Juliette Miranda

“Just get me some rope so I can hang myself.” 

Those aren’t exactly the words you want to hear from your boyfriend when you’re out celebrating that you’ve moved in together. Of course, considering the fact that I had just drunkenly dragged him from the safety of our booth to dance to a Donna Summer song, I’m guessing I’m lucky he didn’t lunge at me with a dinner knife. 

Between bottles of wine, we had somehow managed to wind up at the area’s only supper club, a crumbling establishment that had its heyday in the 70s and somehow escaped demolition thereafter. It was the kind of place I imagine the Brady Bunch parents would visit on a Friday when they wanted a “fancy” night on the town. 

And maybe in the 70s it was fancy, what with its nautical theme, exotic seafood menu, and strobe-lit dance floor in the middle of it all. Patrons could sip Manhattans at the Captain’s Bar, a hulking wood disaster with brass mermaids on the posts and a seashell inlay under the glass top, and later enjoy dancing in between bites of shrimp cocktail and Clams Casino. 

Time has obviously had no impact on Supper Club, because the only change that place has seen in the past 30 years was the entrance of my guy and I last Friday night (and perhaps the installation of oxygen tanks in the restrooms). We were easily the youngest in the building, and that’s taking into consideration the filmy looking fish in the lobby tank and dusty tinsel on the Christmas tree, in addition to the wait staff, bartenders and patrons.

We had the fortune of arriving just as Midnight Magic took the stage. All that band was missing was a horn section and you’d have the ultimate in tacky wedding band splendor. As my guy reluctantly swayed with me to hits like “Lady in Red”, I couldn’t help but feel vaguely as though I was at a high school dance. 

The situation was just absurd enough to launch my guy and I into a fierce giggling fit. As we danced, stupid with laughter and knocking into each other, a former prom queen to my left shot us an annoyed glance; our Dumb & Dumber routine was interrupting her nostalgia kick. 

We’d obviously picked the wrong place to celebrate the future. 

Moving to a home of our own was the next natural step for our relationship. Though my guy and I went into it having already spent time living together, nothing can entirely prepare a couple for the challenges that come with the complete merging of belongings and personalities. 

It’s hard to say what my most cumbersome baggage is: my odd and seemingly random OCD tendencies… or my cat. 

Our first night in our new home included nearly an hour of my arranging 40 jars of spices into an elaborate Tetris-like pattern in two kitchen drawers and approximately five hours of my cat stomping on the bed, pacing, and howling at the walls. 

“It’s the new environment,” I told my guy around 4 a.m. “She’s just excited.” 

“Yeah, let’s see how excited she gets when she’s on fire,” he grumbled. 

Needless to say, we didn’t sleep much. Still, my guy was nice enough to make me breakfast when we finally had enough of our fitful bedtime. It’s a routine he started months ago, and one I’ve always loved. 

But did I thank him for his thoughtfulness? Did I express my appreciation as I sat at the counter of our new kitchen and watched his considerate efforts? 

Of course not. Instead, I told him he was using the wrong butter. 

I don’t know what part of my brain made me think it was okay to do that, but I’m guessing it’s the same part that made me think it would be okay to force a twirl on my guy in the middle of “Hot Stuff”. 

He might have rolled his eyes at it all, but he was still smiling. And considering just moments before my guy had, on a dare, jabbed a fork into a festive paper-covered picture on the wall in order to “unwrap” it, I think it’s safe to say he’s got his own quirky tendencies.  

Our celebratory night may have wound up at the wrong place, but I knew we were still headed in the right direction. 

mirth

Mr. Rogers was once my hero. He may not have been the coolest children’s programming host, and I admit I eventually moved on to the Electric Company and 3-2-1 Contact, but for a time, Mr. Rogers had a quiet wisdom I found appealing.

I was reminded of him recently, when I came to question what exactly makes a good neighbor. I’m sure Mr. Rogers would have a gentle reply about kindness and sharing and overcoming differences. And he’d even be right, if this was the Land of Make Believe, and I wasn’t the neighbor.

It’s not that I go out of my way to be a rotten neighbor; I just don’t make much of an effort to be one at all. I resent the implication that living in proximity to another person somehow endears us to each other. The only thing anyone living near me is entitled to is my consideration.

And that, too, has its limits I’m finding, especially when it comes to the communal environment of an apartment complex. My guy and I will be moving to a townhouse at the start of the New Year, but have been sharing quarters in his apartment complex for the past few months. It’s a two-story dwelling consisting of four apartments, two dogs, the wafting stink of boiled sauerkraut, and one stumpy blonde ripe with misguided hatred.

