You know, I've always secretly hated 'girlie girls' with their groups of 7 that all buy the same fabric handbags they made at their Aunt Sherrie's purse party, and the girls that undoubtedly will be at our 10yr reunion in 2 years with a 5 year wedding band on and pics of their second infant. I just felt like they were missing something: why not hang out with some boys, too? And not like on Saved By the Bell, where hanging out meant dating all of them in rotation. I mean like, LET YOUR TOM BOY SIDE SHINE. Not every girl was meant to be a nurse, or teacher, or seamstress part-time while she stays at home.
THEN, on the flip side, I have always LOATHED boyfriends of mine that were 'guys guys.' GOD FORBID a girl goes long 1 in 5 times to their man-outings. Women seem to be an accessory to these people, like "I will have that car, and a job, and that lawn mower, and a woman. And make fire. Ugg." I always thought these guys to be slightly douche-y normally, and like "get to know your softer sides assholes. Maybe if you weren't all together, all the time, you wouldn't feel SO compelled to take those last 3 Jagerbombs you KNOW will make work tomorrow unbearable."
With all this said, and with an aside that I'm really not THAT judgemental, I'm sitting here with no girlfriends within an easy 10 miles, and possibly only 1 or 2 within 30 miles! Now this isn't because I don't have any, it's mainly because, like many mid-twenty something groups, a few of our flock had to fly away for bigger, better jobs. But that leaves some lonely in the city. Boo.
So, enter my manfriends. I have a ton. Some, yes, I may have "made out with in the past 10 years but we will NEVER be like THAT, it was just the tequila and 6 Bacardi Coolers" or 1 or 2 may be boyfriends from so long ago that you REALLY can be friends with them. But I am also trying to broaden my friend circle. In that, I'm finding that most men don't see me as a friend. Or something. I just don't get it.
Fuck that. You know what I REALLY want? A girl OR guy friend, who can do things that ARE NOT BAR RELATED. My fucking liver needs a break people! What ever happened to just coming over and "chilling?" Remember those days? My 1 in-town, 5 mile away girl friend Amber and I went to a pool the other day, and just CHATTED AND CHATTED for 3 hours, and it was so nice! We both have red boussie's, but it was SO NICE! I had a girlfriend a few years back, and it just seemed like if we weren't "on the prowl" for a man-penis then it wasn't really fun.
Anyway, I just had to get all this out.
I'll leave this blog with my face book jargen from the last 1 hour: (and I never really use facebook, but this was for RESEARCH!)
**
Denise MuellerPondering why its so hard to be friends with the opposite sex.
Well wtf am I supposed to do NOW that you said that? lol. Apparently "some ppl can be friends and never had any benefits." Hell, we've even made out. HA
It's amazing the mood swings one can suffer in a matter of hours... This post is simply a reflection of my life in the last 12 hours.
So this afternoon I was particularly lonely, as I am and will be every Wednesday while Ez is in the greater Champaign/Urbana area. HOWever, I decided to have a day filled of things: mall, organize office, laundry... etc. My day would be so busy I wouldn't mind being alone.
But I have a hard time ACTUALLY motivating myself when I'm depressed/alone. My friends know this well: when they come by I slowly start cleaning. lol
So today in my lazy hours, I watched The Departed, a great movie to get your mind off love and feelings, then like and IDIOT I watched 27 Dresses. I WANTED A BOY AROUND DAMMIT!! Depresssssso. So I decided to TRY to spread love: I messaged Ez like 5 messages like "Muah" and "Can't wait til Friday!" It worked. It's like how people say 'smiles are contagious'; well apparently so are pleaseant texts. Ezra sent me lovely, and sometimes dirty, texts the rest of the evening. Took my mind off this cluster situation for a few hours.
So after waking up at 1:15pm, and doing the movie thing til like 7pm, I went to the mall, and did the usual retail therapy: MAC cosmetics and Express. I did feel better!
Upon leaving, I was like "WTF self. Why when you leave the mall do you become sad again."
I guess I knew I would be going home to sit. To wallow. To feel alone again.
So there I sat.
And I'll tell you what, I have not felt THAT DEPRESSED since my personal dark days in 2004-2005. HOW did I have a swing like that? WTF? I was just pacing my apartment, looking at all the things I had to do: organize office, 3 loads of laundry, put dishes away, put LAST weeks clean laundry away. (fuck I had been lazy this week...)
