To Recover is to Uncover

So this is summer. I’ve perfected the delicate balance of being busy and active one moment and the next moment being so mind numbingly lazy that I will find great pleasure in staring at couch cushions. My parents just got back from China and their insistence on asking me questions about my life and trying to be involved is already driving me insane. The nerve of them! My dad just peeked his head into my room to offer me a deal where he would wash the outside of my car if I would finally wash the inside of my car. Parents! Am I right, folks?

I’m actually kind of excited to clean out my car. I’m a big fan of exploratory cleaning. The kind of cleaning where you have to clean out something that hasn’t really seen the light of day in a long time, like the corner of a closet or underneath a bed. Not only is it satisfying for me to really hack away at something disgustingly dirty, but also I always find something I forgot I had or forgot I lost.

When I came home for summer I discovered my mom had replaced my old twin sized bed with a Queen and a giant golden bed frame. The idea of having a nice spacious bed was eclipsed by the fact that it took up my entire room and was covered in the gaudiest purple and gold fabric and pillows. Everything else in the room that once was mine or familiar had been replaced as well by a real mahogany dresser, a matching mahogany bedpost, a rocking chair, and my mom’s old secretary that she uses to keep her tax forms and post-its in. I convinced my dad to help me switch out the giant Marie Antoinette bed with my pleasantly quaint twin and while we were moving it I found so many old and dear treasures of mine.

There were six or seven of my favorite Disney puzzles, the blocks I used to make houses for my Barbies with, and best of all I found the tape from 7^th grade of Caitlin, Jenny Staller, and I doing our parody version of Harry Potter books on tape. Don’t be jealous of our creativity.

All in all a good haul for knickknacks underneath a bed. Better than the cesspool of dead spiders I found underneath the old twin bed frame in the garage. I’m still convinced that itch on my leg is spider trying to bite its way into my shinbone. Now I’m off to see what nasty yet poignant lost things I’m to find in my car. Here’s hoping I’ll find those watermelon gummies that went missing a week ago.

Just Add Water

I can feel my brain melting. My brain and too much school has the same exact reaction cornstarch and water have when mixed together. If you dissected me right this very moment and picked my brain up with your hands the material would seem substantial and solid at first. Then, after a moment would pass, the grey substance would start to leak through your fingers. It would slide down your wrist and dribble into the bowl that is hopefully beneath your hands in order to catch the inevitable mess that occurs when one is opening up another human being. My sister would understand. She’s a mortician.

This is my excuse for not writing since…

Anyway, school is not really the problem. It’s a case of what the Frontier Psychiatrist would call Psychosomatic. My brain is tired and therefore my body is tired and therefore therefore therefore. It’s a vicious cycle that everyone is familiar with and everyone has overcome, but the problem always lies in finding something to pry me out of my funk.

Tonight I voluntarily washed the dishes for three hours straight at work because I didn’t want to interact with costumers or coworkers. Mind you I almost always have to wash the dishes for three hours straight when I’m closing, but this time I almost enjoyed myself. There’s a very ashamed part of me that absolutely adores mindless tasks. When I worked for my brother I would always ask if he needed me to put stamps and return addresses on the hundreds of envelopes and pretend it was just because I was an eager worker. The mind can wander when my hands move methodically and automatically, and instead of having to listen to people’s complaints or wants (because it’s never needs) I can listen to my own complaints and wants. It’s a glorious and draining experience, cause geez do I complain a lot. However, no one is more sympathetic to my trials and tribulations than myself, so I just let myself yammer on and on in my head while I clean out the deep fryer.

To be perfectly fair to this life we call life, it has only been the last three days that have been particularly unmotivated on my part. I’ve been spinning a bunch of plates all this year and this week people keep on plucking these plates off of my spinning stick thing and telling me “hey, you don’t need to spin this plate anymore”, or “this plate has been replaced with a much smaller and dumber saucer”. Now I have nothing to spin and it’s driving me insane! Sometimes a girl just needs to spin some damn plates! In other words, I need all these stimulating projects along with my mindless tasks I have to do at Oakes Café or else I will become mindless. A zombie working at Oakes Café would hardly be noticed among the Oakes employees, but I’ve seen enough Will Smith movies to know that zombies never last long before they’re shot 40 times in the chest and burned in a pile of rotting flesh.

