The Fab Disaster

BUT don’t come at me sideways on twitter with unsolicited vulgarities regarding my sex life, like *slanderous people do*

Don’t say you’re down for a casual relationship and five minutes later scream “SLUT!” at me inside a parked car.

And definitely don’t call me irresponsible, ungrateful or belligerent when we both know that’s not true, shit happens, and you have an attitude problem. 

These are three different conversations I’ve had in the last 24 hours, with three different people. Two of them are “in my family,” whatever that means. I think it means someone married the wrong person, or something. I mean, I love my family. I even like them for the most part. But when the chips are down, just make sure you plug your ears until people come to their senses, because it can get ugly. 

That being said, I’ve actually been having a decent amount of fun in the time since my relationship ended, i moved out of my house (and back with my parents), and got in a minor car accident that managed to majorly fuck up my car, my legal record and my ability to “possess a driver’s license for 30 days.”

I’ve come to terms with everything that happened. Yes, I shouldn’t have had so much to drink at that gallery on First Friday even though I couldn’t afford to pay for drinks at the bar later.  Yes, I probably shouldn’t have been playing that old Vice records Flosstradamus mix so damn loud while driving to the next party. Yes, I should have driven slower around that corner of the parking deck so I didn’t hit the bumper of that (wonkily parked) fucking church van which made my Honda crumple up like a Coke can. 

And maybe, just maybe, I should have waited to sober up before calling the cops on my own accident to only then be breathilized and handcuffed, never making it to the party in question. 

Sure, I felt like a failure for the first day or two. But I focused my efforts on finding my ever-so-fabulous lawyer, making paper in my last few days at work, and on the wonderfully excruciating process of moving out of my ex-boyfriend’s house. By the time I made the cover of The Slammer looking like the love-child of Lindsey Lohan and Cruella Deville, I had very few fucks left to give. 

There is a common misconception that shame and regret actually change the course of history. Sure, I’m not going to drink and drive anymore. But I’m not going to go to rehab, cry in my room all day or resign from reign as Queen Bitch. Everyone has things in their life that they’d do differently the second time around. I probably wouldn’t have tried so hard to fit in during middle school, or hooked up with that unattractive drummer at that bon fire in ‘09, but I’m not going to break out my flux capacitor for that shit any time soon. Instead, I’m going to buy some new platform shoes, move in with my friends, plead innocent in court and move on with my fucking fabulous disaster of a life. 

Meanwhile, suck on this picture of my cat.

It goes perfectly with involuntary nostalgia and falling leaves. 

People are always emphasizing the importance of moderation. “Don’t go out too much,” they say. “Don’t watch too much TV.” But as we know by now, moderation is not my strong-suit, nor do I find it remotely interesting. And if there is one thing I love more than drinking too much, it’s television. 

I’ve spent a good chunk of the last few days absorbed in Gossip Girl, which recently became available on Netflix instant. My interest came as somewhat of a surprise, since the show’s debut at the end of my high school years made me nauseous at the time, but having rated over 1000 movies on Netflix (a number which I am sure qualifies me for at least one rehabilitation program) and being physically addicted to the sexual tension that drives television drama, I decided to give it a shot. Immediately, as I should have guessed, I became enamored with all those rich, beautiful, disgusting people, the places in New York I will never go, that Brooklyn loft I won’t be able to afford, Blake Lively’s speech impediment, and Penn Badgley’s existence (which I subsisted on for the entirety of last Spring by re-watching Easy A over…and over…and over. What, it’s well written). 

Even Joe was almost moved to tears during the Christmas episode in Season 1 where Serena gives Dan the gift of fake snow in his dad’s art gallery. 

Okay, so maybe being obsessed with Gossip Girl, which is kind of a silly show, when i’m kind of an adult, isn’t anything to be particularly proud of. But I find the drama, in all its tackiness, pretty fulfilling. Plus, now I know who Taylor Momsen is. 

The only other thing I love as much as television and partying (besides cats and sex and leather boots) is food. 

Every so often, between episodes, hangovers and minimum-wage job shifts, I’ll get motivated to do something entirely domestic, like organize my closet or cook a delicious meal. Monday night, the choice was to make green bean casserole for a pre-thanksgiving potluck with friends. It’s not a particularly painstaking preparation. you basically just dump four cans of things into one dish, stir, and bake. BUT I will say that i have been making this simple thanksgiving dish every year my entire life, and have a few tricks up my sleeve to perfect the recipe. 

That being said, 

no matter what you do to it,

green bean casserole is one of the most delicious foods ON THE PLANET. 

Here’s a blingee I made of it to demonstrate: 

^That cat dancing in the bottom right corner is supposed to represent me, doing my happy-as-fuck dance, because I am about to eat the living shit out of that entire thing, probably including the pyrex. 

or at least I thought I was. 

It had just finished cooling, and we were just about to load it in the car when we (I say “we” but it was really “Joe”) set it on the ledge of the front porch where it immediately toppled to the brick steps and became a pile of mush and ceramic. 

I nearly cried. Not because I had worked so hard making it. Not because the dish that broke was handmade by my aunt in the 70s. But because I was so. fucking. hungry.

It all worked out in the end, for the most part. There was an ample supply of homemade squash casserole at the potluck, and people gave me beer. Of course, I still get a gleam in my eye when I think about those french fried onions. But then I remember that Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and in just a few hours I’ll get to fill my very own horse trough with an array of casseroles, curl up in my bed, and watch as much Gossip Girl as I damn well please.

Before I begin, allow me to make it very clear that I do not actually know how to do this successfully, per se. That is, I have absolutely no idea how i manage to survive this physically trying and often embarrassing combination of all-around excess, an affliction that I am almost certain is narcolepsy, and spending a good 6 to 8 hours a day on my feet, pretending I’m someone I’m not and talking to old people. One can only “work hard and play hard,” as the t-shirts of college students everywhere have been proclaiming since the end of prohibition, for so many years before one of those things starts to suffer, if only slightly.

In my case it’s the “work hard,” because we all know I lack a certain self-control so prevalent in your successful middle-management employee. Instead, I’m that girl who went out to the monthly #NB4R at Underground on Friday night, started early so that I would get drunk early and go home early (which never works), and ended up spending all my money on long island iced teas, gripping them with such pitiful limpness that each of them was smacked to the floor by a neighboring dancer. And I still managed to get drunk enough to start a fight with my best friend in the parking lot about something that may or may not have even happened.

The next morning, I gasped myself awake 15 minutes before I was supposed to arrive for an 8 am brunch shift, and no more than 10 minutes after actually being on time, I was confronted by one of my managers.

“You smell…like you’ve been out partying.”

“Really?” I responded, in what was probably the most obviously feigned astonishment I was capable of whispering in that level of dehydration. 

“I’m only telling you because i would want to know. You need to do everything you can to find a breath mint.” 

Instead of taking that well-intentioned rude advice, I proceeded to drink 3 large glasses of iced coffee while making intermittent trips to the bathroom to wipe the smeared eyeliner from beneath my bloodshot eyes, and returned to earning tips by cleaning tables without vomiting on myself.

You all do this every day, too, right? No one needs advice here. And I can’t say that I have any to give. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a compelling desk job right now… But something tells me I won’t be going to bed early and sober for a long, long time. 

Especially not on a damn weekend.