Hello, 2013, I didn’t see you there…

Seems like everybody is doing a year in review post; I did that a few months ago and not much has changed so I’m not doing it again. Sorry? You’re welcome? But here’s my attempt at getting one more post in before the end of the year.

A few weeks back, a friend of mine informed me that his girlfriend booked four hotel rooms downtown for NYE and got a pretty good fricken deal. Three out of the four were taken and the fourth was mine if I wanted it. I was trying to justify the expense (even though it’s a good deal, for NYE, it’s still half a pile of money after all) and I realized that most people I know are couples that will be doing a couple thing, or else don’t drink much. Since I also have a nightbus that runs all night and practically drops me off at my house, I wasn’t sure if it was worth the price.

My stepmom told me otherwise. She was convinced it was going to be the bestest time ever and I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by. I told my friend that I would take the room. I started getting excited and started inviting people. I knew that most of them would say “Sounds like fun – I’ll call you!” and never hear from them. I was okay with that.

A few days later, my friend informed me that the rate his girl is getting is because she’s a government employee. The non-employee rate is almost 3x that amount, which no one in their right mind would pay, unless they had 8 people staying in the room, splitting the cost. Which I don’t.

I’m welcome to come on down and party (doin’ the hotel room hop) but I’ll have to find my way home at the end of the night. Not a bad deal. Especially since that was my first option anyway. Now I’m realizing that I should’ve pre-purchased my NYE booze – the liquor store will be insanely busy by the time I get there tonight. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Have a happy new year everyone and I’ll see you in 2013!

That White Girl’s a party crasher… apparently

A few weeks back I decided to hit the pub on my way home from dance. I ended up running into a few people that I knew and before I knew it, I was drunk. It’s weird how that happens when you drink a lot of alcohol in a short amount of time.

Even though I was done and wanted to go home, one of my friends wanted to keep the party going and was looking for a way to find/purchase more alcohol. There was no way possible. At that moment, I looked across the street and saw some sort of club open; there was loud music, flashing lights, people dancing. Since I’m easily talked into things, I suggested we try it out.

Long story short, I ended up going in alone while one of the guys made sure the other guy got home okay. Due to the level of my intoxication, I didn’t care if I was being ditched and went straight in with little to no hesitation. When I entered the room, I realized that it was a Latin dance party. Just my scene… bring it!

I was approached shortly after my (not so) subtle entrance; I asked the person if I was able to purchase alcohol. They pointed me in the direction of the owner; I approached the owner and she told me that it was actually a private party; they weren’t selling alcohol. Being the proactive person I am, when it looked like she might ask me to leave, I beat her to it:

Which is true. And also… not true. It’s true I’ve seen him before. But I’ve never talked to him. The dude, let’s call him Slick, naturally, wondered where I knew him from and I told him I knew him from the salsa clubs. It was a believable story, so he got me a beer while his friend danced with me. I was sitting down drinking my free beer when Slick asked me to dance. He wanted me to elaborate on our “knowing” each other.  Busted, you got me!

Luckily he was okay with it. After a little bit, my friend came back to get me. He didn’t even make it in the door before he was told to leave. Since the eight guys were making eyes at me and the seven girls were shooting hate daggers at me, I thought it was best if I quit while I was ahead and left the party to meet my friend.

The following week, I went to the salsa club. I looked over at one point and guess who was standing there. Slick. After we mutually made eye contact, I approached him and we started talking; he said that I looked different. I asked how, he said he wasn’t sure. He asked me if I was drunk.

He asked me if I was drunk last week.

I guess that was it; suddenly he wanted me to drink. When I told him that I was driving, he said that I should know someone that lives nearby so that I could spend the night at their place. He lives three blocks away. Convenient. I declined his offer to spend the night at his house, in his bed, even though he said “nothing would happen”. I didn’t believe him.

We danced; it was late, he was drunk and he kissed me. And that’s how I ended up making out with a dude named Slick in the middle of the dance floor of the salsa club.

Times like these make me wish I could blame my poor decisions on alcohol. Alas… no. Dammit.

“Santa” is an asshole… and so am I

A few weeks back I came across a funny ecard on facebook, so I shared it on my wall.

