The goldfish chronicles, Sarah goes to jail

Posted on by Pretty Polar

     Yeah. That’s right. I did some time. This whole time you’ve been reading me you had no idea what a gangster I am. Super hardcore. Tightly braided hair. Teeth of gold. Tear drop tattoos alllllllllll over my damn face.

     Only not really, I’m actually so white you can see my circulatory system, so my hair won’t hold a good braid and the only thing bad in this house is the Helluva dip in the back of my fridge. I keep meaning to throw that away. note to self, chuck that dip. But yeah, I did spend 7 days in county jail when I was 19 or 20, so that part’s super true. Did you know you can go to jail for acting like an asshole? Well….you’re about to.

It all started late one night, my super bestie Joss and I were driving around aimlessly looking for some fuckery to get into. We had made up quite a few games in the span of our friendship, our favorite of which we had affectionately named “cat and mouse”. It’s a driving game which you can play with friends or total strangers if you’d like. In the friend version, you pick one vehicle to be the mouse, and all other vehicles playing are the cats….and you have to follow and imitate anything the “mouse” car does or you lose. We played for dares mostly, like kiss so and so if you lose kind of stuff…but yeah, you would play at night, and depending on the mouse it could get pretty exciting, spinning out on lawns, or racing down the shoulder.  I’m not advising people to play this game. We were and arguable still are a bunch of reckless idiots. Ok, then there is the unknown stranger version, where it’s only Joss and I in one car and we pick a color together. Then when we see that color car go by, we follow them for as long as possible without getting arrested or molested. That night we picked white.  

          A large windowless white van rattled by shortly after we had decided on a color, so we quietly pulled out behind them and followed them into the night. We had started on a main road, but ended up driving on some darkened back roads for over an hour before realizing we were low on gas, and pre-gps/smart phone, we also weren’t quite sure where we were anymore. But, the game must go on, so we ignored the issues at hand and pressed on. Another 30 minutes into the game had gone by, and our gas light was now lit, also, it felt as though the ominous being driving the van had caught on as they had started taking a lot of side streets and being dodgey, When we came up to a gas station, the van pulled in, and we followed. We filled our tank as the driver and his passengers piled out and approached us. It was a swarm of dudes around our age, cute stoner looking types in baggy skater jeans, ripped up tees and a pot fog billowing out of the open van. They seemed wary of us at first for obvious reasons, we’re just a couple of creepy young ladies out for a dangerous night of stalking. Don’t be alarmed, we won’t murder you until after we show you our extensive collection of porcelain doll heads…but after talking for a bit and explaining the “game”, we were all getting along famously so they invited us back to their place…..and naturally we went. 

 
The more of these stories I share the more impressed I am that I’m still alive because all I did thru out my youth was invite myself into the most rapey/murdery type scenarios I could find, or so it is starting to seem.

So we followed these thankfully harmless hippy stoner types back to their apartment in Schenectady, where we were pleasantly surprised to find the coolest apt I have ever seen in my young life. There was a gaggle of young men and one chick whom had rented out a large apartment together. Some of them shared bunk beds, while others had solo rooms. This place had high ceilings, was decently furnished considering the crowd that had rented it, it was incredibly spacious, with tapestries draped everywhere you looked and incense burning at cloud forming levels. My two most favoritist things in this majestic crash pad were, 1. the e-freaking-normous cage they had, with two sugar gliders inside (the first I’d ever seen), and 2. a gargantuan room they had left empty for the sole purpose of having mini raves. It was completely bare outside of a large stereo system and graffiti covered walls that were amaze-balls under the black lights they had strung up. 

I still wish I had a room like that. My cats and I could be doing X and cat nip raging out right meow to some sweet jams. Alas, I’m in my pillow nest….which is the only luxury my apartments square footage can afford. 

 So after our tour, Joss, and we’ll say 5 dudes and one other random chick settled in the living room and smoked a bong together while we played with the sugar gliders, coaxing them to adhere to the tops of the tapestry curtains and then watching with sheer love and joy in our hearts as they softly glided back into their humans outstretched hand. We fed them fruit, and introduced ourselves around the room, as the random hippy chick started getting dressed for a rave she was going to that night. Wide leg pants, crop top and so much candy jewelry I actually got the munchies watching her dress. Some times passes…..And now I had shared a chair with a young man named Rob for about two hours, sitting on his lap, so, you could say –it was getting pretty serious.

      Mister Rob was  rocking a beanie hat and an irritating level of disdain towards from what I could tell, everyone, everything and perhaps just life in general. I thought Rob was hot and a bit of a challenge so being as I was incredibly stoned and pumped up on adrenaline from the nights events and the most majestic sugar glider experience, ever, I got it in my head that I really wanted to get in this dudes jeans. I asked if I could see his room (smooth) but once inside, I closed the door and pulled my top off. He gave me a look, like, he was undecided how he felt about my sudden partial nudity… so I flat-out asked this complete stranger if he wanted to mess around with me. His grumbly response was something in the family of whatever. He was clearly super enamored with this lady right here. “Whatever? Ohhhhhhhhhh man. Let’s do this now or I’m gonna finish before we start with all this sweet talk. Mmmmmm, whatever…((rubs own boob))”       We crawled into his dirty, lumpy bed and I immediately started pummeling this dudes face with my face. I know. Hot, right? I fumbled around with his larger than life pants for a bit before my paws found his man piece. I’m not even gonna talk about the condom situation, because the world will be a happier place for not knowing about that brief and depressing “conversation”. We did the deed. Really fast, not romantically or really well for that matter, in fact, nothing about “it” was memorable in the least outside of the sheer slutitude involved in making it happen. We redressed and silently sat on the edge of his bed for a moment before getting up to rejoin the group. I actually think we were both thinking the same thought while we sat there, which was, should we wait awhile so people think it took longer?  But it was so entirely uncomfortable, the answer had to be no. 

 When I went to find Joss, I wasn’t surprised to find she had also pulled a rando bleachy haired raver into one of the bunk beds for an undoubtedly equally as awkward sexual exchange, although, she seemed to be gone quite a bit longer than I. I picked the sexually incompetent dude in the group….or maybe I was really inept at being a floozy, Meh. Red-hair don’t care.

When Joss and her fling thing emerged, most of the crowd had gone off to bed.  Joss and I weren’t ready to call it a night just yet tho, so Rob the Super Stud,raver fling guy, and Joss all piled in to her Daewoo, with me behind the wheel. I was arbitrarily deemed the least stoned out of the four of us incase you’re wondering why I was piloting. I have no idea where we intended on going that night, but I distinctly remember when I ended up.

We were driving thru Clifton Park, Ny around 2 in the morning on a weeknight. The roads were empty and I took it as an opportunity to blasty blast the music and sway the car from lane to lane keeping with the beat of whatever I was jamming too. Coming up on a well-lit intersection it took me a moment to register the red flashy lights closing in on us.I partially pulled off to the shoulder, popped a mint and tried to look stoic and sober as the cops (yup. multiple) approached. There was a man and a woman officer,whom were apparently working on their good cop/bad cop routine that night. It was something out of a movie. The event went down something like this; 

 
Good Male Cop hangs back a few feet, and Bad Lady Cop comes up to my window, leaning thru the window ever so slightly and examining all of us with her flash light. 

 
Good Male Cop  How is everyone doing tonight? 

 
Collectively mumbled “fine” resonates from the car. 

 
Good male Cop  Do you know why we stopped you? (Without waiting for an answer…) It seemed like you were having some trouble keeping the car in your lane.. 

 
Bad Lady Cop  (Shines flashlight directly into my eye holes and Shouts) You been drinking at all tonight? You guys all coming from a party or something? 

 
Me  Nope. 

 
Bad Lady Cop  Where are you all headed? 

 
Me  I dunno, nowhere really. 

 
Bad Lady Cop  (Still deliberately blinding me) Yeah?? Nowhere??? You look tired, you sure you haven’t had anything to drink tonight? 

 
Me  Um, yeah. Pretty fricken sure. Sure all day.(smug look) 

 
Bad Lady Cop  (Takes a step back) Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle for me? 

 
Me  Yup. I’d super mind. Thanks. 

 
Bad Lady Cop  Oh??? (Diverts her attention for a moment) Is that your bag on the floor there? (gestures towards my glittery purse at Joss’s feet) Would you mind if I took a look in side? (reaches for door handle)

Me  It’s NOT my bag (lies), and I would mind. MmmmK? Thanksssss. (scoffs) 

 
Good Male Cop  If you could just step out of the vehicle, it’ll only take a moment and then hopefully ya’ll can be on your way. 

 
Me  (eyeroll) 

 
Bad Lady Cop  Step out of the car!!!!! 

