I had no idea what I was doing with myself. At the time, I was part-timing it at community college and not making too many friends at the school. One could say I was a bit of a hermit. I was in the midst of recording an album which fell-through due to financial difficulties. I had also surrounded myself with a group of friends with questionable morals and was constantly on the prowl for some sort of inspiration. To be fair, all of this confusion and bewilderment had a source. I was on the mend from my first-ever broken heart.
I recall being drunk out of my mind in South Norwalk with a group of friends that I consider less smart than I regard myself, but sometimes, the stupider the friends are, the funnier the story will be, no?
"Alright, first hot girl to get up on the bar and dance to this next song gets a free pitcher of beer for her and her friends!" Shouted the DJ. Free beer, you say?
Next thing you know "Pour some Sugar on Me" was blasting through the speakers and I was pouring the pitcher down my white summer dress. And, yes, I whipped my hair back and forth.
I demanded that since I had used all of the beer for my on-bar shower that I get a second pitcher to actually drink with my friends. I won, obviously. Who was going to pass up giving more beer to a girl with her nipples showing through her dress? Someone stupid. But the bartender was a wise man.
That is just an example of the broken-hearted mess that I was becoming.
There were other nights and other parties where I had not only proven to myself that I was a bit of a wreck and this is a pretty significant one.
On my friend *Banana's nineteenth birthday, she managed to pull of a rager at her house when her parents were out. The house was already filled with 30+ people when my sandbox best friend *BooBoo and I got there.
BooBoo and I have been tied with invisible strings since we were around the age of seven. I was a loner in elementary school as I sang Spice Girls to myself on the swings. She promptly heard the delectable ring of "Wanna Be" as I thrust through the air and decided I was a worthwhile candidate to have enter into her life. When we were about 20 years-old we decided to get tattoos for each other. She has, "You will find me" in my handwriting on the arch of her foot. I have "Time after Time" in her handwriting on my arch. So many people think is cheesy and I guess it is, but then again some people just don't understand sandbox love.
In my previous post, I had mentioned that, in high school, I had better things to do than to worry about the bullshit that was spewed on me by my peers. I mentioned that I was too busy taking care of my best friend who was a "suicide mess," and while that is kind of a true statement, there is way more to this suicide mess than I had previously mentioned.
This girl is the definition of fighter. When we were in high school, her parents went through an abusive and messy divorce. It was a scary thing to have to watch such a wonderful, sweet girl turn into something dark. It was like all of the colors in her life had faded and she was full of pain and anguish. She drew stars over her wrist scars in permanent marker and had questionable taste in boys and absent morals. She desperately needed to feel wanted, but she had to hit the real rock bottom before she became who she has become today.
There were several suicide attempts and other nameless scares that she had put me through. Her mother was always a sweet and strong woman, but she was dealing with more than I think BooBoo and I will ever know at the time. We were so young and did not understand it fully. All I knew is that I loved this girl, but I did not know how to handle her anymore. I was losing this battle and my grip was slipping.
Eventually, her mother kicked her out and I had to abandon ship for a while as well. I had concentrated on making her better for so long that I had forgotten that I was not happy anymore. My first boyfriend had just smashed and shattered my heart when she decided to storm back into my life about six months after I had chosen to cut her out. It was like she knew I was sinking. She sensed it.
She had gone to live with her father in Pennsylvania for most of that summer while her mother maintained residence in the next town over. BooBoo was always honest in her explanations and I am positive that this is the reason why we share such an incredible bond.
"I was pretty fucking mad at you for abandoning me for so long, but I came to the realization that if the two people I loved the most (her mother and me) had cut me out, then I must have been doing something pretty bad. I am working on myself like no other. Finally getting my GED and thinking about schools. I figured I could not hit bottom anymore than I already have. We owe it to our friendship to be there for one another."
Respect.