I believe my caption was “Glad I’ve been good”. My mom saw the post and commented saying something along the lines of “I’m sure you’ll get a CD”. I responded with “Mommmmmmm. Noooooooooooo!”.

Fast forward to yesterday. I received my Christmas package in the mail from my mom. In it, was a present from “Santa”.

And yes, I am 32 years old.

I burst out laughing because, if you can’t tell by the picture, it’s very CD-shaped. So I took a picture, posted it on facebook and tagged my mom to get a reaction out of her. I also tagged “Nickelback sucks A$$” in the same picture.

All at the same time, my mom sends me an email:

Mom: The package is at your front door.

TWG: Thanks – I got it!

Mom: You can open the one from Santa…

TWG: I’m pretty sure I already know what it is.

Mom: Really?

TWG: Yes!

Mom: How?

TWG: … … I tagged a picture of you… (keeping in mind this was all in the FB inbox)

Mom: You did! LOL

*she calls me because emailing isn’t good enough*

Mom: I saw your picture! It’s cute!

TWG: Thought you’d like it.

Mom: But how do you know what it is??

TWG: Did you see who else was tagged in the photo?

Mom: No…. … hold on, I’ll look … … …. Nickelback Sucks… Oh.

I could hear the disappointment in her voice.

Not only is “Santa” an asshole, I just ruined Christmas for my mother. Shit.

Well… Shit.

I posted pictures on my facebook account of my trip to Thailand. Within an hour of posting, Thailand liked one of them. Other people like the same picture, but the other people aren’t the ones I chose to focus on, now are they?

No. I spent the next hour (or more) overanalyzing everything in life. Why would you like my picture when you haven’t spoken to me in months? I was practically done thinking of you, why’d you have to ruin it by looking at my things and liking them? When did I turn into a crazy girl?

I was having a hard time sleeping because overanalyzing really takes up a big part of your brain, so I got up to get some water. As I was passing my computer, I decided it would be a good idea to send him an email. I guess you could say I wasn’t thinking clearly.

I logged onto facebook and typed up a message:

I went to Thailand!

I stared at it. I decided that nothing good could come from it, that there was no point in sending it and that clearly I have lost my mind. I mean, it’s not like he was extending an olive branch, or doing anything to show that things had changed… I highlighted the message and was about to hit delete when I dropped my laptop off the top of my lap. It crashed to the floor. I was very concerned; it hit the ground hard, I wanted to make sure it was okay.

I opened the (now shut) lid and found that the screen was intact and even turned on. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw next. My heart sunk.

In my attempt to save my computer from impact, I must have hit keys. I must have clicked somewhere.

I hit send.

I closed my laptop and went to bed with an increasing feeling of doom. I fell asleep almost immediately. I guess shock will do that do you. My eyes cracked open in the morning and my first thought was “Fuck. I sent him an email. I. Sent him. An email.” Something I never intended to do, aside from that 30 seconds of delirium I experienced the night before. I intended to walk out of his life and never walk back in. I intended to never think of him again. I guess I didn’t live up to my intentions.

I decided it was okay. Much like my text message, I would receive no response. I could easily pretend like it never even happened. I bet I could even convince myself that I was really drunk, or high on peyote, and imagined it all. Peyote will do that to you every time, right?

I went about my morning, casting nervous sidelong glances at my computer, but never looking directly at it. Because that will change things. Eventually I opened my computer and went about my routine of checking email accounts. I logged onto facebook and saw 18 notifications. Oh, the “popularity” of 3 people liking 6 of your pictures. And one email. Well… Shit.

Thailand 1.2

So, picking up where we left off in Part 2… We got back to Bangkok, we saw some temples, we went shopping, we went home. The End.

Boring, right? Now, on to the anecdotes!!

After we left Bangkok the first time, I held some resentment. Between the heat, the humidity, the cars, the dirt, the lack of palm trees, the smell…. Let’s just say I wasn’t that happy in Bangkok. My resentment may or may not have consisted of:

My friend didn’t really get it. She kept saying “It’s not that bad. I like it”. When we got there the second time, she looked around with a disgusted look on her face and said “Is it just me, or did this place get dirtier since the last time we were here?”. No. It’s exactly the same!!

