Back to life, back to reality

Again, I apologize for my absence. I constantly flirt with the idea of restarting my blog, but I don’t want to seem like every other cynical twentysomething adolescent who finds himself/herself with an abundance of time and a hankering for some online adoration. Unfortunately, that exactly what I am, so let’s begin.

First an update on my life. I seem to be wandering down the path of A&E’s primetime reality line-up. My love of the drink and subsequent hatred of hangovers has made me long for Candy Finnigan’s sassy hair style, Jeff Van Vonderen’s tropes about my family loving me like crazy, or the interventionist who looks like Huckleberry Hound to pop into my living room and tell me to stop what I am doing. Of course, it’s not that serious; no need to get alarmed- this choo choo is just gonna keep chugging on down the tracks, but if I don’t stop eventually feel free to tell me that I am going to be in a documentary about addiction and then blindside me with an on camera intervention. I promise I’ll make it tearful and dramatic and act like I’m not going so the episode gets really intense before they roll the end credits and my three-months-later update shows me in the best possible light. I also seem to be on my way to becoming a guest on “Hoarders.” I am not nearly as much of a fan of hoarders as I am of Intervention, but hey, if a rerun is on when I get home from class and I want some cheap voyeuristic thrills while judging someone who still has every Sear’s catalogue they have ever received since 1987 then I’ll turn it on. I say I may be a potential subject on this show because in three short months I have deteriorated from being anal about having nothing on my bed or in my bed except for me at night to being perfectly fine with having half my life in and around my bed at all times. I currently have my snuggie, several remotes, a book I was supposed to finish last week (haven’t started), my stunna shades, headphones, an ipod cord, an empty water bottle, a sweatshirt and a package of Trader Joes no-sugar-added dried mangoes (so tasty) in bed with me. I only need several cats, a complete lack of a sex life, another hundred pounds, and type two diabetes and I will be a perfect fit for the show, but if that happens I will definitely need an intervention because I will be drinking to forget the fact that I am a hoarder. Such a vicious cycle. Then I will end up on “Heavy,” but I really don’t think once I get that fat I will ever want to work hard enough to be skinny again, so I will rob a bank to finance my gastric bypass and then end up on “Dog the Bounty Hunter.” Fuck - I’m doomed.

Yowza- that just worked me into a basic cable frenzy. Speaking of basic cable, CNN really chaps my ass. All 24 hour news really. I have been making a half-hearted attempt at following the unrest and revolutions in the Middle East and Northern Africa. It’s not easy. I can hardly follow plot lines on SVU without getting confused, so news of unstable political climates in countries far away and people with consonant-heavy multi-syllabic names really gets my goat. I am trying though. I mainly struggle with the constant stream of information being thrown at me from many major news sources. My main choice for a quick and dirty news update is CNN because it’s not as involved at the New York Times and it vastly outshines those Huffington Post hacks. The problem is that if I miss the initial story, or even an update (which happens nearly hourly), the entire focus of the article becomes foreign and confusing. I need a solid background story that get’s tweaked as appropriate, not every time someone takes a breath. My other main issue is that they take fluff and sell it as news. The top stories on the website tonight were, in order, Libya’s protests, the release of the booking photos of Rep. Gaby Gifford’s shooter, and Justin Bieber’s hair. Seriously? The second and third stories are 100% bullshit. The photos of a gunman provide no actual news; they only satisfy a twisted voyeuristic pleasure deeply seeded in our brains- “What does a monster look like? Does he look like someone I know? Does he look like me?” I refused to read the story on principal. When he is arraigned or prosecuted, then it will be news. Publishing his face is simply muckraking journalism whoring itself out for pay-per-click advertisements. The Bieber hair story belongs on Perez Hilton or People.com- websites dedicated to celebrity fodder. Great, a sixteen year old future VH1 reality show star got a haircut and wants to sell his hair to raise money for charity; Yesterday in New Zealand at least 75 people died while going to get lunch. Which story deserves more attention?

