.....that's when you know.

Hey all, it's Amanda, the long-lost other half of this project when it first began.  I know I rarely write anymore, but it's mostly because I never have anything to write about.  My life has been strangely boring for a while now...however, there are just some things in life that you look at and simply say, "You can't make this shit up."  In this last year-ish of the single life, I've been traveling through the dating game with novice navigation.  Each date I end up going on is usually everything I've expected...as in knowing it was nothing I really wanted.  And each time I say to myself, "No more.  I am done dating."  And each time another guy asks me out, I go against my gut and give them the benefit of the doubt.

And each time I wonder why I didn't pay more attention to that mesenteric area located south of my heart.

I have honestly never imagined the amount of clingy, desperate, thick-headed, can't-take-a-hint, ask-too-many-questions girls guys I have met through these awkward encounters.  But last Saturday takes the cake, and the ironic part is it wasn't even at "date" level yet...and thankfully, it never, ever will be.

The backstory is this: I have known of this guy since high school.  My friends know him, hell one even used to date him (she's since married) but I didn't really start talking to him till last year.  And by me talking to him, I mean he Facebook stalked me & contacted me via Fbook message.  (RED FLAG: People who use the "poke" option or the Fbook messenger as a way of starting a conversation, flirting, and/or asking for your number.)  I didn't think much of it, and actually he was incredibly sarcastic from the get-go, which turned me off immediately.  I usually handled the situation by giving it right back to him.  And he stopped talking to me for many months, and then saw that I am a musician in my spare time, so started talking to me again.  I don't know why I'm so nice to randoms, but he eventually asked for my number, because he wanted to "jam" sometime... (I know, roll your eyes at me...I sure as hell am) and I said exactly this: "I will give you my number but I'm going to be upfront honest with you, I am not looking to date anyone right now.  And I apologize if I'm just making assumptions, but I figure I might as well get that out of the way." He seemed fine about it, and things were all good.  He went out to a local bar in very close range to my house a few weeks ago and invited me out, but I didn't want to go alone.  My gut was yelling at me again saying that it was "def a sketch sitch" so my roomie-rents (Ash & Kristine tend to double as my dad & mom, respectfully) joined me.  Everything went normal.  Whatever. So then last week he wanted to go out for drinks, but I had made plans with my cousin and he was fine with a group thing, which is the only way I would have hung out with him anyway, so great.  Whatever.

Bad Decision: Agreeing to hang out again (or really, ever).
Better Bad Decision: Not going into the inevitable sketchy situation alone.

So we did a little bar hopping, went from Fusion with their heavenly scorpion bowls (aforementioned in previous posts many times), hit up John Harvard's, and finished up over at Scioli's (remember, the random Italian place next to a PFit that had a Worcester-like dance club appeal).  Last-call lights flipped on, and we headed home.  And now for the shit I can't make up.

He's passing out on my couch.  He's so drunk, that he's passing out on my couch.  (RED FLAG: This is the first time I've let you come over my house, you really shouldn't be getting so drunk that even though I haven't said I'll allow it, you assume you can just stay over.  Now, I really don't want your drunk ass driving, so the "nice" me is forced to say fine, stay.)  My cousin gets tired, so she peaces out, and then magically, the dude is awake enough to want to make out.  Now I'm not going to try to lie about this, I did make out with him for a couple minutes, because mind you, I was also somewhat drunk, and who doesn't like a little mild action?  But in fairness, the convo went like this:

Me: *stopping mid-makeout* "Just so you know, I'm not sleeping with you tonight."
Dude: "Thas fine we canjustmakeout. Ur cute."
Me: "No, seriously, you're not getting in my bed."
Dude: "Well Imeanifyou uhhh dun like me, I can jus leave." *as he tries to, but fails to, sit up straight*
Me: "No, I don't want you to leave because you can't drive.  Just stay over."

This sparked a 20 minute back-and-forth of the same thing.  He was whining about how I should let him take me out on a "real" date, blah blah blah.  And I got so irritated/tired that I was all "Dude.  Listen.  I am not stringing you along, I told you upfront a WHILE ago that I had no interest in dating you, or anyone, period.  You cannot pin this on me, I told you from the beginning." To which he begins his series of tantrums with a "FINE.  PEACE." And walks over to the bathroom.

Kick Out Sketchy: Attempt #1
So I figure fine, he's going to the bathroom, and he's leaving.  Or let's hope he leaves.  So what do I do?  I say F this, I've had enough, I'm going to my room, and hopefully he'll take the hint to either go to bed or leave.  I locked my door just incase, and waited to see if he'd go out to the car.  Good thing I locked my door because not 5 minutes later he prances upstairs and tries to just walk in my room, finds that it's locked, and drunkenly states, "REALLY?  WOW." and walks downstairs.  Then I hear him drunkenly grumbling to himself for 10 minutes, with a bunch of "wow's" and "really's" in between.  Silence for a minute, then a big "YOU'RE NOT EVEN GONNA SAY BYE?" Dude comes upstairs and tries to see if my door is unlocked yet, with another "YOU'RE NOT EVEN GONNA SAY BYE? REALLY? WOW, PEACE." And I hear him grumbling as he goes downstairs.  So I figure f this, I'm going down there and telling him he better leave.

Kick Out Sketchy: Attempt #2
I go to face him, and he's all:

"I dunevenkno what I did!  What is going on?! Why...I don't even... what did I do?"
Me: "You're so drunk, you don't even remember the attitude you just gave me 15 minutes ago."
Dude: "I WAS GOING TO THE BATHROOM!"
Me: "You said 'PEACE' which told me you were leaving, so I went to bed because I was tired of your attitude and in general wanted to sleep."
Dude: "This is RIDICULOUS I DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING WRONG!"
Me: "Just, go.  I think you should just go. You're being ridiculous."
Dude: "FINE WHATEVER IDUNNOWHY I WANTED TO DATE YOU ANYWAY."

So he walks out the door, to which I immediately deadbolt & lock it, turn the lights off, then go to turn the lights off in the living room when I see this scene in front of me:

(recreated) No words.
RED FLAG.

(recreated) Oh you know, just some couch cushions casually placed around the room.
RED FLAG.

So I'm becoming increasingly pissed off as my alcohol is wearing off.  I pick everything up quickly, turn the inside lights off, and as I'm about to go upstairs I see that his car is slowly pulling over across the street, and he's getting out of the car.  Seriously?  Go. Home.  The lights are all off, the door is locked, I figure he'll see that and turn around back for his car...right?

Kick Out Psycho: Attempt #3

DINGfuckingDONG goes the doorbell at 2:30am.  I'm hiding behind the fridge but I thought, fuck it.  He might just keep ringing the doorbell, I don't want him waking up my cousin, or making a scene outside and waking up my neighbors.  So I open the door and the dude is sitting on my front steps sulking. 

Me: "What do you want?"

Dude: "I just... WHAT DID I DO? I dun get it... wh..why...I was...I was jus goin to the bathroom!"

Me: "You threw a tantrum and went to the bathroom, I figured you were leaving, so I went to bed because I was tired and didn't want to deal with it.  You're blowing it way out of proportion..."

Dude: "BUT I--"

Me: "AND I come downstairs to find that you felt it necessary to TRASH my living room with your little hissy fit.  WHO DOES THAT?  This is the first time you've ever been here, what gives you the fucking right to throw stuff off the counter, or rip my couch apart?! You've made me feel very disrespected and uncomfortable in my own home.  So you should JUST GO."

Dude: "MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE?! AHAHAHAHA WOW."

Me: *quietly* "And you need to shut the fuck up because--if you haven't noticed--this is a two family home.  My neighbors can probable hear you causing a scene right now.  I don't need them to think that I bring crazies over here."

Dude: "Fuck your neighbors!  YOU KNOW WHAT? GAH! I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE YOU'D GO ON A DATE WITH ME WHAT THE FUCK PEACE YA FUCKIN BITCH!"

Me: "Mmmmmmhmmmm....buhbye!!!!!!!"

Flip him off, door's locked, bedtime.  Pull out computer, jump on Facebook, de-friend the psycho (hey, I meant business).  Pass out.

