Twisted Sister

I get told I'm crazy a lot.  I get it, I don't think I am good at acting "right" and I am often far too vocal about my failures.  I'm not special, but weird shit does tend to happen to me and I will always kiss and tell, if I don't then it may as well not have happened.  Ok, enough prelude rambling.  The point is I have an older sister.  In the past couple years she has shown signs of schizophrenia.  She began cutting wires in the apartment she was living in, she became obsessed with "snitches" and thought people were watching her and telling cops about her affairs.  Soon the wire cutting escalated to tearing apart the entire apartment.  She tore down many of the walls, the ceiling, had no working toilet or bathtub, and only one working outlet.  When confronted about her behaviour she would say she was working on a remodel.

Eventually, she ended up having to move back in with our parents.  She had been living with them for about five months when I moved back because of my mother's cancer.  My sister was prone to fits of rage, yelling obscenities at my parents whenever they ask her questions and at times physically pushing my father.  She had also been unemployed for about a year at this time.

I am not sensitive.  I am not a bleeding-heart.  I am not tolerant to people who make no attempt to help themselves or change their situation when they are in a shitty one.  Living in this environment was easily the hardest of my life thus far, and I did spend a few months living with a 50-year-old alcoholic.  This sister and I never really got along growing up, that, with all the extenuating circumstances didn't help.

All of this led to a lot of horrible moments, but some pretty funny stories.

So, I should start by saying I think my sister is also an alcoholic and a drug user.  I had bought a six pack of beer and after drinking a few left the rest under a table in the kitchen.  When I got home from work later that night I see that three of the four I had left had been taken and three dollars were shoved into the cardboard holder.

I was livid.  Not because I'm selfish and I don't know how to share.  I am living in my parent's house, so they make the rules and they were totally fine with enabling my sister.  I was not.  Moving back home I gave up a lot of my independence (which is really one of my defining qualities).  I did not want in any way to contribute to my sister's addiction or reward her appalling behaviour.  I confronted her about stealing from me.  She insisted it wasn't stealing because she had left the money behind.  I told her that's not how our society worked, I can't just walk into a store and take what I want and just leave whatever dollar amount I feel is fair.  She disagreed.  My point wasn't sinking in.  So, I took it a step further, I said I was going to go in her room and take something of hers and just leave some money behind, since apparently that's how she thinks things should be.

I went running up the stairs to her room and she chased me up, I was about to get into her bag when she grabbed me and pushed me towards a wall.  While clenching my shirt with one fist she reared her other back ready to take a swing at me.  She stopped herself and instead just said she wanted to punch me in the face.  I told her not to steal from me.  And she said I shouldn't have left it in the kitchen, if it was in my room she wouldn't have taken it.

After this incident I did not keep any booze in any shared space.  I also marked all the food I bought with a "K" to keep her from eating any of it.  Again, this isn't because I'm a selfish a-hole, I just needed to make my point.  I am not wasting my time, energy or money trying to help someone who shouts about not needing help and refuses to get any help, unless it means taking money from my fixed-income parents.

And because the depths of my spitefulness are limitless, I took those three dollars she left in the beer carrier and wrote on them, "Jami you're an alcoholic."  These were taped to the outside of my door which faced hers.  I know, its laughably petty, but living with crazy makes you do weird things.

Father - in - Law

I went to visit one of my university roommates, and we had an amazing night out.  Everyone is growing up but me, so these are few and far between.  I'm thinking about re-enrolling as an undergrad to meet new friends who are more on my level.  I am getting closer and closer to being that creepy older guy who hangs out with high schoolers...I have some work to do on myself, I guess...but I'd rather keep having fun and avoid any self-improvements for now.

My friend and I finally found a weekend we could hang out, and she has another friend who does some lighting work for a playhouse, so he got us some tickets to a play.  We went with him and his wife for some drinks before the play, and then when we got to the venue we were killing time for a bit.  Then we realized there was a drink cart, we got in line.  While we were waiting I saw my friend taking a selfie, so I took a picture of her taking a selfie, and thought I was being super metaphysical and smart, so we are both in line posting on social media, like the annoying people we sometimes are, when these older guys in front of us take notice.

I see them silently judging us (and, really, who could blame them), and jump in with explanations.

We all become best friends, of course (at times I can be quite charming)

The actual selfie from that night:

After taking it, I show it to them all, and tell them I'm Ellen because I'm the instigator, Mary is Bradley Cooper because she is the one I came to see, and our new friend is the girl from 12 years a slave...because he's the newcomer.  I thought these were great assignments...they were also a conversation killer, oops.  But, I still tried to get our new friend's info so I could tag him.

