Gravity Sucks

I fell last night. Again.

I was a ballerina until I was sixteen and it always distressed my mother that I only had grace on stage. I fall down all the time. I blame it on my tiny feet. I have a size 6 1/2 shoe, yet I'm 5'8"... That distortion should be to blame.

I fell on a stairmaster at the gym. It's that bad.

Every weekend that I choose to drink I have some cataclysmic spill.

Last year was the most gruesome... gravel + stilettos = road rash to the bone.

A couple weekends ago I fell off a bar stool at the U-Bar because some ugly guy was trying to whisper something in my ear and had me leaning on two pegs. For days afterward my right knee turned purple and ached with every step.

Last night was my favorite. I was standing on gravel but I fell forward onto the cemet and hit my chin on the wooden chair that we have on our patio. This actually happened while I was on the phone with the Texan, so I stifled my cries of agony and faked a cheery goodbye. I now have a black goose-egg on that same right knee and I am convinced my entire leg will fall off.

Tonight I'm wearing flip-flops.

My Post Secret

I promised myself that I would follow my journalism assignment and post on this website every day. So now that I have had a few drinks I have the liquid courage to share my post secret.

Tonight I finally admitted that I'm horrified of dying alone.

It has been two complete years since there was a significant man in my life. Since then I have lived in London for months, I have pursued my dream career and I have lived my life the way I always thought I would at this young age.

But still, I wish there was someone significant in my life. But when there is, I am horrified of relationships and usually push him away faster than a person launching a shopping cart across the parking lot to the cart bin.

I have tried to come to terms with the fact that I might die old and alone with a household of cats. I will pass out toothbrushes to little kids on Halloween and I will use a motorized cart when I go grocery shopping...

A Handful of Bras, But No Phone or Keys

So I broke into my own apartment today.

Roommie was packing to drive to Sacramento, and I was in the middle of moving my laundry through. I said that I would be right back and I walked out the door, holding only the key to the laundry room and a handful of quarters. I sorted through all of my clothes, draped my wet delicates over my right arm and grabbed a handful of wet bras with my left hand. Then I walked back to our apartment, only to find out it was locked.

I ran out to the parking lot and saw that her car was gone – she was probably already on the freeway. After running across the street to Roommie’s friends’ house I walked to the manager’s office and memorized the emergency phone number.

In search of a phone, I knocked on our neighbors’ door – the boys we have met once. No luck. So I walked up the stairs, knocked on a random door and I heard manly voices telling me to come in. I explained that I was locked out and asked to borrow a phone. The boy to my left handed me his cell and as I reached for it I realized that I had extended the hand full of wet, lacey bras. Nice. Real nice. Then I dialed the manager’s emergency number and it was disconnected – come to found out it was because in my embarrassment I developed a temporary case of dyslexia and mixed up the numbers.

So I left and resolved that I would walk five blocks to my friends’ house and get advice from them - wet delicates in tow. As I walked through the parking lot I realized that my roommate had left our front window wide open. This is something that usually distresses me greatly. (This summer I was out with a reporter covering a story about a guy who got into a woman’s house because she left it wide open like that and he raped her for hours in front of her toddler.) But, for once, at this sight I was overcome with joy. I crawled through our bushes and, with the hand full of wet brazeers, pulled the screen off and officially broke into my own apartment.

Nip/Tuck

As a journalist I have become fascinated by television shows that depict the life of any reporter; my favorite addiction being "Sex & the City". However I have to admit that I have been sucked into the show Nip/Tuck - and yes that pun was intentional.

Tuesday was the big premiere so I waited eagerly with my friends on their 1982 vintage couch to hear that slow creepy theme song. It was the usual sex, drugs & alcohol kind of thing - that is, until we met Mama.

This fictional woman (though Chris Arth said she is based on a real person) broke my heart. She was 600+ pounds I think, enough so that she couldn't even walk. She had been sitting on her couch for three years. Like so many of us, her life changed the day she met Tivo and evidently no longer found it necessary to stand up from that couch. What's worse was that since she couldn't move she was literally sitting in her own filth - and had been for three years. When asked about it she answered, "I'd rather not talk about that". And during that line she looked down and I could feel her utter shame. I cannot imagine a pain worse than that absolute humiliation.

The worst part... The combination of bed sores, constant moisture from her secretions and no movement had caused her to literally fuse and become one with her couch. So it was necessary to take her, couch and all, out an entire exterior wall of her home. She was crying in sheer desperation that they not take her outside because there were people lined up at her fence trying to watch her like she was a street performer.

I was so mortified by this that it actually brought tears to my eyes.

But tonight, after five days of beginning to forget about Mama, I saw David, the "Half Ton Man" - 1,000 pounds. There was also a man who was, as they said, "obesely overweight", and lost all of the weight spectacularly but then gained it all back. When he was put in the ambulance he was crying out in horror that his condition was because of a disease and not because he was weak or a slob or any of the other heinous things people say about someone in that situation. There has been a knot in my throat ever since. I cannot imagine that pain, that horror, that disappointment.

Can you?

Frankie

Just when I thought that all hope was lost and I had officially become a heartless wench doomed to a single lifestyle surrounded by cats, I fell in love at Wal*Mart.

I must admit that I was searching for him, because in a way I have been looking for him my whole life. I walked straight down the aisle toward him and stopped just short so that we were almost uncomfortably close. His eyes never left mine and I felt my stomach jump; which is a far better sensation than I get when I meet other bachelors and I have to fight the uncontrollable urge to start projectile vomiting. My heart then skipped a beat, I instantly knew that we were meant to be.

But I am spectacularly horrified of commitment and so I turned to leave. But he followed me as I walked a few steps and when I turned back we made eye contact again - but it was that long, connecting stare and I knew he was thinking "take me home right now and show me a good time".

And so I did.

He told me his name while we were driving back to my place... Frankie, sigh.

He's loyal and sweet and for the first time in my life I can say, and actually believe, that he genuinely cares for me too. My favorite times with him are when he dances to my indie rock compilations. Chris Arth doesn't believe that he sings, but he's just shy and he rocks out when we're alone.

His Royal Highness Frankie the Goldfish rocks my world.