Monday, July 31, 2006
Pink Pills
“Oh, the rain feels sooo fuckin' good!”
Was it raining? Yea, it rained, briefly stamping down the heat and kicking up cool winds.
What came before?
Oh yea, the phone call.
“Hey, Katherine?” Sniff. “I just got fired.”
“What?! Well, it's good we're fuckin' going out tonight then!”
“Ummm...about that...”
“No! Fuck that! I'm not listenin' to that shit. We're goin' out! Shit, I have the pink pills...”
Oh yum. The pink pills. Well, in that case, who'm I to say no?
The pink pills really speak to the addict within. I recognize my addictive personality. I acknowledge the fact that sometimes, a lot of times, I want to make the real world go away and hide in that tingly goodness that is being high. But the pink pills? Oh, I like those too much. And I don't ever say no to them, even though I know I should.
I finish my trudge home, and there's Katherine, waiting in the lobby. She's wearing that grin I know too well. The we're getting fucked up tonight grin. I flash my own right back at her.
“Let's go pack some bowls!”
In my place, I put my iTunes on shuffle, grab my Lucky magazine, and break up a nugget. I tell Katherine all about my terrible day, how I knew that I was getting fired. I saw it in Joe's eyes. He came out of the meeting, and gave me the guilty shift-eye. Normally he made some lame little joke. That morning, I got the guilt eye, and I knew I was done for.
I hand her my bowl, and she trades me for some pills. Two pinks and a white.
“What's the white one?”
“Eh, a muscle relaxer. Don't worry, you're fine.”
Ok.
My anger dissipates in the coughing laughter of pot smoke and elaborate murder plots. Suddenly, the tension has drained from my shoulders, and all's right with the world.
“Oh man, Katherine. I'm so glad you're my friend.”
“Don't start that sappy shit! Seriously.”
I'm stammering, trying to convey to this woman how much her friendship means to me. She just laughs at me and announces that it's fuckin' coffee time.
Hooray! Iced coffee at an outdoor table sounds like quite the brilliant plan. And we walk and walk around bend after bend of the never ending staircase to the lobby. Four flights of forever looping and we're finally downstairs. I was afraid I'd get lost.
Outside. The air is hot and humid, but the evening sun feels good. I feel the warm glow through my eyelids and it makes me smile. The best way to take everything in is to spin in a slow circle, inhaling it all. Summer smells good.
And I am happy.
Trip traipsing down the street. It's not a long walk to the coffee shop, and my knees are squishy so it feels nice to stroll. I feel the world through my skin. I want to soak it all in.
Sweat is built-in air conditioning. Feel the beads on your arm, and the burst of coolness they bring when blown away by the summer breeze. It's magnificent.
We're here already. Iced coffee is genius. Music swirls around the room. I understand how the paintings were hung, and the pillars painted to allow for maximum music swirling. I smile at the man behind the counter, is he responsible for the music? Katherine reads my mind and asks him what we're listening to. I'm enthralled by the menu board, all so yummy and thoughtfully created to swirl to the beat of the music in your tummy. This is the best coffee shop ever.
And he left room for cream.
Outside. Table. Sit. I can't stop smiling. The world is a beautiful place after all, even when bitches fire you for no reason. I talk some baby talk to the cute Boxer pup at the next table. He flops his head at me. It's hot for puppy talking.
The sky darkens, not just because the night has finally arrived, but because it brought with it a storm. I feel the far off rumble of thunder. I can smell the rain.
“Bring it on, baby!” Katherine yells at the sky. Then she confides, “This heat is giving me a headache, man. Hopefully we get some fuckin' rain to cool things off.”
I smile. I understand.
“So, we gonna go see that band?” She asks me this while she lights a cigarette and looks up at the sky. She gestures towards the bar with her lighter, “They're playin' right there.”