I know that I spew a ton of bullshit on this blog. It’s entertaining to me, and I’m not trying to say that I am holier-than-thou or sway anyone’s opinions. I simply can’t sleep, so I decided to compose this post. I do want to end on a serious note though. New Zealand stole my heart in the fall of 2009 and has held it tightly ever since then. I passionately love that country and it’s people, and the news about the beautiful city of Christchurch stunned me when I read it. I am going to try to contribute in some way to the aid efforts there and send some good vibes down their way. I ask you, oh faithful readers (who I may be able to count on 1 hand), to do something too. Donate a dollar, say a prayer, or think a thought on New Zealand’s behalf. The Kiwi’s will love you for it, and I will too. Sweet as.

Oh hey... we've met before, right?

I’ve been absent. I apologize. Lets get back to it.

On August 29^th, 2010, my year of adventures came to a close. It didn’t close like a dictionary closes—THUD—or like a cabinet door closes—sqeeeaaaaaakkkkk SLAM. It didn’t even close like the trunk of a car- TCHACK! Instead it thwicked closed gently and nearly silently, like the partitions of a revolving door. When I swooped back around the doors I emerged in the heart of Manhattan. How the hell did I get here?

My introduction to New York City started with a Lincoln town car ride from JFK to a little gem in the east village. I’m not kidding. My hotel was called the Gem Soho. Google it. It’s real. that first day I was wandering the streets, praying to some deity of street signs and google maps that I would not get lost and killed on my first day in New York. Success.

Fast-forward three and a half months. I’m taking off. Back to places where the deli on every block isn’t open 24 hours and the homeless men become your neighbors. For the next three weeks I will not be able to wander into the all night pizza place around the corner and order 2 slices of plain, spice them up with a few cups of parmesan and pray that the hangover wont be that bad. Alas, usually my prayers to the gods of pizza, cheese and whiskey usually fall on deaf ears, so for the next 16 hours I am relegated to my little patch of space on the densely populated little island that I now call home.

I decided to come back to blogging and approach it differently than I had in the past. I felt like eeeeeveryone had a blog and they all wanted to be different and unique and all that cool stuff. So I jumped ship. Happens (that’s my new catch phrase). I decided to come back and be more mature, more clever, whatever. I just tried that for three whole paragraphs. Woof. Wore me out.

Two nights ago my girl Same mae told me that I’m different. I’m less cynical. Dare I say… happy! Which is true. I’m ecstatic. I love my life. I fucking love my life. I am quite possibly the coolest person that I have ever met in my life. You should meet me. I’ll prove it to you. I don’t want to be mature and clever and all that bullshit though. I want to do it exactly the way I had been doing it, but with better punctuation. I literally have just had this revelation as I typed this paragraph on my cross-country flight from NYC to Whitefish via Seattle decked out in my discount high-top Nike dunks, All Blacks rugby jersey and pea coat. Like I said- coolest person ever. I am so ready to attack the blogsphere again. Bring it bitches. I’ll have you by the balls in no time flat.

So let’s try this again. I love New York City more than I love taco bell, whiskey gingers, huckleberries, and sailing. Combined. Bold statement? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely. Also, I’m glad that I measure things that I like in terms of food. Fat kid 4 life. Anyways. Back to my life now.

I live in lower Manhattan. I study at NYU. I’ve convinced myself that I will be a successful actor one day (you rain on that parade I will end you). I have a newfound affinity for partying. Who knew I could be good at it? It surprised me too. In short- I’m living the dream.

I’ll take you back through some highlights from the last few months to demonstrate just how true that statement is. My introduction to NYU started the Wednesday night before orientation. I was set to report to campus at 930 sharp on Thursday morning, but being brand new and, knowing hardly anyone, who was I to turn down an invitation to a welcome back party on the Lower East Side? I agree and tell myself that I will not drink that much and I’ll be home by 2 at the latest- a phrase that became my futile mantra later in the semester. More on that later. I went to this party and had a rockin good time. I met a bunch of people, made new friends and beatboxed for a drunk investment banker trying to pick up the desperate NYU girls (there’s a severe shortage of straight males at my school. We’re like grizzly bears or terrorists- you know they’re around but you hardly ever see one. ). Shortly after I dropped a mad beat, my banker was cut off by the bartender who screamed in his face “You’re out of control!!!!” Sorry for being an enabler (no I’m not). The night progressed and 2 o’clock rolled around… no last call. What? Is this Narnia? Have I stumbled through a wardrobe where alcohol is served into the wee hours of the morning? No, bars in New York just stay open till 4. Best news ever. Suffice it to say I found myself in a diner at roughly 430 with my new friends, insisting to the waiter that I am highly allergic to peanuts and I will die if he gives me anything with peanuts or peanut oil, but besides that I would like an omelet and fries. Somehow broccoli was involved in my omelet. I was not happy. I finally stumbled to bed aroun d 5, only to be jolted awake, still well over the legal driving limit in most of the lower 48, and dragged myself to orientation. Hola NYU. I think we’ll get along nicely.

