Had Me Doin' Backflips

Charlee’s slice:
Well, I got that bug that is going around. Not that it matters, I had a great weekend. I spent Friday night lounging with Erin where we caught up on our TV programs, and took a late night trip up to Sherrie’s on Meridian. It was uneventful but still nice to just catch up. We got up early the next morning to go see a 10:30 showing of that vampires and werewolves movie. I hate to be one to fall into that pop culture trap, but I gotta say: I loved it. Also going to an early morning showing turned out to be a good idea, since when we got let out, there were three separate lines backing up for shows later in the day.
I got home and was about to take a nap when Erin called me in tears. The stray cat that adopted her was having a miscarriage. Erin and I drove her up to Ferndale to surrender her to the human society so they could take care of her and find her a good home. It was really heartbreaking, but she is such a pretty cat I have no doubts she will be adopted by Christmas.
Saturday night was party night. I met up with the guys around 7. Austin promptly convinced me to take a tequila shot without a chaser. We also cracked open another jar of meade, that Peter and I so expertly made, it was a hit, and apparently tastes a little bit like Christmas (it’s the cloves).
Renee was hosting an aphrodisiac potluck so I brought figs and champagne. We stayed there long enough to have a quick dance party, and for me to get pretty drunk off other people’s wine. We headed out before 11 to make sure we could get to the Yule ball in time. Yes, that’s right, a Harry Potter Yule ball. We danced to NSYNC, we made a conga line, we tried everything to get kicked out, and yet we left of our own accord. Tony, Austin, Nick, and I headed downtown to the wild buffalo to go to the handful of lovin’ show. The rest of our party decided to close down the Yule ball.
We made it to the wild buffalo just in time for the show to start, and we discovered the awesome upstairs VIP room. It’s not really VIP but it is awesome up there and it has a great view of the band and no crowd. Nick got us some beer to share, and I continued to get more drunk. Drunk enough that I agreed to swing dance with Nick, or rather get tossed around by him. Don’t get me wrong, he defiantly has skill, I definatly do not. He has enough skill in fact that he back flipped me. I told him not to and that he would break my neck, but I’m pretty small and I was pretty drunk, so he did it when I wasn’t really paying attention. No harm done. Shortly after that I was starting to feel kind of sick, my throat was starting to swell up (sorry guys for sharing drinks, at least it not H1N1!). We left the wild buffalo, but had to stop at the back east bbq, $2.99 for pitas is just too tempting. I immediately sat down in the booth, and the guys ordered, when I saw a sign of a dog that said “Dog” hanging on the side of the counter. For the rest of the night I was transfixed by the prospect that they served dog. I dared everyone at the table to try and order it as a joke, but no one would, so the next time I am drunk and hungry, I am going to try to order it and see what happens. They probably don’t serve dog, it was probably just a cute sign, but in that case it is false advertising. Btw, I am not opposed to eating dog, as long as I don’t know the dog before hand at least.
We left downtown and split up with Nick and Tony to meet back up with Peter at some party. I wasn’t feeling so good, so I made sure Austin was able to find Peter before I left for the comfort of my bed. I got a text a few hours later, “your a boob for leaving so early!” gee thanks, Peter.
I spent all of Sunday sick in bed, so I guess I actually didn’t leave early enough, but whatever. It was nice just to laze around. I’m heading home Wednesday for the turkey day break, can’t wait to see all my misplaced friends!


Rachel’s Slice:

I went back to Bellingham just long enough to get a good night’s sleep and to attend workshop. Then it was back on the road home once more. My Writing Retreat turned into a retreat from writing; I only managed to go over classmates’ drafts for workshop and outline my essay for Post Modern Lit. It’s going to be pretty fun in the representation and page layout—think crazy collage mixed with movie reviews, comic book pages, and prose poems—but I just need to get the actual *essay* part written. Not to mention I need to work on my creative project for the class. Since Post Modernism is all about re-interpreting works of the past, I thought why not focus on the multiple incarnations of one of my favorite songs, Meet Me in the City. But in the form of a menu, complete with ingredient list, and a suggestion of beverage.

