I've mentioned before that my best friend, Jocelyn, was a grade behind me in high school. While this made me sad in some ways (never getting to have high school classes with her, starting college without her, etc), sometimes it was kind of cool. Like when she started looking at colleges and went to all of my classes with me for a day to get a feel for the school I was going to.
I should back up very slightly. At the beginning of my senior year and Jocelyn's junior of high school, she was in a play called "The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940." If you want a good laugh, obtain a copy of this script. Or even better, find someplace that's producing it. It's absolutely hilarious. Such things occur as:
"There's been a murder! Call the police!"
"POLICE! POLICE!"
"On the phone!"
Anyway. Glazing over a lot of spoilers, Jocelyn played a character from Germany. 99.9% of her lines were in English, but at one point, she did start counting in German. And back to the A story, here.
So, Jocelyn goes to classes with me one day. We went to American Lit, which was completely uneventful and little dull. We had lunch, and then we went to German class. A lot of my German class was perpetually confused and could not wrap their minds around grammatical gender. While these college students were busy being confused, Jocelyn was sitting behind me, banging her head on the desk, wanting to scream. Finally, the professor gave up and told us to open our books to a particular page number. Behind me, Jocelyn gasped, and started furiously tapping my shoulder. "Roz! Roz! I understood that! I can count to five in German! Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier, Fünf! Why can I count to five in German?"
I just whispered "Helsa" in response, and then heard Jocelyn stifling laughter.
This is not the truly incredible story about Jocelyn's innate ability to speak German. That was simply the warm-up. The truly fantastic incident happened several weeks later.
Jocelyn was telling me a story about a friend of hers who had just auditioned for an opera company. I'm going to call this friend Michael, because they just said that name on TV. So, Michael was told that he would be expected to perform two pieces in different languages, to be determined on the spot by the panel. Michael tried to learn some German opera, but couldn't manage it, so he hedged his bets and learned several pieces in Italian and in French. He got to his audition and was first asked to perform an Italian piece. He was relieved. Italian was super easy for him. He sang beautifully and everybody on the panel was extremely happy with his performance. He felt really, really confident until the panel announced their next selection...it was German. Michael began muddled through the song, site reading where he could, but the letter combinations just didn't make sense. So he did what we all do when we don't know the words for a song we wish to sing. He made random nonsense sounds, hoping to just blend in to the music.
I'm going to switch to quoting Jocelyn here, because this is where it becomes amazing.
"So, Michael's panicking and just thinks 'Shit. What sounds German? Ach? Yeah.' And belts out "Ach!...Der...Deutsch...Hund!"
I starting laughing and said, "Yeah? He stood there and sang that?"
"Well, I don't know. I was making up words to take place of the words he was making up."
"You just made that up? Just now? You just spat out some random sounds?"
"Well, yeah. That's what Michael said he did. Why?"
"Because that was a sentence. You just pulled the phrase 'Oh, the German dog' out of your ass."
That was the day we decided Jocelyn's super power was an innate knowledge of German.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Snot Potatoes, or The Origin of My Eating Disorder
Okay, this probably isn't really the origin of my eating disorder. The origin of my unhealthy relationship is probably actually that I was a slightly chubby kid who was constantly harassed and called "that fat girl." In elementary school, kids were supposed to bring treats for the whole class on their birthdays. One kid brought in red rope licorice for his birthday. Red rope licorice is pretty awesome. So I was excited, and was just noming on my red rope licorice, being all happy. And the jerks in my class made fun of me for eating the same thing the rest of them were eating! "Wow, fatty, eat much?" Yes. Yes, I do. Suck it. At another point, I think in fifth grade, we were watching some meat propaganda film. If you recall from my previous blog, I have always loved animals and from second grade through high school would not consume any meat. I still don't eat red meat. So, this propaganda film informed us that "If you didn't eat meat, you'd be as thin as a sheet of paper." I rolled my eyes at this, and announced to the kids at my table, "I don't eat meat." And the little bastard next to me responded with "Then why are you so fat?" Gee, I can't imagine why I might have issues with food. For several years, I would not eat anything in front of anybody. I dropped to an unhealthy weight in high school and through most of college. Since, I've gone to the other extreme and am clinically overweight. It's still insanely difficult for me to eat in the presence of somebody I don't know well. I mean, I can go to restaurants, but for example, I went to dinner with an old workmate and his wife. They're great and I adore them, but going to dinner with them was a huge source of anxiety for me.
However, it's more amusing for me to blame my food issues on Snot Potatoes, so I'll go with that. When I was a kid, hot lunch was different than it is now. I don't think the FDA even existed when I was kid (this may be an exaggeration). Nutritional requirements? No. So once a week, hot lunch was turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy in elementary school. All of the kids loved mashed potato day. Including me, cause yay, carbs! Well, my sister told me that the slightly yellow-ish gravy on the mashed potatoes was snot. So I never ate those again. I still associate turkey and chicken gravy with disgustingness. So, thanks for that, Sis.
However, it's more amusing for me to blame my food issues on Snot Potatoes, so I'll go with that. When I was a kid, hot lunch was different than it is now. I don't think the FDA even existed when I was kid (this may be an exaggeration). Nutritional requirements? No. So once a week, hot lunch was turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy in elementary school. All of the kids loved mashed potato day. Including me, cause yay, carbs! Well, my sister told me that the slightly yellow-ish gravy on the mashed potatoes was snot. So I never ate those again. I still associate turkey and chicken gravy with disgustingness. So, thanks for that, Sis.
Come Back, Horny!
I was apparently a strange child. Go figure.
I have always preferred animals to most people. I don't mean, "Oooh, I like kitties!" (but, well, duh). I mean all animals. Cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters, raccoons that hung out in the dumpsters, worms, bugs. Bugs were really neat. Sometimes I really question all of my life decisions for not having studied entomology in college. When I was a kid, I went back and forth between "I wanna be an author!" and "I wanna be a veterinarian!" Then I realized that being a veterinarian wouldn't just mean "I get to play with animals!" but that it meant "I have to see animals when they're in pain." And that would haunt my dreams. One time I took my cat to the vet and a dog died in the waiting room. I cried for hours. Not like a trickle of tears. Gut-wrenching sobs for hours. I was 20. I definitely could never be the person breaking the news to somebody that their pet was sick.
I spent most of second and third grade "writing books" about cats and hamsters. Recess? Fuck that noise! I'd go to the school library during recess, grab information books about cats, and summarize them, because I was determined to write informational books about cats. Same with hamsters. While this never took off into a lucrative career, it did serve quite well for preparing me for freelance technical writing. So, that's cool. Thanks, me, for being so damn weird as a kid.
What was I talking about? Oh, yes. Come back, Horny.
I always thought bugs were cool, be they insects, arachnids, vespines. Oh, vespines. Such interesting creatures. Vespines, my dear readers, would be hornets. It seems I used to play with hornets when I was around three or four. Yeah. Play. With. Hornets. I don't even know what this means. I asked my mother about it today and she doesn't remember. So I assume this means I would be jumping on my Pogo Ball (that's right, I'm an 80s kid!) while a bunch of hornets flew around overhead. I probably talked to the hornets at the same time. I don't know. This was also the same era in my life in which I called all animals by diminutives. Kitty, Doggy, Bunny, Birdy, etc.
