Misadventures of the Village Idiot #40

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated you all on my idiotic adventures. I haven’t done anything of particular significance anyway, and who wants to read the mundane details of somebody getting up to go Wal-Mart and an oil change every odd weekend? Not really that exciting.

Anyway, this weekend was Christmas weekend. I had four days off from work: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Sunday (unfortunately has no special significance other than being the Christian Sabbath). I technically did have to work on Christmas Eve but I went in so early so I could leave early and it was like I wasn’t even there. I got to work at 5 and was gone by 9.

I was prepared to spend a lonely holiday weekend because I started work so late in the year with my company that I didn’t have much leave time built up. As a result, I was unable to go back West as originally planned. I was thinking about doing a quick turnaround by the skyrocketing ticket prices made me change my mind. I’ve already given the airlines my money three times this year, and I wasn’t about to give them anymore. The last ticket price I saw was $1400. I may be ballin’, but that’s just a bit ridiculous.

SF saved me from holiday depression (har har) by randomly showing up at my house on Christmas Eve. She was in my area getting her hair done, and after tweeting me 14 times asking me if I was busy, she just appeared on my doorstep. I took pictures of her hair, then we went out to dinner and got some ice cream. We came back to my house to watch Gone With the Wind, a movie she had never seen before. I warned her about all the “darkie” jokes and the poor representation of black people in the film. With the 70th anniversary of the movie just last week, the movie has been in entertainment news. Some people still think it’s a great movie, but others think the movie should be reviled.

Okay, so my take on that is that the movie was filmed in 1939. Blacks weren’t highly regarded back then, sorry to say, but it is the sad truth. Secondly, the movie is set during and after the Civil War. We all know what the basic premise of the war was about. There’s really no denying these basic truths and to say that the movie should be burned at the stake for pointing out how ignorant people truly were is moronic. We know nowadays, since we’re all PC or whatever, white people don’t make films using the word “darkie” every other line. White people also try hard not to make films depicting black people in an idiotic way. No, black people make films depicting black people in an idiotic way.

Oh, God, let me turn away from that discussion because I promised myself that I would not turn every blog into a diatribe on black/white images.

At any rate, SF loved the film and I do too, even though I’d punch somebody if they called me a darkie. I love the film because Scarlet O’Hara was the quintessential bitch. I want to be just like her when I grow up, a woman who is absolutely ruthless in trying to get everything she’s always wanted. Only, I’ll be smarter than she was and won’t run off the one man who could put up with my dramatic, bitchy self, like she did.

SF wound up staying over my house until like 230, but I didn’t go to bed until almost 4Am because I suddenly got a case of Clean House Fits. I get into these moments where I have to obsessively clean everything. I started out by sweeping because I can’t stand dusty looking floors, next thing I know, I cleaned the bathroom, did laundry and started scrubbing the walls. Day by day I turn into my mother.

Le sigh.

Christmas Day, CC invited me to have dinner with her family. I greatly appreciated that. I may not celebrate Christmas in the way that everybody else does, but that doesn’t mean I want to sit in my house and stare at TV all day long. I’m annoyed to the core that Christians and their Christmas has the entire country on lockdown. I never noticed this before, but someone pointed out that this is the ONLY religious holiday that shuts down the entire country. Jews, Muslims and the various heathen groups don’t get the day off unless they so choose to use their leave or work directly for their religious organisations. But come Christmastime, the only place I can get dinner is the skanky Denny’s down the street. Why is that if this country is supposed to be the separation of church and state, or a place where all religions can practise freely, or not at all?

What are we non-Christians supposed to do? It kind of leaves us out in the dark, especially if you are unmarried with no children. What loser would be in a restaurant on Christmas Day by herself ? Normally, I wouldn’t even give a thought to it, but dining out while families are all in their Christmas joy seems to shine the big loser spotlight right on my forehead. Needless to say, I appreciate CC’s kindness in inviting me, because honestly, most of my friends do not even think about the single person they know whose family is far away, maybe it’s because this area is filled with people who have never left the area so it doesn’t occur to them that someone might not be from the area with no family around.