 
Me  Fine. Whatever. I get out, and lean my back against the drivers side door 

 
Bad Lady Cop  Thank you  (Super pissed off now and resting one hand on her gun) Now I’m going to have you come stand over here (Puts her hand on my shoulder) We’d like for you to walk a line for us. Do you know what a sobriety test is? (Condescending tone) 

 
Me  I dooooo. (snarky tone as I jerk away from her, taking my shoulder back) But I feel like I’m not going to be doing that. Soooooo…… (adjusts my scarf and spits on the ground) 

 OK…..so fast forward, I think you can see where this was headed. She got sick of my ‘tude, rightly so, cuffed me up, read me my rights and tossed me in the back of the squad car. Joss was allowed to go on her merry way with our two new friends, ironically so, because she was way more messed up than I was. Once in the back of the car, I spent the entirety of the ride focusing on not leaning back on my cuffs. Those seats are made of some kind of hard plastic, so they’re super slippery. I was sliding from side to side arching my back as I remembered from previous arrests leaning back means certain death to your wrists. The cuffs will snap tighter, and the people whom just arrested you generally aren’t very concerned with your comfort, so you can forget about getting your hand circulation back until you get to the station. So, yeah…..don’t lean back, or you’re gonna have a bad time. Or really just…don’t be a dick when you get pulled over to begin with, because maybe then you’ll get to go home. Backing up a bit, it’s worth mentioning, I had a pretty sizable amount of Mary in my purse so I kind of had to flat-out refuse the search, and you could forget about a field sobriety test. I was waaaaaaay to shaky to walk a decent line and I can’t do a reverse alphabet stone cold sober, so it’s a safe-bet I can’t do it when I’m flying high either. I totally own this whole ordeal as being my fault. I was deliberately disrespectful, reckless and really just like a grade A douche. I would have arrested me too. But I digress…… 

 I was taken off to see a judge, who found me guilty of being a tool and set my court date for 7 days out, with a $500 bail. Being close to Christmas, I really didn’t have that kind of cash lying around, so high ho-high ho, off to jail I go! First, I was put in a holding cell where they took my bra (Nothing sadder than floppy jail titties), and my clothes in exchange for a super classy orange jumpsuit, a shitty threadbare bed sheet and a plastic pillow. Then it was off to see the county medical examiner. Again I refused any kind of drug testing, but I did go over my mental health history with her briefly. After another stretch of time in holding I was taken off to my cell. It wasn’t what you would think, for you fine up standing no time having been served types. Being as how i have a history of mental illness and refused to do a pee test, I was put in a “special” set of cells. Three adjoining cells, each with no door, encased in this giant unbreakable glass enclosure (The fishbowl). Then, they plopped the whole aquarium’esq shebang squarely in the middle of the “gen-pop” cafeteria/rec room. (Gen-pop = slang for general population, which in prison just references all of the prisoners.)  I immediately went to bed.

      

In the morning, I used my one phone call to call in to work for the week, which leads me to my next fun fact. That one call they give you has a recording that plays before you can speak to whom ever you are calling alerting the person answering that they are receiving a call from XXXX county jail. So yeah, that was an awkward convo with my boss. Calling in too imprisoned to work is a great way to jumpstart a new new career. After my phone call I was returned to my transparent home base where my two cell mates had awoken. I was in the middle cell, the girl on my left was in for selling crushed up sheet rock and marketing it as cocaine, while the girl on my right was in for stalking her therapist. Stalker bitch super loved journals. She wrote multiple letters to her therapist everyday that she was in there, but since she wasn’t allowed to mail them she had stacks of journals filled with super, crazy love letters. And then their was little old me, some slutty stoner wiseass who was in their for a lack of funds and because I don’t know when to shut up.

I spent the next couple days sleeping and starving as I refused to give urine (Altho I did secretly Pee a few times in the dead of night), I deft did NOT poo in my toilet as it was literally in front of everyone and group showering was out of the question. I was filthy and down right sick looking towards the end of my stay.My sheet rock slinging homie had been kind enough to braid my greasy hair for me, which must have been purty sexy as I had attracted multiple butchy looking admirers in gen pop. They would come tap on our little glass house daily, to let me know how good I looked and make some sort of sexual lesbian references I’m still unclear on. Mmmm….if only criminally insane vagina was my thing, I’d have had so many options. Alas, our love wasn’t meant to be. 

On my last day in the fishbowl, I ate a pb & j, and sat with the sheet rocker & crazy eyed journalizer for a few hours before being taken out to the holding area where I could change my clothes and go to court. Right before I was escorted out, journal stalker asked for my address as she wanted to write to me…………….I made up a fake address and slowly walked away trying not to smile at the idea of the WORST PENPAL EVER. I sometimes wondered after that if theirs someone out there in the world with the address I thought I made up, who received bundles of obsessive journals meant for me. 

Joss was waiting for me in the court room, and we exchanged mournful glances at one another while waiting for me to be called up. Never have I been more humbled or polite than I was on this day and  to that judge (the same judge whom damned me to fishbowl purgatory seven days earlier). He seemed content with the new filthy apologetic girl he saw before him, and after some public shaming he set me free. I ran into Joss’s hug, and we quietly cried and embraced while making our way to her car. On the drive home, we laughed at my new hair do, all the street cred I’d earned and the musky ode to Sarah filing the car. She dropped me off at my mothers, where I was still living. I washed my body and went to bed. (Joss had told my mom I was in county, she just didn’t really care, so we didn’t say much about it when I got home. She told me to take a shower, cuz I smelled like shit,  which I did. So, that was that. )

That was my experience with being locked up, although I was arrested a few other times in my lifetime for shop lifting, and random acts of mischief….but this is the only time I ever spent flopping my tits around in a jump suit, holding my poo for record breaking amounts of time, keeping time in a mentally unstable resting area for criminals. Jail hair with a look of quiet desperation as your bowels fill to a painful capacity is a difficult look to pull off, and not one that I wholly recommend. I do feel like if someone could make it look adorable…it was this lady right here. (I’m pointing at myself…so you know.)

<

p style=”text-align:center;”>As an aside;

     My first night home, mom woke me up at a really late hour as Joss was on calling. I guess when she dropped me off she didn’t go straight home, instead driving to her exes house as they had taken to banging while I was in the slammer. When she got there, he wouldn’t let her in and when he looked out from his second floor window, Joss could see a thin blonde girl standing behind him. She said, something came over her and she admittedly lost her mind and started screaming from the street, challenging this girl to come down and fight her.

If you’d ever seen Joss you’d know how unintentionally adorable that would be to witness as she is about two feet tall.  

So there she was, crazy eyed on the mean streets of Troy, getting no results from her display, when she realizes blondies car is the one in front of his. Joss starts scanning the curbside trash for weaponry when she spots a metal rod sticking out close by, perhaps from an old mop handle or a curtain rod..? She pulls it out,  jumps up onto the hood of blondies car. Then like the psychotic exe girlfriend of nightmares that she is <3, she jams it dead center thru this chicks windshield. She said she started laugh crying, in like full on crazy-mode and when she turned around the cops were already pulling up.

  They pull her off blondies hood and cuff her, so her ex and his Saturday chick can come downstairs. Joss was taken to jail, as they had pressed charges but her mother came and bailed her out. Hmmph, must be nice! She was just calling to let me know she was arrested too. ..and give me like a virtual fist bump, solidairty. bump. I went back to bed and giggled into my pillow picturing little Joss jumping up onto the hood of someone’s car and breaking thru a windshield hulkamania style. I mean, aren’t those things like really hard to bust thru?? Pretty sure they are. What can I say, random acts of crazy be-still my beating heart. Plus I love that she went out and got herself arrested the same night she picked me up from county. ❤ u 2 gurl.

Moral(s)/lesson(s);

Don’t be a massive slut or do drugs or minimally, maybe don’t drive if you are going to do drugs. Do not, I repeat, do NOT secretly fuck multiple girls at once and lead one, or all of them to believe they’re your one and only, cuz ladies will bust thru a windshield or stab you 67 times in the chest before the cops ever save your sorry a$$. With that many stabby stab stabs I feel like you’d still be finishing up the stabbing as the cops arrived. Just like half halfheartedly pushing thru the exhaustion to eek the blade in a few more times until they peal you off of his cold dead body. Also, if you’re going to try the multiple women thing against my warning, I recommend a second floor apartment.

There are actually many lessons in there somewhere.

Find your own moral ya lazy bitch!

