Day 1 with Madre

All around - not too bad. The Madre came in at about 3AM - three cat carriers and four suitcases must mean she's planning on staying a while. I was stoned, half-asleep and completely retarded. But the house was clean & warm and she didn't seem to care about my state of mind (hmmm...).
We both woke up this morning to phone calls from my Dad - asking us for information he should already have and doesn't need to know - you know, can we maybe shoot for 10pm when making those kinds of calls, please?
I made coffee, we sat in the sun and talked about times past. Mostly we just bitched about Dad and then moved on to getting ready for the day.
She called tonight and asked if I wanted a ride from the BART - wow. That's kind of cool. Rides from the BART. I could get used to this.

I got home, opened some wine, VPN'd in to Current, put my headphones on and worked while she fell asleep to House, MD and The Antique Roadshow. I have to set my alarm and wake her up for work tomorrow. I'm revelling in the irony right now, it's pretty amusing.

In other news: I'm not a total loser who has fun hanging out with her mom. In fact, I enjoy other activities as well. Lots of different activities that don't involve mi madre.

What I'm really not into is the cats everywhere. It's creepy. I wake up, they're sleeping in my clothes basket. I look around when I'm on the couch and they're surrounding me. It's not a comforting feeling, trust me. Here's an example:

Those eyes say one thing, and one thing only: "When you go to work, I'm going to find your most precious object and pee in it."

Fuckin' cats.

Pizza. Cow.

The weekend started - and will end - with cleaning. It's the beginning of a clean and (while at home) sober spell, since the madre is moving in tonight. Weird. I just need to get through Christmas without going insane - recently discovered to be more difficult upon learning that my Dad and brother are staying at our house for 10 days.
It helps that I got some drunk this weekend. Friday was Angie, wine and I. Chelsea made a guest appearance. Fun was had, it went something like this:

Saturday was a fairly stellar last-gasp party. Current peeps showed up - Good Times. Chelsea's Wyotech crew came by, Jagger bombs and Jack & Cokes were in the house. Dave Simon (Chelsea: "Dave Simon!") brought Sutro. The cow was attacked and disboweled:

I made pizza and kept losing my drinks - which is why I ended up mixing beer, wine and jack all night.

We now have to go Christmas shopping and then clean up the cow stuffing all over the house. No me gusta - I'm tired.

Next on the agenda: Civilized Dinner Party with Madre, anyone?

I have $2.00 until Friday.

Two old-ass Budweisers in the fridge. Three cigarettes. No weed.

This is not good.

I don't know whether to vomit on my own face or cry.

And I have to wake up, get to work, pretend to not hate the world, and then go home and do it all over again.

I think I may have to drink the rest of those beers to get through the next hour. Fuck this shit.

My Mom is Moving in - and Other Depressing-ness.

I hate weekends that suck. This weekend was kind of a downer. In a nutshell it went like this:
got my hair cut, took a nap in a crappy hotel room, went out drinking in Santa Cruz, got drenched in the rain, ran into some people I hate, got angry drunk because the scene sucked, and slept the rest of the weekend. Lame.

In other news, mi Madre is moving in this Sunday. Good because she gets to leave NJ for CA. Bad because I have to live with my Mom for an undetermined amount of time. Really bad because now I can't smoke in my house. Hey, at least I know where my priorities fall.

To boot, work is getting worse by the day with no end in sight. My social life is steadily becoming restricted to a small circle of work friends because I have no time for anyone else.

And Christmas is rapidly approaching while my bank account is steadily dwindling.

I think this all amounts to one thing: it's beer-thirty.

Fuck.

Wine, you do me right.

So - true to form, I grabbed a bottle of red wine from the store on my way home from work last night with the intention of drinking a few glasses for dinner. Well, Chelsea got up in the mix and we got a little shitty. Ok, a lot shitty. Drunk-dialing, rolling on the floor, chain-smoking, shit-talking shitty. It was epic, and we have the pictures to prove it, people.