So I woke up in the morning to a massive headache, and then remembered what happened and laughed my ass off.  I was still pretty annoyed but I thought, leave it to me to find myself in a ridiculous situation when the roomies are gone.  This is not the first time, and probably won't be the last.  So I'm chilling downstairs on the couch, watching some DVR'd Jersey Shore (for shame.) and Facebooking like the stalker I accept I am, and my phone starts ringing.

GUESS WHO'S CALLING!!! 

You know how most people in that situation, if leaving a voicemail, would say something along the lines of "Hey, I'm really sorry about last night, can you give me a call sometime so we can talk about it?" Yeah, not voicemails left by psychos.  His was more along the lines of talking to me through the voicemail, with long pauses...and questions of what happened:

"I just.......................don't even know what happened last night.  You de...friended me...on Facebook?  It must have been bad...............I mean I guess I don't even know who I am when I drink.  I trashed your living room?..............if anything's broken.................I'll give you money.  But you defriended me on Facebook!?! I dunno........I think I might still be drunk right now (red flag?)......but you hate me.........I don't even know what I did wrong..........talk to you later."

Um.  LOL.  No sir, I will not be talking to you later.  10 minutes later, my phone is ringing, AGAIN.  This time, the sucker got a little more defensive in the voicemail...

"Listen, Amanda, I just wish you'd TALK to me.  I don't even care if you're gonna yell at me, rip me a new asshole, I don't care, just TALK to me.  I want to know what I DID!"

I didn't want him calling me again so I texted him an epic text:

DID Y'ALL CATCH HIS RESPONSE? ^^^^^^^^^^  Say it with me: PSY....CHO.


Talk about not taking a hint.  Then a couple hours later he texts me again, his own version of an "epic" text in which he got all defensive again saying that he promised to leave me alone but the "fighting outside with me is on YOU." and "If I threw a pillow in a drunken rage then that is just fun." and that "In fact, I'm convinced you liked me..." blah blah oh and at the end he tried to lay the guilt trip on me with... "I don't even know if you even know what you want right now, I hope you can figure it out.  Take care."

RED FLAG: Don't even pretend that you even know me well enough to tell me who I like or what I do/do not know I want.  I know exactly what I do not want, and that's unnecessary, childish, drunken drama over absolutely nothing.  

Life Lesson(s): Don't pretend you're above previous Life Lessons and fail to avoid sketchies and rando's.  Trust. Your. Gut.  And remember: You don't always have to be nice to people.  Had I remembered that, I think I could have managed to kick him out the first time instead of it taking me 3 mother-f*$#ing attempts to get his crazy ass out of my sanctuary of a home.  A simple "I don't like you, you're psycho, get out of my house," would have sufficed.

Scratch that; had I not been nice, I would have never agreed to a conversation with him in the first place.

Oh and for all you straight men out there that read this, if you're in no way, shape, or form like this psycho dude, and you can throw in some good looks... get at me.

--LSLP, Amanda xoxo

I wonder if any of my homosexual friends have had to deal with this shit. Tell me I'm not alone here.  <3

some things have happened.

Here they are:

The Incision
The Cripple finally had back surgery. Yayy! I had to take care of her during the recovery process. Nayy! I have a whole new appreciate for nurses in hospitals. Helping totally drugged out people who are barely able to move on their own is not easy. Especially when every conversation goes like this:

          THE CRIPPLE: mumblemumblemumble...
          ME:  What? Do you need something? What can I get for you?
          THE CRIPPLE: murrfff..mumblemumble..merrr..mehhh.
          ME:  More drugs?
          THE CRIPPLE: mmrrrnnnnoooo
          ME:  The bathroom? Do you have to go to the bathroom?
          THE CRIPPLE: mmrrrrnoooo...noorr
          ME:  Food? Are you hungry?
          THE CRIPPLE:  mehh. mumblemumble.
          ME:  ..................
          THE CRIPPLE: meh, meh, mehmehmeh
          ME:  Okay, more drugs then it is.

I had to dish out so many different types of pills, all on different time schedules, that I had to make a notebook with a schedule in it. And then I'd check off the little pill names in the notebook once I fed them to her. There was a organized system. A GODDAMN PILL SYSTEM. Not normal.

OK, so one of these  right now, 2 of those in 28 minutes, and 3 of these 4 times a day....

And one of these for me right now because I'm slowly going crazy.

Also awesome was me having to call her every 3 hours while I was at work to tell her to take another pill. You can only whisper "It's time to take a laxative" into the phone so many times before everyone in your office starts to give you weird looks. But in all seriousness, I was happy to take care of her. No really. I'm totally caring like that.

The Uhaul

The Cripple moved into my house. We are a goddamn stereotype. It's fine. Royce still isn't allowed to bark at the mailman though. Only one stereotype per house.

The Gig

Amanda's band had a gig a couple weekends ago, and it's been a while so I got understandably overly excited. Which generally leads to overly drinking. We also routinely bring nips into the establishment she played at to add to our drinks, since the bar insists on using a pourer to measure out precise minuscule amounts of alcohol to put into our drinks. (Fuck you, responsibility.) By the time we left I was pretty toasty, so we headed to our friends Meg and Ed's for some after-gig excitement where everyone continued drinking, ate some good food, laughed, chatted, and I.......emptied the dishwasher. I stood over the open dishwasher looking down on it's contents, studying them like I was about to start the goddamn SATs.

          MEG: ...what are you doing?

          ME:  Formulating a plan.

Then I started putting dishes away.

          MEG:  You don't have to do that.

          ME:  No, I have to help you. ::dish, dish, dish, dish, dish::

          MEG:  Really, just sit down and relax.

          ME: I HAVE TO HELP YOU.

The next day I went back to their house and noticed my work. All the tall glasses mixed in with the short glasses. Mugs just scattered throughout. Bowls on plates on bowls. Some glasses rim down, some rim up. It looks like a goddamn drunk person did this. Wait a minute....

Bad Decision:  Choosing "creative dishwasher emptying" as your after-party activity.

Better Bad Decision:  Mixing the mugs with the glasses. Those guys have always been loners.

The Hangover

I just laid around for 8-10 hours moaning.

The Snuggle Fest

During The Cripple's recovery, her mother and brother came to stay at my house for a few days. I warned them of the vicious guard dog that they would have to face upon arrival. They were scared. I could tell. I was scared too. Nothing like your dog biting your new girlfriend's mom to make a great impression. Then they arrived, and sat on my couch, and then.......

Royce fell in love with The Cripple's mom.

You pet me. You pet me now.

(Cripple's mom is downright shocked.)

AND THEN.....

Royce fell even more in love with The Cripple's brother.

We are soul mates.

Royce HATES men, but for some reason he loved The Brother. And The Brother loved him. Throughout their stay at my house, The Brother took Royce for a walk approximately once an hour and called him "Thunder" the entire time. Since their visit, Royce now looks at me, barks, and looks at his leash every hour on the hour when I am home. He also answers to "Thunder". Awesome.

On the plus side, apparently the entire family is dog approved.

The Mowing

On a nice day three weeks ago I went outside and mowed my lawn. Oh wait...no....that never happened. My yard is a goddamn forest of 3 foot high clover. Royce walks in there and I can't even see him. I lost him in there just this morning.

The Plea

It's been a while since I went out to a lesbian night in the city, so on Friday we headed to the closing party of some lesbo night. We walked in and there were approximately 15 homely looking women dancing awkwardly. We had one drink and walked immediately back out. As we were waiting for a cab a girl who had been inside came up to me and said with desperation in her eyes and voice, "Where else is there to go around here?" I hesitated for a second and she said with slightly more panic, "Is there another gay night somewhere near here?!"  I gave her a sad little smile and climbed into my taxi with my friends. She watched us drive away, her arm extended, her eyes pleading for us not to leave her. "TAKE ME WITH YOU" she yelled.

OK, so those last 2 sentences are completely made up, but she did have that look as we climbed into the cab. It's rough out there.

Life Lesson: Always have a backup plan.

Taxi!

-LSLP, Ash.

daily irritations.

Everything seems to go wrong at the end of the summer. I lose the ability to day drink, sunlight peaces out early, girls need to wear pants more often. All real bummers. It's like the universe is trying to prepare you for 7 months of raking and shoveling nature off your driveway. In my case I got the following assortment of suckage: my girlfriend had back surgery, my horse has severe colic in the middle of the night, my other horse broke it's leg, my car leaks a river into the passenger side whenever I turn left, and it's been raining for like 72 hours. Hand me a shovel and like 20 feet of snow. I'm ready. It will be like drinking cocktails on the beach compared with all this other stuff. Needless to say, I have had very little time or effort to make better bad decisions lately. Soooo....