In mid-November of 2007, BooBoo and I attended Banana's birthday bash. This was the first time I had seen BooBoo in about nine months. She was visiting her mother for the time being and I thought it would be a perfect idea to blow off some steam at this party. As per usual, BooBoo was dressed in all black. Some things will seriously never change.
BooBoo was a sun-kissed, chubby blonde girl up until eighth grade. Like I said before, when her parents divorced, it brought out the darkness. As much as her soul has retained lots of light, her appearance, to this day, is similar to a Tim Burton cartoon. She has numerous tattoos and has dyed her dark brown since she was about thirteen years old. It is a rarity to see her without an article of black clothing on. She is a real trip.
Needless to say, on this night, she was wearing black leggings, black Ugg boots and a black cardigan. Black eyeliner was never too far from her reach either. She will always strive to look like Lydia from Beetlejuice, because that's just how she rolls.
The night starts to progress instantly, from the second we enter Banana's house. We get dragged upstairs to Banana's room where there is an epic amount of vodka with orange juice chasers, just waiting for BooBoo and I to ingest them. And we did.
About an hour later, I was putting back several Malibu cocktails when I realized that I was in the middle of the kitchen dancing so hard to some Ol' school Chris Brown. Like, "Run It" Chris Brown. Everybody knew me at this point. All of the these bitches in the kitchen knew me. I was this kitchen's shit.
A flash later, I was in the basement, still nursing a solo cup full of some shit, playing Twister with the only hot guy at the party. He was a hot Jew. He gave me the, "Will you sit on my face?" look, and in my drunken state, I really did not know right from wrong. I considered it.
*HotRandoJew started playing the piano while I sat next to him and whaled out notes that I thought sounded good. For those of you who know me, I do possess a rather nice singing voice, but when I drink, I somehow become tone-deaf and sound like I am killing a bunch of chihuahuas with a jagged scarf. I can even recall trying to scat at one point. I do not even know how to scat when sober, so...
It was at this point when I could not help but wonder where BooBoo had ended up. The last time I had seen her was when I was playing Twister about an hour before. She had spilled her drink on my leg as she swiveled around one of the basement support beams. I knew she was having a good time when she stated that she was on a carousel whilst she sipped upon her miscellaneous solo cup fluid. Drink up, Sister.
It had been an hour since I had seen BooBoo in her euphoric state and my vodka-soaked mind started to worry. I never worried about her sniffing cocaine in the bathroom or finding her panty-less in the backseat of a car. She has always had a special way of getting herself into stupid situations. Like, short-bus special. My real concern was that she had probably wandered outside and gotten her foot stuck in a sewer drain or dropped her phone in somebody else's throw-up puddle. I had visions of her passed out on a porch swing with a drawn-on mustache. Nobody knew her well-enough (at the party) to draw said mustache. If anybody really had done that, it would have probably been me and I would have snickered silently as carried it out.
About a half hour into shouting her name throughout the house, I started to panic. Where the fuck was she? I had gotten scared that she had wondered off, drunkenly, to the Wal-Mart down the street to buy arm-floaties and smelly markers. That's just the kind of person she is. You will never ever know what the fuck is going on up in that head. Like, ever.
Finally, I swung open the backdoor to find her walking towards me on the porch.
"Where did you go?" I inquired.
She looked like a moving truck hit her. Her eyeliner was down her cheeks and her hair was more or less the ugliest I had ever seen it. Her cardigan was hanging off one side and her breath was quite unsavory as she inched closer to me.
"I threw up on m'Ugg boot." She giggle-hiccuped to herself.
"I can see that..." It looked like a barf supernova just splooged over the tops of them. "Where did you throw-up?"
"On my Ugg boots." ...Mess.
"No, like...location?" Come on...
"My...my boots."
"No, like in the toilet? Or outside?" Why did I need to know? Was I going to go check it to see if it was alive?
"I think the driveway..."
"You want some water?" I asked.
"To clean off my boots? They are suede, will it work?"
"No, BooBoo, for you to drink. You need water." I stated.
"Do I look bad?" ...um...Yes.