And get along nicely we did. The trend of me stumbling home post 4 am has continued. It’s a habit really. But only on weekends… sortof. The thing about NYU is that people take school really seriously. It’s hard. But then the raging we do on the weekends more than makes up for it. First semester passed in a blur of academic weightlifting and weekend debauchery. Maybe in another post I will elaborate on halloweekend- the weekend that saw no sobriety. Or holiday party weekend- absinthe and yule mules were involved. Or the time we ended up in a Russian bar with stripper poles and bare breasted statues that I may or may not have fondled. Or maybe I’ll discuss my ten hour long acting class on Saturdays. Or solo karaokeing some 50 Cent in a semi crowded bar. Or I’ll expound upon the nuances of the word “train.” Or I’ll just say fuck NYC, I want to talk about how global warming would be a non-issue if we were all wizards.

Whatever happens, will happen. I’m so glad to be back.

.

you're talkin shit again.

how fitting that my last post's title came from a song called "dental care." i might even call it prophetic, but more of a miss cleo prophetic than, say, jesus. i suppose he still wins even though if i was gods kid i would sure as shit get better than frankincense and myrrh. i'll take the gold though. pawn that shit and blow it on strippers and coke. just kidding. god definitely would send me to messiah military school for that shit.

so back to the dental care shenanigans. last week when i went to my bi-annual checkup i had the fill in dental hygenist. these women are bad enough as it is, but to get the fill in one, the second string, you know you're in some shit. first she asked me the same question numerous times. i told her yes i go to USC. she proceded to ask me all about SEC and tell the doctor that i went there. hey dipshit! THATS NOT A SCHOOL!!!! Lindalea, you fail yet again. Then whilst cleaning my teeth she poked and prodded every last nook and cranny of my gums and kept saying "oh we have a little bleeding here..." yeah no shit, you just used your medieval torture device masquerading as a dental instrument to stab me half to death. i reserve the right to bleed under these circumstances. i finally made it through this terrible ordeal only to be lectured on my keebler elf of a dentist on the merits of flossing, which i dont make a habit of. i was already on the edge so i tuned out and pretended that my teeth were invincible and immune to the dangers of plaque and gingivitis.

fast forward to this week. my pretend immunity failed. i showed up and for the first time in my life got a semi normal hygienist. i'll take it. i settled in for a long haul. i knew i had 14 sealants coming my way and i wasnt going to like it, but my mom got to watch a movie while she had her stuff done so i figured i would be allowed to as well. negative ghostrider. no movie. only pain. after installing a dental dam in my mouth (which my RA handed out freshman year in case you wanted to go down on some lucky lady... strange.) and drawing the first blood we had to wait for the dentist. my hygienist then started trying to have a conversation with me. they always do that i can never figure out why. are you that lonely that you have to try to talk to someone with a sheet of rubber, two giant metal clamps and copious amounts of drool in and around their mouth? i mean i know im a hoot and a half but really she could have asked for my opinion of avatar before or after installing the dental equivalent of a ball gag. my answers limited to grunts and head shakes, i soon went into a trance like state only to leave it after the foreign objects were removed from my mouth.

but wait, there's more.

that was only the top teeth. the bottom teeth were more of the same, but i had a longer wait for the dentist to stop making those delicious fudge stripes in his tree and come attend to the home depot that had accumulated in my mouth. i took in my surroundings... the blank, movie-less tv screen, the parking lot outside, a nifty little contraption called the "compudent" that i figured sterilized things or something. wrong. shortly into my next round of sealants they discovered a cavity. ok no big deal they will numb me up and that will be that. wrong. they just drilled away with a reassuring "you're doing great" and filled the tooth without any novacaine. FML. the more they started saying "great job, outstanding, hang in there" the more i cursed their mothers to hell and their daughters to whore-dom, only silently because of the aforementioned ball gag. i made it through my cavity fine and then they found another. FUUUUUCK. apparently this one had more decay and they were gonna have to numb me up. at least they found this occasion to be thrifty with the damn drugs. i braced myself for a little pinch when i looked up at the compudent. before i know it the elven dentist was pulling a huge needle out of it dripping with some numbing agent and it was headed directly for my chompers. AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! i didnt have time to react too much because he jabbed away and next thing i knew the right side of my mouth no longer belonged to me. some scraping, crunching and grinding ensued and i cringed through it, and fortunately survived. barely. at least no more dental work for six months and while my mouth was numb i only let water spill out of it twice before i decided i had better hold off on sustenance until further notice.

