Not Typical but Nothing Special

Marshalls-Boston-m4w

You were in the back corner of the clearance section with a stack of markdown clothes laid on top of a purse display. Your headphones weren’t plugged into anything but they were dangling from your ears and your purse was tucked between your thighs. I noticed you were having a hard time balancing a wallet under your arm with cash in one hand and coffee in the other. I heard you mumbling numbers and I’m pretty sure you were adding prices up on your phone. You kept recounting your money and a few times you swore to yourself. Every few seconds you’d throw something from your pile off to the side and look around. I saw when your hair got caught in your Claddagh ring and your neck started getting blotchy. Your were sort of sweating at one point. My sister says that she heard shopping is stressful for curvy girls. You looked lonely. When you left you bought one dress, an already torn purse and last minute Jolly Ranchers. I’ll pray for you.

Bus Stop-South Boston-m4w

We were at the bus stop. It was 10pm. You were drinking a bud heavy and had Call Me Maybe playing on speaker. I think your eye makeup was falling off. Your phone rang and when you answered you said you were wearing the shirt that makes you look so dope even in “non-instargramed” pictures. You talked about one of your friend’s friends who you said “would be a prettier version of Khloe if she fixed her teeth.” Then you said you started practicing The Secret a month ago to get symmetrical freckles and extra money for cab rides and it kinda worked. I saw you sniffing your necklace more than once. You were still on the phone when you started talking about someone’s boyfriend and said that, based on what you got from creeping his mom’s Facebook, he’s really not even that loaded. I heard you say you missed a spot shaving and then arguing about Mason Disick’s hair length. Before hanging up you mentioned that the only plan you have for tomorrow is to add some baileys to your morning coffee and go shopping for a new dress. Can I see you in that dress? E-mail me.

Starbucks-Copley Square-m4w

I saw you at Starbucks on my lunch break. When it was your turn you asked for a large iced French vanilla coffee. You looked needlessly proud about saying “large” instead of “venti,” but nobody was paying attention or cares enough about your defiance to notice anyhow.  Then you wanted to know whether the coffee flavor was made in the bean or came in a syrup. When the barista said they only had it in a syrup, you said to go ahead and make it. She did. Then you wanted to know if there was a lot of sugar in the syrup. She said there was and asked if you needed her to remake it with the sugar free version. You played with your hair and shrugged your shoulders and laughed a little so she remade your coffee. You ordered the hummus plate and sat near the window. You took probably ten pictures of your food before eating it. When the homeless person came in to ask you for change, you answered with the same exact response you gave to the barista when you needed a new coffee made. I am fascinated by your way of simultaneously getting your point across and making yourself look like a complete fucking idiot. E-mail me.

This idea was taken from Caragh Poh’s article on HelloGiggles which you can read here: http://hellogiggles.com/missed-connections-people-could-write-for-me

Did I say GIRLS? I meant CURLS, and mine are all natural! But now that I have your attention—Is there anything in this world worse than when you somehow get a speck of liquid in between your iPhone and your Otter Box? Yes. Yes, there is.

Remember prom?

You know I wore my hair straight to prom? You know I had to beg a friend to be my date to prom? He spent a week “deciding” and I spent a week wondering if the universe as I knew it would soon come slowly dwindling down to a tiny fragment of awfulness only to be flicked into my retina and scraped through layers upon layers of eye and eventually erupt inside my brain. Because that is how it would feel going to prom alone.

I was really lucky. He arrived at my house wearing a red tie that matched flawlessly to my red dress just as I had nervously requested. We went through the flowery wrist pinning charade and I marveled at my shiny new attire in every piece of glass that could form a reflection. My best friend wasn’t as lucky. We arranged for her to take a stranger to prom (a friend of a friend of a friend) and all our hearts sank for her disaster. We thanked God it was not us as our eyes shifted back and forth from one another in hushed sympathy.

She has since recovered and recently signed a contract with Ford Modeling Agency in Miami and my point is this: How long from right now until I can look back on this post-grad period of my life with the type of perspective that allows us to laugh hysterically over the horrors of that prom? When will this strange combination of exhilaration, uncertainty and hint of admitted self-doubt be a topic that triggers a relaxed roll of my all-knowing eyes? Is that moment even in the cards for me?

It seems every living thing around me demands an explanation regarding my life plan now that I finished college four days ago. I’m a brand new graduated English major. That’s my title at the moment, a Brand New Graduated English Major. See, that spiel is intended to make clear my current situation without actually being asked about my current situation, but it doesn’t ever work.