So, one day, I was in the backyard, playing with hornets. One of the hornets flew away, as hornets are wont to do. And I burst into tears. Like, absolutely inconsolable, because my friend was leaving and I never even got to say good-bye! According to my mother, I ran after the hornet, screaming for it's return. And I wasn't just screaming, "Come back, Friend!" I was running across the backyard, screaming at the top of my lungs for all the neighbors to hear, "COME BACK, HORNY! HORNY! I WANT MY FRIEND HORNY! HOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRNNNNNNNNNNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
WHY IS LEIGH WHANNELL IN MY HEAD?!
Holy fucking fuck (sorry, Mom, it's one of those revelations though).
Has anybody bothered to read this blog from the beginning? Basically the origin of it was I watched Insidious, which kind of threw me because a scene towards the end mirrored a recurring nightmare I had as a child very well. That nightmare, and the similarity to a particular scene in Insidious, is detailed here: http://insmonibabble.blogspot.com/2013/12/ghosts-in-shower.html. (Don't worry, it is mostly spoiler free and only refers to a scene that is kind of inevitable from the description of the film and only in the broadest of terms.)
Tonight, I watched Insidious Chapter Two. Overall, I genuinely think the sequel was a lot better than the original. And I did like most of the first film, the ending just got a little out of hand for my tastes. I find James Wan's directing to be just mind-blowingly good and genuinely scary. Saw is the only movie I've ever seen that has truly frightened me on a lasting level (I'll tell that story here some time). I rewatched The Conjuring last night and still have the high opinion of it that I had in the cinema (some small issues, but I'm speaking generally here). Basically, lots of good stuff in the sequel, but not quite enough Patrick Wilson foxy-ing up my screen. Usually not the type of guy I find super attractive, but something about that man...
ANYWAY! Here comes the bit that could be slightly spoiler-ish, but again I intend to speak in broad terms and I don't think what I reveal will ruin the movie for anybody who, like me, waits ages to see movies and hasn't seen it yet. This is your warning. If you want to watch this movie and go into with less knowledge than you'd catch in your average trailer, close this now.
Still reading? Last chance.
At one point, Patrick Wilson makes an uncomfortable face, then reaches into his mouth and removes one of his own teeth that has just sporadically fallen out. That's it. End spoiler. Aren't you happy I gave you all of those warnings and that you kept reading?
The dream about my teeth falling out lasted much longer than the ghosts in the shower. I don't recall when the ghosts in the shower dream stopped happening, but I had the teeth falling out dream well into college. Maybe a little beyond. And it was pretty much exactly how Patrick Wilson portrayed the experience (a little less sexy, perhaps). Uncomfortable, mouth hurts, shit, something's wrong, what's back here, oh, it's a tooth.
"But Roz, everyone has that dream!" (I think.) Well, good. That knowledge makes me less convinced that Leigh Whannell just IS THE AUTHOR OF MY CHILDHOOD NIGHTMARES!
Has anybody bothered to read this blog from the beginning? Basically the origin of it was I watched Insidious, which kind of threw me because a scene towards the end mirrored a recurring nightmare I had as a child very well. That nightmare, and the similarity to a particular scene in Insidious, is detailed here: http://insmonibabble.blogspot.com/2013/12/ghosts-in-shower.html. (Don't worry, it is mostly spoiler free and only refers to a scene that is kind of inevitable from the description of the film and only in the broadest of terms.)
Tonight, I watched Insidious Chapter Two. Overall, I genuinely think the sequel was a lot better than the original. And I did like most of the first film, the ending just got a little out of hand for my tastes. I find James Wan's directing to be just mind-blowingly good and genuinely scary. Saw is the only movie I've ever seen that has truly frightened me on a lasting level (I'll tell that story here some time). I rewatched The Conjuring last night and still have the high opinion of it that I had in the cinema (some small issues, but I'm speaking generally here). Basically, lots of good stuff in the sequel, but not quite enough Patrick Wilson foxy-ing up my screen. Usually not the type of guy I find super attractive, but something about that man...
ANYWAY! Here comes the bit that could be slightly spoiler-ish, but again I intend to speak in broad terms and I don't think what I reveal will ruin the movie for anybody who, like me, waits ages to see movies and hasn't seen it yet. This is your warning. If you want to watch this movie and go into with less knowledge than you'd catch in your average trailer, close this now.
Still reading? Last chance.
At one point, Patrick Wilson makes an uncomfortable face, then reaches into his mouth and removes one of his own teeth that has just sporadically fallen out. That's it. End spoiler. Aren't you happy I gave you all of those warnings and that you kept reading?
The dream about my teeth falling out lasted much longer than the ghosts in the shower. I don't recall when the ghosts in the shower dream stopped happening, but I had the teeth falling out dream well into college. Maybe a little beyond. And it was pretty much exactly how Patrick Wilson portrayed the experience (a little less sexy, perhaps). Uncomfortable, mouth hurts, shit, something's wrong, what's back here, oh, it's a tooth.
"But Roz, everyone has that dream!" (I think.) Well, good. That knowledge makes me less convinced that Leigh Whannell just IS THE AUTHOR OF MY CHILDHOOD NIGHTMARES!
Monday, January 13, 2014
CHILDREN!!!!!!
A few years back, my dear, dear friend, who I'll call Natalie, announced she was pregnant. This was tremendously exciting. I love Natalie and I love her husband, who we'll call Logan and I was very excited that they were joining forces to create an awesome new person.
Another extremely dear friend, who I'll call Jo, and I decided we needed to throw Natalie a baby shower. Of course, we couldn't have a regular old baby shower, with a bunch of women and tea and blah blah blah. No. The first decision we made was that it had to be male friendly. The second decision was that "baby shower" was not the best name and renamed it "Natalie and Logan's Procreation Party."
Then we started thinking about the games to play. We did the obvious "freezing cupcake topper babies in ice cubes and seeing whose ice baby was 'born' first" game. We did a feed the piggy bank game where if you said somebody's real name instead of an assigned goofy name, you had to drop change into a piggy bank. So we had the games. Now we needed to come up with the prizes.
We considered doing the normal prize-y things, but then thought the better of it. Jo and I decided it was far more wise to buy a bunch of toys from the dollar store for prizes. We got some fantastic dollar store toys for our adult friends. A ball-in-a-cup. A little water/pinball game. A "feather" boa. Then we found the hats. There was a whole host of hilarious foam hats shaped like various animals. Our favorites were the shark and the T-Rex. The T-Rex hat just showed the top of the T-Rex head, down to the top jaw. So basically, it looked like whoever was wearing the hat had their inside of a dinosaur's mouth. The shark hat was a foam visor with a 3-D shark face. Jo and I loved these hats. There's a photo out there of us posing in the dollar store wearing them. The problem was, we couldn't decide which one to go with. I made the joke that if only there was a small child in the store, we could have that child pick which hat was better. What better way to determine the best gift for 25-35 year olds?
