Summer 2016, Part 3: New England

On Tuesday, August 23, I woke up to an emergency text from Lenzie at about noon. When I called her, she was in an Adderall-induced hysteria, talking 100mph about leaving Maine and driving to Canada and something about Boston. What I finally deciphered from all of it was that she was leaving Maine, where she’d spent the summer, and wanted me to fly to Boston and drive around New England with her on her way back to North Carolina. As the other half of the awe-inspiring East Coast Road Trip Queens, I of course had to agree. I asked off work the entire next week and Lenzie got down to planning specifics.

Fast forward to August 28: I’m all packed in one bookbag and one small knapsack for 9 days of travel (including two themed outfits, two pairs of boots and tennis shoes) and I’m leaving work and heading to a friend’s house in Raleigh. The plan was to spend the night there and uber to the airport in the morning for my 6am flight. That plan was altered a little when literally all of our friends from out of town announced their arrival in town that night. With more of our friend group together than basically ever before, there was no way I couldn’t go out.

Fast forward again to the next morning: I’m sitting at a bar in the DC airport with a $15 magazine and a $30 breakfast. As I finished the most disgusting mimosa I had ever put in my mouth, I tried to remember the night before and, you know, not only getting to RDU but also getting through security and boarding my plane. No recollection. So I ordered another mimosa.

As soon as I boarded my flight to Boston, my phone died, leaving me music-less for the entire flight, which seemed to last about six hours. I tried to focus on the article about Selena Gomez in the issue of Vogue I had just paid $15 for, but it was like I couldn’t read. I was too distracted by the child sitting behind me saying, over and over again for the entire six hour flight, “Mass-a-CHOO-setts! Mass-a-CHOO-setts!” And I was probably about to black out again. It was extremely difficult to sleep on this flight, mostly because of the aforementioned spawn of Satan, but also because of the giant hat I was wearing*.

*Did I not mention what I was wearing? When I was planning my departure the day before, I made sure to put into my things a nice, comfortable, conservative outfit to put on in the early hours of the morning and wear to the airport. My best guess is that I probably woke up 20 minutes after we were supposed to  leave for the airport and I just ran out the door in what I slept in, which was, coincidentally, what I had worn out the night before. And my wide-brimmed black hat that I just HAD to bring along, but simply couldn’t crush into my bags. I can only imagine the looks as I walked through security at RDU at 5am in a t-shirt falling sloppily off my shoulder with a picture of Britney Spears and the words “You want a piece of me?” in giant red glittery letters on it, 3-inch inseam cutoff denim shorts, combat boots and the hat. 

Anyway, I did my best to sleep through that flight, but it didn’t happen. When I got off the plane, I was searching desperately for a place to plug in my phone so I could contact Lenzie so that we could meet. I got my phone to turn back on and, not surprisingly, it was at 27% battery. Thanks, Apple. When I finally found Lenzie, she hugged me and lovingly said, after not seeing me for months, “you smell like alcohol!”

I also had one contact lens in

In the week before leaving for this trip, I had been asking my sister-in-law, who is from Boston, what we just HAD to do in the day that we would be spending there. True to form for her, she gave us a great list of restaurants, bars, historical sites, bars, malls, bars and other places to drink. I was excited to see Boston after hearing how much people loved it.

We spent 45 minutes in Boston. The cheapest parking place we could find was $21/hr, so we decided to expedite the site-seeing. We got out of the car, followed a few signs that pointed out historical places on some non-historical looking streets, then ended up at a body of water that we decided was the Boston Harbor. Was it? We’ll never know and I don’t really care to know. Boston will live on forever in my memory as a blurry mess of a city with expensive parking and a shopping mall on every historical site.

Our next stop was Harvard, where I wanted to stomp my last-season Rack Room shoes at every person I saw standing at a water fountain. I was still very drunk at this point so I was no help navigating, which is not much of a change from sober me. After a lot of searching and seeing a lot of very modern buildings, we finally found Harvard Law. Like, it was hard. Still in the same outfit I boarded two planes in just hours before, I got a lot of judgmental looks, but I just shook them off. I already have a degree from an elite school and I didn’t even have to stay awake during class to get it. So suck on that, you frigid bitches!

Unfortunately there was not enough time to change into my Playboy bunny costume; we had made the pilgrimage to the mecca of Elle Woods and we had to make our way to pay our respects to the original All-American bad bitches: our witchy ancestors who lived and died in Salem, MA.

As we drove into Salem city limits, we changed our music from Nicki Minaj to Fleetwood Mac and started to get in the mood. The mood was hindered a little by the fact that it was a beautiful sunny day and not a gloomy foggy one, but everything else seemed promising. Once we got past the urban outskirts of the town and started seeing signs for the witch museum and several cemeteries, we found a parking spot (approximately $21 cheaper per hour than in Boston) and got ready to head out. I was still a little bit drunk – almost enough to forget change into my first themed outfit of the trip. After a lot of fidgeting in the front seat of Lenzie’s car, we emerged looking slightly ridiculous but wholly our real selves: Lenzie in a black lace shawl with plenty of fringe and me in a black mesh shirt, black skinny jeans with holes in the knees; both of us in thick black eyeliner and wide-brimmed black hats. I was just drunk enough to convince myself to put on black suede ankle boots with a four-inch heel; I knew we would be walking around for at least six hours, but in that state of mind, the #look was worth it.

The first site we found was a cemetery where the headstones were dated in the 16^th century, yet perfectly preserved. It looked like the front yard of that one neighbor you have growing up in the suburbs that overdoes it on Halloween. We ran into a man coming out of a nearby building that housed a tour company and asked if he had any information about the cemetery, or at least the name so we could google it. He told us it was the oldest cemetery in the country and that at least one judge from the witch trials was buried there. We spent a while in that cemetery, inspecting the dates and names on the headstones and trying to relate them back to our limited memory of reading The Crucible in high school. We spent most of that day walking around the town, dipping in and out of little stores: some more gimmicky than others, but all witch-focused – and feeling our looks. Early into our walk, I moved on from drunk to full-on hungover.  I finally got a break from the headache when we found the witch museum. I got a bottle of water and fell asleep as soon as the theater portion of the show commenced. I do hate I missed out on what turned out to be the only reliable witch information we learned that day, but this was one exhausted witch. After the witch museum, we ventured in a few more shops, then made our way to the “ghost tour” we had booked for the evening. Lenzie and I had seen some amazing ghost tours that summer and we were sure there was no way we were going to be disappointed by a Salem ghost tour. This was my only job for the whole trip: find a promising ghost tour. The one we booked had five stars on Trip Advisor and promised all kinds of interesting stories as well as history lessons. It was then that we learned once and for all that I should not be in charge of planning anything.

