Ever been friends with someone for the sole reason of proximity? That’s pretty much how I became friends with my neighbor Sara. It was about two summers ago and I was walking my dog in the sweltering heat. I stopped and lay down on the grass spread eagle and closed my eyes. Sara came out of her house and asked if I was alright. Not long after that we started doing lunch at Chili’s.
But Sara is a bipolar whackjob with a drinking problem. I stopped going out with her to the bars because she does things like dance by herself in the middle of the floor looking like a displaced Jazzercise instructor. At the George Michael concert last summer she got totally wasted on rum and coke and loudly asked the two men sitting behind us if they were gay. Then, another time at the local pub, she left with the bartender and, at his request, got into the back of his van and gave him a blowjob. After he came all over her face, he zipped up and went back to the bar. Classy.
She must have the most clueless psychiatrist on the planet. The shrink only has her on a mild dose of Lexapro, a really mild sedative. This irks me because even the Old Me was as sane, rational and unemotional as a Star Trek Vulcan compared to her. Yet I’m the one on two sets of mood stabilizers and two different types of antidepressants. Explain that to me.
Some of you may recall that I dated her brother Julio last summer. He is, without a doubt, the dumbest guy I have ever dated. He’s just like his sister: not reflective at all, does things without thinking, commits the same mistakes over and over, and makes a lot of empty promises about how he’s going to turn his life around. His life is a mess too. He owes the IRS $40,000 in back taxes, and they cut his hours at the car dealership where he works. So what does he do? He goes out and buys a purebred bulldog even though he knows he’s allergic to dogs. You can guess the rest: after about a week, his allergies got the best of him and he is now frantically trying to find someone to take the dog off his hands. So there goes a good $800. This means he will not be able to make rent. Which means he’ll have to borrow the money from his ex-brother-in-law. By the middle of next month, he’ll repay his ex-brother-in-law but will buy something else equally useless, such as an expensive, stolen wristwatch. Then by the end of that month, he won’t be able to make rent so he’ll have to borrow money from his ex-brother-in-law all over again.
I strongly suspect Julio has a gambling problem as well. And it goes without saying that he has maxed out all of his credit cards.
You know the stereotype about working class people? It’s usually two things: 1) they’re really dumb and 2) they’re really racist. Well, Julio is that stereotype. He constantly mispronounces words (like Fuh-kod for “façade”) and has lousy grammar (“He learned me how to play poker.”) He’s never been on the Internet and has no email address. When his manipulative, sociopathic, Eurotrash ex-girlfriend told him she was kidnapped by Al-Qaeda operatives and held hostage in an abandoned building in London, HE ACTUALLY BELIEVED HER. I could go on and on.
But the racism is incredible. He hates black people with a fury and says “nigger” at least six or seven times a day. At least. It’s as though he *enjoys* hating them because it’s so obsessive. One time we were ordering pizza for delivery and he suddenly said, “Wait, not at that location. Niggers be cooking that shit.” I don’t know where this is coming from because Sara, to her credit, isn’t like that at all and neither is their older sister (who seems like the only intelligent one in the family).
I guess he’s been asking about me to Sara, wondering if I’ll go out with him again. If he calls me I’m going to calmly tell him that I’m now dating a black man.
But back to Sara. She has too much time on her hands, being a stay-at-home mom and all, so she has finally taken it upon herself to learn how to use the Internet. Ostensibly this is so she can apply for jobs on Craigslist. This, of course, is not happening. Instead, she recently signed up on Facebook and is talking about joining Twitter. Of course. This is where her time and attention will be from now on. And that means she won’t look for a part-time job. Which means that when she files for divorce for the umpteenth time (I give it about six months from now), she won’t have enough money to pay for the lawyer’s fees and groceries. So what that means is she’ll have to get an allowance from the husband she’s trying to divorce. This will result in her having to bargain for money through sex. Which means I’ll have to hear her whine all over again about what as mess her life is. It’s a cycle, like recessions.
I hate my social life. All my real friends are on the West Coast or East Coast. I don’t have anyone here I can really talk to, who understands me, who I can relate to. I miss having intelligent face-to-face conversations. I can’t even remember the last time I HAD an intelligent face-to-face conversation.
I’ll get a reprieve from this whole stupid scenario when I visit my friend Mark in Connecticut this summer. He promised me that he’ll buy some weed. It’ll be like when we were in college. We’ll get high, order Chinese take-out, and watch a Pedro Almodovar film.
Bitchfest over. Resume your previous activities.