Frankly, with my general avoidance tactics, I wouldn’t be aware of her specific existence at all if she hadn’t felt inclined to reach out to my guy and I. Her neighborly gesture came in the form of a letter one afternoon, taped to our mailbox.

“Dear neighbors,” she began. “I don’t know if you are aware how thin the walls are in this building…” Actually, we are; her futile efforts on a treadmill in the apartment above us provide a steady stream of pounding entertainment.

“I’m writing this letter to inform you that most days we are being disturbed by rather loud noises coming from your apartment that are quite uncomfortable. The nature and degree of the sounds is affecting our life. We haven’t been able to sleep, and you should know that we’ve had to move our children from their room so that they don’t hear what you’re doing.” Huh – neither of us have seen or heard any children in this building, but no matter. Perhaps she means her dogs.

“We all need to maintain a peaceful living community and hope you’ll stop the noise. Sincerely, your neighbors.”

It took all our self control to not merge into an alcohol-soaked sex tornado and hurl raunchy obscenities at the ceiling that night. Stumpy’s sad little letter summed up exactly why I dislike having neighbors at all: they’re nosy, inclined to assume you have an obligation to them though unlikely to reciprocate, and always there.

After taping her note to the fridge and calling all our friends to brag, we did make an effort to tone down our “disturbing” noises. Not that it stopped Stumpy from pounding on her floor at the slightest hint of a moan and avoiding eye contact in the hallway, of course. If that’s her idea of a peaceful living community, I can only assume she has never watched Mr. Rogers.

Our tight-lipped coexistence lasted until Christmas Eve day. Several weeks of accumulation had left our open field-cum-backyard with more than a foot of pristine white snow. Though snow ranks right up there with razor blades and syringes on my pain meter, I couldn’t resist suggesting my guy and I head out for a snowball fight.

Of course he was game, and we spent the morning hurling balls of snow at each other like kids. (Side note: never, ever taunt a boyfriend by yelling, “You throw like a girl! Is that all you’ve got?” It’s ungood. Trust me.) We even built a giant snowman, complete with eyes, arms and a smile. I half expected him to exclaim “Happy birthday!” when my back was turned.

We returned to the apartment satisfied and giddy. After drying off and brewing some whiskey-laced cider, my guy opened the patio blinds so we could have a view of Frosty as we wrapped Christmas presents.

But when I looked out into our vast backyard, I could only gasp. Standing where our happy snowman had been was only his bottom lump of snow; his torso and arms lay in a smashed heap behind him. Frosty was dead.

We rushed to his lifeless torso as if it actually mattered. We’d packed Frosty well, so there was no chance the wind had pushed him over. Upon investigation, it was clear his torso had been deliberately knocked over.

“Who would do that?” I asked. There were no kids or teenagers in the area that we knew of, and since the snow had fallen, the field was rarely traversed by anything other than prairie critters. I doubt our suburban raccoons had the upper body strength to dismantle a snowman.

Then we saw it: a single path of footprints leading to Frosty and returning to where they originated… Stumpy’s building entrance.

“No one kills a snowman in MY neighborhood and gets away with it!” I yelled.

I stomped back into the apartment and paced. I could just picture Stumpy pressing her greasy forehead against her window, seething in sexual frustration and jealousy as she watched my guy and I play in the snow. What kind of pathetic nutcase puts a hit on a snowman on Christmas?

It was such an aggressive move that my first inclination was one of equal aggression. Instead of sugar plums, that Christmas Eve, National Lampoon-like scenarios danced through my head: Could I anonymously hire a man whore to knock on her door? Would my cat cough up a few furballs on demand? What were the legal repercussions for nailing woodland creatures to her door?

But just as I was about to grab my hammer, I reconsidered. It was Christmas, after all, and even with all the venom coursing through me, I refused to ruin anyone’s holiday. That bitch was lucky it wasn’t Halloween.

Instead, I turned to my first source for life lessons and asked the all-important question: “What would Mr. Rogers do?”

He’d likely say that it was okay for us to feel sad, or mad, or perhaps vicious hatred, and encourage us to talk out our differences… and suddenly, I was reminded why I stopped watching that show in the first place.

I wasn’t interested in talking anything out, and I had a sneaking suspicion Stumpy wasn’t the most reasonable woman on the planet. So as quiet as I could, I left Stumpy a festive holiday card taped to her front door. Inside I wrote: “We’re moving out in one week. Merry Christmas you stumpy shrew.”

Mr. Rogers may not have approved, but the letter made me happy. Won’t you be my neighbor, indeed.

(Before and after photos of poor Frosty below. Click image for larger picture.)