Living things need to witness you verbalize your rut. They want to hear the words you use to describe your aspirations, the brashness of your voice, where your pauses take place. They will note your change in mannerisms and watch for worried facial expressions when you putter on about cover letters. You will assure them that you got this. Then you will flash back to an empty email inbox and they will recognize your flinch. They will wish you the best and you will wish something far more impressive had happened over those past four days. It hasn’t though, not for me, so I’ve just started giving it to them honestly.

Currently, my situation is a fan spinning on max only pinky finger length distance away from my face every night in an effort counter the constant seepage of heat into every pore of my thighs radiating from the always humming piece of machinery I call my laptop while my upper body shivers uncontrollably as I try to avoid vomiting and an urge to disconnect from the inter-webs.  

I actually have begun reciting the aforementioned current situation whenever asked about anything concerning my life. Because these days are tough. People are tough on other people. Some living things thrive off of your empty email inbox.

In the meantime, I’ll keep on keeping on as happily as possible, and it’s not hard. I so enjoy that surge of excitement that happens the first night you know it’s appropriate to sleep in an oversized tank. I’ll sit leaned against my bedroom wall focusing only on the thrill of typing next to an open window and overlooking the smell of what must be some type of rotting rodent corpse pouring through the screens. Yesterday I rediscovered the scent of morning air and died a little.  Today my roommate brought home lemonade Girl Scout cookies and I wondered if I’ll ever stop finding symbolism in everyday occurrences. Needless to say, I’m originally fat so I stuck to my first instinct and ate like 17 cookies, bought a milkshake and called it a cheat day.  

Mortal Enemy

Let another cross his way-
She’s the one will do the weeping!
Little need I fear he’ll stray
Since I have his heart in keeping-

Let another hail him dear-
Little chance that he’ll forget me!
Only need I curse and fear
Her he loved before he met me.

Fighting Words

Say my love is easy had,
Say I’m bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad-
Still behold me at your side.

Say I’m neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue-
Still you have my heart to wear.

But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man! 

There are lots of reasons my heart projectile vomits solitude, and it rarely has anything to do with me. However, like most really pretty blonde girls, I too have like, two flaws.

First of all, my style has recently suffered a slight cramping. I can honestly say that at the moment my ensemble options have been tainted. Nothing life altering, but definitely a bother.  Like when you poke a thumb tack in the wrong spot on your wall and it stares back at you like a gaping hole of blunder. Like when you have to get your molars x-rayed. Like when the fridge door falls off. You might say my wardrobe hit its funny bone on the table when it was using one hand to hold the phone and the other to do the quacking signal that declares it will be a while.

Answer me this:

What happened to long flowy shirts? Those fell quite nicely on all of us, did they not? I wore the shit out of long flowys. The best trend to hit America was the long flowy. Every time I wore my flowy I’d do the one time yelp about how my shirt is ‘too big,’ immediately followed by a performance of the blue eyed roll. I’d float,—I’m sorry—soar around, proudly accepting my role as the “stunning without effort type.”  I could take home an Oscar the way I’d pretend I didn’t I was cute in my flowy. I’d announce that I needed another beer and wait for everyone to watch me go gallivanting over to the bar in my long flowy. Guys, I once successfully executed a wink in my flowy.

That being said, can someone take acid to the face of whoever cropped the fuck out of only the front side of every long flowy? I can, of course, pull off a cropper. It’s not me who I’m worried about lately. There are a lot of ladies out there who feel like this new cropper trend came the fuck out of nowhere. They aren’t ready to bear it all quite yet. They’re kinda…you know.

But they have tried. They went to Marshalls. They bought this one grey cropper that has fringe at the bottom and a Native Americanish design on the front and they wish so badly that they could wear it but they cannot find the right legging combination because of all the crappy cropping and whatnot. Anywho. Like I was saying about these girls, (strangers).

My heart sinks for them every day, which is where I come in. I have, in consideration for those unfortunate broads, decided against wearing any croppers myself. I have single handedly been boycotting the crumby cropped craftwork of crippling crabby creators. (I have no idea what just happened, please continue reading).

I need to move on and talk about my flaw since it turns out the first one is actually not a flaw at all, but just another example of me stepping up to the plate.  

Some dudes say I talk too much. Actually, I’d like to start over. Nobody said I talk too much. Instead, it was hinted in a slow, humiliating game of charades. Listen, there’s a beginning, middle, and end to every story. I include all three when explaining any given situation. I think I was at early middle stage of a tale when a guy at work took one hand to his head. The look on his face and the placement (I am an analyzer) of his hand told me what nobody had before, that I am a chatter box. Not the friendly bank teller kind, but the kind you spot at an airport and arrange for a new flight.

Then, standing there in front of everyone gesturing a migraine, he—I shit you not—moaned. I look around and everyone is looking around the way everyone (again, analyzer) looks around when they’re all in on something that one person is not. To this day, I believe that one person was me.  