I’m starting to lose my metaphor…

Ah yes!

I need to suck it up and get it together.

My Miserable Business

There must be something I've been doing wrong lately because Karma has been a bitch. 

Yesterday morning I woke up to a storm raging outside, and despite the natural urge to cuddle up and siesta the day away, I got my crap together and headed off for my bi-weekly 9 hour school day. After walking to all my classes and sitting in wet clothes for the whole day Rod informs me that Empire Grade (AKA: OUR WAY HOME) was closed off until further notice. 

"No biggie," I foolishly told him. "I'm sure the road will be open by the time class is over". Oh if only I could go back in time, shake this naive Leesa, and tell her to...well...I guess there's nothing I could have really done to prevent the night's events. Needless to say, after class Rod and I found that the road was still closed still so we picked up Rod and Stephanie's friend, Billy, met up with Stephanie, and went to see Whip It! I was way more into my sushi that I brought than I was into the movie, but at least we found a good way of using up time before the road opened up again. 

On our way to Empire Grade to see if the road was open yet, which it wasn't, we decided to encourage the nude bravery of our fellow UCSC classmates at the Naked Run. Finding where all the naked people are turned out to be like a bizarre scavenger hunt. We would see clusters of excited clothed people lined up along the road and ask where the nakies were. Then we'd find more clues, like a glowing buttocks in the forest, or the distant shouts and cheers of a randy crowd. Finally, like the stampede of animals in the streets of Jumanji, our car was immersed in a sea of jigging appendages. Seeing people you know run wild and completely naked through the UC Santa Cruz campus is so different from every other naked context. There's nothing erotic, frightening, or disgusting about it, at least to me. I've never seen so much penis or hooha in my life, but they might as well have just been wearing a bunch of silly hats for all the scandal it brought to our campus.

After our slutty appetites were satiated, we literally satisfied our appetites on pizza, challah, and cheese at Billy and Matt's apartment. Once there I scared my new acquaintances by revealing too much of my disturbing inner thoughts such as "when I'm older and married I can't wait to become obese". By 12:30, we were on the verge of out wearing our welcome so we chanced a check up on the Empire Grade status. Surprise surprise it was still closed and after chasing down a cop and harassing the kiosk lady for information we still had no idea when the road would be opened up. 

At this point Rod, Stephanie, and I had to make a life altering decision: Which one of us had to die in order for two of us to survive? 

But before Stephanie and I could eat Rod, we decided to stick it to the man and WALK the length of Empire Grade in order to get home. Rod was relieved he didn't have to die, Stephanie was wary of the long, dark, creepy, walk in the woods, and I was excited at the chance of peeing in the forest. So with two flashlights in hand, we slipped by the kiosk lady, ignored the Closed Road signs, and followed the yellow lined road back home. Road safety cars kept driving by and we would (probably unnecessarily) dive into the bushes and huddle together, laughing and crying at the thought that we could be caught trespassing, or worse, run over. After passing potential zombie infested cars parked in the middle of the pitch black road, we finally made it home only to find that there was no electricity. 

Another great reason for living in the middle of no where.

I Can't (not) Get No Satisfaction

I just came back from a truly perfect date. 

First we went to get ice cream, and then we went to see a movie where no one else was in the theatre (raises eyebrows suggestively). After the movie we strolled along the pier and when a group of homeless men were yelling obscene words at me he gave them all the stink eye. As the sun went down, we walked along the beach and spotted several dolphins not too far off and in a less fortunate turn of events we found a dead seal. We ended up at the lighthouse where we sat and looked out on the horizon for half an hour. It was the most romantic day I've ever experienced. 