K-byeeeeeeeeeeee

Paranoid Searadroid

Posted on by Pretty Polar

Since I’ve been spiraling lately I thought I’d throw out a post covering my top ten super most favorite worst paranoia’s, in list form, aka, the laziest form. Here we go;

  1. I text or call you and don’t hear back instantly. You’re obviously mad at me or hate me, and now I’m freaking out about it.  Maybe I’m a closeted narcissist but I can’t dream up a scenario where everyone I know and love isn’t idly sitting around waiting for me to reach out. Be it minutes or years between contact, not responding fast will throw me into a full-blown, hard sobbing, red-faced,  snot covered panic attack. Lately this one is a constant, be it a brandy new friend, a long time loved one or a co-worker, I’m pretty sure everyone in the world is sitting around hating me right now, possibly together. (I’ve actually had to turn off most of my messaging apps and doo-hickeys as of today just to calm down the near constant freak outs.) 
  2. Calling into work. The reason does not matter, be it; flu, diarrhea, death in the family or just bipolar issues that are seemingly impossible to explain in a professional manner (“sorry I can’t come in today but I’ve been crying and posturing various deathly scenarios for two months now and today it’s all coming to a head. I’m sure I’ll be totally fine tomorrow tho!”). Calling out is the worst for me. I take zero pleasure in not being there because I assume my entire work place has joined forces with my imaginary group of slow responding friends and they’re all sitting in a Chillis somewhere hating me. (“she dresses like an obese China doll and have you seen her blog? We get it. You’re sad. Boo hoo sea monster. Boo freaking hoo.”)
  3. Leaving the house, the sea monster chronicles. Some days I feel pretty, not modelesqe by any means, but pretty or cute. Other days I feel surprised to fit thru the door without first slathering it with vaseline. Also, on my less than stellar days, I like to bump it up a notch by glueing myself to my mattress and remaining buried alive in a mountain of pillows and blankets until the fear of being seen subsides a bit. Surely the best way to amp up your self-esteem is to skip showers, make up, hair combing and any and all human contact. These are the same days when poor poor William is forced to do the grocery shopping, or drive me to and from work, answer the door if God forbid anyone comes around pitch forks and torches in hand to smoke the sea beast out from her pillowy tower.
  4. Losing my job. I’m convinced every single day that I’m going to be fired for being a manic-depressive lunatic, bouncing between cute office clown and mournful hobo-like working slag. I’m sick and it’s not one of those groovy, we’ve heard you’re dying and want you to stay till the bitter end type deals. It’s not cancer. It’s not aides. It’s mental illness. Its near impossible to explain an inability to come in to work because you’re too scared to get out of bed, but if I tried that whole getting fired thing could become a nightmarish reality a whole lot faster, I’m sure. I’m not saying aides and cancer are literally groovy, don’t be “that guy”.
  5. Changing my medications for my gastrointestinal problems, depression, or any future illnesses. So essentially from this point going on, what ever Doctor I’m seeing needs to nail it on the first try. Oh, this medication gave me seizures and hives? Well, I’m just gonna see if I can’t build up a tolerance to that . There was a year where I allowed myself to be on 9 medications for depression, simultaneously, and I did not question it. Granted that year is a little fuzzy for me, but it happened. I don’t like changing medications as it does things to your mind and body and I’m already so fragile that I can’t imagine deliberately introducing some new obstacles to deal with.
  6. Any and all change. Moving, changing jobs, relationship changes, diet changes or even going with a higher heel on my shoe. There are so many things that set me off I’ve learned to just avoid all of them. Don’t mind me guys, just over here living life to the fullest. I wanna add, I do change my sheets and wash my body (most days). I’m not like a Yankees player trying to hold on to all of my precious body dirt thinking it will score me a good day, I’m just like, really close to that, but not that.
  7. Being fat forever. I’m waiting for my fried dough and mozzarella sticks to be delivered, so I’m not sure this one is a paranoia or more just a harsh reality. I used to be thin! I went to college with the goal of one day being a nutritionist, but some “failed” pregnancies, extensive depressions and multiple medications that cause weight gain later, not over eating messes with my head. How do I lose without upsetting this delicate balance? Um, I don’t mess with the balance, so I don’t know. I also learned some pretty crappy eating habits when I was young that I’ve yet to unlearn. My mother would order a ton of pizza with a bouncy check, so we’d over eat and then have nothing to eat for an extended period of time. As a grown up type person I have money for food but I still eat it like I have no idea when I’ll have another chance. That caught up with me really fast. Plus….salad sucks. Just being honest. 
  8. Relationship stress stuff, breaking up, dying alone. Williams reading these so, just think about your own relationship crap, maybe it’s something like that. “We’re so happy and want everything to stay exactly the way it is forever.”  Said no couple ever.
  9. Not living my life to its potential. I’m not, so that’s just more fact based stuff to be upset about, but the idea that I may never do anything of value kinda falls under the paranoia blanket. I’m never having children, that’s not my purpose, I won’t be fighting any wars or trying to find and then force some higher power down anyone’s throat. I don’t have a rocking bod and my singing voice leaves much to be desired. I’m not sure my existence in this world will have served to do much more than create more planetary garbage and house a couple of cats from the outside elements. Is that enough to want another 50+ years hanging around? No, but my next fear of dying might be.
  10. Dying. Ha. I’m pretty sure when you die, there is nothing, and that scares me. An eternity of nothing. The irony in this one being that living and dying are my two biggest fears. But dying must outweigh life by just a smidge. Obviously. Because I’m typing this. I’m not ghosting fingers along the keyboard like a modern-day Patrick Swayze, I’m alive, I’m typing, and so life is winning thus far. My favorite quote about death by some unknown;

Unknown Person “Remember before you were born? “

Me “No”

Unknown Person “Death’s like that.” 

Me “Oh, well that makes sense.”

My best worst first impression 

Posted on by Pretty Polar

Jenny was a nurse I worked with for a time in my late twenties. She was a skinny, pretty blonde girl, same age as me and we shared the same unique brand of humor. We had a pretty perfect friendship as far as friendships go. We had a lot of adult sleepovers and early on she adapted our weekends to my social anxiety filled life by taking up crafting. We would spend hours loom knitting scarves and watching “It’s always sunny in Philadelphia.” The interesting thing, was that our slumber parties generally took place at her parents house. The reason? Jenny was engaged to and shared a house with Adam, a NYS Trooper, with absofuckinglutly NO sense of humor. This guy wore business socks, because he always meant business. Despite spending some weeknights and every weekend joined at the hip for a few months, I had yet to meet Adam. My only encounters had been via cellphone and both times they were purty bad.

My first Adam cellphone encounter started as such. Jenny had given me a sticker to put on my car so that if I got pulled over, I wouldn’t get a ticket. The only draw being, in order to use my magic sticker, if I was stopped, I’d have to give the officer who stopped me the name of the person connected with the sticker…..annnnnnnd then they’d call them. That’s just what happened when Jenny and I were in my car and I was doing 80 mph racing some friends to a movie première. Yeah. I’m kind of a big deal hair toss. Needless to say, Adam wasn’t impressed with that initial contact via angry ticket ready cop.

The second Adam contact made, was equally as bad. Jamie and I decided to take a 6 hour car trip to and from Brooklyn so that I could adopt a cat and she could adopt a puppy. Both of which were out there in the same 20 mile vicinity. NO BIG DEAL, right? Wrong. Because she decided to tell Adam about the trip when we were already over half way there. He freaked out and demanded to know who she was with. Jen mid fight, thrusts the phone at me so that I will confirm her alibi. He spent the following 10 minutes accusing me of being a dude, before I dropped the phone back into Jenny’s lap and stared out the window. Single glistening tear cascaded down my cheek as I wondered if I do in fact have the voice of a man. I don’t. It’s very lady like. I have the voice of a Goddamned angel. When I talk glittery unicorn vaginas descend from my tonsils and deliver my words on a bed of pink roses. Fucking Farva. 

Ok. So those are the two calls, but when, you ask, did Adam and I actually meet? This is my fave. Jenny wanted the meet and greet to go well with me being her lady and Adam being her man, so she arranged a whole adorbs barbecue thing at her house. The attendees would be herself , myself (we both dig me) ,her parents (who LOVED me) her dogs (who ADORED me) and Adam (whom would ideally learn to tolerate me, given enough burgers and time.) Adam and the Jenster shared a small house down a winding country road on a hillside. It was a relaxing drive out and very picturesque upon arrival. The one and only thing that Jenny hadn’t planned for was where everyone would park. There would be her car, Adams car, Adams trooper mobile, her parents car and then mine, being the last to arrive. Everyone had managed to shimmy into the medium-sized driveway leaving me with no place to turn into. As I looked around I thought “I’ll just pull onto the lawn, as it’s the country and it isn’t a perfectly manicured situation that Jen will freak about. Totally fine.” The ground was dry and flat and I could see everyone thru the front window in the living room as I pulled onto the grass.

So, remember how I said the ground was flat? Yeah. I lied about that. The thing about these windy picturesquey looking roads is that a lot of times they have drainage ditches on either side to keep things happy and dry, but when the weeds grow to the same length as the mildly unkempt lawns it could give off the appearance of being a level ground. No sooner had I turned the front wheels than I was suddenly peering out my windshield at nothing but dirt. My headlights were tipped into a sea of rock and the ass of my vehicle was reaching for the sky. It happened soooo fast that I just sat there for a moment stunned. I was ok, no injuries outside of bruised pride and I’m sure all kinds of future costly repairs.  

When I opened the door to climb out it slammed open, hello gravity, giving me a little plank to climb onto. I lowered my feet onto the jutty pointy rocks and I popped my head up to peak over the edge of the ditch. I could still see the front window, but amazingly, not a single person had turned around. Honestly I didn’t make much of a sound when I fell down the rabbit hole, it was just bumper meet dirt and rock, thuddy sound married with an expensive sounding crunchy metal noise. I didn’t have a charged cellular phone, as I suck pretty hard at adulting, so without anyone taking notice of my heinous miscalculation I was forced to pull myself out. I grabbed at weeds and dirt, digging my flip-flops into the rocky sides to push myself up. Once out, with my bloody feet, and dirty everything, I approached the door.