I could do nothing. I, like many people, can't do many daily functions when they are having a depressed feeling.
So I deliberated: should I drink? Nah, don't have enough to make a difference, and I didn't want to feel like shit tomorrow on my 13 hour shift. Take a muscle relaxer? Nah, I'm already to down, that would worsen it. Should I start taking these "herbal anti-depressants" that someone gave me during the dark days that still are as addictive as clinical anti-d's therefore I never took them anyway, NO...... This would pass.
The problem is,... I didn't feel good last night, either. And I told myself I'd sleep it off and tomorrow would be another day. Well, today was another day,... and I still feel like shit. That's the scary thing. Everyone has a bad day, right? But the only people that worry are the ones that see two days turn into a week and possibly turn into a month or 2004-2005. Haaaaaaa I digress.
So I did what anyone would do: I took two Excedrine (yes, I actually was getting a headache, however the caffeine does make for a lovely side-effect), and drank a Starbucks double shot. AMAZING. I was better!!
I got my ass up, started some laundry, FINALLY put my office together, got out some oil paints and did my first canvas in 8 years! What a cool few hours. ** Check it, Smurf hands from my blue paint!
I ate a late meal (fattening but makes me HAPPY!), made some new friends online in a liberal chatroom, and basically just relished this new up swing.
So now I'm happier, slightly too full, and wide awake at 3am. The joys of being a slightly depressed bartender with too much time, and paint, on her hands...
These last days I've been away from this online journal, I have had a wild ride: I have lost the daily acquaintance of a beloved coworker I have seen my grandmother hospitalized for the third time in twelve months I have had a roller coaster with a personal relationship
These events have often times left me feeling like a human 'punching bag' of sort, slowly knocking the wind from me, taking the speed from my flight.
.... which has turned me to the 'brown bag.'
I used to be an, hmm... how can we say, 'extreme social drinker.'
Fortunately for myself, my career, and my relationships with friends and a dear significant other, in 2008 I rid my life of such toxic ingredients like bad people and binge drinking for 'fun.' I feel like a new person, an adult, a truly mature and LIFE EXPERIENCED 26-year-old woman.
Unfortunately, these recent weeks have brought back a thirst I so honestly believed I had buried. Way under ground. I am not fearful bad news will make me drink too frequent, or too much, but people have noticed: "Dee, you're drinking more again, eh?"
... "No. I'm just normal right?"
Problem is, I am drinking more than I'm NOW comfortable with. Compared to 2007 I'm an angel that only drinks Red Bull, espresso and bottled water. But really I'm boozing more than I had been.
***
So what fills this void? This newly vacant space? This heavy weight that has recently SLAMMED itself on my head, my chest, my heart and my spirit? Why did my old existing depression take the express train back into my life? I'm not sure of the answer, but I have to cope. I need people and life interaction and life experience and THINGS TO KEEP MY BUSY to cope, with anything. Yet I can't move. I couldn't even write the last 10 days, one of my new favorite past times.
In many ways I am truly blessed: good family, a roof, a car, my puppies, my health, and a career. Then why the fuck am I crying into my Grey Goose?
Honestly, I think the answer is: Because this shit is relative. Each human only understands their pain threshold for what they KNOW and what they have EXPERIENCED. I'm definitely pretty knowledgeable of the curve balls and trials life can throw our way, but I have yet to see a life threatening problem, right?
Well, life can mean many things: Living v. Dead, Action v. Still, Bloom v. Withered
For me its BEING DEE v. NOT BEING DEE
And what is 'Dee?' That to me is confidence, intelligence, humble actions, honest actions, and the personal strength to do whats right.
Right now I feel like I'm alive and have TRIED to be the 'Dee' I want to be, but it is a life-taker when you are riding the after-shocks of one rare occurrence after another, like I felt the last few weeks. Filling the void. Crying dry tears because you've cried so much.
The only thing I can say right now, the one thing I need to say, is: Thank you. Thank you to the people in my life that make my vacancy sign dim, even turn off. You are life's true blessings. As happy as I can be, or as sad as I may have been, I know things can always be a little bit better, or a whole lot worse.
As long as we always appreciate and acknowledge those true beautiful souls around us, and the things in life we do have, we shall overcome each small hurdle, and can smile each morning. New Day.