Who is this most mysterious person I went on a date with you ask? The answer is...me. Yes that's right folks, I went to get ice cream by myself, went to a movie by myself and laughed to myself whenever something funny happened on screen. I walked along the pier and scowled at rude homeless men, scampered along the beach oohing and aaahing to myself about the playful dolphins, jabbed a dead seal with a stick to make sure it was in fact dead, and then sat in contemplation on the rocks by a lighthouse by myself. And it was, STILL, the most romantic day I've ever had. 

No one is in Santa Cruz yet so I've had to become my own best friend. It sounds kind of sad, and sometimes it is, but today was an example of how much a person can get out of making a date with themselves. It sure beats the last couple of days anyway, which was basically spent practicing my future life as a crazy cat-lady. I found the outdoorsy cat that we're supposed to take care of. We cuddle together while I read books until it gets bored of me and wants to go back outside. It turns out the first cat that Samantha and I found was most definitely not the cat we were supposed to take care of because that cat was all scabby and unfriendly even though I forced it come inside and eat anyway. So now, I guess, as the newly formed cat-lady, I force feral cats to come live with me so I don't have to form friendships with actual humans. The mice don't even bother me anymore. Mainly because I think they died somewhere in between the walls, but still.

I think I shall beach the week away until people come back. My goal is to look as leathery as Donatella Versace by the time I'm 25.

I Don't Want to Die Here

       So it’s night two in my new haunted Santa Cruz home. Me, Rod, Stephanie, and our new roomie, who we have yet to meet, are living on the main floor of the house, three people will be living below us, and four people above us. At this point, however, it’s just me living in this giant creaking house alone with no one above or below me. What I find fascinating about the house is how by day it looks like the perfect country home, complete with apple trees, blackberry bushes, a porch, and view of the forest, but by night the house is something from a Tim Burton movie. “Beetlejuice” is all fun and games when you’re just watching, but if you were actually living in a house where your staircase handrail turned into a snake I’m sure that would be no laughing matter.

Just half an hour ago I was watching Arrested Development and trying to laugh loudly because everyone knows that ghosts don’t bother you when you’re exuding joy, when all of a sudden I saw a movement from the crack beneath my bedroom door. My heart stopped for a moment, I took off my headphones, and I heard scraping coming from the hallway. I waited until my heart began beating again and then with more willpower than those fat people on Dance Your Ass Off I opened my bedroom door, turned on the light and saw…nothing. I checked the whole main floor, double-checking the locks on the doors, and once I was satisfied I went back into my room. About 10 minutes later, out of the corner of my eye I see a shadowy movement by the door again and I quickly look up in time to see a mouse crossing my room. There was a millisecond where the mouse looked me in the eye and I swear at the same time we both thought “Oh Shit!”, but then the mouse in all it’s jittery glory ran back under the door. On the one hand it’s kind of nice to know that I’m not, in fact, the only one living in the house, but on the other hand I swear to God if that thing crawls on my face or body in the middle of the night I will burn this motha’ down! I’ve plugged up the crack beneath my door with some of my clothes I have yet to put away so now it can’t get into my room. Well, that, or I’ve just locked in all the other mice that are chilling in my room.

The first night I was here, there was a raging battle between a kajillion spiders and myself. I never kill spiders just in case one day I find a giant peach and I crawl into it and there’s an animated version of the spider I decided not kill and it spares my life because I spared its life. Also I don’t like to kill things that are too juicy. Anyway, so I spent an hour using a broom to sweep, swat, and swindle (I needed another s-word) spiders out of their nooks and crannies and out to the front deck. And the creature war began even before that. Earlier that day I was wandering through the backyard, admiring the apple trees, and kumquat tree, when I discovered a delightful little blackberry bush. Before my eyes could fully focus on what lay before me, my greedy little fingers had already plucked a juicy berry. And as I raised the berry to my lips I realized that my hand was COVERED in ants and gnats and other mysterious deviants. My eyes refocused and I could see that the bush looked like it was pulsating due to the enormous amount of insects crawling over leaves, branches, and berries. Needless to say the bush and I are no longer on plucking terms.

So I guess the house isn’t really in need of an exorcism so much as it’s in need of an exterminator. Maybe I’ll get the worst of both worlds and be haunted by ghost rats later tonight. Here’s hoping!