I aint afraid of no ghost

Growing up, Granny always told us stories about ghosts; to hear her tell it, there wasn’t a house that she lived in throughout her life that wasn’t haunted. And she always named her ghosts. Mom wasn’t much better.

When I was a kid, I thought they were probably just pulling my leg; telling me these things just to spook me out. But then as I got older, strange things started happening around me, things that could only be described as paranormal. And now, I’m the one who would be hard pressed to think of a house I’ve lived in that wasn’t haunted.

My childhood house was, without a doubt, haunted. The first time Granny stepped foot in the house, she declared it haunted and named the ghost Minnie. Granny was right; the ghost was a female, but how she knew it at the time was, and still is, beyond me.

The ghost made it’s presence known to us the first night we were there. My dad was sleeping soundly with his back to the wall/door when he heard heavy footsteps come through the door and stop directly behind him. He turned around expecting to find me standing behind him, panicked at being in a strange house. I wasn’t there. And neither was my brother or our dogs. Empty air. Just empty, eerie, air.

Another night a year or so later, my brother had a friend sleeping over. My brother slept in his room, his friend slept on the pull out couch in the living room. I woke up in the morning and found the hide-a-bed empty, of both bedding and of my brother’s friend. My mom had two Spanish vases on either side of the fireplace mantle, as I was walking by, I found both vases side-by-side on one end. I thought it was weird, but put the vase back without much thought.

A couple of hours later when the boys woke up, Brandon (my brother’s friend) came out of my brother’s room telling a story in a slightly panicked voice:

Brandon: And then, I swear to God, it moved it from one side to the other…

Danny: Yeah right.

Brandon: No. Seriously. Look!!

*he pointed/looked towards the mantle; his face fell in disappointment*

Brandon: But I swear, it wasn’t like that last night…

Me: The vase?

Brandon: Yeah!

Me: I put it back… Why’d you move it to the other side anyway?

Apparently, he got woken up in the night, saw a hazy figure by the fireplace and that figure picked up the vase and moved it to the other side of the mantle. Naturally, he freaked out, grabbed all his bedding and went to share the bed with my brother. When I told him I found the vases together, I think he was just happy to know that he wasn’t going crazy. I’m not sure if he ever slept over again.

Another time, my mom was doing some spring cleaning; she tore apart our stove to clean it. When she was done, she started putting it back together and discovered that one of the elements was missing. She asked me & Danny where we put it; we said we didn’t touch it. She continued looking around for it; after a couple of hours, she was fed up, she basically pleaded with me & my brother to stop playing tricks on her. We stood by our “we didn’t touch it” defense.

Eventually, Mom gave up the fight and decided to go to bed with the stove not fully assembled. When she went into her bedroom, she found her quilt pulled down to form a triangle. You know when you are about to get in bed and pull just the corner down? Yeah, like that. She thought it was weird because she had made her bed nicely that morning and hadn’t been in her room since.

She crawled into bed, pulled the cover over her and voila… the element was underneath the triangle. She called out to us “Ha ha. Good one you guys”, still convinced we were playing a trick on her. It became pretty obvious fairly fast that it wasn’t us; she put the stove back together and went back to bed. Once Mom was out of earshot, I said to Danny “So… you hid it on her?”. He denied it and asked me the same thing. I didn’t put it there either. There wasn’t anyone else in the house.

One night, I was home alone, I was doing dishes; above the sink was a window, on the window sill was an African Violet. At one point, while washing a big pot, I suddenly had to pee (a normal occurrence when dealing with running water). Leaving the pot in the sink, I turned off the water and went to the bathroom. When I went back into the kitchen, I started washing other dishes, all the while looking out the kitchen window.

Something seemed out of place. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something was missing. As I was finishing up with the dish I was washing, I realized that I hadn’t finished rinsing the big pot. Looking in the sink, I noticed the upside down pot in the left sink. I thought it was strange; I distinctly remembered leaving it right side up in the right sink.

I thought I must be mistaken; I probably wasn’t paying that much attention to where and how the pot was left in the sink. I picked up the pot and found the plant underneath it. It was sitting upright and there was not a speck of soil on the sill or in the sink. I think I had goose bumps from head to toe.

Stop and smell the roses

The other day I was driving to work and I saw this:

(That is supposed to be the back of a car with a bouquet of flowers under the windshield wiper. It’s a poor drawing at best… I’m sorry)

My first reaction was:

I thought about what it would be like to walk out to your car in the morning, finding that little surprise from your special someone. I dreamed about what it would be like having someone in my life that would buy me flowers and leave them somewhere unsuspecting for me just to brighten my day.