“You’re too damn happy. You’ve lost all your street cred as a cynic.”

My girlfriend may have a point about my happiness. Seeing as how my last holiday was soaked in a dark combination of Absinthe and spite, my brilliant good mood of late is in sharp contrast.

Even my holiday spirit – which was once measured by how many times I could quote Scrooge and mean it – has shifted gears. Because, as I’ve just discovered, nothing screams “Happy Holidays” better than a random drug test.

They call the testing “random”, but I know better. I look at it as a special spot check from Santa, really. My resemblance to Hunter S. Thompson is likely too uncanny for the corporate world. Either that or my four-inch heels give me the illusion of being a crack whore. (Which, considering the ice coating the ground, isn’t exactly a foregone conclusion. What kind of idiot besides a crack whore wears stilettos in the winter? Me, obviously.)

However, despite any lack of justification – random or otherwise – it is still in perfect keeping with the traditions of the joyous season. When the giggling HR rep visited my desk claiming to be bearing a “gift”, I know I wasn’t looking for a holiday greeting card or bonus. That notification of a drug test was exactly what I wanted; lord knows when I saw it I could hardly wait to pee on something.

My “privacy” and “confidentiality” were assured, which made being lumped in with a group of other “random” coworkers and paraded en masse to the lobby restroom like a chain gang a surprising treat.

We even had 30 minutes to catch up on idle chit chat: the “nurse” from the medical facility administering the pee test had conveniently forgotten to bring consent forms and was considerate enough to take her sweet time in returning to the workshop to fetch them. Since there was surely potential for one of us to sneak a peak or prematurely exchange gifts and ruin our holiday fun, we were wisely quarantined in the lobby. I used the extra time to stand on a soapbox.

It was a relief to not have to think twice about the consent form when it was finally delivered. With Big Brother holding my hand warmly, I was able to sign the form under the crisp glow of job security. I even swore I could smell something roasting in the background. Whether it was chestnuts or human flesh, I couldn’t quite be sure, but no matter.

Once our pesky rights were signed away, we were instructed to form a queue. Our line to the restroom wound up snaking through the lobby like the line to see Santa at Macy’s. I’m sure we were all in similar spirit.

I was certainly more than ready to sit on that Christmas throne when my turn finally came. Santa’s Little Helper offered me a container for my holiday wish of a negative result and escorted me to the approved stall. The holidays truly are full of magic and wonder, because just as I had situated myself with my cup, the door of the stall miraculously blew open.

Was it the baby jesus? Or was it my Christmas spirit making a break for it? All I know is that as I staggered to shut the door, one hand gripping my cup, the other my pants, I felt a chill race through me. It was an extraordinarily special moment.

The elf had told me that Santa only needed a small wish deposit, but I wanted to make sure my message came through clearly. I left him more than he asked for, both in and on the cup. It was the least I could do.

Several red, candy cane-like lines later and I was cleared to return to work. I hate to sound like an ungrateful child, but I do wish I had more to show for the experience besides the branding as a potential drug puppy.

I guess I just need to accept that the holidays are celebrated in unusual ways and that not all customs match my own. In Yugoslavia for example, children are allowed to tie their parents to a chair and hold them for ransom. In Portugal, the dead are invited to sit and partake of the holiday meal. And in Whales, a person carrying a horse skull on a spike gets to chase villagers around until they’re paid to go away (that actually sounds like something I could get into).

Apparently in America, or at least in my own professional territory, peeing in a cup is an accepted holiday occurrence. God help me on New Year’s Eve.

When you have just left the self proclaimed “happiest place on earth,” where phrases like “dreams come true” are chanted 794 times a day, only to return to a blast of Chicago’s soul sucking reality, there is really only one thing to think … “Crap.”

The shortcomings of the Midwest have become far more glaring in my little world, and all I can do is count the things this soon-to-be Winter Wasteland is lacking: palm trees, an orchestra of penguins, a clean and free transportation system, nightly fireworks, and a path of torch-lit walkways leading to a white sandy beach. I can’t even look out my bedroom window without noticing Cinderella’s Castle and the spires of Space Mountain missing from my view.

My guy is doing his best to make the transition to reality easier on us both, but five nights at Disney’s luxurious Polynesian Resort are hard to leave behind. That’s why I hope he won’t mind that I’ve enrolled him in a “towel art” class.

If he really cares about me, he’ll be thrilled, I’m sure, to make cute little animals out of rolled towels for me to discover upon returning home, just like our “mousekeeper” did at Disney every day. (Of course, considering the damage my red-enhancing color conditioner has done to the towels, the animals he makes may look slightly more akin to game or roadkill, but no matter. It’s the thought that counts.)

