effect Houston?" "Is this a franchise?").

At the end of the "thing" I asked about a second interview.

"Well, I have to coordinate with my other managers, so the earliest a second interview would happen would be next Monday."

SIGH.

"Okay, great! It was a pleasure meeting you."

I went home took a swim and then a hard, deep-sleep kind of nap.

In other news, for those of my readers who are keeping tabs, my cats are doing very well. The four of them are beginning to adjust to each other with only a minor growl here and there. Simon and Fitch are being spoiled by grandma with a bit of warm wet food every single day. At the three of us curl up and watch David Letterman, then Conan, then if Craig Ferguson (if we're still awake).

It's a very exciting life, you see.

Simon's favorite place in any home is always a box with paper in it. My mom put this out to take to recycling, but Simon claimed it as his own very quickly.



You can't hear it but Fitch is purring louder than the T.V.. He is very happy to by following my mom and I around the house.

I haven't had any confirmation but I'm beginning to think my mom might not let them go to another home. They couldn't find a better foster parent, that's for sure.

Don't Make Me Get on My Soapbox!

I won't say what I am doing today at one o'clock lest I completely jinx the thing. Don't laugh it happens every time. If I widely publicize what I am about to go do I never get the thing that I am trying to get with the thing I am doing. I can summarize it in one word: Borebucks.

That is not what I really call it. What I really call it requires more expletives. I don't much care for the establishment, can you tell?

Whatever at this point I cannot be picky. My search for an income keeps stalemating at the application process. That is to say, I put in an application only to find out that it has to be sent to corporate or is only reviewed on the second week after the full moon. The temp agency has been little help because apparently (who knew!?) thousands of other people also need jobs. What's that you say? The country isn't in a recession? Oh right, this is just a bad time we're having. For FOUR YEARS. Whatever.

This is the thing: It should, in some way, make me feel better to know that I am not the only one suffering through this but it doesn't.

I was at the Kroger the other day buying tomatoes and lettuce for fajitas. The reason we could have fajitas is because my mother got this meat from an organization called the Angel Food Ministries, who offer very low prices on groceries for people who are of low income. For a box of pantry and freezer items plus something like twenty pounds of frozen red meat, my mother paid fifty dollars.

Back in the express lane I realize that I am stuck behind a woman who is clearly having problems with her transaction. For some reason this doesn't piss me off, I just feel bad for her. She is wearing a Kroger uniform, still in her name tag. "Maria" doesn't have a full cart - just stuff to make salsa, some juice and an economy sized box of Huggies. For some reason, today of all days, her discount card isn't working. She waits patiently as the manager enters and re-enters the code until finally she just overrides it.

"She's worked here a long time," she says to the cashier. "Just save the slip."

As she finishes her transaction, Maria's boyfriend (who is greasy and toothless and almost certainly does not have a job) saunters up with her Lonestar card. Foodstamps. Maria can't even afford food at the place where she works.

This bothers me all the way home. It bothers me into the kitchen and through dinner, where I wonder to my mother why more people don't know about things like the Angel Food Ministries, why our government turns a blind eye to the poverty in our country, and what I can do to help. Because I feel helpless. Writing a congressman seems like a waste of time. I don't have the means to start a non-profit of my own (and even if I did, would I run it from FRANCE?).

"The same thing happened when I was young," my mother said, "And everyone thought that the government should help but they won't. They never will."

"Well then it's up to us to take care of each other!" I said. But the question lingers...how?

Later that night I decided the best thing for me to do is to take care of myself first. You know, "please secure your own emergency mask before helping children or elderly passengers beside you." What good am I if I can't feed myself? I don't feel powerful enough to help the masses. There are people suited to do that, and I'm not sure I'm one of them. Certainly, though, if I can reach some level of financial security, I can give back to all the people that have helped me when I was down. I can offer aid to my friends who can't pay their bills this month, just to give them some hope.

I could really go on for days about this. It infuriates me to think of how much wealth is out there (in that "Can you even fathom how deep the universe is??" kind of way) and how little it is dispersed. And how, once you get out of this low-income tax bracket you seem to just "forget" how hard it is (It's a survival mechanism, I think.) and say things like "Well, they could help themselves if they really wanted" and "They bring this on themselves" and "If they tried harder they could get themselves out of this." (Yes, because poor people LOVE to live in falling down Section 8 tenemants with bars on the windows, and obviously all of them could just polish up their resume if the only just tried hard enough.) And how Donald Trump just sold his house in Palm beach for a profit of 58 million dollars and that would feed several third world countries for at least a year. Probably more. I don't know because I can't even grasp how much money 58 million dollars is. That's more than three carts of groceries right?

SO. I will go to this thing today and hope I get it because then at least, maybe, I can go to the grocery store without feeling beaten down and help my mom put gas in the car she is driving. Say nothing for the pile of bills with my name on them!

Let's hope the calvary comes sooner rather than later, shall we?

