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The only thing that is saving me from a bad grade in my Physics class is the fact that all the tests are open notes and open book.
High: I'm happy. Simple as that!
Low: I'm also tired.
Working out on my new equipment!
A woman complains to her husband that she feels her breasts are too small. She starts discussing the desire to get breast implants, when he stops her.
"Why don't you just rub a piece of toilet paper between your breasts every day for the next couple of years and see what happens?" he recommends.
"Rub a piece of toilet paper between my breasts every day for two years?? How on earth is that going to make my breasts bigger?" she asked.
"Well, it seems to have worked pretty well for your ass," he replied.
He's out of the hospital now, and I hear that with therapy he may even walk again.
That song from that Mitzubishi commercial.
I make some decisions about my journal.
Storyteller
Bio
Dramatis Personnae
Who I Read
Recipes
April 30, 2002
Life is what happens.
Spot the reference, kids!
"Life. Don't talk to me about life."
I know there's an entry floating around in my brain somewhere. Now where did I put that thing? Ah, yes, here it is. Behind the "Overindulgent weekend" fog, under the "Work stress" mountain, next to the pile of "Wedding planning/execution/financial concerns".
Oof. When last we spoke, it was a week ago. And as is my usual mode, I'm having problems remembering what transpired between now and then. I know there was the day-to-dayness of work, school, Calvin and Marie interaction, and much whatnot. There was e-mailing, and I talked quite a bit with Dawn. I think there may have also been some TV and movie watching somewhere in there.
The Scene
Michael arrived as scheduled (threatened?) on Friday at about midnight. I'd fallen asleep at 10:30, but woke back up again when Kye announced Michael's arrival. Michael brought two of his friends from the base with him (herein referred to as Dart Boy and Sleepy, for reasons which will become known). Marie had four (FOUR) of her friends spend the night on Friday night (The Younger Kids). Michael's girlfriend and her friend (The Girlfriends) arrived at about 1:00 a.m. (A.M.). So. I don't know much about that new fangled math, but I believe that equals twelve people, including Calvin and I? Yes. Yes, I believe it does.
I'm thinking of re-naming my home reference from "Animal Planet" to "Party Central". What do you think? Read on. You'll end up agreeing with me.
Anyway, I got up and actually felt pretty good for my nap. Calvin was wide awake (night owl that he is), the girls were twittery and giggly over the increase in testosterone in the house, and the boys were in high good spirits. I took to naming the computer room (where the girls were congregated) the "Hormone Room", and the game room (where the boys were congregated) the "Testosterone Room". With all the sighing coming from the girls over the boys, and all the posing and competing coming from the boys in front of the girls, Calvin and I were kept in stitches the entire weekend.
I shall be blunt here and say that we allowed the boys to partake of alcohol while they were at our house. They are nineteen and twenty years old, Marines, and fully used to drinking socially because their Marine ID "gets them into" places. Calvin and I made sure keys were confiscated and that no other kids (The Girlfriends, who are seventeen, and The Younger Kids, who are no older than fourteen) indulged.
So. We spun the tunes, played darts and pool, and danced around on Friday night (Saturday morning) until 3:30 a.m. At that point, The Girlfriends went home, The Younger Kids were drooping, and Calvin and I had just about had it. So we went to bed. Michael and the boys stayed up.
The Birthday
I woke up the next morning at 8:30, to the sound of loud voices and the comings and goings of teenagers. Apparently the boys had stayed up all night, The Girlfriends returned at 8:00, and there was Much Bothering of The Younger Kids, who wanted to sleep and were therefore easy targets for the overly-hyper. The Older Kids trooped off to the mall at 9:00, and the Younger Kids commenced with the passing out. I wanted to do the same, but Calvin's family was coming for a visit at 1:00, to celebrate Michael's 19th birthday (which was on the 26th). So I left Calvin snoozing (dammit) and started straightening up the house from the previous evening's partying (read: picked up empty Hard Lemonade and Sky Blue bottles). I managed to lever Calvin out of bed at 10:00 and applied copious amounts of coffee to us both.
