10 posts tagged “dwarf star”
Like me, the Dwarf Star has a series of friends with interesting nicknames and colorful stories. But while I went to a small, private college, he went to one of those Big Ten schools, the kind of university known for students who celebrate victory by setting fire to their own houses. Ergo, his friends’ nicknames are a bit more interesting and their stories far more colorful. My friends have nicknames like Pineapple, and his friends have nicknames like Crackhead Bob. My graduation celebration involved champagne and a Sex And The City marathon with my girlfriends. The Dwarf Star’s graduation celebration involved an inebriated, house-destroying wrestling match with a guy he called Steve-o.
Shortly after we moved into our house, he informed me that he might be receiving prison correspondence from the aforementioned Crackhead Bob. While many of my roommate’s friends and classmates had dabbled in the druggie lifestyle, Crackhead Bob had immersed himself in it. I’d heard him mention Crackhead Bob before as a man of conviction – or, I guess I should say, multiple convictions.
“He’s in prison?” I asked
“Well, he’s on his way. He got his third strike over the summer for growing pot in his attic.”
As it turns out, Crackhead Bob wasn’t just growing a little recreational pot in his attic – he was growing enough pot for every ticket holder at Bonnaroo. It was his unusually high electric bill that gave him away. They verified it with UV-sensing helicopters.
The Dwarf Star was laughing when he told me this. “Can you believe it? They used the same kind of cameras that they use to locate enemy hideouts in Iraq.”
“That’s pretty awesome,” I agreed.
It was the disparity in our backgrounds, characterized by the story about Crackhead Bob, that concerned a lot of people when he and I told people we were getting a house together. I was a calm do-gooder with nothing more than a speeding ticket on my record, he was a hot-head with a checkered past. We may both like Sufjan Stevens, we may both love The Office, but our experiences were just too different for people to consider us to be good roommates. People expected Oscar and Felix, only Oscar would go on drunken tirades and Felix would cry all the time. In reality, it worked out swimmingly, the perfect example of roommate yin and yang. It may well be that we had a dishwasher in our house. I tend believe that anyone can live together as long as there’s a dishwasher, since it’s a little known fact that most conflicts emerge from the piling up of dishes. The Peloponnesian War started because Athens left some dirty pots for Sparta to clean up, and while some scholars say the Defenestration of Prague began the Thirty-Years War, I maintain that it was the Moldy Coffee Mugs of Cologne. But I also like to think a lot of the peace came from our different backgrounds. He brought some interest and intrigue to the house, and I kept him from burning it down. I’m not so completely goody-goody that I’ve never touched alcohol, and just because the Dwarf Star knows drug dealers doesn’t mean he is one himself.
For the record, his nickname for me was Killer. Think about that one.
Friday night, sitting around with my guests B and the Dwarf Star's girlfriend, I started talking about how I could probably never regard the Dwarf Star as a guest in any house I live in from here on out because once you live with someone, the mystique is gone.
"I mean, seriously. I've seen him walking around, shirtless, scratching his balls."
B. was scandalized that I said that in front of his girlfriend, but I added, "Oh, it's no big deal. She was there."
The Dwarf Star paid me back for that one the next day at the wedding reception by remarking, "How did your chest get so tan?"
"How is it you notice the tan on my chest?"
"Because I'm checking out your rack, duh."
Well, like anyone could very well help THAT.
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K-Jo came with me, and was the social butterfly that I know and love. For example, she made B. her life-coach and became instant best-friends with the Dwarf Star's girlfriend. She also claimed that she never gets drunk and that she was the drunkest she'd ever been that night. Hmm. We'll see about that, K-Jo. Two words: Gin Ocean.
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I participated in the dollar dance. When my turn came up, I hugged the groom and told him that we were going to do the robot. He happily obliged, and we chatted as we awkwardly lurched along. The flower girl went after me, and I heard the best man say to the groom, "She wants to dance with you, but she doesn't want to hold your hand." I wanted to tell the girl to also do the robot, but she looked scared of me. Probably she was just jealous of my sweet moves.