But Getting Out of the House is Better

Today during my self imposed solitary confinement I fell asleep for five minutes. In that five minutes I succeeded in entering a dream state (I can do that, I'm special), where I pulled up to my old apartment to find that the corvette had been finally taken away. I have found out this is actually true, but it did strike me as symbolic. Can't say for sure what it's symbolic of but I felt it must be, just the same. Maybe I am just psychic.

Then my mom and I went to see my uncle sing in his community playhouse production of 'Music Man'. I'd never seen it before but found out, as suspected, that I knew most of the music already. I will have 'Gary, Indiana' stuck firmly in my brain for a few days at least. (GAAAAAAAAAARY INDIANA, GARY INDIANA, GARY INDIANAAA!) For a local acting troupe the production was actually quite good - these ones usually are - and I found myself missing theatre, thinking odd things like "I wonder if there are English playhouses in Paris..." and "Won't it be great to act in French?"

I quickly dismissed both the ideas because I have a job in France that will require me on evenings (when most people see plays!) and also because I discovered today that I can't even say "Go to dinner" in French yet. Allez au diner? Non. Apparently not. (What is Allez a table, for two hundred, Alex.)

I have to admit that it was good to get out of the house. I had a numbing realization in the darkened theater when I started to cry in the middle of 'Shipoopi' that I am, in fact, depressed again. Really?, you say, NO!

Surely it must come as a shock to all of you, I know my posts have been nothing but sunshine and butterflies these days, but to me...well for some reason I am always the last to know these things. I used to come back from therapy and tell Sister L some something or other that had just rocked my world ("Oh my God, I have TRUST ISSUES, because of my FATHER!") and she would punctuate a short silence with "Um...Yeah. I know."

Here I am, though, in Butt F*** Egypt Texas without a therapist and not even considering going back on my antidepressants, and I have to do something. I have to do something. Certainly the last thing my host family wants is a wet sobbing pile of SAD. So I'm compiling a list of cheap (or free) things that I can do - BESIDES watching trash T.V. (although I am working up a keen post dissecting David Duchovny's recent horrible hair) - to get myself back to that happy place before I move to France. I'm taking suggestions too. So far I've got:

- Go to my mom's pool and lay in the sun.
- Work on my writing (What???? Blogging isn't writing???)
- Read and study French at the nearby Starbucks (which probably will not hire me anyway.)
- Go on a date with Hakim.
- Buy scratch tickets until I win $10,000.
- Dye my hair purple and get a tattoo.
- Dance around listening to French Butt Rock, pretending to be existentialiste.
- Enter a home video every reality T.V. show in existence until I am accepted to one.
- Jump out of a plane.

Okay, so the last four or five may not make me really, deeply happy, but tell me how $10,000 dollars could not help this situation? Oh, and jumping out of a plane is actually something I really want to do. I think it would be way more symbolic for me than a dream about a corvette. If anyone knows where I can get a cheap tandem jump, do tell.

Anyway, it's a start. And a good start, because just thinking about doing these things makes me feel a little bit better. I got nothin' else goin'...I might as well give this happiness thing a whirl.

Killing Time (with a big stick)

The money is swiftly disappearing from my bank account with little to no job prospect in sight. Did you know that Starbucks requires TWO interviews? TWO. To sling coffee. I do not understand this. Perhaps five years ago I would have understood this, but now I think it is a retarded waste of my time. Working at Starbucks is the middle class equivalent of working at McDonalds. You make more money, but you're handing out McCoffees just the same. And yes, I did leave my application anyway.

To self medicate celebrate my unemployment I've started spending money. Sort of in the vane of "You have to spend money to make money", except I am not really investing towards my future. Unless you count buying shampoo and razors and face wash as investing in my future. Which I do. But it's not the sort of investment that has a high return rate.

It's times like these when I wish I had no scruples whatsoever. I would just go down the street to Sugars in a tiny skirt and get a job in a second. Men love my legs. It would be great tips, even if I just cocktail waitressed. But alas, I have a delicate disposition that would drive me to punching the first guy who copped a feel. I would never last.

So I'm back to waiting to hear from Starbucks. Waiting to hear from Borders. Waiting to here from HEB. Waiting to hear from the temp agency. Wait wait wait. Good thing I am a very patient person. Patient like four year old who just drank a Big Gulp.

The Good Thing About Cable

Today my mom got cable which means two things. I can stop bogarting her computer for my obsessive email checking ("My name is Juliet and I am an addict.") AND I get to watch one hundred channels of perfectly clear trash television.

Right now I am watching 'Kicking and Screaming', a Will Ferrell movie about coaching a kids soccer team. I love Will Ferrell for reasons I can't explain (ahem! ELF!) but I could care less about this movie. It doesn't matter. It's clear.

Which is good because the cable guy spent a full four hours setting the thing up. I should have had some foresight and printed out my resumes before he got here. Showering would have been good too. Alas, such was not my fate. Instead I read Eat, Love, Pray and wondered why the hell I'm not a beautiful blonde GQ writer with a third book deal to get me ready for my adventure.