The first stop on the tour was the very cemetery where we had started our Salem exploration. Our tour guide proceeded to tell us that she “thinks” that it “may be” the third oldest cemetery in Massachusetts and that she heard of some people seeing some things there that may have been ghosts. That’s how the whole tour went. No background information on any of the “haunted” sites and absolutely no mention of the witch trials. At this point, I had been walking around in heels for over six hours, so I’m sure you can imagine my frustration. Eventually it just turned into a joke between me and Lenzie and we made it through it, mostly talking to each other and tuning out the tour guide.  

Immediately after the “ghost” tour, we headed back to Lenzie’s uncle’s terrifying 17^th century, 16-bedroom house in Brunswick, Maine. It was the darkest night I had ever seen and I was sure I was going to bump into at least three ghost nuns by the time we got to the fourth floor to Lenzie’s bedroom. After the longest and most uncomfortable hangover of my life, even the ghost headmistress of that nunnery couldn’t keep me awake.

The next day, we took our burrito lunches to an island at the end of the earth, specifically an area aptly named Land’s End. We shared a serene lunch experience on a cliff with a giant seagull, watching fishing boats coming in from weeks at sea (we assumed). We spent the next hour probably on the edge of death or at least severe injury, climbing around on cliffs and jumping over giant pools of crashing waves. After walking away from the cliffs unscathed, we made our way back to Portland, where we visited a beach straight out of a New England romantic comedy and had dinner in the window of a small pub where we watched boys walk by. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Maine was the abundance of attractive men with good haircuts.

Not pictured: bird friend

The next day was our first of many mountain experiences. Luckily we were able to drive up Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park and look down on the harbor from what seemed like miles up in the air. After making it back down the mountain, we went into the small town adjacent to the park where we were to set out on a whale watching tour. We boarded the boat, along with hundreds of other people including annoying children and equally annoying adults and we both immediately fell asleep. We woke up just as we made it far enough out in the ocean to be close to where whales tend to hang out. When they announced that the boat was going to come to a stop, we made our way out onto the deck, where we were hit with the strongest gust of arctic wind that I had ever felt in my life. We had been warned that this excursion would be cold, but I was skeptical. It WAS August, after all. Once the boat stopped, the cold was worth it: there, only a hundred feet away from where we were standing, were two humpback whales, just doing their thing (nothing) on the surface of the water. Just seeing them was astonishing enough for us and all the old white people and Asian families on that boat, but these whales had a lot more in mind for this day. Spoon, a young male, was trying to impress Sword, an older female, right before mating season. This was probably their third date, because it seemed like they really liked each other, but were still working hard to impress each other. We saw a lot of tail action and flippers in the air for about 30 minutes, then they disappeared. We were all starting to feel a little disappointed that they were gone, although very grateful for what we had seen, when it happened: Sword came flying out of the water like an Olympic hurdler and hit the surface of the water with a bang that I can’t compare to any sounds I’ve ever heard before. Shortly after, Spoon followed suit. They did this several times, disappearing into the deep for a few minutes in between each show. At one point they breeched at the same time, which led me to believe that they were just practicing for synchronized swimming rather than courting. It was definitely gold medal worthy.

Cadillac Mountain

This is Spoon. Video on Instagram.

Driving home that night I realized something that makes me never want to live in Maine or even really want to go to New England ever again: it is DARK, y’all. No street lights. No bright signs. Nothing. It’s like your headlights are a dying candle deep inside a cave. It’s terrifying. Keep that in mind as I tell you about the next day’s shenanigans.

We set out the next morning to do what Lenzie could not resist no matter where she was visiting: see some waterfalls. After we found the first one with very little trouble. Then everything started to go downhill. We were so far up in the mountains that we had no cell service. And I don’t mean just very very bad service – I mean none. Our phones simply said “No service.” I will remind you that we are very far away from anything familiar. Luckily we found someone who worked for some parks service and happened to be having lunch at our first waterfall. He gave us some quick directions to our next destination and we set off, assuming we would find some service along the way. We probably drove for two hours, wondering mile after mile if we had missed all the turns our friend had told us about. We hadn’t. Each turn in the directions that took him thirty seconds to ramble off to us was actually close to 50 miles from the one before. But sure enough, we ended up where we needed to be. Another small victory in what was soon to become a day full of failures.

The waterfall we found after all that blind driving was magnificent, but there was one more thing we wanted to see: Table Rock. We had no idea what it was or where it was, but it was something people did in Maine. We still had no service for GPS, but we weren’t too worried. We knew we were in the park where Table Rock was located, so all we had to do was drive until we saw signs for it. After a little bit of driving, we were out of Grafton State Park and into an area that I can only describe as the inspiration for the fil, Jeeper’s Creepers. We stopped at a small cluster of little houses that claimed to be a town hall and a library. This was the middle of the day on a Wednesday, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. We kept driving in the same direction, hoping we would see some semblance of a soul. Nothing. We passed several houses and farms and cars parked on the side of the road, but did not see a single person. Then we were in New Hampshire. So we turned around.

After an equally creepy drive back through Upton (where Jeepers Creepers lives), we ended up back in the park and managed to find Table Rock trail. When we got out of our car in the parking lot, we came across several groups of hikers who looked at us like they couldn’t believe we were here. We brushed them off and set out in to the woods, where we almost immediately came to a fork in the trail. There was a sign that said “Upper Table Rock trail” pointing to the left and “Table Rock trail” to the right. We assumed “upper” meant, like, higher up on the mountain or just something more difficult in general, so we chose the path on the right. 

We have never made a more incorrect assumption. After about a hundred yards of walking, the trail changed from dirt to 100% rock and immediately rose to a very steep incline. We spent the next hour literally climbing on all fours. Every time I thought about turning around and going back down, I thought “maybe we’re ALMOST there. I don’t want to have come this far for nothing.” What we didn’t realize was that Table Rock is at the top of this mountain. Not on the side, not near the top, but AT the top. We made it there eventually, after several slips and scrapes and a lot of Lenzie nagging about how the sun was going to go behind the mountains soon and we’d be stranded there in the dark forever. She brought this up EVERY time I took five more seconds to take a step than she did. We finally made it to the top with the help of a rope left by other brave hikers. That’s how steep it got – you could not finish the hike without literally pulling yourself up with a rope. The view at the top was amazing but terrifying.