And speaking of dancing, Bubbles and were I dancing circles around other wedding guests. We cut all kinds of rugs. Fast dances, slow dances, and the thing is I wasn't at all drunk. I got adrenaline-high from dancing for nearly three hours straight, thanks to months of practice with the Starlet. Bubbles? He was a little drunk, yes, thus explaining his tantrum when he found out the DJs didn't have any Journey on hand. Also explaining the fact that he spent twenty minutes trying to get K-Jo to tell him when it would be legally ok to threaten to kill me. We became experts of the slow-dance spin-and-catch but never quite the bread-in-a-basket. That's the one where the guy holds the girl -- but get this: the girls arms need to be crossed and down by the guy's hips. This wasn't easy for me:
"I'm the basket, you're the bread."
"My arms are too short!"
"No they're not!"
"My boobs are too big!"
"Try harder!"
"That's it, I'm taking up yoga."
"I will not accept your self-defeating prophecies! We're gonna make this work!"
It was awkward.
Actually, it was fun. I miss Bubbles the most out of all of my friends from that area, and I can't lie and say that I didn't enjoy dancing with him. We sang along with songs, we attempted various dips and spins, and we made each other laugh. It was like old times, even including the Elvis song we danced to that we didn't goof off during (according to Bubbles, it's blasphemous to goof off to Elvis, so we just danced normally, comfortably, quietly).
I mean, it's not all goofieness with Bubbles, though I talk mostly about the weird shit he says and does. And while Saturday night was rife with silliness, Sunday afternoon we were a bit more serious. B. needed to go study for her exam and Bubbles and I spent the afternoon together. We walked to the Capitol building (about two miles from my house) and back, debating politics the whole way, even so far as having a heated argument under the rotunda. Because we argue -- boy do we argue. And it's not that we don't agree on things, it's just Bubbles loves to play Devil's advocate, and he's brilliantly convincing at it. He challanges consistancy in my views and I never come out of an argument with him without either reevaluating something I previously thought or arguing my position so valiantly and passionately that he relents before I become actually angry (which... happens, but only for short durations).
So it's hard to pick which aspect of our friendship I like the most -- the goofy part, or the part that challanges me as a person. But I think any good friendship I've had has both aspects -- all of my closest friends are people who can tolerate my unserious moods but who know that I do truly take things seriously and to heart (see also: Pineapple). And while Bubbles will rattle my cage from time to time for fun (because, as he says, I take things so seriously), I know he really looks out for me, and he's proved this. I hope we're friends for a long time. I can't imagine a Bubbles-free life.
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I have other things to say about life in general, but the hour looms late and I have to be up by quarter-to-six. Argh.
Farmers market. Clean. Pack. Clean. CLEAN. PACK. CLEAN! Snooze comes over! Strawberries! Reisling! Baguette and goat cheese!
My livingroom is a governor sanctioned Disaster Area. Someone is supposed to be coming to get the furniture that the Dwarf Star doesn't want to "deal with" when he gets back (he left already to visit his family and he moves out after I move out) so the couch and loveseat are out in the middle of the floor READY TO BE TAKEN, WHERE ARE YOU, GUY WHO IS SUPPOSED TO TAKE THEM? Laundry is folded all over the place but smells really nice. Lavander! Don't get me started on the Dwarf Star's basement lair. He didn't clean it before he left and there are beer bottles all over the place from the last few times his girlfriend was over. Snooze peeked into the lair and said it looked like rehab waiting to happen. My bedroom is being dismantled. Picture frames everywhere. Boxes. On boxes. My cookingware is piled in the livingroom.
My kitchen, however, is spotless, because there is no way in hell I'm going to let fucking ants take over. You hear me, ants? You stay out of my kitchen or I will spray you with Clorox and set you on fire!*
The spider on the porch can stay, and I'm letting the squirrels have the basement.
*One time, Bubbles told me a story about how he was reading a book when he felt something on his neck. He swiped it off, and it was an ant, and he was so bizarrely pissed off that he grabbed a lighter and set the creature on fire. "And then I realized I've been living alone too long."
Me: Jerry Falwell died.
Dwarf Star: Hooray!
Me: You realize you just cheered a man's death.
Dwarf Star: As you do.
Me: Well, I'm gonna take a nap. Wake me up when it's Fred Phelps' turn. Then I'll cheer.