Bad Decision: Ranting like a lunatic.
Better Bad Decision: Doing it on the Internet, where everyone is crazy.

Lucky for me I was blessed with the gift of not giving a fuck about most things life throws at me. So these major issues are things I can deal with without much stress. The goddamn refrigerator not dispensing ice when I tell it to though....that will result in appliance murder 100 times out of 100. So will all of these things:

1.   Traffic

          In summer it takes me 25 minutes to get to work. The second school starts, it takes me an hour. I sit in the same traffic every day trying to get to my little cube, and every day I feel trapped. I can't go anywhere. I can only sit there and wait. I can pinpoint exactly the two lights that cause all the traffic too. And if I had a baseball bat, I would go out on rt 9 in the middle of the night and I would take. them. OUT. Bam. No more traffic. I'm a problem solver.

I don't even know where I was trying to go anymore.

2.   Pill Bottles

          I've been opening a lot of these lately (more on that next week), and when opening at 3am "child proof" becomes "26-year-old-with-not-enough-sleep proof". It's seriously a miracle I haven't done one of those chip bag moves with a pill bottle yet, where the whole room ends up being showered in Valiums.

3.   Office Chit-Chat

          There is a much-too-high direct correlation between the amount of time it takes my pop-tart to toast and the number of times I have to say, "Good, how are you?." every morning. It's not even 8am. Breakfast food is my coffee. Do not speak to me until I eat. I'm just going to start answering with things like, "Fucking fabulous!" or "Devastatingly depressed" until people become too uncomfortable to ask me how I'm doing anymore in the office kitchen. Peaceful pop-tart toasting. That is my professional goal.

4.   3:30 - 4:30

          This is the last hour of my work day. It is absolutely 3 hours long.

5.   Adult Zits

          Every so often my face attacks itself. I'm a twenty fucking six year old gay girl who is on goddamn birth control so this exact thing doesn't happen. WHY am I still getting zits? It's always right before I have to present something at an important meeting too. Don't mind the girl who's going through puberty in the business suit. Also don't mind that it looks like she has the herp, because adult zits don't fuck around. They get you where it counts.

I can see it on my own face, with my own eyes. Not ok.

6.   Forgetting Things

          It takes me forever to get out of the house every time I try to go somewhere. First I've left my purse on the counter, then I forgot the keys (so silly), then I left a sweater in case it gets cold upstairs (what am I, a grandma?), then my cell phone is missing (OH GOD. WHERE IS MY LIFELINE?!), then....who the fuck knows. It's inevitable. I'll go up and down the stairs at least 3 times, and by the time I've got everything, I need to go back in for a glass of water because I'm parched from all that exercise.

7.   Light Bulbs Burning Out

          The light bulb in my garage (which is tall enough to park an RV in for some unknown reason) went out last week. So now I can no longer shut the garage door behind me from the car. I have to leave it open until I walk all the way through the garage and into the house. Do you even know how many things can run inside from the darkness and eat me during that time? Like a bunch. There's also a light that's been out in my bathroom for about 5 months now. And one in the entry way that's been out for 2 months. They bother me every day that they don't work, but I just can't bring myself to replace them. Candles for the win.

8.   Feeding the Dog

          Every morning when I'm in a huge rush I have to stop flying around the house and measure out some kibble for the tiny animal that lives in my house. You've been watching me do this for years, Royce. It's about time you start feeding yourself breakfast. And while you're at it, get a job. You're 5 years old for christ's sake.

9.   Turning Left Out of My Street

          Sometimes it takes 10 seconds, other times it takes an eternity. If it takes 15 minutes for you to get out of your own street, that's gotta be a sign that you probably shouldn't be leaving. If I start saying I can't come out because my street won't let me, don't be surprised. Totally legitimate.

10.   Traffic

          It just had to be said again.

Life Lesson: It's the little stuff you've got to watch out for.

I can't find my keys...

-LSLP, Ash.

Roofie Colada

Honestly, I don't even know why I'm writing this post. There are at least 10 other people just off the top of my head that definitely have better recollections of the events of last weekend than I do. Oh, "Why's that?" you ask? Well last weekend was the much anticipated, giant, lesbian, pool party, during the course of which I was either drugged (I'm going with this theory to save face) or made a super successful attempt at recreating freshman year drinking (probably the more likely situation). Point being I made it about 3 hours into the day before I got sick and completely blacked out. I am clearly the best person to bring to a party...if you want to look sober.

Those first 3 hours were great- Stood by the bar the entire time (red flag number 1), got some shots purchased for me (red flag number 2), had some amazing drinks mixed by a friend of ours (red flag number 3), made friends with gay boys (first sign I am getting drunk), and slowly removed additional pieces of clothing until I was just in my bathing suit (when the shorts came off, someone probably should have handed me a water). Since everyone except me runs on lesbian time, The Cripple and I were the first ones to arrive of our group, which I think directly correlated to the quick succession of drinks going into my mouth since we were killing time waiting for our friends to get there. At one point I texted Irina, an hour after she said she would arrive, to ask her if she was almost there, and her response was, "What's the address?" Which made me need a drink.

When our friends finally did arrive, we moved over to a cabana, where after another drink or two I apparently forgot I was in public and PDAed my way through the next half hour or so. As a general rule I'm very non-PDA. So if I'm climbing all over the person I'm with that's probably a good sign I should be slowing down the alcohol intake (or increasing it? That could really go either way...). And then it happened. I was having a grand time, playing with a beach ball, dancing a bit, chatting with friends, when all of a sudden I felt awful. I sat down in a chair, and bam. Sick.

Bad Decision: Getting so excited for the party, that you speed drink 3 cocktails in 20 minutes.
Better Bad Decision: Having friends with a cabana so you can hide behind a wall of friendly homos while you crumple into a shell of a human.

While everyone else at the party was doing this:

Lesbians, vodka, pool floaties, YAY!



I was doing this:

It's like a where's waldo of horrors.

One minute it's 5pm and sunny daylight out and I'm sitting in a chair in the cabana being sick. The next minute it's 10pm and pitch black out and I'm sitting in my car in the parking lot being sick. Wait, what? How did I get to my car? How is it dark out? IT'S BEEN FIVE HOURS?! I legitimately lost 5 hours of time at this party as if no time had gone by for me at all. Is that a normal reaction to drinking? I think not. The thing of this is, is that I am basically a champion drinker. I'm a small girl, but I can put down way more than should be physically possible normally. I have never, EVER, reacted to alcohol like this in my life. Even when I got super sick from drinking in college, I did not black out. Hence, my theory of being drugged.

I started running through the possibilities:
I had my drink on the bar, and on some tables...I brought my drink to the bathroom...Did I bring it IN the bathroom? Ew, no. I probably left it on a table outside. Idiot. ...I also had, like, at least 3 of my friends retrieve me drinks from the bar....there is at least a 75% chance that someone here wants to drug one of my friends. No, 85% chance. Definitely 85%.

In the end I don't know what happened. Maybe I just drank too much too fast without enough food and the heat of the day got to me. Day drinking always has been my nemesis. Or maybe I did get drugged. I'd like to prefer I got drugged so I don't feel like as big of a douche for being that drunk girl. But Irina assured me that I was at least a non-obnoxious drunk girl. Apparently I just sat there quietly being sick. How considerate of me. I do remember at the end of the night, when I had regained awareness of my surroundings, I was placed on a curb next to some other wasted girl. My friend Kara was asking her, "Honey, where is your shoe? Where do you think you lost your shoe? Was it over here?" And the girl is swaying back and forth and looking at her foot like, "I don't have a shoe on?" Even in my drugged/drunk state I knew I didn't want to be that girl, so I stood up to look more sober. Totally worked. ...Right?