View from Table Rock. Yes, that's a road down there. 

Was it worth it? No. I had spent 1.5 hours miserable and unprepared as the climb only got worse with every minute, only to get to the top and be terrified for my life for the entire five minutes that Lenzie allowed us to stay up there. The hike down was easier, but not by much. When we got to the bottom, we saw those groups of hikers again. They were right to judge us; we were not cut out for this. When we got back to the parking lot, we checked out the information signs; we had just completed a trail that was labeled “extremely difficult” for the actual Appalachian Trail hikers. It probably should be labeled “near impossible” for inexperienced people like us, but there probably was never a need to classify it for inexperienced hikers because we were probably the first idiots to do it on accident.

We never regained cell service that day. We headed back in what we thought was the same direction that we came from and just kind of made guesses on which turns we should make based on the familiarity of the names of towns on the signs. We stopped at a gas station to ask for directions and the guy working there, probably in his early 30s, was no help because he “doesn’t drive,” meaning he had probably never left that town in his sad life. So there we are, crouched down on the floor of this convenience store in this deserted town, looking at an atlas like we had any clue how to read a road map. We ultimately just decided to keep driving and ask someone else.

We managed to find the one other store that was actually still open past 6pm – a Home Depot. We got a long slew of directions spit out at us from two people talking over each other; we only understood about half of what each was saying because of their ridiculous accents. Again, we set off, just as lost as we were before we asked. Maybe more.

We stopped one more time and got some better guidance from a less accented woman. By the time we left that last gas station, the sun had set and we were in complete darkness once again. Even though we felt a little more secure with the last set of directions we were given, we were still driving in the dark, both literally and figuratively. We sort of followed this woman’s directions, but it appeared that whoever stole all of Maine’s streetlights ALSO stole of their directional signs. We made it back to Brunswick five hours later. Once we had cell service again, we looked up the route we should have taken. It was a two-hour drive. I was more than ready to be get out of Maine.

We had one last stop in Maine as we made our way to Vermont the next day. We were determined to see a moose. All the mountain roads we had spent the last few days on had countless signs warning of us the frequency of moose-automobile accents, but we didn’t see a single one. So we stopped at a wildlife refuge that had three moose in a cage. They weren’t very interesting.

While on the way to Vermont, we stopped at yet another waterfall in New Hampshire. It was a long hike, but at least it wasn’t a completely vertical climb. Still, I chose to sit at the bottom of the waterfall while Lenzie spent an hour gallivanting at the top. Thank God that was our last hike for the trip. I had had enough.

Bitch loves waterfalls

We arrived at our Air BnB outside of Burlington, VT that night with a pizza in hand and lots of sleeping to do. The next morning brought on our second theme outfits for the trip. For the Ben and Jerry’s factory, Lenzie wore all tie-dye and I wore bellbottom jeans and sandals. Again, we felt ridiculous but looked cute. Story of my life, really.

The tour of the factory was pretty boring and I couldn’t really pay attention because I had to keep reminding myself not to kick the children who were allowed to run free all around us during the whole tour.

After Ben and Jerrys, we went to a winery where the tasting consisted of so many wines that just the one sip of each got us both feeling a little tipsy. We spent the rest of the evening in downtown Burlington, which was very cute and college-y, but nothing special. It was weird to see so many things with Burlington in the name because we were not in my hometown; at one point we overheard a man say “he’s a Burlington guy, through and through!” and it almost made me sick before I realized he wasn’t talking about Burlington, NC.

Burlington, VT. Mountains everywhere in NE

We tried desperately the next day to find a breakfast spot where we could get pancakes with maple syrup, but it was Saturday and every restaurant was packed. We were setting out on our longest stretch of driving for the whole trip that day, so we didn’t want to waste any time. We ended up having breakfast at a Taco Bell.

We arrived in Brooklyn later that evening and went to dinner with our friends at a bougie-hipster-Brooklyn pizza place. The pizza was OK, but the place’s main redeeming quality was the drink I got from the bar: a frozen drink made with rose’ and vodka. I was in heaven. We went out with come college friends that night and I ended up at a warehouse dance club full of drag queens and gay men. One of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen, wearing a fishnet shirt, dragged me out on the dance floor and I thought I had seen the last of my friends. I wasn’t worried though because I was with my new husband. Eventually he said something that I thought was annoying, as they all do, and I left him on the dance floor and somehow ended up finding my friends again. As we were about to leave the club, I realized the flannel shirt that I had been wearing around my waist was no longer there. “Oh well,” I thought. Who knows how long it had been gone at that point and it could’ve been anywhere in that place. Was I even wearing it when we came in? After about five seconds of being OK with losing it, I remembered how much I loved it. So I took off running away from my friends once again and made my way back to the stage where we had been dancing most of the night. I found it crumpled up against the back wall, soaked in alcohol and sweat. I almost didn’t take it because it was so disgusting. But I love that shirt, goddammit, and I wasn’t going to leave it behind.

We watched the sun rise that morning on the roof of my friend’s apartment. We went back inside where I probably slept for 20 minutes before I was woken up by a phone call from my other friends who were expecting me for brunch. I ran out of the apartment and called an uber, which was a mistake. I spent the next thirty minutes walking around whatever Brooklyn neighborhood I had ended up in looking for this uber. I was sleep deprived, still drunk, wearing heels and all black in the scorching sun. I made it back to where we were staying about an hour later (it would have been a 20-minute walk) and I had no time to rest, just change clothes and get back out the door.

I put on the same outfit that I wore on the plane to Boston and we went into Manhattan for brunch, the sex museum and a handbag in Chinatown for my mom. The hangover that day was comparable to Salem. Nothing could keep me awake by the time we got back that night.

Jello shots from the Museum of Sex. I needed alcohol to keep me going. 

Lenzie woke me up at 5am the next morning to start heading home. We spent that afternoon by the pool at our friend’s estate in Virginia, then made it home the next day in time for me to go into work for an overnight shift.

Virginia. More mountains. 

Those eight days were some of the most eventful ones I’ve had in many years, with a lot of small inconveniences that are way more than outweighed by the positive experiences I got to take in with my best friend. If there’s one thing I got out of this trip, it’s this: It’s a damn good thing I’m moving to California next week because I have had enough of the East Coast.

