This is Disjointed, because I'm slowly taking all the screws out

I was going to write a post about how great my dad is. Because, of course he is. But then I spent the weekend taking pictures of Jamison bottles, and turning down strange men in bathrooms, and watching a bridal party dance to the Pixies in Akron, and seeing great movies, and talking about writing. So let's just take that all as proof that my father was/is a fantastic father, because my life was pretty fantastic this weekend.

It didn't start off as fantastic. It started off with me working my ass off, and then vowing to get wasted that night because of work, stress drinking, and having a messy night where I got "maudlin" and vented out all the relationship/marriage/getting old poison that's been batting around in my head all week. It was like lancing a boil, and watching all the thick yellow pus well out. In the end, I passed out in the backseat while my sister and Jere argued about ridiculous things like the Magna Carta and shit, and when I woke up we were still driving and it was light out, because they had argued themselves almost to Pennsylvania before realizing the mistake and turning back around in the right direction. And after waking up like that, the infection had passed and I was once again content and happy and appreciative. So I slept for three hours in a real bed, and then went back to the beach.

Are you sick yet of beach pictures? I'm not, so deal. Also, who sleeps in the summer? Vampires, that's who. Are you a vampire? I mean, maybe you are. And if so, let me tell you, eternal life isn't worth the price of never getting to be in the sun again. Also, vampires are assholes. So you are an asshole.

On Friday, we saw Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and it was wonderful and slow and magical and kind of terrifying if you let yourself stare straight into the jungle and you are the sort of person who knows how real and horrible fairy tales can be.

On Saturday, getting drunk in Akron proved again to be the cure all for being Too Cleveland. Which was apt, because it happened after hanging out with Erin, and pretty much talking a lot about Cleveland. But being Too Cleveland is a thing, because the largest part of life is not where you are exactly, but how well you're doing it, and you can't do it well enough if you expect the place you live to do it for you. I'm not an expert at living, but I think I do know that.

On Sunday, the beach was overcast and dark but warm and breezy, and when I stood in the water I wanted to bottle Ohio Blue and sell it. Is it a paint color already? It should be. Maybe it can't be. When I was a little girl in the backseat of my parents car, I would look at sunsets and try to decide what color out of the sky would I want a dress of the most. I decided I am going to be friends with the lifeguard. Then, later in the afternoon while it was pouring sheets of corrugated metal, we took our atmosphere soaked bodies for coffee, and talked with the girl at the cafe about neighborhoods and gardening. Later still I went to see Midnight in Paris, the trailer of which does absolutely nothing to show you what the movie is actually about, but it's ridiculous and delightful and I laughed a lot and when I laughed, I could feel my leg muscles were just a little sore from the dancing and the waves, but sore in a hot water bottle of my soul kind of way. It was all very relaxed and easy.

The dog next door barks at everything. Since it's been nice out, his owners, who are very elderly for having such a young lab, just let him out in the backyard all day, and he stands on the picnic table and barks for eight hours at squirrels and people walking by and cars. Then the dog who lives below me will go outside and they will bark at each other (the dog downstairs has a weird half bark he does as well that sounds a little like a monkey, so it's very similiar to how I think a monkey/dog fight would sound). Then people will come home from work and let their dogs out in their yards, and all the dogs will bark at each other. Since I work from home, this has been incredibly annoying. But writing it down makes it sound charming.

When we were finally packing up to leave the beach on Sunday, because the thunder told us to, we ran into the lifeguard Mike walking back to the car. He had run to grab a raincoat and I asked if he had to stay on the beach when it stormed? He answered that he didn't really know, because no one had told him, and he didn't really know who to ask. So maybe he sat out there by himself in the storm. I don't know, we left.