Then it occurred to me that it was 6:30am. That this special someone would have had to buy the flowers the night before and drop them off at an ungodly hour of 5am just to surprise this lucky lady.

Then I wondered what it would be like to have someone that was willing to do all of those (ridiculously wonderful) things. I wondered who exactly would do those sorts of things. I mean, do boyfriends actually do things like this? Call me jaded, but it doesn’t seem like most boyfriends would… Lord knows, I haven’t had any that would do such a thing. And then it hit me:

Because we all know, that this scenario is far more likely to happen in my world.

Girl talk with my gal pals

I’ve really sucked at this writing thing lately. And I don’t really have an excuse… Sure, I’ve been busy “doing things”, but that’s not even the real reason. Fact is, even with all developments in my life, I still have time to write, I just don’t seem to actually do it.

This isn’t the first time it has happened and it certainly won’t be the last. But I will make an effort to start writing again. Or at least, I’ll think about writing again. Because having a post idea is about 1/3 of the battle anyway.

So, what have I been doing with my time? To be honest, mostly Thailand. Sure, work, school, getting out in the sun, watching movies, blah, blah, blah. But if I had to pinpoint the thing that keeps me up at night, it would have to be Thailand.

Literally.

And just because you’re all dying to know the goings-ons, allow me to elaborate. I guess we’ve been officially seeing each other for two months now. I said officially, but in all honesty, there isn’t anything official about it because I can only call him “the guy I’m seeing” and not something else with an official label, like “boyfriend” or “back off, he’s mine”.

Six months ago, when I was still friends with K, this probably would have driven me bat-shit-crazy; the relationship wouldn’t have lasted this long because I would have turned into a high-maintenance-crazy-what-does-this-all-mean girl. Who am I kidding… I never would have even met him if I was still friends with K. I guess it’s safe to say that things have changed for me since my best friend stopped being my best friend.

And even though I know we’ve been seeing each other long enough that it’s okay to have the discussion about what we’re doing and where things are going, I just don’t care. I was talking to my mom about it the other day. She asked if we were “an item” yet; I told her nothing was official. She said that if he’s sleeping over, then we must be an item; I said we were definitely something. She said that if I’m happy and enjoying myself then that’s all that really matters; I said that I am both of those things and it really doesn’t bother me… a girl’s gotta eat and I was starved for years.

(I’m really thankful that I can have that kind of conversation with my mother and it’s not awkward.)

Anyway, there was a period of time where I was convinced that we were just fuck buddies and that it wasn’t going anywhere. Surprisingly, I was okay with that revelation. Turns out it only lasted about 2 days, because things started changing after that.

For one, he started telling me things. Personal things. Things that aren’t part and parcel with pillow talk. Things you don’t tell the girl you’re just fucking. Second, he bought me a birthday gift. A really thoughtful birthday gift. A birthday gift that indicated that he was listening to what I say. Third, we started spending time together, and not just between the sheets. Sometimes he comes over and we watch a movie. Sometimes he sleeps over and we don’t have sex. Sometimes I see him and we just talk. And fourth, he has told me repeatedly that’s he’s not seeing anyone else and he’s not sleeping around.

These are very good things and I have to say, I’m pretty fricken pleased with how things are going, even though I have no idea where things are going. Eventually, I’ll have to have the discussion with him, but until the day comes where I need to know (you know, when you develop real feelings and junk), I’m happy doing what I’m doing.

Okay, now onto the funny part (a.k.a. the real reason I’m telling you all of this.. I’m not bragging, I swear!). And I apologize in advance if this falls into the TMI category.

I’m allergic to latex. I have to buy very specific condoms, specifically, non-latex condoms. They can be quite difficult to find and if you ever look around, you’ll notice that there are only two kinds of non-latex condoms. So, one day after purchasing a new supply, I was turning the box over in my hands, looking for the “open here” part when something caught my eye.

I nearly peed myself laughing.

Mexico 2.3

I’ve been back for a month… I really should get this series done and over with.

Wednesday I woke up rather hungover, but made my way to the lunch buffet anyway. I wasn’t really sure how I was going to fare, but once I sat down with my meal, I found eating not as difficult as I thought it was going to be.