When we left Bangkok the first time, we were on our way to the airport with a taxi driver that didn’t know much English and was money-hungry. Bad combo. Let’s just say that a misunderstanding occurred that led us to believe that he was out to rob us and led him to believe that we weren’t going to pay the highway tolls to the airport. Long story short, for a brief moment we were pretty sure he was taking us away to murder us, but he ended up dropping us off at our (already checked out of) hotel. We had to get another taxi. Which doesn’t sound nearly as terrifying as it was.

A nice helpful lady at the DMK airport helped us get a shuttle and ferry from the Surat Thani airport to Koh Samui. We paid 650 Baht for the 3+hour trip (just over $30 CDN), we found out that our airline had coupons for 350B for the same trip. All in all, we paid $10 CDN more than other people, but the person I was with made it seem like we paid $1000 more than other people. She kept bringing it up and bringing it up… Over. And over. Again. It wasn’t too far into the trip where I thought it might be easier to just give her the 300B that we overpaid rather than hear about it the rest of the time. I’m white. You get ripped off when you’re in Thailand with ThatWhiteGirl. I’m sorry. Get over it.

Going to the beach one day and I had to wait around for half an hour while my friend put her makeup on. To go to the beach. So that we could go swimming.

That’s what swimming looks like when you’re trying to keep your perfectly manicured face above water. Clearly I’m not that girl.

Even though my friend is pregnant, she wanted to “party all night” a few times, which consisted of us going out and around midnight her yawning and saying “I’m tired”. Safe to say, that I didn’t overdrink and/or make poor decisions. Which is why this trip was so unlike me.

Yes, that’s a tea cup… I was trying to portray that I’m all proper and shit. I’m sorry. I know you expect more from me. Don’t worry I’ll go back to Mexico soon!

I got sunburned on a cloudy day. I’m not surprised… why was everyone else?

I didn’t eat any weird shit. I was scared of getting sick and anytime I found some street food that I was willing to put in my mouth, my friend was like “30B… Is that safe??”. My adventure-meter declined significantly and it doesn’t have that large of a scale to begin with.

In Bangkok the second time, we found this night bazaar that had so many strip clubs nearby that we were accosted like a million times for ping pong shows and whatnot. I was like “Soooo… you wanna go??” and she was like “But what if they put ping pong balls in weird places????”

She wouldn’t have any of it. So, I didn’t get to see ping pong balls shoot out of vaginas. I’m sorry.

We did a tour in Bangkok the second time around. But our tour was self-hosted, so we pretty much found a tuk-tuk driver that was willing to drive us around. It ended up being too cheap to be true. He kept taking us to these “stores” that we didn’t want to shop in. And when we came out 3 minutes later, he was like “Stay longer next time!”. Turns out, he gets coupons for gas if he takes tourists to stores, but only if they seem interested. We told him we didn’t want to shop, we wanted to see temples, so he dropped us off at the next temple and then ditched us. It took us almost an hour to find an available taxi/tuk-tuk.

I think that’s about it. I’m sure there’s like a million more stories, but you’ll get bored and so will I. So let’s quit while we’re ahead, shall we?

Adventures in online dating–part 2

I’d like to interrupt my Thailand post sequence with a little update on my online dating adventures.

I met him online several weeks ago. Let’s call him Vegas. He seemed like a nice, normal guy (all the good stories start out like this, don’t they?). Very soon after connecting with him online, he went away for a week in Vegas; we met for the first time upon his return. Very soon after our first meeting, I left for Thailand. We met for the second time after I got back.

The first date was pretty typical: met for coffee, went for a walk. Vegas was pretty easy to talk to, not unattractive and despite some very obvious differences, we had a few things in common.

After our first meeting, he texted constantly; even going so far as writing “Busy??? *sad face*”  when I didn’t respond quickly enough. And then of course, the “I missed you”s that go along with a two-week hiatus from a girl you went out for coffee with once.

Like I said, we had some pretty obvious differences and he was always checking to see if I was okay with them. I found it strange, but thought that maybe he’d been involved with girls before where these things were deal breakers, so I told him they were things I was willing to look past/work through/be open to. All things considered I was trying to ignore this nagging thought.