We looked around the store and found no children, something I had never witnessed in this dollar store before. So we resumed our shopping, still wearing the hats, of course! We got out decorations, we got our other prizes, etc., etc. Then something magical happened. The door to the store opened, and in walked a woman...with two children. A boy and a girl. In my inability to guess age, I'd say they were both around seven.
Jo saw the opportunity and became delighted. I knew exactly what was going on in her head, but the way it was expressed was simultaneously the most terrifying thing I've ever witnessed and the funniest.
A huge grin on her face, Jo screamed, "LITTLE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and ran towards the kids. The terrifying part? Their mother had no problem with this. Strange adult running towards your kids, screaming "Hooray! Children!"? Sure, nothing wrong with that. The woman basically pushed her children forward towards us, encouraging them to talk to these strange adults.
They chose the shark.
Another extremely dear friend, who I'll call Jo, and I decided we needed to throw Natalie a baby shower. Of course, we couldn't have a regular old baby shower, with a bunch of women and tea and blah blah blah. No. The first decision we made was that it had to be male friendly. The second decision was that "baby shower" was not the best name and renamed it "Natalie and Logan's Procreation Party."
Then we started thinking about the games to play. We did the obvious "freezing cupcake topper babies in ice cubes and seeing whose ice baby was 'born' first" game. We did a feed the piggy bank game where if you said somebody's real name instead of an assigned goofy name, you had to drop change into a piggy bank. So we had the games. Now we needed to come up with the prizes.
We considered doing the normal prize-y things, but then thought the better of it. Jo and I decided it was far more wise to buy a bunch of toys from the dollar store for prizes. We got some fantastic dollar store toys for our adult friends. A ball-in-a-cup. A little water/pinball game. A "feather" boa. Then we found the hats. There was a whole host of hilarious foam hats shaped like various animals. Our favorites were the shark and the T-Rex. The T-Rex hat just showed the top of the T-Rex head, down to the top jaw. So basically, it looked like whoever was wearing the hat had their inside of a dinosaur's mouth. The shark hat was a foam visor with a 3-D shark face. Jo and I loved these hats. There's a photo out there of us posing in the dollar store wearing them. The problem was, we couldn't decide which one to go with. I made the joke that if only there was a small child in the store, we could have that child pick which hat was better. What better way to determine the best gift for 25-35 year olds?
We looked around the store and found no children, something I had never witnessed in this dollar store before. So we resumed our shopping, still wearing the hats, of course! We got out decorations, we got our other prizes, etc., etc. Then something magical happened. The door to the store opened, and in walked a woman...with two children. A boy and a girl. In my inability to guess age, I'd say they were both around seven.
Jo saw the opportunity and became delighted. I knew exactly what was going on in her head, but the way it was expressed was simultaneously the most terrifying thing I've ever witnessed and the funniest.
A huge grin on her face, Jo screamed, "LITTLE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and ran towards the kids. The terrifying part? Their mother had no problem with this. Strange adult running towards your kids, screaming "Hooray! Children!"? Sure, nothing wrong with that. The woman basically pushed her children forward towards us, encouraging them to talk to these strange adults.
They chose the shark.
My Love Affair with Vegemite
Yesterday I posted an entry about my struggle with Depression. With that background information, I'd like to tell the story about how I came to love Vegemite.
I have some fairly intense anxiety about certain things. One of the worst is doing things alone. I don't know exactly what I think is going to happen, but doing things alone has just been nearly unfathomable to me for a large chunk of my life. There have been countless movies I've wanted to see in the cinema but had nobody to go with, so I just waited for the DVD release. I love Cleveland and there have been times I've really wanted to go for a spontaneous visit. Nobody to go with me? Never mind. It's an ordeal buying shoes without having somebody with me. I even have difficulties going to visit people alone. My best friend lives on the other side of the country. I've been out to see her twice, but each time I had to take my now-ex with me so I wasn't traveling alone.
Yesterday, I mentioned a breakup with my ex and the hit my sense of identity took. Not only was my relationship gone, but so was my family, my home, and even some of my friends. I was devastated and didn't know what to do. So I called a friend in New York City and told him what had happened. He immediately responded with "Get out here." And to everybody's surprise, even my own, I did.
Of course, I was panicking about which form of transportation to use. Flying was the logical option, but flights are expensive, I'd never flown by myself before, I didn't know the city and, the most overwhelming concern, I have a pretty serious fear of abandonment. Since the one person I'd thought would never abandon me had, in fact, just abandoned me, that fear was extra strong. I couldn't get around the fear of not being picked up at the airport. The logical part of me knows this is stupid. My friend, who I guess I'll call Charlie, is a fantastic person. I love him dearly. He is the only person in the contacts list on my phone for whom I use punctuation. He's not "Charlie" in my phone. He's "Charlie!" There is no logical reason for me to fear him abandoning me in a strange airport, or anywhere for that matter. He's a great person. He was exactly who I needed to see during this horrible crisis of identity. So I ultimately decided to drive to New York City.
The drive from where I was living at this time to NYC was about 700 miles. So I went to the library, checked out some audio books, and drove to NYC while listening to "Dracula" (which I've read more than any other book in my adult life). I was still heart-broken and feeling lost and, even though I was on my way to a wonderful friend who I knew was going to take great care of me, I felt so incredibly lonely. I called Charlie several times on the drive. He told me about life in New York and about his boyfriend, who I'd never met before, but had spoken to on the phone. Daniel is from Australia, really nice, and shared Charlie's and my odd sense of humor. Somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania in the Adirondacks, cell phone reception went out. I was tired and sad and stopped at a random hotel. I fell asleep in a strange bed watching "The Golden Girls," then woke up after a brief but expensive nap, and continued on my drive. Exhausted and sad, I arrived in New York City. I called Charlie as I crossed into Midtown and he ran downstairs and jumped in my car to help me find someplace safe to park. Daniel was waiting by the door when we walked in, with a plate in his hand. He handed me the plate and took my suitcase. On that plate was the most beautiful sight my eyes have ever beheld - two pieces of toasted French bread, buttered, and coated in Vegemite. I took a bite and it was the most phenomenal thing I've ever tasted. It was delicious and salty and just full of flavor. Mostly, it was just one of those random, small gestures that was so overwhelmingly kind that I didn't even know what to do. I have never felt so welcomed into somebody's home as I did when that stranger met me at the door and handed me something so reminiscent of his home.
Charlie and Daniel did so much for me in the time I stayed with them, the most obvious being allowing me to show up at their place and stay with them. And that is endlessly appreciated. It was tremendous of them to allow me to stay there and I'll never forget that kindness. But the part that brought tears of gratitude and feelings of safety and of being loved was that Vegemite toast. To this day, when I taste Vegemite, that's what I taste - safety, love, acceptance, and the most genuine act of kindness and friendship I've ever experienced.
"Charlie!": I love you, man.