Plastic Girl and her mom were sitting a few tables away, when I noticed them, they waved and made their way over. They started telling me that Mom had to go to the medic last night. I asked why; they said that she fell and needed stitches. I asked where she fell; they said in their room.

Well apparently, Mom was tanked up, fell down and busted open her eye. She pulled her sunglasses off to reveal a rather large bandage covering her eyebrow. And what was supposed to be her eye.

But really it was a purple swollen mess. I nearly threw up right there. Seriously, it was absolutely disgusting. Now, I don’t deal well with this kind of thing in the best of times, so I really wasn’t coping well. And then they started talking about how much blood there was and how the medics didn’t even need to give her painkillers in order to stitch her up. Then Mom turned to Plastic Girl and said “Where’s your camera?”

What Plastic Girl lacks human body parts she makes up for in observational skills. She calmly told her mom that “not everyone can look at that kind of thing” and then suggested they leave me to my meal. With an ominous warning, of course: Don’t get too wasted, it could happen to you too.

As I’m pushing food around my plate, trying to find the appetite I had moments earlier, I saw my favourite dancer getting food. He walked over and asked if he could join me; surely I misunderstood, what with his accent and all, but then he was pointing towards the chair opposite of me asking if I was waiting for someone. No, not at all, please sit down. You sexy beast.

We made small talk, yada yada yada. Conversation turned to dancing (obviously) and he said that he saw me at the disco last night and that I was good. I’m sorry, what? The professional dancer is telling me that I’m good?! What is going on? Am I still drunk?

So I did stuff during the day, and even though I was hungover and wasn’t going to drink much because I didn’t want to fall down and bust my face open, I don’t remember getting home that night. Fucking tequila.

Thursday was a complete write off. I was so hungover I didn’t leave my room until 8pm and all I did that night was cart around a bottle of water, go to the show and make my rounds to see all my bartenders. All of whom offered me drinks, all of which I declined. They looked as though they didn’t even recognize me.

I ran into the security guard that worked at the disco; he saw me and started shaking his head. He told me that I was really drunk the night before and asked me if my camera was okay. When I looked at him like he was talking Martian, he asked me if I remembered much from the night before. I said no.

He told me I was upset about my camera and making a big fuss about it (for some reason). Well, after he walked me home (so that’s how I got there) he followed the guys I was playing pool with so that if they took my camera, he’d know who to report when I came to and realized something had happened. Which wasn’t the case; I had my camera and it still worked.

I asked him how many times he had walked me home so far; he said three. I remembered getting an escort on Sunday night and he told me that he walked me home Wednesday night, so I asked which other night. He said “Not Sunday”. I said “Yes, Sunday. I remember that one!” He said “Sunday is my day off”. Son of a bitch.

Friday, I was feeling much better and did all the usual stuff: beach, pool, walking, swimming, drinking. But being my last night I decided I wasn’t going to drink much; I didn’t bring out my cup. I went to the disco (of course) and saw my favourite dancer and even got a picture with him. He ended up coming back to the disco and asked me if I wanted to go to Puerto Vallarta with him. Um, yeah I do, but I can’t because I’m leaving tomorrow. I convinced him to dance with me. It was salsa; it was great.

Earlier that day, I was walking around, a bartender was passing me, said hello and then stopped me.

Him: I recognize your face.

Me: Like from this week?

Him: No… from before…

Me: November?!

Him: Maybe. How long are you here for?

Me: I leave tomorrow.

Him: Well, you should come by Bar 1; I’m there until 1am.

As I was walking home from the disco that night, I stopped at the beach to get my feet wet one last time. As I was walking down the beach, I found myself right by Bar 1; I decided to stop in for a drink. He immediately greeted me, by name, of course and asked what I wanted. There were some people from the disco there, Spanish guys and girls that don’t speak a lot of English. And they enjoyed razzing me in a language I didn’t understand.

I took it in stride; it didn’t bother me and I also found it entertaining, if only because they found it so entertaining. When Noel (the bartender) realized I was going to be staying, he found me a stool to sit on and brought it over to me. I kept dragging him into the conversation because I only understood every fourth word they were saying. At one point he looked at me sympathetically and said “It’s not fair because you don’t understand”.

So, the conversation ended up turning to me and Noel going home together. He said that he’d come to Canada with me; they just wanted him to come to my room with me. They made a big stink about it and eventually I caved and got me some Mexican action.

Well, not quite, but almost.

Until next time, Mexico… I love you as much as my liver hates you.