This obviously wasn’t my first trip to Disney, though it was my guy’s first “adult” trip. Not that we actually acted like adults, mind you, aside from all the beer, mai tai and mojito drinking. I’m not sure if it’s a well-kept secret or not that all the Disney theme parks (excluding the Magic Kingdom) serve alcohol in abundance, but it certainly shocked my guy to discover how easy it was to wander around with a heady buzz.

Alcohol may actually be a partial explanation as to how my guy managed to clock a Monsters, Inc. character.

The picture was my idea, admittedly, though I am by no means a crazed character chaser. If I could walk past Jack Nicholson in LA without so much as wanting a handshake, I think I can pass up a photo op with Pluto.

Still, certain Disney characters hold sentimental value, or are just so wacky that they tickle my sense of the absurd. Sully and Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Inc. fall into that latter category, which is exactly why I grabbed my guy by the hand to lead him into their photo room at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

I assumed he went willingly. But as I was sucked into the hulking furball that is Sully for the picture, I saw from the corner of my eyes poor Mike Wazowski, a stocky green eyeball with legs, reeling backwards.

Click. Click.

“Sorry buddy,” my guy uttered to the staggering eyeball as the Disney Militia made their way toward him with scary speed. Sully, who seemed rather reluctant to release me from his overly friendly hug, pushed me in the general direction of the exit.

“What did you do?” I asked as we were not-so-magically urged from the room.

It turns out my guy gave new meaning to the concept of a reach around. Apparently, while in the process of putting his arm around Mike, my guy miscalculated the circumference of the eye and wound up jabbing the poor character in the “head” with his elbow. Needless to say, that was the last character greeting we attended.

Not that it stopped us from causing trouble elsewhere.

I have a suspicion we made several kids cry while waiting for the Honey, I Shrunk the Audience attraction. We were stuck in a “preshow”, which is Disney’s clever way of giving the illusion of movement when waiting in line. A queue of people is herded into what you think is the attraction, but turns out to really be a theatre showing commercials masquerading as an attraction-related movie.

This particular “preshow” was from Kodak (who is, I’m convinced, a heartbeat away from demanding top billing and insisting on a “Kodak Presents Walt Disney World” moniker). It was your standard tear-jerker about a little boy, his lost dog and five minutes of sappy memories captured on film. And what-do-ya-know, thanks to Kodak’s crystal clear images on the “find me before I wind up in the pound” signs, the mailman spots the lost dog and brings him home. Sniff.

Even I’m not entirely immune to sentimental claptrap, and was about to eek out a smile during the big dog-boy reunion when my guy leans over and says, “I bet that thing’s got rabies now. Look – it’s frothing at the mouth. Somebody better shoot it.”

My snorting laughter rang out louder than the swell of pulled heartstrings. Rude, yes, but completely uncontrollable, even after hearing hushed whispers of, “Nobody will shoot the dog,” from annoyed parents to their worried children.

We certainly left our mark on Disney World, from snarky comments at inopportune times, to kissing unabashedly on the Monorail (and perhaps a flashing or two), to eating and drinking our way through Epcot’s International Food & Wine Festival. I can easily say I’ve never had a better time, and my guy must agree because we’ve committed to making yearly returns to the most magical place we know.

That’s not to say we won’t be discovering new magical places in the meantime – we are in the midst of planning a trip to Europe – but the countdown is officially on again: 11 months and approximately 22 days until the next Walt Disney World trip.

I’m guessing it’ll take them that long to recover from our wake.

(Pics from Disney World and our prevacation to Las Vegas below. Click thumbnails for larger images.)

Happy (early) Halloween, y’all. I’m about to embark on a whirlwind trip to Vegas with my guy and his band for a show, then we’re off to Disney World for Halloween week. Yes, we rock.

I am something of a lameass as a writer these days, I’m afraid. My Clarissa story, which has been my focus this month, is slowly killing me (and not in a cool, skin peeling, blood letting kind of way, but an “I’ve created a hellishly perfect character that won’t let me bend the rules of a narrative” kind of way).

It’s not the actual writing part that’s got me chewing the color off my pen caps, because I seem to have no trouble whatsoever coming up with amusing ways to describe Clarissa’s sociopathic tendencies and lust for extreme, nonconsensual body modifications. My trouble is in the technicalities of the story.

Apparently, suspension of disbelief only works in the movies, and only marginally so. There’s no way I can convince a reader that Clarissa, whom I’ve created to be meticulous and calculating and brilliant, would accidentally put herself in a scenario where she is at a disadvantage just so that I can see through a super cool blood scene I wrote and refuse to toss or revisit.