Our second meeting took place one night after he got off work; he suggested we “chill and watch a movie”, being that I was still adjusting to this time zone, I told him I’d fall asleep immediately watching a movie and suggested meeting up at a restaurant. He said he was wearing his work coveralls and didn’t want to go into a restaurant. I asked what he suggested to do. He said he suggested watching a movie at my house. I said that wasn’t going to happen, blaming it on my house being a mess from my trip. Not a lie, but not the main reason either.

We ended up going for coffee, but Vegas quickly realized that he’d misplaced his bank card and since I didn’t want coffee at 11pm, I didn’t offer up to pay. Instead we drove around for a bit and went to a park and chatted.

Our third meeting was much of the same as the second; his suggestion of “chilling” at my place was shot down and my suggestion of going to an establishment was also shot down. We again drove to a park and chatted. This was the first time he kissed me. I hold a lot of weight with the first kiss, yet I try and convince myself it’s not a big deal when it doesn’t go well.

Note to guys: If you’re going in for an open-mouth kiss, do not start with an open-mouth. Especially the first kiss – different rules may apply if we’re currently having sex. The sequence should be: closed mouth, open mouth, tongue action, closed mouth. End of kiss. I don’t know what to do with open mouth approaching my face with a tongue hanging out. It’s awkward at best.

Since our meetings had been after one of us had gone on a trip, a lot of our conversations revolved around the trips and travelling in general. Vegas, as you can imagine, loved going to Vegas; he’d been there five times in the past year and a bit. I have never been, but did express an interest in going one day.

A couple days later, I get a text from him: So, I’ve been thinking… we should do a trip together.

Through some back and forth (all of my responses being very non-committal, but also lacking the “what the fuck is wrong with you??” question that was in my head) he decided that we would go to Vegas for a week in March and that we would hammer out dates the next time we saw each other. You know... On our fourth date. Because that’s what normal people do.

I put the brakes on so fast; I’m pretty sure each one of you heard it as I laid a patch of rubber as thick as a speed bump on the pavement.

We tried arranging our next meeting; the sequence went the same as the times before. I realized that he probably doesn’t get out much, since all he wants to do is “chill and relax”. I think he realized that I wasn’t going to let him in my house anytime soon because he got mad and said that he was too tired after work to go anywhere and that we’d “chill” after his inventory count this past weekend.

I didn’t hear from him all weekend, which was fine by me, since I was trying to think of ways of letting him down easy.

He texted me last night; after a bit of back and forth:

Vegas: Are. You still interstead in me

TWG: I haven’t quite decided… I get the feeling that we’re very different people and I’m not sure if we’re compatible, to be honest.

Vegas: Me too. I don’t think if sexually compitatble or not… I have super high sex drive

TWG: Good that we’re on the same page! (even though I was questioning how he knows if we’re sexually compatible or what my sex drive is like after 3 dates… but whatever)

Vegas: I don’t wanna. Waste my time

TWG: Fair enough!

End scene.

 

You might be wondering what these differences were. Here’s the short list:

Vegas: Brown guy, lives with parents

TWG: White girl, lives alone

Vegas: Loves “all kinds of music”… except music with actual instruments in them

TWG: Dislikes “all kinds of music” that do not have actual instruments in them

Vegas: “Loves to dance”. But doesn’t do it. Ever.

TWG: Loves to dance. And goes dancing. All the time.

Vegas: Vegetarian

TWG:

Vegas: Doesn’t drink

TWG:

Thailand 1.1

Picking up where we left off in the Thailand 1.0 post… We arrived in Krabi; we gave the hotel name to our taxi driver and he dropped us off in front of this restaurant. I was certain we were going to have to get into another cab and go to the real hotel, because there was no way there was a hotel attached to this:

Except there was. We felt pretty sketched out about the whole thing, but the room ended up being nice and there were no giant lizards, so all-in-all, not a bad deal.

We basically only had one full day in this place, so we did a speedboat tour of the neighbouring islands. Beautiful Koh Phi Phi.

It was great, we went to a bunch of the different islands, had lunch and went snorkeling. Snorkeling is an amazing thing and I wasn’t quite prepared for it.

