What it is to be cool.

I sometimes make the mistake of doing drugs. This weekend for example we rode our bikes to the beach in the blistering heat and ate Stan’s brownies. He said, “brownies are a good time,” I knew they wouldn’t be but I did them because we were making a day of it; who am I to interrupt the natural flow of a Sunday? Long before the drugs took effect, my brain started to stress about what could potentially happen to me. For someone as completely uncool as me, I spend an awful lot of time considering what it is to be cool. Coolness is a precarious blend of self-assuredness, casual detachment, wit and charm; it is the sum of all the qualities I’ve failed to cultivate, and to be totally honest, I hate it because I ain’t it. My own inability to be cool is one thing, but witnessing my close friends try -and fail phenomenally- at being cool is particularly punishing to my senses. Especially when I’m growing higher by the minute. I love Stan dearly but he sure can be an ass; I’m quite certain that rudeness and mean-spiritedness are never cool characteristics anyway. Imagine if you can, a pleasant and attractive woman in her early twenties approaching you on the beach, she’s talking on her phone loudly and happily. There is a quality in her voice that’s mildly reminiscent of girls in high school who finish each sentence with an upward inflection, each sentence then sounding something like a question. Certainly though it’s not the thing to notice about this girl: she’s got lustrous blond curls, a cute face and a very pleasant round quality that’s arguably preferable to her skinnier beach equivalents. You can imagine then how shocked I was to hear Stan blatantly mock this girl’s phone conversation. It wasn’t just one or two cutting remarks under his breath either. It was really quite malicious, he imitated each thing she said with the hammiest bopper voice he could muster. Andrew and I exchanged pained expressions as we ushered our condescending (and decidedly uncool) friend down the beach to a shadier spot. Here we could really melt into the sand without getting sun burnt. This is where my all too familiar feelings of stoned paranoia started to show their ugly head. It’s usually at these times Andrew likes to pound home his feigned belief that the effects of marijuana are universally agreeable and anyone who says otherwise is participating in a humiliating form of self-important theatrics. This always succeeds in making the feelings worse even though I’m on to his trick. We eventually decided to go for a swim. The tide was really far out and it felt a bit like Laurence of Arabia journeying northward to destroy the Ottoman Empire. When we finally reached the water, truly, I was high.

Border Police: Lettuce Unit.

I haven't ridden my bike even once since I've been home, sorry. Your lettuce caused me no small amount of stress at the border too, they pulled us over into their little panic room(I'm pretty sure it's 'cuz i couldn't look the guy in the eye) and asked us all sorts of questions, "why Idaho? I was there a few weeks ago and there's nothing there!"-- said the woman. They searched the car and got quite caught up on Stan's gin seng. They weren't too worried about the lettuce though. When the guy asked if there were any pointy needles or anything I burst out with, "there's some lettuce!" This made Stan and Oliver laugh which made me even more nervous, 'cuz i thought maybe they'd think we were high.

Snowball

Little Nettie Yule was minding her business one sunny, Spring day, in the playroom of her home in Kansas City, Missouri. She needed some quiet time away from her younger sister Ethel who was being particularly bothersome that day.

Nettie was not interested in playing with dolls like all the other girls her age. She was far more interested in animals. Her parents, not at all interested in taking on the responsibility of a dog or cat, had just a week before brought home two hamsters, one for each of their little girls.

Nettie and Ethel were delighted with their new hairy, little friends. Nettie especially. She named her hamster Bear, for bears were her very favourite type of animal and she had been terribly disappointed when she did not receive a bear for Christmas a few months before.

Ethel named her hamster Snowball. Within a few days though, Ethel became disenchanted with poor Snowball who was much smaller than Bear. To little Ethel, Snowball seemed downright lazy. She couldn't understand why Bear was always running on the wheel while Snowball just slept in the corner of the cage.

On this day, Nettie, in an attempt for peace and quiet decided to sneak off to the playroom where the hamster cage was. She wanted to play with Bear and Snowball.

She approached the hamster cage with a spring in her step but as she got closer she stopped short. Something didn't appear right. Bear was sleeping in the corner that Snowball was usually in but Snowball was nowhere to be found. Nettie looked closer. She opened the cage and poked at Bear with her finger. Bear stirred. It was then that Nettie noticed there was some blood on the Aspen bedding of the cage. She looked Bear over. There was some blood on his mouth and on his tiny left paw.