I woke up with my alarm, took my shower, put the coffee on and turned on the Today show while I wrote a quiz for my middle schoolers. The Dwarf Star shambled up the stairs, made himself an omlette, and joined me in the livingroom just in time to watch Meredith Vierra and Ann Curry sing karaoke.
"I'm glad I woke up this morning," he announced.
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In a weird discussion about kosher and non-kosher meet, the Dwarf Star rubbed the inside of his thigh and shouted, "This is where filet mignon comes from!"
I snorted with laughter. "I wish I had a video tape of that. It would have made good blackmail."
He stroked his inner thigh again and said, "Come and get my filet mignon. It's meaty and piping hot. Rarrr."
Easter weekend, my family went to dinner at the house of my mom's best friend from high school, who lives in the same city as my brother. Over dinner, I talked about my impending move and lamented the fact that I'd have to move my library again -- a back-breaking exercise. My mom's friend suggested that I buy a bunch of twine and pack the books in managable bundles. This struck me as an excellent idea, since in twined bundles of books would totally fit in the giant cavernous trunk of my car and NOT give my parents each their own personal stroke as we bring them up the stairs of my new place. Being done with my paper and halfway-through end-of-semester grading, I decided to dedicate some time getting started on this.
The good news is that I've bundled 11 bundles-worth of books -- two whole shelves!
The bad news is I have ten shelves.
Hmmph.
Well, at least my diningroom table has a buyer. That's one less thing to take with me...
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It was teacher appreciation day yesterday, and I got a mailbox full of cards from students and parents alike. Everyone said something heart-tuggingly sweet and wished me good luck on my move and made me briefly wonder why I was moving eight hours away. The Russian even gave me an orchid and a card that told me I was "AWESOME!" I read through all the cards and had a little cry and a little laugh and then I graded.
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Yesterday evening, the Dwarf Star and I were walking to our local liquor store to get fuel for a grading session. Along the way, a man called to us from the porch of the Fellowship house (I don't know what it fellowships). He looked a little roughed up. He told us he was just waiting for his brother to come along, but his brother wouldn't be along until morning, and he couldn't walk because he'd been jumped a few days earlier, and handing the Dwarf Star a wad of bills, asked if he would pick him up two half-pints of vodka and some chewing tobacco. Dwarf Star, good citizen, did this service. The dude was still on the porch this afternoon when I walked to campus, talking to another person. I guess his brother is running really late.
Well, Gilmore Girls is ending after seven seasons. I've only been watching the show for three years (after I moved here), but I did catch up on the whole show thanks to DVDs. I'm relieved, really -- it feels right that it's ending just as I move away from here. I didn't want an eighth season. No, what I wanted was a seasons 6 and 7 redo. That's right, erase the whole Rory drops out of Yale story arc, let Luke and Lorelai get married and create drama from that, and maybe not have Paris go batshit insane like she did. And No Christopher Except As Rory's Father. Man. I still kinda wanna beat the Palladino's with a tire iron or a lead pipe. Only not really.
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Yesterday was the last day of classes, so the Dwarf Star and I went out with another friend to get some drinks and watch the bar crawlers. We kept thinking we would try to make a night of it, but after a while, when the bar became crowded with shouting undergrads, we decided to leave. As we walked away, after I relayed the conversation that hemmed me in our booth while the Dwarf Star was paying the tab (to the effect of, "She's wearing a tube top!" "She always wears those tube tops!" "Shu-up! I don't always wear tube tops!"), I suddenly said, "Is it just me, or are we old balls?"
"No, we are."
Yeah.
I'm feeling a lot better today. I had a long talk about my frustration with my best friend, Pineapple, (which reinforced my excitement about moving), a talk with my advisor, a 45-minute run, and a productive afternoon working on a project. Heroes was new (and exciting!), and I went to bed early after finishing Chuck Klosterman's Killing Yourself To Live.
Now, don't get me wrong. I love the way Chuck Klosterman writes. He is probably the most engaging navel-gazer of our times, and he admits that what he is doing as he's writing is navel-gazing. I lamented about this to Pineapple -- Chuck Klosterman gets paid to essentially verbally masturbate and to admit that all he's doing is verbally masturbating and we still love him for it. He's living the dream. If I did what he did, I would just be called whiny and exhausting. Though, I admit, Chuck seems like the kind of person who, if I knew him personally, would ultimately exhaust me. Oh, we'd probably be friends, but he'd be the friend about whom I'd say, "Eh, let's not invite him out with us tonight. I'm Chucked-out." Entertaining under certain circumstances, probably involving various mind and mood altering substances, but I bet he's not always entertainig. His books are him at his best.