I’m not going to go into my weekend too much, since all I did was sleep and eat and try not to think. So re-hashing out for all of you lovely readers is just going to make me think all about all of the things I was trying not to think about to begin with. Straight up mess if you ask me. The highlight of the weekend was going through album after album of family photos. Some of them were priceless, and it was just the thing I needed to re-focus on me—rather than the me that is feeling guilty and crazy lately.

My cousins are coming for Thanksgiving. If you’d all like to take a look back at the Post-Easter slice, you’ll know this is a recipe for insanity. Right now, I’m just wondering how drunk these kids are going to get—I mean we can’t go out to the bars after or hit up the store for a beer run. Also, I can only imagine where they’re all going to wind up at the end of the night. Last time they came drinking at the house, they didn’t leave till the next evening. Just wish my liver luck. I was hoping I’d be up for perhaps a hometown reunion Friday or Saturday and I’d rather not be a little hung-over waif.

Since I don’t have much else to tell you all about my lame-at-the-moment life, I thought I’d give you a little preview of the draft I’ve been literally agonizing over. It’s a little insight perhaps into why I have a hard time taking the step away from casual in any sort of relationship. Also, maybe a little narrative on the dynamic of my family, what's underneath it all. So here it is, excerpt from my Lyric essay "Grieving":

Denial
The apartment walls are blank, white in eggshell finish. We haven’t had sex in weeks now, sleeping in the same bed on shifts. Tristan is working nights, sleeping while I’m in class during the day. I climb into bed at night and imagine I feel more alone now than if I was living by myself. When we do talk, it’s over business: have I gone grocery shopping yet, changed the forwarding address on the mail, vacuumed today?
Tristan stops telling me he loves me before he leaves for work after dinner while I’m washing the dishes. He stops kissing me good-bye before dead-bolting the door as I leave to catch the bus in the morning. During the breaks I have between classes, I search for engagement rings on my laptop in the library. I pick out china patterns, compare steak knife sets. I set up a wedding registry on-line at Macy’s; the wedding date listed as May 21, 2011, our would-be six year anniversary.

Bargaining
My uncle’s pool table is covered in photographs, costume jewelry, high school yearbooks; family memorabilia. For the first time in years the majority of my family is in one room together—my cousin Alex back from Idaho, my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Bob in from Texas—brought there by the death of my grandmother. I’m sifting through photos, trying to find a piece of this woman who I find no trace of within myself. I don’t even share her Mitochondrial DNA after all. I find a picture of my father and his brothers and get the attention of my cousins. The three brothers are all under the age of thirteen, wearing white t-shirts and blue jeans, fixing cocktails in the kitchen. My father is cutting limes, his oldest brother Bill is in charge of the martini shaker and the second oldest, Bob, is arranging glasses on the counter. “Classic,” I remark, handing the picture around the group of cousins. At the same time, I can’t help but remember my father recounting how my grandmother kept a bottle of gin in the toilet tank; bathroom alcoholic.
My mother has been a Wood longer now than she was a Merki. My parents are the only original marriage to have lasted of the three brothers. As the grandchildren are pawing through the parts of our fathers’ lives we’ve never been allowed access to before, there is a battle between first and second daughters-in-law. Bob’s second wife, Lisa, is arguing with my mother over the set of pink poodles that belonged to Great-Grandma Rhea. My grandma Rhea lived long enough to see each of her grandsons’ firstborn—she died months after my birth. Lisa had never met the woman but felt ownership of the poodles, my mother relented. My mother and I share the same Mitochondrial DNA, passed on maternally. She’d always thought the pink poodles were stupid.
My cousin Alex and I stood off to the side and watched the heated glares and checked resentment between my mother and aunt. There was no will, so the divvying of assets became a matter of to which son’s wife my grandmother had promised what to over Christmas dinners. This free-for all wasn’t as disrespectful to the dead, since the departed’s only specific instructions were that a third party dispose of her ashes without the family having any input. It’s hard to pay homage when there isn’t even an ominous urn in the room.

XOXO, Rachel