Some acknowledgements:

• The Cripple:  You let me faceplant in your lap for 5 hours and fed me bread like a bird. You never got mad or yelled at me for ruining your time. Best girlfriend ever. I owe you 5 hours of faceplant.
• Kara:  You handed me a bucket when I was being sick, which is so much classier than losing it on the ground. That's the last thing I remember of the daylight time. I also woke up the next day with 5-7 bobby pins in my hair. Leave it to a hairstylist to be all "SAVE THE HAIR!" when a girl's getting sick. Solid.
• Brie:  Thank god there's another lesbian who knows how to drive stick. If it wasn't for you I'd probably still be in the parking lot.
• Irina:  It just seems fitting that you are around for scenarios like this. You're like the first responder of "Help, Ashly's Wasted" calls. One of my most vivid memories is of the mustard stain on your shirt from the gas station hot dog. I'd like to think you arranged that for comedic relief.

Life Lesson: Get your own drinks, because someone at the party probably wants to drug your friends.

Where am I?

-LSLP, Ash.

To my younger readers who have just headed off to college. This is written all in good fun, but roofies/being drugged is no joke. Seriously get your own drinks. And watch them like a fucking hawk.

i can't do WHAT?

What's one of the main things (ok, THE main thing) every guy wants to do? Get it in. And you know they feel like the super god of sex if they get the girl off. That's like goal number 1. Girls are not easy. Most guys readily admit they need a GPS, 3 hands, and their face to make it happen. So when they do a good job, they can then afterwards pat themselves on the back, say "I am the fucking man!", and go to bed with their head held high. Now before any of you dude readers out there start getting all uppity about these accusations, settle the f down because lesbians are the same way (except the needing a GPS part, pretty sure I know how lady parts are made). Don't even try to tell me this isn't how you feel. Every lesbian out there who is succeeding, is mentally marking down another notch in the I'm-fucking-good-at-fucking tally sheet. So no shame here, ok? We're all in it to win it.

Now before you can even worry about securing the win, first you have to convince some unsuspecting lady to come home with you. There are a bunch of common attempts here, some of which I'd say are tried and true, and others which are great starters for the long game but not your on-point closers.

• Take Her Out to Dinner.
• This used to be a good one. A classic. Who doesn't love to be wined and dined? The problem here is that I'm fairly certain that over the last decade every girl's motto has become, "A Girl's Gotta Eat" so if you're offering to buy some chick a free meal, there's no way she's saying no. There's also probably no way she's going to be laying in your satin sheets later. 2-3 of these and maybe.
• Reverse Psychology.
• "I'm not even about getting a girl into bed. I just want to get to know you first. I don't expect anything from you." Ok, if you are talking about how you don't expect anything, and don't care about getting me into bed, I'm pretty sure that's exactly whats on your mind. This will work on some dumb girls...or probably anyone under 22.
• Flowers.
• What is this? Are we in the 1960's? Are you going to put on a bow tie in a minute and lead me to your Camero? THESE WILL DIE IN 3 DAYS. Bring me something shiny that used to be a rock, then we'll talk.
• Alcohol.
• This one's a winner. Tried and true, through and through. But there's a balance. Buy her too few drinks and she's going home with her friends to giggle and make mac & cheese. Buy her too many drinks and she's throwing up in your nightstand. As soon as she makes out with you publicly, that's your sweet spot. No more alcohol. This works particularly well if you live NEXT to a bar. Think about how smooth that transition can be...
• "Let's Just Snuggle"
• The segue to is just too easy. I dont' know how anyone can mess this up.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did I graze your boob?
• Be Kind of an Asshole
• If you're a total asshole, you're going to be dismissed. No one wants to feel like shit. If you're super nice, you're going to get walked all over. But "kind of an asshole" is fucking gold.

There are countless more I'm sure. I'm not trying to say I'm a pro. I mostly get girls by being slightly awkward  I think, which somehow works with lesbians. But I do have my smooth moments, so maybe the combination is what works. Regardless, I have a strong appreciation for any out-of-the-box approaches that lead to success.

Recently I was out for drinks with a group of friends when I witnessed one of the most creative techniques for getting some I've seen to date. A friend of mine spent about 20 minutes talking about how she doesn't even care that she hasn't gotten it in in a while because no one can get her off anyways. She even went so far as to make the statement that no one had ever been able to get her off by going down on her. We were not talking quietly. You could literally see all the guys within hearing distance glance over with the same look in their eyes..."I bet I could do it." Hell, even though I had no real intention of doing it, my immediate internal reaction was the same. I have no idea if her intention was to lure someone in, or if she was just making conversation and venting. But you know what....my friend got oral pleasured that night by the only single person at our table. Like, are you even kidding me with this? It's genius. Do other people use this?
"Oh, no one can get me off. I'm impossible. Dont' even bother."
"What's that? You think I can't do it? Well, HA. Let me show you. I can't do it....pffff...can't not do shit, that's what I can't do. Lay the fuck down. Let me help you with those pants."

Bad Decisions: Using a pickup line you heard in a movie as your technique to get girls.
Better Bad Decision: Following it up with, "That's alright, I can't find anyone who makes me enjoy sex anyways."

By the way, this tactic probably only works when used by a woman. If you're a dude and you tell some chick she can't get you off, I'm pretty sure she's going to laugh in your face. Let's be honest, if she pushes her boobs together, gives you that look (you know the one) and glances at your zipper, you're pretty much already there.

Life Lesson: There's no excuse for a dry spell anymore.

Get it girl.
-LSLP, Ash.

PS- Sorry to my family who reads this. I mean, I dont' even know what "sex" is. Who wrote this?!

someone buy me a nurse's outfit, stat.

The rumors are true, I have "wifed up" as they are saying on the MTV these days. (Let's be clear for those of you who are not as hip on the lingo as I am- under NO circumstances am I married. It just means I'm only making out with one person now. Clear? Clear.) Now I know you are all panicking right now.
"WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE BLOG OF BAD LIFE CHOICES?!"
"HOW WILL BETTER BAD DECISIONS BE DETERMINED?!"
"WHO WILL CARRY ON THE LEGACY?!?"
Well settle the fuck down. I mean christ...I'm in a relationship, not dead. I assure you I am pretty sure I'll still be more than capable of making bad, and better bad, decisions in all the other life categories besides making out with straight girls. Instead of getting drunk and trying to put the moves on unsuspecting randoms (which let's be honest...should totally be moved to the Good Decision category since that's how I ended up in said relationship), I'll just get drunk and fall down a lot. Or pick fights with inanimate objects. Or binge eat mac & cheese at 4am. All viable options.

Moving on.

After a few months of on-the-move courtship, where we used our legs to go places and do things, my newly acquired lady friend has lost the ability to walk. Actually, let's not soften it- the ability to move. Some disk in her spine was all, "F this, I'm out!" But then realized it couldn't exactly leave her body, so instead has decided to set up shop on the prime real estate of her sciatic nerve. Awesome.

When I first met The Cripple, she had a slight limp that I'm pretty sure 80% of the population thought was a swagger attempt. (I would have given it a 7 out of 10 if it had been.) But she rapidly deteriorated until it was a full on hardcore hobble, and then more of just her dragging her limb behind her as she slugged along, and then this happened:

Wheelie! Do a wheelie!

It should be noted that that ER/Wheelchair/Crazy Nurse scenario occurred at approximately 5am on a Monday. After one of my horses had coliced. And I had been sprayed in the face with his stomach contents. As the vet pumped them out at 1am for an hour. Solid night.

So now she's immobile in my house keeping my dog company while I'm at work and giving Amanda something to feel useful about on her days off (pays to have a nurse as a roommate). Next week some specialist is giving her an epidural injection. Which I'm pretty sure is what they give to pregnant ladies who are about to pop watermelons out of their vaginas, so yeah...that's how much pain they think she's in. Until then, these are out date options:

     - Creative pillow adjusting.
     - Stair races (where I make "sshooom!" noises as I fly by her).
     - Board game extravaganza.
     - Sponge baths.
     - Competitive dog petting (Royce really wins with this one).
     - Collaborative Facebook stalking.
     - Watching a movie.
     - Watching a movie.
     - Watching a movie.

Seriously, that list is solid. Even if she wasn't crippled I'd give a big heck yeah to basically all of those. Too bad she's on serious doses of vicodin constantly and probably won't remember any of this. In a few weeks when this injury is all over she's going to get off the painkillers and wonder where she is, what happened to the last month of her life, and how the hell she ended up with a girlfriend. "Oh? You though I was your nurse? No no silly, we are in a relationship now. How about you get me a drink?" Jokes on you, dear.

