I'm in Love with a Stripper

Well, things are finally coming together. The painting has commenced, and to say the least, I am super excited.


I meant to write this last night, but alas, I was much too tired.


Yesterday, I came home after school and a quick stop at the post office to get stamps and went with Adam to Home Depot. I was still wearing my school clothes which consists of skinny jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and very sexy black boots. I don't think the Home Depot people thought I was the going to be painting.


We started collecting our supplies: tapered paintbrushes, 3/4 inch fluff rollers, tarps, blue masking tape, and finally paint.


I was excited to get the paint mostly. Adam was really into getting things that would keep everything in the studio clean. After my first attempt to get paint was thwarted by a very tall and very wide man, I had to wait patiently to get someone else's attention.


A few more employees made their way to the paint area and I got helped, and Adam and I had to wait while things got mixed. I got bored and started playing on the computer that was supposed to help people pick colors for rooms. I used my color and was more than delighted to see how awesome the computer made it look.


We checked out, everything being just under a hundred dollars. Mom kept saying how it is no big deal in reference to them spending money like that, but I still feel like I owe them something. Money doesn't grow on trees!


When Adam and I got home, we headed straight over to my studio, (it is soooooooo cool saying that!) and started moving all the important things around to the center of the floor, and then began taping everything.


I started working on the base boards but somehow managed to be the person who was taping the ceiling and above the doorways. Considering I don't like ladders in the slightest, I am really unsure as to how I got that job.


When I was close to done with the high stuff and Adam was close to the low stuff, Mom and Alex came over. Mom gave Adam a beer, prompting me to ask where my beer was. She informed me I didn't get a beer because she was buying me pizza. I figured that was a good trade off, considering I don't like beer that much.


Mom ordered pizza, and then picked up the roller. I had to stop and appreciate the color.


Now I know I said I wanted to paint the studio blue, but honestly, the gold-yellow of the kitchen just did not mix well with blue. So I went with this really strong, vibrant green. And I must say, I loved the color.


I was afraid that the color would maybe be to dark, or too green, but it really brightens the room up. I am totally excited to just move in and see this great green color.


I am only doing two walls, leaving the walls against the door and window white. It looks amazing. Plus the closet door is dark wood which goes well with the forest green of the wall.


After I finished the last wall, I took up the roller duties and started painting. Mom started painting all the little detail areas while I covered the walls in my fabulous green color.


Before I finished my wall, Adam painted a symbol on the wall for good energy, so now my studio is going to be full of energy and awesomeness.


I started moving onto the higher parts of the wall, and began singing, "I'm in love with this color!"


Alex and Adam both quipped, "That isn't the tune."


Mom asked, "The tune to what?"


I said, "The song, I'm in love with a stripper."


Alex nodded, adding, "Don't you know that song?"


"No...Do you know that song Adam?"


Adam nodded.


"What the hell? I don't know that song!" We didn't think it was important to tell her that she didn't listen to the radio, so of course she didn't know the song! Sometimes my mom was just plain silly.


I finished one part of the wall just as the pizza arrived, and we all sat down to eat. I happily looked at our handy work. My excitement levels were rising just looking at my new place.


When we were done eating, Adam and Alex decided to head back over to the house, and Mom and I continued painting. It was nice because we were able to talk about a lot of things.


We got the first coat on the walls and started cleaning up. Adam come back over to close up the paint and put the rollers away, and then we were on our way back home. Mom took a lot of pictures of my new place on her phone, which I excitedly told her to post to Facebook.


In retrospect, I think I should have waited for the Facebook pictures. I had a second conversation with my dad, explaining how I was moving out and that the cost was not going to be much more than my car payment, and maybe even less.


Still, I don't think he has told Sharon. And since both of them are my friends on Facebook, the shit might just hit the fan the next time I come home. It's things like this that make me sigh, shake my head, and chew my nails down to stubs.

It's Not Hump Day

I have a beautiful Australian Shepard named Dash that I love to death. Honestly, he has almost no faults. He is smart and happy and is pretty much game for anything.

I mean, sure he isn't a dog to play fetch with.

And you can't let him meet other dogs on a leash; he might bite them.

And he has a problem with dominating other dogs.

But those are little things that don't really bother me. For instance, we don't have tennis balls because he won't drop the ball. We go to the other side of the street when we see another dog coming. And nobody brings their dog over to our house to visit.

That is until I started dog sitting for Tammy.

See, Tammy has a little Boston Terrier named Hank. He is sweet as a button, and is a total lap dog. I love watching him. And usually when I watch Hank, my dad and Sharon are home taking care of Dash.

The problem with this weekend is that Tammy left the same weekend Dad and Sharon left. So I am watching both dogs.