I have some fairly intense anxiety about certain things. One of the worst is doing things alone. I don't know exactly what I think is going to happen, but doing things alone has just been nearly unfathomable to me for a large chunk of my life. There have been countless movies I've wanted to see in the cinema but had nobody to go with, so I just waited for the DVD release. I love Cleveland and there have been times I've really wanted to go for a spontaneous visit. Nobody to go with me? Never mind. It's an ordeal buying shoes without having somebody with me. I even have difficulties going to visit people alone. My best friend lives on the other side of the country. I've been out to see her twice, but each time I had to take my now-ex with me so I wasn't traveling alone.
Yesterday, I mentioned a breakup with my ex and the hit my sense of identity took. Not only was my relationship gone, but so was my family, my home, and even some of my friends. I was devastated and didn't know what to do. So I called a friend in New York City and told him what had happened. He immediately responded with "Get out here." And to everybody's surprise, even my own, I did.
Of course, I was panicking about which form of transportation to use. Flying was the logical option, but flights are expensive, I'd never flown by myself before, I didn't know the city and, the most overwhelming concern, I have a pretty serious fear of abandonment. Since the one person I'd thought would never abandon me had, in fact, just abandoned me, that fear was extra strong. I couldn't get around the fear of not being picked up at the airport. The logical part of me knows this is stupid. My friend, who I guess I'll call Charlie, is a fantastic person. I love him dearly. He is the only person in the contacts list on my phone for whom I use punctuation. He's not "Charlie" in my phone. He's "Charlie!" There is no logical reason for me to fear him abandoning me in a strange airport, or anywhere for that matter. He's a great person. He was exactly who I needed to see during this horrible crisis of identity. So I ultimately decided to drive to New York City.
The drive from where I was living at this time to NYC was about 700 miles. So I went to the library, checked out some audio books, and drove to NYC while listening to "Dracula" (which I've read more than any other book in my adult life). I was still heart-broken and feeling lost and, even though I was on my way to a wonderful friend who I knew was going to take great care of me, I felt so incredibly lonely. I called Charlie several times on the drive. He told me about life in New York and about his boyfriend, who I'd never met before, but had spoken to on the phone. Daniel is from Australia, really nice, and shared Charlie's and my odd sense of humor. Somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania in the Adirondacks, cell phone reception went out. I was tired and sad and stopped at a random hotel. I fell asleep in a strange bed watching "The Golden Girls," then woke up after a brief but expensive nap, and continued on my drive. Exhausted and sad, I arrived in New York City. I called Charlie as I crossed into Midtown and he ran downstairs and jumped in my car to help me find someplace safe to park. Daniel was waiting by the door when we walked in, with a plate in his hand. He handed me the plate and took my suitcase. On that plate was the most beautiful sight my eyes have ever beheld - two pieces of toasted French bread, buttered, and coated in Vegemite. I took a bite and it was the most phenomenal thing I've ever tasted. It was delicious and salty and just full of flavor. Mostly, it was just one of those random, small gestures that was so overwhelmingly kind that I didn't even know what to do. I have never felt so welcomed into somebody's home as I did when that stranger met me at the door and handed me something so reminiscent of his home.
Charlie and Daniel did so much for me in the time I stayed with them, the most obvious being allowing me to show up at their place and stay with them. And that is endlessly appreciated. It was tremendous of them to allow me to stay there and I'll never forget that kindness. But the part that brought tears of gratitude and feelings of safety and of being loved was that Vegemite toast. To this day, when I taste Vegemite, that's what I taste - safety, love, acceptance, and the most genuine act of kindness and friendship I've ever experienced.
"Charlie!": I love you, man.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Betrayal on the Most Personal of Levels
I recently started taking anti-depressants again. I'm having a really difficult time with having had to do this.
Depression isn't a new thing for me by any means. I don't remember there being life before Depression. I've heard of some people having a fairly sudden onset of Depression. This was not the case with me. I don't have many clear memories of my childhood, but I do remember my fifth grade teacher recommending my mother take me to see a therapist. I don't clearly remember much other than the fact that I did go to one session. I don't know why it didn't continue.
I was suicidal in middle school. I remember one day contemplating dousing myself in nail polish remover and setting myself on fire. That's around the time I went on antidepressants for the first time, but that didn't last long. Again, I don't remember why.
The worst was when I was in college. I went away to college. Far away enough that I felt like I was having the "away at college" experience, but close enough that I could still see my best friends, who were a year younger than me. I was excited for college. Until I got there. My roommate barely spoke to me and told me from day one she wanted to room with somebody she'd met at orientation. I didn't make friends on my floor. I was a lit major and I didn't read a single book my first semester. I had a 4.0. So, the academics were garbage. And even more upsetting was, even though I was less than an hour away, my friends from high school never came to visit. Ever. They were still in high school, so I'd thought they would all jump at the opportunity to stay on a college campus for a weekend every once in a while. Nope. I wasn't learning, I wasn't having fun, I missed my cat, so I transferred to a university about fifteen minutes away from my mom's house and moved back home at the end of the semester. I went to the new school feeling like a complete failure. We always hear how great college is and blah blah blah. No. You lied to me, Judd Apatow! There was no Seth Rogen living on my floor, being adorable and mischievous. My roommate was not my best friend. I *did* end up meeting Loudon Wainwright while I was in college, but not because of college.
So I returned home a failure. I was extremely ashamed of everything about myself. So I spent a lot of time in college pretending to be someone else. I put forth a lot of effort trying to prove I was fun. I'm pretty sure I was just regarded as annoying. Probably. I annoyed myself. I hated myself. So much. I'd frequently tell people "I don't want to live here anymore," "here" sometimes referring to the town, sometimes referring to the state, but what I wanted to be saying was "I don't want to live anymore." I changed majors from English to Theatre Design, because, I don't know, I'm stupid. This provided me lots of parties to go to and pretend I was fun. I could drink everybody under the table and I was always the last person to leave, because I was just that much fun, dammit! I convinced myself I was going to be a lighting designer and a damn good one. All the while, I kept wishing I wasn't there. I thought if I could move, it would get better. So when I got an opportunity to take a summer internship in another state, I jumped at it. I packed my car and drove away to a new place, where I still pretended I was fun in the way I thought people wanted me to be. While I was there, my suicidal thoughts began to run rampant. I'd go to work and look around for things I could use to kill myself. I never made any attempts, but I saw opportunities everywhere. I was an assistant lighting designer, so a big part of my job was hanging lights. Walking around on catwalks and going up in scissor lifts with long pieces of cable, you get a lot of ideas about how you could die. I'd go home and take pills. Never a whole bottle, but more than I should have. A lot of drinking happened, and I would purposely do stupid things like get extremely inebriated and take more aspirin than recommended. Sometimes I did this with the idea that I was going to go home and slit my wrists, and this would help me bleed faster. This was when I started smoking, half wanting to fit in with other and half hoping it would bring about my death sooner. Finally, I contacted a psychiatrist who started me on antidepressants and recommended I quit the internship and go home where I at least had a support system.