I suppose I could change her intentions, but that would take my story in an entirely different direction, and force send my silly brain on an hour-long visit to the black hole in the depths of my mind that I’ve reserved for Clarissa. I’ve already been caught more times that I care to admit in a glazed over state when I’m venturing into my mental basement.

It is particularly funny when this happens at work:

“What are you working on, Juliette?”

“I’m trying to determine the appropriate needle gauge to insert into someone’s eye without damaging the structure, and debating whether this can be done in a car, or if it should be done in a more sterile setting with fewer witnesses.”

Needless to say, no one ever visits office any more.

I’ll spare you the rest of my writer’s woes and instead finish this cheater blog off with a total cheater move: a meme. It’s Halloween themed at the least, though that does little to assuage my writer guilt. Memes are for losers who can’t write but feel compelled to foist themselves on the public anyway.

Which is, apparently, me today. Real writing to come as soon as I return from vacation. Really.

Halloween 13

 1. What is your favorite work of horror fiction? Bad Things, by Tamara Thorne. It’s a brilliant combination of folklore, horror and suspense. Better yet: it takes place during autumn. I reread this book every October along with Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.

2. What is your favorite work of science fiction/fantasy? Anything by Neil Gaiman, but especially Neverwhere. It’s dark, oddly comical, and completely unlike any other fantasy book I’ve read. For which I am grateful.

3. Who is your favorite monster? I liked the giant killer bunnies in Night of the Lepus almost as much as I liked the mutant sheep in Black Sheep.

4. What horror movie gives you the most chills? My standard answer is The Exorcist. To be sure, this is the scariest movie ever made. However, I recently purchased The Girl Next Door (which was based on the Jack Ketchum novel) because it was the first movie since The Exorcist to give me nightmares after watching it.

5. Freddy versus Jason? Jason SO won that battle!

6. What is your favorite Halloween treat? Chocolate-based, it would have to be Milky Way bars. Non-chocolate: Good ‘N Plenty.

7. Ghosts or goblins? Anything but bicycle-riding midgets. They’re harbingers of bad luck. Trust me.

8. Have you ever been in a real haunted house? I’ve been in some places that I believed were haunted, but that was based entirely on my perception, not actual happenings.

9. Do you believe in ghosts? Absolutely.

10. Favorite Halloween costume? A co-worker has created the ultimate Halloween costume for herself this year: A Cookie Monster Slayer. She has placed the head of a stuffed Cookie Monster on a spear and covered boots and a cape with blue fur. Genius. I am proud to work with someone this demented.

11. Will you dress up this year? If so, what as? Absolutely! I’m going trick or treating on Main Street in Disney World (no, really). I’ll be dressed as a semi-slutty cowgirl (this will be Disney World, after all) and am trying desperately to convince my guy to go as Wyatt Earp.

12. Have you ever used a Ouija board? Yes. And I will never, ever do that again.

13. Would you ever eat a live cockroach? I won’t even venture into the same room as a cockroach, so it’s safe to say I will never be placing a live one in my mouth.

“You need to stop talking. Now.” 

I’m not normally one to be quite so snippy, especially when talking to my guy. But when gripped with a terror that is so intense I can feel it vibrating in my ears, conversation is the last thing I can handle.

My guy meant well, of course. He likely didn’t expect to have to go on suicide watch when he agreed to our outing. Not that I cared; I was too busy sucking back the world’s most violent panic attack.

“You don’t have to do this. We can get up right now,” my guy said.

I shook my head. Every Halloween I like to mentally vegatize myself in new and torturous ways, and I was determined to see it though.

As soon as we started moving, I knew I had miscalculated my threshold for pain. It wasn’t just the speed, or the rumbling, or the horrid sinking feeling that made me long for a sharp knife to plunge into my chest, it was the thought that for the next 2-ish minutes, everything that happened was completely out of my control. And that’s when I ceased breathing.

Try as I might, I am never going to like roller coasters.

I warned my guy of this before we embarked on our trek to Fright Fest at Six Flags Great America, but I’m not sure he entirely believed me. Admittedly, the outing was my idea. What kind of idiot would want to go to a theme park known exclusively for its roller coasters if they hate thrill rides in general?

Me, actually.

But it was more the haunted houses, freak show and Halloween festivities that lured me to Great America; not the prospect of discovering what a prelude to a heart attack feels like. Still, it being Halloween and all, riding a roller coaster seemed a fitting celebration in seeing just how much I can scare myself.

