Busy, busy, busy. Things have been busy. And stressful. They’ve actually progressed so far into the land of stressful that I’ve stopped being stressed and just sit back and go “whoa, that shit’s messed up right there. I mean, seriously, would you look at that?” Sometimes, you just have to laugh. You can either do a lot of drugs or you can laugh, and since I have no drugs, I laugh. Usually about not having any drugs.
Public Service Announcement: Weetabix has not touched an illegal narcotic in the 90’s or the 00’s. Don’t do drugs. Drugs are bad. Except maybe for pot. The only people who seem to think pot is bad are the cops and the people who watch “Touched by an Angel”. Everyone else is just wandering around looking for Cheetos or something chocolatey, man, maybe with that fudgey frosting, you know?
It’s not helping that it’s Happy Hour at the Menstrual Lounge this week. I’m hyped up on Estrogen Martinis and walking through with this edgy weird slant on things. What is more, I’m craving big slabs of protein, bloody and heavily garliced. Those cravings are one of the reasons that I’m no longer a vegetarian. I crave tenderloin in a bad way. I’m not sure if that means that I’m low in iron or just channeling my inner cave grrl, but it is what it is. Crazy uterine logic.
What is more, I’m so entirely sleepy. The bed sings to me. The bed is my friend. For some reason, my bed and my TiVo hold an inordinate amount of affection. They know just what I want… stale episodes of “Friends”, a cold breeze coming from the crack in the window above my head, and a nice bottle of chilled Dasani. I’m a happy girl, wearing my so-thin-its-see-through UWSP sweatshirt that I purchased in the winter of 1990 and has stains on it predating my first gray hair, my lumberjack man socks which are made for big man feet and make my size 12s (yes, I have mutantly huge feet… it is God’s way of keeping me humble and afraid of shoe shopping) feel delicate and like small little girl feet, and a white basket of unread books and literary journals, stiffly spined and smelling like bookstore sitting within arms reach. You just have to love that.
Last night, in the throes of horrible cramps and intensive thirst for the blood of a freshly slain, Esteban and I endeavored out in search of protein. Esteban had not eaten even a tiny thing all day. First we went to a local sporting lodge (note: not a sports bar… something else entirely I guess), which was packed. Then we drove by Applebees… also packed. Then we went to a supper club that has exceptional steaks and Old-Fashioneds (do they have Supperclubs and Old-Fashioneds in places which are not Wisconsin?) but they had a sign stating that they didn’t accept credit cards on the door (another thing that would only happen in Wisconsin, seriously) so in a fit of starvation, we went up to the local white trash “supperclub” (and I use the term loosely). I just wanted steak. That’s all I cared about. Steak. Steak steak steak steak steak steak steak. I didn’t care about the squeeze bottles of ketchup on the tables nor the plastic tableclothes. I didn’t care about the fact that some of the patrons were eating out of plastic baskets lined with grease proof paper. I just needed the meat. That’s all. Just give me some grilled cow and no one gets hurt, k?
So we were sitting there in this mostly empty dining room, surrounded by table upon table of dirty tables, watching the other patrons finish up their fine dining experience. Finally our waitress shows up. Well, I think she was a she. She might have been a has-been linebacker from the Bart Starr era. I ordered a tenderloin, medium rare with mashed potatoes. Esteban ordered a cheeseburger and a side of fried cheese curds. He indulges me so often. Poor Esteban. I hauled him everywhere in search of specific carnivorous fare and the poor man just wanted a cheeseburger.
We then sat there while the rest of the patrons finished their bar food and left. She brought us our drinks and disappeared again. And then we were alone in the dining room, completely surrounded by tables abandoned by diners who had long ago returned to their homes and were probably at that moment unbuttoning their pants to allow their full stomachs more room to breathe while they watched whatever is on opposite West Wing (which I don’t watch either, but I know that’s what my friends watch on Wednesdays’ I usually write on Wednesday nights). It was strange, though. The restaurant had two parts’ the ‘formal’ area that we were in and the Sports Bar portion. We could hear the sounds of people, we could watch through the window as they’d walk to their cars, we could hear the sounds of eating, but we were surrounded by tables filled with half-eaten dinners, carrots sitting in solidifying butter pools, chairs still pushed out from the table. It was as though everyone had left midway through their meal, a fire drill that never finished. The Mary Celeste but in a wannabe formal dining room with Thomas Kinkade, Painter Of Light, pictures on the wall and squeezable ketchup.
Finally, she brought the salad. It was molded heaped shredded lettuce, in a subtle dome pattern, as it had obviously been cling wrapped and stored in the refrigerator for untold days. She then fished around in her pants pocked, located my packet of French dressing and plunked it down onto the table. I am not making that up. No. Really. I’m not. My soup was really good, but the entire time I was putting crackers into it, Esteban was staring at them, not listening to whatever I was saying (probably telling him about my ridiculously stressed out day at work) and then I finally surrendered the remainder to him.
We ended up having this distressing conversation about literature. Being incredibly fried, I couldn’t even muster up enough energy to be mortified over the fact that he found several of the short stories I had recently read to be nothing more than exercises in displaying the futility of life and ‘without story’. I couldn’t really say anything. All of my opinions had been sapped out of me, either by the previous three day’s strenuous opinions about EVERYTHING (fueled by my hyperbolic hormones) or our mutual probable low blood sugar or just the fact that I’d been stressed out at work and could only imagine the lady who spins plates at the circus and never really gets a chance to get one going really good but rather just runs around trying to prevent them from falling on the ground and knew that it was me. Weetabix Kinkade: Spinner of Plates. It finally ended when our food came and I made him promise to read The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, which is something I, as a book snob, consider real literature, and he made me promise to read The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, which is something that he, as a science fiction and fantasy purist, thinks I would enjoy but I’ve been resisting because my list of ‘Snobby Books To Read’ is about a hundred long.
The steak was very good. That was pretty much the evening. Me eating the steak and my tummy going ‘steak steak steak steak steak steak steak steak ahhhhhhhhhhh.’ And then cramps from having eaten something more than a piece of toast. Being a girl is just the best sometimes, non?
When we finished, we waited for our waitress. She didn’t appear. She was gone. Perhaps they were having tryouts at the Oakland Raiders. Esteban finally stood up and headed toward the bar in the front. I of course panicked, thinking that they’d think we were making a run for it. Our waitress then came out and said ‘Sorry, nature was hollering.’ I’m not making that up either. At least she didn’t fan her hand and shout ‘Pheew! I would NOT go in there for awhile!’ But I suppose I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had. She waved our bill at us, I gave her my card (without looking at the bill, note that Hez!) and she didn’t think anything of it. Then I went home and moaned for being a hedonistic fool who ate too much unhealthy food and now molecules of the steak are going to be in my arteries when I retire. And move on to a career in plate spinning.
