Untitled One

You’re going to have to forgive me.
You see, I am really fucked up right now.
It’s not my fault- not anything I meant to do…. No it was and is, just as usual, a series of unfortunate fucking events that creep up on you and drag you down, only you just don’t realize it until you’re looking up. Like today, for example.
Pretty normal fucking day, right? But first I gotta wake up early, hung-over, nauseous, and late to the second god damn optometrist this week. THANK GOD- good news. 72 hrs until I am released from my promise not to put – or get – anything in my eyes, and I can finally put my contacts back in and not feel like a cripple, as long as I can behave that is.
So I drive home. Hit rush hour, sit in traffic. Fast forward two hours.
Home. See my brother bounding down the hall way to jump on top of me and give me a piggy back-style hug and my head is already pounding. Need a nap. No, must go and visit.
Grandfather. You see, it is exactly one year ago today, her death. And here he is, in the same god damn chair watching the same damn golf, like he is waiting for her to get out of the shower and bring him a glass of milk. So I put the pint of milk I brought with me into the fridge and offer him a glass.
We watch a man in white pants and a sweater vest hit a ball to the right of the cup; teetering on the edge like a tractor trailer going too fast around a tight bend. God punishes the man in white pants and the ball stays on the green. I tell the man my grandmother loved for over 50 years, “I really like the old-fashioned stool in the bathroom”. He gives me a puzzled look and then I remember that was her bathroom. He probably hasn’t stepped foot in there for quite sometime.
“There is a stool in the front bathroom. I really like the style”.
A pause. “I don’t think I know what you’re talking about… you can have it if you want”.
If that stool were as important to him as Marlboro cigarettes and Coors Lite was to my father he still would have given it to me, but the reason behind his eyes had changed. Belongings are just worth nothing to him now. I mourn for this fragile man in the chair next to me. I mourn for the loss of his youth, his spark. Gently, I rest a hand on his arm and wait until he turns his head to me.
“I love you so much”. I stand to give him a hug and quickly I am out the front door, I count 55 steps to the car and head across town to ShopRite.
Graduation Day
I walk into the grocery store and look for the biggest balloon and the prettiest bouquet they have to offer, which isn’t much at a store that promises to save you more and cost you less (translation: crappier merchandise). I find a three foot long floating shooting star; flashy, I know, but I was trying to teach her a lesson. I wanted her to find graduation as momentous an occasion as it was meant to be. So many of her friends just up and dropped out. I know how she prayed for high school to end, I mean we all did, but more so for her, and for her to be so smart and motivated and successful when surrounded by underachievers makes me so proud of her. Personally, I have always felt that you are who you spend your time with, but that wasn’t true of her. I need her to know that.
So I chose the biggest, most colorful balloon and the biggest, most gorgeous bouquet of mixed red and pink roses that I load into the back of my car. Go home, put them in her room, shut the door to complete the surprise.
Hair is greasy. Now: Shower. Jump in. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Jump out. Towel drying my hair, still too wet for pants but I throw on a t-shirt so I don’t embarrass my father if he walks by. Mom comes in and plops down in front of the beauty mirror, and instantly begins examining her skin for any signs of lines or wrinkles, and beings plucking furiously away at stray eyebrow hairs. She pauses a moment to look at my reflection. “Jesus. Have you heard of a razor my daughter? You look like a chia pet gone wild”.
Snap my head and stare at her in disbelief, shielding my chia pet from her judgement. I sneak a peak myself and determine that while I am by no means camera ready, my vagina does not deserve to be compared to a agricultural hedgehog. A pelvic thrust in her direction and “tweeze this” end the conversation.
“what are you ladies talking about?” my dad is standing in the doorway, and must be pretty damn bored.
“oh, just pubic hair” my mother cooed as she stood and walked past him into her room. He turned to follow in time for the door to shut in his face. He turned back to me, “she never liked stubble. It’s true”. Dad shrugged in defeat and retreated back down the hallway into his basement cave.
I was left alone in the hallway- still pantsless and hairy, now with wet hair dripping down my back and my tshirt is cold, and sticking to my wet skin. I hate this feeling. It’s like cuddling after sex when warm cum starts dripping down your thighs, and you’re too polite to spoil the mood and walk to the bathroom.
I sigh.

