Love Hurts

And sometimes it results in people getting anonymously added to inappropriate mailing lists.

A few years ago I went through a serious breakup. That's right--- I am 29, single, and (somewhat?) normal- and as a friend of mine told me after the breakup (over copious amounts of queso)-- at a certain age, if someone is single and normal, they're going to have some shit in their past. So here, dearest internet, is the story of the shit in my past.

I went through a breakup. Like living together, splitting utilities, making groceries together to doing it all on my own breakup. It was tough. I stayed in our apartment alone and tried to decide what my next move in my life was going to be. I wasn't eating. I wasn't sleeping. I wasn't smiling. I was a mess. I purchased Preparation- H for the bags under my eyes. (Side note- it doesn't smell that great. But I guess your butthole doesn't usually care what things smell like).

About a week into my devastated singleness, at 4 in the morning, my doorbell started ringing. I was certain there was only one person it could be and there was no way I wanted to see them at that ungodly hour. I rolled over. The doorbell continued, now with a furious knocking interjected. This couldn't be happening. I put a pillow over my head. The noise didn't stop. I got up, stomped to the front door, slammed it open, and had a glare on my face that would have impressed Carrie. It was my upstairs neighbor.

"Sorry to wake you up right now, but someone just hit your car."

I looked at the scene in the street. There was industrial carnage surrounding my car and another car. Shattered glass, ripped metal. I looked back at my neighbor.

"Yeah- I just got home from work and was out here smoking and some guy came speeding down the street, slammed into your car, then got out of his car and ran away."

My brain began processing it all and I started laughing. Like loling. My neighbor looked at me like I was a madwoman. "Oh, sorry," I explained, "I just realized that this is my rock bottom. It can't get any worse."

He had already called the cops. I went inside to get dressed and wait (for an hour and a half) for the police to show up. #GodblessNOPD Since he was a key witness, he waited with me. Here I was- on a muggy August morning, exhausted, starving, depressed, and having to make small talk with the asshole who had lived above me for over 9 months and had never even said "hello" before.

It didn't take long for him to get the conversation started.

"I haven't seen your boyfriend around much."

Perfect intro.

"Yeah- we broke up."

"Oh- OK. I always thought he was kind of a dick anyway." He tilted his head at me, hoping this enlightening comment would somehow make the situation better. I could have explained to him that listening to him scream at his wife late in the night, or how the fact that he never picked up his dog's shit in the back yard, or how he and his wife constantly parked us in the driveway and refused to move their cars kind of made the feeling mutual......but I didn't. I forced a half smile and stared off into the distance.

We sat there making sporadic small talk as the neighborhood started to wake up and as I waited on the stoop and watched the sun come up, I decided I was going to kick life back. That sunrise was giving me power.

I was going to start moving forward. I was going to start feeling better.

I was going to throw a party. That. Night.

After I dealt with my car, I put my plan into motion. I pulled up some recipes for desserts, bought some champagne and composed an email to my friends:

Re: No More Pity Party Party

I explained the situation and asked them to join me for booze and desserts so I could start my climb up from rock bottom. I felt good. I was taking charge. I was every woman. It was all in me.

Then my email dinged.

I looked down to see a response. It was from my friend. I opened it up and scanned the email. I reread it.

In my haste to plan the party, I had apparently mistyped an email address. Instead of my friend, Dana, receiving the email, some other horrible friendless human being, also named Dana (WITHOUT THE MIDDLE INITIAL IN HER EMAIL ADDRESS) was tuned into my situation and she had something to say about it.

Her self righteous response expressed some sympathy "Sorry to hear about your situation BUT...." and then took a page (or maybe a footnote-- it wasn't THAT harsh--- but it felt it at the time) from Rebecca Martinson, by bitchily explaining to me that I had the wrong email address and threateningly requesting to never email her again and to remove her from the group.


Bitch, you were never in the group.

I obliged. But only after signing her up for all of the most inappropriate spam mailing lists I could find.

I hope your genital warts are doing better, Dana (without the middle initial).



Love hurts. In all sorts of ways.

Cat Scratch Fever

I may have mentioned it before but, just in case, I want to let you know again. I have a mean cat. Her name is Sophie. And yes, she is pretty. But she is mean.

It never fails that I have some form of the following conversation when people first encounter Sophie.

Them: "OOOOHHH... is that your cat!? Look at her! She is so pretty."
*They begin to approach her.*
Me: "Yeah, she's pretty but she's mean as hell. Don't try to pet her. She will scratch you."
Them: "Ooooohhhh, I'm sure she's not THAT mean."
Me: "I promise you she is THAT mean. She will scratch you."
*They start to reach to pet her as they turn to me."
Them: "I'm an animal person tho---- OUCH. SHIT!! SHE JUST SCRATCHED ME!!"

