Much Like Birds...

Chipmunks are, apparently, also assholes:

via

The One Where My Window Shattered

Hurricane Irene came through this weekend...four days after experiencing my first earthquake. If the events of this year are at all telling, I might be inclined to state that you all can blame me for the once-in-a-lifetime natural disasters occuring in the DC area of late. Because then this story happened.

While trying to decide whether it was an actual cause for concern or just more bloated media inflating a story to sensationalize the weather for increases viewership, I decided to prep for the hurricane's worst possible scenario outcome with: buying: bag of onions, 4 apples, and tomato paste, making sure my flashlights worked and were somewhere easy to find, filling up 3 buckets (for flushing) and 2 gallons (for cooking) with water, and parking my car in an underground garage so that flying debris wouldn't break a window (like it did with my friend's car during a blizzard last year). So the storm starts. First, just rain. So, I go on a run, as I have begun training for the Army Ten Miler. (BEST. RUN. EVER. I smiled the whole time. Every run should be in the rain) Later, when the sun goes down and the winds come out, I go out.

Can we discuss how much I love my water proof jacket and five fingers? Perfect hurricane apparel.

Upon exiting the metro to my first destination, I come to find a blackberry sitting in the newly formed curb river on the road. I pick it up and try to text someone to let them know I found it and will return it if I can successfully dry it out - but the button to unlock it doesn't work anymore so I take the battery out, put it in my pocket and call the person whose house I'm headed to to ask if he has a bag of rice. I arrive and put the phone in rice. Head out and about for the night - witness a 30 something year old man who evidently invited himself to the girl's birthday party (classy), later throw up in cups that were laying around (also classy). The following day the phone worked and returned to it's owner. This is a weird version of fucked up karma, considering 8 days prior I had my phone stolen...I'm just sayin.

So I go home and - despite attempting to keep my food bills low in an effort to save money - decide to take a drive to the grocery store to pick up some ice cream. (My only really TRUE vice in life.) On my 8 block drive home (I drove so it didn't melt; don't judge me! ha) , I turn down a road a two blocks from my house when suddenly I hear a startling noise to my right. BAM! I look over and see this:

So, that's my car's passenger side window. You know, the car I had just taken out of the garage about an hour prior so the hurricane didn't damage it? That one. And it's about $200 to fix: MOST. EXPENSIVE. ICE. CREAM. EVER.  And I have NO idea how this happened: I didn't hit anything, the people behind me said they didn't see anything; I was in a super residential area in front of a house and when I got out to see if a rock had been thrown or something, all I could find was a penny...heads up. Irony?

This has begun to get to the point of severely bizarre now - windows instantaneously, inexplicably shattering. I'm left only now with the thought and singular explanation that the universe is trying to tell me something - and it's not that i'm not listening now, I'm all effing ears - but I don't know what it's trying to say. But it's starting to creep me out a little...

As Predicted.

So. As predicted, I was right about what would happen with that guy. I'm not surprised. I know people and situations. Perhaps then, my prophecies are less about a sixth sense and more about sensing the correct perceptions of situations.

I think people get older and they get lonely (and fat) and scared. And I think when that happens they all get eager to grab on to the closest thing they can find. And then have sex with it.

It's not difficult, then, to divulge, that if you started seeing someone due to this predicament, that you would do everything to see past their faults. The lady in the scenario we think was lonely. (I say we, because, as discussed, I am not alone in such a presumption.) And you think you can trust your friend and bang them and oh boy let's get married...Riiiiight.

Well, per prediction in the days following both of us figuring out he lied to the other, she wasn't speaking to him. No surprise there. Despite this I still said they will date again and ruin their friendship because of it. Why? Because a solid relationship should never emerge from loneliness and 2. Anything lasting can never begin on a foundation of lies.

While I'm sure he sweet-talked his way back to her, and, for whatever reasons she believed it, it makes me realize that he - not as previously stated - is not the changed person he claimed to be in the first days it all went down - which I previously suspected. She can't be that dumb: There's no way she would date him if she knew everything that went down. So whatever he sold to her was less than the truth, and I'm not willing to re-friend a person that has, no only not changed, but increased his douche factor by lying to that girl - as she still looks at me with suspect eyes (trust me, dear, that is never a place I would EVER desire to go again) - and telling her whatever he needed to to downplay his despicable actions. And thus, lying to me and changing his story to suit whatever it is he needed to appease her.

So I knew how the story with he and I would go, a year before it went. And I know how the story with she and him will go, before it ever started. And neither end up well. But, like the advice I ignored, you can't tell someone how to feel - she just has to figure it out on her own. Friendships don't grow into relationships - people just get bored of where it was and lonely with who they were - and then you lose everything.

The One Where Someone Stole My Purse

Yesterday I tweeted “You know how people have that one friend that lets them say ‘I know someone that happened to’? Why do I get the feeling I’m the friend…” Only to follow up an hour later with: “Well, my roommate and I just successfully dislodged my hedgehog, who managed to get himself stuck between the sink and the wall in the bathroom.”

I think I am that friend.