well that was my adventure today. saturday is the day that i have been waiting for. I FINALLY MOVE. yessssssss.

golf and alcohol dont mix, thats why i dont drink and drive

well its that special time again. it usually only comes once in every young persons life unless they are indecisive, an idiot, overly ambitious, or some combination therein. im putting myself in the latter category and citing indecision and ambition as my crimes of choice. in case you are wondering what on gods green earth i am talking about, i will tell you now.

college applications.

they have started again. FML. and they never get any better apparently. it seems as if some of the essay questions are designed specifically to boost the ego of the school (what is so appealing about this school and why) and others want aim to lift up the applicants spirits (write a poem about yourself). some of them however, seem like they are pointing a finger at me saying "you uncultured piece of shit, you will never succeed here!!!!!!! (what exhibits or performances have you enjoyed in the past year? uuhh well none im a college dropout and unless you count my mother drunkenly singing lady gaga on christmas then i have seen few performances and even fewer exhibits).

so while these applications plant little seeds of doubt deep within my soul, i am forced to ponder my last year. it was a hoot for sure, but can i apply any of that to the college experience? i played hide and seek in the holocaust memorial at 5 am in berlin, but how will that help me succeed at an ivy league school? i taught kids how to sail a 50 foot yacht without killing themselves, or more importantly me, but can i identify synechdoche in an emily dickinson poem? i lived in a van in new zealand for two weeks, but can i summarize the goals of health care reform without sounding stupider than a brain dead chimp? plus, how do i top my last college essay ("i live in a house ruled by the nasdaq, bridge club and paula deen. vana white is my dinner date, and nancy grace sits in on her off nights." it was about living with gigi.) it was a daaamn good one. oh well.

in other news- IM MOVING TO THE DIRTY DIRTY!!!!! back to atlanta. back to sweet tea. back to gorgeous weather. back to the nasty ass bradford pear trees stankin up spring time. back to the land of country clubs and the confederacy. back to the chattahoochee river. i am so excited. i cant wait. maybe there i will have some more blog worthy adventures since i have been slightly dull lately. i did give up boozing as part of a new health kick that im on. dont worry, its nothing permanent. i will be back in action in no time.

alright, now off to summarize the plot of my biopic being made in 2050 in 500 characters or less.

In the lane, snow is glistenin'

"Its like Edward Cullen is in the air!!!"
"CAMDEN IM GONNA SLAP YOU"

this was our exchange yesterday as we were skiing down big mountain. occasionally, if you're lucky, a magical thing happens on the mountain. driving up the day appears to be foggy and dreary and not too pleasant, but halfway up the chairlift a miracle happens. things start to get brighter. the fog starts to thin out bit by bit, and then all of a sudden you break free of the clouds into a land of impossibly blue skies, sparkling white snow everywhere, and trees that look related to the marshmallow man from ghostbusters. its amazing. its an inversion.
yesterday, the inversion was epic. on the lower half of the mountain the clouds were thin enough to still let a bit of light through. right before you broke out of the fog and into the bluebird afternoon the blue sky was visible above, but snow was still falling all around. im not a meteorologist, so i had no idea how this was happening, but it did prompt my sisters edward cullen comment. the clear, sunny air had a slight sparkle to i as you skied down the hill. at one point i stopped and looked out as the clouds were at eye level with me. it was like putting your eyes right at the edge of a table and looking at the surface- it seems to stretch for miles and miles, except these were clouds and they did stretch for miles and miles, interrupted only by the occasional mountain poking its head into the heavens above. gorgeous.

i honestly couldnt have asked for a better christmas day, which got me thinking about former christmas days. so now i will take you back through some of my fonder memories.