Her words are muffled by the cigarette. If I concentrate, I can taste it. Feel the dryness of the filter against my tongue, the faint aroma of menthol. The ring and middle finger of my right hand twitch. How good would a cigarette taste right now? But, nope. Gotta keep the quit, right?
“Mmmm. I feel...I feel like...I don't want to be in a room inside with a band. I like outside.”
It's night suddenly. Dark and we're walking to the park. The air smells humid and electric. Katherine's headache is worse. She wants to fuckin' lay down or something.
Giggle. Everything is funny. Everything is squishy. If I close my eyes when I walk, I float on a pillow of Nerf. Giggle. Katherine read my mind again, I see her veering left, off course. She grins at me.
“I can walk with my fuckin' eyes closed!”
Swings. I hold the chain and drop my head down. Pit-pat raindrops on my eyelids. Taste one from my lips. Lift my head up, kick my feet out, and I soar with the raindrops. I think Katherine fell asleep on the bench.
My stomach swirls in loop-de-loops that aren't so pleasant, so I glide back home. I lay on my stomach and sway to and fro. I drag my fingers through the wet wood chips. I close my eyes and inhale.
“Hey,” calls Katherine from her bench, “wanna go home and smoke?”
“Hell yea.”
At the end of the walk, Katherine is tired, and wants to lay down. She goes home to go to fuckin' bed. I do the same.
My bed is cool, inviting. I lay beneath my ceiling fan, watching the light show behind my eyelids, all black with flashing beams of red and white. My room swirls and loop-de-loops and toilet. And sick. Eyes closed, bed. Sleep. Dancing red and white beams of energy.
It's morning, and the shower triggers flashes of memory. Was I sick? Did it rain? I've never been so fucked up that I can't remember. Fucking pink pills. So dangerous, I wish I had more.
Thank god I don't.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
I Have a Fake eBoyfriend.
In one such place, a guy messaged me asking if I'd pretend to be his girlfriend so we could freak out his mom. Apparently, he'd always wanted to find a tattooed black woman to bring home to Mommy.
This proposal is intriguing. I mean, it has the potential to be hilarious. But, I had to find out more. I'm down for laughter, but I had to make sure Mommy wasn't a skinhead or anything. People are weird nowadays. So of course I messaged him back. I needed the scoop!
Mommy isn't racist, he assured me. She just wants him to settle down with a nice, typical, blonde blue-eyed sorority girl type. Which is fine, we all have goals for our kids. I hope if I have a son, (who'll remain uncircumcised until old enough to change his mind!) I hope he's a pimp. Not a literal pimp, taking a bitch's money after she put in the work is just wrong. Just King Pimp in the sense that all the girls think he's hot, and he's beating them off with sticks and whatnot. He has to be smart, and get good grades, all that crap. But, I want bitches calling up all the time so I can yell at them to "Leave my boy alone, whore!!" And then his daddy and I can make that proud parent eye contact. Our little boy is such a MACK!
In any case, my fake eboyfriend has some issues with his parental unit. We all do, true enough. However, his particular issues are such that I'm willing to give up a very important Hallmark holiday to go visit Mommy with him. Easter, Christmas. Shit, Thanksgiving even! There are things about his life that would make the most dysfunctional amongst us gasp in horror. For reals. Kids that were chained to radiators while their folks were at work would offer a sympathetic shoulder pat if they heard this dude's story. His Mommy needs to be taught a lesson in basic humanity. I'm not certain I can fix her, but I can damn sure rattle her.
We've upped the Mommy trickery scale. See, it's not enough for Mommy to think I'm just a freak girlfriend. I'm a phase or something her kid is going through. I'm sure, if she's like most fucked up Mommies, she can pretend to be sweet and charming. I'm sure she'll make a nice dinner, and we'd have forced, awkward conversation all night. She'd sigh with relief when we left the next day, and then call up the boy and convince him how wrong we are together. That's too easy.
I want Mommy to freak the fuck out. Enter baby.