Seriously, I did actually shower and make out of the house today. I even filled out one of those torturous work personality assessments that begs me to be at once compassionate towards others but never ever speak up for myself. Ever. Under any circumstances. I often wonder what sicko writes these and then what exactly the right answers are. Am I supposed to be assertive? Am I supposed to like crowds or be able to be a self starter who loves to work alone? Am I supposed to care like listening to peoples problems or to keep my eyes on the prize and cash out 1000 customers per shift. They're all trick questions. Waste of time trick questions. I wonder if they have personality assessments in France.

In other news I keep thinking that I will be going back home. It strikes me occasionally, this thought that I will be back in my apartment next week making coffee and chatting with my neighbors, staring at that damn corvette gathering dust on the street. And then I realize I'm here. This is it. And I miss my friends and my bed (oh sweet God my bed!) and taking naps with the cats on my couch.

But here I have cable. So it just goes to show there is always a silver lining. (And re-runs of Greys Anatomy.)

Seriously Ready To Adjust

I've been in Houston now for four whole days and let me just say I am ready to get a job. Any of you who know me personally know what a deeply astounding statement this is. I. Hate. Work. Typically speaking, work and I are like oil and water. We're just don't jive, see? But after six months of being basically unemployed I can honestly say that if I go another week without some form of work (not to mention income) I might throw myself off a bridge.

Drama aside. Houston is not...what shall I say....the most exciting city in the world? In fact, I would say its more along the lines of a raw sewage plant that happens to be surrounded by bars, cars and churches. Okay, it has it's redeeming qualities, but for the most part when you live in the suburbs of Houston (like my mom does) there is much to be desired from life.

So today I had an interview and I thought "PRAISE BABY JESUS, I NEED ME A DISTRACTION!". All this watching bad T.V. and obsessively checking my email is making me nuts. Say nothing for hiding from the crazy guy what lives upstairs.

I got up early for it, even ironed my slacks - which is something near to hell freezing over - only to get in my mom's Ghetto mobile (which I have named La Corisicita!), get halfway to the interstate and find out that the interview had been pushed back. Till two.

I went back to the apartment and did what anyone would do: took a nap. What? Isn't that what you would have done? I thought about all the things I should be doing and realized that the only thing I wanted in the whole wide world (besides a job) was sleep. So I slept.

Come two o'clock I'd re-done my hair and strolled into the lovely art deco building that is the Houston Visitors center to meet the lady who would give me a job. Bear in mind that I am going through a temp agency and this is a temporary position. Normally interviews don't happen. But there was one and so I showed up fifteen minutes early wearing my nicely pressed slacks and carrying my lucky Longchamp bag, looking just so despite the hour I spent in a ninety degree car with no air conditioner.

I wanted this thing to go well. I wanted the stress of unemployment to be gone, to take my mother out for a celebratory dinner and be done with it. But you know when you have those job interviews that just kind of go "THHHHHFFFFFFFPPPPBLEH"? It was one of those. I was interviewed by two women (who were not impressed by my purse, thank you very much). One was the original contact that I was supposed to make and the other was the woman who commandeered the interview. She just swooped in and took it over, asking dry interview questions with her eyes all twitching as she tried desperately not to show me she liked me (or hated me! Don't show any emotion or you will die!!). I tried to be witty. I tried to be serious and business like. I tried to bond with her over her "Devil Wears Prada" comment that wasn't funny at all. To no avail. Not. One. Smile.

And so I left, deflated, into a torrential downpour courtesy of Hurricane Dolly. I stopped to get gas in La Corisicita and found that I could not remove the gas cap. In addition, the "Service Engine Soon" light came on. I could not help but throw a little bit of a temper tantrum at the gas station, mortified that half a dozen people had witnessed me try to wrangle the greasy cap for at least ten minutes.

I made it home (barely!) and immediately smoked a cigarette.

I just want to feel settled again. It's a bit unnerving to think that it won't really happen for at least another month and a half (and then how settled will I be??! In a country where I can't speak to the clerk to ask for cigarettes?!). I want a job so that the time will go by swiftly. I don't have any friends here and will be lucky if I do. I doubt I will meet my new best friend in a month.

But then...perhaps I have. His name is Hakim, and he is teaching me French. He is very patient and wears a size 44 sock. I think we will be married, actually. He enjoys sightseeing and is incredibly polite. Not to mention, he doesn't mind seeing me any time of day whether I'm wearing makeup or not.

Between him and my desperately needy cat Simon, perhaps I won't die of loneliness after all. Just in case, though, keep me on speed dial.

Red Wine Teeth - Meet Dr. Puntabulous!

Welcome to the very first edition of RED WINE TEETH. The first person I just had to invite over for some vino is my friend Craig from Puntabulous. This man is pure genius with a side of hilarity (plus he has amazing eyebrows). We had SO much to talk about.