Now, I'm just one divorce away from a husband...closer than I've been in years!!

Playing Doctor

Some of my friends from working in Alaska were spending their winter working in Colorado, so I figured I might as well cash in my friendship chips and crash with them and spend a long weekend getting my ski legs back. I was flying into Denver and one of my friends has a car and said he could pick me up, but not until the next day because of work. I am shameless, so I decided to then cash in my one-night-stand chips and see if I could stay with a dude I hooked up with at a wedding a few months earlier. Please note, this was not a guy friend I had hung out with before or even met before. I didn't know anyone at this wedding besides the bride and groom. We snuck away from the reception and banged on a leather love-seat in a room with some other leather furniture (now I am wondering if there was a full-sized couch there, and if so, why we didn't use it) and a billiard table. It was like the room that testosterone built.

Anyway, back to my trip. The guy was super cool about it, and had no problem letting me crash his party and stay at his place. So, I got in and killed some time downtown, before he could drive over and pick me up. He had lost his phone a couple days before, so this had to be intricately planned through facebook messages. I was able to find the pick up location, but then almost weirdly shook hands with a stranger because I couldn't totally remember what the guy looked like. I know I can be kind of an asshole, but I can't be expected to remember the face of every dude I've slept with! That would be preposterous!

We went to a mall to see what the Groomsman's options were for his missing phone. This kid named Caleb was helping us, I use the term helping loosely, sense to most questions he would just answer, “I'm not sure.” or, “Well, I have an iphone, so I don't know how androids work.” It was so bad, at one point, we asked him if he could look up an answer or ask someone else...you know, do his job. The Groomsman ended up canceling his old phone and ordering a new one, at least I think that was what happened, I was kind of being a creep lingering in the background, because I didn't want to get all up in this guys business. I was snapchatting a friend, so I took a selfie to send, and then some fucking Verizon worker called me out on it, dick.

After the phone got sorted out we went to get some lunch, he took me to a taco place. When our plates came out I asked if we were going to swap taco for taco, he was totally into it. This is a stupid detail, I realize, but I'm using it to express how un-awkward this second meeting was. What a pleasant surprise. Drunk Kelly makes a lot of horrible decisions, but every now and then she isn't a piece of shit.

When we get back to his place he had some work to do, he also had a fridge full of beer he told me I could occupy my time with, done! I will never be too good to drink excessively alone.

Fast forward to later in the night, we are post-coital and its dark, the lights are off, he gets up and leaves the room for a minute, when he comes back in, he fumbles around for a bit and then hits the light, he's holding a knife. He immediately says,

Don't worry, I didn't get murdered. The Groomsman had gotten into a snowboarding accident a couple weeks before, and he had some stitches that were ready to come out. I can't remember why he hadn't seen a doctor, or if it was just the itching of the stitches was getting to him, or if banging me just makes dudes want to inflict self-harm, but the point is, he wasn't trying to cut me.

He's trying to cut these stitches, and he asks if I want to help, duh!! When else am I going to get to cut off some guy's stitches especially when I'm naked in his bed. This knife must be the dullest in the world, it isn't cutting anything, plus the blade is too wide to fit between the stitches. Then, I go into doctor mode, and I don't mean the sexy kind.

Once I get the proper tools, I am a stitch pulling machine. He eventually took over, but its my ingenuity that got us there. I can always find a way to compliment myself.

Now, this would be a fine place for the story to end...but about a month later I'm drinking alone in a hotel room.  I have a half marathon the next day, and because I make horrible decisions I get blackout drunk on my own.  This is how I prepare for a race.  So, while I'm blacked out I send the Groomsman this facebook message:

Hi! So...the post-coital stitches snipping is definitely blog worthy,
but because I kind of like you, I want to offer a read through before I post. Also, it's still a long ways off of being posted. Also, I'm drunk,
and I do have a crush on you..it's stupid, right? I just never
never know how to act...and when in doubt, I go with over-honesty...
this might be why I'm single...but there could also be a
million other reasons for that...
Anyway, I hope you got your phone and contacts all
sorted out, despite caleb's shitty service...if you want me to send him a dead bird, I'm in the rural midwest, it would be easy to make happen

And just like that, any cool points I had from cutting out stitches were lost.  I am nothing if not a self-saboteur.  He responded in about the most gracious way I could hope for.  

LOL this might be the best FB message I've ever received

Oh, the bitter-sweetness of unrequited love...my tried and true friend.  Of course, I have an ongoing theme of only being attracted to boys I think I'll never see again, so its a self fulfilling prophecy.  Still no word on whether or not he wants me to send the dead bird.