What I wanted was the same exhilaration I feel when watching horror movies or walking through haunted houses; what I got was a physical nightmare that brought me closer to knowing what demonic possession must feel like than I ever wanted to experience.

My guy, I’m sure, was on the watch for my head to start rotating. If my pale face and dead silence in line wasn’t his first clue that something was amiss in my little world, then the obscenities I started spewing the moment I got buckled in to the ride made my terror all the more vivid.

“What the fuck have I done? Fuck me. This fucking sucks! I want to fucking die!”

And that was before the ride had even started.

My guy tells me that as we climbed the first hill, I started clawing at his leg. I have no recollection of this, though I suspect it was some sort of primal urge to dig myself out of the grave I had deliberately thrown myself into.

As the cart plummeted and banked and turned, my eyes rolled back into my head. I could only liken myself to Linda Blair in The Exorcist, where she’s being flung violently up and down on her bed, body shaking and screaming out for help.

Of course, my terror didn’t end when the ride did. The scariest part of my night was when the ride pulled into the dock and I attempted to bolt from the cart. My seat belt unbuckled easy enough, but the safety bar refused to budge.

“Get me out of this thing!” I wailed, terrified that the ride would somehow take off and I’d be forced to endure it another time.

Pulling, yanking and cursing, I couldn’t get the damn bar to move. The person waiting to take my seat tapped his foot impatiently.

“Let the power of Christ compel you! Let the power of Christ compel you!”

No amount of praying or holy water would move that bar. My guy thankfully stepped in and said, “You have to press it down first, then pull it up.”

Yep, that’s me: the retarded Exorcist.

While I do harbor some amount of pride in surviving the ride and my own demons, I can’t say it’s something I ever want to do again. If anything, it has only affirmed my decision that Disney World is indeed the best possible place to spend Halloween week, both for the atmosphere, and the gentle “short bus” rides.

My guy, who is still prying my fingernails out of his leg, couldn’t agree more.

(Two pictures from the night are below, a before and after. Click thumbnails for larger images.)

Did you know that you can escape an alligator by running in a zig zag motion? It’s true. I read it online.

It’s good information to have should you ever be knee-deep in the Everglades, I suppose, but not entirely practical for someone like me, who is only stuck in her own self-obsession. Still, having just spent several hours and a few hundred dollars at the salon eliminating all traces of gray from my hair, I have to wonder if there’s a better way to avoid the threats that plague me.

I’ll be honest: my 30s are not what I expected. Every magazine I’ve read since the age of 13 has lead me to believe that the issues I faced as a hormonal teenager would magically disappear when I became an “adult.” But at this particular juncture in my life, I find that I have little more poise and just as many physical issues as I did 20 years ago.

Perhaps my first mistake is in thinking that I am an adult.

Every technical definition of “adult” that I can find uses words like “mature” and “fully grown”, none of which I’d actually apply to myself. Mature is my mother, a woman who wears Coach and a mink coat. I barely have the grace to pull off a suit jacket let alone something that requires its own warm weather storage locker. My personal style is more comparable to that of the Manson girls. Trust me, looking dated does not equal looking mature.

As for being “fully grown”, I think the general refusal of my boobs to inflate past an A cup essentially leaves me hovering somewhere short of developed.

You can spare me the “love yourself, love your body” claptrap. I love myself just fine. What I do not love is waking up to aching joints and more zits on my chin than an adolescent boy who only eats pizza and French fries.

The aching joints I understand: in an effort to control a metabolism that has gone into hibernation, I must now exert more than double the energy it used to take to burn off a day’s worth of eating. I employ every calorie-burning trick out there: I stand when I’m on the phone, I take the stairs, I park my car four miles from my office building… all in addition to regular exercise. The result? An extra pound when I eat after 9 p.m. and aching joints from being on my feet all goddamn day.

The zits I have no explanation for, aside from the fact that my skin obviously hates me. My dermatologist called it “adult acne” – a term I never heard once when I was a teen. All I heard was, “You’ll grow out of it.” I didn’t grow out of anything; I grew into my zits the same way I’ve grown into habitually lying about my age.

I’ve been adding years on my age ever since I turned 16. Admittedly, I’m not doing it now to convince anyone to buy me alcohol or cigarettes. Giving myself an extra year or two is more of a head game for myself really, kind of like setting a clock ahead: you glance at it, panic initially, then relax when you realize you’re not as far along at you thought.

It’s not that I’m unhappy being in my 30s, mind you. Sex has never felt better and I’ve finally paid enough dues to have earned a good career and wonderful relationship. I just can’t help but feel as though age is something I’m being pursued by instead of something I’m trying to catch up to.