Ever hear something from a colleague, family member, or friend and think, "WHAT?? How did that even come out of your mouth??"
...Then you realize: 'Oh... That's THEIR perspective.'
But when the Colleague-Family-Friend person SAID the statement, they seemed SO sure of their statement; IT is the ultimate truth, and your view is wrong.
But wait, waitttttt, who decides which point of view is correct? Are any views or opinions correct? Even those seemingly INSANE people: Can we judge their statements or actions? Have you been through what they have in the last 24 hours cycle of hell? Probably not.
What about the drama queens (yours truly)?? What if their drama stems from experience that has come round and round again, and they are simply speaking from frustration of ALWAYS being the ones that have "been there, done that?"
Then there is normal: "Normal" things in life, the "Normal people" that just say, what I TEND TO THINK, are the dumbest, one-sided things: #1 "The roads are fine." Says an office manager, on why the Salaried Employees who have laptops and can work from home can't have a "Snow Day." WHOS ROADS ARE FINE?? Ever lived border-lined Bourgeois-Ghetto? One block mansions, one block ghetto? They are called red-lined zones: And no services go there: Taxis, PD, and STL City Employed Snowplow Drivers. Bumfucks. WHY NOT?? All the 'County' Roads, where everyone ELSE in my company lives, are wonderfully cleared/covered with magic salt by their boring White-Male Snowplow drivers, who get paid via high-property tax dollars. Not me :( It's ok, I'm not bitter
>:(
#2 "Everyone in St. Louis in the fine dining industry has worked there." I'm sorry, the word-vomit came up: "What? What do you mean? Who is everybody?" uhhhhhhh..... No really, when people say these things, you kind of have to teach them a lesson from using words like "Every" "Never" "Always".... Bad. Confusing. Excessive, much? "Maybe everyone knows each other in the small circle from your friends-of-past that worked at the OTHER place the owners opened, therefore having possibly 100 people in a network of friends-friends you may have gotten drunk with on a case of '2 Buck Chuck' at someone's house party. Yuck.
Please people. Stop saying things like this. You normaltons have no excuse like "insane" or "drama queen." And you know what? Please, throw this back in my face if I do it in front of you!! I don't want to be example #3....
There's the real Elle. The character Elle from the movie Legally Blonde played by Reese Witherspoon. The character that was written by intelligent yet amusing professionals.
Below is the story of a different Elle, from Legally Blonde, the Musical >:( So Many Things Completely Wrong...
... completely wrong.
I sat there, during the second act, wondering if the play-writes for the Legally Blonde Broadway Play were lighting the bong for the first half of the the writing process, and then smoking out of it for the second half.
What, the fuck.
Really. It was such a good first half!! With the exception of the cheerleader friend ruining the bend and snap song. She was like "Why do you think guys always stick with the cheerleaders?" "I don't know friend, why? Because ya'll run around jumping up and down showing your panties?" "Haha..." says the cheerleader. "Exactly! And because we demand attention!!"
WOW! Glad the girl scouts in the next section heard that shit!! Then she continued to bend over like 16 year old groupies at a hip-hop concert. Fuck. Call me old, call me old-fashion, but WE ALL KNOW I've done my fair share of 'fun' and even I'm calling a 'WTF' for this show.
I need to add in the small part of PLAGIARISM that Amanda so kindly pointed out (most likely to dear Creagan's obsession with the Little Mermaid soundtrack). Their song "Please let me be.... Le-gal-ly.... Blonnnnnnnde!" Sounded a bit too much like "Parttttt of your: worrrrrrrllllddddd!" Listen for yourself at the 1:15 minute mark. Holy hell.
There was also the fact that some characters were completely out of whack with the original movie, which was so sad, because it was the CASTING and CLEVER WRITING that kept Legally Blonde, the movie, so socially acceptable, uplifting, and relatable to girls everywhere, or all ages.
#1 The lady professor: SUCH A KEY ROLE, totally removed. How? She's the 'wench' professor from the beginning of the movie, that brought Elle back from life after Callahan hit on her. She told Elle, "If you going to ruin your life because of one stupid man, you're not the girl I thought you were" and then did her eyebrow/facial expression magic that made Elle stay at Harvard and finish her Harvard Law education! And at the end of the movie, during graduation, this woman gave her SUCH a cute send off!!