I’m smiling to myself right meow because I’m remembering Jenny, 2 seconds before I knocked on the door, turned towards the window and caught a glimpse of me. The look of bemused horror on her face was so so good. Naturally, Adam opened the door, I smiled at him as I felt little dirt clods raining down from my hair onto my eyelashes and cheeks.

Me (with a  big forced toothy smile) HI!!

Adam (furrowed brow) what….the……FUCK!!!!

Ahhhhhh, my first impression. Nailed it. Adam shoved past me and slow jogged across the lawn. He looked angrily at my cars trunk (the only visible piece) and snarled at me over his shoulder. Now, Jenny and her parents were gathered behind me, laughing and snapping pics as they took turns patting my back and brushing dirt and grass from my body.

A fair amount of hostile side eye from Adam was received as he pulled some rope from the trooper SUV. He fastened each end to either vehicle and attempted to pull the car out on his own, snapping the rope twice and only succeeding in angering him further. I stood there, cold, shivering and surrounded by whispery giggles as I quietly examined my mangled big toe. Adam yelled at Jenny about her idiotic friend who couldn’t drive for shit, but she just laughed and laughed, so he yelled some more.

I quietly mentioned to Jenny’s mom that I had triple A and she kindly relayed that information along to Adam for me, as I didn’t feel like he was really receptive to my input in that moment. He called the service and we were all relieved to find that their was a team in the area. The father-son duo showed up minutes later, first getting out to look at me, look back at my poor tipped golden Malibu, back at me and then turning around to conceal their laughter. But I heard them chortling, and the son snapped a quick pic before jumping into the hole to assess the situation.

After some time, it was decided the car being completely vertical and having  an uneven resting spot on some rocks would make it nearly impossible to pull out. They came up with a sketchy looking blue print of how they would build a plank underneath the car (with stones and some wood from the truck) then they’d tip the part of the front of my car that was not touching anything onto it, lean the belly of the car back onto the ditches inside, and THEN they could yank it out, trunk first. Not really feeling very involved in the car saving process I was pretty worried I’d be riding ye olde bus, sooner than later.  Much to my delight, after only a few failed attempts and scraped up mechanics, the car was out with only some mild bruising. Unfortunately Adam was called into Troop work, and so he was unable to join us for the bar be que.

That’s ok I thought, because I felt like he got a pretty good idea of who I am and what I bring to the table.

Introduction to Joss

Posted on by Pretty Polar

When I was 21 and for some years after that, my best friend was a short busty girl named Joss. Joss and I were inseparable as we liked getting into the same kind of trouble. We met working some shitty retail job and bonded with our mutual love of fucking with people. We took turns staying at each other’s places, listening to Blink 182, watching comedies, cracking jokes and mastering the art of the quasi-platonic spooning technique when we shared a bed. We were so attached to one another that our running joke was that we should go to Vermont and get married. Only we “joked” about it allot and on occasion questioned how difficult it would be in actuality. No matter what we were doing, we were a we, and we had a blast!! 

One of my personal faves with Joss was a night of boredom fueled mischief  cruising around in her black Daewoo. We were hungry and she was restless so we went out for pizza with the understanding that we’d go find some dudes when we were done. And find some dudes we did, muwahahahah. 

 

James & Matt, two guys a year or so behind me from high school, were out that night as well. They were just burning time and rubber, racing around in Jamess red sports car when we spotted them. Joss instantly chose them as our play things for the night and so, we encouraged the guys to follow us back to my abode. Once we reached my place we hopped out and got in the sports car with them. We didn’t ask questions of each other like where are we going or what would you like to do or what are your thoughts on rape and murder, like pro or con? Instead Joss and I sat along for the ride, listening to loud music as  they drove us out to a desolate back road. Totally safe, in fact more young women should follow our shining example. Joss and I squealed as the guys raced up and down the road doing high-speed donuts, only stopping the car periodically when we distracted them with our female wiles and made out with them a bit. We all traded make out partners thru out the night, because we were young, hot and yolo.

After some time we grew tired of trying to maneuver four bodies around the inside of a tiny car so Matt took us all back to my place. When we got there Joss and the guys sat on my day bed while I curled up very circular and kitten like in my big comfy chair. I started to doze off as I listened to Joss make some sort of sexual sounding negotiations that I would apparently be apart of.  Full disclosure, not a first for us. I waged a war against sleep and lost, but woke up only 10 minutes later when Joss was tugging me out of the chair by my arm giggling and saying, “Just come here. Trust me! Truuuuust me!”. She pulled me over to one end of the bed and then got on the other end herself with both boys seated in-between us. Joss had apparently struck a deal so that Matt & James would kiss…..each other ………. WITH tongue for 1 minute. I feel like I should explain that Joss had this weird albeit adorable fascination with getting straight dudes to kiss each other & generally speaking guys would refuse her request. This night was a big win for her! 

So. In exchange for their gay straight make out sesh the fellas would be allowed to touch our boobs whilst they were kissing, also, when they were done, Joss and I would make out for them a little. Not a big deal for us as that was generally a key negotiating factor with Joss.

I sat there, interested but exhausted while Matt awkwardly pawed at my boobs and kissed his best friend. Thru my daze, the thing I remember even more than these two bros uncomfortable grabbing at our chesticles & sucking face, was the sounds of Joss’s loud guttural laughter. She was dying from excitement that they were actually doing it, tho it wasn’t a sexual excitement, she was just super pumped about how uncomfortable they were. She also made sure to point out to them whom was more enthusiastic with their tongue, all while laughing, shuddering and crying.  

It wasn’t the craziest night we ever had, but it was one of the funniest to me because of what Joss said to me moments after they left. The reason she had a serious case of the giggles besides the late hour.

Joss, while clutching her side and still winded, said to me” I would give anything to be a fly on the wall for that car ride home.”

I died and maybe peed a little as the incredibly awkward car ride home together had never even crossed my mind. We laugh-cried ourselves to sleep.

My friend, Joss. ❤ Mean bitch for life. ❤

*Dances with Bunnies*

Posted on by Pretty Polar

One of the least molesty types my mother ever dated was Roger. He was a manager at the grocery store we frequented. He had a decent place, dressed like a respectable albeit super dorky 40 something divorcee and the only thing that was remotely unusual about him besides liking my mom, was how enamored he was with his pet bunny, Cocoa. Roger had given Cocoa her own room, and when he wasn’t busy working or playing on his softball team, he could be found fawning over Cocoa in all her rabbity glory. Nothing kinky ya perves, he was just a grown man who loved the crap out of his bunny. Seeing as how bunny obsessed was four million times better than Moms usual dating preferences, it was a relief for us kids when Mom and Roger got serious pretty fast. A few short weeks of dating later, they were ready to get a place together, kids, adults and the most baller ass bunny you’ve never seen.

Merging households in an entirely new place and a new town when children are involved is crazy stressful. Now, add in being told that Roger was allergic to cats a few days before the big move and mom had singularly decided the best thing would be to ” get rid” of the two cats we’d had for many years. All of this two days before moving. I remember like it was yesterday, me, sitting Indian style on the playroom floor holding onto Max, my older short-haired tortoiseshell, the kitty I was most bonded too. I was crying so hard I’d caused myself to have an asthma attack, but was still trying to make words come out. Over and over I sobbed “please don’t take him, he’s all I have, please not Max…”. I was bent over a scared kitty trying to shield him from my moms reach. She came into the room, and without saying a word, having already taken our other cat out to the car, she invaded the tiny fortress made of me and tore Max from my arms. I still don’t know where she took our cats and we were not allowed to speak of them again after that day. Seeing Max, my best and at times only friend being carried away, brought on such an amount of heartache, loneliness and despair that it still pains me to remember.

I love you Max. 

Also…….

……allergy medication assholes. Allergy. Medication. But no, this was easier. 

At the time of the move I was 12 going on 13, making my sister April about 15. April was fortunate as she had friends old enough to drive, whilst I did not. Being moved mid-Summer(so no school), not knowing any one and having no mode of transportation my only means of entainment was the TV. We did not have cable, or DVDs, there was no internet or cell phones, so the only thing available to me were the 10 VHS tapes we already owned. I watched the movie “Dances with Wolves” a total of 29 times that Summer on VHS. Over and over and over I watched, rewound and watched again. Over time I started developing an obsessive crush on one of the Indian characters. I would sit thru the credits pausing repeatedly so that I could research and write down any details that might lead me to my crush. I had his real name, the production company and the filming location down to memory. I would pause the movie on scenes where my Indian love was featured and touch my hairless nethers. I made it my goal in life to find this guy. How? I don’t know. But I’d do whatever it took.

Now it seems like that may have been a giant indicator of the creepy love obsessed stalker I would become in later years.  heavy breathing

 

I WAS able to get out of the house on occasion but not for any fun “kid like” activities. My mom has some issues with trusting ……anyone and everyone. Normally very withholding with her love, she started coming to me to beg, bribe and demand that I hang out with Roger during times she was unavailable. (She worked as a receptionist during the day and his hours tended to be more in the evening. That meant his days were free to do things like play softball or spend hours fawning over Cocoa Bunny.)  When I say, she wanted me to “hang out with him” what I mean to say is, she made me pretend to love him like a father and beg to tag along with him every time he left the house and then mercilessly spy on him. I didn’t super love Roger and I certainly didn’t want to spend copious amounts of one on one time with him only so my mother could later grill me on the mundane details of his day. Where we went, who he saw, who he spoke to, what he ate, did he use the phone at all and did I use the bathroom or let him out of my site for any extended period of time. “We went to his lame softball game. He saw other lame softball dorks. He only spoke to me and Cocoa. He ate a burger and split a tomato with the bunny. He did not use the phone and I had to poop twice. Could we please have dinner? I’ve been stalking all day and I’m super hungry and extremely tired.” Stalking is mans work. Just sayen.