What can I say? I talk too much. I know what you’re all thinking right now:
“At least her one flaw has absolutely nothing to do with her physical appearance.”

You’re SO right. And honestly, it’s not even my lone flaw that’s at the root of my constant availability; it’s my near perfect existence.

Too much of a good thing can often times feel threatening. It’s why I’m single. It’s not that they don’t want me, dudes can’t handle me. This isn’t about a table dancing, shot taking party girl unwilling to change for a guy. She’s whatever. This is about the fate of a damsel possessing such virtuous qualities, dudes wane­­ into a mere puddle of awe at her very presence.

I can’t work my eyelash magic on a mere puddle of awe. I need finger tips, knee caps, a pulsing heart. In other words, I mean, in Shasheka From My Work’s words, “I don’t need me no little boy, man.”

Right on.

Then there’s this. Some dudes drive shitty cars. That gets in the way of a lot, like me ever seeing them again.

Seventeen meant having a buyer in my contacts and an 11:30 curfew you couldn’t pay me to miss.  I had a tongue ring and played the part of cautious over thinker in my group of friends. We were juniors. We were such juniors. It was our rad year of melodramatic detestation for pep rallies and high school and everyone and the universe. Our lack of alliances declared we were in the bottom tier. Uneven streaks of turquoise in our hair declared we thought we were owning it. It’s been six years and although we no longer have matching neon strands, we’re still pretty hip. But a lot has changed since then, including all of the following:  

Suspended 

I got suspended that seventeenth year. I ditched school approximately two hours early and then, approximately one hour and 57 minutes before school ended, I had approximately eight missed calls from my mom. I left SHS with four other people that day. It ended with three of them pushing my car to a gas station and my best friend walking beside me, telling me through the driver’s seat window that the car is smoking and she does not feel comfortable sitting in it. Long story short, suspended meant my mom waking me up 6am to clean the house spotless for the duration of the school day and then sitting in my room vowing to never even curse ever again.

I’ll take it. These days, suspended means I haven’t paid for my phone again. Verizon and I have a love hate relationship. I love when they extend the due date on my bill and they hate when I still don’t pay it. Reactivation calls for an electronic check so that the day you get paid, Verizon can take their money, no questions asked. This is not my style. This is absolutely not how poor people roll. It causes me terrible unease knowing a deduction will occur without me there overlooking it all take place live. I do anything to get out of it. I promise the other end (prob a prisoner) that I will surely get to paying Verizon myself on that date but unfortunately I’ve never heard of a routing number and cannot take direction/find a check/locate my glasses, etc.  

Stuck

It was a word Jacky and I used to describe the moment you partake in a conversation that, to your dismay, will last for quite some time. It happens with former acquaintances or teachers. We’d be walking through the mall and her old neighbor stops to chat. The instant we start all talking about this person and that relationship and whatever happened to So and So, Jacky would let me know we were stuck. She didn’t whisper it. She didn’t mouth it. She used a technique that caused me to ream her afterward every single time. She would spell out the word S-T-U-C-K so quickly that for a second it sounded as if she were speaking another language. She wasn’t, though. She spoke English, just as did the person standing next to us who became silent and then said their goodbyes.

The other day I experienced the word stuck in a way that made me miss the uncomfortable spelling bee Jacky would perform. I’m about to hop off the bus to catch the red line until mid-hop, when I am STUCK in between the closing bus doors. Part of me is inside the bus and the other is outside. I can only move my head, which is the section of the body that should be yelling for the driver but is busy staring at everyone who’s staring at me who’s staring at everyone. Strangers are panicked and shouting, “Back door!!” until finally I am freed. If you imagine that being pinned and analyzed in an unflattering predicament at Broadway Station for several minutes is the most embarrassing experience to be had, you are both correct and overlooking the excruciating pain it causes the entire bod.

Declined

Junior year in suburbia was a time of AHEM…dingers (I was a very observant 17 year old and noticed people I wasn’t friends with using the word ‘dinger’ as a synonym for ‘party’ and quickly realized it was very cool to do so and could possibly even get you invited to a dinger, so I tried and it never did but I still get a small thrill out of the word and use it every so often). Anywho, kids would regularly throw these dinger events when their parents went away and we were regularly declined the invite. To be honest, we couldn’t understand it, but then again, we also couldn’t understand why more people didn’t like partying in The Pits (vast area of nothing covered in large piles of sand).

Being declined the invite to a Jacuzzi inclusive dinger occasion is ideal these days. My card getting publicly declined for a 2$ coffee because a stranger is somehow using it to purchase computer software from Dublin is fraud. I’d like declined go back to being PBRs and reciting lines from Borat in Hannah’s living room on Friday night please.