Again, I returned home feeling like a miserable failure. I couldn't even do what I was studying in college. Before I'd left for the internship, I'd been working as a technician on rentals at my university theatre. On my return, I phoned my boss at that job who I had also regarded as a friend. Foolishly, I was honest and told him I'd come home early because I wasn't doing well emotionally and I would like to return to work. I was not fired, but I was never scheduled to work again. So I was a failure who now was angry and felt betrayed. This led to super pissed off, stand-offish, "everybody leave me the fuck alone" Roz. I don't think many people from college know how badly I wanted to die. While I was taking medication after medication, seeing therapist after therapist, my best friend told me I was a "Negative Fucking Nancy" and proceeded to refuse to speak to me for the next year. The only reason I stayed in college was for spite. I thought about changing my major back to English, but so many people in the theatre department were hinting that I didn't belong there that I was furious and finished the program just to show them.
My senior year, I took a directing class, because it was required for my degree. We were given an assignment in which we created an abstract autobiographical scene. My scene showed me going in to talk a man (representing my boss from the tech job), telling him I had a problem and needed to talk about it. The man's response was to start throwing ping pong balls at me, until I got up, walked out of the room, closed the door, sat down, lit a cigarette, and started crying. The chair of the theatre department was my instructor for that course. She watched my scene, then told my friend who I had brought in to play "the man" he could have thrown the ping pong balls at me in a more believable way. She then pelted me in the face with ping pong balls so hard she actually chipped one of the lenses in my glasses. I directed a one-act play for that class, after which she told me "Huh. I didn't expect you to be able to pull that off."
During my senior year of college, I met a boy in my linguistics class. This was during the kind of whore-ish period of my self-loathing. I went on a date with him after giving a blow job to a guy in my Medieval Literature class. And I wound up falling madly in love with him. The boy (who I'll be calling Nerfherder) and I did all that couply nonsense, such as vacations. Shortly before going on a road trip to Boston, I started a new antidepressant regimen, including Seroquel, a mood stabilizer with some serious sedating effects. This sedative was making it difficult for me to wake up in the morning. Nerfherder berated me for being lazy to the point where I decided my antidepressants weren't worth it and stopped taking them altogether. Not surprisingly, I spiraled.
When Nerfherder and I moved in together, I was working at a job I loved in a small shop. I still had a lot of self-loathing and allowed this job I cared about to be a focal point of my identity. My boss was terminated in January, so I stepped up and took control of the shop with no promotion and no pay raise, just being an interim manager with a metric fuck-ton of overtime until they hired my boss's replacement. So, from January to April, I ran things. Then they brought in a woman who I will call "Rusty Cunt Bucket" (I do believe this is a thing Ari Gold screamed at an object in an episode of "Entourage" and not my own creation). I offered to help RCB with anything she might need help with, letting her know what vendors we ordered what from, etc, etc. RCB told me I was "just a keyholder" and cut me down from the 70 hours a week I'd been working to 5. I was devastated beyond words. That wasn't just some job to me. It was the thing I was most proud of in my adult life. It was my redemption for all of the self-hatred. And out of nowhere, I was told I wasn't valued or even necessary. Hell, I wasn't even wanted. I quit and took a job I hated. That was when I finally began to actually hurt myself.
I had lost a significant part of my identity. So I started making my relationship with Nerfherder the focal point of my identity. But he was becoming increasingly distant. So one night, while doing the dishes, I picked up a kitchen knife and sliced my arm open. I wasn't trying to kill myself, but I was thinking about it. I cut my arm open to see how badly it would hurt. I was curious if I did decided to kill myself, would slitting my wrists be a reasonable way to go? Would it hurt? Here's the scary thing. It didn't hurt. At all. It didn't bother me even slightly until it started to heal. Then it itched.
One day at work, at the terrible new job, a customer screamed at me and threatened to kill me. My boss was standing less than five feet away while this happened, and she allowed it to happen. I already felt stupid and unliked and altogether unwelcome at that job, and my boss standing behind me while a customer threatened to kill me really drove home the feeling of not being wanted. After the customer left, I excused myself to go to the restroom. Where I stabbed myself in the leg. Not like "Oh, if I feel a little physical pain, it'll distract from the emotional pain" pinch. That sumbitch bled all over the place. To this day, my leg goes numb for extended periods of time. I quit that job quite soon after that with no contingency plan.
Then my worst fear became true. Nerfherder left me. I came home one night and he told me it was over. There went the last shred of the identity I'd worked so hard to build for myself. My partner, who I'd planned to spend the rest of my life with, was suddenly gone. I'd come to regard his family as my own, and now they were gone. My home was gone. Everything.
A lot of my friends and loved ones were, understandably, concerned for my well-being. I was basically on an informal suicide watch. My mom called off work the first two days so I wouldn't be alone for a minute. And yeah, I was crushed. I had no idea how to go on. But a weird thing happened. After about two weeks, I didn't want to die. I ran off to New York City for a brief period of time to be with a friend. I got a new job. I started preparations to move about an hour south. Still sad? Yes. Of course. But I was able to pick up and carry on. I was okay.
I was pretty sure I was invincible. I mean, I'd lost everything, and I was still going. Since then, some seriously bad things have happened. I met another man to whom I became engaged, until he forced himself on me while I was asleep. I called off my wedding. Yeah. I called off a wedding and was okay. I got fired from the job I moved down here for. That was actually fine. I hated that job. I still think it's one of the best things that ever happened to me. I got a new job; one I really like. Met another guy, who spent our entire relationship lying to me and ultimately stole a large sum of money from me. While I was angry, I was still okay. None of this sent me into a spiral.
I live with my cat, who is just all sorts of fantastic. My dog, who is also all sorts of fantastic, lives with me part of the time. I don't have to argue with anybody that yes, it is always time to watch sci-fi, especially if said sci-fi is "Doctor Who." I've been seeing an amazing man for about five months and am just completely nuts about him. He doesn't assault me or steal from me; he just makes me happy and makes me feel loved and wanted. His family is incredibly. I adore his mother and she seems to genuinely like me too. I'm earning money writing. I've lost almost ten pounds in the last month. There is so much good going on in my life right now.
So why the fuck am I having a depressive episode? The good in my life right now FAR outweighs the bad. But I've been having panic attacks. I've had nights of sitting on my couch crying over nothing. A few days ago, I was opening boxes at work, glanced at my box cutter, and thought, "Hey, I could sink this into wrist!" What the Hell is that about?! I called my doctor and have been started on Zoloft. I'm awaiting an appointment in March to return to an ambulatory psychiatric program I was in while in college. But I'm having a really hard time with this. I thought I was going to be okay. I thought I was cured. I thought I was never going to have to deal with again. I feel unbelievably betrayed by my body.
A thought occurred to me today. When there was so much bad happening and I wasn't having problems with Depression, what if my body was overcompensating? There's definitely a chemical imbalance in my brain. I don't think anybody would ever attempt to dispute that. Between the Depression and the chronic insomnia, my serotonin levels are just FUBAR. But I think my body instinctively wants to stay alive. It's basic evolution. It'll do what it takes to remain living. So when all of these horrible things were going on, I think my body just overrode the chemical imbalance, overrode the Depression. That instinct to stay alive just took over. But now that things are okay, my body doesn't have to work as hard at surviving. It doesn't have to have every imaginable defense up. I hold my cat, I look into Boyfriend's eyes, I open my check from my freelance work, and I know there's good in the world. And I can relax. And those defenses go down, my body stops overworking itself, and the Depression bubbles back up, because things are so okay that I don't have to constantly fight it.