Eventually school started up and I was freed from my mom made prison of creeping and my “Dances with Wolves” VHS finally got to cool down. The downside to this being without my constant updates on Rogers every move, mom had become much more volatile, and soon the two of them were fighting all the time. Unlike previous boyfriends, Roger had a calm, almost stoic demeanor. Generally the fights would consist of mom accusing him of talking to his ex-wife (that was her biggest fear) and he would just listen and avoid reacting to her hysteria. Not getting a reaction from Roger was not something mom was equipped to handle, so each time they fought,her head would explode. Every. Single. Time. Very messy. We had to paint the kitchen red to compensate for all the head explosion caused blood stains. Ha.

One Friday afternoon, a few months into their fairy tale romance, Roger was busy working an evening shift and my mother was in a real tizzy over something (or, more realistically, over nothing). She yelled at April and I for no particular reason before turning her attention back on Roger, whom wasn’t there to feel her wrath. After a rather loud red-faced verbal lashing reminding us of what shitty, uncaring children we were, mom left the living room, went to her bedroom and started slamming dresser drawers. Given a moments reprieve we sat together in silence, all to familiar with “the quiet before the storm” scenario. 5 minutes later mom emerged from the bedroom carrying two large binders and, without acknowledging us, she slipped out the backdoor. We could hear something heavy and metal being dragged across the ground and soon after that we smelled smoke. Fearing death by house fire we crept to the living room entryway and peered head over head thru the dining room straining to see thru the back windows. Moms platinum blond hair framed her face, which we saw amidst the smoke and  light from the flames. She stood over our large metal trash can, occasionally poking at the mystery kindling with a large stick.

She was smiling, and that made us scared.

Side note:

I never developed any coping mechanisms growing up as I did. But one thing I still do to this day as an adult when I’m scared, stressed or fighting with someone is going to bed and just completely shutting down (like my throat tightens and I literally can not speak.). It’s not effective for problem solving but I can’t seem to turn this trigger reaction off. As a kid “faking a coma” was my only defensive maneuver. Why a coma? Why not a nap? Why so dramatic Sarah? I’m not being dramatic dill weed there’s an awesome explanation coming for this. So, when my mom was at her worst and I was really scared, if she turned her attentions elsewhere for more than 5-10 minutes I would tippy toe into my bedroom, quickly and quietly slip into bed, close my eyes and fain slumber. My thinking was that she was much less likely to beat the crap out of me, threaten me with knives, guns or the orphanage she drove us to, depending on her mood, if I was unconscious. The reason I call it “faking a coma”, and not faking sleep, simply put, was because my mother is loud as fuck when she is having a mental breakdown. No normal slumber could withstand the commotion she made. Tom Hanks is to acting what I am to faking sleep. It’s harder than it sounds dammit! Just imagine, it’s 3 in the afternoon, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, you’re fully dressed and there is a mad woman just outside your door running around smashing things and shouting threats and obscenities.  You’re only a kid, you’re scared, shaky, restless and generally starving hungry. For this to even work you need to have steady breathing, keep your eyes shut tight while maintaining a naturally closed look, and sometimes, she would burst in thru the door, so, if you flinch, you’re gonna have a really bad time.

So back to the mysterious can fire. It was still pretty early, but I crept off to bed while her attentions were diverted, and resigned myself to faking a coma until the sun came up. No beatings were had that night so the glass is half full, unfortunately it was half full of warm piss. Saturday morning was rough. No one had actually slept as mom had waited up for Roger until he got home, so the fight started immediately and went on for roughly 10 consecutive hours. Apparently, mom decided that Rogers divorce wasn’t final enough for her and decided to take action. This brings us to the can fire kindling.

Rogers wedding album.

But there were two books you say? Well, she burned her wedding album too. She decided that burning both albums was fair. Roger, shockingly, wasn’t really thrilled that his wedding album was now a smoldering pile of ash which only fed into my mothers paranoia. Mom decided his devastation at losing the album was just proof that he was sleeping with his ex. Sigh. So yeah, they had one Hell of a screaming match. When I got out of bed, Roger was gone, most likely reflecting on what awful thing he may have done in a previous life to end up sharing a home with my crazy bitch of a mother. April and I wondered that every day Roger. Welcome to the club. Mom was at the dining room table, her face red & puffy from a night of crying. She gave me a half-smile and a nod, letting me know it was ok to sit down with her.

Clearly worn out she was being kind of nice to me. Mom talked at length about how shitty Roger was, and that she was sure he had sneaked around with his ex-wife. She went on to tell me how terrible it made her feel that she had taken our cats to live with him, but he had fooled her into thinking he was a nice guy. She also brought up Cocoa, his bunny, asking me if I thought it fair for him to have Cocoa when he was the reason Max was gone. Sniffle from there, the conversation went something like this;

Mom     He pays more attention to that fucking rabbit than he does to me. What kind of grown man even has a fucking bunny rabbit. He’s pathetic and weak. That God damned furry piece of shit. It smells like piss. I don’t want it in my house.

Me      Ma, he loves you, that’s ridiculous. Since when do you hate Cocoa?

Mom    I’ve never liked that thing and I’m sick of looking at it. I wish I could just go to work and come home to a dead fucking rabbit.

Me       Jesus mom. The bunny didn’t do anything to you.

Mom     Don’t even think of taking “its” side with me! You want to help your mom? Take care of it for me. I can’t do it but you could. You could just kill it when he isn’t here, and make it look natural. He’d probably pay for a God Damned autopsy. It’s sick. He’s sick.

Me       You want me to kill it?? Like….put a casserole dish over it till it suffocates or something?

Mom     I’d pay you. Just don’t tell me what you do, but I’ll pay you.

Me        Mommmmm….nooooooo! I’m not……..I can’t kill a bunny. I’m sorry……

So, yeah. My mom tried to put a hit out on Cocoa, because that is the kind of thing that happens in a normal family, right? RIGHT? Is anyone wondering if I’ve been a bunny hit man this entire time? Like I’m sitting here, shining my 22′ and perusing Care.com for future victims? “Yeah. I’d looooove to watch your bunny for the weekend!!” steeples fingers  No, no, no. I didn’t do it. The bunny lived. I’m sure he’s happily resting his long feet in a bunny retirement home as we speak. Ha.  

Alright, so after all was said and done when it came to the album fire fight, things were pretty rough. Mom and Roger were like ships passing in the night, with a lot of side eye and door slamming. Fast forward another couple of weeks, Roger was working and mom had sat April and I down in the living room for “a talk”. Never a good thing. deep breath mom said she was pregnant GASP and that her and Roger were splitting up. She started crying and said we couldn’t stay there because she couldn’t afford that house alone. Also we were all going to go and spend the night at her friend Daves house, as he was gone and said it would be alright, so to go pack a bag. I stuffed some dolls and clothes in my little green suitcase and came back out to stroke moms back on her somber walk to the car. I was also crying with the realization that I would no longer be the baby in the family, but my fear was short-lived.

When we arrived at Daves house, a small single family ranch in the country with a decent yard and a large friendly dog, mom said she wouldn’t be surprised if she lost the baby. She also told us she was very stressed, and that being under this level of duress could cause her pregnancy to fail. We were advised to stay in the living room and not to disturb her (no matter what)for the rest of the night, before she disappeared into Daves bedroom.

No TV, and not permitted to leave the living room April and I curled up on the sofa, wondering what our near future living arrangements would be. We hadn’t been fed and we were both tired but neither of us could sleep. About two hours passed while we sat silently listening to mom crying and saying that it hurt. Being only 12 I assumed she was referring to her heartache. She emerged from the room for a moment only to use the bathroom, and when she came out hunched over, she told us that she was bleeding before returning to Daves room. The remainder of the night mom spent panting, crying and yelling things into the night that didn’t make much sense to me at the time. Looking back, and without her admission, I can tell you that mom had an abortion. The pill kind, that you can do from home, which, I have  no moral objection to. Honestly I’m relieved that she actually did the right thing, for once, making that potentially the first and last time she ever did. Mom will never admit to the truth, in fact I believe her sickness allows her to sometimes convince herself that her own lies really are the truth. She would say to this day that Roger stressed her out and then she lost the pregnancy as predicted. Only a moron would believe that though. The part that makes me really mad about moms night of pro-choice living? She is super pro-life. I’ve had a bit of hands on experience with abortion myself and my mother made sure to insert herself into the situation and make it so much more traumatic than it already was (pretty fucking traumatic). I almost ended my life because of her contributions, yet when it’s her body, completely different rules applied.

For all you abortion enthusiasts out there, I’ll tell that story someday. Just not today.