Juliet, on the topic of "Oprah": Can we just talk about this for a second? I mean, I love Oprah and all - she did fabulous things for making Tom Cruise look like the asshole he is, which I highly advocate - but REALLY. What exactly is the function of having ones face on the cover of EACH of your magazines? To me this SCREAMS narcissist. And I mean, I'm narcissistic and all, but if I had my own magazine I don't know that I would want to chronicle my weight gain and or loss by being on EACH AND EVERY cover. WE GET IT, OPRAH. YOU LOST THE WEIGHT. I STILL don't want too see your weird, plasticy, turning-into-Michael-Jackson face every month. Right?


Craig: Seriously, the woman is an evil genius! Think about it. You see her face on the check out line in the grocery store, and it reminds you: "Hey, I need to watch Oprah when I get home!" That's brilliant marketing! So even if you don't buy the magazine, it still serves the purpose of getting you home and turning on the TV and driving up her commercial sales! And then when you're watching Oprah, a commercial for O-Puffs: a delicious part of a balanced breakfast comes on and you go back out to the grocery store to pick up a box and then you see the magazine cover again! The cycle never ends!

Juliet: Holy shit, O-Puffs! How long do you think before these ACTUALLY exist!? I wonder if she will put her smiling face on the box, spooning in a hearty helping of crispy goodness? Oh! Oh! And she can use the cereal as an opportunity to market to a younger demographic and create a kids cereal: Choc-O-Puffs! On THIS box she will have a caricature done of her face (which will, like, wrap around the box because it's so massive). After the success of the cereal she can spread out the paraphernalia J.K. Rowling style with Oprah and Dr. Phil Barbie Dolls. A complete set will contain a teeny tiny copy of her magazine, her couches and a starving African child. Maybe Tom Cruise. The possibilities are ENDLESS!

Craig: Yes! I can see the tagline for Choc-O-Puffs now! "Choc-O-Puffs! Choc-O full of chocolately goodness and world domination!" Speaking of J.K. Rowling, who do you think would win in a fight between Oprah and JK? My money is on JK. I mean, I feel like Oprah might be stronger but JK would be quicker and spritelier (that's totally a word). But then if their fans got involved, I think Oprah would win because Oprah fans are batshit crazy. Like, pulling hair and biting necks crazy. And they certainly wouldn't have any qualms kicking little Harry Potter-reading tyke ass.

Juliet: Okay, well I mean, I would normally side with Oprah's batshit crazy fans, but I REALLY think that all those Harry Potter people can be a tad frightening. I totally met a kid who had painted a little scar on his forehead, and his parent was SO PROUD. Like "SEE? My kid is REALLY HARRY POTTER." And I was all "Shhhh...kid, tell your dad that there aren't really wizards!" But, they both had magic wands (not a euphemism!) and so I had to step off. Plus, I am pretty sure J.K. Rowling is richer than Oprah now. Which means she could buy all of Oprah's starving children, teach them to read Harry Potter and brainwash them into kicking O's ASS.


Craig: Wait, if there are no such things as wizards, how did Oprah magically make Dr. Phil's career out of nothing? Expecto Careerum! Did you know he's not really a doctor? Like, can I just start going around calling myself Dr. Craig? Is that legal? I could totally be like a Patch Adams going around curing people with laughter. Only instead of laughter it would be awkward belligerence. And I'll be drunk at the time. And people won't really be cured, they'll just feel better about themselves since I'm such a disaster.


Juliet: What do you mean to say? You're not a doctor? How is that possible, you totally cured my rigor mortis last week. I mean, are you NOT the doctor of hilariousness? Because if you're telling me that you've been practicing without a licence I think might have to sue. Or drink more. Actually...that's not such a bad idea. Because really, when you think about it, all these famous people must be on the sauce anyway to feel like they can label themselves doctor and whatnot. So by that reasoning, if we get drunk right now you should be a doctor (you know, officically) by morning and then we can go on tour with your magic laughing trunk show. Cause, that's sort of what Dr. Phil does, isn't it?? Here's a toast to your new career!!! SALUT!


Craig: SALUT!!



---------------------------------------------------

Would you like to come over for a glass of red wine?? Email me at theevolvingrevolver.gmail.com. Let's get toasted!!

Home Again Home Again

Wow. I am finally getting my sense of humor back. As in I can find things funny again. As in, the ridiculousness of my life is actually laughable again. (Oh, it's always been laughable, hasn't it!) I think it helps to be living with my mom. Even though it's not the house I grew up in, things still look the same, smell the same, taste the same. We've been eating dinner and watching old Charlie Chan mysteries and Antiques Roadshow. It's like being home for the summer from college - except...you know. I never did that.

My mom is being more than generous and letting me register her old purple Chevy Corsica for use while I am here. It's ghetto-tastic.


BUT it drives. Although at four dollars a gallon I won't be driving it more than to the park and ride...

This is the view from my mom's apartment, which is also quite ghetto-tastic.

Upstairs from her lives a man who may or may not be mentally unstable. We're not really sure, but he reminds me a bit of the man who drove me to drinking at the airport in Charlotte. My mother swears she told him I have a boyfriend and even though it's exactly the opposite I fully intend to tell him that I'm meeting him in France. Not like the guy is dangerous per se...he's just not quite right.