I know a few interracial couples, I really hope one of them would let me borrow their kid for a few days.
"No, come on, I'll babysit! You guys need your alone time, rediscover the romance....What will we do? Oh, well, I have this fake eboyfriend...No, wait, hear me out, it's funny!"
Even better, though. Even better than he and I pretending we have a kid, is pretending I have a kid which he thinks is his.
I need to find a black ass baby. Darkness everybody! Wesley Snipes black. And, my fake eboyfriend is going to pretend that he thinks the kid is his. We're going to have rings and shit, so that we can tell Mommy we eloped when I found out I was pregnant with little Ra'Kwayvion. Oh yea, the kid's named Ra'Kwayvion.
Our sweet little family will show up on Mommy's doorstep with sweet potato pie, a dog, a baby, and a velvet portrait of us in silhouette. The baby's gotta be little enough that he'll respond to Ra'Kwayvion. Or VeeVee or something. But still intelligent enough to yell, "GAMMA!" And stretch his chubby little arms out when she opens the door. Bonus if the dog starts barking uncontrollably, scaring the baby, causing him to wail.
I can't wait...Any of y'all got a baby I could borrow? My fake eboyfriend is good with kids.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
How Was Your Day?
I was young, maybe 11, and I think that's where my fascination started. I remember hoping then that we were related closely enough that the dwarfism gene could be present in me. Maybe one of my kids would be a midget!!
Anyway, I find the whole concept endlessly fascinating. I watch all the documentaries and I was super psyched when the Roloffs were the featured family in Little People Big World on TLC. I'd seen them a couple times on other documentaries on Little People and they seemed like such an awesome family. They are such a silly family, they seem like they have so much fun together, or at least try to, and isn't that how life should be lived?
Last week, I started noticing more and more Little People about town, I was so excited! And here's the thing. People from other places often comment on how polite people around Milwaukee are. We tend to make eye contact, smile and say hi when we pass people in the street.
So, I'm doing my Milwaukee thing and smiling at these Little People whenever we'd cross paths. Sometimes they'd give me a weak smile back, or not really react at all. Which is fine, not everyone smiles back, right? But, it happened often enough that I decided these people are assholes!
I'm sure that they encounter tons of people in day-to-day life that make fun, or point and stare, but not me! I'm smiling at you because I'm friendly, goddamnit, not because you're a fucking midget!
My fascination is all love. I always want to befriend the people off the beaten path. I always want to talk to people of different cultures, different religions. I still look for the crackhead I posted about before. I didn't get to ask him all my questions. I didn't appreciate at the time the unique position I was in to have a conversation with a crackhead. I could have gained some more understanding of the user's mind.
This is the main reason I chose Anthropology as my field of study. I want to know, I want to understand everything. It's so much easier to satisfy this curiosity if it's behind an academic front. If I have a clipboard in hand, it's not as bad a thing to ask an Indian why cows are sacred, as opposed to just asking a random Indian in the grocery store.
It's this thing I try to control because I don't want to offend people. I'm genuinely curious, but I know that in situations where your differences are so obvious, curiosity can turn people off. Who wants to be seen as an oddity?
I know I'm not the only one who feels this curiosity, though, so I think I'm making more of an issue of it than there is. People come up to me with the nervous, apologetic faces asking if they can see my tattoo. I try to be really friendly because I know enough visibly tattooed people who get all bent out of shape when people ask them questions. Which is ridiculous. How stupid are you to think that you can get shit tattooed on your neck and your hands, and still expect people to not notice? That was one of the things I considered in getting a giant tattoo, if I could deal with strangers asking me about it, but I think talking to strangers is fun. Of course, visible tattoos and dwarfism are two very different creatures...But I digress.
Most people are cool when they know your questions are inspired by genuine interest. I love it when I encounter someone who'll get excited and go on and on, and tell me stories from their home countries.