The next day, we went to Phuket. A 2.5hour bus ride on an AC mini-bus turned into a 6.5hour bus ride on an AC mini-bus that did not have much AC to speak of. Most people were pretty grumpy by the end. Myself included.

Our hotel appeared to be in the middle of nowhere, but turned out to be quite close to “Old Kata Center” which was a quaint little town near the beach.

The beach wasn’t nearly as spectacular as ones we had become accustomed to, but we spent a day there regardless. And because it was overcast, it was my first day on the beach without having to apply copious amounts of sunscreen.

Naturally, I burned the shit out of my back.

In order to keep my mind off the pain from my sunburn, I thought it would be best to inflict more pain on myself. If only to act as a distraction.

But also because it’s pretty. No, it wasn’t licked on by kittens and, no, it won’t come off in the shower, regardless of how much I thin my blood while I’m in there.

Next up was Chaing Mai, so we flew north and found our way to our hotel. Which ended up being so magnificently amazing I questioned how we were able to afford to stay there.

We ended up doing three tours, one included the zoo/aquarium, complete with elephant ride.

But also, pandas were involved.

The next other was a temple tour (but believe me, these were not the first, nor the last temples we would see… not sure if I ever have to see a Buddha again). Regardless of quantity, the temples were amazing, and the pictures don’t do them justice.

Last tour involved many animals. Including a monkey show, that was way more of a show than the last one.

And also tigers, even though I didn’t pet them.

And 10 levels of waterfalls that weren’t worth it after the 6th.

Seriously – I think that was the best one and we spent more than an hour walking up never-ending staircases to get to the top.

Did I mention we did this while in the jungles of Thailand? And that it was 35 degrees Celsius and humid as fuck? Yeah, I wasn’t super stoked with this part of the day.

And back down to Bangkok we went.

Next up – part three. I’ll finish off the snapshots of my snapshots and will provide some amusing anecdotes, that I’m sure you’re all waiting for.

Please note – aforementioned anecdotes do not include underage debauchery or ping pong balls.

Thailand 1.0

Here’s my attempt at summarizing my holiday in Thailand in one post. Highly doubtful, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum because if we learned anything from my last round of Mexico posts is that too many posts leads to more than a month between the start of my vacation and the end… and that was only a week long story.

I arrived at Bangkok International Airport and found my shuttle with no problem, albeit a lot of walking because BKK is the largest airport ever (well, that I’ve been in anyway). My friends showed up at the hotel shortly after I arrived and we went out for lunch shortly after that. As I was walking down the streets of Bangkok, I was stunned at the heat, the humidity, terrible air quality and dirtiness of the streets. I attempted to eat my lunch, but it was like eating fire, so I had to switch meals with my friend’s husband. Glad he likes spicy food. That’s about the time my body went into complete shock. I did not feel well.

Went back to the hotel for a nap, after which, I awoke with my body having come to terms with being in a foreign country. We went out clubbing to celebrate. There’s this street known as Cowboy Street… most of the bars are strip clubs with hot Thai girls (sometimes ladyboys) outside trying to get you to go in. There was this one club that had a girl outside holding a sign; the sign said “Over 50 hot girls inside. A few ugly ones and even a couple fat ones”. Seriously. I should have taken a picture.

We found a club that had a live band. It’s quite funny watching a cover band singing English songs realizing that they probably don’t speak English and have no idea what they’re singing about. This was the funniest song they played. (Turn down your speakers – it was loud and maxed out my camera mic.)

Pretty Fly for a Thai Guy

The next day we went to MBK, which is a ridiculously large mall.

Keeping in mind, I was already on the third floor. Still, picture doesn’t do it justice.

Day after that, we flew south to Koh Samui. We spent one day on the beach at our resort.

The next day we did a tour of the island.

Viewpoint:

Penis rock:

I was chatting with some Australian boys at this point of the tour; one of them said “It looks just like it did in the picture”, I said “Really? I thought it would be bigger”. It took him a split second to process what I said; if he had been drinking something it would have been a spit-take. Safe to say we were buddies for the rest of the tour.

Monkey “Show”:

Which consisted of this monkey climbing a tree and knocking down a couple coconuts. It wasn’t much of a show.