They look at their wound and their mouth drops open. They turn to me and hold up their appendage to show me the blood. I stare at their facial expression, which combines elements of betrayal and surprise. I look at their sad eyes and their mouth contorted into a perfect "O" of unexpected pain and my heart, just like that of the predestined Grinch's, begins to grow.



Just kidding. I TOLD YOU SHE WOULD SCRATCH YOU.

I shrug and let them know where the band-aids are with a tone that implies a certain level of wussiness if they actually go and get one.

They usually follow up with some comment/question about why she lets me pet her. She is my cat. I feed her every day. I put up with her bullshit and when she thinks I have left her alone for a night, she shits somewhere that is hard to clean and that is not her litter box just to let me know what she thinks of me. I guess that's her way of showing she loves me. And, to quote J. Giles Band "love stinks."



So, to my tens of followers, this PSA is for you.

I HAVE A MEAN CAT. Despite what her fluffiness might portray, she harbors a certain level of darkness that should have gotten its own level in Dante's Inferno. Don't pet her. She will scratch you. And if you do pet her, don't come looking to me for sympathy. Idiot.

Thank you.

Have a nice day.

Entomology

Last summer, I went on a vacation with some girlfriends. Our destination was the Arkansas Ozarks. We were going to hike, cook outside, and hang out in nature. Before the trip, if I had to plot the girls I was traveling with and me on a scale illustrating levels of "girly girlness," it would have looked something like this:

That's how I think I fall in most groups of randomly selected females.

Needless to say, I was taken aback when it turned out I was the girl on the trip that was in a constant panic about bugs.

I couldn't believe it.

I was the kid that used to get pleasure out of smoshing roaches. In elementary school, we were given an assignment that we could complete by making a bug collection or by doing a report. Ever the Tomboy, Daddy's Girl that I was- I was going to do a bug collection. And I loved it! I distinctly remember bragging about the prize of my collection: a huge red and black grasshopper that my Dad and I found in the woods.

Now, here I was twenty years later, in the woods again but on absolute pins and needles from fear that a bug might touch me. Apparently I had grown out of my masculine fascination with bugs. I still sweat like a boy, got uber competitive with anything that had a winner and a loser, loved bathroom humor, and couldn't do my hair or makeup to save my life; but I was terrified of bugs.

This fact quickly came to light during our hike. Luckily, it wasn't until the second half of the hike that I started seeing them- but once I saw them, that was it. There were katydids EVERYWHERE. I felt like I had night vision goggles on and the leaf impersonators were little balls of heat. They took a page out of the stinging catepillar's book and had conga lines going up and down trees (see below). They were chilling on rocks.They were sitting on the ground. I'll say it again- they were EVERYWHERE. And they were eyeballing the shit out of us.

Nasty nasty. Why must they impersonate human centipede? Why?

I felt like every time we stomped by a gathering of bugs, they would spring to life and erratically jump through the air. Sometimes at us. Sometimes not. It was enough to make me nuts.

I started positioning myself amongst my friends like we were in a haunted house--- I made sure there was always someone in front of me and behind me at all times. (Yep- I'm THAT girl). If these little green assholes were going to jump, I didn't want them landing on me. Nope. No sir.

Surprisingly, everyone else was pretty chill about the bugs. No one shared in my asinine antics. My unreasonable explanations- given with gritted teeth and dilated pupils that jumped from tree to tree and never focused on the person being spoken to- only furthered the "afraid of bugs/not of afraid of bugs" divide between my friends and me. I was the lone crazy one.

When we got out of the woods, I had a "come to Jesus" with myself. "Play it cool, Leila. That little scene on the hike was unreasonable. Just absolutely unreasonable. For the rest of the trip, you are not allowed to freak out over bugs."

I wish I can say the self talk worked. It was only about 68% effective. I did panic a few more times over some flying six legged friends, but overall I avoided anymore total freakouts.

This all came to a head on our final day. We were packing up and heading out and I decided to take a shower. I undressed, wrapped myself in a towel, and went to the bathroom. I hung the towel outside the shower, got in, simultaneously pulled the shower curtain closed and turned on the shower. I turned to see I was not alone. There was a rather large spider on the inside of the shower curtain. Just chilling.

I calmly turned off the shower, got out, wrapped myself in the towel and left the bathroom.

"Hey yall- I know yall are tired of me being afraid of bugs, but there is a big ass spider in the shower right now and I don't think I can shower with him in there. It's either me or him but we're not going to get clean together."

My two friends who are awesome and don't mind killing invertebrates when necessary went in the bathroom together (I'm sure they sighed and rolled their eyes- as they should have- they were tired of my shit). There was a loud noise as they tripped over each other trying to get out of the bathroom.

