Why I Always Feel Awkward

I am notorious for not going to things like Christmas parties for work, and for not showing up to events for school.

For instance, I briefly joined the Newspaper at my school. I say briefly because I quit after a few weeks. Why did I quit, you ask? Because I ended up going to the Newspaper meetings and sitting quietly and had not a clue what to say to anyone. I don't feel like a particularly outgoing person until I get to know a person, and I didn't know anyone there. It was horrible, sitting there, feeling my cheeks get red and feeling incredibly awkward.

On top of that, the one assignment I had got turned down by the "editor" three times. Once because it was "two wordy," (I stayed well with in the 300 word limit.) the second time because it wasn't wordy enough, and the third time, because after I finally got it right, the piece wasn't relavent anymore.

After that, I left, feeling like I had made a fool of myself for even sticking my neck out and trying to do a good job. (Come to find out, during my last semester, I made a concerted effort to read the published newspaper and saw, [to my horror] that it was riddled with errors. Spelling and grammatical! I shook my head in dismay, knowing I could have done a much finer job fixing all of those things in one sitting.)

A second instance I always feel awkward is at other people's family get togethers. Like Christmas parties with people who maybe "family" but I can't even remember their names unless under duress and with a picture/name finding game.

I often find that I don't fit in with the "kids" because they are actually too young, or are near my age, but are no where near a competent maturity level. The guys are too busy chuckling about their beery college nights, and the girls are too concerned with their crushes.

I don't get to fit in with the "adults' because they think I am "too young" or "immature." It really couldn't be farther from the truth. And even when the adults want to talk to me, it is only ever about school or work. After all, what else can you talk to a student about?

I try to arm myself with interesting things to talk about. I like to listen to NPR so I can get some good facts about the world to help aid the adults in conversation, and I make efforts to watch MTV for the teenagers. Sure, I have plenty of "drinking war stories" to astound my male family members, but I sometimes keep that to myself mostly because then there is the awkward, "Hey, lets drink and smoke sometime!"

And then the Facebook friend request.

And so on an so forth.

I would rather curl up on a couch with a good book until the feasting of dinner and the opening of gifts. But that is definitely not allowed, (especially by the parentals) so I am left to feel awkward. It is especially awkward when everyone is done saying whatever they wanted to say and there is that long pause of silence.

........................

And then they look at me like, You must tell us all things!

Sorry guys. The only amazing things I have to tell are about how I passed school and get to go to "real college!"

Oh well. At least the easiest topic would be: "So the end of the world... We survived it, chee-ya!"

Ambria Turns 21!

Firstly, I have just made it to 1,100 page views, and that pretty much makes me feel like a boss. I think I am at some point supposed to say something like, "PLEASE FOLLOW MY BLOG."

And honestly, I really would like to have a little cult following, but I don't think I can just beg and plead for people to follow me. I figure if someone finds me amusing enough that they want it emailed to them that I am being amazing, they will do it without my insistance. With that, I will get back to my original point.

Okay, so on the sixth, Ambria officially turned twenty-one. So for her birthday, her family and I all went out to a Japanese restaurant where they cooked the food right in front of us. It was really cool, especially when our chef was flipping uncracked eggs around like crazy person. And I will admit that I was slightly jealous that he could do all of these amazing tricks while I can't even crack and egg one handed.

The salad and rice was amazingly delicious, and while I don't actually like shrimp or any seafood for that matter, I did eat the two pieces I was given. And when the chicken and vegetables finally made it onto my plate, I scarfed down as much as I could. But since I have a stomach that is probably as big as my fist, I only made a slight dent in my dinner.

The best part wasn't the food though. It was actually that the chef guy took the bottles of sake, which he used to light the grill on fire, and shot it into our mouths. It was pretty crazy. He would just take the bottle and squeeze it as hard as he could and shoot a stream for three or four counts. I don't know what the proof is on sake, but everyone was feeling it by the time all of the plates were finished.

The second best part though was when a restaurant guy came up behind Ambria and tied a headband onto her. She jumped about a foot out of her chair.

The third best part was when they came to sing happy birthday in Japanese. They turned out all the lights and came in with drums, had her stand up, and then took a picture of her. She didn't realize there was going to be a picture though and ended up looking off to her right with her eyes closed.