My mother's other two cats have been living in her bedroom (mine in the living room, each with their own litter and food).


They are beautiful little spooky cats who we hope to introduce to each other soon...unless they threaten bloodshed. So far conspiracy theories have not been muttered. The house is rife with jealousy.

Now that I'm here I found out I get my packrattiness from my mother. She has things still around that I'd long since forgotten, including the very first book I ever tried to learn French from


and proof that I used to feather my bangs.


Check out those earrings. I totally rock some exactly like that these days. I'm not sure what that says about me.

Meanwhile, it turns out I'm getting a double chin. You will see proof of this tomorrow in the very first (but hopefully not last!!) long awaited edition of Red Wine Teeth. Please, pretend that you love my "teachers arms" and my bad hair cut. You will be fully distracted by Craig McAnally's hilariousness. As it turns out, it is possible to get drunk via the internet! (And now, my life is complete.)

When One Door Is Locked Behind You...

I won't go around saying that yesterday was the hardest day of my life. I've had many more emotionally challenging days - but this one certainly had the flavor of salty tears and I am glad to say it is done.

It began with a hangover because like all good friends mine took me out to close the bars before my final departure. I saw something like five pitchers of Fireman 4 pass by our table, smoked a full half a pack of cigarettes and drunk texted a new friend of mine approximately one million times. Then, naturally, the next morning I woke with a pounding head.

By 12:30 I was at my apartment waiting for my mom to pull in. I walked around my place, struck by a distinct sadness that it was no longer my home. My apartment was locked, and in it the carpets had been ripped up and the floor painted.


In my carport were the contents of my home, stacked neatly and waiting to be refreshed and replaced by their new owner.

The little corvette sat on the street empty and disowned.


All of these memories came flooding back. The first time I saw that absurd car, the first days in my apartment, nights with the screen door open and my neighbors passing by with drinks and food and romance.
My three heartbreaks and the beautiful times recovering myself with friends and craft nights and wine. That little red apartment held so much love, and now it was empty - all the tenants still asleep from long Friday nights.


I did the only thing I could think of and walked around taking photos. I sat and cried until Kat woke up and invited me into her air conditioning where I watched Starman and decidedly did not think about how much I would miss wandering into my neighbors apartments.

My mother arrived into Austin and we set to the task of fitting "more than should fit into a Ford Focus" into the car, leaving a big empty spot for the cats who would officially be making the drive with me to Houston. We smashed and jammed and then took things out and left them behind and smashed and jammed some more. Then iit was done. All of my worldly belongings were jammed into one Ford Focus with a dented rear fender.

Sweating, we took one last meal at the Counter Cafe where I enjoyed the two helpings of the most amazing hollandaise I've ever tasted, and then went back for the cats.

The grueling car ride only took five hours (where it normally takes three) and only two of those hours were spent with an animal what had peed on itself. We finally made it to my mom's apartment South of Houston around 8:30. We did the unloading with exhaustion written on our faces. My mom made one final trip out (to Walmart to get a litter box and some dinner) and I sat down in front of her computer to let my brain finally melt. By ten o'clock we were both fast asleep.

This morning I found that I was, indeed, still alive and that the cats had settled in.



My mother (whom I will now refer to as "the packing fairy") had already stashed some of my errant things and was off to church.

Tomorrow I will have to get back to paying bills and getting a job and running errands, but today I have nothing planned except for laying on my mom's futon and turning into a puddle of mush. It's all I have wanted to do for well over two weeks. I think I kinda deserve it!

Emptiness

My apartment is empty. It took all day and three extra sets of hands that came up just when I needed them most, but I did it. By six o'clock, the home I'd lived in for almost four years looked tiny and dirty.

I like to think that I am a clean person. I'm the kind of person who deep cleans at least once a year, moving furniture and scrubbing things till they shine and touching up paint. But wow - once I moved all the furniture out I was amazed to find out how filthy it really was. I fell asleep on the floor a couple of times and found myself waking up wondering why the hell my carpet smelled so bad. Thankfully they are steam cleaning the space for the new tenant.

Things to do today:

Sleep.
Eat.
Cancel utilities.
Change mailing address.
Sleep.
Find cat what went running away yesterday.
Eat.
Sleep.
Sleep.
Sleep.

It has not yet sunk in that this is all really happening. It feels just like another one of my crazy pipe dreams that may or may not happen. But it is real and it is happening and this is just the first step. I will get a job in Houston because I have to and because if I don't this will be the longest two months of my entire life. I am going to try to find a language exchange partner so that I can say more than three phrases in French before I get there. I would love to be able to say "My flight was long but I am so happy to be here. Thank you so much for letting me be a part of your family. Can we get a drink?? HOLY SHIT I'M IN PARIS." Which should be easy because in theory I know all of those words separately but I can't put those words together in a sentence. No I can't.