The Grandparents arrived promptly at 1:00, just as the boys were returning from the mall. Calvin's sister K arrived next with her husband and three children plus a friend of theirs, and the girls finally got their butts out of bed. So, new fangled math results = 18 people, all of which were fed bruchetta, finger sandwiches, chips and dip, cheese and crackers and pepperoni, mini tacos and quesadillas, and an excellent pasta salad courtesy of K's husband.
The relatives departed at 3:00, and we hung out for a bit, waiting to hear from Calvin's other sister M. I fired up the dart board, and one of Michael's Marine friends asked to play me. Marie and Sleepy (thus called because he had a sweatshirt with the word "Sleepy" on the back) played pool, more tunes were spun, and more drinking and dancing commenced. I played three games with Dart Boy, and won the first two before he finally won and declared that he was quitting while he was ahead.
M called at about 4:00, and we arranged to meet her at a bowling alley in Scottsdale, near to where she lives. Calvin and Michael lead the way on the motorcycle, and I followed in the truck with Sleepy, Dart Boy, Marie, and one of Marie's friends (the other three girls got rides home after the party). We took the scenic route in order to show Arizona off to the boys, and Calvin cut through the twisty, turny route by the Phoenix Zoo in order to show off his mad motorcycling skills. We ooh-ed and ahh-ed obligingly as we tried to keep up with them. The kids indulged in earnest debates over whose CD should be played during the drive.
Bowling was as entertaining as it ever is, and made more hysterical with the antics of the boys - and the girls trying to keep up with them. Calvin and I were rather more halfhearted in our game, preferring to converse with M and just observe. We wrapped it up after two games, and headed back home with M, her two oldest children, and a friend of M's following us home.
The Incident
We were not far along in our ride back home when a heart-stopping incident occurred. I was following Calvin's motorcycle in the left lane, with M in her Suburban beside him in the middle lane. We were all making faces at one another and hollering to each other at the stop lights, and generally just keeping up with the good spirits. Suddenly, I see Calvin flip off a guy that was in a car in the lane next to him - in front of M, who had to slow down because this guy braked in order to get beside Calvin. Some verbal exchange occurred, but I couldn't figure out where the angst was coming from because none of us had done anything wrong that I could tell.
Calvin sped up, and the guy who had hassled him changed lanes to get behind him, and in front of us. He started tailgating Calvin *hard*, so I sped up to get right behind him, and M pulled up beside him. Calvin slowed down to about 30 MPH, and we all boxed this guy in. The guy pulled suddenly into the turning lane at the stop light, and Calvin pulled in front of him and stopped. M ended up cutting across traffic in front of me to be able to stay with the motorcycle, so I went around her and through the light (which had turned green), did a U turn and stopped facing the other direction at the same light (which, by the time I got back around, had turned red again).
I saw Calvin motion to Michael to get off the bike, and then he got off the bike himself and went up to the guy's window to find out what his problem was. Dart Boy and Sleepy were all ready to launch themselves out of the truck and run across traffic to offer their support, but I demanded that they stay put. I watched the exchange between Calvin, Michael and this idiot with my heart in my mouth - people carry guns in their cars around here, after all. I could see the whole thing playing like a movie in my mind, with the guy maybe whipping out a gun, Calvin or Michael's long collapse in slow motion as one of them is shot in the chest. I could see it happening in my mind's eye, which is every bit as heart-rending as if it had actually occurred.
Well, thankfully it didn't. Calvin finished whatever it was he had to say, and he and Michael got back on the bike and roared off when the light changed. I could see M, still beside the guy in her Suburban, with her window rolled down and her lecturing finger out and waggling. Then she followed Calvin, and I pulled into the gas station on the corner to get turned around again. All the kids in my truck were hanging out the window and yelling encouragement to Calvin as he sped past, and Michael pumped his arm in the air in response.
We all speculated all the way home on what could have happened. Piqued, Calvin had sped off and weaved his way through traffic, and soon left us in the dust. We were all relieved that nothing horrible had come of the incident, so our good mood was restored by the application of some good music played at loud volume.