But Sara is a bipolar whackjob with a drinking problem. I stopped going out with her to the bars because she does things like dance by herself in the middle of the floor looking like a displaced Jazzercise instructor. At the George Michael concert last summer she got totally wasted on rum and coke and loudly asked the two men sitting behind us if they were gay. Then, another time at the local pub, she left with the bartender and, at his request, got into the back of his van and gave him a blowjob. After he came all over her face, he zipped up and went back to the bar. Classy.
She must have the most clueless psychiatrist on the planet. The shrink only has her on a mild dose of Lexapro, a really mild sedative. This irks me because even the Old Me was as sane, rational and unemotional as a Star Trek Vulcan compared to her. Yet I’m the one on two sets of mood stabilizers and two different types of antidepressants. Explain that to me.
Some of you may recall that I dated her brother Julio last summer. He is, without a doubt, the dumbest guy I have ever dated. He’s just like his sister: not reflective at all, does things without thinking, commits the same mistakes over and over, and makes a lot of empty promises about how he’s going to turn his life around. His life is a mess too. He owes the IRS $40,000 in back taxes, and they cut his hours at the car dealership where he works. So what does he do? He goes out and buys a purebred bulldog even though he knows he’s allergic to dogs. You can guess the rest: after about a week, his allergies got the best of him and he is now frantically trying to find someone to take the dog off his hands. So there goes a good $800. This means he will not be able to make rent. Which means he’ll have to borrow the money from his ex-brother-in-law. By the middle of next month, he’ll repay his ex-brother-in-law but will buy something else equally useless, such as an expensive, stolen wristwatch. Then by the end of that month, he won’t be able to make rent so he’ll have to borrow money from his ex-brother-in-law all over again.
I strongly suspect Julio has a gambling problem as well. And it goes without saying that he has maxed out all of his credit cards.
You know the stereotype about working class people? It’s usually two things: 1) they’re really dumb and 2) they’re really racist. Well, Julio is that stereotype. He constantly mispronounces words (like Fuh-kod for “façade”) and has lousy grammar (“He learned me how to play poker.”) He’s never been on the Internet and has no email address. When his manipulative, sociopathic, Eurotrash ex-girlfriend told him she was kidnapped by Al-Qaeda operatives and held hostage in an abandoned building in London, HE ACTUALLY BELIEVED HER. I could go on and on.
But the racism is incredible. He hates black people with a fury and says “nigger” at least six or seven times a day. At least. It’s as though he *enjoys* hating them because it’s so obsessive. One time we were ordering pizza for delivery and he suddenly said, “Wait, not at that location. Niggers be cooking that shit.” I don’t know where this is coming from because Sara, to her credit, isn’t like that at all and neither is their older sister (who seems like the only intelligent one in the family).
I guess he’s been asking about me to Sara, wondering if I’ll go out with him again. If he calls me I’m going to calmly tell him that I’m now dating a black man.
But back to Sara. She has too much time on her hands, being a stay-at-home mom and all, so she has finally taken it upon herself to learn how to use the Internet. Ostensibly this is so she can apply for jobs on Craigslist. This, of course, is not happening. Instead, she recently signed up on Facebook and is talking about joining Twitter. Of course. This is where her time and attention will be from now on. And that means she won’t look for a part-time job. Which means that when she files for divorce for the umpteenth time (I give it about six months from now), she won’t have enough money to pay for the lawyer’s fees and groceries. So what that means is she’ll have to get an allowance from the husband she’s trying to divorce. This will result in her having to bargain for money through sex. Which means I’ll have to hear her whine all over again about what as mess her life is. It’s a cycle, like recessions.
I hate my social life. All my real friends are on the West Coast or East Coast. I don’t have anyone here I can really talk to, who understands me, who I can relate to. I miss having intelligent face-to-face conversations. I can’t even remember the last time I HAD an intelligent face-to-face conversation.
I’ll get a reprieve from this whole stupid scenario when I visit my friend Mark in Connecticut this summer. He promised me that he’ll buy some weed. It’ll be like when we were in college. We’ll get high, order Chinese take-out, and watch a Pedro Almodovar film.
Bitchfest over. Resume your previous activities.
2 comments:
But she did ask if you were alright when you were laying in front of her house. That's nice, and not something everybody would have done... ;-) (With hindsight, you'd probably be better of if she hadn't...)
No, I was just in a really bitchy mood and already feel guilty for what I said. She's alright and has a big heart. Just a little batty sometimes -- but aren't we all?
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