“Fight it” and “self destruct” seem to be my only options these days, which is a sad revelation when I have been hoping for a physical respite ever since I bought my first bottle of Benzoyl Peroxide.

So, if you need me, I’ll be the one running… in a zig zag. It can’t hurt, right?

It is said that one of the characteristics of a serial killer is a history of torturing animals as a child. I suppose this makes sense, though it does raise a few questions about my own future as a reasonably upstanding member of society. Not that I ever tortured animals, mind you. At least, not live ones.

I’m only reminded of my questionable behaviors as a child thanks to my mother, who felt the need to share them with my guy during the course of his first meeting with my parents.

That certainly wasn’t the impression I was hoping they’d make. Although why I thought they’d be on better behavior is beyond me. These are the same people who used to meet my dates in the living room, where my dad’s bear skin rug was on display.

“You see that rug?” my dad would ask my dates. “I did that. And I can do it again.”

Needless to say, I didn’t have many dates in high school.

Still, at this point in my life you’d think my parents would be more inclined to shower my guy with tokens of wealth to get me off their hands. Sure, I’m in my 30s, but I must be worth at least few goats or cows or bags of grain… anything besides a “here’s our daughter, the potential serial killer” story hour. My parents need to work on their sales skills.

I had thoroughly prepped my guy before the meeting to just how deep my parents’ eccentricities run, though even I couldn’t predict what might come crawling out of their collective woodwork. Even my guy, who is utterly reasonable and unflappable, wasn’t quite prepared for the response he got to his amused request for dirt on me.

“Well, there is the bunny story….” my mother said.

It took a few beats for me to recall the story she was referring to. My repertoire of lifetime stupidity runs a bit long, and while I will generally own up to most of it, there are a few stunts so outer limits that I’ve blocked them from my mind.

My mother’s sardonic smile triggered the memory like an epileptic fit, and I had a sudden urge to grab my guy by the hand and bolt from the room. There is only a certain number of quirks any boyfriend should be required to absorb when meeting his girl’s parents: playful ribbing about bad grades in school, jokes about unfortunate fashion decisions, and maybe an embarrassing photo or two are all fair game. Animal mutilation stories, by my own personal standards at least, tend to push the limits.

Sensing my discomfort, my guy dug in his heels and demanded to hear the story. “This sounds good,” he said, likely opening the mental file marked “For future use to torture Juliette.”

He certainly got plenty of fodder. My mother could hardly contain her sick joy at relating how in fifth grade a friend and I took it upon ourselves to vandalize the Catholic school we attended.

Curriculum, not religion, was the reason we were both forced to attend the pompous, opium for the masses religious school, and needless to say, neither of us had particularly warm feelings for any of the nuns, priests or other figures who attempted to instill education in us there.

My friend, a wonderful boy who was my sole friend in grammar school, lived across the street from the school. On a playdate at his house one day, we encountered a fresh dead bunny rabbit in his backyard.

It was a fascinating thing for two fifth graders to see, and after a few curious pokes with a stick, I suggested we do something with it.

“We should leave it at school,” my friend suggested.

It seemed a good idea, especially since we had already been considering dropping a few of the orange parking cones on the heads of the religious statues that lined the front of the building. But for me, already a fan of horror movies (thanks, dad) and wary of authority figures with no real authority, just leaving the bunny corpse was hardly enough of a statement.

“Let’s crucify it!”

My friends eye widened. Being my friend and partner in crime, it only took him a few minutes to raid his dad’s workshop for supplies.

A few strips of balsa wood, some nails, and the wounds of Christ later, and we had a dripping monument of our rebellion. We managed to attach it to the school’s front door and gleefully ran back to his house to wash up and have a snack of Oreos and juice. It was one of the most satisfying moments in my childhood.

The reaction to our display was ridiculously overblown. Word of Satanic desecration, black masses and pagan vandalism swept through the school for weeks, but my friend and I were never caught. Apparently, the Holy Ghost isn’t much of a detective.

Oddly, I never hesitated to tell my mother about what we did. In fact, on the ride home from his house that day, I gave her a full account of our activities. I don’t remember what her reaction was, but I do remember never being punished. And considering her glee in announcing the story to my guy, I’m guessing she may be harboring just a bit of pride in my sick childhood prank.

All the disclaimers in the world don’t make the story any less grisly, so my cries of, “I was in 5th grade!” and “I have never responded well to authority!” only served to increase the peals of laughter from my guy and parents when the story came to a close.

I suppose I should be glad that there was laughter and not a hushed call to the local psych ward. And to his infinite credit, my guy has yet to panic – over the experience of meeting my parents, and over all the crazy and slightly alarming things he learned about me though them.

