Monday, November 13, 2006

Suddenly Third Wheel


My roommate has lost his effin' mind. The prostitute gone "model" who suddenly moved into our household is now staying the rest of the month (refer to November 6 entry). My roommate, sensing my immense discomfort, paid me $500 to shut my mouth. Suffice it say, my mouth has been paid shut but my eyes are wide open, in dumb shock.

This morning, I see a card on the dining room table (next to the dozen roses he gave her. And a pineapple with a ribbon on it. Hello, has this man ever had sex before or what? The card reads:

"Though the road of life may be hard to travel..." (open) "Know, I'll always be there for you."

Now I'll give him some credit here - perhaps the road is is often hard to travel when you're wearing 6-inch high, white stiletto stripper boots and you just polished off a fifth of Southern Comfort.

Then...then....THEN....oh my god, then he writes (and again, dear reader, let me remind you, they have been together less than TWO effin' weeks):

"I love you baby. Justin."

Ahhhhhh....shoot me! Feeling powerless, I went in to the trashcan in my bedroom and pulled out a joke birthday card I recently tossed. It read: "Great Farters Throughout History" with little cartoon renditions of historical figures as: "Fartacus", "Napoleon Blownafarte" "Abe Stinkin" and "King Toot." I placed it behind the roses, the decorated pineapple and the ridiculous "I love you baby" card and prayed for a miracle.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Dancing with Shadows


I have a major birthday today. I won't tell you which one, but I will tell you it starts with "f" and ends in "death." Had a little party at my place last night. It was pretty lovely actually. My friend Ruby outdid herself with the preparations and my place looked really nice, with candles burning everywhere.

I felt a surprising amount of acceptance on my birthday this year. On previous birthdays, I would be heavier of heart - sad about people who were no longer around to share this day with me, nostalgic for simpler birthdays in the past, you know, your average birthday melancholia. But this birthday, felt a little more que sera sera, which felt nice. Well, at least I thought I felt alright.

Later that night, as the booze played out its effect, one of my gay male friends asked me to dance. There's was an old 50's song playing on the stereo. It was from The Lettermen, I think, called "Where or When." I wish I could play it for you now, it's such a ghostly and sad song to me. As the rest of the group talked quietly on the couch, my friend pulled me in to dance with him. The second he did, I felt this overwhelming urge to cry. A big cry, not a little...a BIG one. What was happening? Why this feeling? I suppose it felt so nice to be dancing with someone, no, more specifically a MAN. I was so in need of it - the visceral, charged energy of dancing with a man. The warmth, the stickysweet romance. Even though my friend is very gay, the worn parts of my soul felt sated and loved suddenly. I wanted to cry because I haven't felt that way in a long time and I felt sad about that.

My dance partner, who was NOT on the same page as me, kept trying to get laughs from my other friends by slowly moving his hand down my back to my behind, as if we were at some high school dance. This only made me hurt worse. "Please, please let me live out my timeless little fantasy for just a few more minutes. Please. Please let's not make a joke of it" But he didn't hear my psychic plea. He grabbed my ass suddenly and everyone burst into laughter. Except me, who quietly slunk off to my bedroom and cried for a while.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Help! Prossie in the House!


Egad. My life is currently giving all new meaning to the expression "going from bad to worse." Since my return from my summerlong stay at the Jersey shore to the quaint and beaucolic city of Brookyn (insert sarcasm here), I have dealt with bugs and mice in my apartment, sudden and financial ruin (remember, if you ever move to New York City, a cash register sound can be heard the SECOND you enter the city. And it never stops until you leave), a breakup with a white powder lovin’ boyfriend and well, a general sense of loneliness and ennui. I never knew you could feel so alone in such an peopled place.

Anyway, enough mea culpas. Let’s get back to the prostitutes, shall we? Or “prossies” as I will refer to them in this entry. My roommate is a bit of a pushover. Which has worked to my advantage thus far. Because I’m a bit of a pusher. He went to his construction site last Friday, where he serves as a designer, and met some woman who entered the site looking for a “modeling agency.” They struck up and conversation and Voila! My roommate, who doesn’t do so well with the ladies, brought home a brand new, fresh, spankin’ "model"! He tells me this Sat. morning. He tells me she’s in his bedroom now. Congrats, Justin, I tell him. Good for him.

When she finally stumbles out of the bedroom, a tall black woman, wearing 5-inch white thigh-high stiletto boots, a rabbit fur top and a matching rabbit fur hat, emerges. I almost spit out my coffee. “Hey there, baby,” she says. “My name is Lutwella.” Lutwella, indeed.

I figured, yeah, you seem like a prossie. Like a straight-up, street-walking-car-door-hanging prossie. But…what care I? Dost thou not have enough problems on thy own plate, Beth, than to worry about a roommate’s sexual miscalculations? I sip at my coffee, give her one last glance and go back to my paper. She and Justin eventually go on their merry way. Indeed, what care I?

But care I did. Because she kept returning. The entire weekend! I’d hear the clippety clop of her white boots up the steps to our apartment and wonder, when is this going to end? Then Sunday night, I hear the clippety clop of her boots and an additional thud! Thud! The apartment door opens and Lutwella is dragging along a large, fuzzy pink suitcase. There is no roommate, only her.

“What are you doing? Are you going away somewhere? What are you doing?” I stammer nervously.

