Thursday, October 24, 2013

Happy Halloween, Witches!

Once upon a time, I lived with a witch. You're *all like, "Girl, who hasn't?" But I don't mean witch like bitch. I mean witch like bruja.

Ty saw it almost immediately. He'd come with me to view the apartment "for protection" which is hilarious if you know him. I don't know if it was the big-breasted, axe-wielding centaur tattoo on her arm, the painting of her dressed in lingerie dangling a wolf's head, the skeleton soap dish in the bathroom or the fact that she looked exactly like a witch that tipped him off, but I thought she was fabulous.

Shortly after I moved in, she invited me to picnic with her in the park. She had been mistaken when she'd told me that she was a great cook, but that might just have been the taste of the poison. As I was choking down whatever she'd made because it was free and I didn't want to be rude (in that order), I bit into something sharp. I yanked her ragged, purple fingernail from my molar and studied it for a while because I was trying to make it be something else. I, however, am not a witch, so it didn't work.

My second clue was that she always kept her bedroom door locked from the outside and would compulsively check it before leaving the apartment. Normally, I couldn't care less what goes on in my housemates' rooms so long as they're not doing it in mine, but her secretiveness once drove me to the point of contemplating the three foot jump between our balconies. It wasn't the fear of falling to my death that stopped me but the thought that I might somehow get stuck over there, and she'd find me and do experiments on my body. I'm no fool.

Then there was the first time I put my sheets on the bed. I noticed a strange stain on the old set that belonged to I don't even want to know. But I put that straight out of my head because I don't like to judge, and I'm the twenty-seven year old who's still sleeping on used mattresses. A few weeks later, we had a rain that lasted through the night. When I woke, I was...damp. I thought the ceiling had a leak, but the rank, dirty water was coming from inside the mattress. Oh. My. God. My friend Kiki and I hauled it out to the street that evening, and as we were examining our yellow-stained arms, she said something like, "Maybe someone died and was rotting on there." Oh. My. God.

Eventually I discovered that she wasn't really a witch but a massive hoarder. Someone had stolen her purse, and my dainty German flat mate had to help her break in her door. He described the sight to me later over several glasses of wine, as we both had had it. Apparently, the room was nearly the size of the rest of our apartment and stuffed floor to ceiling with mildewed boxes, heaping piles of clothing and broken furniture. A narrow path led to a double mattress on the floor that was completely covered except for one human-sized corner.

I now live in a comfortable apartment with an amazing view over the city. It's not filled with crap, and my roommates really are fabulous. One of our friends described them as a sexier Winnie and Sarah from Hocus Pocus.




Hoarding is the only thing scarier than witches.
"A muck! A muck! A muck! A muck!" 





*I know this doesn't include my family, ex-boyfriend and all former/current roommates.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Uh, True Colors are Not Always Beautiful Like a Rainbow, Cyndi.

We are a judgmental bunch of hypocrites, and I hope we never change. Of course most of my favorite people aren't that judgy, and I really have to focus my energy away from growing as a person to catch them in an act of hypocrisy just so I can finally rub their faces in it. Unfortunately, I am not one of my favorite people. To use that tired, old expression from I believe the New Testament (don't quote me on that), "If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit next to me."

We're really good (horrible) at judging others but really, truly horrible (inept) at judging ourselves. We're constantly over or underestimating ourselves, and I believe it's impossible for us to be so self aware that we can predict exactly what we will say, how we will feel and what we will do when confronted with something unexpected.

Please don't worry. I'm not Aesop, and I'm not about to drop a fable. This is just a story about how I misjudged and completely *overestimated myself by judging someone else even though I was kind of right.

Ever since I suspected that my baby sister was braver than me, it's been very important to me to be seen as a courageous person**. I can't stand it when people accuse me of being intelligent or "not as bitchy as you look" or remarkably beautiful. I only really respond to, "I think you're brave."

I'd just splurged on an iPod shuffle because I was tired of being present while walking through the city and wanted to increase my chances of getting hit by a bus or robbed (because I'm brave). I was bee bopping along when I felt her running at me from 7 o'clock. I turned just as she started to kick my knees and shins while yelling something about something. I fended off the point of attack then raised my eyes to hers ready to get it on like a video game.

I'd seen her several colon twisting times before but never from that close, so instead of fightin' words, the only thing that came out of my mouth was a loud and terribly embarrassing scream-grunt that lasted for half a block of my block and a half sprint (probably at a record-breaking pace).

The woman has no nose. It's really unsettling because you can actually see into her head through the gaping hole in the middle of her face, and you're never prepared for it. This is how I felt in rapid fire order: shock/awe, terror, heightened terror, panic attack, super human speed, paranoia, asthma attack, relief, shame, extreme guilt, relief again.