Mummified Monk:

Story is that he died while meditating 30 years ago… so they left him in that position and made it a tourist attraction. I just wonder why he was meditating with a pair of Ray Bans. Not very monk-ish.

That night, Ree went into the bathroom to shower. Within minutes of her being in there I heard “Oh my God. OH MY GOD!!” I called out to her and she said “You have to come in here and see this… maybe with your camera!” I went in and this is what I saw in our shower:

It was probably 6-8” long (not including the tail). And it scared the crap out of me.

The next day we moved again, this time to Krabi and this time to a hotel that wouldn’t let giant lizards into our room.

Stay tuned for part two.

I return!

Hey folks – I’m back!!

Made it to and through Thailand and back home all in one piece. Many stories to tell… probably too many, but I’ll try to do up a snapshot of my trip. There will be pictures involved, so first I must unpack my bags and download the pics from my camera. It’ll take a bit of time (… Gorm…), but fear not, it’s in the works!

My last day in Thailand it rained like you wouldn’t believe. I joked that it was Bangkok’s way of preparing me for home. First night back in Canada, we’re hit with our usual November Rain storm.

I’m outta here!!

Alright, folks, this is my last post before I leave for Thailand. “Last post” makes it sound like there will actually be something to it. There won’t be. I’m sorry for getting your hopes up.

So… I’m leaving tonight and won’t be back for over 2 weeks (17 days, I believe). I’ll be safe and will take tonnes of pictures and eat all kinds of food (which I’ll take pictures of, like a fricken champ!).

Don’t miss me too much!!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

Rude awakening… actually just rude

Monday morning, I’m blissfully snoozing my alarm clock when the phone rings. My first thought was that perhaps I’d overslept to the point that work was calling me to see where I was. When I discovered it was merely 7am, that thought dissipated and was replaced with one of much more concern; maybe something is wrong.

I hopped out of bed and dashed to the phone, trying desperately to get the sleep out of my voice so that the person on the other end didn’t know they had woken me from my deep slumber (why do we do that anyway?).

ThatWhiteGirl: Hello?

Caller: Hey – is this CSPAN?

TWG: Sorry – wrong number (also, why do we do that??)

Caller: Hello?!

TWG: Wrong number…!

Caller: The fucking city is wrong!!!!

TWG: Huh?

Caller: 411 doesn’t fucking work!!!!!

TWG: Okaaaayyy…

Caller: Fuck you, you information bitch!!!!!!!

TWG: …. ….

Caller: Go to hell, you dumb fucking cunt!!!!!

*end scene* (literally)

And that’s how I started my day. It’s bound to be a good one.

Adventures in online dating–part 1

Alright… just because you guys seem to like this so much and because, quite frankly, I’m getting so much ammunition I don’t know what to do with it all, here’s a couple examples of what I’ve been dealing with lately.

 

Guy#1 – emailed me and wants to chat. We go back and forth a few times over the course of a week or so. His spelling is like a text message from a 13 year old girl, but I decided not to hold that against him. He also doesn’t believe in any punctuation whatsoever. This is becoming more and more commonplace, so again, I decided not to judge him on it.

He asked if I text and suggested we do that instead of emailing because it’s “easier”. (Yeah, full keyboards suck). I gave him my number and didn’t hear from him. He emailed me and said that his phone acts up and doesn’t always send/receive texts. He suggested I test it out. Suddenly he’s able to send and receive texts with lightening speed.

While texting I asked him what he was up to. He said “nm goin for a night swim”. I asked where, he responded with Coquitlam Centre. I said “In the mall?? “ and he said “no aquatic centre”.

Seriously? He doesn’t get that I was joking? Does he have no sense of humour? At all?? Yeah… I’ll judge him on that one, for sure.

So, he sends me a text the other day, here’s how our “conversation” went. And I use that term really loosely. (Note: things in asterisks did not make it into my text, it’s just what I did when I received his)

Him: Sup

Me: *roll eyes* Not much… how about you?

Him: nm sup

Me: *what the fuck face* Not much. You?

Him: lol

Me:

This is definitely the most-used illustration in my online dating posts. Speaks volumes.