And this leads me to a thought -- I used to say living with the Dwarf Star is how I imagine it would be living with Chuck Klosterman. I mean, he sounds like him (nasally voice) and kinda looks like him -- blonde, thick glasses. He says "fuck" a lot and likes to rant. But he doesn't really exhaust me -- when he's in a bad mood, he tends to hole himself up in his room, same as I do. So I think living with the Dwarf Star is more like living with Sex, Drugs and Cocoapuffs. Almost always amusing, some parts I don't necessarily agree with, some parts I totally agree with, and some parts I find interesting nonetheless. At his most entertaining, he's the chapter on the Sims. At his most cynical, he's the chapter about Fake Love.
I think comparing my relationship with my roommate to the book Sex, Drugs and Cocoapuffs is the kind of thing Chuck would enjoy heartily. He did compare all his relationships to the women he's loved to KISS.
I'm strongly considering walking to my gym. It's about two miles away from my house, and I usually drive, but my car is blocked in by the Dwarf Star's and he's still passed out downstairs. Plus, it's so nice out it would be a good idea to warm up with a two mile walk before I do whatever else. Hmm.
Thursday was the Decemberists concert with Tex. It was GREAT! Colin Meloy is so adorable, with his baby face and his big vocabulary. His "concert speak" was pretty hilarious, too -- he told us about a dream he had where one of the other band members told him they should sing a song about an Easter Bunny holding its heart on the outside of its body, and another band member saying, "We do write a lot of songs about gypsies." It was one of those concerts where the audience gets involved -- singing the "ladedas" on 16 Military Wives, and pretending to get swallowed by a whale during The Mariner's Revenge Song. After the concert, Tex and I got Chinese food and watched Upright Citizens Brigade. Ahh.
Friday night was the Dirty Hippie Party for another friend's birthday. Everyone got pretty drunk, including the Dwarf Star, who did a mock strip-tease to "Feed My Frankenstein," pretended he was Morrissey, serenaded his lovely housemate with a Tom Petty song, talked loudly about the musical he and I are writing (a biblical musical about the book of Jonah, the first song being "A Whale of a Tale") and set a small but controlled fire in the front yard. When the night was over for him, he shouted, "Bye everyone, I'm walking home now!" and, once outside the door, said, "Where do I live?" So I said goodbye also and ran after him. Lucky I did, because he first walked in the wrong direction and second missed the turn on our street. I have a feeling if I hadn't walked with him, he would have just passed out in someone's yard for the night. He didn't make it to his room, instead collapsing on the couch. I gave him an extra blanket from my room, left a glass of water and a bottle of asprin on the coffee table, and proceeded to drink a gallon of water -- did I mention I was drunk, too? But I was still "take care of myself and others" drunk. I managed to avoid a hangover, though, so woo-hoo!
I just counted. 37 days until I'm 25, 42 days until I move. And my mom's birthday is tomorrow.
I'm proud of this exchange:
Dwarf Star: How do you know if butter's gone bad?
Me: I think it starts to smell.
Dwarf Star: I'm serious here.
Me: Fine. You know your butter has gone bad if it starts sporting a bandana and gets a lot of tattoos.
In class, I overheard Click, of the Click and Clack twins, explaining to a little girl I call "Sparky Jr" (she sorta acts like how I think Sparky acted as a child) that woman teachers are only fun when we're young:
Click: Like, Mrs. [History Teacher] and Miss [yours truly], they're fun teachers. But, like, Ms. [Science Teacher] isn't fun.
Me: *wandering over* What makes you say this?
Click: You're young, you know? So you're really cool and we do fun stuff in class and play games.
Me: So what you're saying is, I'm a fun teacher because I'm still young?
Click: Yeah.
Me: But once I hit thirty or thirty-five, it's all over?
Click: *grinning* Yeah! That's just how it works.
Me: So I should look into a career change before that happens, huh?
Click: Probably, because you don't want to become boring.
This is true. I don't want to become boring. But I blog anyway.