Thinking I am one smart lady, I decide that it will e easier on me and the dogs if we all just hang at my dad's house for the weekend. We have a kennel for Hank during the day while I am gone, and Dash will eventually stop humping poor Hank.

Well I can safely say that Dash discontinuing the humping will not happen anytime soon. Actually, Dash right now is doing on yet another humping frenzy.

The best part about this is that all night my old, creepy dog has been doing this all night long. And I probably wouldn't notice it except his dog tags jangle rather loudly when he is in full hump mode. And better than that, Hank would get up on my bed and snuggle with me, and Dash, unable to control his urges, would start humping the bed. I would be laying there, and all of a sudden my bed started shaking back and forth.

So all night long, I am waking up to yell, "Dash! Stop humping Hank!" "Dash, don't put that in his face!" "Dash! Get your paws off my bed! Stop humping my bed!" "Dash!"

I tried to pull a Caesar Milan by getting up and grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, making him look at me, and going "Ssssss!"

But I decided that made me look like a crazy person, me standing in my doorway with my hump crazed dog only semi obeying me.

I resorted to instead making Hank lay on the far side of the bed and Dash at the foot, keeping my hand curled around his collar. It worked from 4am until about 7:30, but then he just got frisky again.

Poor Hank can't even eat his food without Dash the Creep coming around to hump him.

On the up side, Hank doesn't seem to notice because Dash is considerably larger than him and can't make little Hank stay still. Dash pretty much ends up humping the air more than Hank.

I guess it really just grosses me out. I mean who wants to see their dog just hump the air from 6:30 the previous night until tomorrow?

He is going to have some seriously sore hips after Hank leaves. I'll be surprised if he walks again.

And all while I am trying to make the humping stop, I am also trying to figure out what I am going to take to my new place. I mostly just want to bring a box over today and start packing up my shit here at my dad's house. But the other half of me, the side that is distinctly aware and concerned about other people, is saying I should wait to do it, instead of doing it behind my dad's back.

See, I told my dad I was moving. I told him why I wanted to move, how I was ready for this next step into adulthood.

But he just got this glazed over look and when I finished he preceded to commemorate me on my asking if he thought it was a good idea. Which I didn't ask him at all.

Then he listed all the reasons why it was a good idea to stay at home, and how I needed to save money for college and how he would miss me since my brother had already move down to my mom's house.

I looked at him quizzically, and tried to say, "I wasn't asking..." But of course he cut me off with the bomb shell. "You could live with Sharon and me for forever. We don't mind."

My eyes probably got as large as saucers at the point, but I don't think he notices body language as much as he should, and simply slapped his hands together and said how he needed to go fetch Sharon from the airport.

So while I am fairly certain he didn't understand me, I don't see any reason to go through that conversation a second time.

I just hate the thought of leaving behind his back.

It is quite the dilemma but most things in my life are. I don't go looking for drama; in fact, I try to avoid any drama-like situations. But it seems that no matter what, drama is attracted to me.

Saying Goodbye

So, the ex, Chris, left yesterday to go to boot camp for the Army. In the days before his departure, we hung out together and with other various friends. To say the least, we got into some trouble.


Some of the trouble was in the night before he left. See, the plan was to go to a (supposedly) haunted house. Even the "video evidence" didn't make me a believer that the house was haunted, but I have always considered myself a sceptic anyways. Chris, Gina, Carl, Gage and I all rode in Gage's car over to the haunted house, and Gina and I bounded out of the car and onto the porch, eager to begin the adventure.


The boys hung back, shuffling their feet on the sidewalk. I never thought of myself as fearless, but the procession made it seem like I really was the person who was least afraid of the house. It didn't even feel malevolent.


As the boys finally made it onto the porch, a guy in a white truck came around the corner. Apparently, he was a Rent-a-Cop, and he was hell bent on calling the real police.


Gage tried to reason with the guy, explaining that he used to live in the house, and look! He had the key for the front door.


The dude was not budging. Even after Gage told him who his parental people were, the guy was still disbelieving. "I know the lady," the dude said when Gage told him his mom's name, "but I don't remember you. I would have remembered you!" He then looked at Gage like he was some deformed hairless ape than a human and told us to leave.


With a sigh, we all left and headed over to the gas station. The original plan was to wait for the guy to just leave and walk over to the house, but the jerk had decided to park on the street and stare at us. We ended up shaking our heads and driving off to the park.


Like a group of little kids that were big enough to drive, we made it to the park and started running around and climbing all over things. Because I was cold like usual, I tried to move as much as possible. After I warmed up, I sat on the jungle gym kicking my feet and listened to the others talk.