One day till I leave Austin. One day!! Tomorrow will be all Cry cry cry cry WOO! And then maybe the reality will set in and I can start jumping for joy. Maybe I should jump around right now, just to give it a false start. 'Cause ya'll - I'm MOVING TO FRANCE!

Moving Day

Yesterday was a test of my ability to keep moving. I spent the morning posting the bed for sale (and, yes, an ad for the cats), on the phone dealing with the guy whose car I hit and trying to organize matters between Austin and France so that I no longer have to be involved in them. The cats did this:


So I joined them, but then felt guilty for being a lump on the couch, because I have to be done with my apartment today, and so I would get up again, smoke a cigarette and have an anxiety attack.

The cats taunted me with more of the same.


I went through three boxes of papers that I had aptly labeled "Papers to look through in approximately one year" and consolidated them into one. One VERY full box. In it there was virtually every piece of poem or prose I had ever written. Really good stuff like:

Wallowing in great self pity
Gussying up to be a bit pretty
Manless and free
As you can see.
The next step is denial
I'll put that in the file,
while I write this sorry poetry
and sit beneath the lotus tree.

OH YES. I really wrote that in high school. Then there was this little gem.


The poem that goes with the drawing of two kids making out in front of a tombstone is something about forbidden fruit and you'll get your reward, but in the end you'll still DIE.

It was my "dark teenager phase" I guess.

I also found the physical evidence that I thought gold spandex pants were awesome way before American Apparel did. (And also that no matter how skinny you are, spandex is NOT sexy.)


And here is the reason I do wear my hair with bangs.


Around five o'clock, after I made up every box in my apartment just so I could feel like I was still going, Sister L convinced me that it was OKAY to just start throwing stuff away (Really? I can do that? Oh THANK GOD). So I started drinking and throwing shit in boxes and taking them to the trash. One of my neighbors made me a plate of food at eleven thirty, knowing I had not eaten dinner and then I fell asleep on the couch watching T.V.

And now - now it's go time. My bowels are revolting and I need a new pack of ciggies. The cats? You guessed it.

First French Baby

Something like ten million years ago, I put up fliers in my neighborhood advertising I was available for babysitting. I would walk by them occasionally and see that the little papers with my number had been torn off and taken home, but I never got a call until tonight.

She was looking for a sitter because her regular wanted to take them out tonight. We chatted and I agreed to sit but explained that I would be leaving Austin in a week.

"I'm going to nanny in France," I said.

"Oh really?! Well, that's perfect because the baby only speaks French right now."

As it turns out, his grand-mere was his regular sitter, and she was taking them out for Quatorze Juillet (Bastille Day). Her husband is French. I would be sitting for my first French family.

I arrived early so I could meet the baby with her still there - I was the first babysitter they'd had that wasn't her mother-in-law. The child was impossibly cute, the house was lovely, and before they left we toasted the day with a glass of champagne and some foie gras.

Then they left. I made the cardinal mistake of a babysitter and let the child watch his parents leave without him. We spent the next fourty-five minutes walking around the house while he screamed in agony.

"Ba ba ba veux aller!" he cried. I could tell he want to go where ever his parents were going, and I did not have the French to tell him they were definitely coming back. Not that it would have mattered, really. He was one and a half and all his fun family had left him with some strange girl who spoke poor french.

After about a half an hour I broke down and called the mother, knowing that the neighbors were probably about to think they had left him in the house alone, and that if I was a mom I would be terrified to find the sitter had let the child cry all night.

The phone call was brief, detailing a stroller and instructions to where his teeny tiny little Pumas were at.

And the rest was cake. We walked until it was his bedtime and by then he had calmed down enough to even smile at me. We brushed his teeth, read four books and alle au lit. I even had time to clean up the pre-dinner celebration in the kitchen before his parents came home, pleased as punch to find their son was already asleep.

I must say I was a bit afraid that I was going to get to France and find I am a miserable failure as a nanny. And while I'm no Super Nanny, I am certainly capable of not losing my shit in the face of a screaming baby. It gave me the bit of confidence I needed to finally begin to feel a little better. It was almost as if something good had happened.

For that, I will sleep well tonight.

It's Five O'clock in France

Actually, it's seven thirty. That means in France it's past the hour when I can start drinking and no one will look at me funny. Which is good because I need a drink already.

What I found out this weekend was that I am not only a huge giant disappointment who is turning into her father, but that I have apparently lost my moral compass. Which is good, because that means no one will care if I walk around drunk at one o'clock in the afternoon. Right? RIGHT.

I was supposed to have a job staining some one's deck, but that fell through which means that the 100$ left from my yard sale will have to pay for my utility bills, my lease, my cell phone contract, my cigarettes and my lobotomy. Gosh. It doesn't seem like I can stretch it that far.

Meanwhile my apartment is in shambles, one of the cats who still does not have a home refuses to come inside, and am chain smoking because all I have to eat is dry toast. The damn shuffle will play nothing but the saddest songs in the world and my one good friend in Austin has to work all day. Being alone right now makes me crazy, and I mean that quite literally.