Summer 2016, Part 1: Nonessential

You never know when your life is going to change. It’s a cliché, I know, but I think about it a lot. I was really thinking about it a lot earlier this year: Sure, I woke up this morning and got ready for work like I do every day, but what if ironing the shirt that I just picked up off the floor is the last routine thing I do in this life as I know it? Something dramatic and scary could happen, or just something small that changes my outlook on life or the way that I do something that I’m used to doing every day. Even the thought of something good changing my life in an instant was scary enough to send me into a downward spiral of thoughts that just made me want to drive my car off a bridge.

Then, after a long time of thinking and spiraling and NOT driving my car off of any bridges, it happened. One small conversation changed life as I knew it.

It was Tuesday, March 8, 2016, and I was asked to come into work for an earlier shift than I was scheduled. I wasn’t happy about it, but I loved my job and almost every part of it. Our district manager was coming in for a visit and we all assumed she asked me to come in earlier so that I could watch the sales floor while she kept all of my bosses trapped in the office.

So I got there promptly at 8:02 AM, did everything that an opening manager needed to do, then got started on the things I needed to get done in my section that day. The district manager, Vicki, arrived a lot earlier than usual – about 8:30 – but she left me to do my own thing. I wasn’t too worried about her being there, other than the fact that she always silently judged what I wore to work.

My boss, Trish, and I opened the store at 9:00 and I was running furiously back and forth to get the 3 days’ worth of work that I needed to do done in one day. I was also one of the only employees in the store at the time, so I was supposed to be running the cash register, the fitting rooms and the kids’ section all while I had so much other shit to do. At about 9:30, our general manager came out of the office in a big hissy, almost ran directly into me, then said with a terrifying look in his eye, something that scared me more than anything he had said in my 3 years of working for him:

“Vicki wants to see you in the office.”

Vicki never wanted to see me when she came to visit. I was virtually the lowest on the totem pole; the only time she really acknowledged me at all was to point out all the pieces of dust that had settled on the sunglasses displayed in my section and tell me that they should always be clean, like anyone had time for that.

I had to double check to make sure I heard him correctly. “Vicki… wants to see me. Me?” Me.

So I let myself into the office and she invited me to have a seat. As I sat down, I made sure that I wasn’t wearing anything off-brand, that my tattoos weren’t showing and, most importantly, that I didn’t look as terrified as I was. I sat down and she asked me how I was doing – a strange question considering I had just greeted her at the door an hour earlier. She seemed nervous too, which did not make me feel any better. She motioned toward the computer screen and I realized that we weren’t alone: we were video conferencing from some man from corporate HR, let’s call him John.

She started off the conversation with “I’m going to read this straight from the script so I don’t mess anything up.” OK. Sure. Then she started saying a lot of things about a “census,” and a lot of other words I just couldn’t process because I was so overwhelmed. After the first minute she asked me if I understood and if I was OK and, because I had absolutely no idea what was going on and I felt VERY uncomfortable, I told her yes I understand and yes I’m OK.

Then, all at once, I started to understand.

“Even though this will be your last day at Ralph Lauren…”

Suddenly I wasn’t OK. I could not tell you what she said after that. She continued to read from a script, then turned it over to Computer John to explain something about health benefits. I just nodded along, focusing a lot more on holding back tears than retaining any of the information he was listing off to me.

I was so dumbfounded that I can’t even tell you now what was going on in my head. I know that I took a second to scan my brain for any memory of any mistake that I may have made recently that would lead to my termination. But that thought process didn’t last long, because I knew I had done nothing wrong. In fact, I was basically running half that store singlehandedly. At some point, after the conversation had moved on, I realized what she was telling me right when I sat down: the company had to make cuts worldwide and my position was “nonessential.” I was being laid off. Fired.

When everything was said and all the documents signed (unread), I gave her my store keys, gathered my phone and car keys and left my office for the last time. There was so much hard work just in my little mailbox in that office: store maps; 70-page packets of instructions that I had studied for weeks, adapted and re-drawn; customer information; new formats for employee training and re-training; and so many memories of working and unwinding, anger and laughter.

She walked me out the office door and I was again hit with all of my hard work, finished and unfinished: half-dressed mannequins waiting for their finishing touches; boxes and boxes of handbags and jewelry, all individually unwrapped and sorted in whatever free minutes I could get during the day; nearly 75 shelves packed full of clothes, perfectly folded and organized by style and color, waiting to be destroyed by the first careless stock employee that’s too tired at 5AM to just read the labels on the shelves.

When she led me out the stockroom door and onto the sales floor, the feeling that I now feel the strongest when I look back on this situation hit me: humiliation. She led me straight to the door, past my section, half torn down because I was in the middle of a complete overhaul. I wanted to signal Trish, who hired me 5 years earlier and was the one who fought for my promotion, just to say goodbye; she was with a customer. We walked past her.

I passed the cash register at the front of the store, perhaps the section of the store that had seen the most of my blood, sweat and tears. It was also where I was supposed to be working at the moment and I know Trish was wondering where I was.

When we actually got to the door, I was on the verge of panic. I could not believe I was being escorted out of this place that I was so dedicated to, out of this store that had become a home without saying goodbye to my team that had become a family over so many years together. I could not leave without saying goodbye right then because there was no way I could show my face in that store later.

As I started to stall saying goodbye to Vicki, looking around, hoping I could catch someone’s eye, the general manager came barreling around the corner with another look on his face that I had never seen before. This was a different one, though: one of regret and sadness. He didn’t know this was happening until the minute Vicki asked him to bring me to the office. We both looked at each other cluelessly and, while I wanted to ask “what the fuck?!” all I could say was “thank you.” I had grown to love that company and I wanted that job so badly for such a long time and he finally gave me the chance to do the one thing that I was sure that I loved. He was nothing but help every day at work and constantly praised all the hard work I had put into that store. He opened his mouth, but it took a second for him to speak. “All I can say is thank you.” And that’s all he did say.

I thanked them both again for the opportunity and told them I’d think about taking another position that was open elsewhere in the state. I knew I wasn’t going to take it, but for some reason I wanted them to think they devastated me a little less than they did.

I made it to my car before I started crying.

The next day I didn’t have to get up for work or iron a shirt off my floor.