It starts out respectable enough...

And then we Warhol it up...
And then we drink some more, and eat microwave burritos. And then it's back to the pictures...
Oh, it gets better. We decide to go emo...
And then it gets hard to remember...
And this is the final picture...
3D glasses rule. And so stylish!

For the record, we took about 180 pictures. If I scroll through them really fast it's like a flip book of the evening.

Yes, we are total voyeurs. No, we don't have any shame.

Champagne of Beers

Angie and I take turns taking care of each other. Friday was my turn to play sober sister...which I do terribly well drunk. She has this funny habit of not admitting that she's wasted - so I've developed (a wholly useless) system to test our level of intoxication.

"On a scale of 1-10, ten being the most drunk, what are you?"

She's always a 3 or 4.

Four strong vodka tonics later, she's still a 4.

We poll the bartender, who says she's a 7.5. She yells at him that he's lying and orders another drink - which he serves with water. Bartenders know most Asians can't hold their shit. Especially when they start hitting people and swearing a lot - a true sign that Angie is sailing smoothly past 5 on the drunk scale.

We try to convice Robin that she needs more beer, but she can't be persuaded. Then Angie smacks her to drive home the point. My eyebrows go up a notch and I start thinking of cutting the lush off...I try to drink her vodka tonic myself, but it's really strong and I hate tonic water.

She narrowly escapes hitting a pole on the walk home - I pulled her to safety at the last minute. She doesn't notice.

Bart train ride was uneventful - except for the throwing up. No, people, I don't know that drunk ass chick next to me with her leg draped over me and a paper bag under her chin.

We get home with the help of Oakland's Quick Cab Company and I tuck her into my bed - trashcan by her head.

Then I'm feeling kind of sober, so I drink some wine on top of the 6 or 7 beers and pass out on the couch.

She wakes up in my Miller High Life tee shirt - yes, I thought it was funny too - and we recap the night while sunbathing on the porch. Not too many places you can work on your tan in the first week of December - but my porch, Oakland, CA is most awesomely one of them.

It's ok - the last time one of us puked, it was me and she did me well.

Please let there never be a time when the two of us are disasters together.

However, if that does happen, we know Robin has our back.

PS: There are pictures, but I'm waiting for Angie to send them to me so I can post them (hint).

Meow?

Three beers. This is the minimum number of beers it takes me to decompress from work. Until mid-way through beer #3 I am a catatonic freak-show. This is not good. I can no longer leave work, grab a drink with some friends and relax - unless I'm putting back a six pack or more. Which is fine - because as far as I'm concerned why drink at all unless it's to excess? But three beers? I suppose that this is what it means to be on the forefront of television.

And another thing: I've been experiencing an odd sensation as of late. It's best described as a burning sensation in my stomach and a constant twitch in my leg. From what I know about physiology, I'm suffering from stress. This is entirely and completely unacceptable. I'm too mellow to suffer from stress. My job is now harshing my mellow. This is distressing t0 say the least.

My only solution? Drinking more - and more often. And lots of downers. I swim every other day - but the endorfins don't last as long as they used to. So I've resorted to red wine, chain-smoking, whiskey, and pot to get me through the winter.

And now that I think about it - this job isn't half bad. An easy excuse to delve into complete dependency? Count me in!

Just don't ask me about work when I'm high. That's fucked up.

Lake Merritt

I've decided that waiting for the bus from the Oakland Bart station is ridiculous. I'm walking from now on. Since it's always dark when I'm coming home from work now I've decided that watching the reflection of the lights on the water as I walk past is much more invigorating than sitting on a cold cement slab and avoiding the creepy dudes who drive up to me in vans asking if I smoke pot. The picture above does absolutely no justice to the view I have of the lake when I walk home. Have iPod, will travel.

And on another note - what is it about winter? Does everyone else become uber-introspective too? And why is this state of mind so incredibly fulfilling? I think I'm broken. Is everything more profound in the winter, or is it just me?