Bad Decision: Dating a cripple.
Better Bad Decision: Storing up enough massages, flowers, and dinners in care-taking re-payment fees to be good for at least 6 months.

Life Lesson: If you're going to lose the ability to walk soon, you should probably acquire a girlfriend/nurse combo.

You're gonna need it.
-LSLP, Ash.

flowers of death.

A college friend of mine got married last weekend. This marks the second friend I've lost to marriage so far, and I feel like this is just the beginning. They're going to start dropping like flies at any moment. I headed out to the wedding with the fear that I wasn't going to know more than one person there. I had only seen the bride about twice in the past year, and wasn't sure who her circle of friends even was anymore. I couldn't help but think that maybe I should have pregamed for the event.

When I arrived I let myself into the building and looked around. No one was there except the bartender and someone else who was clearly an employee. I approached the bartender and tried to ask where to go.

          ME: Is the...Do I....Where do I sit for the cere....Where is the wedding?
          BARTENDER:  Outside. Through that door.

Could I be more awkward? I'm honestly surprised he didn't just pour me a glass of wine right then. It was clear my social skills were not firing on all cylinders. I went outside and quickly realized that my fears of not knowing anyone were fairly true. I spotted a friend of the bride's I had met once and promptly latched on to her and her husband. Hello friends. I am now part of your relationship for the night. Tell me things.

The ceremony itself was the fastest I have ever seen. It was even done in two languages, and was still finished in just under 20 minutes. Amazingly wonderful. Let this be a lesson to all the brides and grooms of the world- we do not care about hearing the passages from the bible, or poems, or whatever other sappy sources of love declaration you have come up with. We just want to get to the drinking, dancing, and watching your black sheep family members embarrass the rest of the you.

Cocktail hour began and to compensate for the lack of connections to other guests I consumed 6 glasses of wine in an hour.

Bad Decision:  Not following the 2 drinks per hour rule. (Or is that 1 drink? Bad sign that I don't know?)
Better Bad Decision:  Choosing an open bar situation to break this rule.

After I drank my Crate & Barrel gift card's worth of free wine, the bride's mom (or was it the bride? It's all a little hazy) approached me and my one friend and expressed concern that no one was dancing. Let me tell you, when you're on your 8th glass of wine, you don't care if no one is dancing. As soon as someone says the word dance, that's what you want to do. So I grabbed my friend and went to dance. Within 2 minutes, literally 75% of the guests were on the dance floor going nuts. There was a circle of clapping that people kept pulling each other into to show off moves, there was a conga line, there was even a break dancing attempt. At one point my friend and I looked at each other and were like, "We did this. This started because of us." Oh, the power of two girls dancing in dresses.

And then it happened. The inevitable bouquet toss.
Everyone huddled together, giggling, ready to catch that bunch of flowers and have their dreams come true. They clearly were all assuming Prince Charming was waiting outside on his horse. While everyone else was vying for the best spot up front, I was selecting the ideal spot in the back where I would appear to be involved but not really have a chance. Just as the bride was about to throw it, I realized how close the entire group was to her. Dear god. She's going to overthrow the group. The bouquet became airborne, soared over the heads and hands of everyone else and came directly towards me. I had to make a choice:

          Option A) Reach up and grab the damn thing, which I assumed would burn when I touched it.
          Option B) Let it fall to the floor.

While option B was very tempting, I thought maybe that might be a bad omen or something for the bride, so I valiantly reached up, grabbed it, and took one for the team.

Clearly I want that thing as far from me as possible.

But this was not the end. I now had to participate in another wedding ritual (I mean, really, how many do we need?). I took my place center stage on a chair, hammed it up for the crowd, and threw my little leg out there for some Hispanic gentleman to slide the garter onto.

Still clutching my flowers apparently...

Then there were some fairly awkward photographs taken, and before he walked away, the garter man leaned down and whispered in my ear, "My girlfriend is going to KILL me." Poor guy. If he only knew that the more likely scenario of someone killing someone else over me was the reverse of that.

As expected, I was one of the last people dancing, and one of the first people to jump on board for an after party in the city. We shot over to Cambridge and ended up at some dive-y bar where I spent at least 2 hours dancing with old guys who spun me around every 5 minutes or so. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a blast. It's always refreshing to dance with people who aren't trying to hump you mid-dance and are actually dancing. Another different aspect of this bar was that every time the 60 year old bartenders would walk past me and my friend at the bar, they would place a little chocolate candy down in front of us.

Sweet? Or Creepy?

You decide.

Between the free wine and the friendly chocolate bearing bartenders, I was in a special place by the end of the night. And sadly there were a few fatalities of the evening.

          1)  My license (Later to be found in the dryer. Don't ask.)

          2)  The red flower pin on my dress.  ...Although the shell of the pin remained.

I'll assume the flower flew off during one of my graceful spins on the dance floor. ....Or when I tripped and fell on something. Which was probably also graceful in it's own way.

Life Lesson:  Catching the bouquet doesn't mean you are the next to get married. It means you're the only lesbian in the crowd, and hence the only one who can actually catch.

Go stereotypes, go!

-LSLP, Ash.

my social life is killing me.

Today marks the entrance into my third week of being sick. What began as me coughing approximately every 30-60 seconds, has developed into a constant sore throat, spontaneous coughing, the random nose blow, and a crippling headache that attacks out of nowhere and leaves just as fast. It's the drive-by-shooting of ailments.

Let's start by blaming the Bruins. During their playoff run last month, I had to drink and stay up late about 3 times a week during every game they played. I HAD to. They needed me. So by the time they actually won the playoffs, and the ensuing after game celebrations were over, I was essentially half a human. I woke up the day after the playoffs with the beginning of what would be about a week of the 30-60 second coughing. It's a miracle my boss and co-workers did not club me to death with staplers and corded phones. They did keep telling me to go to the doctor, which at first was endearing because I thought they cared about me, but soon became disconcerting as I realized they were slowly going crazy from my incessant coughing. (Heh, heh. Sorry guys. Why are you holding those scissors like that, guys? Guys?)

My go-to when I'm sick is to not go out on weeknights, drink smoothies, and eat soup. Which is what I've been trying to do for the past 3 weeks, but a hectic schedule of social events has made this close to impossible. Juuuusssst when I start to get better...someone has a bbq and I have to consume a hard iced tea or electric lemonade during the day light hours. This means that I have to keep consuming beverages of this type until the end of the night unless I want to pass out at 7pm. (damn you, day drinking.) None of this is great for recovering your health.

Over the past three weeks, just as my cold/cough/disease has started to improve, I have had to participate in a Beirut tournament, go see Amanda's band play at an outdoor party, and somehow make it through July 4th weekend, which was about 80 hours of drinking and 10 pounds of potato salad into my stomach.

Bad Decision: Drinking your weight in vodka when you've had a sore throat for 3 weeks.
Better Bad Decision:  Using orange juice as a  mixer. You know, for the vitamin C.

During this whole epic battle between me and my body's defense system, I somehow convinced myself it was a good idea go to on a first date with someone. Reschedule? HA. Rescheduling is for the weak. Pull it together, body. Miraculously, through fits of coughing, I managed to get this girl to like me a little (God, I'm such a charmer) and despite the fact that I appear to have the plague, she has continued to make out with me for a month (Win!). Here is where the evidence gets interesting. She has not gotten sick. Either this girl has the immune system of steel, or I do not have a virus. I'm starting to suspect this is all some elaborate torture scheme of my slowly appearing allergies. I haven't had allergies my entire life...until this year. It's like they appeared and waged a war.

          ALLERGY ARMY:  One month of nose running! One month of coughing! One month of swollen throat! YOU OWE US 26 YEARS OF SPRING-THROUGH-SUMMER MISERY, WHORE!
         ME:  NEVER! I am a healthy mother fucker! I. do. not. get. sick.
         ALLERGY ARMY:  Oh really? throws some pollen.
         ME: Yea...:wheeze, wheeze...I'll be fine in..coughcough...please...no...hack.

And then I die.
But really, I think I might be OK if I could end my nights with a little less of this:

Thumbs up, because I'm 4 cocktails deep.

and this:

I can't feel my face! Whooo!

And a little more of this:

A co-worker gave me that "detox" vitamin.

Yeah, that happened.