It was then that Ethel burst through the door of the playroom singing "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe". She may have only be five and three quarters but she knew just how to push her sister's buttons.

Ethel stopped singing when it appeared that Nettie was not about to pay her a lick of attention. Nettie was just sitting there solemnly, staring into the cage.

Ethel rushed up to join her sister's side and peered into the cage. "Where's Snowball?" Ethel asked. Nettie didn't answer. "WHERE'S MY SNOWBALL?" Ethel wailed. Nettie looked at her sister very seriously and put her hands on Ethel's little shoulders. "I'm afraid it looks like Bear might have eaten Snowball." Her lip quivered and a single tear rolled down her pink, shining cheek.

Ethel just stared at her. There was no readable emotion written on the little girl's face. She turned back to the open cage, reached in and plucked the sleeping Bear up. She held him in Nettie's face and said loudly, "FINE, this is my hamster, Snowball!"

"But!" Nettie jumped up, wild eyed. She was frantic. "You didn't even like Snowball. Yoooouuu never played with her! I loooove Bear! Give him back please!"

Ethel looked at her sister coldly and said, "No" as she turned her back and walked confidently out of the room.

I had a nightmare about this blog last night.

It

It started off as a pretty good day. The heat had been unbearable the past month. Stockton is always warm in Summer but it wasn't even May yet. It seemed that pretty much everyone around town had been shutting themselves inside with their air conditioners. I was no exception.

On this day however, I had to drag my ass out to the Toys "R" Us because it was my nephew's 3rd birthday party that afternoon and as usual I had left a simple task such as finding a gift to the last minute.

I locked up the house and walked down the scorching driveway. One look at my car just sitting there, baking in the sun and I actually contemplated calling a cab because then I could just hop into the cool car without suffering for even a moment. I decided that was stupid and that I needed to stop being a pansy.

Oh boy was that car hot. I burnt my hand on the damn belt buckle. Muttering under my breath, I started the car and headed to the mall.

Upon entering the Toys "R" Us, I felt a bit of relief. It was freezing inside! Not only that but there was no one around which is my kind of shopping. I walked up and down the aisles looking for something to jump out at me, something that Grant would love. I wanted him to be most impressed with my gift. I wanted to shine in his eyes and for him to ignore everyone else's attempts at winning him over.

I was looking at some monster trucks when I heard a man's voice say, "Honey, look at this, she'll look perfect in this!" I felt my heart flutter. Not in a good way. Against my better judgment, knowing exactly who I was going to see, I looked in the direction of the cooing voice.

Alex. MY ALEX!

There he was coming down the aisle, waving a little pink bikini as he approached a very pregnant looking woman. A very pregnant, beautiful woman with long, loose red curls. I sub-consciously put my hand to my short, thin brown hair and felt my face heat up. My vision blurred. I turned away, quickly, hoping he wouldn't see me but I was too late.

"Melanie?"

I slowly turned back to face them. "Hi Alex." I tried to sound pleasant, I really did. I tried not to sound bitter. I tried my best not to yell, "You stupid mother fuckitty fuck cunt bitch lying piece of shit "I'm not the settling down sort of guy" fuckface prick!"

I just looked at both of them awkwardly. I had successfully managed to avoid seeing his face for the past year (ok, year and 6 weeks, but who's counting?) and now I come face to face with him and her and it. I stared at her stomach. I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. Then I noticed that in addition to it, she had a GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING RING ON HER LEFT HAND!

Things got fuzzy. I wish I could say that I pulled myself together and moved on and picked out the best little present I could find and that I went off to the birthday party feeling good about myself and how maturely I handled the situation. But I can't. What I can say is that without giving it a thought I grabbed one of the trucks to my left and as though my arm were posessed and I had no control over it, I threw it at his head. Well, I aimed for his head I thought, only somehow I missed and it hit her in the side of the face.

I ran out of there as fast as I could. When I got to my car I noticed that I had another truck in my right hand. I drove away at lightning speed and thanked my lucky stars that I had that truck. I had a birthday party to go to afterall.

I was telling someone about my situation with my medication when I realized I was scratching soap into my arm pit and decided I liked that better.