It seemed like we should be talking about things much grander than that one time that one thing happened, but reminiscing seemed a lot easier than saying goodbye to Chris just yet. Though we had broken up, Chris and I still had a connection that had kept us in contact with each other. It was only in the past month or so we had started to become friends again, and I knew I wasn't ready to just lose that.


The boys, itching to move, went chasing after a stray cat, and Gina and I ended up sitting under a pile of hoodies. We watched the boys for a while, not talking. We have never really needed to talk much, we just knew. That was why we were friends.


The boys got tired for a little bit, and began contemplating the stars. Truthfully, I never liked thinking about the stars. Stars to me simply said I was insignificant compared to everything. So I never liked to look at the stars in quiet silence. Since that was starting to happen, I started to wiggle. Gina suggested we go to the car because we were cold.


The boys started playing again with a ball they had found, and Gina and I made it safely into the car. We didn't have the keys so we couldn't put the heat on or listen to music which made the car boring, but at least the wind wasn't blowing on us.


The boys eventually got bored and headed over to the car. Gina locked the doors, but forgot Gage had the key. It was only a minute before we were all piled in and heading to Walgreens for a quick pee. Like usual, Gina and I took too long for the boys liking and they left us. We didn't really care though and just hung out inside because it was so much warmer and lighter.


When the boys did come back and tease us with the car, we just shrugged and waited for them to become mature again from the safety of the sliding doorway. They eventually parked and let us back in the car. Then we drove down the first big street we came to and didn't stop. Gage was going really fast, and as we passed multiple gas stations, we were disgruntled to the gas prices dropping from 2.99 to 2.92. That seven cents could have made a huge difference!


After about an hour of driving, we made to the end of the road and turned right. We then went way too fast around turns on a black road in the country. I had lived out in an area like that until I was twelve, and was unbothered what seemed to be an abandoned part of the world. The boys seemed genuinely amazed when they realized turning off the headlights cast us into complete darkness.


We eventually made it back to civilization, and turned onto the highway back towards home. Gina and I noticed we were more than just close to the old camp we went to for five summers straight. We laughed out loud at the thought of going back for a visit. It was a nervous laugh.


We were heading back to Chris's place and it set in that for most of us this was the last time we were going to see him. Even singing loudly to songs we all loved couldn't lift the darkened mood.


We made it back into the city and parked in front of Chris's house. Carl asked Chris for his keys so he could go get clothes to spend the night which left Chris without a key to the house. He called Kyra several times, and she eventually let us in the house. We all went to hang out in Chris's room, but Chris mostly was out in the house cleaning things up.


We ended up watching some strange old movie which left me to thinking. I found myself sighing more often than not because my thinking was leading me to be sad. Gina had fallen asleep and I decided that was our queue to leave. It was three thirty in the morning.


I asked Chris to walk out with us so I could give him the rest of his stuff that I had. He should have brought a jacket because he instantly starting complaining about how his nipples were so cold they hurt.


Chris hugged Gage goodbye, then followed me and Gina to my car. I put Gina in the car because she was cold and tired and turned the heat on for her and had Chris follow me to the trunk where I had a few of his things and CD I had made as a gift for him.


Though there were a thousand things I wanted to tell him, I didn't know how, so I just hugged him. It shouldn't have been so hard to say goodbye, but it was. I was losing a friend, and it hurt. He told me that if I started crying that he would have to kick my ass. 


"Sorry," I told him, because I had already started the waterworks. "Sorry I was mad at you for so long." He knew he deserved my anger though over the last eight months though.


"Sorry I am such an idiot," he said. I sniffled.


"I forgive you," I told him in a cracked voice. "That's what the CD is for, you know?"


"Yeah...I made a mistake." I nodded, not really understanding what he meant, and wiped away some more tears and hugged him again then pulsed his arms and hands. It was the only way I could say goodbye. I got in my car and waved him away, keeping my head turned from Gina. I didn't want her to see me acting like a little bitch and crying about a boy.


We went back to her house and crawled into bed. We fell asleep almost instantly.


It was hard when I decided not to go to the airport. I knew I hadn't said goodbye like I had intended, but the thought of driving all the way there just to leave sadder than when I came was not what I wanted. Plus, Chris's girlfriend was supposed to be there, and I didn't want to meet her.


I ended up telling him to write me, and in retrospect I might have been a coward for not going to the airport. It would have been funny to see the look on the girlfriend's face. But in the end, the last thing I want to do is cause problems for Chris in his love life. He has stayed out of mine mostly, other than expressing how much he doesn't like the idea of me being with someone else.


I think in the end it's hard to say goodbye and it is even harder to say goodbye to someone you loved so much. That's just how the cards happened to fall though which can make me sad, but it gives me more experience for the next time. I'll make sure to go to the airport after Christmas.