Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The first time

My sister and I were so excited to go play at Zuma beach in Malibu during one of our dad's visitation weekends. He brought boogie boards for us and we set out into the sea, splashing around the waves while he stayed on the beach to catch some rays. We were maybe 11 and 12. This was during the time when he was competing in triathalons and he wanted to be tan for the one coming up.

Out at sea, my sister and I were catching waves like crazy, boogie boarding our little hearts out. After awhile though, we noticed that we were kind of far from the shore. We were right next to each other when we realized we were caught in a rip current.

Neither of us knew what to do about it - we were being swiftly pulled out to sea and soon found ourselves looking at the backs of surfers. I'm a strong swimmer and so is my sister, but this was scary. We were floating on our boogie boards and tried waving to shore, yelling, trying to get the life guard's or our dad's attention.

We kept moving farther from the shore with every passing second.

Finally, with no one responding to our calls for help, we swam toward shore. We weren't making much headway. My sister started to fall behind- she couldn't paddle anymore- the current was too strong and we'd already been swimming and paddling while boogie boarding for quite some time.

Her boogie board was keeping her afloat, but it wasn't helping otherwise. She let it go and I yelled to her to hold onto mine. I kept a tight grip on the cord and pulled her and myself toward shore.

It felt like an eternity before I touched sand with my toes. I was gasping for breath and trying so hard not to panic from terror. My sister was kicking and holding onto my board for dear life. I dug into the sand and pulled harder, going inches at a time, against the rip current.

Finally, we got close enough to shore where we could both dig into the sand and walk forward without losing any ground. When we made it back to dry land, it was a sobering moment. The beach was busy with sunbathers and sand castle builders, but no one had seen us out there, fighting to get back.

My sister hugged me (which was RARE) and thanked me for saving her life. This was the first time I'd need to be there to make sure my sister made it through another day alive.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Moving Day

Today, I learned how to use a chain saw and broke my big toe. But not at the same time.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Taking a break

I'm in the middle of night-before-moving preparation. Our movers are getting here at 7am. What the fuck is that about? Most mornings, I'm stumbling into the shower to wake up at 7am. Tomorrow morning, I've got to be up and alert and totally organized at that hour.
Fucking early ass stupid hour. 7am!
In order to properly prepare for this venture, I've been working diligently on polishing off a bottle a my favorite wine. It's a delicious red- carmenere. It has turned my mouth purple and my mind mushy. Bueno.
Right now, I'm taking a break, laying on my bed fully clothed- I even have my shoes on. My roommate is a slave driver- everything has to be perfect for the movers. Pshhh. She needs some of this wine for sure. Maybe she'd forget how important organization is then. That would be great.
Must go fill my wine glass and label more boxes now before the roomie catches me blogging on the job.

Spankings & Boxes

My roommate and I are getting ready to move to a new house on Saturday. We have had so many amazing gatherings at our current house that we felt like we couldn't leave without one last blowout all night party.
We decided that hosting a "bring you box and stuff it" party would be appropriate for our farewell. Lots of our loyal friends showed up with boxes for us and we made sure the drinks were flowing and the pizza was hot n ready. Like me.

Anywho, the day of the party, I started drinking at lunch time. My friend JP and I got a little trashed at lunch and at a local dive bar, searched for and finally found a liquor store selling Rumplemintz, and went back to my place for a nap.

After waking up in time to apply make-up, drunk dial my sister, and pick up the pizzas, JP and I started in on the Rumplemintz. Then people started showing up with liquor and bottles of champagne. Champagne is my party drink of choice, by the way. I must have drank (drunk?) a ton of the bubbly, because my memory got faded and I gave several lap dances and I guess there was a spanking contest, starring my ass. I do love the spankings and the dancing- just wish I could remember it more clearly.

I also pulled the drunk crying girl move more than once. I only recall doing it once, and then I went back to dancing and laughing and etc.

The coolest part of the party was where I got temporarily engaged to my ex boyfriend. He drew a ring on my finger and said it was like a promise ring until it washed off. Cheap bastard ;) So then we decided to be just boyfriend & girlfriend, which is super cool because we both know what we're getting into and we're okay with that.