It may sound incredibly messed up that I'm saying "I think I'm Depressed because things are okay." But I actually take comfort in this thought. I find it comforting that even my own body is relaxing and letting me be me. I wish this wasn't a part of me, but it is. I don't think Boyfriend is ever going to try to bully me out of taking my medication. I think he's going to continue to accept me as I am. I don't have to hide this anymore. Wonky train of thought? Probably. But I think it's going to be okay.
Depression isn't a new thing for me by any means. I don't remember there being life before Depression. I've heard of some people having a fairly sudden onset of Depression. This was not the case with me. I don't have many clear memories of my childhood, but I do remember my fifth grade teacher recommending my mother take me to see a therapist. I don't clearly remember much other than the fact that I did go to one session. I don't know why it didn't continue.
I was suicidal in middle school. I remember one day contemplating dousing myself in nail polish remover and setting myself on fire. That's around the time I went on antidepressants for the first time, but that didn't last long. Again, I don't remember why.
The worst was when I was in college. I went away to college. Far away enough that I felt like I was having the "away at college" experience, but close enough that I could still see my best friends, who were a year younger than me. I was excited for college. Until I got there. My roommate barely spoke to me and told me from day one she wanted to room with somebody she'd met at orientation. I didn't make friends on my floor. I was a lit major and I didn't read a single book my first semester. I had a 4.0. So, the academics were garbage. And even more upsetting was, even though I was less than an hour away, my friends from high school never came to visit. Ever. They were still in high school, so I'd thought they would all jump at the opportunity to stay on a college campus for a weekend every once in a while. Nope. I wasn't learning, I wasn't having fun, I missed my cat, so I transferred to a university about fifteen minutes away from my mom's house and moved back home at the end of the semester. I went to the new school feeling like a complete failure. We always hear how great college is and blah blah blah. No. You lied to me, Judd Apatow! There was no Seth Rogen living on my floor, being adorable and mischievous. My roommate was not my best friend. I *did* end up meeting Loudon Wainwright while I was in college, but not because of college.
So I returned home a failure. I was extremely ashamed of everything about myself. So I spent a lot of time in college pretending to be someone else. I put forth a lot of effort trying to prove I was fun. I'm pretty sure I was just regarded as annoying. Probably. I annoyed myself. I hated myself. So much. I'd frequently tell people "I don't want to live here anymore," "here" sometimes referring to the town, sometimes referring to the state, but what I wanted to be saying was "I don't want to live anymore." I changed majors from English to Theatre Design, because, I don't know, I'm stupid. This provided me lots of parties to go to and pretend I was fun. I could drink everybody under the table and I was always the last person to leave, because I was just that much fun, dammit! I convinced myself I was going to be a lighting designer and a damn good one. All the while, I kept wishing I wasn't there. I thought if I could move, it would get better. So when I got an opportunity to take a summer internship in another state, I jumped at it. I packed my car and drove away to a new place, where I still pretended I was fun in the way I thought people wanted me to be. While I was there, my suicidal thoughts began to run rampant. I'd go to work and look around for things I could use to kill myself. I never made any attempts, but I saw opportunities everywhere. I was an assistant lighting designer, so a big part of my job was hanging lights. Walking around on catwalks and going up in scissor lifts with long pieces of cable, you get a lot of ideas about how you could die. I'd go home and take pills. Never a whole bottle, but more than I should have. A lot of drinking happened, and I would purposely do stupid things like get extremely inebriated and take more aspirin than recommended. Sometimes I did this with the idea that I was going to go home and slit my wrists, and this would help me bleed faster. This was when I started smoking, half wanting to fit in with other and half hoping it would bring about my death sooner. Finally, I contacted a psychiatrist who started me on antidepressants and recommended I quit the internship and go home where I at least had a support system.
Again, I returned home feeling like a miserable failure. I couldn't even do what I was studying in college. Before I'd left for the internship, I'd been working as a technician on rentals at my university theatre. On my return, I phoned my boss at that job who I had also regarded as a friend. Foolishly, I was honest and told him I'd come home early because I wasn't doing well emotionally and I would like to return to work. I was not fired, but I was never scheduled to work again. So I was a failure who now was angry and felt betrayed. This led to super pissed off, stand-offish, "everybody leave me the fuck alone" Roz. I don't think many people from college know how badly I wanted to die. While I was taking medication after medication, seeing therapist after therapist, my best friend told me I was a "Negative Fucking Nancy" and proceeded to refuse to speak to me for the next year. The only reason I stayed in college was for spite. I thought about changing my major back to English, but so many people in the theatre department were hinting that I didn't belong there that I was furious and finished the program just to show them.
My senior year, I took a directing class, because it was required for my degree. We were given an assignment in which we created an abstract autobiographical scene. My scene showed me going in to talk a man (representing my boss from the tech job), telling him I had a problem and needed to talk about it. The man's response was to start throwing ping pong balls at me, until I got up, walked out of the room, closed the door, sat down, lit a cigarette, and started crying. The chair of the theatre department was my instructor for that course. She watched my scene, then told my friend who I had brought in to play "the man" he could have thrown the ping pong balls at me in a more believable way. She then pelted me in the face with ping pong balls so hard she actually chipped one of the lenses in my glasses. I directed a one-act play for that class, after which she told me "Huh. I didn't expect you to be able to pull that off."
During my senior year of college, I met a boy in my linguistics class. This was during the kind of whore-ish period of my self-loathing. I went on a date with him after giving a blow job to a guy in my Medieval Literature class. And I wound up falling madly in love with him. The boy (who I'll be calling Nerfherder) and I did all that couply nonsense, such as vacations. Shortly before going on a road trip to Boston, I started a new antidepressant regimen, including Seroquel, a mood stabilizer with some serious sedating effects. This sedative was making it difficult for me to wake up in the morning. Nerfherder berated me for being lazy to the point where I decided my antidepressants weren't worth it and stopped taking them altogether. Not surprisingly, I spiraled.
When Nerfherder and I moved in together, I was working at a job I loved in a small shop. I still had a lot of self-loathing and allowed this job I cared about to be a focal point of my identity. My boss was terminated in January, so I stepped up and took control of the shop with no promotion and no pay raise, just being an interim manager with a metric fuck-ton of overtime until they hired my boss's replacement. So, from January to April, I ran things. Then they brought in a woman who I will call "Rusty Cunt Bucket" (I do believe this is a thing Ari Gold screamed at an object in an episode of "Entourage" and not my own creation). I offered to help RCB with anything she might need help with, letting her know what vendors we ordered what from, etc, etc. RCB told me I was "just a keyholder" and cut me down from the 70 hours a week I'd been working to 5. I was devastated beyond words. That wasn't just some job to me. It was the thing I was most proud of in my adult life. It was my redemption for all of the self-hatred. And out of nowhere, I was told I wasn't valued or even necessary. Hell, I wasn't even wanted. I quit and took a job I hated. That was when I finally began to actually hurt myself.