Of course, he won’t let me near any bunnies and turned down my suggestion that we go to the zoo, but I guess I don’t really blame him.

I talk a good game. Whether it’s because I’m delusional or just overconfident to a fault, I’m not entirely sure. But I rock. Just ask me.

The problem is that my awesomeness apparently has a few limits, and when challenged often makes me look more like a carnival prize than the jewel in a window at Tiffany’s I fancy myself to be.

My guy is beginning to discover this, and it has me worried. It’s not that I don’t want him to see me as I really am; I’d just rather my quirks weren’t quite so vivid in contrast to my bravado. Because although I’ve never lied about myself, I may have oversold certain “good” traits to compensate for the more freakish of my lot.

My love of horror movies, for example, is legendary. I’ll spend hours describing the intricate beauty of torture or re-enacting scenes from 70s exploitation movies and have consequently erected the façade that nothing scares me.

And it’s true – to a degree. Blood, screams, chainsaw wielding maniacs… none of it has an effect. But should a June bug start hurtling itself at the light fixture on my guy’s patio, I will, without hesitation, dart under the nearest chair and whimper uncontrollably.

“It’s just a June bug/cicada/grasshopper/20-pound thunder moth,” my guy will say whenever I have a shrieking fit over whatever creature lunges for me. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Really, I appreciate the sentiment when it comes to keeping me safe from predators in parking garages, purse snatchers and scary mechanics at the vehicle emissions facility. But until he can control the flight path of a locust or the proximity of all the centipedes in a 20-mile radius, my guy is going to have to accept kissing me through the mesh of a bee keeper suit if he wants my company on his porch.

Still, for as terrified as I am of the back porch, my guy is likely just as terrified to enter a bathroom after I’ve been in there styling my hair. I make no secret about how important my hair is to me, and how much effort I put into making it look spectacular. So my guy wasn’t surprised when he first realized it takes me two hours to wash, blow dry and style my hair for the day.

But there’s no way of bracing someone for the ruins I leave in my hair styling wake, and I can only hope my guy possesses a shop vac and industrial cleanser.

“What were you doing in here, trimming a yeti?”

I can’t say that I blame my guy for his astounded look as he surveyed his bathroom one morning. The writhing mass of broken red hair strands tangled around his drain, bath mat and cabinet counter looked more like tentacles than something from my head.

I could only shrug. There is a price to pay for repeated heat styling; I’m guessing my guy just didn’t expect to have to pay it in jugs of Drain-O or Swiffer refills.

(I’d rather not discuss the side effects of my color-depositing conditioner. I’m sure they’ll come up soon enough.)

The closer my guy and I get, the more my illusion of cool confidence cracks: He’s seen the backseat of my car, experienced the stench of two-day old unwashed dishes in my sink, and likely pulled errant strands of my hair out of canned vegetables.

Rather than let him bag me up and ship me to Ripley’s Odditorium, I figured I’d put my confirmed talents to use and try to find a way to one-up my guy. The answer: challenging him to a high stakes game of Scrabble. Enter over-inflated self confidence:

“It really is going to be sad to kick your ass,” I told my guy one night. “I’d hate to see you cry. You do know that words like “doggie” and “kitty” aren’t legal Scrabble words, right?”

He bantered back accordingly, but there was no stopping me. I may have even pat my guy on the head and done a preliminary winner’s dance around him. Which would have been fine if I had actually won the damn game.

Instead, after more than an hour of heated play (and, I admit, a few dirty tricks to distract him) I was forced to concede defeat to my guy, who played a far better game that I did. He was gracious enough to not gloat too much about the double digit point spread between us; I was composed enough to not flip the board onto the floor and stomp off to pout.

It was a stinging loss for a girl who makes her living off words, especially when all her words of late seem to be unfounded. Fortunately, my guy doesn’t see me as the bug-cowering, shedding Yeti loser that I do at times. To him, I’m still the smart woman who lets him show off his bug catching prowess and can keep him on his toes at all times, and I couldn’t be happier about that.

That hasn’t stopped him from insisting I call him Scrabble Master, of course, but I’m okay with that. He’s earned the title…. Until the rematch, that is.

Four decadent meals, two smuggled Mojitos in Central Park, one anti-kissing curmudgeon at the Plaza, and countless other amazing New York moments later, and I find myself walking around with a brilliant smile that seems to be nauseating everyone but me.  And I couldn’t be happier about it.

Actual blog to come by the end of the month. Until then, enjoy some pics of my recent tour of New York with my guy. (Click the thumbnails for bigger images.)