age 3 or 4- at this point in my life i was convinced that santa's big day was always right around the corner. whenever i heard anyone walking around the house at night i would spring from my bed and race down the hallway into the living room to make sure santa was not there putting presents out for me to play with. im fairly certain i did this whether it was the dead of winter or not. this christmas is the first that i can distinctly remember being amazed, dumbfounded, and all around astonished at santa's great feat. i woke up and went out to the living room while the house was still cloaked in darkness (not surprising though, sunrise is like 8:30am vampires would love it here.) there, waiting for me under the tree was the coolest train set i ever could have possibly imagined. santa had painted a piece of plywood green and blue to look like land and lakes and rivers, and then set up a wooden train set on the piece of wood for me to play with. i couldnt believe it. santa was the coolest dude ever. i played with those trains for years to come and if i could find them now i would definitely play with them again.

age 5?- one christmas, a couple years after the train thing probably, i asked for a barbie for christmas. well, skipper to be exact. barbie's sister. my uncle jamie heard this and said that if i was getting the barbie, then i also needed a GI joe. christmas morning rolled around and i opened my barbie and promptly set to work on making her tail change colors (she was a mermaind. nbd) and my GI joe was cast aside. fortunately it did not end up on the island of misfit toys, my baby sister adopted it instead. to this day i have never lived the barbie incident down- i have heard the story at least three times this christmas and it is also told regularly at family gatherings, birthdays and any time my family wants to embarrass me. damn you barbie and your color changing tail. damn you.

age 10- finally after years and years of begging, santa brought me a nintendo 64! my mom had sworn to never let video games in the house, but HA! victory is mine!!!

age 11- i was having some issues at this point in my short little life and the fact that my extended family had all decided to go to san francisco to see my cousins instead of coming to whitefish as usual made me very angry. i mean, so what that my aunt had had a baby on november 27th? we are way more important that a baby! plus i was bitter because i felt like everyone like them better than us (have i mentioned that im irrationally competitive and will resent even a baby for stealing attention from me?). a couple days before christmas rolls around, camden has some sort of swine flu predecessor, harrison, at age 5, has a perpetually runny nose with boogers everywhere, and I have a whole bucket of issues that kept my parents busy. they loaded us into the car and said we had to go pick up a package at the airport for our friend whose lugguage got lost or something. we stop in front of baggage claim and my mom drags me inside and i survey the scene. big deal, its a tiny airport in northwest montana- not much is happening. then i look at the christmas tree and see some people sitting under it... ok wierdos, so i kept kinda looking around. then i move closer to the tree and look again. HOLY SWEET LITTLE BABY JESUS!!!!!!! its my aunts holly and jennifer, my three year old cousin caroline, the infamous granny gigi, and my brand new three week old cousin alexandra, later to be dubbed lexie on a family vaca to the jersey shore. I was speechless and like... wow. best christmas surprise EVER. so after that we all did the whole christmas thing, blah blah blah, and we havent missed a christmas with that crew since then. also, fun fact- that was when zelda: occarina of time was all the rage. i got it for christmas to use on my N64. that shit gave me nightmares so bad i had to sleep on my parents floor for a month, and that was the end of video games in the covey household for a looong time.

age 18- im sure between the ages of 11 and 18 i had some great christmases with great memories, but im getting tired of typing, so we will fast forward a bit. that year we had a whole bunch of folks in town for the holiday festivities. gigi, grandma and grandpa covey, my moms sisters holly and jennifer, cousins caroline and lexie, my dads sister carmel and her husband richard and their two kids michael and andrew, and our friends from whitefish the whitakers. this whole clan had just finished christmas dinner and went out for our annual nog walk. this is where we walk around the loop in our neighborhood to help with digestion and drink ridiculously alcoholic and delicious eggnog. occasionally we sloppily carol to our neighbors. its good times. this particular nog walk our song of choice was "feliz navidad," but those are really the only two words we know of the whole thing, so to help us out jennifer and camden started talking in mexican accents, sort of like speedy gonzalez, and yelling "jorge go boom!" and talking about gang murders in new mexico, where jennifer lives. festive, eh? after the nog walk we went back into my house and turned on some bumpin tunes and my moms side of the family as well as some of the whitakers started dancing in the living room. my dad's side of the family, who are considerably more conservative and resereved, were not so impressed with our sweet moves and chose to watch from the sidelines. this was all well and good until my humps came on. its my mom's jam so of course good ole stace started to rock out (she dances with some aggressive arm motions). never one to be shown up, jennifer jumped up on a chair, put one hand against the wall to brace herself, and started slapping her ass while screaming "MY HUMPS! MY HUMPS MY HUMPS MY HUMPS!!!!" i died. i could barely breathe from laughing so hard. my dad's family took off faster than santa's eight tiny reindeer and, unfortunately i havent seen them since that christmas season. we may have scared them slightly. sorry for partying, jesus.