I worked in a bank in a part of town with a large Russian immigrant population. I ended up being the favorite teller because I was the most patient. My coworkers would get irritated because the accents were difficult to understand, and it really sounds like the people are being rude and yelling at you when they talk.
My favorite guy was Aleks. He was big and burly, a good 6'3, with a loud, booming voice. It was awesome when he'd come in, he'd shove the doors wide, grin, and shout, "Goot mornink, ladies!" He'd walk through the bank, shouting greetings at everyone there. Then as he'd approach the windows, he'd boom, "Geev to me deeposit slip!"
My coworkers thought he was being rude, demanding deposit slips like some sort of asshole. No, he was being Russian.
Eventually, Aleks only came to me, because I'd shout back when he'd walk in. "Good morning, Aleks! How are you today!!" I'd try to engage him as long as I could, because he was so much fun to talk to. If they could have looked past the way he said things, to the smile, the arms spread wide, and just the energy with which he presented himself, they'd have seen it was unabashed enthusiasm, not rudeness. It really was a goot mornink for Aleks, and when he'd walk in, it was a goot mornink for me, too! Again, I digress...
After enough time spent smiling, and trying to appear open to the visiting Little People, I gave up. I didn't find anyone who seemed receptive, so, fuck it. I figured I'd have to wait for another opportunity to befriend some Little People, since this week wasn't working out.
A friend and I ended up going to Summerfest, and it was lame, as I knew it would be. He's not from Milwaukee, so he doesn't realize that Summerfest is only half as cool as it's made out to be. Or maybe that's just me. I hate it. After our Summerfest excursion, and a few drinks, we head back to downtown Milwaukee. Some other friends had called to say they were at the bar with a bunch of Little People. Yes!
So, we head over there, and see a group of people standing around outside. It was a combination of Little and Big People standing there, and they were so nice! I walk up and ask one of the guys about his tattoos, and we chat about why they're visiting Milwaukee, when they're leaving, all that good stuff. I was happy, not all the midgets are assholes, you know?
We chatted for a bit, and they said we could come up to their dance!! Oh yea! Now, keep in mind, I may be half black, but I can't dance worth a shit. I don't drink much or often, but when I do, I reach a point where dancing becomes necessary. I'm now being presented the opportunity to get my drunken dance on with Little People! Oh hell to the yea!
I'm sure we made quite a scene, my rhythmically challenged black ass trying to shake it up on the dance floor with a bevy of Little People. I honestly had so much fun, it was ridiculous. Picture if you will, a darkened ballroom, round tables draped with white tablecloths on the perimeter of the dance floor. A DJ bumpin' the hottest dance tracks, and a sea of people under 5 feet tall. Here I am, dancing with a guy who's at least 6'2, and spinning around to no one else at eye level.
I'm hip bumping the tall guy, giving high fives to passing Little Folk. At one point, I look at my friend, she gives me the same freaked out look, and I say "What the fuck is going on??" She didn't know either. Oh well, let's dance.
And, yes, I laughed. And laughed and laughed some more. There was a sweet slow dancing moment, with the couples in love and very cute. People making out, staring into one another's eyes. Even though my bitter heart hates to see people in love, they were cute and made me smile. Then I notice a couple where the woman was on her knees. They were both Little People, but how short are you that your midget girlfriend has to kneel? Wow.
My next level of drunkeness, after the Dance Machine, I become some sort of molester. Do you know that Little People men are pretty much boob height? Oh yea, I hugged as many dudes as I could. It's all love, baby.
One guy asked if I'd dance with him. Well of course! He said we had to do the next slow dance, but would I mind kneeling? Why would I mind? Let's DANCE! Unfortunately, there were no more slow songs to be had. Disappointing, really. I totally would have danced with him. I bet while I'm kneeling, people can't tell that I'm a horrible dancer.