I had lost a significant part of my identity. So I started making my relationship with Nerfherder the focal point of my identity. But he was becoming increasingly distant. So one night, while doing the dishes, I picked up a kitchen knife and sliced my arm open. I wasn't trying to kill myself, but I was thinking about it. I cut my arm open to see how badly it would hurt. I was curious if I did decided to kill myself, would slitting my wrists be a reasonable way to go? Would it hurt? Here's the scary thing. It didn't hurt. At all. It didn't bother me even slightly until it started to heal. Then it itched.
One day at work, at the terrible new job, a customer screamed at me and threatened to kill me. My boss was standing less than five feet away while this happened, and she allowed it to happen. I already felt stupid and unliked and altogether unwelcome at that job, and my boss standing behind me while a customer threatened to kill me really drove home the feeling of not being wanted. After the customer left, I excused myself to go to the restroom. Where I stabbed myself in the leg. Not like "Oh, if I feel a little physical pain, it'll distract from the emotional pain" pinch. That sumbitch bled all over the place. To this day, my leg goes numb for extended periods of time. I quit that job quite soon after that with no contingency plan.
Then my worst fear became true. Nerfherder left me. I came home one night and he told me it was over. There went the last shred of the identity I'd worked so hard to build for myself. My partner, who I'd planned to spend the rest of my life with, was suddenly gone. I'd come to regard his family as my own, and now they were gone. My home was gone. Everything.
A lot of my friends and loved ones were, understandably, concerned for my well-being. I was basically on an informal suicide watch. My mom called off work the first two days so I wouldn't be alone for a minute. And yeah, I was crushed. I had no idea how to go on. But a weird thing happened. After about two weeks, I didn't want to die. I ran off to New York City for a brief period of time to be with a friend. I got a new job. I started preparations to move about an hour south. Still sad? Yes. Of course. But I was able to pick up and carry on. I was okay.
I was pretty sure I was invincible. I mean, I'd lost everything, and I was still going. Since then, some seriously bad things have happened. I met another man to whom I became engaged, until he forced himself on me while I was asleep. I called off my wedding. Yeah. I called off a wedding and was okay. I got fired from the job I moved down here for. That was actually fine. I hated that job. I still think it's one of the best things that ever happened to me. I got a new job; one I really like. Met another guy, who spent our entire relationship lying to me and ultimately stole a large sum of money from me. While I was angry, I was still okay. None of this sent me into a spiral.
I live with my cat, who is just all sorts of fantastic. My dog, who is also all sorts of fantastic, lives with me part of the time. I don't have to argue with anybody that yes, it is always time to watch sci-fi, especially if said sci-fi is "Doctor Who." I've been seeing an amazing man for about five months and am just completely nuts about him. He doesn't assault me or steal from me; he just makes me happy and makes me feel loved and wanted. His family is incredibly. I adore his mother and she seems to genuinely like me too. I'm earning money writing. I've lost almost ten pounds in the last month. There is so much good going on in my life right now.
So why the fuck am I having a depressive episode? The good in my life right now FAR outweighs the bad. But I've been having panic attacks. I've had nights of sitting on my couch crying over nothing. A few days ago, I was opening boxes at work, glanced at my box cutter, and thought, "Hey, I could sink this into wrist!" What the Hell is that about?! I called my doctor and have been started on Zoloft. I'm awaiting an appointment in March to return to an ambulatory psychiatric program I was in while in college. But I'm having a really hard time with this. I thought I was going to be okay. I thought I was cured. I thought I was never going to have to deal with again. I feel unbelievably betrayed by my body.
A thought occurred to me today. When there was so much bad happening and I wasn't having problems with Depression, what if my body was overcompensating? There's definitely a chemical imbalance in my brain. I don't think anybody would ever attempt to dispute that. Between the Depression and the chronic insomnia, my serotonin levels are just FUBAR. But I think my body instinctively wants to stay alive. It's basic evolution. It'll do what it takes to remain living. So when all of these horrible things were going on, I think my body just overrode the chemical imbalance, overrode the Depression. That instinct to stay alive just took over. But now that things are okay, my body doesn't have to work as hard at surviving. It doesn't have to have every imaginable defense up. I hold my cat, I look into Boyfriend's eyes, I open my check from my freelance work, and I know there's good in the world. And I can relax. And those defenses go down, my body stops overworking itself, and the Depression bubbles back up, because things are so okay that I don't have to constantly fight it.
It may sound incredibly messed up that I'm saying "I think I'm Depressed because things are okay." But I actually take comfort in this thought. I find it comforting that even my own body is relaxing and letting me be me. I wish this wasn't a part of me, but it is. I don't think Boyfriend is ever going to try to bully me out of taking my medication. I think he's going to continue to accept me as I am. I don't have to hide this anymore. Wonky train of thought? Probably. But I think it's going to be okay.
Friday, January 10, 2014
The White Menace
My first car was a white 1989 Buick Century. I loved that car. Because I was 17 years old and had a car.
My mother bought this car used from somebody we knew and trusted. He was very honest about the car. He had hit a deer with it but repaired the car afterwards. If my memory serves me, the car was also rolled over at one point in its life. And that's just the beginning of the problems this car had.
One day, my mom was driving the car and misted the windshield to clean it. And the wipers kept going. And going. For the next twenty minutes. This became a regular thing. The windshield wipers would turn on no problem, but after turning the switch off, they would continue to go for at least twenty minutes. Around this time, my mom decided "Nuts to this!" and bought a new car, giving me the Buick. Which was the coolest thing ever because I was 17 and had a car! A car!!!!
I drove my car to school every day. It took about two weeks before somebody keyed it. Not a nice little strip down the side of the car. Jammed their key into my passenger and went at it like a toddler drawing on a wall. Didn't make the car any worse, but dammit. That's my car, jerk. I love it; how dare you hurt it?
For the most part, we got through high school without incident. It learned some neat new tricks while I was in university, though. For instance, one day, the locks decided not to work anymore. Not just the power locks. You could manually slide the lock switch on the inside of the door. Nothing. You could put the key in the door and turn it. Nothing. Great. So now I'm going to uni in a city that is consistently ranked as one of the top ten worst cities in the U.S., and my car doesn't lock.
One day, my best friend Jocelyn and I head about two hours south to see a play for our theatre class. We get to the town early, and decide to go to Taco Bell and get something to eat first. I pull my car into a spot and shift it into park. And my keys fall out of the ignition. With the car still running. Jocelyn and I exchange panicked looks before I picked my keys up off the floor and put the ignition key back in. Timidly, I turned the car off. Then, out of half-curiosity and half-panic, I restart the car. Good, it worked. I turned it back off. Then Jocelyn reached over, removed the keys, and started my car. With nothing in the ignition. No key. No screwdriver. NOTHING. Well, shit.
At the time, Jocelyn was dating a guy I'll call Will. She and Will have now been married for two and a half years. Last time we talked about it, Will was still denying he was responsible for what happened next. Jocelyn and I still think he was the culprit.