 

Guy#2 – Roughly 4 years my junior. But age is just a number, right? So I emailed him and he responds to my email with this:

… sorry to put it bluntly my intentions on here are for meeting someone younger than myself. This helps to cover any maturity differentials and lesses the risk of dating someone with severe baggage.

What the fuck?? Well thanks for letting me down easy instead of being one of those guys that just doesn’t respond. Yikes.

 

Also… I’ve had multiple guys ask me if I have facebook. Do they realize that FB involves real life things, like my last name and place of work? Do they realize that POF only lists the city I live in and I’m perfectly okay with that? And why is it that they get all offended when I say, yes, I do have facebook, but you’re a stranger so I’m not sending you my info?

A Year in Review

One year ago today was the last time I spoke to my best friend, K. And “spoke to” is used loosely. In fact, it was the last time I received an angry email from her.

Hitting that milestone has led me to contemplate my life. What have I done? What have I accomplished?

My first thought was “Nothing! You’ve done nothing!”. But then as I stopped to think about it, I realized that’s just not true.

 

Things Heather has done in the past twelve months:

• Bought a URL for my blog
• Learned how to set up and use the thing
• Transferred my blog contents… twice
• Went to Mexico… alone … twice
• Kissed a girl
• Made out with a teenager
• Made an ass out of myself… more times than I can count
• Took dance lessons
• Learned how to dance
• Learned I love to dance
• Stopped having to be drunk in order to dance
• Got a promotion
• Started bossing people around… some people left
• Met a boy
• Started getting some
• Dumped a boy
• Stopped getting some
• Planned a trip to Thailand
• Hoping I’ll get some while I’m there
• Discovered the holy grail that is loose leaf tea
• Have an ever growing tea collection
• Lost weight
• Through dance, without even trying
• Made new friends
• Through dance, without even trying
• Became a foosball champion
• I have two silver medals to prove it
• It was a fluke…

All in all… a good year!

Weekend Summary

I haven’t done one of these posts in awhile. Mostly because a lot of my stories have been standalones, or if they need back stories, I can put links in to old posts. This one requires me to tell the back story(ies). Here goes…

I went dancing Friday night; I hadn’t been to this place for a couple months… Turns out people noticed because I kept getting “Hey – haven’t seen you in awhile” comments. I guess it’s better than “What do you mean, you haven’t been around?”.

One of the dudes I was dancing with told me that the same organizer was having another party down the road the following night. He even mentioned the words “live band”, which gets me going every time.

Naturally, the following night, I found myself in the same area looking for the dance party that my partner alluded to. It wasn’t there. Completely defeated, I decided to go back home; a quick search of the internet yielded unsatisfactory results. I decided to go to a pub nearby and watch the live band there.

I’ve been to this pub once or twice before and I may or may not have met a friend that likes to dance with me. As it turns out, my friend was there. There was also another dude that was willing to dance with me, so between the two of them, I spent a considerable amount of time on the dance floor. Not a total loss

The first guy, Old Dave, is someone that I’ve chatted with several times. A few months ago, he asked me if my mom has the same hair as me. I told him that she does not; he told me that he knows a lady that works at the local legion that has the exact same hair as I do. Apparently we look very, very similar.

So, we saw last call at this pub and Old Dave suggested that we go down the road to another pub that is open later. I agreed. We went to the next pub, danced to the live band that was still playing and had another drink.

Last call had come and gone and we were getting ready to leave. Out of nowhere, this young guy walked up to me and said “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I just had to come up and tell you this…”

To which, Old Dave piped up and said “Do you mean Bonnie?”. Of course he did, and the two of them got into just how much we look alike. I think he could tell I was slightly horrified. It may have been the look on my face, or it could have been the fact that I said repeatedly “I can’t believe I look like his MOM!”.

He reassured me that I look like buddy’s mom, but 30 years younger. He kept telling me that the resemblance is uncanny; he said that if I saw his friend’s mom, I’d agree. He said it was really weird because now he knows what dude’s Mom looked like when she was young. And just as I’d come to terms with it:

And that’s how I came to have my picture taken, with two young men, in a bar, like a fricken celebrity.

A celebrity that looks just like someone’s mom.

Fuck my life.