Thanks for all the warm memories mom! Don’t call me, I’ll call you….Nevuary first of two thousand and never. At Never-thirty pm. Set your clock.

She hates bunnies. She super hates bunnies. Do not trust this woman!

Everything is lava 

Posted on by Pretty Polar

Generally speaking I plan to regale you with tales of booze & drug fueled fuckery, sexual exploits I probably could have done without and my childhood experiences. For this post I’m going to take a brief break from all that to give you a brief’ish synopsis of the girl you’ll be reading about, and her broken brain jam-packed with “feels”. 

I am a bi-polar lady with social anxiety, suicidal tendencies, crippling panic attacks and a mild form a Tourette’s syndrome which causes repetitive movements and yucky throaty sounds. Hawt. When I was very young I had a phonic tic which involved repeating everything I said back to myself in a whisper. (Think, Brick, from that television show “The Middle”. My tick was like Bricks.) The panic attacks I suffer from, on top of bringing my life to an abrupt halt for hours on end,  are really, really, REALLY physically unattractive. They transform me into a hyperventilating red-faced sea monster with some sort of morbid verbal repetition involved in-between sobs. So I have all of these preëxisting mental conditions along with the unique childhood experience of growing up with my mother. More on that later. I’m obsessive, mournful, dramatic, my moral compass seems to lack more than the socially accepted norm, I fall in love hard and fast, I’m told I’m needy, and co dependent at times and sometimes I fall deep into a depression that takes me months to dig out of. My left forearm is composed mostly of scars from a box cutter I used to use religiously when I had no other outlet for the pain and loneliness I felt. I have some good stuff too, I’m a naturally intelligent person, incredibly passionate as my emotions run deeper than someone without my personal struggles and I’m an all around interesting woman. I’ve seen shit, I’ve done shit and I have shit to say.

     My favorite euphemism for my life is of the children’s game “The floor is lava”. The premise of which was to continuously move about the room without ever touching the floor. What kid didn’t love jumping from ottoman to chair, to  couch, giggling and bouncing from one oasis to the next, riding high in a sea of imaginary dangers. As an adult, the game has ended but the dangers are no longer imaginary to me. When I open the door each day and step outside EVERYTHING is lava. My mom spent 26 years successfully convincing me that she was my only oasis, when she in fact was the source of most the fire around me. Even now that she is no longer in my life, that lava is still there and the fires burn hot. Outside the creäture comforts offered by my cats, my car and my apartment, everything around me threatens to set me on the path to self-destruction via poorly made decisions or maybe taking my own life. And there is the added fear derived from hands on experience, like being mugged, homeless or enduring years of physical and mental abuse. 

     Mania, which is also a part of being pi polar, makes me feel high and invincible. I’m not gonna lie, I like it. My highs generally include a lot of fast talking, big spending, fast driving, being way to quick to love and fuck and a crap load of housework. So, on the upside, my apartment is never cleaner than when I cycle into a period of mania. Unfortunately the high is always followed closely by a crash landing back into my depressive days where nothing interests me, and I hunker down in a nest of junk food and dirty laundry, and try to survive until the next high comes back around. (So, if you feel like dropping by for a visit, I recommend the mania days as everything will be clean and I might accidentally have sex with you. Just sayen.)

     In the spirit of painting you a pretty pretty picture of the kind of good times I can bring to your life should you choose me as a friend or dare I say partner, I refer you to this past Summer. I was driving out to the Cape to visit family when I was pulled over for speeding. Losing control in any given situation is an instant trigger for me, so as the trooper drove off Into the sunset, ticket in hand, I felt the crushing weight of my anxiety completely take over. I spiraled into a 2+ hour-long attack. Crying, unable to take a full breath and chanting with my dry cracked throat “everythings ruined, everythings ruined, everythings ruined”.  I was inconsolable until the sedatives William, (my passenger) had forced me to take, kicked in.  In my drug filled haze, I then allowed William to get behind the wheel, if and only if he would drive me to the troopers station, which was a shit idea. I wasn’t being logical but I’m sure William feared what I would do if he didn’t oblige. When we arrived at the station, I got my second wind and went into a hysterical tirade, forcing my raspy voice to shout despite still not being able to catch my breath. Most of what Came out of my mouth was just gibberish and slurred nonsense as I staggering around the room, dizzy and nauseous. I’m still amazed I wasn’t arrested for the way I acted, but I’m guessing the troopers saw that I wasn’t driving, and assessed from inside his plexi glass fortress that I was not well. So, he just waited for me to tire myself out, which I did after 30 minutes into my sloppy crazy person tirade. I could literally go on for days just telling panic attack or full on break down stories, but who the Hell would want to read about that crap? Gotta mix in some good stuff, so my five readers don’t slit their wrists or leave me for a care bear marathon. (Care bear-athon actually sounds pretty pawesome right about now.)     

      So that’s pretty much me, a salty union of shitty genetics and my own unique life experiences, that all add up to be the adorable psycho you’ll come to know and love. Sometimes I’m a blasty blast, other times I’m a mess and just about all days I’m a hermit. I’ll never be even keeled, but I’ll never be ordinary either. All I want to do now is put some of my life out there for you all to share in. My hope is as I unload more and more of my sordid history onto the page, maybe I won’t have to carry as much of it around with me all the time.

Thx, love Ya.

crawls back into filthy little nest

Maybe I would have rocked at foot sluttery

Posted on by Pretty Polar

I’ve been fired on very few occasions, sometimes my fault, sometimes it was good ole fashioned office bitchery and politics. One of those times when I was unemployed back in my early 20s, no money socked away, no place to “move back to” if I didn’t come up with rent money and with limited resources at my disposal, I did what everyone was doing back in the day. I took to Craigslist.

I had already removed my piercings and colored my hair a respectable shade of auburn to trick someone into thinking I was a professional business lady. Pfft. I paid up my rent with some insurance checks that were issued in my name but meant to be given to a Doctor for services rendered. Sorry, but having a roof over my head was my one and only priority.

I applied to job after job on my giant slower-than-grandma desk top computer and received very little interest in return. One of the positions I had applied to by email responded via Gmail chat. I remember feeling really excited about this opportunity as it sounded like such a grown-up job to have. It was a posting to be a local attorneys secretary/personal assistant. I pictured myself in one of those lady business suits with an inappropriately high hem line, carrying a flip phone and toting a briefcase. Perfect!

The gentleman’s pm to me said his name was Andrew Richards, he was a local environmental lawyer who was in the midst of a divorce. His wife had previously been handling all the calls, finances and personal errands so he was looking for a work wife of sorts. Yes! So much yes! We exchanged a few professional sounding messages before agreeing to meet at a local Starbucks for the interview. I’d never had an interview that wasn’t conducted in an office setting before, so I was a little leery about the particulars. He explained to me that he had an office in Clifton Park and in Albany so meeting in the middle/Latham would just be easier for him to do. Seemed like a legit reason, so I decided I wasn’t going to let my anxiety get in the way.

Fast forward a few days to the interview. Andrew was an average looking older gentleman with a nice build, adorned in business casual dress. He wore wire framed glasses and carried a posh looking briefcase. While I’m rehashing this in my mind I’m realizing that I apparently had a skewed view of which adults were deserving of my trust. Honestly, anyone in the world who carried a briefcase, in MY mind,  had clearly made something of themselves and deserved the utmost of respect. I have no clue why I felt that way, but it’s not true at all. Note to self, the only thing owning a briefcase says about someone is that they went to the briefcase store. Ha.

So, Mr. Richards and I took our coffees to a small wire table on the patio where we wouldn’t be bothered by café conversational noise. It was a sunny  day with a cool breeze and I was feeling really positive about my chances. We discussed various aspects of the position even touching on his divorce here and there, although I tried to steer the conversation away when it was brought up. Towards the end of his line of questioning he brought up his office dress code, which I took to meaning there was a solid chance I was going to land this job!

Andrew explained to me that it would only be him and myself in the office if I worked there, so the dress would be very casual. He said everything I was wearing would be more than appropriate, even glancing under the table at my strappy sandles, and flashing me a smile. He went on to say he would have no objections if I wanted to go even more casual and rock some flip-flops around the office. 

I felt like there was some weirdness in that moment, but I could see his super lawyery briefcase staring back at me from the table and reminded myself of the bills stacking up at home. I politely smiled back, thanked Andrew for his time and said I was looking forward to hearing back from him. We shook hands and parted ways.

I drove home with the nervous excitement of a young desperate girl who was now seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

Later that night I was exchanging PMs with my sister retelling the story of my fancy coffee shop interview when I saw Mr Richards log on. I watched his green dot intently while mentally debating whether it would be ok to send a pm thanking him once more for taking the time to meet with me. I ultimately decided against it as it was pretty late. He messaged me before I had the chance to log off. It was relatively generic, just a “he enjoyed meeting me’ kind of thing. It would have been rude to ignore him as he could clearly see I was also online, so I wrote back in kind. Mere moments later he replied with how he had narrowed the applicants down to two young women, myself and one other, and he felt badly that he could only afford to hire one. I innocently inquired if there was something I could tell him that might help in his decision. He replied apologetically for talking to me this late at night, but he was slightly intoxicated.

