How Am I Supposed To Live In A World That Allows Coldplay To Exist?

Things that Have Delighted Me this Week:

1) The mildly racist Six Flags Commercial. (Or should I say "Six Frags?") Hehe.

2) This:



3) Well. I didn't want to brag, but my pee on Sunday was thick and milky, like Iced Tea.

Things that have confused me this week:

1) Paul Bunyan. Turns out he wasn't an actual historical figure, like Robin Hood, and his Band of Thieves. It turns out he was a myth, like Jesus.

2) The phone system at my place of work. You see, I managed to not only interrupt a conference call including four of the most important people at The Bank when I picked up the wrong line and confirmed a lunch order for an MD, asserting "Yes, that was turkey on whole-wheat, please hold the mayo," but I also managed to disconnect the meeting...twice.

3) I got it on with a 39 year old man whose nickname is "Spider." Yes, his friends call him Spider. *exasperated sigh*

Things that have pissed me off this week:

1) My ears and eyes were violently assaulted by a certain commercial featuring Coldplay. Why, God. Why? What have I done to deserve this? Fuck. It just came on again. They should change their name to "We are Pansies." Or maybe just "Assholes."

2) Bicyclists. On the sidewalk. Dinging their fucking bells for me to move out of the way. The only way I could hate Coldplay more would be if its members were riding their bikes on the sidewalk.

And if instead of a dinging sound, their music played when they hit their bells. Assholes.

3) Liars. For example, I was told that "Juno" was cute and funny. Clearly my sense of humor is different than that of Liars. Because what I saw was a younger, seriously less funny version of Janine Garafolo reciting lines written by someone who desperately wants to be seen as cool. "The Stooges are rad." How HIP. And the soundtrack sucked. I wouldn't be surprised if Chris Martin selected every single song. Asshole.

People Who Hate Me "The Balloon Pops"

I’m not saying I’m a perfectly innocent player in this scene. I was clearly not at my most sensitive at that particular moment. Looking back, here is how I remember it:

1) I bought a shot for my good friends in an attempt to have a bonding moment.
2) I was momentarily distracted by a good-looking bartender.
3) I was deeply hurt to discover that my bonding shot did not mean as much to Balloon as it did to me.
4) I meekly asked “Balloon, why did you give my shot away? That was for the three of us to do together.”
5) “YOU WERE BUSY, YOU SHALLOW BITCH” Balloon spit back, and then proceeded to burst into tears and run, arms flailing into the ladies room.

What probably happened:

1) I bought a shot for my good friends in an attempt to get more wasted
2) I saw a cute boy, forgot about the shot and my friends, and decided to flirt.
3) I was fucking pissed to discover that that Balloon Bitch had given my shot away.
4) I said “What the fuck, Balloon? Why you gotta be givin my shot away?”
5) Balloon looked me coldly in the eye, said, “You were busy,” and then stormed off to the ladies room where she then burst into tears because I hurt her feelings.

I’m sure what happened rests somewhere in the middle. All I know is that despite my attempts to apologize to Balloon that night, the fact of the matter is she burst into tears, ran away from me, and then squirreled herself away into a stall of the ladies room, sobbing to AB about how awful I was.

Fair enough. I was not on my best behavior that night. I’ll admit it. But I also hadn’t done anything intentionally to hurt her.

We had one more day in Chicago. I apologized my brains out to Balloon. I thanked her again and again for having me at her house. She seemed to accept my apology…even though I was slightly confused as to what I was apologizing for. I mean, even if I had snapped at her, it wouldn’t have been THAT awful…that’s something I can apologize for and something that I think can be fairly easily forgiven. We had been friends for 4 years at this point…me snapping at her one night when I was drunk hardly seemed to warrant the volume of hurt and pain that I had apparently caused her.

I left Chicago feeling like a bully. I truly felt awful. That is, until I made a little discovery while unpacking my suitcase.

There, resting on top of my clothing was a Hallmark envelope with my name printed neatly on the outside. Curious, of course, I opened up the envelope and found a glossy greeting card featuring two little girls on a bench holding hands.

Oh, how I wish I hadn’t lost/thrown away this card so I could reprint verbatim what it said.

At some point, (according to the letter, 2am the morning before I left while scarfing down half a gallon of ice cream), Balloon had written (poorly) on this card all of the reasons why she didn’t want to be friends with me anymore.

The well thought out points that I committed to memory:

1) “All you care about is boys.” (Not true, Balloon. All I care about is myself).
2) “You are shallow and simple minded” (I am the first to admit I’m shallow. I don’t want to be deep. I find “deep” self-indulgent and boring. And my “simple” mind managed to garner me $20,000 dollars worth of scholarships to one of the top 50 schools in the country (at the time). So. Fuck. You.

And number 3, this one kills me:

3) “You don’t care about important issues like I do, like genital mutilation in Africa.” (I scrunched my nose and narrowed my eyes and thought to myself “What’s genital mutilation?”)

So it went. I was neither smart enough nor was I profound enough to be worthy of her friendship. I wrote her a quick email saying something along the lines of “I understand and respect your decision. But know that I will always be here for you if you need me.” Not because I meant it. No, if that bitch asked me for a favor, I tell her to stuff her beaker-shaped face in a pile of farts and inhale.

I wrote it to be a martyr.

Now, you may be wondering why I’m still bitter about Balloon now, 8 years later.