A few days before New Year’s Eve last year I said to the guy I was seeing, “I’m afraid for 2011.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because 2010 was so good,” I replied.

That fear was legit, 2011 has come to show. Again, I go back to where is the separation between self-fulfilling prophecy and just prophecy. E.g. My prediction of this terrible year. Or that guy I thought hurt me, lie to me, etc.– and he did.  That prophecy (or whatnot) was there the whole time. And then it came true. 

If it is self-fulfilling prophecies, I’d like to say: I’ll be rich, happy and healthy as could be in a year. However, I’m also a realist. And I realize that many of the things that have happened are out of my control: two deaths, two strokes and a dead cat this year. None of those were in my control, obviously. That idiot boy, my friends, whatever enormous hiccups, and any corresponding universal mind-fucks: Beyond my control. So how is that possibly self-fulfilling? 

I ponder. Anyway, back to the story at hand:

This past weekend I had another “feeling”. In the past I’ve had the feelings and signs I shouldn’t go anywhere and just stay home: Those are always the nights bad shit happens. Friday was one of those times, but I went and, in a rush, proceeded to drink more than I noticed till my sense of logic was a bit of a wash. Later, we went out to meet my girlfriend at the bar/club. Long story short: Some dick stole my purse: iPhone, debit card, credit card, newly funded SmarTrip card, license, house key, a whole $8 and…Purell. Look, I really liked that tiny little Purell bottle! Plus, you know, the purse that was my big ::sarcasm font:: splurge item I got in Miami last month. (You know, the Miami that was necessary for me to keep my wits since my whole universe was fucking with my head? That one. Ya.) I thought all the bad bullshit was over. Evidently, I was wrong.

WHERE IS MY PROPHECY NOW?!

And, unfortunately, while I usually passcode my phone when I go out, I forgot to that night. And when I called later that evening to cancel my card, the dicks had already used it at a bar on U St. Nice way to waste no time and promote stereotypes, kids. I also think they may have used my address on my license and house key to let themselves in Friday night, as my door was unlocked when I arrived home. Unnerving? You bet your sweet, sweet ass. Thank God for our house dog...and not much of anything to steal.

Luckily, when I go out, I only take essentials, so I have the other parts of my wallet, but everything else is gone. I spent the better part of the weekend trying to put my identity back together – and getting a dose of reality on the way: Walking to the Verizon store, I saw a girl coming out of a shop in a wheelchair and thought, “at least I can walk”. Talk about running into a glass door of Get the Hell Over It!

And while I am thankful for my faculties, I have to shell out $200 for a new iPhone (luckily I put insurance on my phone so it’s $200 v. $800). Meanwhile, I’ve been trying SO hard to save money: I lived on $16.57 worth of groceries for 35 days between July and August (more on Budgetary Mary later). Every time I try to start to budget/save, something like this happens and pushes me back and I get so frustrated and give up (which was the main reason for my bawling on the sidewalk outside the bar).

I’m not giving up this time. I think I left the girl that I was, sobbing on that sidewalk at 3am. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to finally, actually, really, outgrow my mistakes (seen here, here and here).This sucks, but I think as long as I learn something from it, it was an (unfortunate) experience worth having – and perhaps the necessary kick in the pants skirt I needed to see the error of my (drunken, gut-ignoring) ways. But man, is "responsibility" a four letter word.

Still, I hope whoever stole my purse gets hit by a semi and arrested for, well, anything. Then butt hugged a little by a man (or woman) named Bubba. Society, you really disappoint me sometimes; I’m sorry your mothers didn’t love you enough.

[Edit: After writing this I got a Facebook message from a rather attractive Jewish guy who lives near where my purse was stolen, informing me that he found my license on his 'garden' stoop. I contemplated asking him out, but decided against it on the basis of my non-negotiable of blue eyes and complete and utter awkwardness. I think he's also young. Speaking of Jews, my friend that helped me out that night told me that, while sobbing on the sidewalk, men kept hitting on me. Guys, weird. And that one homeless guy tried to say something and I was like "I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL. SOMEONE STOLE MY PURSE. I HAVE NO MONEY EITHER.". My retort to random guy hitting on me while losing my shit while sitting in the middle of a gum and gross laden sidewalk: 'Keep walking, just keep walking'. We are starting to laugh about this now...with most of my purse back together (now waiting on my license and debit card - which I found out they used to buy $98 worth of metro fare on - in the mail), I hope it's the end of the bad parts of this story.]

Dust

The dust settles. The wind blows. And it settles again. I’m beginning to breathe once more – without the heaviness of the world on my heart.

When all hope is lost; when all you can do is wonder and pray: It is best to understand that life is like a bouncing ball – what goes down, must come up. (You know, unless the bounce is dead. In which case, I’ll just come back as a chinchilla and life will be full of (joyous) dust baths.)

Until then, I relish the pain, the awkward and the lessons’ accompany. My hope is never lost, but renewed.  I remain confident in myself; and my choices, though flawed, will take me where I am meant to be.

(Signed, Future Chinchilla.)