The temporary fiancé and I weren't the only ones hooking up at the party. I won't name names, but I saw a couple of folks walking around in towels by the end of the night, on their way to a guest room. And I heard about some scandalous propositions given to my roomie & her boyfriend (soon to be my roomie too).

I can hardly contain my excitement for the next party- our housewarming. I don't think we've agreed on a theme yet, but it's got to rival the "bring your box" theme for sure.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

I get around

Jobs I've had that won't make it to my resume:

4 hours working the counter at Cousin's Burgers. I left during my 15 minute break and never went back.
Hostess/waitress jobs at IHop, Dennys, and Sizzler
3 months as a project manager at a healthcare staffing firm. I left badly.
My 2-day stint as a kiwi branch cutter
8 months as a dog groomer
7 months as a telemarketer at a shady company. I was a top sales rep.
An ongoing position for 2 years where I cleaned out the expired drugs from a doctor's office medicine cabinet. For some reason, every pain killer was "expired" every time I looked :)
4 days as a receptionist for a staffing company
1 month as an executive assistant at a chain restaurant's corporate office

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Gangsta me

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but when I was 16, I was hanging out with several guys who were in a Mexican gang near my town. It's surprising to me even now, looking back, that I was totally comfortable with the crowd.
My friend Dundee (small town white girl like me) and I would tell our parents that we were staying over at each other's houses and our gangster friends would pick us up.
We'd always have them buy us a bottle of Boones Farm Strawberry Hill and a 40 of OE each and the night would begin. We would just drive around the college town nearby and stop to talk to anyone who we knew.
One night, it was just me, Auto (nick named for grand theft, auto), and Danny who were cruising around. Danny had just bought me a pack of Marlboro reds and I was finished with the Boones Farm, starting on the 40.
All of a sudden, Auto starts yelling at Danny to pull the car over. Danny does so and Auto jumps out of the car and launches himself on a guy who was walking down the street. Auto beat the crap out of him and got back in the car. Danny sped away while Auto yelled about how the guy looked at him the wrong way as we were passing him in the car.
I was pretty drunk, but still had the presence of mind to demand that Danny let me out of the car immediately. I knew Auto was going to cause more trouble and wanted no part of it.
Danny pulled into the high school parking lot to set me free just as 3 cop cars surrounded us. Somebody had seen what Auto did and called the authorities.
They tossed Auto onto the hood of one of their cars, cuffed him, and took him to jail. A cop came over to me and asked for ID. I was only 16, so he took my cigarettes away and called my mom through his walkie talkie thing. I could hear her yelling at the cop to take me to the station IMMEDIATELY. I was in such deep shit.
When Mom got to the station, she knew right away that I was drunk and demanded that the officer give me a breathalyzer. He refused, telling my mom how cooperative I had been and he issued me a curfew violation.
I got 6 months informal probation for it and haven't ridden in the back of a police car since.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Thwarted

A long time ago, I was married.
About a year into marital bliss, I ran into some trouble. My husband had been addicted to cocaine for several years and only stopped using when we got together. Well, like any good addiction, it came right back up. I hated seeing him use the drug and started using it with him, just to prove a point. I wanted him to see how awful it was to see someone you love harming themselves so badly.
He'd do a line, I'd do two. Every time.
I hated it. Couldn't stand how it made me feel.
But like any good drug, I started to get addicted.
I'd get extra for myself and hide it away, use it when he was going to be out of the house for a few hours. Every time I did it, I'd get so depressed the next day. I began to really hate waking up and simply living every day.
I wasn't getting along with my new husband except when we were partying together and I didn't see anything good coming of what I was doing at that point in my life.
My husband and I had gone to Mexico and had brought back a bunch of pills from the pharmacies there. We had all kinds of great stuff.
One night when I was feeling particularly hopeless, I took an entire bottle of sleeping pills. I just wanted to sleep forever.
When I woke up the next morning in time for work with a slight stomach ache, I decided I wouldn't try that again.
I didn't use cocaine anymore and tried to get my husband to stop as well.
And he did stop, but picked up a new habit to replace the old one. At least this one wouldn't be so dangerous.

Tabbie, take 2

I used to write at this here blog, but left in favor of a completely unanomymous site. I'll still be writing there, but I decided that I have far too much shit to talk to do it all where my family/employers/etc can easily read it.
So here I go...
Um, stay tuned I guess.