"No! You look fine." She looked fine to me, but then again, I was about 6 cocktails deep and everyone looked pretty good to me.
Eventually, HotRandoJew and I made our way to Banana's room and started swallowing each other's mouths. This was the first guy I had decided to make out with since my boyfriend had reached inside of my chest cavity and ripped out my aorta. After a year and a half of dating, we were not on speaking terms anymore. So this new boy kind of came in at the right and wrong time. It was a mix of happiness and emptiness all at once. On the one hand, this cute guy was giving me attention that I was so desperate for. However, on the other hand, I was not ready to be thrust into the world of one-night stands and broken promises. But, really, who is ever ready for that?
About eight minutes into our make-out session, I could feel his hands making their way into places that I had never let anybody but my ex-boyfriend go, up until this point. I was nervous and did not know if I should cross that line. Was I really this girl?
I needed to vomit. Where were BooBoo's Uggs when ya needed them?
I shot up and sprung to the bathroom where I tasted the Malibu-flavored bile as it ascended back onto my taste buds. I kneeled on the floor, feeling bloated and defeated by my alcohol intake. People refer to stagnant, fat people in the sand as 'beached whales'...well, I was a 'beached drunken fuck' on this bathroom floor. I hugged the toilet and cried for a good three minutes until I realized how ridiculous I must have looked. I laughed at myself for a second. I also tried to slap the pathetic-ness out of my face a few times.
Why the fuck was I crying? Seriously, though? I mean, I had somehow rid myself of a relationship that was doomed to fail anyway from distance (he went to school in Florida). And, I was drunk as fuck and there was a hot-ass Jew in the next room waiting to make-out with my awful breath. Like, he knew I had just thrown-up, but when I came back into the room he threw me on the bed, like whoa!
It would have been so romantic and lusty and hot had he not decided to throw the vomitty-mess that I had been portraying myself to be all night. The second my ass hit that bed, my stomach turned and I immediately put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from exploding. Yeah, I'm hot. I am so lucky that I have been blessed with a patient gag reflex. I have never missed the toilet or been too late. Yeah... I am going to add that to the list of things I love about myself.
I spent a better part of that next half hour spitting into the toilet. You know that grace period after you're done REALLY throwing up, but you keep spitting out saliva that sounds like you're saying, "PTETH." Yeah, it helps.
When I finally had the stomach to go back into the room, HotRandoJew had left and BooBoo was now on the bed. I jumped on top of her to hug her. I was so glad it was her and not HRJ. *May I jog memories of the fact that she had also been vomiting for a good part of the evening as well.* We smelled like hobos. I can't say that we didn't look like them either at this point. Our make-up was in places where we did not intend it to be. Our hair had tangled together. We were holding each others hands. Her hands were always ridiculously clammy.
"Hey, BooBoo?" I said.
She was half-sleeping. "Mmmhmm..."
"...I just farted." I giggled.
"Ew, Dana!"
"I thought you would want it!" Really, it was a gift.
"I missed you." She said happily.
"Ditto."
I didn't really care much that HotRandoJew and I did not go further in our evening adventure because I had gotten to spend the rest of the night with someone of substance to me. For the first time in months after my break-up, I felt important to somebody again. Both of us had put each other through the ringer over the past few years. We had met at a young age and were bound to become different people at some point. Through all of the bullshit and heartache we had put one another through, I must say those years are, by far, much darker than any boyfriend break-ups or little betrayals. We somehow survived it and have never really looked back. We will never not need each other, I guess.
With that said:
I cannot tell you how many times BooBoo and I have farted, bled, snarfed, vomited, sneezed and spit on one another in the past fifteen years of our friendship. All I can really tell say is that if one of us had AIDS, the other would have gotten it as well. Fo' Sho'.
Moral of the story: When you've been dumped like a sack of shit on a dirt road in Alabama, look to your friends to feel important again. And if they aren't giving you the reaction you're looking for, fart on them. It'll wake'm up. They secretly love it.
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