Almost every day, I would go to university, park my car, go to classes, come back and my car would not be where I had parked it. This caused me to spend a lot of time wandering the parking structures at university, trying to find my damn car. Jocelyn and I are certain Will was moving my car while I was in class. I don't know why he won't admit it, because it's pretty funny.
Things really got ridiculous with my car when I was living and working in Columbus, Ohio for a summer internship. I'd come home for a weekend and was driving back to Columbus in the middle of the night. Somehow, I got off course. This was before everybody had GPS in their cars, so I stopped at a gas station and asked for directions back to the expressway. The guy at the gas station was really nice and gave me directions. I paid for my gas, bought a soda, and went back to my car. As I was starting the car, the guy ran outside and knocked on the window. Since the car didn't have electric windows, I told him to just open the door. He apologized profusely, telling me that he had made a mistake; I needed to make a right at Bling Blong Road, not a left. I thanked him, and he closed the door....only to have it swing back out at him. He tried to close it again, heaving it rather hard. It swung open again. The latch the holds the door shut was stuck in the closed position. All of my tools were in Columbus, 53 miles away. Somehow, there was not a single screwdriver anywhere in the gas station. So we grabbed some elasticized bungee cords from my truck and bungeed my passenger door to the passenger seat. For the next hour, every left turn I made resulting in my passenger door swinging open. Thank goodness it was three a.m. and there weren't many other cars on the road. I got back to dorm I was staying in, went inside, got my screwdriver, popped the mechanism so my door could close. At this point, I was tired and frustrated and was a little young and irrational. In my sandals, I kicked the bumper of my car in anger. And missed the bumper. And kicked out my own taillight. Damn.
I called Jocelyn the next morning while I was driving from the dorm to work and told her about the incident. She laughed for a solid ten minutes. Thanks for that, bestie. When I got home from work that day, I had an e-mail from her. It was an audio file of Adam Sandler's "Piece of Shit Car." Then it was my turn to laugh for ten solid minutes. That song made it onto every CD I made for my car for the rest of the time I drove that beast.
I finally gave up and left the car to die about two years later. I was visiting my grandparents, about 150 miles north of where I lived. My grandparents live in this fantastic house in a wooded area off of a US highway. Their driveway is an extremely steep incline. As I was pulling out of their driveway, the brakes went out. No idea how I didn't die as my car rolled carelessly into the road. Either way, I turned the car around, pulled it back into their driveway, and rode home with my mother. My grandparents sold the car for scrap and I bought a Pontiac Grand Prix.
EDIT: Since posting, I was finally able to remember the name I gave this car. Der Weiß Baron.
My mother bought this car used from somebody we knew and trusted. He was very honest about the car. He had hit a deer with it but repaired the car afterwards. If my memory serves me, the car was also rolled over at one point in its life. And that's just the beginning of the problems this car had.
One day, my mom was driving the car and misted the windshield to clean it. And the wipers kept going. And going. For the next twenty minutes. This became a regular thing. The windshield wipers would turn on no problem, but after turning the switch off, they would continue to go for at least twenty minutes. Around this time, my mom decided "Nuts to this!" and bought a new car, giving me the Buick. Which was the coolest thing ever because I was 17 and had a car! A car!!!!
I drove my car to school every day. It took about two weeks before somebody keyed it. Not a nice little strip down the side of the car. Jammed their key into my passenger and went at it like a toddler drawing on a wall. Didn't make the car any worse, but dammit. That's my car, jerk. I love it; how dare you hurt it?
For the most part, we got through high school without incident. It learned some neat new tricks while I was in university, though. For instance, one day, the locks decided not to work anymore. Not just the power locks. You could manually slide the lock switch on the inside of the door. Nothing. You could put the key in the door and turn it. Nothing. Great. So now I'm going to uni in a city that is consistently ranked as one of the top ten worst cities in the U.S., and my car doesn't lock.
One day, my best friend Jocelyn and I head about two hours south to see a play for our theatre class. We get to the town early, and decide to go to Taco Bell and get something to eat first. I pull my car into a spot and shift it into park. And my keys fall out of the ignition. With the car still running. Jocelyn and I exchange panicked looks before I picked my keys up off the floor and put the ignition key back in. Timidly, I turned the car off. Then, out of half-curiosity and half-panic, I restart the car. Good, it worked. I turned it back off. Then Jocelyn reached over, removed the keys, and started my car. With nothing in the ignition. No key. No screwdriver. NOTHING. Well, shit.
At the time, Jocelyn was dating a guy I'll call Will. She and Will have now been married for two and a half years. Last time we talked about it, Will was still denying he was responsible for what happened next. Jocelyn and I still think he was the culprit.
Almost every day, I would go to university, park my car, go to classes, come back and my car would not be where I had parked it. This caused me to spend a lot of time wandering the parking structures at university, trying to find my damn car. Jocelyn and I are certain Will was moving my car while I was in class. I don't know why he won't admit it, because it's pretty funny.
Things really got ridiculous with my car when I was living and working in Columbus, Ohio for a summer internship. I'd come home for a weekend and was driving back to Columbus in the middle of the night. Somehow, I got off course. This was before everybody had GPS in their cars, so I stopped at a gas station and asked for directions back to the expressway. The guy at the gas station was really nice and gave me directions. I paid for my gas, bought a soda, and went back to my car. As I was starting the car, the guy ran outside and knocked on the window. Since the car didn't have electric windows, I told him to just open the door. He apologized profusely, telling me that he had made a mistake; I needed to make a right at Bling Blong Road, not a left. I thanked him, and he closed the door....only to have it swing back out at him. He tried to close it again, heaving it rather hard. It swung open again. The latch the holds the door shut was stuck in the closed position. All of my tools were in Columbus, 53 miles away. Somehow, there was not a single screwdriver anywhere in the gas station. So we grabbed some elasticized bungee cords from my truck and bungeed my passenger door to the passenger seat. For the next hour, every left turn I made resulting in my passenger door swinging open. Thank goodness it was three a.m. and there weren't many other cars on the road. I got back to dorm I was staying in, went inside, got my screwdriver, popped the mechanism so my door could close. At this point, I was tired and frustrated and was a little young and irrational. In my sandals, I kicked the bumper of my car in anger. And missed the bumper. And kicked out my own taillight. Damn.
I called Jocelyn the next morning while I was driving from the dorm to work and told her about the incident. She laughed for a solid ten minutes. Thanks for that, bestie. When I got home from work that day, I had an e-mail from her. It was an audio file of Adam Sandler's "Piece of Shit Car." Then it was my turn to laugh for ten solid minutes. That song made it onto every CD I made for my car for the rest of the time I drove that beast.
I finally gave up and left the car to die about two years later. I was visiting my grandparents, about 150 miles north of where I lived. My grandparents live in this fantastic house in a wooded area off of a US highway. Their driveway is an extremely steep incline. As I was pulling out of their driveway, the brakes went out. No idea how I didn't die as my car rolled carelessly into the road. Either way, I turned the car around, pulled it back into their driveway, and rode home with my mother. My grandparents sold the car for scrap and I bought a Pontiac Grand Prix.
EDIT: Since posting, I was finally able to remember the name I gave this car. Der Weiß Baron.
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