The Scoop
When we arrived home, M and Calvin had beaten us there. Everyone was talking at once as I walked up the sidewalk, and observed Calvin in the middle, explaining what had happened. Our eyes met over everyone's head, and I could see that Calvin was very worried about what I was going to say to him.
To give some history - Calvin is not blessed with the world's most even temperament, and so sometimes instigates things when he should just keep his mouth shut. We've been working on it, and it's the source of some mild disagreements between us.
I had decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, while I was observing the whole incident. I walked up to him, embraced him, and asked what happened. And, as I'd figured, it wasn't something that Calvin initiated. Apparently this idiot, blind to anything but his own bigotry, hollered "Fuckin' faggots!" at Calvin and Michael on the motorcycle, as they were side by side in traffic. Calvin, disbelieving, shook his head at the man, so the man hollered at them again, "Fuckin' faggots," and perhaps some other things as well. So. Calvin flipped him off, the guy acted predictably perturbed by this, and the whole chain of events I already described kicked off. In the course of the exchange, Michael hauled out his dog tags and retorted "Does this make me a faggot?" The man subsided, although the person in the car behind them (wanting to use the turning lane for its rightful purpose) seemed to want to jump into the fray. Calvin told him to stay out of it, the guy went to grab a golf club, Calvin and Michael took two steps toward him, and then *he* was subdued by the gaggle of girls (his daughters, apparently) in the back seat of his car.
M added a few comments of her own, the guy said something to the effect of "Fuck you, bitch," to which she responded with something to the effect of "As if you could."
And that, as they say, was that. Another day in the life of this peaceful city I live in.
The Party
After that, the testosterone level was of course through the roof. We all decided to just stay at home, hang out, and have a good time with each other. It was basically a repeat of the night before, with a slightly different crowd. The three Marines, Calvin and I, M and her kids and friend, Marie and two of her friends, and The Girlfriends. New math says... 14 people! Pool playing, dart playing, dancing, drinking, and a lot of silliness. At one point M and Dart Boy got into a drinking contest, which resulted in M winning, and Dart Boy coating the tub in Michael's bathroom with the inevitable results of overindulgence. For the record, we both told Dart Boy he didn't stand a chance, and tried to get him to stop. It appears that some lessons have to be learned on one's own. But he, the brat, wasn't even hung over the next morning. I ask you, how is he supposed to learn his lesson if he doesn't suffer the next day??
At one point we put on some trance music and turned out all the lights. The Older Kids brought out the glow sticks and started doing their thing. I asked Michael's girlfriend to teach me how, and soon she, Michael, and myself were spinning these glowsticks around the living room like crazy people. I hear I didn't do "too bad", for a first timer (and a grown-up, no less!).
I'd switched to water early in the evening, and Michael had decided not to drink at all. So I drove M home in her Suburban, with Michael meeting us up at her house in the truck. Then he crawled into the back seat to sleep on the way home while I drove, and it was at that point I realized that he, Sleepy, and Dart Boy hadn't been to sleep at all the entire weekend. Indeed, later questioning revealed that they'd all been up since 10:00 Thursday night! There it was, 12:30 on Saturday night, which meant they'd gone over 48 hours without sleeping. Add to that all the partying they'd been doing, and it's no wonder they crashed as hard as they did after everything wound down Saturday night.
The Aftermath
Everyone was up again by 10:00 on Sunday. Michael, Dart Boy, Sleepy, and Marie met X(f) and The Girlfriends for lunch at noon, which left Calvin and I with Marie's two friends to just veg and noodle around and have lunch. M stopped by briefly to pick up her son, who had spent the night. Everyone got back home again at around 1:30, Marie and her friends went to the mall with X(f), and Michael and the boys got their stuff together to depart. They left at around 3:00 in order to make it back on base by 10:00. Calvin and I had about an hour of blessed peace and silence, and then Marie and her friends arrived back home again with their mall purchases. I stayed home while Calvin ran the friends home, and then we spent the rest of the night sitting, eating macaroni and cheese, watching Cats and Dogs, and Remember the Titans.