Dating without Expiating, Entry 1: "Jason"

Recently, a friend of mine posted on Facebook asking for stories of bad dates. I knew this was my time to shine since storytelling is (obviously) one of my favorite things to do. Especially when those stories are mostly negative and completely humorous. I tried and tried to think about the worst date I had been on and, to my surprise, none of them were that bad. Honestly, I haven't been on many dates, and the ones I have been on have mostly been mediocre. I settled on a story of what I considered my "worst" date, a date that was bad because I made it that way. But thinking about all the boys that I have been on dates with got me thinking about something new: a date series.
I had the idea to start going on as many dates as possible and writing about them as a sort of memoir of living in Alamance County, but then I realized that I would actually have to be asked on not only one date, but multiple to make that work. And that doesn't look like it's going to happen, so I had to come up with a new plan.
So here it is: I'm going to take all you readers (all three of you) on a journey through my dating life, bad and good, starting in 2012. I have a surprisingly detailed memory when I really set my mind to it, so these stories will likely be a lot more drawn out than they need to be. Hopefully it's somewhat entertaining.

Dating without Expiating, Entry 1: "Jason"

expiate (v.): to do something as a way to show that you are sorry about doing something bad

I guess the first date I ever went on was with the boy who later became my first boyfriend, Jason. First, let me back up to when I first met him.  It was Labor Day weekend 2012, I had just turned 20 and I was looking better than I ever had and, unfortunately, ever will again. Some random Facebook friend who I may have met once in my life invited me to an event near campus: a jungle-themed party at a club benefiting some cheesy college group that I didn’t care about. But what I did care about was a theme party. I was very into theme parties in college (this was probably the only one I actually went to). Anyway, Lenzie and I set out to find cute outfits that afternoon and, after several hours at Walmart, we went home with a whole lot of nothing. I found some camouflage pajama pants and Lenzie found a cheetah-print skirt at the dollar store. But there’s nothing that combat boots, some scissors and a lot of hair spray can’t fix.

I still have this entire outfit

So I get to the club, lookin’ like a drowned, harassed rat and am greeted not by Ms Rose at the door, but our friend Johnny 5-0. Yes, honey, the NYPD shut down the party…

OK that didn’t happen, that was Let’s Have a Kiki.

We got in the ridiculously long line with our other friends and were prepared to wait for a while. Or I was, at least. Lenzie promptly left to go to the front of the line. We assumed she’d be back within thirty seconds after being told to go to the back of the line by the bouncer, but I guess she disappeared. I didn’t really notice; I was drunk and with two boys that I was already in love with (that story to come later. Maybe). We looked up maybe five minutes later and she was strolling into the door, waving back at us peasants.

Once we finally got in, we found Lenzie on the dance floor. She told us she found some people in the front of line that were talking about our hometown, so she made friends with them to get in faster. It was a group consisting of maybe two or three girls and one guy. She pointed at the guy after she told me the story and said “he’s really nice, you should talk to him!” And I responded with “him?! He’s definitely NOT gay.” And that was that. I ended up dancing with a different guy for a little while who was sort of cute. And when I say I was dancing with him, I mean his entire body was somehow off the floor and on top of mine. Have you ever been dancing with someone and just hoping for the end of the song so there’s a natural break for you to politely walk away? That was the case this time, except the songs seemed to never end and I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t say “I’m going to go get a drink!” because I had big black X’s on my hands; and I couldn’t use losing my friends as an excuse because my only friends were dancing right next to us.

That one eventually led to something beneficial: Lenzie found a way to say, loud enough so I could hear her over the music, but not so loud that the other person occupying my body space could hear, that I should go talk to her friend from outside. He was sitting at a bar on the edge of the dance floor. I probably said something nondescript like “hey, I’ll be right back!” and then disappeared.

When I sat down beside this guy, I had little recollection of Lenzie mentioning him earlier, but I stand by what I’m told I said. He didn’t look gay, at least not in the way that me and my friends did (all of us were wearing tiny shorts and makeup; one of us in a fur vest). He was wearing a button-up shirt that I’m guessing was from Tommy Hilfiger, khaki shorts and boat shoes. But he was cute. I introduced myself. His name was Jason.

I don’t remember what Jason and I talked about, but I know I was smiling a lot. And I know my hand was on his knee and partway up his shorts. Looking back, I can’t believe I actually met someone that I immediately liked, but that probably happened a lot more often for me back then. This was the first and only time I ever went out without my phone – the pajama pants cut into 3-inch shorts didn’t exactly have a lot of space for the giant Android phone I was sporting at the time. Plus, we weren’t far from our apartment so if I lost Lenzie, I could be home in a few minutes.

When his friends started urging him to leave, I had to give him my phone number and hope that he was as into me as I was into him. So he left, and I was alone again. I probably left shortly after and ended up alone in my bed by 2am. Somewhere between 2 and 5am, the boy from the dance floor ended up in my bed. Then by 11am, I couldn’t get him out of my bed.

Sometime later after he called a friend to pick him up, I found myself making my way to a football game. Remember, it was Labor Day in North Carolina, so it was hot. And it was football. We got there after kickoff and left before the first quarter was over to go the pool. By the time I laid out my beach towel, I had a text from Jason. We made plans for a date a few days later at a frozen yogurt shop on Franklin St relatively early in the conversation, but continued to text all weekend.

When it was finally the night of the date, I wasn’t as much of a wreck as I would be now. I think one takeaway from all this is that I’m a lot less cool than I was four years ago.

I got home from work at 8:30, then had to meet him at 9:00. I put on my favorite light wash skinny jeans, a yellow v-neck tee shirt and motorcycle boots that I had just bought and was absolutely obsessed with. My roommate approved my outfit and I was on my way.

I got there a little early, but wasn’t concerned because I had a way to occupy myself while I was waiting. Here’s perhaps the strangest part about our first date: my best friend was there with us. I didn’t exactly invite her, but she had to be there. She worked at the frozen yogurt shop. Jason didn’t know this when he asked to meet there and I didn’t know she’d be working that night, but I wasn’t too worried. If it went badly, I’d have her there to distract me. Luckily I didn’t need her to distract me, but she still tried. She doesn’t like when all my attention isn’t on her.

The date, aside from Lenzie bopping around our table every few minutes, was relatively normal. We talked about normal things, plus he told me about coming out to his parents and how they reacted and how it changed their relationship… a little heavy for a first date, but it was relevant and not at all weird. Getting up to leave was the first time in the night when I felt nervous. I had no idea how to end a date: Do we hug? Should I expect him to walk me to my car? Do we kiss? Do we talk about another date? Predictably, I still don’t know the answer to these questions, as you’ll come to learn as this series progresses.

As we walked out the door, we ran into a friend of mine from class who is the most outgoing and overbearing person I’d ever met. I felt so bad talking to her while he just waited, but I didn’t know if I should introduce him. I think she got the hint because she kept the conversation short for the first and only time in our relationship.