I just keep asking myself questions. What if I fail again? What if no one takes my cats? What if I can't pack things up in time? Am I allowed to sleep in my bed on Wednesday night? Why can't I stop crying already? Is it okay if I shower again? Why won't some one clean my house? Why is the corvette still here? Why won't this butter spread on this toast? What if I don't find a job in Houston for the next couple months? Why are there so many sad songs??? When is it going to be done? What if I can't learn French? What if I can't learn French??! Does anybody want my four boxes of Christmas ornaments??

And so on.

I need to be doing laundry, I need to get my massive bags of clothes to the good will, I need to drink a bathtub full of gin to make myself go numb. And I don't even like gin.

Thankfully I am a loser with no moral compass, so when I completely lose my shit I will fit right in at the gas station on the corner, talking to myself and smearing my face with my own feces. For a girl who drives around hitting kittens and breaking the knee caps of old ladies, I am pretty damn lucky.

Just Keep Going

Today is the day when I officially start packing. The belongings I won't keep are in the free boxes by the side of the road. My old books are getting soggy in the humidity, and it's all I can do to not go rescue them.

No, no you can't pack them! That's unreasonable.

Unreasonable. Because that's a word I'm good with.

It's already at that point where I look around and go "GAH! This will never end!!"

So I'm tinifying things - taking my sewing kit and making it a four by four box, pairing my excess art supplies and fitting them all into one cloth bag, sorting and re-sorting my makeup so that I now only own two concealers, a lipstick and an old mascara. (The 'no-makeup' look is in right?)

My mom, the champion packer, re-boxed the Pfaltzgraff dinnerware she had just unpacked for me some four months ago. I packed up the remainder of my books. We took turns crying.

Last night, during a walk, she imparted some wisdom one of my aunts had given her.

"She said 'Every time I feel like breaking down I just think I'll cry tomorrow. And then if tomorrow comes around and I still feel sad, I'll say it again.'"

So right now, instead of breaking down I will take a nap - because we woke up at six this morning (now my alarm goes off!). When I wake up I will pull more things out of things and put them into smaller more portable things until all my worldly possessions fit into two giant suitcase. Okay, maybe three.

Sometimes you have to be reasonable about what you need to survive.

Everything Must Go!

I slept like the dead. It was a delicious sleep - unlike any I'd had for months. I was dreaming about being in France and I when I woke up I may have even been smiling. Then I looked at the clock:

7:45.

Shit, SERIOUSLY? Can't a girl catch a break in this life? My alarm clock did not go off.

I flew around yanking boxes out of the house, lining up the bags and boxes, sweating even though the sun had not yet reached my courtyard. I need coffee and breakfast and a shower, but took a cigarette instead.

At nine o'clock one my neighbors came out of her apartment to do some yoga and offered to help me. She produced cardboard and a black sharpie marker for signs and watched my stuff as I duct taped them to a few poles near my street. She did a little quick acupressure on me to keep from throwing up.

Ironically, most of the stuff I sold was to my immediate neighbors. The Frenchman's hedge trimmer went for free with the electric saw because come to find out the cord wasn't in the box. My tray table (which was not actually for sale) fetched four dollars, but a family and their kids carted off with a few things in their free box that weren't actually free.

By two o'clock I was ready to pack it in, knowing that the heat was enough to keep most yard salers away after noon, and desperately in need of a shower. I made one last sale (a G3 Mac Tower for 30 bucks), packed the boxes and put them on the curb.

Lucky for me, people love free stuff. It was gone by nightfall.

Losing My Shit

Literally and figuratively. For a few hours I didn't know if I should drink more or drink less. I cried as I went through my junk drawer.

Oh, this little piece of trash, I loved this little piece of trash! I have to throw this little piece of trash away? What will I do without it?

I asked very specifically for my neighbors to keep my company as I packed, knowing I wouldn't be able to keep going if they didn't.

"Sure, of course," they said. And then like magic, disappeared into their respective apartments to do more entertaining things than watch me cry. By the time Becca showed up I was in full on break down mode.

"I brought chips and salsa! And queso!" She said, letting me hug her as tight as humanly possible.

I cried while we ate enough to stuff down the vomit that had been working its way into my throat, and then began the task of deciding which things were yard sale worthy and which had to be thrown away. It weird the things you hold onto in drawers and cabinets for years, never thinking about them again until you realize you can't take it with you.

We smoked cigarettes and I toasted us from the Frenchman's bottle of prized Calvados between sips of fizzy water. Becca made boxes and I grossed myself out looking through my dusty things.

By midnight I couldn't take anymore, even though I was supposed to be completely ready for a yard sale in the morning. My neighbors had promised to make signs, but the most I had was an ad on craigslist. I had to clean off my bed and sleep.