I leaned back in my chair feeling unsure as how to proceed, without waiting for an answer, he hit me with a barrage of PMs, saying that I had really nice feet, and he would love to have me work for him, but he wanted to know if I would feel comfortable wearing flip-flops or, dare I say, just walking around in bare feet. I pushed the keyboard away and stared blank faced at the screen with my bill pile visible thru the reflection in the monitor. I wondered if foot slut fell under the same employment category as, say, a prostitute. If it was in the same wheel house, I was curious what something like that would even pay. 

I mean, a girls gotta eat, so would a little foot hooking really be the end of the world? I tried to pull back the visions of me in my power suit, flip phone in hand, super businessy briefcase, only this time I was walking around barefoot while Andrew sat quietly in the corner office steaming up his glasses with labored breathing, fap fap fapping away. I felt a lump of bile in my throat as I pondered if full health insurance would be offered, or if he would only pay for my podiatry needs. I could hear the pings as Andrews filthy foot related messages started to pile up on me. Too tired to make any big life decisions, I reached under the desk and turned the main power to the computer off and shuffled to bed.

When I woke up the next day, I had received an email of interest asking me to come in for an interview, in an office, one I’d heard of, with witnesses and shoes. I immediately called the number they had left me and set a meeting for that afternoon. Still a bit shaken from my creepy encounter of the foot loving kind, I showed up to my interview in my Sundays best, and focused on the task at hand. It was a now or never moment, I needed to land this job or ready myself for the hard knock life of foot sluttery. I still look back on this interview with a sense of pride as I wasn’t feeling my best but still managed to nail it on every level. So much win. I smiled, answered all questions enthusiastically without oozing desperation and ultimately landed the job on the spot and negotiated a higher pay than what was initially discussed.

My head was in the clouds as I drove home. It was like a giant weight had been lifted from my chest and I could breath again.

I turned the radio on hoping for some snappy 90s dance tunes for a celebratory car disco, but instead landed on a local talk station. The topic was “worst job interviews”, so I thought it would be relatable and good for a laugh. The first two stories were silly, I snickered a bit, not necessarily “the worst” in my opinion but entertaining nonetheless. Next up was a girl named Jessica. 

      She had responded to an ad on Craigslist, answering phones and assisting a lawyer with his daily errands. She had met up with the man at a neutral non office location, and went on to say she had gotten some pretty weird vibes off this guy in person. When she got home from the interview, she conducted an internet investigation (which was allot harder pre-facebook days). It turned out that the name he had given her wasn’t registered as being a practising lawyer anywhere, and the office address he had given to her didn’t exist. Feeling angry that someone may have prayed on her during a low time in her life, she sent a message to the interviewer siting what she had found and that he had better have an explanation or she would report him to the authorities. (To which I’m thinking, how? Didn’t you just say his name and address didn’t exist…but I digress.) When she sent him the message, she received a response back addressing zero of her concerns, instead explaining that she was definitely a top runner for the job, and then went on to discuss her future dress code. Flip flops anyone?.

vomits on dashboard She told the listeners that the name she had been given was ANDREW RICHARDS, he was not a lawyer, that is not his real name, and he was clearly just using Craigslist to lure desperate unemployed women into meeting up so that he could ogle them in person. Also, he tried to get as many perverted, foot related PMs as possible in before being called out on his BS.

I’m an idiot. I swear before this experience I would have climbed into the back of your windowless van if you were toting an engraved leather briefcase. How could I not when you’re so clearly a Doctor, Lawyer or perhaps the President. So if you were alive in the late 90s-early 2000s and you had the means to obtain a briefcase, and you never tricked me into your van for some weird sex stuff, that’s your bad. Would have been so easy for you. So so easy.

Thanks for being smarter than me Jessica.

Fun fact; I generally change people’s names to protect the innocent, but Andrew Richards already fucking lied about his name so changing it was entirely unnecessary.

Apparently there is nothing that will ruin the game of checkers for me

Posted on by Pretty Polar

When I was 17 years old, I was dating a 20 something named Jake. Average build, run of the mill face, chill demeanor and an all around easy guy to love. He had a short, well-kept beard, trim wavy auburn hair then he kept tucked behind his ears under his red baseball cap.This was one of the first real boyfriend/girlfriend type experiences I’d ever had, and right up until the end of it I would have classified it as a good one.

Jake was sweet to me, always picking me up from school in his sporty white car with the black hood. Our favorite past times were snuggling up to watch movies together at his place and taking weekend drives thru the country side together. My mother loved him, I loved him and I honestly can’t think of anything bad to say about the guy. He was a super dope dude, that I mentally scared and I’m sure ruined for all future relationships, cause that’s what I do.

It was our first (albeit only) New Years Eve together, which we had decided to celebrate at my house by staying up and watching the ball drop with my mom. Just some good clean American fun with snacks and a New Years kiss. Come the strike of 12:01am my mother puttered off to bed, leaving us to our own devices. Jake and I had already had sex with one another on a handful of occasions so this wasn’t our first rodeo. Jake and I kissed and nuzzled one another for a while before he started tugging at my jeans. We were tangled up on the living room floor with the tv on low so as not to disturb my parental unit. I sat up and removed my jeans and undies while maintaining eye contact…..not to be sexy, but to watch his eyes and make sure he didn’t lower his gaze to my exposed lady pocket. Spoiler alert, that wasn’t really going to matter in a moment.

Jake and I kissed while he slowly pushed me flat to the floor, I watched nervously as he took his kisses south of the border. My mind was racing with thoughts like, I hope it smells ok, I really really hope there isn’t  any toilet paper shrapnel and of course, I wondered if he realized there was going to be pee and poo particles down there. It’s not like I was using scrubbing bubbles on my squishy parts. There is grossness to be had down there. It’s science.

Annnnnnnnnnnd, it was happening. My human animal instincts were registering the technical aspects of what he was doing downtown murphy brown. It was ok, like not to slobbery or fast, physically it was good. Mentally it was an entirely different story, I could literally feel myself fracturing with each passing moment. There was this undefinable sense of guilt, like I was doing something dirty and unforgivable. I don’t know how long he was hanging out down there, but at some point, I sat up and shoved him away hard. I think he mistook that for a classic “I want your D now”, because he grabbed at his belt. I stammered “Stop.” and kept my eyes to the floor.

I couldn’t even look at him! I was disgusted with him and myself and I had absolutely no idea why.

I wanted Jake to leave, right then and there. I started to cry, quietly and I told him it was over. Then HE started to cry, like a really girly, blubbery, please don’t leave me type of cry. Gags So there we were,teary eyed with snotty noses, half-dressed and both confused about the very sudden turn of events that night. I looked up at him and I felt nothing, just a big nothing in my chest where the love used to be. I asked him to leave and said I never wanted to see him again. He begged to stay and pleaded with me to just be his friend, starting now. I asked him to please leave, I wanted to be alone and his face disgusted me…so he got up and left the room.

When he came back he had checkers, the board game. I wish he didn’t, God I really wish he didn’t. If I had a time machine, I would go back to this moment and swat the checkers out of his hand. Like, I might even over look the whole Hitler Holocaust thing just to stop this moment from existing in my life.What the fuck were you thinking Jake??? Checkers. In retrospect I’m thinking this guy was like the biggest checker enthusiast in the entire solar system and we just hadn’t gotten to the point of the relationship where he would have showed me all his checker awards and trophies. So yeah, we played some effing checkers on the living room floor, for what felt like the length of my 20s, and then he went home and I never spoke to him again. (Ever)

The worst part in all of this is that I now fear having anyone’s face anywhere near my kanga pouch, but I have absolutely no issues with sitting down to a game of checkers. Fuck me, right?

Finn?

Why I really wish we had two ironing boards growing up

Posted on by Pretty Polar

Growing up, it was always the 3 of us. Mom, my sister April and myself. Sometimes my mom had boyfriends, some for weeks, occasionally some made it a few months and very rarely, but at least on a few occasions, over a year. One winning example of a man she deemed worthy of more than a year, with some break ups and repeat performances thru out my life was Dex.

Dex was a biker, with greasy black hair and an unkempt black beard to match. He could always be found with a beer in his big hairy mitt, adorned in a tacky leather vest covered in patches. Ill fitting jeans were no stranger to this man and his protruding belly. My mother adored Dex, the sun rose and set in his black and beady little eyes for her. Despite the obvious hero-worship happening, mom never trusted Dex. She would often times tell us horror stories from his past when he wasn’t around, cautioning us to be aware of how we were dressed or which pajamas were appropriate to wear if he was going to be there that night. She’d warn us of his unabashed foot fetish or the child molestation he was wanted for in another state , even once telling us he tried to kill her with the same knife he always kept on his person.

At this point, you’re judging her thinking why would this women allow this man around her babies? Well, fear not, as our mother, the saint, had a very special way of “protecting us” from Dex. We were accustomed to her keeping anything personal or financial locked in the trunk of her car with all of her boyfriends for fear that they might steal what very little money she did have, but there was another way she shielded us when Dex was a part of our lives. An ironing board and a towel. Yes. You read that correctly.

