You KNOW When Things Are Wrong

Something feels… wrong.
According to my friend, this pic "looks like someone just came in your eye at a kids birthday party."
Perfect.

We've all had them - those inconvenient moments of lucidity that inform us something isn't quite right.  The ensuing discomfort comes from knowing when things are wrong, but not wanting to acknowledge it.  Try as we may, that little fucking voice is impossible to ignore.  For me, it'll grow as loud as the beating in Tell-Tale Heart, and I'll STILL try to turn a blind eye.  For instance...

… about eight or so years ago, my neighbor and I (both bartenders at the time), decided to grab breakfast one morning after a particularly long night.  You know what goes great with egg bagel sandwiches?  Screwdrivers.  So we grabbed our breakfast to-go and made camp at our local watering hole.  It was located on the main drag in town, so we made our entrance through the back, like a couple of low-down, dirty regulars.

There we sat, eating our bagels and drinking our doubles, when a woman walked in who had just dropped her kids off at school.  My attention drifted from my friend to the woman as I watched her saddle up to the bar and order her "usual."  When she realized she didn't have her wallet, just her check book, the bartender said, "Don't worry about it Suzy, I know you're good for it."  Instead of drinking on her intention to pay later, Suzy signed a blank check and slid it across the bar, adding, "Just fill in the amount when I'm done."

That's when the voice in my head came thundering in:  "This is you in twenty years," and it suddenly became a bit harder to swallow my bite of bagel.  I needed something to wash it down, and this bitch had put a sour taste in my mouth.

Now back in the day, I lived in this apartment complex conveniently located one street behind a downtown that consisted of two bars, and another seven bars that also served food.  The occupants of my ten-unit complex were the bartenders and servers of these fine establishments, which meant we all shared similar schedules and ambitions that consisted of nothing outside of work, booze and blow.  It was just like Melrose Place.

One of the neighbors had a little girl - a four-year old daughter who I was particularly fond of, not only because we shared the same name, but we also had the same birthday.  She was like my Mini-Me.  I adored this kid, maybe because she felt like the shadow of the baby I didn't get to have six years prior.  Who knows.

But I was no role model, that's for fucking sure.  I can recall one day specifically: all the neighbors were having a BBQ and, wouldn't you know it, we ran out of beer.  Fortunately the market was a stone's throw away, so I volunteered to walk over.  Of course Mini-Me wanted to come with, and nothing inside informed me it would be inappropriate to stumble into a grocery store with a child - bright-eyed and innocent to the sub-current of debauchery and hedonism that fueled all my choices.  In fact, it didn't dawn on me I was a horrible person until I caught the judgmental stares of every sober person buying groceries that Thursday afternoon, most likely wondering whether or not to call CPS.  Only then did I hear it: "You're white trash."  Excellent.

Then there were relationships.  Similar to my moral compass, my "picker" has never realized a true north.  I'm not accustomed to making the most fit decisions when it comes to romantic partners.  But who wants to be alone?  Not this girl.  I mean, I recently adopted a dog in an attempt to thwart making a capricious boyfriend decision.  And that's now.  Back in the day, fogettaboutit - I'd go dumpster diving for a guy if I thought he might like me, so urgent was my need to fill that void of loneliness.

Every time I shacked up with a guy, seemingly so much unsolicited intuition accompanied it.  I mean, gross - am I right?  Who wants to deal with that naggy bitch?  I remember watching an ex-boyfriend from the window of my apartment as he loaded his 50-million pound television into the bed of his truck, man-handling it like a fucking boss - the twinge of sadness I felt to see him go morphing into a sea of regret as my new boyfriend raced by on his hot pink razor scooter.  I actually got to bear witness to the needle on the line-graph of my stock crashing through the ground, right before my eyes.

And goddammit it all to hell if the FIRST guy I dated in sobriety didn't come with that same sinking feeling, only this time I didn't have alcohol to drown out the voice of reason that crackled over the wire.  For Christ's sake, why did that happen?  I was sober.  This wasn't supposed to happen anymore.  I was supposed to be "fixed."  But I found myself sitting across from this guy - this man I thought I was madly in love with - when the voice came through, only crystal fucking clear this time:  "I'm going to outgrow him."

This is what it looks like when I'm paying attention.  When I stop listening to that inner-voice things really end up going south.  It's as if when looking a gift horse in the mouth,  God's turns up the volume of His booming wrath to deliver a hand grenade so fierce there's no other recourse than a self-correcting response.  Like the time when...