I think Jason and I hugged and went our separate ways. It was a really good night and the start of a really good relationship. Maybe the fact that I was distracted by other people was a bad sign, because he ended up dumping me three months later because I was too distracted by other people. Or it wasn’t a sign and I was just a shitty person. 

#thebachelor #gay #gaybachelor

I recently read an article from a credible online news source (Buzzfeed) about a new dating show that is allegedly in production with an all gay cast. I am excited about this for a number of reasons:

1. An entirely gay cast means more representation, of course. Finally gay men are welcomed into the ‘Bachelor’ craze. Even though the show is in no way associated with The Bachelor/The Bachelorette and it’s on Logo and not a large network, it’s still happening. Baby steps. If the show manages to gain popularity outside of gay men watching Logo, straight people will hopefully get to see us as people with feelings and hopes and dreams and with something to say that isn’t a direct quote from RuPaul’s Drag Race (even though most straight people I know don’t know a good Drag Race quote when they hear one in the first place).

2. An entirely gay cast ALSO means several (probably hot) gay men on my TV screen for me to watch and dream about for 12 weeks at a time. Sure, there is no shortage of hot men on TV right now or ever. But the only problem is that they’re never my type. “My type,” meaning gay. I am an Equal Opportunity Ogler and always will be – taking in the sight of any sculpted torso that I can get my eyes on – but I’m significantly less interested in almost all men who are not also attracted to men. And after some of the horror stories I’ve heard from other gays about falling for straight guys, I am very thankful for this trait.

3. OK, I am kind of hoping for at least 4 or 5 RuPaul references per episode. What better way to end a dating show than with “If you can’t love yourself, then how the hell you gonna love somebody else?” And if there’s as much drama as this show as there is (or so I’m told) on the Bachelor, I think we can expect a few “I feel very attacked!” moments.  

4. This. Is. My. Shot. I’m pretty upset that I didn’t know about this ahead of time, but I’m already hopeful for a second season. I have seen maybe two entire episodes of The Bachelor in my life (and none of The Bachelorette – tbh I didn’t realize that was a real thing), but I got a pretty good grasp on what it takes to be a contestant. Here’s what I gathered (hope you were ready for another list):

A. To be a Bachelor contestant, you have to be one of those needy, hopeless girls who falls in love easily. And who does that sound like to you? I fell in love with a boy whose face I didn’t even see at the mall last week because he was wearing short shorts. OK, that love lasted until he walked out the door, but it was serious and it was real and I was heartbroken. But honestly I have fallen in love with two of my best friends just because they agreed to hang out with me more than once. Truth is, I’ll probably fall in love with every other contestant as well as whatever hot Latino businessman Logo finds for us.

B. The episodes of The Bachelor that I have seen were mid-season, so they may have gotten rid of all the ugly girls before then, but I’m pretty sure there weren’t any to begin with. All the girls on the show were pretty, tan and blonde. I’m about 30% blonde right now and all I need is 3 hours and some purple shampoo to complete that transformation. And I look pretty in pictures, so I bet that will translate well onto TV cameras. I am tan as hell now, but if I have to audition in a year or so, I will damn well move back to Florida to keep this tan if I have to. And you all know how much I hate Florida if that lets you know how serious I am about this.

C. Probably just as important as being pretty on The Bachelor is being petty on The Bachelor. The entire first episode I watched was about one girl pulling the guy aside and saying “I just wanted to let you know that someone in this house isn’t being completely real with you.” I’m pretty sure that, in real life, that doesn’t actually mean anything. But it was all anyone could talk about for the entire two hours (commercial free) that I sat through listening to them talk. One girl called her sister to tell her that someone else said that about another someone else. I can do all that. I’m not naturally a petty person, but I think it’s something I could quickly learn. I’m definitely vindictive and I can hold a grudge for years, so I think I’m almost there.  

D. I think a little bit of intelligence also helps. I thoroughly believe that gays, as a whole, are smarter than heterosexuals, but I think that I can still stand out. There are definitely some dumb gays out there and I bet they will be the ones largely attracted to being on this show. So all I have to do is mix all the knowledge I have about pop culture and fashion with the little bit of knowledge I have about politics and history (mostly learned from countless hours of listening to the Hamilton soundtrack) and I will be top three for sure.

E.  To me, the most entertaining part of The Bachelor was the descriptions of the girls when it cut to their confessionals. Like, it would say “Heather,” and then in italics underneath her name it would say Real Estate Technician. I’m not completely sure if you get to make up your own profession/subtitle, if the producers come up with them, or if they’re handed out on the first episodes like nicknames on Flavor of Love. All I know is that one girl’s on the episode I watched was Twin. She was the girl who called her sister to tell her about the drama. She 100% did not win (see previous list item). If I get to pick my own, it will be something cool like Provocative Shorts Lobbyist, or maybe just the hyperlink to this blog. If the producers get to pick it and they make me use my “real” profession, it will probably just say Hobo or Drifter. Or maybe they’ll help me out a little bit and go with Gypsy or #1 Pussycat Dolls Fan.

F.  Most importantly, to be a Bachelor contestant, you definitely have to be a character that audiences want to see. “Good TV,” if you will. This is the one I am most confident about. Television dreams of me. We’re perfect for each other. How many gifs will gay viewers make of me rolling my eyes in the confessional or glancing at the camera in disbelief every time any Mark, Rick or Steve doesn’t get my Steel Magnolias reference? Also, what are the chances I won’t be drunk the entire time? Obviously there won’t be any food in the house, so hopefully the production team will spend that budget on wine. I will be everyone’s fav as soon as I walk into the group date with a glass of Franzia filled up to the rim. If that’s not good TV, I don’t know what is.  And if you know me well enough, you can also predict what will happen with me and alcohol in a room full of gays. *smiling devil emoji*

That pretty much sums up what I know about being on The Bachelor/a Bachelor-like show. Again, I’ve only watched two episodes of The Bachelor (which were 2 hours each, btw), so I don’t know what it takes to actually win. But it’s about time that I make it on TV and I have no doubt that I can make a man fall in love with me if he’s contractually obligated to not bail on me for several dates in a row.

Can I get an amen up in here?

(here's the article)

#nofriends2016

I’ve never done New Year’s resolutions because I can never dedicate myself to a single productive thing for more than a few days at a time. The longest-lasting change I’ve ever made in my lifestyle was deciding to drink more water in June of last year. And that’s only lasting because, well, my body discovered it needs water to survive.