“Honey, you can talk to Steven about that.”

“By Steven, I’m guessing you mean Justin, my roommate.” I say.

“Did I call him Steven. Oh shit, bitch! I can’t believe I said that!” she says, cackling away, slapping her bony knee. “No, seriously. I’m a model. And I came here to New York from Cincinatti to look for work. I’m a model.”

“You said that. What are you doing here…I mean, in this apartment?”

“I need to meet some people. Make some money. I can make money here. I can make up to 100.”

“A hundred what?”

“A hundred bucks, honey. Sometimes I get paid a hundred bucks an hour.”

“I bet you do, Lutwella. I bet you do.”

“Anyway, my friend…she said I could sleep on her couch but then she had all these other losers there. And I had to sleep on the floor. I have to look good. I can’t get those modeling jobs when I’m sleeping on the floor! So Steven…”

“Justin”

“Shiiit…did I say that again? Justin said I could stay here.”

“For how long did Steven say you could stay?” I ask tensely.

“Well, I’m supposed to go home in 10 days. That’s what my Greyhound ticket says.”

Okay, let’s stop here. This is a long blog and writing this, while offering some comic relief, is literally a little too close to home and making me tense all over again. When Lutwella was taking her bubble bath (kid you not!) that night in our bathroom, I pulled my roommate aside and said “You got to be kidding me, right? You got to be kidding!?”

“Well,” he whispers, “she has nowhere to go and she’s sleeping on a floor and…”

I go on to explain to him that sleeping on a floor IS in fact a place to go. And so is her HOME in Cincinatti. And I just gave you a big fat check so I DO have a place to go, a place free of prostitutes who double as models. He seemed very confused with this very basic logic. He was under some strange “I haven’t had sex in a while and now I’m getting some” trance and my straight-laced logic need not apply.

I went to bed that night, tense and mentally exhausted. Nothing makes you feel worse, I’ve decided, than explaining the obvious to people. The standard “pink elephant” thing - “Hey, there’s a pink elephant in the middle of the room.” “No there isn’t. YOU’RE the pink elephant. There is no pink elephant. It's a polka-dotted daffodil!” Its the fundamentals of crazymaking. My roommate denied the existence of the “pink prossy” in the room. But the pink prossy exists. I can hear her clipclop now. Help.

Body Surfing and Other Random Sports



Went to Philly last week to see 30 Seconds to Mars at the Electric Factory, with K, my best friend, who's recovering from cancer. I fell in love with 30 Seconds when I heard "The Kill" which allowed me to feel that not only is it alright to be really, really pissed about a breakup but you could even get PAID for it one day. So there we were, K and I, patiently sitting thru FOUR opening bands, drinking Jameson's straight, waiting patiently for our band of choice.

K and I have gone to concerts ever since we were kids. We loved the whole concept of getting backstage and meeting, nay, partying with the artists. But somehow, we got older. She dealt with cancer and divorce. I dealt with...alot, but nothing in comparison to that. Point being, we're adults now, watching a longass show and maybe, just maybe, not rocking out like we used to. Sitting on stools on the balcony, watching the chaos below , we suddenly seemed so...civil. It felt sad and a little like death. As the sedentary sensation grew like mold over me, I suddenly heard myself say "Kris. I'll be back. I'm going to the mosh pit." K, looking shocked...and drunk, uttered "Uh...okay."

I ran downstairs, burst into the mosh pit and prompty tripped over my own two feet and fell flat on my face. Two guys stopped moshing to pick the poor lady up. "Get off of me. I'm fine!" I shouted. Oh, did I tell you what I was wearing that night? A bright, polka dotted, 50's style dress that screamed "I like cupcakes and bright, shiny things!" Hardly punk...more like...spunk...and drunk. So, I started slamming around to reassert myself, but alas, it was too late. I was too loose of a cannon with this crew, just a little too...foreign. I stood in the middle as the crowd moved away from me, like I was a bad smell.

I looked out at the crowd and saw these kids body surfing, flying, as if by magic across the raised hands of the crowd. "Okay, that! That's what I want! I want to do that!!!" I screamed. "I really, really, do!" Some kids in front of me screamed "Well, fucking do it then!" Oh I will, youth. I will! I will!!

I took a deep breath and a running leap and flew into the crowd and magically. Magically. Magically...they lifted me up and tossed me about. I experienced a high rivaling the last time I did some serious blow with my dumb ol' ex-boyfriend who needs to be executed in front of a brick wall with no blindfold. I was tossed around like a beautiful, little ragdoll. I smiled so hard that my face hurt. It was pure fun. Clean, distilled fun. So fun it hurt my face.

The crowd tossed me, polka dot dress and all, toward the stage, where the hottie Jared Leto stood. Ah...there he is. In the flesh, up close and cute...cute as hell. Like extra crazy cute. I screamed (you can guess) "Hey...you..you're cute!" He looked down as if trying to understand me. "You...you're cute! You're cute!!!!!!"

At that point, the crowd dropped me and I fell to the floor, completely and utterly confident that I wouldn't be trampled on...or if I were to be, oh well. It would be a very rock and roll way to die. "Hey, did you hear...Beth died in a mosh pit. And she was going to turn 40 next week!" Yes, I'd die like that. I'd gladly die like that.