You’re asking yourself, did she train these young girls to use the ironing board and towel as say a young ninja might? Were we well versed in an underground ironing board and towel fighting technique you are just hearing about now? Sadly no, to both. The way in which our mother “protected us” was this. April was given an ironing board and each night before bed she would take it into her room, close the door and prop the board against it. The idea here is that anyone who opens the door will knock the board over and make quite a racket. Not bad, right? Well let me finish. We, like most families, only had one ironing board, so when security systems were being doled out, I, the youngest, was given a towel. I can see how this would be a difficult concept for outsiders to grasp so let me break it down for you. The towel wasn’t going to alert anyone of anything, I wasn’t t supposed to fashion it into a weapon of mass strangulation or hide underneath it in the laundry basket. The only solace my mother offered me was a towel, with which I was instructed to stuff it underneath my door after closing each night, so that I would know in the morning if “someone” had come into my room while I was sleeping. Yes. AFTER the fact.

Being around 12 or 13 years old and knowing the only thing standing between you and rape is a towel teaches you two things in my experience.

The first thing is that you will never be more invested in a project than I was when I was stuffing that towel under my door each night. Full concentration and brute force, as if working on my towel folding skills long enough would somehow offer any kind of real protection in the dead of night.

Two, is that again, when the only thing protecting you from an old gnarly drunk invading your space in every way imaginable,  is a fucking towel, you can forget about sleep. Just, just don’t. It’s not gonna happen. Is 12 too young to develop a caffeine pill habit? No, no it is not when you spend most nights with your eyes glued to a towel. You simply have no idea. We couldn’t all be Princess April, wafting away to dream land in our fortress of clangy ironing board protected slumber.

In closing, this is why when all my friends were pleading with their parents for a dope azz new outfit, a fun-filled day at the roller rink or maybe even their very own puppy, all I REALLY wanted was another ironing board in the God Damned house, so I could get some sleep too.

Dedicated to my mom.

Thanks.

15 years old and ready to parrrrrrr-tay

Posted on by Pretty Polar

I decided to start with a beginners story, one that has been told and retold thru out the ages. There are many “The first time I got white girl wasted” tales, but this one is mine, and a personal fave with some of my friends. Disclaimer, I cannot verify the order in which the following events took place as I was drunk, but that’s the whole idea, so don’t be a dick about it.

I was only 15 years old, a pretty, thin’ish, goth’ish girl, meandering around town with my suburban degenerate friends. I had already told my mother that I would be spending the night with a girlfriend of mine, so I was free to roam around and do hoodrat things with my hoodrat friends for as long as I pleased. Lambo (super stealthy name given for the purpose of anonymity) and I had hooked up with her boyfriend for the night, we’ll call him Burnsie. We walked around white suburbia for a few hours before deciding to take this wild party of 3 to Burnsies house as their were no adults there.

When we arrived at Burnsies place, without hesitation Lambo and I were escorted to his parent’s basement, and when I say basement, I mean their underground bar. Unlocked and fully stocked, we had a colorful lineup of liquors at our disposal. Now, when I look back on this day as an adult, and try to make sense of this decision, I tell myself that the following choice was made based on what liquor would be missed the least by his parents and that he no way chose the nastiest, smelliest, grossest booze imaginable just to watch the world burn. So, Burnsie  the makeshift barkeeper filled our glasses. The bottle he chose was green, and what came out of the bottle was also green, and thick, maybe a bit warm, and mixed with nothing at all. I was told it was vermouth, but I cannot confirm or deny the validity of this statement.

Excited to get this party started, Lambo and I guzzled down our syrupy mouthwash and readied for more. After a glass or two, we all went upstairs where I could use the kitchen line to call my boyfriend (of 1-2 days) and tell him how much I loved him, repeatedly. Yes. Even in the days of landlines and training bras, drunk dialing, still very much a thing.

My buds weren’t paying absolute attention to me while I poured out my soul via phone so I thought I’d score more love and attention if I made a game of chugging from the green bottle every time they turned their backs to me.  (Which suuuuuuuper worked, but mostly because of something called “alcohol poisoning” , some term being thrown around allot.)  But whatever, I was the star of the show, and I had declared my love to everyone by now, so it was a good party. Woot woot. At some point the phone was taken from me, again, no cellphones, and the only phone line was needed so that these 15 year olds could call some other 15 year olds for some top-notch medical advice, as Lambo and Burnsie were pretty sure I was going to die in his kitchen, and they would have been sooooo grounded if that happened.

I have a vague recollection of some bread being mushed in my mouth before being half and carried half dragged into a bathroom, where I was left unattended. With no human comfort in site, I started desperately pulling at the floor tile and successfully freeing it from its gluey prison. I really liked that ripping sound it made as I rolled around pulling more and more up. I guess “Romeo and Juliet” could tell by the ripping sounds that their plan to leave me alone to choke to death on my vomit had crashed and burned because suddenly, Burnsie burst in, grabbed my ankle and hauled me out of there faster than you can say “I think the dog may have pulled on the bathroom tile mom”.

Having been dragged thru two location changes now, and brimming with vermouth, bread and orange juice, my “not so steely” stomach unloaded its contents.

My throat burned with a charge of minty bread stew as I retched all over, what I later learned to be, a brand new white shag carpet. Despite my fiery throat, I remember a feeling of calm and warmth washing over me directly after. I sat up, with my glassy eyes and pukey mouth, surveying as my poor friends looked on in horror. Everything was so clean (outside of the obvious), it was tidy, organized, very magazine cover, except for a stray dog hair popping up from what I imagined to be Burnsies fathers chair. I crawled across the floor and ate the dog hair, much better.

I guess after drinking all the syrup, and destroying a portion of the houses flooring, I had over stayed my welcome. Burnsie took Lambo and I outside to wait for her father to pick us up. It was cool outside, breezy, I could hear crickets chirping and the nervous chatter of my friends as they tried to get me to take part in a rehearsal of sorts. The plan was for me to come across as sick, not incredibly drunk, when Lambos dad got there. I didn’t care about all that tho, I was having a super happy fun time and they just didn’t seem like they wanted in anymore.

The cool air on my face was nice, but what I really wanted now was to feel the wind on my underdeveloped 15-year-old chest, so off came my top,  which is impressive if you think about it, how much faster my drunken reflexes were than Lambos. She lunged to cover me before her boyfriend got a good look but it was that same moment a fire truck turned the corner and pulled up in front of us. Lambo and Burnsie hadn’t rehearsed for this scenario so when mister fireman asked if we were ok, eyeballing me in all my topless glory, they just stood their, slack-jawed, and someone stammered something about “finding me at a party” while I danced around in front of the fire truck singing about how hot I was. I’m sure I meant hot as in temperature, let the record show, even inebriated, a narcissistic I was not. The fire truck watched on as Lambo fought to redress my top half and pull me from the street before taking off to put out fires or whatever, and I apologize to anyone who was waiting to be rescued that night as their lateness was deft on me. So, my bad.

20 minutes or so later Lambos father pulled up, Burnsie took off into the night, as Lambo got in the front, and I silently fell into the back seat and slumped down focusing on making everything not spin anymore. Father Lambo gave me a discerning look thru the rear view mirror, and asked if I was alright. I tried so hard to recall what my lines were, and remembered something about being sick? “I’m sick” I slurred, “and I need to go home”. Yes! Nailed it. I was all over this, and 100% that I was selling it to him,  I repeated ” I’m sick, And I need to go home”. Yup. Totally believable. He said something, maybe to his daughter, but maybe to me, just to be safe, I better remind him how sick I am and that I need to go home, I thought, and so I did……over and over, for the entire 15 minute car ride. Thank God we rehearsed this.

When I was dropped home, I was relieved that no one felt the need to walk me to my door. I wasn’t sure where or if I had a key, and these clowns were really killing my mood. I half fell from the car and staggered towards home, crashing into the gate, and fumbling around for a latch. I found my way thru the gate and up three steps, thru the door and into our back enclosed porch.  Relieved to be this close to home, but at the same time, I hadn’t planned on what I was going to do at this point. I wasn’t sure if I had the key, or where on my body it would be, our apartment was on the second floor and there was a winding stairwell between me and the apt. This part of the story is a total blank for me unfortunately as I completely blacked out. I woke up in the morning on the porch, I had taken off my top and thrown up into it, and then used it as a pillow. Mmmmm, soft. I was a bit clearer when I woke up so I managed to find my key and after a few stumbley attempts I got upstairs. As “luck” would have it, my bedroom was on the complete opposite end of the apartment from the entrance, so when I came in the door and my mothers gross old Pervy boyfriend approached the kitchen, I ducked into the bathroom and turned the shower on. Of course the whole reason he was up was that apparently, he had to pee, so I made like I was finishing up and hurriedly wet my pukey hair in the shower. No towels? No problem! I wrapped my hair in my petrified puke shirt, covered my bits and pieces with a bath mat and scrambled past Pervy pee man to the sweet sweet relief that was my bed, where I slept for the next 100 years. And yes, I got away with it. And no, Lambo and Burnsie did not get away with it.

This story is dedicated to my friends Lambo and Burnsie, as they were both caught drinking and killed by their parents.

RIP