Kelly as a Cartoon: November 2014

I finally found a weekend to go to Chicago to visit my university roommate, Rach. I was super stoked, things at home have been tense at home and I was ready for a weekend of fun escapism. I work half days on Saturday and have Mondays off, so I booked on a new economy airline and got a round-trip ticket for under a hungee. Then the Tuesday before my departure my boss surprised me by giving me Saturday off as a birthday present. I looked into changing my flight, but it was more than twice my original price, and I could still only leave earlier Saturday morning, so I found an overnight bus so I could leave late Friday evening and get in Saturday morning. I didn't cancel my flight there because it was so cheap it seemed pointless. Plus the flight was so cheap, what's another 40 dollar bus ride, it was still cheap travel.

The scene was set, my friend would meet me at 8am Saturday morning in Grand Central Station, brunch, ice skating in matching sweaters, Friendsgiving, the usual.

We met up as planned and Rach told me the brunch place she picked out did not have booze. I was appalled. Rach was a good sport and knew another place off the top of her head that did serve booze. Game on. We ordered a jug of mimosas...by this time I'm sure it was 10am, so a reasonable time to start drinking on a Saturday. We continued drinking wine as we did our best impressions of Chicago tourists. At one point we were balancing bottles on a trashcan to pour the wine from the conspicuous wine bottle into a coffee tumbler and plastic bottle, because we are classy grown up ladies...I mean we aren't still in university.

We couldn't find desirable matching sweaters and H & M, although they did have a DJ spinning in the store, so we scrapped the ice skating idea and instead went to the Hancock Building that has an amazing observation deck, and these windows you plaster your body against that tilt out over the city. We got to the top and took a million pictures, bought their signature drink (aptly names sky high). When we got to the ticket man for the Tilt! I realized I didn't have my wallet. I retraced my steps and had left it in a bathroom stall (like I said before...classy). With the wallet recovered nothing was stopping us from tilting.

Afterwards we got a couple more bottles of wine for the train ride back to Rach's suburb. We made friends with the train conductor, posed for some pictures with him and his CB...this is where I blacked out...it was around 4pm. This is a week after my 31st birthday. When will I have my shit together. Spoiler alert: not this weekend.

The rest of this night is as told to me by Rach.

We are walking home from the train station, and I stop to pee...outside a gas station...in a sparse patch of trees...I insist this is the woods. I take my coat off to pee. When we get back to Rach's place I don't have my coat. Rach goes to look for it and finds it thrown in a heap on a street. When she gets back I realize I have lost my phone. I insist on going out and looking for it. I get lost. I go to a restaurant and ask if Rach and her husband are there, the hostess has no idea what I'm talking about. By some stroke of dumb luck I'm able to find my way back to Rach's place, 45 minutes later. We go to Rach and Hubby's usual pub hangout and order two pizzas, a pitcher of beer, and some lunchbox shots. Rach's Hubby and I get in a pizza fight (when Rach tells me this the next morning, I immediately ask if I ate pizza off the floor or anywhere else weird...we all look at each other shrug and decide I most likely had...I'm not surprised). Rach was obsessed with our waitress who shared her name, we got her a shot too. Rach liked her way more than she liked us. And as a testament to what a good friend Rach is, she kept trying to download the tinder app on her phone for me to be on the prowl. She made sure to set ground rules with me saying I wasn't allowed to bring any guys back to their place, to which I responded, "Of course I would go back to his place." But because she was on her phone it kept linking through her facebook account and her profile was a picture of her and the Hubby kissing at their wedding...so she quickly uninstalled tinder, and I accepted my single status for the weekend. We go back home, the Hubby passes out, we draw a mustache on his face. Then Rach makes me watch a documentary about her favourite performance artist, because she can never get anyone to watch it with her. I am super in to it and Rach is happy to share his biography with me. We have a two hour heart to heart (H2H) which involves lots of talk about feelings and both end up sobbing. I pass out. The Hubby wakes up and comes back into the living room ready to hang out since he has had his nap, Rach says absolutely not and takes him to bed. End scene.

The next morning, Sunday, Rach fills me in on all the happenings the night before, we don't have a lot of time to dwell on it because we have lots of errands to do for Friendsgiving, plus I have to go buy a new phone now. We got a turkey centerpiece, a gingerbread house for crafternoon and a set of gravy boats then head home to start cooking. I'm useless so my only job was peeling potatoes, I used the rest of the time to set up my new phone. It was an HTC, I hated it. I was busy downloading apps, when I heard a commotion from the kitchen. The next thing I knew Rach was on her hands and knees sobbing cleaning up the floor. It was a real family fight!! This Friendsgiving was super authentic. I consoled my friend, told the Hubby he had to apologize, boom, crisis averted. Sometimes I'm not useless. We have a lovely Friendsgiving meal, seriously the most delicious food ever, and everyone was happy despite earlier events. We start making the gingerbread house and it quickly collapses. Instead we each decorate a wall, I take a bite out of mine. I try to take a picture of the gingerbread walls and then I realize my HTC has no camera flash. It's 2014...how am I supposed to instagram without a flash!! I'm going to have to buy another new phone.

Monday morning comes and I go to work with my friend. I find a phone on amazon and order it while she is doing registration for an event she is practically running...she is kind of a bad-ass. I get her coffee and tell her she can yell and me in a demeaning manner like I'm a lowly assistant if she wants to. She doesn't. I head to the airport to catch my flight. When I get there they tell me they automatically cancelled my reservation because I didn't take the flight out there. I have to buy a whole new ticket to get back home. I call the airline to complain and they leave me on hold for so long my stupid worthless HTC battery dies. When I get home I message Rach and tell her what happened. She replies she is so sorry, the weekend was a disaster. I respond it was a beautiful disaster, and I have no regrets...besides, if I did, I wouldn't be able to remember them.

I wear these plastic rubber band bracelets on my wrist. The same wrist I wear my sports watch. I have been working on this collection for almost three years now, and sadly, its one of my better accomplishments. When I meet new people I can't wait for them to ask what they mean, or make some joke about why I have so many (the current count is seven). So, if you ever meet me, be sure to find a way to bring it up.

Sure, they have their hindrances I have to undo all the button-able sleeves on my oxford shirts when putting on and taking off. Sometimes one of the bracelets will get stuck under another and I have to un-wedge it. Someone once asked if they bother me when I run, and I said not at all, but then that idea got into my head, and my next run I had a weird phantom pain in my wrist. For the most part, they bring me nothing but joy. I really love colours, so all these are a great way to be wearing as many colours as possible at all times.

A few of my favourite interactions involving these bracelets are:
1) I met a guy in a bar when I was on holiday in England. He was chatting me up and asked what my bracelets meant, I launched into my routine and told the funny story that goes with each one. I noticed he had one, so I made some joke about him feeling inadequate with only one. We laughed. I asked what his meant...his dad had pancreatic cancer.

2) I was with some acquaintance friends at a destination wedding and we were having dinner the night before the event. A girl (my age) asked about my bracelets, and I did my old spiel. She asked if I would wear them to the wedding and I assured her I would, I never take them off (no, not even to shower, it would take longer to get them off and back on than most of my showers take). She congratulated me on being true to myself and commented that it is hard for women over a certain age to pull off things like that.

I was admiring my bracelets just recently. My newest one was given to me by the last guy I slept with because he saw I had so many and wanted to add to the collection. I was reminiscing and then I realized...this is the only jewelry a man has ever given me. I guess a punchline should go here, but my life is the ultimate punchline, so, done.