Out of place?

07 Creep (Live in Prague)

I’ve  been spending time on my thesis and I think I have neglected my blog.  If it was one of those Gigapets, it would have died from no food.  Although, those died even when you fed them and loved them all the time.  Anyway, in light of Amanda Palmer releasing her new covers of Radiohead (you should get it, her page is linked on the side of my blog) I thought I should pay attention to my red headed step child blog.  I don’t care for Radiohead.  I know, throw your garbage and rocks my way.  I’m sorry, I tried to like them, but there is something about Thom Yorke’s voice that makes me want to take a fingernail file and run it across my brain.  I’m all about empathy through music, but when he sings, I almost write my suicide note.  From my experience, when I say I don’t like Radiohead it goes quiet…and people stare at me like I am wearing whipped cream pants and they melted off.  Because I dislike Radiohead so much, I was SO disappointed that Amanda Palmer’s newest project was a cover CD of Radiohead.  But I downloaded it today….and it’s AWESOME.   No Surprises?  Ohh I was surprised.  I finally feel like part of the club.

I find myself in awkward positions most of the time asking the questions How did I get here? Why did I think this was a good idea?  And how do I make my great escape? I went to a party in high school that was at a motel with my boyfriend at the time.  Well, I thought he was my boyfriend, I’m not sure he thought we were more than friends.  I was desperate to show him I was a total badass because I had had a few embaressing moments in his presence.  For instance, I refused to take off my coat and sat of the edge of his couch while we watched Gladiator.  He kept giving me the weirdest looks (I can imagine why, it’s perfectly normal to sit rigidly in a coat you are sweating in).  Finally he asked me if I wanted to take off my coat, and I blurted out “Ok, but we can’t have sex.”  And why is that Merry…oh because if you have sex before you are married you die.  Seriously, I thought that.  Thanks church for giving me unnecessary panic attacks and heart stopping anxiety problems.  So I really wanted to be a little less ridiculous at this party, but I was just not as hardcore as all the people there.  The buffet of drugs all scared me.  And why is that Merry…oh because if you take drugs you die.  So after I ate a hallucinated air baked potato to please one party goer, and watched the X people all rub each other, I realized that I was really out of place at this party.  I lept at the chance to go rescue the potato chips from the car outside the motel.  And then, I saw my first toothless hooker.  Sure, I’d seen hookers on HBO or from a car window.  But I had never stood up close to one.  She was nothing like the lead actress on Secret Diary of a Call Girl.  She was haggard, missing all of her front teeth, bruised, dirty, and had lost some of her weave.  She said “Where my cash at.”  And he put it in her hand and she ran her tongue across her teeth, but as I said, she didn’t have teeth, so she basically just licked her gums.  I didn’t lose my virginity that night, or a night after that, where I tried to take off boy pants and knocked myself out on a vicious light at the foot of the bed.

I also felt strangely out of place my first night in New Orleans.  As soon as I got there I went to the hotel pool.  I had been driving for 10 hours and nothing sounded better than floating around in nice, cool water.  So I’m hanging out in the pool and this gaggle of pre-teen African American girls show up with rub on tattoos and sugar screams.  And they were really funny.  I kept to myself in one little end of the pool until one of them said “Hey girl at the end of the pool, I like your tattoos.”  I told her thanks and smile and I thought that was it.  But it wasn’t.  She dog paddled over to me and strikes up a conversation about how she wanted a tattoo but her mama said she couldn’t get one.  I nod.  She then told me her entire life story (it wasn’t that long because she was only 11) and how they were having a slumber party in the hotel.  She informed me the birthday girl was really snobby and thought she was too old to have races in the pool because “she gets her nails did now.”  I told her I was 24 and I hardly ever got my nails done.  She said “You’re old!  You don’t look 24.”  I told her I am 24 and she said “Well you ain’t a real lady till you get your nails did.”  I conceded and then she asked me “So do you want to race.”  Uh.  I suddenly felt out of place as her mother stared me down from across the pool.  ”No, it’s okay.”  But she insisted so I ended up racing her and her friend back and forth across the pool several times until her mother told her it was time to go upstairs.  So what did you do your first night in New Orleans Merry?  Sample a hurricane?  Take your top off?  No, I raced an 11 year old girl in the pool.

There is also the time that my friend left me with a big, black, crack dealer at a bowling alley in Dallas, but I hear my thesis calling.