Afterwords, we went back to her house. Her uncle and step-dad and a couple of their friends rolled some joints and passed it around while we waited for the cake to be candled and lit. We sand happy birthday while Ambria's mom held the cake. We were all too full to actually eat the cake though, so instead, Ambria, Cousin Amie and Ambria's mom went down to the local bar, grabbed some beer buckets, and proceeded to drink so more. They didn't card, so I didn't have to worry.

Then Amie started getting Ambria some shots, and I was drinking them by proxy, so we were beginning to feel it. When the rest of her family got there, we drank some more, and stood outside with Amie while she had her smoke breaks.

At some point, Ambria and I decided to go to the store for a party we were going to the next night, so we left the bar for a little while to hit the liquor section at the grocery store. We were making my "famous sangria" recipe, and collected all the necessary things, stored them in the trunk of my car and headed back to the bar.

It was near Amie's last smoke break that we had the weirdest thing happen.

We went to stand out with Amie and her not-boyfriend Matt while they smoked when this guy came up to Ambria and I.

I wasn't drunk. I was maybe a little buzzed, but it was nothing compared to what I could be, so I wasn't going to even think about getting frisky with some random dude at a bar.

He introduced himself as "JP," but his name wasn't really JP, that stood for John Paul. But not Jean Paul. He was very specific. Ambria and I nodded, neither one of us interested in him, but he wouldn't just wander away.

"So how's it going?" He asked.

"Oh, you know, good." Ambria said.

"Yeah, just here with our family," I offered. Amie and Matt decided to join us more closely. He shook hands with them, but still wouldn't leave us be. I wasn't particularly annoyed; he was being regularly friendly, but I knew that you don't just chat people up on the street at a bar. Guys have agendas.

It started to get weirder when he asked us to come to his place at Christmas. I am going to paraphrase what he said.

"[Obviously you two aren't that drunk yet,] so maybe we can hang out around Christmas. [Since you won't be coming back to mine tonight] you should do all of your family stuff, then come hang out with me on Christmas."

"Uh, huh." Ambria and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes. We couldn't understand why he was being so weird. Maybe we should have said something like, "We are jewish." Or maybe that were were devil worshippers. Thinking about all of these clever things now makes me wonder why I am not this quick when weird shit like this is going down.

I know you are thinking, gosh, that isn't so weird. Well, that was when another guy walking down the street decided to also stop. They didn't even know each other. But now we had Gabe and JP trying to get us to go to two separate Christmas parties because obviously we weren't drunk enough to bang them that night.

Matt finally finished his cigarette, "Hey, you ready to go inside?"

"Um, yeah." Ever protective of my friend though, I had her go in front of me, and Matt was the last one in, leaving the guys outside.

We got a last call at the bar, then got the lights turned out on us, so we left the bar and went back to Ambria's again. In the basement, we proceeded to get liquored up in the form of whiskey shots and Cocacola chasers. A serious game of foosball, and three hours later, Ambria was way drunker than me, and I opted to take her to her room.

We got into our jim-jams and climbed into bed, and it seemed that all was good.

Until Ambria got the hiccups.

Which turned into the puke-ups. All over her pillow and sheets and floor.

I ran downstairs and got a pan, putting it under her face so she could puke, and patiently waited while I holding her hair back. After it seemed like she was stable enough, I moved her to the bathroom.

Thinking quickly, I went downstairs, donned some Ziplock bags as gloves and found a plastic grocery bag. I went back up, and holding my breath, I scooped the Japanese food vomit into the bag. Tossing that out, I went back down to find cleaning supplies.

I have never cleaned up puke on carpet until the other night. I didn't know what to use, and I didn't have a huge cleaning supply arsenal. I grabbed the Comet and a bucked of hot water with Dawn dish soap and headed back upstairs.

I soaked up all the icky stuff with the Comet, then scrubbed the floor and wall until it wasn't brown anymore. Proud of my handy work, I went to check on Ambria.

She had been puking in the sink, consequently clogging it. I moved her to the toilet and we sat there until almost five in the morning. When she was finally empty, we moved back to her room where I had a clean pan ready if she got ill again.

Thankfully, she didn't get sick again, and we slept until almost twelve the next day.

All in all, I think it was quite a successful birthday venture. Especially since Ambria is waiting with bated breath for my birthday. She wants to repay the favor for me taking care of her by getting me sick back.

Yeah, we might be a little weird.