… I had a warrant issued for my arrest for check fraud.  I'm sure there was a voice urging me not to (repeatedly) write that bad check to Ralphs for a hundred dollars over the cost of bread, but I wasn't hearin' it.  Mama needed the cash.

Or that time I just wouldn't leave that guy, until the day he cheated on me with a Tranny and gave me gonorrhea.

The culprit of my STD

Bottom line:  I am my own worst enemy, and I know exactly how to make things monumentally more difficult for myself than they need to be, all by ignoring the little voice inside that knows when a situation is wrong.

The beautiful thing is I now make a conscious decision to be aware of myself and my surroundings every day, which (not gonna lie) can be pretty fucking uncomfortable.  But at least I'm not the recipient of discerning stares, regret, shame, or STDs anymore.

Moral of the story:  pay attention.  We already have the answers.  Just choose to listen.

One Night Stand With A Pig

I'd say this wasn't one of my finer moments, but I can pretty much attach that disclaimer to damn near every incident I blog about, and this one doesn't disappoint.

So here it is:  I was nearing the end of my drinking.  I was on the down slope of a failed business manufacturing racing go-karts (yeah, that's a thing) and a long-term relationship that practically combusted.  So I was in a really good place emotionally.  I went back to bartending, and when my shifts would end, I would take my tips and donate them to neighboring bars, and in exchange those bartenders would get me drunk.  Commerce is a beautiful thing.

So there I was, at my favorite local wine bar (because wine bars are way more sophisticated than bar bars, and I liked to delude myself into thinking I was some kind of classy lady) when I stumbled into a real sick puppy.  By that I mean he had a reputation for being an animal with a voracious appetite for all matters of sin.  (Also, he was no puppy, being close to 20 years my senior).  I didn't know him well, but I didn't not know him, and that night, I had a hair up my ass to get to know him better.

Here's why:  somewhere during the course of the evening I heard he had chips (our cutesy word for ecstasy).  A quick bit of backstory about my recent breakup:  it ended in infidelity with a non-gender specific prostitute on Craigslist and a case of the Clap so, you have to understand, I was living in a purgatory of numbness.  Now add bankruptcy to the mixture.  So I jumped at the opportunity to feel - anything - and chips were all about feeling good.  Good was better than bad, and bad had been my residence for a year.  More accurately, it was as if The Nothing from The Neverending Story had devoured my spirit.  So I drank.  A lot.  And fueled by liquid destruction, I had all the justification I needed to excuse the following series of poor choices:

1) I made contact.  This was the worst move I could have made, because it was all down hill from there.  This guy had a bit of money, so one glass of wine turned into a magnum, which turn into a proposition, which turned into...

2) A cab ride to his place, where upon I decided to turn up the heat with a sexy strip tease, but my lack of coordination wouldn't allow it.  I stumbled around like a freshly born calf, barely aware of the two THUDS my silicone "chicken cutlets" made when they hit the ground after being released from my bra.

3) I proceeded to round third and head for home with this ass clown, despite the news that he "couldn't find" any chips.  Yet again, I was in a situation I was way too sober to be in, but far too drunk to get out of.  I felt claustrophobic beneath him, looking up at him as he struggled to get his rocks off, grunting like a wild boar; and just as his asthmatic thrusting was about to launch me into an anxiety attack, he collapsed into a hyperventilating heap beside me and fell asleep.  If only he had died.  But the real cherry on top of this shit-show sundae was...

4) The ride back to my car the next morning.  It was worse than any walk-of-shame I could conjure up:  he threw a helmet at me and told me to hop on the back of his motorcycle.  Great, one more fucking hog I had to ride before I could get away from this guy.  But at that point, I was so ready to get the hell out of there, I didn't care.  I didn't care that I could only find one chicken-cutlet.  I didn't care that I'd be out in the open, on full display for the world to see me with him as we rumbled into town on his unreasonably loud Harley.  I mean, I wanted to kill myself, but I didn't care.  I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light was a shower and a warm bed.

Have you ever heard of incomprehensible demoralization?  Well I was becoming all too familiar with it, so I can tell you from experience, it's the shittiest place to be - way worse than "bad."  I don't recommend it.  In fact, I suggest avoiding it at all costs, and the best way to safeguard against it is to have full control over your faculties at all times.  Unless you want fodder for your own blog.  Then, hey, bottoms up.

There is a strong possibility this was my FB post the morning after the above incident.