Throw on clothes. Barely made hair. Looks like crap. Make up to be applied in transit. Drive. Drive. Drive.
Some assholes crashed into each other. Traffic. 5:02. ‘Ceremony starts promptly at 5pm’ reads the invitiaton in my hand. Tapp on the steering wheel in annoyance, contemplating any alternatives. Disappointed when my turn comes to rubberneck as there’s no sign of the victims. Not even gruesome blood splattered across the windshield. But there is also no sign of walking wounded…
My stomach churns in anger as I realize I am approaching a red punishment light. What is possibly thirty minutes later the light turns green and I applaud myself for not crushing the pathetic crossing guard in his ugly yellow vest with my three tons of motor vehicle but oh my god how I wanted to! I get an extra gold star when I realize the crossing guards is a police officer. Killing him could have gotten complicated, the stars must be alligned. 5:15.
Road rage subsides at the sight of blessed Parking Lot Entrance sign. I swing in doing about 40mph weaving in and out of several straggling groups of family members skid into a parking spot, and run across the street.
The crossing guard/police officer hybrid sees my hurry and stops traffic to let me pass. Karma.
5:17. Run inside the stadium. Sweating, panting. Grab a brochure being handed out at the door. A list of speakers. By the sound of the poorly percussed high school ensemble the students are still processing in. I slide into the first available seat towards the back, quickly realizing I was clearly sitting in the Hispanic family section. Spent a whole two minutes digging camera out of purse. Fumble around, trying to get good clear shots of my baby sister from 3000 feet away with low pixel count, fail. I spent the next hour being bored. My seat location paid off when the orator of the last speech, president of the ESL club, gave her salutations and walked of stage. The row next to me went wild, screaming her name, jumping, clapping, shouting, one of those damn gringos brought in a fucking airhorn and the pounding headache in the back of my head has come sprinting back to the front.
I was still bored two hours later, mines the 30 seconds it took my baby sister to cross the stage, when it was my turn to jump and hoot and holler like a crazy Hispanic person. Take that fuckers.
But anyway, yeah, the rest of the ceremony sucked.
Walking out of the stadium I try to find my parents. Instead I find approximately seven of my peers I hoped had left my life at the onset of my pursuit for higher education. I visibly cringed as a short, stocky ginger girl ran over to hug me and attempted to reminisce about health class... or maybe algebra I don’t fucking know. All I remember about that bitch is when she blew the guy I had a crush on in gym class. He had asked me to a movie and we had an amazing time, that is until the next day at school when no less than ten people asked me if I gave him a blow job. We were fourteen! I was so incredibly excited that a boy actually noticed me and asked me to go out with him, he had even prebought the tickets and snuck in two bags of M&Ms, I mean at that point in the night I was secretly naming our children. But dating in the real world apparently wasn’t anything like dating in the movies… in fact it was more like dating on MTV’s Real World.
The part that really sucks is, if I had known the whole dating thing came with a BJ clause I probably would have done it! And even researched it on the internet so I did it right! The gorgeous perfect bastard didn’t talk to me that whole week, and the following Monday was when I heard news that punched me in the heart; he had taken this bitch standing in front of me to the movies, and she still sucked more than the third episode of Star Wars, despite the fact the movie was sold out and their tickets were in the fifth row of the theatre. I had a sudden urge to violently scrub the skank off me, but on second thought it might be easier to just get over it. A smile and a “facebook me, we should totally reconnect” usually sends these people content and on their way. With freckles this proved another success. I worked the parking lot like an All-Star quarterback ducking, dodging, and fielding five more of these types.