So now today it's back to the beach. My Monday adventure partner got a job while schools out, and I'm back to asking around for companions for exploring since little girls aren't supposed to wander around by themselves, but really I'm just giving up because you all work on Mondays and finding someone who is down for the sort of rambling I like to do the most is hard, there are requirements conversational and motivational. The thing that happens is this: everyone wants to go exploring, everyone wants to go to movies, everyone wants to go to the beach. They see me out at places, and they tell me how much they want to do these things too, how great it is that I do them, how much fun it looks like, and then I invite them, but it always falls through. I don't think you guys understand that there is a decision you have to make to have these kind of days. And I just really believe, deep far down in my chest, that everyone I know would be happier if they came along. But I can't keep giving you opportunities. You have to make the call.

There is an idea that you are supposed to be aloof to be cool, that you are supposed to just let people come to you. I'm the worst at that. If I meet someone I want to hang out with, I'm filled with enthusiasm and motivation. I'm the puppy who jumps on you and wags her tail furiously, and then if you don't take me up on it, I quickly forget when the next new person comes in the door.


And so I wonder if I'm fickle, or flighty, or just really smart, or just really irresponsible. I mean, the most important thing is to rage against the rising of bitterness or disappointment, right? To fight it. To really really enjoy what you are doing, to put your head entirely in the moment and focus on the hour and be conscious of how long that hour is and what is happening in each minute, to feel with toes and the little hairs on your arms the little whoosh of that minute degrading and crumbling and passing. Also to get out in the fucking sun, which is also degrading and crumbling and passing. I'm only 31 for another 20 days, and then I will never be 31 again.

Summer came late and already drunk to the party, screaming at us all to catch up

There are three things I'm fairly sure of this week:

1) My cats are actively trying to take down every window covering in the house. I'm down to only three blinds up still. I've lost the motivation to fight them. I walk around at night with the lights off so the neighbors won't see me half dressed. I suspect I am going to have to nail the curtains to the actual window frames but even then I'm sure they will just rip them down. Maybe they have the right idea though. It's much nicer in the apartment when all the windows are open and uncovered.

2)When they say "get a tan" they mean "your skin will molt the same way a Martian fire lizard does when it sheds it's youthful shell and develops it's hard impenetrable exoskeleton." Right now my skin is in the tender pink tore off a fingernail stage. Next week I will be bullet proof.

3)I need to move someplace where you can go to the beach for much longer periods of the year. For instance, Uruguay. I wonder how someone even begins to find a job in Uruguay. Probably by learning Spanish.



I left work Thursday and went to meet Colleen at the beach. It was 6 when I got there, but the sun refused to go down, and when I got home at 9, it was still hanging on, refusing to get with the horizon. Maybe the horizon said something mean. The beach is an odd place when you live in the Midwest. It's always a strange and alien land, because we don't see it for 8 months a year, so you never get quite used to all the little nooks and crannies. Foreign. Then there's the city issue. Depending on what filter you want to adopt in your head, the beach can either be this great lip of the giant glacial lake, or it can be this burning wasteland with dead trees washed up like bones and occasional trash and people baking themselves like dry breadcrumbs. I do sorta like both filters, but I'm a child of the Wasteland after all, not the farmland. Some people might be turned off by looking down the waterfront and seeing smokestacks and loading docks. What's funny to think about it is that smokestacks have a shorter lifespan than sequoias. They come tumbling down all the time.

The other thing that is important about the beach is that it forces everyone to be half naked in public, which is a useful exercise in realigning your priorities. Especially in Ohio, you are not allowed to let other people's judgements about your body keep you covered up. I say especially Ohio because we are all pale and fat here. Everyone is a chubby white little worm shedding it's chrysalis, even the pretty people. But the sun and the water are such precious sensations, the desire to experience them overcomes modesty or shame. I mean, I look absolutely terrible in a bathing suit. There are parts of my body that shouldn't be allowed to exist. But I don't give a shit. I'm not trying to have sex with anyone there, or make them look at me. I just want to left alone to wriggle my fat little worm body in the water and have fun and smell like burning flesh and think about things like murderous fanged sturgeon waiting on the sea floor amid mussel covered shipwrecks.