Basically, if I can keep my leg off Amanda and consume more healthy things, I might be able to get over a cold in less than a month. Maybe.

Now I have been taking it easy this week, and will probably be just about better by Saturday....which is when I have a wedding to go to. Will I survive? That depends on if there is an open bar. For my health's sake, I hope there is not. I am no match for open bar.

Life Lesson:  For every 3 weeks of BBQ's, bonfires, Beirut, and binging, book one week of movies and soup.

Coughcough.

You're gonna need it.

-LSLP, Ash.



the flood.

Last time I gave you the soapbox gay pride weekend talk. This time I'll give you the what the hell happened on gay pride weekend talk. As expected, I headed into Boston to watch the parade in the rain. It always amazes me how no one in the parade seems to notice they are soaking wet and marching through puddles. But hey, what the hell. After the parade, I headed to the women's block party with a few friends. This is an outdoor event, but you can go into any of the bars in the area to escape the predicted rain. The downside to doing this is that you basically step into a time-warp where there is almost total darkness, thumping techno music, and in your drunk state you're confused, disoriented, and not sure whether it is day or night. I felt like Dracula coming back into the sun after being in a club dancing for 20 minutes. If I had stayed in there 10 minutes longer I probably would have hissed and scowled at the sun upon emerging.

Day drinking is not my friend, and somewhere around 3 o'clock I had had enough and headed home to regroup myself for the evenings activity of more drinking and dancing. Since I had consumed my weight in bagels earlier that morning at brunch, my first (still slightly buzzed) thought upon arriving home was, "Hey, I should go for a run!" So I grabbed my dog and headed out to stumble-run around the neighborhood for 30 minutes.

Bad Decision: Going for a run with alcohol in your system.
Better Bad Decision:  Using this as an excuse to call passing out in the middle of the day a "nap."

C'mon. That run was exhausting.
A couple solid hours of sleep in and back to Boston I went. The women's dance party was being held a Machine, which is a fairly large facility. Being gay pride weekend, this was probably at least one of their biggest nights of the year, if not the biggest. I suck at estimating numbers of people, so let's just say there were approximately shit-hundred people in the club. Everyone is dancing and drinking happily when about an hour into the night a water main breaks. Liquid begins to fill the hallway and floor area near the biggest bathroom in the place. Then an announcement is made.

Attention. Unfortunately one of our water mains has broken and we will have to shut off the two bathrooms on the first floor. Please use the bathroom in the back or the one upstairs.

Now picture a stampede of drunk people who have to pee.
Instantly the bathroom lines are 50 people deep everywhere.
Instantly I have to pee.

It's like when you are trapped in a car in traffic and as soon as you realize it would be impossible for you to access a bathroom for at least half an hour, you also realize you have to pee like a mother fucker. Much like wanting women, unavailability also makes you want bathrooms. So for the rest of the night you had to anticipate when you would need to pee, and go stand in line about 20-30 minutes before you thought that would happen. I am not exaggerating. The shortest line I stood in that night for the bathroom was 20 minutes. The longest was 40. This is all setting the stage for something...

These are actually gay women.

Towards the end of the night I attempted the upstairs bathroom line, found it wasn't too long (this was the 20 minute one) and added myself to the queue. As I moved up in line, I stood innocently chatting with a friend, just passing the time. La de da. When all of a sudden I felt a splash of warmth on my foot. I knew immediately what it was. (Spilled drinks are cold.) I turned to the girl next to me, who had an expression of half relief/half "who me?".

          ME:  Did you just pee on me?
          DEPENDS:  What? No. (Even these 2 words were slurred.)
          ME:  You did. You just peed on me.
          DEPENDS:  Looks the opposite way.
          ME:  You are peeing right now! There is currently pee coming out of you.

I looked down to verify my suspicion and sure enough there was pee streaming out from under her dress, down this chick's legs, and onto the bar floor. It should be noted that we were no where near the flooded area, so she was literally just peeing onto the dry floor of a bar.

I ran through a quick checklist.
Have I been stung by a jellyfish? No.
Do I have a rash or hives? No.
Is there a blemish on my foot? No.
Am I into being peed on? Definitely No.

Yeah, definitely not acceptable that I just got peed on. In my current horrified/intoxicated state I made a little bit of a scene about being peed on in that line. The fact that no one else seemed as horrified as I did only incited me to continue to make eye contact with everyone in that line going "She PEED on me. I just got PEED on." Looking back, that chick was wasted and despite the NOT OKness of it all, I shouldn't have further embarrassed her like I did. I don't know that girl, but I am sure this was a new low for her. And if it wasn't, then I'd like to hear some of her stories. The saddest part of the whole thing? She was only 2 people away from her turn to go. So close. So very very close.

I washed my foot in the sink, went back downstairs, danced the rest of the night away, and tried unsuccessfully to tell my story to all my drunk friends. (None of which understood the true horror of what had happened until the next morning.) Thankfully (silver lining) I was able to secure a snuggle partner for the night, because if you don't deserve to be the little spoon after being peed on by a stranger, I dont' know when you do.

Life Lesson: If you're at the point where you will pee on someone else, it's OK to cut the line.

Gotta love loopholes.
-LSLP, Ash.

seriously gay.

This blog is usually all fun and games. All, "hey, here's another bad decision I made that led to amazing(?) times. Let's all laugh at Ashly." But let's get serious for a hot minute here. There are some things we need to address because they are that massively important. Like Boston Gay Pride weekend. (If you're straight and you read this blog, you must now bump up Pride Weekend 10 notches on the list of things that are important to you. Because it's important to me, and I'm important to you, so now Gay Pride is important to you too. Do you see how that works? Congratulations, you just became an ally.)

Those elephants are being inappropriate.

In 2008, I wrote the below, italicized, blog post on a private blog that I never shared with the public. June is Gay Pride month, so the time to share is now:

Boston [gay] pride is this weekend, and for the first time in the history of my gayness it is not supposed to rain (Sadly, in 2011, we are back to our regularly scheduled program of it raining on my parade). Now i love watching a drag queen's cover girl foundation drip off her face under the safety of my umbrella as much as the next guy. but i would still rather dive for Jagger key chains and equality stickers from the safety of dry ground (sticker's don't stick once their wet you know).
Pride weekend usually involves a lot of drinking, a lot of partying, and a lot of noise. Many outsiders, and even some gays, look at the parade and festivities and think,"how unnecessary." Some people even go so far as to compare our unnecessary parades and pride events to the lack of straight pride parades, African-American pride parades, or Italian pride parades. They ask, "if these groups don't need parades, then why do the gays?"
And so, i give you this:

The march on Washington allowed African-Americans to have a dream and to move towards it. Towards equality. Today African-Americana's have parades in cities such as Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia.

Picking up after the holocaust and moving forward allowed the Jewish population to move towards safety. Towards equality. Today Jewish families have parades in cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis.

The marches held by the women's suffrage movement allowed women to move towards the right to vote. Towards equality. Today, women are equal.

Parades are typically thought to represent joy; to bring about emotions of happiness and awe at the floats and people in the parades. But the undertones of many parades are buried in hate and oppression. When African-Americans, Jews, Italians, Muslims, women, or gays march down the street in colorful costumes aboard floats depicting their cultures, they are being pushed by the scorn of their past, and sometimes of their present.
This weekend is for the people that have fought so hard to get us to the place we are.
This weekend is for the people who make it OK for me to hold the hand of the person I love. 
This weekend is for the people that allow me to feel like my life is right.
I am proud of you. And I am proud of the people who will push for us going forward.

I look forward to the day when we don't have to parade.
I look forward to the day when there is no pride weekend.
Because on that day, every day will be a day to be proud.
And there will be no need for a parade.
So yeah, I will wave my flag.

Something to keep in mind as we all get wasted dancing among the gays this weekend.

Bad Decision:  Hating others based on the people they love.
Better Bad Decision:  Realizing you might be wrong, and opening your mind.

Life Lesson: There is no agenda. Just the desire for understanding and acceptance.

Party on,Homos.
-LSLP, Ash.

lesbian spring break.

Every year on memorial day weekend The Great Lesbian Migration occurs and homos from all over flock to Provincetown for a weekend of excessive intoxication, dancing, and drama. I've been on 3 previous occasions, during 2 of which I was unintentionally involved in fights. (The 3rd time I was there was a day trip, and thus the opportunity for my involvement in a homo war was decreased.) So I braced myself for the impact and agreed to go down for one night at the end of the weekend.