This year was no different. I was actually more opposed to resolutions this year than I ever have been. The “new year” is such a contrived concept: it’s literally one day after the year before. Why is one stroke of midnight supposed to inspire such change? Why not February 1, or the first Tuesday of next month? Change happens when you decide to make it happen. January is nothing special.

All that said, I discovered a few things I figured I need to change about myself in the near future. That doesn’t mean I want to change or that I will change, but just that maybe I should. Maybe these changes will happen early in the year; maybe they’ll happen late in the year; maybe (probably) they won’t happen at all. But I am dedicated to exerting as much energy as it takes (as long as it’s not a lot of energy) to making these changes happen. After all, we can all stand to improve, right? (Some of us less than others)

Here is my entire list of 2016 resolutions (so far):

1. Act less annoyed

I first started thinking about resolutions when I was in a situation that I have frequently found myself in over the last few months: me, trying to pay attention to my phone and others in the room trying to speak to me. I am a solitary person. I prefer to be alone. But I know that life cannot be lived that way, so occasionally I tolerate others in the vicinity. More often than not, I am extremely annoyed by their presence. It’s not a person’s presence in general that annoys me; it’s just that a lot of things that a lot of people do are just intolerable to me.

For example: yelling. People yell. A lot. For different reasons. The worst is yelling at sporting events. Second worse is yelling because you’re upset. Third worst is yelling because you’re happy. Yelling is just never necessary.

All of those yelling examples show exactly what I’ve realized that I hate about being around other people: excitement. Why do people get so excited about everything? Do they not know it’s 2016? Being overly excited about things went out of style a long time ago. If you need me, I’ll be over here in my little black dress, stilettos and stone-face a la Victoria Beckham.

Second example: couples. Every conversation couples have. Mostly when they’ve given up on trying to impress each other and settle for a mediocre romance where they can be “real” with each other and eventually fall into a void of boredom. But what really gets me more than that is the pet names. I find these are most prevalent immediately after a relationship starts, then again when it’s become stagnant. The first time, they’re cute. After a while, they’re condescending. “Aw, babe, that was so sweet!” becomes “well, BABE, if you would have been paying attention when my aunt said that she was sending her dog to visit this month, you wouldn’t feel like it’s such a surprise that I asked you to stop drinking whiskey for three days!”

My point in all this was to introduce my first 2016 resolution: act less annoyed than I am. I’ve found that the majority of people my age share some sort of excitement over something in their lives at some point. I’m tired of not fitting in, so, instead of rolling my eyes and planning a succession of annoyed tweets/a blog post, I hope to be able to internalize their over-the-top happiness and reflect it back at them. That’s all people really want to hear anyway, that their feelings are valid. Who would it hurt to give that to them?

2. Lie More

That leads me to my next resolution. So much of contemporary small-talk involves stretching the truth that little white lies are beginning to feel routine. Every day at work, I tell people how much I love the hideous multi-color vertical striped chemise they’re buying and I don’t think twice about it. This is the norm in superficial conversations. But I need more. I resolve that, in 2016, I will lie more. Less passing comments like “I love these colors,” and more “this purple reminds me of the sunset in the painting that I painted for my ex-lover as a gift before he got lost backpacking across Cambodia.” You know, harmless stories that serve no purpose other than to entertain me. That is what I’m here for, after all: to entertain myself.

3. Be skinny

4. Be less messy

I had a friend in high school who always said “my life is always in order when my room is clean.” So, after struggling through the first few weeks of 2016, I decided to clean my room. Take my word for it when I say this is no simple task. I am not a dirty person, just a messy one. It took three hours to just pick up all the clean clothes off of my floor. I had not cleaned my room since November, so this was a long time coming, and it was a really good feeling to see my floor again. After a day and a half of a clear floor, I was enjoying a morning of sleeping in when I heard the loudest, most terrifying crack and bang I had ever heard in my life. Disoriented, I looked around for aliens coming through the ceiling, for my future self traveling back from the future, and for my roommate busting into my room asking me to go to brunch. Once I realized my vision would only clear after I put on my glasses, I realized the embarrassing reality: my clothes were on the floor again. The hanging rod in my closet had been warped for some time now; I convinced myself it was like that before we moved in, but that probably wasn’t true. I never worried about it that much because I mostly chose to keep my clothes on the floor and, even when I picked them up, they were almost never all clean all at once. In fact, the last time I tried to pick all my clothes up off the floor, I ran out of hangers and had to create a new “non-mess, just hanger-less” pile. This time I made some adjustments and got everything that had to be hung on hangers and everything else folded on a shelf.  

But this compromise wasn’t enough for my clothes. Clearly, they wanted to be on the floor, as they broke through the support holding the hanging rod up in the closet, causing them to crash to the floor.

Hopefully the first result of this resolution isn’t an indication of how the rest will go.

5. More spinach

6. More chip variety

7. Still lots of Salt & Vinegar tho

8. Vodka cleanse

I just think I could really benefit from a 7-day span of consuming nothing but vodka. No fat, low carbs. It will be difficult, but I have faith in myself.

9. Reunite with myself

I lost myself this year. I used to be an artist, a writer, a free spirit. Now I work 40+ hours a week and spend my time off in front of a TV with no future plans. This is a cheesy resolution but I will not support myself having this life any longer.

10. Refine myself

I used to have a very specific way of presenting myself. A “brand,” if you will. As addressed in the previous resolution, I have lost that. For the past year, I didn’t know where my life was going. I now have at least one piece of a direction:

Someone who is in a similar situation to mine (a few years out of college, living in/near college town, working full-time) recently posted this: “The only reason you’ll ever regret losing someone as a friend is if they become famous someday (but they won’t).” And I have never been more inspired. You will regret losing me. I am worth a fight. That’s what I’m setting out to achieve this year: a presence so enviable, so unattainable that everyone who has ever written me off is filled with regret. It may take the whole year, but by the end of 2016, I will be on top of the world again.  I am famous. Bow down, bitches.

11. Tramp Stamp

Stay Wild

Every day I get texts and pictures from my best friends who are living the life I chose to leave 4 months ago. A life I thought I hated (my last post), but am now missing more and more every day. No, I don't miss settling for low-paying jobs to pay my ridiculously high rent, losing my bike, fighting with my landlord or praying I don't die just trying to get from work to home.

But maybe I do. Those really are the only things I had to worry about. My daily decisions typically consisted of whether to nap by the pool or on the beach; where to watch the most amazing sunset on earth; and where to get cheap drinks and dance until I couldn't stand anymore. I've been thinking a lot about my time there, but I've gotten past the bad and can only focus on the good, because it was perfect. So here's the post I promised myself I'd write shortly after my last post (in October): here's the good part of Key West, and the reasons I may not come home when I go back in a few weeks.