age 21- besides the epic ski day christmas has been an all-around good time. christmas ever i pounded a couple of brewskis before church and donned my purple tie that says "I <3 Jesus" and musical notes in shiny gold all over it. those catholics have never seen something so festive, im sure of it. after getting two new high scores on bejeweled while listening to an overzealous american idol reject sing religiously charged christmas carols (some of them IN LATIN! are you kidding me???), we set out for our delicious seafood feast waiting for us at home. successful night. christmas morn dawns and i start pounding water to counteract the christmas wine from the night before. presents start being thrown every which way and before you know it i have a new pair of skis, a New Zealand all blacks jersey (which im currently wearing) and a kindle (which i had told my parents i had no interest in a couple of days before... awkward.) at this point i was having conflicting feelings. i had just recieved some epic holiday cheer from santa and my family and i loved it and i was thankful, but at the same time i was a little bummed that i didnt get a new phone, which i wanted the most. its ok if you hate me for being an ingrateful bastard, i hated me too at that moment. then my mom said "ok one last present" and handed us little boxes. i thought it would be some cheesy thing that me, cam and har all got kindof as a joke. then we open them and see the trademark apple logo on the black box. wait... i already have an ipod. WAIT!!! HOLY SHIT AN IPHONE!!!!!!! we all started yelling and screaming at our brand new phones- this wasnt even in the cards. we dont have AT&T we have verizon, but apparently my parents had switched it on us without telling. sneaky sneaky. epic christmas surprise. yesssssssssss.

my friends in la they dont know...

well none of my friends know really. i imagine that many people out there have a vision of my life as a care free and lavish adventure spanning the globe from berlin to sydney and everywhere in between (except asia and africa- they have way too many peanuts involved for me to ever even set foot there). while that may have been true for a while, i have now been reduced to housewife status due to unemployment and a bank account that seems to drop precipitously with every passing day. gone are the days of surfing, scuba diving, and living in a van named gollum:



now my days really are what every housewife aspires to. i wake up at my leisure, drink my coffee and check the morning news (by morning news i mean facebook and twitter because lets get real, i could give a shit about the rest of the world). then i might have an omelet- egg white of course, choc full of veggies, followed by a nice work out. after getting all schwetty i generally eat a healthy lunch, i watch tv, search for a job, more facebook, and generally do nothing. eventually i make myself something delicious for dinner- a steak with sauteed mushrooms and onions in a red wine sauce perhaps, and watch more tv whilst drinking alone. today however, i am doing the other end of the housewife work spectrum: dishes and laundry. how fun is that!

in all reality though im just dead up bored. my friends are all still at school and i have little to entertain me besides illegally streaming episodes of bones online (i watched 14 episodes yesterday). i dont even have any funny stories to impart. i went to LA last weekend for a little getaway and while it was a barrel of laughs nothing outlandish happened. oh except that alyssa peed in a del taco cup on the bus on the way to the sorority function. that shit was funny. and i had an extremely awkward man from texarcana, arkansas sitting next to me on the plane. he kept trying to make conversation with me by way of looking out the window, away from me, mumbling something clearly intended for me to hear so i was forced to say "come again?" "whats that?" or "pardon?" roughly 34 times. i was just trying to read my book! he also was an AVID fan of sky mall. he picked it up and said "you know, they got some really good stuff in here. i've got my eye on a few things that i might just have to get." i was afraid to ask what for fear that he would indicate a yearning for the meerkat lawn statues or the neckpro traction device:

its a little too S&M for my liking but hey, whatever floats your boat. overall he was a nice guy but he clearly just didnt pick up the signals that i dont do small talk. i am content to sit in silence and mind my own business without any distractions about mountains or lakes or whatever else one can see from a plane.