My poor friend, who was passing out boob hugs with me, became entirely too drunk, and needed me to go with her to the bathroom to puke. After she finishes, she's washing her mouth and face in the sink. A drunken blonde midget on a scooter drives in, and swats my friend on the ass. She screams "Where's the after party, bitches?!" Wow.
There's a brief what the fuck moment, and the blonde's friend comes walking in behind her. She tells me they're really wanting to party more after the dance is over, and we should all hang out. Of course we'll all hang out! Are you kidding? She apologizes and goes into the stall, "I have to help her, now." Oh. OK.
We never did find those two again. It's too bad, I bet they were tons of fun! I mean, this chick just drove in and smacked my friend's ass! Who knows what she'd have done with more liquor in her?
My friend and I return to the dance floor as the party is coming to an end. We do the good old drunk whore dance. You know the one, a man sandwiched between two women who think they're dancing oh so sexily. So, she and I are doing the drunk whore dance with a midget between us. I'm fairly certain we high fived over the poor guy's head. And then we do the whore version of Axel Rose's snake dance, shimmy shake to the floor, and eye level to the man meat of the whore sandwich. So much fun. Boob hugs for him, too!
After the dance ends, most of us head out to the bar downstairs. As I round the corner, some of my peeps are being hollered at by a mean ol' midget lady.
"Hey! What's goin' on?" I ask her. I did mention I don't do drunk well, right? Yea. I'm very emotional now, I don't want to offend the Little People, and this lady is looking mighty offended.
"Who invited you? Who are you here with?" She demands.
"We ran into some people outside who said we could come up and dance."
"Well, they don't get to make those decisions. If you don't know anyone, or aren't related to anyone, you shouldn't be here."
"Why? What's the big deal? We were drunk, I like to dance when I'm drinking, and some people said we could come up and dance with them. I don't understand what the problem is...."
"You guys have all your own events, there's no reason for you to come here and try to interfere in ours."
Now I feel like shit.
Ok, of course there was a level of voyerism. Of morbid fucking curiosity. It's a Little People convention, for crying out loud! Beyond that, I had so much fun, and met some cool people. Now here's this woman saying I was wrong because I'm tall and I infiltrated a Little People Dance Party. It's not fair.
But I apologize to her, I tell her we legitimately didn't mean any harm, we just wanted to have fun and meet some cool people. What's wrong with that? After my rambling apology, she at least pretends to be chagrined and wishes us all a good night. Indeed.
We head down to the hotel bar. It's almost last call, I'm vaguely aware of bunches of beers being purchased, but I'm distracted by the sexiest fucking midget ever in existence. Seriously. The dude is wearing a pink fuzzy hat, but aside from that, he's, uh, short dark and handsome. Dark eyes, so dark you can't see the pupils, nice lips, that bad boy look that makes girls weak in the knees. I stagger over to the dude, and tell him he's fucking hot. He says, "yea, I get that a lot." Oh, I'm in love. I ask if I can peek and see what's under his hat. Oh my god, eyes rolled back in my head, he's got nice buzz cut black hair. The buzz cuts feel so good when you rub your hands across it! I could marry him and increase my chances at midget offspring!! I would marry, him, too. If he'd have me...
I never anticipated feeling that level of sexual attraction for a Little Person. But, there were tons of really good looking men there. A lot of them were ripped, too.
I had commented on the rippedness earlier to one of the guys I was with. He says, dead seriously, "No, you gotta understand. They have normal sized muscles, but they're attached to much shorter bones, so it just makes them look ripped."
Either way, this little dark man was fucking sexy. I learned something disturbing about myself as well. See, the fact that he was a Little Person made me want him more. Confident little fucker, too. When told they're hot, who says, "yea, I get that a lot?" Wow.
I'm honestly disappointed that he didn't come back with us after the bar closed. I've never had sex with a stranger. I've never gone home with a guy from a bar and had a random one night stand, but I would have made an exception for him.
I guess it's true that every woman has her price. Turns out, mine is a hot midget.