I sat down in my computer chair, my right leg actually cramping from tired. To be fair, the thing only got three hours of sleep in the past three days. All of me only got three hours. I thought about my activities and just then WHAM it hit me out of fucking no where and I started to sob. Big sloppy wet sobs jerked my whole body and I just let myself feel. Everything hurt. My skin got too tight and I couldn’t think and my heart squeezed; I felt such intense devastation, it was like the minute after I was told she was dead had lasted forever. I could feel each individual hair on my entire body on fire. Intense anguish. I was furious at my family for their aberrancy. I was frustrated with my sister for being so ambivalent towards everything. I was disappointed with myself, that I hadn’t set my sights to achieve something higher, something world-changing. Something that would be remembered forever. On a hospital unit, the Director is God. But there are thousands of hospitals with many, many units and therefore many many people have already achieved that. But then I was embarrassed that I insulted my own aspirations. My mothers career, the one that I spent the last three years working my ass off to just attempt to achieve, yeah well there was huge doubt in my mind that I could ever pull of anything as well as my amazing mother has.
Jen walks in to break my madness and starts talking about her boyfriend and retail job and new haircut and I feel like a poor autistic child at the cirquis. My vision seems to swirl together and my chest is getting tight as her ditziness translates to me as anxiety and I suspect I am breathing way too many times a minute.
I continue to nod and mumble affirmations as I reach for a tiny wooden box on my desk. Shuffling papers around trying to find it- I think I feel it then it slips out of reach and I am furiously digging around this box when I get the tiny little pill in my hand and pop it in my mouth, turn around and innocently say “oh I’m so sorry I totally just zoned out for a second, needed a motrin ya know? Hehe. Can you start the story over?” Thus is how I spent the year transforming.

I act normal, well as normal as I can and carry on and on until I just can’t take it anymore. I let my self break down just a hair of un-repair-able. And then I help myself heal.
See there is this stigma with having emotional issues that I’m just not interested in dealing with. I don’t need wrinkled men with wardrobes old enough to legally drink to tell me how I feel, or even why. I know, I get it, and I do the best I can until a certain point where sometimes I just can’t. So I fix the problem and go back on the track to the person I am trying to be.
I don’t feel guilty because I take the pills, and nobody else should either. Hell, it is my right to do whatever I want to do! And if you want to try and catch me, go fucking ahead. I dare you to try.

This is all what landed me right here, right now. So you see, I am pretty fucked up right now, but it is not necessarily my fault. I shouldn’t be forced to discuss my indiscretions, not with anyone. But then again, I don’t have to feel guilty or apologize either, and I still somehow always find myself doing it.
So yes, to answer your question, right now I am truly as high as a star in the sky. I am loving every minute- no every second- of it. I am the happiest that I think I can possibly get in real life. Can you honestly understand that? This is the only way I ever feel genuinely happy, please just give me this one thing, and it will be all I ever ask for.
And honestly I am sorry,
…but right now, this just feels so fucking goooooooooooooodd,


a painful jolt of lightening shocks my muscles as it pulses down from my head to my toes. The ringing cut into me like a knife and my eyes shot open and I wished my alarm clock was a living creature so icould introduce it to an equivalent pain. I honestly think that this moment in time, the startlement of waking unexpected to a shrill pulsating alarm, is the only time I truly understand the emotion of hate. Anyway. I sway my alarm clock off and roll out of bed. The rolling was quite literally admittedly, as my legs buckled with my weight and I landed on my back, 2 feet to the right and 3 feet to the left (and in the same body position, mind you) of where I was deeply dreaming 30 seconds ago. It only took a heart beat for the floor to feel just as comfortable as the bed, my eyelids drooped, and soon, I was asleep.

Fast forward three hours.

Fuck. My consciousness turns back on before my body gets the memo. I know I fucked up but I cant get any head muscles to open my eyes so I can check the time. I am frozen in my own visceral prison. Finally, my muscles melt and become my own again, starting at my toes and working it’s way up to my eyelids. When they rewaken, it starts as a twitch. Then a couple more. Fists clench. Last to rewaken is the face which curls into an ugly snarl as the whole body attempts to coordinate to get up, and I look like a drunk as I stumble and fumble trying to stand and focus my eyes on a clock.
My alarm clock says noon, but I don’t trust it.
I sit on the bed and pull my laptop towards me. There it is, small in the bottom right hand corner, 12:00pm. FUCK.
I call work and tell them I’ll be there in 15 no nevermind 20, because I need more time to brainstorm an excuse to why I am showing up two hours late without any prior notice. No time for hair, makeup, just throw on a set a scrubs and I am out the door (not purposefully knowing I ignored my flatmate in the kiktchen, but an angry SMS a couple minutes later tells me that I did.