It's a fairly long drive down to P-Town, so I made the executive decision to take the ferry from Boston Harbor. I won't deny that the driving factor behind this choice was the ability to begin drinking Bloody Mary's at 9am the second I boarded the ferry (OK, so I only made it to the vicinity of the docks before I started). I still needed to transport myself to the ferry from my suburban home though, so in the most convoluted route ever, I drove to Allston where I then participated in a thousand T transfers (in reality 4) and ended up in Boston Harbor. I had also chosen the ferry under the logic that due to the lesbian migration, everyone on the ferry would be a hot lesbian I could make friends with. Wrong. So, so wrong. It was me, a bunch of two-daddy families, and some older straight couples from out of state who didn't know what they were in for.

I have no lesbians. You are alone.

I was planning on staying with my friends Crissy and Ellen, as well as 3 fabulous gay boys. So upon arrival in P-Town I headed to the cottage I was staying in to meet them, and arrived to an elaborate breakfast spread in progress. Now while I was on the boat, Crissy had texted me with a question:

         

         CRISSY: Do you want breakfast?

          ME:        No thanks...I had a muffin.

But if you saw my arrival at the cottage you would have thought it had gone more like this:

          CRISSY: Do you want breakfast?

          ME:         FEED ME. I AM RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY.

As soon as we sat down to eat, I had completed my entire plate of french toast, eggs, and fruit before anyone else had finished applying butter and syrup. Fucking muffin.

Note how my hands are still suspiciously near my plate.

After a short food coma and some domestic cleaning of dishes, we headed down the street to a pool party at one of the hotels/bars. Generally I struggle with what to order to drink on vacation. It's vacation, so automatically I feel like I can't get what I normally get at home (because that wouldn't be special), so I usually just end up standing there for 10 minutes before I copy what someone else is drinking and end up dissatisfied.  The pool party, however, pleasantly displayed an abundance of people wandering around drinking out of sand-pail-sized buckets filled with tropical goodness. If there is the option to drink out of a bucket, is there really any other acceptable choice? No. No, there is not.

So I ordered my drink by pointing to the stack of buckets and saying, "One of those please." Then a girl walked up to the bar next to me, saw my giant drink with a handle AND straw, and became intrigued.

          GIRL: Hey, what's that called?

          Me:    I have no idea. I just pointed to the bucket.

          Girl looks at me, looks at my bucket, looks at the bartender...

          GIRL: Um, can I have a bucket of alcohol please?

Can it be possible to only order drinks this way from now on?

Shortly after this, I ran into Irina who promptly asked me what the fuck I was wearing (blue khaki's, brown tank top, loose button down white oxford, and boat shoes. Normal party attire right? ...no?) and began stripping off my clothing trying to make me closer to the apparently required level of skin appearance. I informed her that we don't know when the next yacht could arrive, but I would be ready to get on one when it does.

Later that night we headed out for a little party hopping. First stop: Foam Party. This really should have been called "Foam In A Corner Party", because that would have given a much more accurate idea of what you were going to encounter. We observed the people parting in the foam:

• There were about 200 lesbians not in the foam.
• There were about 15 lesbians in the foam.
• The non-foam lesbians all appeared grossed out by the foam lesbians.
• Once you joined the foam lesbians, you were now relegated to only the foam lesbians.

We made a strategic decision: We would not be going in the foam. The odds just didn't make sense.

As I consumed an additional drink, I began to wish I had someone to dance with that was gay, but not a man (although our gay boys were exceptionally fun to dance with). One of the guys that was staying with us had a boyfriend who had stayed home sick that night, and he was therefore not on the prowl for anyone.
Perfect.
Hello Gayman Wingman.
I described to Gayman Wingman what my ideal girl would look like and the two of us scanned the small room. A sea of spiky hair, board shorts, and beaters. Time to move on. The entire group transferred into the street and I realized I had to urinate before I could go any further.

          ME:         I have to pee!
          CRISSY: We'll just pop a squat somewhere along the way. Let's gooooooo!!
          ME:         What? No...there's a bathroom right here in this place nextdoor.
          CRISSY: Come ooooon!!
          ME:         But it's just right through that door...
          CRISSY: I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR DOORS.

Godadamn doors. Always slowing people down by making them pull and push them. The nerve. After the bathroom trip (through the doors), we moved down the street to a place called Boatslip. This is an indoor/outdoor bar/club/pool where there are basically no rules as far as I can tell. Spontaneously feel like going for a swim? Hop in! Sex in the pool? Sure why not. Take a pee in the corner of the outdoor dance floor (ahem, Crissy)? That will be acceptable.

Gayman Wingman and I began the hunt. Looking back, the ridiculousness of our drunken (and probably creepy) prowling of the facility by literally doing laps around the place looking for hot brunette girls is overwhelming. I'm honestly impressed by my own persistence here for not just settling for a dance partner that was wearing a popped collar or plaid shorts. After about 3 laps, the insanity of what we were doing set in and I gave up and went back to my friends to have fun dancing with the group. Not even a full minute after I gave up and said, "Forget it Wingman, it's not that important" exactly what we had been looking for walked by. Gayman Wingmay excitedly tapped my shoulder and pointed to a pretty brunette girl wearing cute shoes, a trendy vest over a t-shirt, and a fedora. I had a great time for the rest of the night with this cute, girly, chick from New York (of course from New York), and in the greatest bait-and-switch of all time, she met up with me again in the morning wearing black high tops, a wife beater, hoodie over one shoulder, and a flat-brimmed backwards Yankees cap. Well played, Newyork. Well played. I have to say though, she could pull it off.

We all eventually left the club and went back to the cottage for the requisite drunken grilled cheese and to commence the death climb up to my sleeping quarters. I was staying in the loft portion of the cottage, and to get there I needed to scale an almost vertical ladder up to a slanted ceiling without either falling down to the bottom, or smashing my skull at the top.

Bad Decision:  Staying in a lofted sleeping area on a trip where the main goal is to not be sober.
Better Bad Decision:  Bringing a new friend up there with you to save your life should you need to pee in the middle of the night and end up missing the ladder.

Needless to say, I survived the night.
The next day I went wandering/shopping down the main street with Newyork and a few friends, and eventually found myself laying by a pool with a daiquiri in my hand, observing a handful of other now half-human friends trying not to die from alcohol withdrawals. Pretty much the most ideal (and only appropriate) way to end a 36 hour vacation in the land of the gays.

On my way back to the boat, I grabbed burrito and went to find a place along the dock to sit and eat it. There were tons of people sitting along the dock and I had to walk quite a ways down (and notably closer to the boarding gangway to the ferry) to find an open place to sit. The second I threw myself down on a bench some guy came over and started rudely yelling at me for cutting all the people in line. I'm sorry, people haphazardly sitting on a dock is now considered a line? So a verbal fight with a gay man commenced during which I yelled things like, "The seats are all the same!". "This is a TICKETED boat. I think you'll make it on.", and "I JUST WANT TO CONSUME MY BURRITO."

In summary:
At least 5 tropical drinks: Check.
At least one of them frozen: Check.
Interaction with a cute girl: Check.
Fight with someone: Check
2011 P-Town weekend: Success.

Life Lesson: The only truly acceptable place to party is within the vicinity of a pool. This is the key to a fab summer.

You're welcome.
-LSLP, Ash.

a night on the town.

Fear not, friends, I'm alive and well, and with something to actually write about.

So Ash and I have been spending a lot of money...too much money, really...on feeding our hunger for weekends full of booze and entertainment in the form of traveling to places like NYC and Boston.  Well, as she's continued to abandon me for a different state entirely (see previous posts), she one day woke up and realized how much she missed being around such an awesome roommate and decided we needed to have a night, but something that wouldn't cost too much, and that we wouldn't have to travel far.  

Solution: a night devoted to visiting the local bars in a consecutive fashion in order to further acclimate ourselves to the town we've lived in since last October.  Or as we so eloquently called it... a townie bar crawl.  