"HOLY SHIT THAT THING WAS HUGE!!"
"WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU, LEILA? HOW DID YOU NOT JUST FREAK OUT!?"

I shrugged and accepted the fact that I was not going to be showering before we hit the road.

You win some, you lose some. And on the trip to the Ozarks, I lost.

I lost a lot.

Words of Wisdom

A friend and I were recently in a wedding of mutual friend from college. The ceremony was romantic, the food was great, and the cake was delicious. (I may have used my bridesmaid card to get three pieces of cake- but that's better than any alternative I may have used to get three pieces of cake). All in all, it was a picture perfect wedding.

Except for this picture.... but you can't win them all.

I've been to a lot of weddings, and most of them fit the description above so you can imagine my surprise when an unhappy bride and groom (from another wedding) got on the elevator with my friend and me at the end of the night.

We saw them approaching the elevator and held the doors with big smiles and a few congratulations.

"Yeah.... thanks..." the bride responded.

The groom fumbled with the room key and let out a long sigh when he finally got it to make the elevator work and pushed the button for the third floor.

The bride looked--- "We just had an "oh shit" moment in the car."

I asked what she meant.

"Like we just realized we actually did this. It just hit us that we are married."

They both looked at us with eyes that screamed for help and I tried to make the best "Are you dumb?" face I could in return.

The elevator opened on the third floor and my friend, always the optimist, wished them a good night.

The groom clenched his teeth and said "Yeah- I may go jump out of the window now."

As the door started to close, I processed what he said, and immediately let him know that he may want to take the elevator to the top floor because jumping from the third floor wasn't going to do much.

The doors closed and my friend looked at me.

I looked back. "What?"

"Leila, you do realize you just gave that groom advice on how to kill himself."

"Well- he needed it. Jumping from the third floor is only going to break a leg or make him sore. It's not going to do much damage. And then he would have to deal with his bride after. And with all of these Halloween parties going on tonight- the EMS does not need to deal with some dumb groom with a broken leg."

My friend shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, "well at least you're thinking at a macro level here...."

Flat Stanley ain't got nothing on me...

One of the perks of traveling for your job is sometimes you get to go really awesome places. One of the downsides of those trips is you are usually by yourself. I always find myself wishing I could share the experience with a friend or family member and, while I can't, I can always take selfies to prove to others just how cool it was. #whowouldntwanttolookatadozenselfiesofmeinfrontofthings

I recently got to enjoy this perk by squeezing in a trip to Niagara Falls. I drove about an hour and a half from Toronto to see the landmark and was totally impressed.

It was a beautiful day, with the high in the mid 60s. I could hear the waterfalls before I saw them. The air felt  clean and the town smelled fresh. I made my way to the waterfront and sucked in a sharp breath when I saw them. They were unbelievable. The experience reminded me of the first time I saw mountains; it was invigorating and humbling all at the same time. It reminded me of the power of nature and that we are, after all, only human. Our lives are but a blink of the eye.

Enough of the seriousness. YOLO, right!?

While I did have an emotional reaction to the Falls, they weren't the only thing I was reacting to. Let me guide you through my day at Niagara Falls through a photo blog.

Enjoy!

Here I am nearing the waterfront.

OMG- There they are!

I CAN SEE JIM AND PAM FROM HERE!

 And just to prove I was actually there....

  

So then I paid to go behind the Falls. I know, I'm a risk taker- what can I say? Aren't the ponchos adorable? They remind me of the shitty yellow ponchos from Disney. Except these were free. And you had to give them back at the end. That's kind of gross now that I think about it. 

Other idiots tourists in their ponchos.

Another selfie. You know what they say about selfies- you can never have too many.

Perfect shot.

There are some informational signs posted in the small tunnels behind the Falls. I stopped to read a few but then I got a little claustrophobic. I don't know if it was the idea that there were hundreds of thousands of gallons of water rushing over me at that moment or the pushy tourists that all smelled slightly of dankness and B.O. wrapped in yellow saran wrap that didn't give a shit about the idea of personal space that made me panic, but I didn't take the time to read all of the info. I did look at two of them, though.

The first outlined famous people that have been there.

Harry is unimpressed. "But Mummy, you said we would get to see boobs."

The second outlined people who have gone over the Falls. The first was a woman in 1901. She made the journey in a barrel with her cat. I immediately pictured doing this with Sophie and knew how the story would end. "Autopsy shows that woman was unharmed by actual trip over Falls, but clawed to death by the cat after they made the journey and were waiting for the rescue boat."

Annie Edson Taylor, the original cat lady.