so since that brief interaction i have been job hunting, house wifing and doing nothing. unfortunately no one is hiring. at all. at least im not above being a craigslist man whore for hire.

lionfish, tiger sharks and barracudas, oh yes

things i have learned:

swimming in rainforests is a clothing optional activity
wallabys, while cute, can be creepy
driving on the left side of the road is just stupid
aussies dont say shrimp on the barbie
aussie dudes straighten their hair and wear jorts and drink bitch beer and its acceptable
macdonalds is my favorite
koalas are heavy
i am not allergic to the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle
sharks do not think i am a tasty treat
it is possible to drank a coca cola at the bottom of the ocean under 80 feet of water


ok so i have been working on this post for like a week because i just dont have the time/energy/money to spend too long on the internet when i could be out learning/doing any of the aforementioned things. so i will just skip over part of my epic adventure (it would have been some good stories too)and move on to the most recent stuff. SCUBA SCUBA

last monday morning, so a week ago, kit and i started getting our dive certifications in Cairns, which is roughly two stone skips and a shark attack away from the great barrier reef- so pretty damn close. we were picked up, bleary eyed and discombobulated, at the ass crack of dawn outside of our hostel. we mumbled hellos to the other novice divers anxiously picturing their own watery deaths (ok maybe it was just me) and went on to pick up a couple more people, including Mei. now mei is a special one. she is from china i think, but currently lives in scotland. if you have never heard a thick asian accent mixed with a twinge of scottish gruffness then you have never truly lived. its as if jackie chan and fat bastard had a ridiculously uncoordinated and awkward child. i may be in love. mei's grand entrance into my life will forever be remembered. as she attempted to hoist herself into the passenger seat of the large child molester-esque van that we all were riding in, she failed. apparently after hefting her bag into the car she only managed to get half her ass onto the seat, and then she fell like the berlin wall out of the van and onto the pavement. OHHHHHH SHIIIT. that just happened. no worries mei, just dust yourself off and pick up your dignity from the sidewalk. she needed it you see, because she had plenty more opportunities to lose it throughout the week, but more on that later.

our first two days of diving were split between a classroom, where this mad cool instructor janine would train us in the theory of breathing underwater. let me sum it up for you- dont hold your breath, dont run out of air, and dont be retarded, you are not going be attacked by a megaladon while diving (that was my real main concern). suffice it to say that monday and tuesday were sufficiently boring, however mei did manage to nearly drown in the 12 foot deep pool. janine had to haul her up from the bottom and hold her head above water whilst mei gasped for air and refused to inflate the inflatable vest that ones wear scuba diving. oh mei, how i cherished your plump little face compressed in the folds of the BCD while janine held you, tenderly, by your airtank and yelled "INFLATE MEI! INFLATE!" i nearly j'd in my p on the spot.

finally, bright and early on wednesday morning- and i mean bright and fuckin early as in 6am, we boarded our trusty ocean faring vessel and headed for the reef. on the ride out there we made better friends with our fellow scuba enthusiasts including three hilarious irish girls, a really cool couple from the UK, a Czech guy who spear fishes and a doctor from LA who may be my new hero because she went to an ivy league school, graduated with a degree in engineering, went home and waitressed for a while, worked in animation for several years and now is an ER doc and goes on badass vacations on the side. kit and i now have hope that we will be successful and productive human beings... someday. three hours later we arrived on the reef and suited up for our first dive.

the first day we did two dives and it was pretty damn awesome. we saw a giant moray eel with a green head and spots all over his body. the fish there are unreal. they are everywhere and waaaay bigger than any that i have seen in the past. absolutely massive buggers. especially these ones called bumperhead parrot fish. they are like two feet long and 18 inches high and they just sit in schools and drift. not even swim. drift. we also saw some christmas tree worms, which are way cooler than they sound, turtles, and stingrays. epic.

the next day we saw alot more of the same, including nemo and dory and the dude with the scar in the fishtank. on one dive we even saw TWO sharks. count em. TWO. i didnt even poo my wetsuit either. i was so stoked. mostly because they were little bastards. even so, i was trying to make friends with them.