#2 They made Emmit's role much stronger, to the point that it seemed he and Elle were flirting and dating throughout the play. Not the point or AT ALL what happened! Completely wrong! It looked like 'Callahan's assisitant', Emmit, got Elle her internship. Bah. Negative Ghostwriter. And an interlude: The scene where Elle tell's Emmit he needs to change his wardrobe, WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? Not in the movie, totally out of character. And to top it all off, they compare Emmit to Warner, her 'douche bag wrapped in a douche box' ex boyfriend. As if all guys need to look like Ken Dolls. Ugggggg.
#3 They played DOWN the comradery of Elle and Vivian, Warner's NEW girlfriend, in the second act!! What about the scene where they bond over the Coursework and how Warner WAS WAITLISTED to get into Harvard and Elle was NOT?? Pivotal Scene!! Again: Removed! Why?? To save time for a shiteous second act full of time filling songs and dance numbers?
Aside from crutial character flaws, there were also HUGE issues with Political Correctness. wow. WOWY! Two fag-hags (of course that's PC, duh) were slapping their knees this shit was so wrong. They made gay men out to be gallivanting size 26 waist ballerina sailors, and made the 'token lesbian' law intern only out to check out both Elle's AND Mrs. Windom's ass and tits the whole time!! Where the hell did that come from?! Enid Wexler's part in the movie was cruel at first yes, as were all Harvard students, but warmed up to a true and undiniable appreciation for Elle, and her brain, not her rack or vag.
At the end of the song below, which I assure you is a MUSTn't see (I still can't decide if it was really wrong or just midwest wrong), they changed all the lights in the theatre to reflect that of a gay pride flag, as if EVERYTHING in a gay man's life is WHITE POINTY TOED SHOES and SAILOR SHIRTS and TANNING and GAY PRIDE FLAGS.
Listen to this shit below, Then YouTube "Gay or European and watch all the cartoons put to this song, its a fucking RIOT!
FUCK PEOPLE!! Why do you think there are so many damn Homo-phobes around. I can rattle of a dozen names of close colleagues that are like "No, man, I'm not a homophobe, I have a couple gay aquaintences. As my wife says, as long as they don't come after me!! Huh huh!" Really, this is what White-Bread American men think: Watch out straightmen!! They're all after your dicks!"
Now I'm not sure if it was before the worst gay-themed song ever written, or after, but... Last I leave you with this thought:
A strapping young man, in a tight UPS outfit, joining an already unorganized group of in-costume actors on stage, with no sets, no special lighting... He holds up a large white box, so big as to hold a dozen fully bloomed, long-stemmed roses, and instead of giving this box to his love interest, Paulette, he holds it to his crotch, as if to make a giant white folic symbol with a fucking bow on it!!! And the actor holds it there... and yells "I've got another package!" ....5 or 10 seconds too long!!
Then in comes this Celtic Irish jig music from act one, the same music that Paulette said calmed her down for a reason unknown (I couldn't understand half her words, thank god I had seen the movie or I'd be lost) and AND THE WHOLE DAMN COMPANY STARTS DOING A JIG. Why?? WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? Amanda and I were like: "Really? Really?"
Then a chorus line emerges, leg kicks and all, and again we are bewildered. All the characters were dressed and ready for their next parts... so was simply a badly written time filler? And if so, why did they RUSH all of the the first half's music?
...Turns out there was no point at all to the 5 minute chorus line skit. They wanted a round of applause. The 15 eldery couples with season passes and no binoculars laughed and applauded, because they didn't understand how bad it was and how out of context the whole 2nd half was becoming.
Yuck booey. I really wanted this to be amazing. Dinner was great. Thanks Amanda for going out and being a witness to this story. LOLs.
Well Woods (comma) Elle, it was a nice try, great first act, but we even knew you were hurting trying to NOT LAUGH at what the producers and writers made you sing come Act 2....
This blog represents my attempt be a little more sober and a little more at peace with my life. I have a goal to not drink for 2 weeks... and I'm a bartender. A bartender with bartender friends. A bartender that's been in the industry for close to a decade. I'm not going to stop drinking completely after the two weeks, but I need to slow my roll and detox. Here goes. I'll write every day, maybe twice a day, and let others know how things are going. Have a similar experience? Email HalfWayToAA@gmail.com and I'll post it.