NO TIME TO APOLOGIZE!
I’ve got six blocks to figure out a logical reason for showing up two hours late, because I think that the true story of getting too stoned to move doesn’t cut it in the health care industry. Damn, I wish I knew what those pills were…
So I am walk/jogging to work and the humidity hugs me like a woolen blanket. Even the parts of me without glands are producing sweat that is currently darkening my clothes (and clogging my pores nonetheless). Every step I take causes some bead of sweat somewhere on my body to fall and roll down my sticky skin. I stop for a light to turn, and glance behind me. I am have expecting to see some giant cartoon sun with an angry face chasing me down the street, hell bent on making me look disgusting. Sweat rolls down my forehead taking last evenings mascara with it. By block three, I still have no excuse and my face looks like a zebra.

I never was really a sweater you know. It happened recently in fact, and as a side bar to myself, I should probably get that checked out. One more block to go. Shit. My mind is racing about how to hide these growing sweat stains and how to honor my dead grandmother and what time I should call my brother to ask how his baseball game went and if I should call to see how my grandfather is doing and suddenly I am standing under the hospital sign, motionless and staring up as crowds of people walk all around me, push past me. They are hailing cabs, running to the grease trucks, carrying in people on wheel chairs or clutching flowers, sometimes balloons. There are people in hospital gowns standing alone on the fringe, clinging onto IV poles for support as they suck down what could possibly be a last cigarette. ‘Exuse me’ and I rejoin the crowd, dancing through the swarms of people like a balletrina, getting inside and to my unit in no time. Swipe my badge, scan my finger print, and surrender.

Midnight.

Swipe my badge, scan my fingerprint, home free. Walk out hospital door. 15 minutes. Walk in apartment door. My flat mate begins yelling about ignoring some SMS that I begin to claim I never received then remembered that I did and ignored it but I stick to the original plan that it never went through. She doesn’t believe me, I don’t think I should blame her.
Someone died today. I DID try to save them though, so my karma remains balanced.
The room reverberates with a crisp snap sound as I open up an energy drink I just pulled out of the sofa. I don’t ask why a large energy drink was stuffed under the couch cushion while I was at work, because I probably don’t want to hear it. I don’t think about it and enjoy the sharp taste of the beverage. Yes, my god does move in mysterious ways.
About a quarter the way into the drink I relizee that I am drinking an energy drink at midnight, right before I am planning on going to bed. That was stupid.
Now I am faced with two options: I can finish drinking it, stay up all night and see what I can get accomplished, and just hope I make it to my classes tomorrow, or I could throw the rest of it away and try to ignore what damage may have been done and go to bed. Okay, I proably had more options than that but these are the only ones I was willing to act out.
Well, a true fact about me is that I hate being wasteful. A second is that the is ¼ empty, so I shouldn’t expect to go to bed anytime soon, because that is enough caffeine/taurine mix to keep me awake for at least another two.I am effectively already screwed, and a motto of mine is that if you fuck yourself (as I have), it doesn’t matter if you make yourself fucked more. Hopefully it’ll make me learn a stronger lesson from it.
Staying true to form, I also reconsider those kids with the flies in their face who don’t get any energy drinks every so I politely opt not to waste the delicious beverage.

Long story short, I end up watching the first half of an episode of that crime show 48 Hours that looks at the time right after a murder. I SMS my friend and tell him that if I ever disappear, to know it is definitely foul play. I proceed to aimlessly peruse websites, lying belly down on my bed glued to my glowing computer screen, retinas shrinking by the second. Repeat until sunrise. My body jerks and I silently yelp when my alarm clock suddenly goes off to let me know it is time to wake up and get ready for class.
I unplug the fucking thing and throw it on the floor to teach it a lesson, and promptly fall into bed, a deep sleep before I ever hit the sheets.