that night we had a night dive. i hate going into the ocean at night. hate it. all my years of shark week and animal planet and steve irwin have taught me that night time is when the scary shit comes out to get you. however, i was not about to pass up this opportunity. right before we got in the water we all ate dinner. after dinner we rinse the plates in the water and usually fish school all around the boat. usually these fish are red and kinda cool. this time however there was a six foot shark cruising around with them. what the eff. i did not sign up to swim with a six foot shark at night. hell to the no. oh god. my adrenaline was already pumping and we had an hour before we went under the surface. right after this janine gathered us around a table and gave us the DL about what we were going to do and see. she of course said that we were going to see some sharks and most of them would be harmless little reef sharks, but occasionally there are some larger tiger sharks and hammerheads. uuhhh what? i do not like that. not at all. i hate them in fact. my interest piqued i leaned forward across the table and tried not to soil myself (i'm a nervous poo-er what can ya do). janine continued, "occasionally these animals can get to be aggressive. if they start circling us and acting like they may attack, we are going to do whats called the ring of steel. we will all face inwards with our tanks facing out. this will help protect us from the animal if it should attack. after we link arms, what do you think we are going to do." some people not as versed in shark behavior said "go to the surface." WRONG BITCHES. sharks attack from below!!!! GO DOWN GO DOWN!!!! i knew this fact but at this point i had stopped producing saliva and my brain was slowly shutting down. "we will head to the bottom," corrected janine, "it doesnt matter what we are over, coral, sand, rocks, we will go to the bottom. now, right before the shark attacks, they will bump their prey. if this happens, there is really nothing that we can do. if the person next to you ends up getting bumped, let go of their arm. they are on their own to swim to the surface, we need to focus on getting the rest of us to safety." at this point i was on the verge of tears. my hands were shaking and i was about to pass out. several people let out some nervous laughter before janine and the other instructors on the boat burst out laughing so hard that i thought they were going to die. apparently there are no tiger sharks where we were, and they almost never see anything besides reef sharks. fuck that. i am sitting here having a panic attack and these idiots are hootin and hollerin like they're at a nascar race. however, i couldnt be pissed because i was laughing too and also so ridiculously relieved that i didnt have to worry about any more sharks. after that i happily went to put on my gear even though they staff played the jaws theme song complete with the blood curdling scream as we were being dragged into the water. i think that night took about six years off my life. oh and also we saw a sleeping lionfish- them shits are venomous. cool.

the next day we woke up for another dive- this time a deep dive because i decided to go for my adventure scuba dive certification. this means that i can go to 30 m- 99 feet without an instructor. after you hit about 23 meters the nitrogen levels in your blood build up significantly and everyone experiences something called nitrogen narcosis. its similar to being drunk, but more fun and waay more dangerous because you are under six stories of water and have a very limited amount of air before you die- especially me. i went through air like a fat kid at an all you can eat buffet. they had to give me an extra large tank just so i could make it down to the same level as everyone else. back to the dive- we got to 27 meters and janine had us do an activity where you point to 12 numbers in a grid in chronological order. the numbers go to 13, but skip 7. to be finished you had to tell her which number was missing. i was the last to go so i knew 7 was the missing number and i was all ready to go and get the thing done in record speed. i made it through all the numbers and then held up my hands proundly. nothing. janine was still timing me. i looked at my hands just to make sure it was right -five fingers on one hand and three on the other- 7. it took me several more seconds to realize that 5+3 is 8. what can i say i dropped out of school alright. after that game janine whipped out a coke in a can and popped the top. nothing happened- it just stayed in there. she proceeded to take out her reg and drink the coke. then we all passed it around the circle taking drinks of it. it was soooooo awesome. for some reason me and one of the irish girls thought this was hilarious- keep in mind you feel drunky this deep- and i ended up rolling around on the ocean floor because i was laughing so hard. probably one of the best experiences of my life.

after one more dive that lasted 54 minutes, my personal underwater record, we had to head back to dry land. bummer. that night however we did manage to go out and dance on tables with the other people from the trip. the only downside is that at one point i was deserted by my diving friends and left to dance with rosa and gerda- the german mother daughter team that did not talk to anyone all week but strangely went out and raged with us. the best part- rosa, the non-milf mother- doesnt shave her pits or her legs. wanna puke in your mouth yet? i know i sure do!