Before I went, I did some research on Niagara Falls. Did you know that it's one of the top honeymoon destinations in the world!? Wow-wee. I was expecting to see some young lovers, but nothing could have prepared me for this:

This is just like a sex scene from gossip girls. A nice little clothes on romp in the grass.

I also bumped into a group of nuns who were nunning it up. I walked close to them for a while hoping for a bar or two of "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" but instead I just got to watch other people stare at them. Come on, y'all, it's just a bunch of nuns. It's not like you need to follow them and take pictures... 

On my way out, I had to check out the gift shop. It was packed full with all sorts of Canadian wildlife stuff- toy beavers, wood cut into the shape of wolves, moose things, and all of that nonsense. It also had banks for children that fit the "Niagara Falls Dinosaur Theme." Naturally.

I got excited when I saw the clever banks. EVERYONE CAN BE A SAVEASAURUS! EVEN ME, DINOBANK!? Wrong....

Screw you, then. I didn't want to save money anyway.

I left the gift shop disappointed in my non purchase and made my way back to my car. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the best part about Niagara Falls. It's a total Disneyworld/Vegas/beachinthesummer HAVETOENTERTAINTHEKIDS shit hole. The entire strip down to the beautiful natural wonder is covered with arcades, pizza joints, bowling alleys, and other places designed to be black holes for parents wallets. You literally had to kick the screaming kids out of the way.

Oh, you didn't have to kick them? My bad.

That boy has "I'm going to jail before the age of 23" written all over his face.

Before I made my grand exit, I stopped in one last shop hoping for a souvenir from the day (beyond the amazing selfies, of course). I was forced to leave empty handed because I couldn't choose between the clever t-shirts that epitomized Niagara Falls.

BUH-BYE NOW!!

He's Making a List, He's Checking It Twice, He's Going To...

Scare the crap out of me.

As a child, I was absolutely TERRIFIED of Santa. I hated everything about him. I didn't want to sit in his lap. I didn't want to tell him what I wanted for Christmas and I didn't want to bump into him when he was dropping off my gifts.

You can imagine my fear when I would go shopping with my mom around Christmas. One of the department stores in Baton Rouge, Maison Blanche, would set up larger than life moving Santas along the roof that laughed jollily and slowly moved their heads from side to side. They still haunt my dreams. During these shopping trips, my anxiety would start to build as we turned into the parking lot. I could see the red donning bastards above the rows of cars. I would avert my eyes as we made our way in but ignoring the real Santa set up in the middle of the store was a different story. He was situated perfectly in the middle of the aisle. I knew he was there before I saw his bearded face or his black boots. I felt him. He was inevitable. As we would make our way from one end of the store to the other, my anxiety would pique as we approached the line of idiot children waiting to meet him. I never understood it. I would position myself so that my Mom would block my view and, with my head down, would push by the crowd. I always feared that he would look out amongst the kids and call me out of the crowd. "Little girl- you- the one who is trying to pretend I'm not here... you- yes- you, come tell me what you want for Christmas."

It still gives me chills.

Unfortunately, my yearly encounters with Santa extended beyond just seeing him. He would call me, too.

My Mom's family got a kick out of the Uncles calling the nieces and nephews on Christmas Eve and pretending to be Santa. During our meal, I would tensely sit and wait for the phone to ring. I would hope that I would be in the bathroom the moment he called or that he would just forget about me for a year. It went on for a while but ended the year I hung up and, a little confused, looked at my parents and said "Santa sounds a lot like Uncle John."

While I hated being on the receiving in, I think my Dad enjoyed being on the giving end (of this and more practical jokes--- you can find them all in my parent's book Funny Things to do to Your Kids When You are Slightly Buzzed--- all proceeds go toward my therapy).

One year, my Dad busted my cousin. The conversation went something like this:

Dad (Santa): Have you been a good girl this year?
Cousin: Oh, yeah Santa.
Dad: Are you sure? I think I see something on my list here.
Cousin: No, I was good.
Dad: Wait a minute- I see a note here that you kicked your dog, is that true?
Cousin:............................no
Dad: So you never kicked your dog, Latke?
Cousin: Here Momma, I'm done talking to Santa.

Another year, my Dad messed with the adults more than the kids. I think he had enough of playing Santa and decided to put in a special request. When he made the call to the family in Pensacola, he let them know that instead of milk and cookies he would need Dixie beer and white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. Yep.

Who knew Santa had such fine taste?

Much to my Uncle's chagrin, he acquiesced to the cries of his children and went on a Christmas Eve hunt for Dixie beer and white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies.

I think they got another Uncle to make the call the next year. 


Moral of the story? You should never get a Jew to play Santa.

The blog's namesake

I am opinionated and I have a name that people don't quite understand.

And I think that the person who took my lunch order needs to be fired.

 Love,

Leila