It’s been a day of watching Covert Affairs on Amazon Prime. Piper Perabo looks and acts so much like Jennifer Garner that it’s like watching Sydney Bristow all over again. Annie Walker (main character) is a linguist that was picked up by the CIA in college because she was fluent in like, five languages. It’s action packed, mostly because she doesn’t let on that she understands so many and just takes in information because people who don’t speak English naturally assume that people who do can’t speak others. I have witnessed this first hand many times when people are speaking Spanish in front of me and don’t realize that I do understand most of what they’re saying, if not all. I can listen a lot better than I can read and write.
Speaking of which, I would like to go back to Ensenada. It was the best trip I’ve ever taken, minus the fact that when we were snorkeling (Katharin, Jill, Linday, and me) the water was filled with jellyfish and Jill, quite cutely, said to watch being stung on “both our asses.” She meant both of our cheeks, but it was funny as hell and still comes up in conversation.
Speaking of Jill, gotta talk about it.
I met Jill on the first day of class at UH, right before (I think) Comparative Politics. Einstein’s gave me a free bagel dog, and I took it because I was polite. I don’t really like hot dogs all that much. So, I give it to this girl sitting next to me and we’re still friends today. We have said many times that it’s a shame she wasn’t a lesbian, because we had such a great “meet cute.” She always says, “you had me at bagel dog.” The next class after that was Con Law, probably the hardest and best class I ever had in college (so far). Lindsay, Jill, David, Andre, and I became a study group. We worked harder than we have in a long time. Our professor owned a share of The Continental Club, so Thursday nights we’d all go and party down. We just built a community.
A community that let our professor buy us Patron shots because he knew his tests were of the devil and I think he felt somewhat sorry for us. I took the best notes ever. I type 80-90 words per minute, and I had a transcript of every class. I don’t know where those notes went, but if I had them back I would still use them. He was hilarious, and cool like the other side of a pillow. He graduated from UT and took the bar in both Texas and Louisiana (just for fun). Taking the bar in Louisiana is very different from any other state because it’s based on French provincial law. Just a total badass and I can truly say I loved him and he loved me, in that deep companionate “I will hold your hair back if you drink too much Patron” kind of way. I will say for the record that I am making fun of him here. I wasn’t there the night Patron shots were taken, and I will regret that forever. Good stories came out of it that I only know by hearsay. The ONE Thursday I missed. JEEZ.
The soundtrack was a Beatles cover band that I still love called “Beetle.” They still play on Thursdays at the club, and if you haven’t been, do not pass Go until you do. If there’s anything I miss about living in Houston, it’s Thursday nights with Lindsay and Jill.
It was a weird time in my life. I was dating a dry drunk who verbally abused me all the time, but we looked like the perfect couple on the outside. One night at Beetle, a waitress who’d known me for years came up behind me and surprised me by shotgunning me with weed. I didn’t know it was going to happen, and I was truly embarrassed. Katharin reacted by asking if I was having an affair, “knew” that I had feelings for this woman and wanted to run away with her, when the truth was that I barely knew her. She was my fucking waitress. Katharin said that the shotgun was just an excuse to make out with me and proceeded to berate me for it for over a year. Speaking of which, I made the gargantuan mistake of telling her that my doctor was cute, and all I meant was that she was good eye candy and also one of the smartest doctors I’d ever met in my life. Katharin got so mad that she nearly hit me and said, “are you going to run away with her?” I said, “No, she’s married and pregnant.” Katharin said, “are you going to raise another man’s child?” Whoa there, freak show.
Katharin was awesome to hang out with, but being with her was a mistake from the very beginning. She was a rebound from Angela, who broke my heart when she said she wanted to marry me and reneged ten days later. Angela and I have healed from it, and we’re friends now. She is dear to me. Katharin is not. Katharin wanted to marry me because she said she was tired of the two or three year dance, and I got the message that she wanted to get married and settle down if only I’d change everything about myself. Katharin wanted to be married, but I’m not sure she wanted to be married to me. The fight where she punched a hole in the wall haunts me, because my first love, her wife, and their toddler were set to arrive the next day. The wall was fixed, but the paint had hardly set when they walked in the door. I wish I’d reached out to Meag and told her what was going on, but I didn’t. I just sat and seethed in unhappiness and thought, “this is my life.” One of the last nails in the coffin of that relationship was when she said, “I really wish you’d go back to college, because it would prove to me that you’re not a flake.” This was bad news because she actively prevented me from going to night school by saying she didn’t want me to go…. that I’d fall in love with my professor and run away with him. It was a never-ending stream of wanting me to get out and do things, but actively preventing me from doing them. She had a huge grudge against my family and called me a spoiled little rich girl. Her family was not of money and she held it over my head that my family did special things for us. At that time, I was working in my stepmother’s office as a medical assistant and earning my keep. It’s one of the best jobs I’ve ever had, and I miss it like air. The only thing was that it was so far from the UH campus that I rarely made it to my 5:30 class. I studied the online notes and Jill covered for me when I wasn’t there.
I already feel like a flake for leaving UH when I did. I didn’t need someone else to beat me up over my own insecurity. I was young and in love, and wanted to be married, living in my Paris. Kathleen and I were together for three and a half years, and she worked for me in the Information Systems department, but we were dating before she got the job. I didn’t want to move without her, and I still have feelings for her in a fond memory kind of way. It wasn’t all bad, despite the way she tended to treat me. There are no words to describe how broken I was then. I think to myself that I would have helped her if she was sick, and that “in sickness and in health” was being stretched to its limits. I felt abandoned and alone. I went to a grief support group in Houston and showed up at Diane’s work two months later. I just needed her mothermentorsisterfriend love that we’d created over the years, and for a bit, I got it wholeheartedly. I get the feeling that if there’s anyone in the world that Diane truly loves, it’s me. We met seven years before Susan was even a twinkle, and Diane watched me grow up, for better or for worse. The sunshine and chill was extreme, and when we were fighting for some stupid reason or another, I’d pine like a wounded animal, baying at the moon with loss.
That loss didn’t abate until I became the moon for someone else.
And on that note, I’m off. I’ve gone to a very deep, dark, and sad place so I’m going to walk to 7-Eleven for a Cheerwine and pump up the gangsta rap to try and change my mood. I just feel weird all over.
God, where to start…………………………………………..
#prayingonthespaces
Stories That Are All True 