Full crash occurred at 21:00 hours.
The Monday
Calvin woke me up at 6:00 on Monday morning by tickling and scratching my back. "I'll keep doing this if you stay home with me today," he said.
Well, that's all she wrote, folks. With an offer like that, I couldn't go to work. And as perverse as my body is, as soon as I knew I could sleep in, I didn't want to. I logged into AcronymCo's network via my laptop, and got a couple of hours of work done. I also called into a teleconference, which I thought was very Good Corporate Citizen of me.
We let Marie stay home from school, and the three of us spent the day together. We went to City Hall and got our Marriage License, got the truck washed, and had lunch at Mimi's Cafe. Then we went to The Men's Wearhouse to get a suit for Calvin for the wedding. The process of picking out a shirt, tie, suspenders, and pants for Calvin turned out to be more complicated and more expensive than shopping for my dress ($99) and Marie's dress ($79) combined. But we finally found some stuff that went well together, and Calvin took his pants into the dressing room to try on. The weasily sales guy pinned the cuffs where they should be hemmed, and we were out one hour and $230 later.
The Home Gym
You all know that I've been going to AcronymCo's gym, and that I've complained because AcronymCo doesn't keep the gym equipment maintained. I've railed about never being able to use the elliptical machine because of the two that are present, one has been broken since February and the other is always occupied.
So. I've been toying with the idea for a while of getting my own elliptical machine. I was balking because some adroit research revealed that Them Fucker's Ain't Cheap. I'd cut up the credit cards a while ago, and paid them pretty much off, but the knowledge that I had the means to purchase an elliptical, should I but want one, was heady and hard to resist. I relied on the fact that my inherent laziness would prevent me from actually calling the credit card company and requesting a replacement card.
Then, you know what they went and did? They sent me my new card, because my old card (the one I didn't have anymore because I cut it up) had expired.
It's like the decision was taken out of my hands.
So, after we were done at The Men's Wearhouse, we went shopping for exercise equipment. And here's the thing that tickles me. We found such good deals that we were able to buy an elliptical machine *and* a universal gym for the price that I feared I'd have to spend for the elliptical machine alone.
You know what that means? I shall be svelte by the wedding! Installation for both pieces is this week. We're turning the Computer Room into the Workout Room. We're moving the computer into Marie's bedroom, which tickles her and makes sense to us. She's the only one that uses it, and one of the primary things that keeps us up on weekend nights is her and her friends giggling away and IM-ing until all hours of the night in the room right next to our bedroom.
You know what else that means? I cut up that credit card this morning, into eeny weeny teeny tiny pieces. The exercise equipment is the *only* thing that's going on it, and it's getting paid off again. I exercised will power and prevented us from even coming near maxing that puppy out. I may seem to be purchasing a lot of big ticket items lately, but I have A Plan. And The Plan Shall Be Adhered To.
I'll be as debt-free as an American Consumer can be allowed to be. Which means I'll at least have a car payment and a house payment. But it *won't* mean I'll have maxed out credit cards and store cards and lines of credit. Nosiree Bob.
The Life
After getting home Monday afternoon, Marie started packing for a week's stay at X(f) (and we'll see if it lasts beyond two days this time), and Calvin and I went for a quick happy hour at TGI Friday's. We returned, picked up Marie, and dropped her off at her mom's.
I crashed. Hard. At 9:00. My life caught up with me all at once.
The Compliment
Here's the dubious compliment, that has a fine edge to it. Michael, Dart Boy, and Sleepy are, as you know, three young Marines based in San Diego, within a stone's throw from Mission Beach, the college, and all the wild craziness that California offers. They did nothing but hang out with Calvin and I for the entire weekend, except for a couple of brief hours at the mall and with X(f). They had such a good time that they want to come home again on Friday, and apparently "make a routine" out of coming home every weekend.
As Sleepy said to Michael, "Dude, it's *cool* to hang out with your *parents*." Yep. We're that cool.
Yep. We're that doomed.