Getting to Key West was a whirlwind of rash decisions, quick plans and lots of tears. When we got there, it was raining and, if you've ever been around me when it's raining or even threatening to rain, you know that I consider rain the ultimate bad omen (mostly because I hate it). When we checked into the hostel we'd reserved for the first night, I felt nothing but dread. I had no cell service (an annoyance I do not miss), couldn't connect to wifi, and no plans or ideas for jobs or places to live. But then Talullah* took me on a tour of the island. We started off in a gathering of strip malls surrounded by parking lots full of potholes and trailer parks, but then somehow we were on the water. I was never able to decide what my favorite view in Key West was, but the first look out over the calm, crystal clear water dotted with sail boats and backed by a perfect Carolina blue sky (post-rain), was the one that absolutely took my breath away, then replaced it with warm sea air and a sigh of relief. This was going to be my home. And it was more than amazing.

After a bike ride through a town that looked so strange, so different than the town I now know, we stopped at one of Key West's million tourist destinations, and perhaps my favorite (in theory): the Southernmost Point. By this time, the sun had set, it was still about 97 degrees, and the wind was whipping around the corner of the island. Even in the dark, I knew that, staring out towards Cuba, I was seeing something amazing.

The next few days went by in a blur - I woke up, put on clothes that wouldn't suffocate me in the heat as I rode my bike, but were presentable enough to go into every store on Duval street and ask for an application. Perhaps my favorite of these first few days was my second on the job hunt. Talullah had an interview of her own, so after she led me from our hostel to Duval, I grabbed some applications, then pondered a place to sit down and fill them out. I certainly wasn't going to go home and I most definitely was not going to sit out in the heat. Then I remembered seeing rainbow flags early in my journey, so I stuffed the application into my backpack (which also contained a snorkel, a bathing suit and flipflops, which became standard during my time there) and hopped onto my bike and set off to gayer pastures. Apparently Key West used to be a gay haven, but nowadays the gay is focused in one area, which was much further away than I had originally thought. But I found the bar - open-air, as they all are - took a seat and ordered a vodcran. It was no later than 11:30am, but, hey, when in Rome. As I began to drink and fill out my application to work in the retail store at Margaritaville, I realized where I was: a gay bar full of strangers. So I perked myself up, opened my shirt a little and tried to look open to approaches (and free drinks). Unfortunately no one approached, but I did get myself a free drink. "no I think I'm oka... okay, sure," I said when the bartender offered me a second drink. As he set it down and I reached for my wallet, he informed me that it was free - happy hour all day: buy one, get one free. And so began my love/hate relationship with Key West (I loved it, it hated me).

I was a little buzzed when I hopped back on my bike and got back to Margaritaville to turn in my application. I wasn't going to get the job anyway, so, looking back on it, who cares if I smelled like vodka. By some stroke of luck, Talullah's job "interview" was taking place at a close-by bar, Fat Tuesdays (more stories to come). I walked in to find her and we both greeted each other the same way: "I'm drunk." It was probably after noon at this point. So then the guy that she was interviewing with bought me a drink, and so began my love affair with Fat Tuesdays (still think about 44 Magnums every day).  I don't really remember what happened the rest of that day.

Probably the next positive thing that happened was meeting our first Key West best friend. When we first met her, we had no idea she'd become such a light in our lives, but that's probably because she was Talullah's boss. In her we found a friend that was actually close to our age, had a car, knew everything about the island and, by some stroke of luck, was willing to hang out with us more than once. Every day, really. ---

---Folivia* was basically our only friend for awhile. She always told us we were her only friends too, but I think she just said that to make us feel better about ourselves. The best thing about Folivia was that she went out with us most nights, even though she doesn't drink. I couldn't count on both hands the number of times during the middle of the day I was drunk in the backseat of her SUV, telling her I love her every five minutes. That wasn't just the alcohol talking; I really do love her that much.

As you read this, I'm sure you're picking up on a common theme: day drinking. It was my favorite thing about Key West. Sure, I put drinking at the top of my list of favorite things in any place and at any time of day, but nothing compares to day drinking on an island in the Caribbean.

After I started my first job downtown (before I had any friends other than Folivia), I left work every day, went to Fat Tuesday, then to Mallory Square to watch the sun set by myself (pause and google "Mallory Square Sunset" right now. I'll wait). After the sunset, I'd go back to Fat's (or any other bar, really) and begin night drinking, my second-favorite thing about Key West.

That leads me to our second and third Key West best friends. Sunflower* and Princess* were the only people our own age I have ever seen that were bigger messes than us. Neither of them can stand to be alone, so they were always together. And if they weren't together, they were calling me. I woke up every afternoon to a missed call and a text from Princess that said "what are you doing today?" It was after I met these two that I really started hating Key West a lot less.  I should be able to spend days telling stories about my time with Sunflower and Princess, but most memories get a little blurry after the first few hours. My favorite memory with them was one of our first days together. We spent the day on a boat with a bunch of men who were trying to fish/catch lobster; it was probably bad enough that Talullah and I had invited ourselves, but these guys probably knew they weren't going to really get anything done when we showed up with two other blonde girls carrying a case of beer. I drank two Four Lokos on that boat before they just decided to pull up to a small island. Princess and I got to know each other while I watched her put her cigarette directly into the water five seconds after lighting it. A couple times. I don't remember much about that day after that, aside from doing handstands against the boat and doing splits in the sand. At some point that weekend Princess and I were also covered head-to-toe in someone else's blood, but that's a different story for a different day.

And because that story devolved into a love letter to Princess, here is all you need to know about my friendship with Sunflower:

No doubt, the best thing about living in Key West was moving out of Key West. Going back to visit, though, is a different story. I spent six days back on the island a few months after I moved away and I didn't want to leave. Mostly because I couldn't get off the couch the entire last day of my visit.

Those six days are a big blurry whirlwind, so here's a run-down: I spent $100 on one dinner (twice), cracked my phone screen, ran off by myself to a bar I'm pretty sure I was banned from when I lived there, lost my phone, found my phone, offended all the locals at Hogfish, dropped all of Sunflower's leftovers on the ground, danced by myself all night and threw up all day, among several other things. All while wearing overall shorts and a black felt sunhat with devil horns on top. Stay tuned for that entire story in the distant future when I'm finally brave enough to listen to my friends tell me all the rest of the things I did.

*Real names omitted to allow deniability