The beach reminds me to be a person, not just a girl.


On Friday, it was Asian Liquor/hookah night at Andrew's. We hung out in the backyard while the boys grilled chicken and peppers, and learned things like black licorice makes your baby dumb, what neighborhood meetings in Euclid might be like for history majors, and how to drink soju in a way that respects your elders. Andrew made some joke about the girls having to reveal their ages, but here is one thing I love about the girls I am friends with at this particular stage of my life - I know all their ages. Because they will tell you, willingly and without pause.

Soren taught us the etiquette for hookahs, and how to burn them correctly. The coffee one was the best of course. The coffee one is always the best and I don't know why anyone pretends that it could ever be anything else. I suppose you might think otherwise if you are one of those lame human beings who have never inhaled any type of smoke into their lungs. I mean, not once? Not even out of curiosity? I refuse to believe such a person exists, but theoretically if they did, they may not understand the allure of coffee.





Jason and I took a trip to the grocery store to buy bug spray for the night, and he bought a package of dryer sheets to rub ourselves down with, which pretty much worked. I walked out of the backyard that night with only one bite. However the dryer sheets got left in my car, as many items are indeed, because my car is a hoarder. Not me, I'm not a hoarder. But my fucking car is for sure. When I got into the car the next day, it was stifling hot and smelled exactly as if I were in the dryer myself. Thank god we went with "fresh linen" and not "lavender and vanilla".

The Indian whiskey was awful, tasting of flash frozen peat. The Japanese whiskey was great, but probably mostly because of the writing on the label. The Turkish Arak, which was like sucking on a Good and Plenty, was my favorite. All my babies will be dumb.

Saturday night I went with Knut and Soren to a Phish show. I don't listen to Phish. I used to listen to hippy crap all the time though, true, and I used to wear beads in my hair. I used to do a lot of things. But you know, a Phish show, why the fuck not. I am not a hater. I have nothing against people wanting to have a good time. I like hippie music. I mean, when the suns out.

The thing I don't like is Blossom Outdoor Amphitheatre, being this large and sprawling and hilly mass of inconvenience. Far to drive. Horrible traffic jams. 45 minute walks between drinking at your car and getting in the door. But it's sort of like Blossom heard me hating on it, and was determined to prove me wrong. Cause there was no traffic getting there, Knut completely by luck picked the direction to come that no one else did. We parked right away. We got fucked up right away. Sure there was an incredibly long hot walk. But I hadn't been to a gathering of hippies in a while, I had forgotten about the sporadic villages that spring up, the multiple glass sellers and knitters and painters and men with baskets yelling loudly that they have shroom chocolates available. Plus the 6 or 7 people we encountered selling water on the way to the gate - "It's 6 dollars inside folks, it's 3 dollars here! Just don't open it, you can take it inside!" That part was like leveling up in a video game, beating the hustle, knowing just when to take advantage of it. Like when we bought our waters from the last guy, who was right in front of the gate, and his waters were only a dollar. The hustle! Some people got it.

I spent the first set sitting on the grass amid a forest of legs, people watching and sky watching, and in addition to looking the same and both being very tall, Knut and Soren also dance the same. So with one on either side of me standing, it was like passing through statues at a port entrance in a tiny dinghy, but like, if the statues were those giant inflatable wind dancers you see at car dealerships. The second set the sun had gone done completely and I got up and danced too, and the light show was, as one would expect from Phish, phenomenal, and I had a really good time. People kept throwing handfuls of glowstick straws up in the air, everyone did it, they were multi colored meteor showers in the blue gray gloom. Being in crowds is fun. Hearing crowds scream and sing together and hearing the noises die out against the clouds is fun. Walking back to the car in a huge menacing centipede is not as much fun, but we got home okay, and I only bled a little from my heel which was my fault for not wearing proper shoes.

Sunday we all went to the beach again. I now have a half moon serious burn on my right breast, which means that probably for the rest of the summer, even after it heals, that will be the darkest spot on my whole body.