The weird thing is that I’ve always considered myself lucky. Most people would find it hard to believe, meaning they wouldn’t believe it. It’s not like they would find the word “lucky” to be a stretch, they would find it to be a lie and they would laugh. I do not blame those people. Some of them witnessed me get picked last in gym class or climb through the back seat to get out of my car when three of my four doors stopped working. Others know that I’ve never owned a spinny toothbrush that lights up blue at night when charging. But when I say lucky, I mean it in the most unParis Hiltonish way. It’s a different kind of fortune. Like, if we were at a zoo and the cutest koala bear in the whole place were to pick one person out of a billion to give a big hug, it would be me.

I think it’s cause I’m surrounded by all things lucky. I will make it clear now that I do not intend to hide any corniness in this post because it is the truth. I for one am in touch with the everyday shenanigans that I know are special.

My lucky number is eight. My lucky day is Friday. My lucky color is turquoise. My lucky jewel is Sapphire. My lucky sneakers are black Reebok runtones. My lucky seat on the bus very last one on the right when facing the driver. My lucky boots are from Old Navy. My lucky towel is green. My lucky ribbon is pink. My lucky work jeans are faded. My lucky purse can fit an extra sweater. My lucky notebook is hidden. My lucky makeup was bought on clearance. My lucky hat covers my ears. My lucky poster hangs on my mirror. My lucky breakfast is an english muffin. My lucky juice has some pulp. My lucky friends don’t mind that I’m weird. My lucky glasses are a bit tilted. My lucky sweater can’t go in the dryer. My lucky treadmill is the second row closest to the window and always taken.

The reason I bring this up is because there is one thing I tend not to be lucky with and it is anything related to cell phones. Long story short, I need a new one. I need to call Verizon and I need to convince them to give me a new one. I need a free new one. First step=make the call.

I had my plan in place. Spend the first few seconds being the Mother Theresa of broken cell phone havers. Appear to be the most pleasant human being on the planet. Ask him how his day is going. How were his holidays? Then hit him with my big upset. Demand orders. Be stern. Never settle.

I was confident with one aspect of my big phone call. I would pass the sticker test. I knew that this time they couldn’t get me with the circular sticker located so sneakily inside the phone. It’s white. It practically glows in the dark. There is not a speck of pink on that white sticker. I would mention how I can take a picture and send it over if they need proof cause I’m not lyin. It would be the first thing they asked, and this time I was ready. Today I would hear how a conversation with Asurian plays out when your sticker is NOT pink. When your sticker is white as the sky is blue.

I explained to this man that I had recently received a phone from Verizon and that something must have happened on its trip in the mail to my apartment because now practically the whole screen is blank!!!

He informed me that I would be paying another hundred because it didn’t happen within 7 days of receiving the phone and I informed him right back that actually it very much did. I let this man know that just a few days after opening my package from Verizon, a black dot appeared on the screen of my phone. I explained to the increasingly irritating man that it wasn’t until recently that 3 quarters of my screen went blank which is why I am just calling now, and he told me I would be paying because it didn’t happen within the first 7 days.

I told him it indeed did. That minutes after opening my package from Verizon, a black dot appeared on the screen of my phone, that it wasn’t until recently that 3 quarters of my screen went blank which is why I am just calling now. He told me I would be paying because it didn’t happen within the first 7 days.

I let him know it did indeed. That seconds after opening my package from Verizon, a large black dot appeared on the screen of my phone, that it wasn’t until recently that 3 quarters of my screen went blank which is why I am just calling now. He told me I would be paying because it didn’t happen within the first 7 days.

I told him indeed it did!! That there was a massive black mark on my phone when it arrived at my apartment, that it wasn’t until recently that 3 quarters of my screen went blank which is why I am just calling now!! He told me I would be paying because it didn’t happen within the first 7 days.

This guy explained that the black dot trick is similar to the pink sticker trick (which I had passed moments ago). The black dot appears when you drop a phone, he says. I told this guy in a loud, assertive voice that I have taken excellent care of my phone. I told him how I keep it carefully placed in a well cushioned area where I am mindful of it every second of the day. I told him that I have never taken my eyes off that phone from the moment I got it. I told him how never once have I dropped it. I don’t even place my phone down too abruptly is what I explained. It has a dedicated and, again, cushioned holding spot in every room, I told him, and I refuse to pay another hundred for something that is NOT my fault!! For something they did! For something HE did!!

This man didn’t believe me. Worse than that, he didn’t have sympathy. This man didn’t feel bad for me. He apologized for my phone troubles in the tone of voice I use when agreeing to help take in the groceries. I don’t think this man cared that I was going through a rough time with my phone plan.

If I could take back one moment in all my 23 years it would be when I was at the bar the other night and tossed my cloth purse on the floor where someone sat for hours with the leg of their chair on the screen of my phone.