CC was even kind enough to warn me which dishes were pork-based so I wouldn’t have to grill the hostess or look like some diet freak. It’s very rude to refuse somebody’s food, or to ask them what’s in it, especially when they’ve so kindly offered to have you over. Since it was her grandmother, she asked so she could let me know on the side. That way I could fill my plate up with other things and not look like I was turning my nose up in someone else’s house.

Her family was very lively and fun, and I was glad to be somewhere. I’ve always liked her mother, who is very black power. I enjoy hearing her point of view on things, particuarly because she is older and has been there, done that. After her grandmother’s house, we went to visit her cousin’s house. I would have gone to the cinema afterwards, but it started raining and I didn’t feel like being on ice-slicked roads.

Saturday, I woke up and went to SF’s house so that we could go shopping, but the best laid plans. First of all, I was supposed to be over there early so we could take time and hit all the Boxing Day sales. Wrong. I got to her house at like 1 and then, true to form, we spent an hour bullshitting. For some reason when we get together, we do a lot of talking. Maybe it’s because we have opposing view points but a lot in common.

We did make it to Barefeet Shoes where we spent TWO HOURS shoe shopping. I think I tried on every shoe in the store. We were in there so long that I had to strip out of all my clothes practically. I was out from all that putting on and taking off. After we finally decided on shoes, then we just had to go look at their clothes, and then we tried on clothes for about 30 minutes. Five pairs of shoes and about $300 later, we finally left. We had dinner at the Butter Factory (as SF calls it) but we had to put the kibosh on our shopping spree because we were supposed to meet a friend in DC that night. I hate being late places, so I insisted that we get home to get dressed.

Saturday night saw us in DC at Layla’s Lounge. Even though we all know how I feel about hip hop joints, I wanted to go because I wanted to hang out with my new friend SWade. We keep saying we were gonna get up with each other but it was one thing after another and finally we were able to actually meet to hang out. It was her friends’ birthday event. I have to give the club a C-, which is more than I usually give hip hop clubs. The inside was very nice, and I liked the VIP section. WAY WAY better than the cramped VIP section at the Imperial in New York. The men were very attractive and I said to myself when I first got there, “I wanna dance with somebody!” and I never want to dance with anybody.

But I discovered that a lounge means, stand around and look cute. Awww. Nobody danced. I mentally prepared myself for the evening. To me, it is not the venue, but the company I keep. I like SWade so I was okay with going there, knowing how I would feel. I wasn’t prepared for the fact that nobody was dancing, just hanging out staring at each other, making googly eyes. That was a huge turn off. They had a football game on and half the guys were watching the game! All these fine women in here!!! What is going on?

It was like some place where everybody gets dressed to kill and you parade around in front of each other just to get numbers. There were some nice looking dudes and then there were some busted dudes. I will never forget Q-bert, some guy with his dreads twisted into this thing. He looked like a Snork. Then Cat Woman was there in a latex striped catsuit like she had skinned the very last Burmese tiger. Or the girl in a dressed that looked like toilet paper. It was very bizarre, but I guess that’s what the DC scene is all about.

Since I was so pumped to dance, I even had on flat shoes and a flexible skirt, I became depressed and wanted to leave. SF was falling asleep anyway, so we decided to hit the road. I felt bad because I didn’t want SWade to think we were leaving because of her or her friends (her friend had some great legs, I need legs like that), and I didn’t want her to think I was leaving because I was in a black club. No, I knew I was going to a black club, but I really thought we were going to dance our lives away, sweat my wig up and scuff my new purple suede boots. I didn’t even feel uncomfortable, which made me even more depressed. Usually, I feel uncomfortable. That did not happen. SF and I ended up going to my goth club, where I did dance for about 15 minutes, but we arrived so late that the crowd had thinned. Poor SF was sleepwalking so we just called it a night.

Sunday, I did absolutely nothing of significance except pre-plan my outfits for Vegas. I kept saying I was going to go to the movies, but I never made it.

Here we are with Monday, and there are only three more days left in this whole year. 2009 has been excellent to me; I hope 2010 brings me to the same fortune, or even better.