A friend, who earlier in the week had shown me a really great (if not a bit hippy dippy) release technique called eft, emailed and suggest I start documenting. So I did. I will be recording little bits of my entire transition to France. The first one is of me crying, and surely there will be more in a similar vain. I was going to post it here but I played it back and even without sound it's a bit terrifying to see. (Especially my crazy double chin.) But after my myriad of breakdowns today I realize that what she said is true: There's beauty in the breakdown. And the end result...?

For the second time in three days someone randomly referenced my caroling party from last Christmas.

"That thing was like voodoo," Becca said. "I didn't even want to go, it sounded so weird, but you made it happen and it was magical."

It's a good reminder to me. I manifest things - pull them straight out of nothing - and they aren't just lovely bits of my life. That night made a Christmas for a dozen or more people (most of whom I didn't even know) and brought a crazy light to my entire neighborhood. Little children who had never seen carolers (carolers in TEXAS?) sand with us from front porches. Random pedestrians followed us through the neighborhood and joined in. The man with the crazy Christmas lights came out and played his spoons for twenty minutes. We sang Jingle Bells in the round. And I was responsible for bringing people together to make it happen. I did that.

And I will do this too. I will make this life change and I will release all the demons holding me back from believing in myself. I will become me, the me that I already am, and even more.

In the meantime...

Damned If You Do

Last night at dinner with my friend, we discussed the proper way to kill yourself so as not to leave an inconvenient mess for someone else to clean up.

"First, you have to slit your wrists elbow to wrist. Or else it's a waste of your time. Secondly, do it in the tub - but make sure you turn off the water first. Seriously, if you don't they'll have to replace the carpet and what a mess!"

This was duly noted.

I've never been too good at faking my emotions, but if something doesn't give soon I think I may explode. It's not just the Frenchman leaving me in the dust. It's not just his car in my driveway or the hundred and twenty dollars I shelled out to send the stuff he left behind. (Oh, he'll pay me back, don't worry.) It's not the jilted, angry used feeling I have about the whole thing.

No, it's the whole rest of my life. It's the three years worth of stuff I have to sort through and I can't even begin to look at. It's the cats who still don't have a home. It's the burnt burrito I am forcing myself to eat because I don't have anything else and I can't justify the cost of the cigarettes that would keep my hunger down. It's the frat boy who's car I backed into with my mother's car when I got home from the airport three days ago who - despite my very best effort to settle out of pocket without involving my mother's insurance and jacking up her rates - insisted that he take my information. It's my best friend who lost her job and had to move back to Seattle for the summer - the one person in Austin I could really count on if I was falling apart. It's the constant nagging feeling that nothing I have done or could do right now would do anything but let my family down. It's the disappointment that washes over their faces, that they think they are hiding from me. I'm not stupid. I know I've somehow let everyone down, one by one without even trying. It's knowing that I will be spending two months with someone who loves me very deeply but firmly believes I'm still not capable of making good decisions for myself.

I can't wait to be in France, and right now I am a little scared that I might go under before it really happens. I'm furious because the Frenchman - he had me to help him sort his house, to clean and keep him company while he unearthed his life and moved it away. But I don't have that luxury. All of my real support is gone. People are already tired of hearing how sad I am, and how hard this is becoming. I feel like a broken record, but I also feel like I am slowly sinking.

I can't wait to be in France to wash all of this clean. To brush it off like the heavy dust it has become and finally let myself be okay with the person I am: A woman who is beautiful in ways that I feel like so many people don't really know. Who is magical, and can manifest her dreams out of nothing (but hasn't quite learned how deal with the amazing things as they come). Who is compassionate and not selfish regardless of what people perceive. Who gives her love one hundred and fifty percent - wholly and foolishly - because she isn't capable of loving any other way, regardless that she knows there is a great possibility that her love will not be returned and the pain will be equal the joy. Who is talented and smart and ambitious - even if she looks like she's floundering and helpless.

I want to believe all of those things are true about me. I believed them once a very long time ago. I want to be in France so can be this new me - just start - and not have it questioned or judged or inspected.

I have friends here, they are doing what they can. I won't really go under, I know. But the weight is heavy and I am utterly terrified by the upheaval that is happening in my life. I wish that it was easier to understand, from the outside. What it looks like to people is carelessness. Lack of respect for the process. But it's none of that. It's me. Listening to my heart and doing what is really good for me. I hope you can forgive me for whatever it feels like to you. Someday, you will see how beautiful I am about to become.

It Starts

This is the weekend I get rid of all my stuff. It's just beginning to look bad.



I'll post photos of the coming disaster. How did I end up with so much stuff? This week I'm taking up smoking again. Fo' real.

Things That Make Me Feel Better

Coffee and a cigarette for breakfast. YES! I said cigarette! Sue me.

These two. Infinite comfort during my "Mean Reds". Who will give them a home? I hope I find out soon...

CHRISTMAS RECORDS!!! What can I say. Doesn't matter what time of year it is for me. ("Mele kalikimaka is the thing to say!!")


And a little release of aggression. Take two of his falling apart slippers. (Yes, that's duct tape.)

and a cake with his face on it.

VIOLA! Instant RELEASE!!!