Well, the truth is, I’m not. I’m way over it. In fact, I’m so far over it that I thought I would reach out and say hi to her on “Facebook.” Her best friend from childhood had friended me. She was apparently friends with AB. I might as well give it a shot, right?

So I do a search looking for Balloon on Facebook. I can’t find her. Now, I’m confused. Apparently, she’s left comments on AB’s page, but I don’t see anything. And I KNOW she’s on there because AB has told me as much.

I call AB.

“AB, why can’t I find Balloon on Facebook?”

“She’s on there! That’s weird,” replied AB.

Silence.

“Oh my God,” AB whispered. “She’s blocked you.”
“She what?” I asked.

“She’s BLOCKED you! That’s what you do to people who are stalking you or something.”

We both burst into laughter.

Balloon blocked me so that we could never be friends on Facebook. Because apparently, she wants to send a message that we will never be friends, either in real life or on the fucking computer. My very existence bothers her.

Is it wrong that this brings me some sort of sick pleasure?

My 10-year high school reunion is coming up. I am seriously considering going for the sole purpose of looking smoking hot and saying hi to everyone around her except for her.

And if she did have the stones to say “Hello” I would reply, “I can’t see you. I’m blocked.”

Asshole.

P.S. I think it’s fucking hilarious that I’ve given this girl the pseudonym “Balloon.” It works on so many levels.

See. I am fucking deep.
Gay-ass douchebag.

People Who Hate Me

My sophomore year of high school, my English class was assigned one of those gay-ass group projects. I couldn't tell you what the project was for, but I am positive it was gay-ass. Kind of like Full House except even more gay-ass. Kind of like your cat, but even MORE gay-ass.


My best friend AB and I usually worked on these gay-ass projects together. We were and still are very gay-ass for each other. Now, in this class, there was a girl who was...different. It wasn't that she was weird or freaky, exactly. She was one of those girls who had grown up with a group of friends, but when they hit high school those friends all became popular and pretty much left her behind. She was pear-shaped, dumpy, had frizzy hair, and was smart, but was the kind of person who believed that her intelligence WAS her IDENTITY and whose self-esteem was reliant upon the fact that everyone knew how smart she was. My self-esteem rested on how skinny everybody thought I was, so, on a weird level, I could relate. One of my great failings as an asshole is that I am immediately attracted to the underdog.


I couldn't tell you how it came about that AB and I asked her to join our group to work on that gay-ass project. All I know is that subsequent to working on the project, we all started to hang out together--Mostly at each other's houses. We would sit around and do the thing that I now hate more than anything--we would talk ad nausium about our insecurities.


So this sort of weird trifecta formed. AB and I already seemed like unlikely friends to those who didn't know us, and the addition of this girl, we'll call her "Balloon," was just kind of bizarre. But i felt safe with these girls--I trusted them...and I didn't trust anybody. Except for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.


We remained friends through our senior year of high school. We all ended up going to different universities, but AB and I both kept in touch with Balloon, and we were invited out to Chicago where she was in school to visit her our junior year of college.


Now, I was a bit of a late bloomer. As you know, I didn't even go on my first date until I was 17, and that was when I received my first real "kiss/mauling." AB had to explain to me what a blow-job was when I was 16. And then had to draw me a diagram. And THEN had to draw me a diagram of the male body. And THEN had to draw me a diagram of the female body. And then had to blow her boyfriend in front of me so I would finally understand what she was talking about. (That actually didn't happen...but, really, it might have helped. Thanks A LOT AB. I blame you for my weak fellatio).


As such, once I got to college, I "discovered" boys. And they "discovered" me. I learned how to flirt (badly), I learned how to drink (successfully...after a few mis-fires), and I learned how to tease (my 1 truest talent). To be clear, I was a virgin until I was 21.



I tell you this because by the time I reached my Junior year of college, I was a seasoned flirt, drinker, and tease. Going out was a bloodsport to me.


The three of us reconvened in Chicago. Immediately I felt a sort of tension between myself and Balloon. AB and I had sort of developed in the same manner after we got to college. We both drank our faces off, smoked cigarettes, dated people who were wrong for us where as Balloon had stayed pretty much the same.


Our last night there, we went out to a club in downtown Chicago. We went with a group of Balloon's friends, some of whom happened to be boys. We were drinking a lot, but I wasn't shitfaced by any means. By the time we got to the club, it was pretty clear that AB had the monopoly on the boys we were with. This was fine with me. I went off to try to find other boys to flirt with. I guess I did. That part's pretty blurry. What I remember happening next was the series of events that ruined my relationship with Balloon forever and that spawned a piece of literature (cough) that I found on a greeting card in my suitcase when I returned to New Orleans:


a) I decided that the best way to fix any awkwardness was to bond via the drink. The profound drink that I chose for myself, AB, and Balloon was the ever poignant Buttery Nipple shot.



b) I noticed that the bartender was obscenely hot. Tattoos, piercings, spiky hair. A Cookieface special.

c) I noticed that he had forgotten to put the cherry in our buttery nipples.

d) I hastily handed the shots to Balloon, and then used the lack of nipple to flirt shamelessly with the hot bartender.

f) When I finally turned around to take the shot that I had bought for the three of us, I watched as Balloon gave my shot away to one of her friends.

It's so stupid, but I was upset. Because I was drunk. And because I was drunk, I said so.

Which unleashed in Balloon a flood of animosity toward me that she had apparently been holding onto since the day she and I met.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion, and the letter that ended it all....