Since all you fans are well-aware that toxic scorpion bowls live but a mere 1 minute walk away from our residence, we figured why not start the night off with a bang (and by bang I mean a bowl....of intoxication), along with some yummy edible options.  It was pretty quiet at the fusion asian cuisine bar, sans a bartender who kept criticizing us for drinking too slowly.  Look, we had to pace ourselves... after what seemed like an inch's worth of drink consumed, we both were already looking at each other saying something along the lines of...

Me: Shit, I am already feeling this.  Like already way past buzzed.  

Ash: Yeah, me too, and we still have so much food to eat.

Me: There's so much drink left.  

Both of us: UGGGGGGHHHHHHH why do we do this to ourselves?!  

Me: Can I have that last scallion pancake?

So finally we both sucked it up, and sucked it down, because once the food was gone, we were pretty antsy to go visit some new places.  

The next bar we went to we've been to on occasion, and they have a lovely deck outside complete with bar, tables, and industrial sized space heaters for your convenience.  It felt good being submerged in a sea of townies, as we gingerly sipped our drinks that had a satisfactory booze-to-mixer ratio.  Some older gentleman asked us something about if we fished...and then it turned into us saving his seat for him...I dunno, I wasn't following the conversation, but once he was back, we moved over to our own space.  I could see in my peripherals there were three guys plotting to come talk to us, and I just wanted to give a shout out to how random and poorly executed their "game" was...

Boy #1 to #2 & #3: (awkwardly loudly) Alright guys, we better get going!!! 

All 3 are saying bye to various surrounding people; they go to walk out, and then one guy turns around last second with the other 2 following and comes up to us...

Boy #2: Hello, ladies.  You guys come here often?

Ash: Eh, yeah, occasionally.  (In reality the last time we were at this particular bar was October.)

Boy #3: Nah, man, if you guys were regulars we woulda seen ya.  Never seen ya before!

I didn't realize townies had such a keen sense of their surroundings.

Anyway, we chatted with the guys for a while...the leader of the pack was totally jones-ing Ash, and I had to just keep drinking to stop myself from laughing out loud.  I don't think it ever gets old when I hang out with my girlfriends who aren't interested in the male gender get hit on repeatedly.  It generates a rather maniacal laugh that comes from deep within my soul...but I'm not bitter about men, or anything...

So long story short, Ash fbook friend requested the guy, because he was hell-bent on it and convinced if he didn't witness her doing so, she never would.  They asked us what we were doing that night, as in wondering if we wanted to accompany them to some party, but we had bigger and better plans for visiting bars we hadn't yet been to, and then to top it off, a few of Ash's friends were inviting us out to another bar, in a neighboring town.  So we ditched our plans to head down the street, and headed off to Scioli's.

Family friendly by day, buck-wild by night.

Now, I knew of this place, because it's located in a large plaza where it stands adjoined to one of the Planet Fitnesses I go to on occasion.  I figured it was going to be a small bar inside of a pizza bar.  What I didn't realize is we had a club-like atmosphere in our "backyard" that left us continually thinking we were somewhere else, like Worcester, or say like... the Jersey Shore...minus guidos.  As we pulled up around midnight, we noticed a huge crowd of people outside, and although confused as to why so many people were chilling in the parking lot, we walked in with our mission to find Ash's friends.  

But denied we were by a large bouncer named Troy, for the rules were something like after 12am, no one comes in.  Now, that would be understandable if the place was full to capacity--I've been to plenty of bars before where you need to lather yourself up in lube because it'd the only way you're going to get past people.  This was not the case.  The initial bar that we could see, complete with pool tables, was roughly warehouse sized, with lots of empty space.  But people behind us kept coming and being whiney bitches to the bouncers, who were getting irritated and yelling at everyone to get lost.  I pulled Ash back...

Me: Um so, I guess we're not going to get in?

Ash: Trust me, we're getting in.  I can just feel it.  

Little did I know my roomie is a bouncer-whisperer.  I watched as she worked her magic.  We stood quietly off to the side while others harassed the bouncers.  Then, she showered him with a mature friendliness, making him aware we weren't there to give him a hard time, that she knows what it's like to work at a bar, etc.  Key points being you try to connect with these individuals, making them feel empathized and, after being able to talk to them on a first-name-basis, convince said bouncers you are not whiney bitches like all those who preceded you.  I witnessed the change, the twinkle in his eye that let us know yes, we will be let in, but we must be patient and inconspicuous.  We waited about a minute, and thanking Troy, we were in.  

Drinks in hand, we were scoping out the scene for her friends.  Once again we were surprised because as we ventured further back, there was an additional large room complete with bar, dance floor with stage, and screens playing music videos to the music that was blasting.  Eventually we caught up with the friends and let go, dancing to our own beat, as not a lot of people were on the dance floor.  But the crowd grew, and before we knew it, Ash and I were surrounded by men, again.  I don't blame them, we're pretty awesome on the dance floor-- the fact that we can move and her and I seem to channel similar thoughts makes for a good-looking pair of dancers without premeditated choreography.  

So did I mention there was a stage?  Well, I pushed Ash into dancing up there first, because those that we occasionally saw take a whack at it were nothing special, and also I initially wussed out.  She looked great up there, and a few of our guy acquaintances continued to dance with me and we cheered her on.  Then the dollar bills got busted out.

Bad Decision: Making your roomie get up on a townie-bar dance floor stage.

Better Bad Decision: Throwing $ bills at her, encouraging others to do the same.

Well in reality, it was one of the guys who started, but she didn't see it, so I grabbed the $2, got her attention, and threw them right at her.  I'm proud to say she made a whopping $5 that night.  

So I got up on stage eventually, and we had a ton of fun dancing over men and dancing with other girls up on our platform.  Even our guy friends jumped up at one point.  I thought Ash was making out with a Latino man at one point, but further clarification revealed he was the one trying to kiss her neck, she was not giving him the light of day.  Make yourself wanted, yet untouchable...well done.  Then the lights came on-- time to go!  We made it all the way to the door and then Ash turns around...

Ash: Fuck.  My keys.  I lost them.

Me: Well, you had them when we came in, they are bound to be in this building.  

So we searched high and low in the dance arena, but to no avail.  At this point I got paranoid that someone stole them, and kept insisting we go out to her car to make sure it was even there.  But we spotted Troy, our lovely bouncer friend, and let him know we couldn't find her keys, so he helped look.  I mean we searched for a good 10 minutes or so, and then when we thought all hope was gone, a magical man with a magical pair of car keys strolled right up to Troy saying he had found them.  Overwhelmed with excitement we both hugged our Troy man, and with guys in tow, peaced out in the FJ.

So we thought these dudes wanted to have an after party.  Turns out the house we ended up going to wasn't theirs, but a buddy's, and no one else was really there.  Sketchy?  Yeah.  But they were harmless enough, and Ash needed to pee.  Dude #1 decided to ask me to follow him outside, as Dude #2 waited for Ash, and I knew what I was getting myself into.  I also knew Ash wouldn't leave me unattended for long, especially considering the obvious fact that guys aren't her cup of tea.  So off I meandered with Dude #1 to the backyard.  Yes, you heard me, because that's how it's done in town.

Bad Decision:  Making out with random dude outside in the back of a tailgate.

Better Bad Decision: Not allowing it to go much further than that.  I said much.  

Meanwhile back in the house, Ashly was wondering where I was, after hanging out with Dude #2 for a while and awaiting my return.

Ash: Where's Amanda?

Dude #2: I dunno, they probably went out for a walk.  You want a tour of the place?

Ash: Hmm, yeah, sure, that's cool.  

(after many minutes pass)

Ash: No seriously, where's Amanda?

Dude #2: She's probably already on "the tour".

Ash: (thinking) I suddenly don't want to be on the tour, anymore.

Eventually my paranoia sunk in, as I kept hearing Ash's voice, so I said it was time to go.  We dropped the guys off at yet another location, and finally headed home.  We decided at 3am as we went to bed that we were much better off spooning in bed with Royce in the middle.  And even though we only had a scorpion bowl between us plus an additional one or two drinks over the course of the rest of the night,  I got a nice crash course in re-learning what a true hangover feels like.  Ugh.  

Life Lesson: It's important to be aware of your surroundings.  

Otherwise, being in the backyard in flip flops leads to poison ivy on your foot.   

Please excuse the pedicure.

Hey, it's important to be an active member of your community.

LSLP, Amanda xo