Let's break down the last 4:
relief- She hadn't followed me.
shame- I'd always pictured myself as a fighter, but I was disappointed to learn that I'm a flighter. Judge it.
extreme guilt- I actually screamed in a human being's face because of what her face looks like, and I would judge you for not judging me for that.
relief again- Now I can be afraid of her because she once assaulted me and not because she can only leave the house one day a year without people going into hysterics. Judge me again.

Had you warned me that this was going to happen, I would've laughed and said you're not serious before I said, "Oh, you're serious. Okay. I would take her by the shoulders and say, 'Hey lady, you obviously don't have a nose and not having a nose must suck (something that maybe you can't do?) so hard, but you don't want to do this. I need my legs like you need a nose. I'll buy you a coffee, and we can talk about how you feel about not having a nose. I'm sorry I judged you before. Noses. Nose.'" But that's just the kind of person I wish I was and not who I actually am.

Maybe I'll do that next time?



Who needs parents when you could just read (I preferred to watch) this?





*I'm exceptional at overestimating myself.
**Pixar made a film inspired by me in 2012.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

The Biotribe Hostel

You know that feeling when you wake up in an unfamiliar place and Nancy Kerrigan is screaming, "Whyeeee!?" in your head repeatedly? Personally, I have no idea what that's like, but I can imagine what you must go through. No, the closest I've come is knowing exactly where I'm about to wake up, but Nancy's still there.

One of those times was in Lisbon...with hippies.

I still don't know where we went wrong. The plan was perfect. Kirsten (expired license), Azza (license not valid in Spain) and I (more with a theoretical knowledge of how a manual car goes and less of an actual making the car go knowledge) decided to drive across two countries twice in five days and four nights. This wasn't amateur hour*, so we decided to drive straight through the first night.

From the outside, the hostel looked inviting to three weary travelers. We couldn't wait to trudge in and throw our bodies onto whatever ten euros a night buys you in Portugal. The tribe, however, had other plans for us. The first tribeswoman we encountered smiled widely, checked us in, told us our beds wouldn't be ready for another six hours then went through the checklist of things we weren't allowed to do. She was one of the saltiest, earthiest people I've ever met except for the intense amount of dental work going on in her mouth that hypnotized me every time she smiled (often) and said something mean (more often). The one thing we were allowed to do was sleep in the garden.

The garden was beautiful, but we had no shits to give about that. Azza passed out in the hammock, Kirsten draped herself over an old armchair and I started in the tire swing but ended up on some wood pallets infested with ants. We explored the city after our quick nap then returned when our beds were supposed to be ready. They weren't.

João was the chief of what he called the Biotribe**. He was also the chief of not getting our beds ready, just okay looking dreadlocks and assholes. Braceface had explained earlier that we would be locked out of the hostel if we didn't return before midnight which was clearly a stupid Cinderella rule that had João written all over it. However, she gave us a wink and said she'd leave the back door unlocked if we gave her a heads up. Unfortunately, we couldn't find Braceface before we went out for the evening, so we left our fate in the hands of the chief who was clearly lying when he said he'd keep the door open.

We crept back through the garden at 12:30 nervous that we would startle the dog that we were told would definitely bite us. We were rabies free when we got to the locked back door. Thankfully, a tribesman was still up watching TV.

In Biotribe, the words private room translate to one room with several twin mattresses on the floor separated by bed sheets. Each "room" has a homemade (very dangerous) lamp*** and fruit crate that is color coordinated with a bigger fruit crate nailed to the wall and called your "closet." A bottle of shampoo is too heavy to go in your "closet", but you can definitely put some socks in there.

The next morning, Nancy woke me up from what I have to admit was a deep and comfortable sleep. Azza and I found some tarot cards in the Bioethics Holistic Meditation Quinoa Namaste Room and brazenly started playing with them while we waited for Kirsten. Braceface heard the commotion we definitely weren't making and came upstairs. She flashed a metallic smile and said something like, "This is not a playroom for children. You are not allowed to touch those. If you would like to learn about them, you can ask Tribeswoman Other Lady." We'd spent a day and a half trying to avoid learning anything from these people, so we declined and checked out.

 


I'm just kidding! Tonya Harding is the chief of assholes.
 




*Yes, it was. Kirsten was talking nonsense and holding her blinks for a scary long time. I could only do highway driving because I'm a dainty, kept princess who possesses no useful skills and contributes nothing to society and Azza was pukey.
**The Biotribe practices bioethics and other uninteresting things. I have no idea what that means despite several attempts by the tribes people to educate me. Kirsten thinks it's just a rehab. I agree.
***Kirsten was like, "Emma! Come check out my awesome blender lamp!" Her lamp was definitely the coolest.