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++++++++++++

phone home

9/29/00
I can't believe what I'm about to say, but now it's too cold. I know, I know, for months all I've done is complain about being hot, sweaty and miserable and now I'm moaning because it's too cold. Can't there be a happy medium? I mean, it's gone form high 80's to the 50's in one week. My apt. I so freezing that I can't feel my fingers and have to warp up in a blanket to type. The freaky thing is that if I go in the hall of the apt. building it's like 10 degrees warmer and the same thing for outside. How can it be warmer outside than in an apartment? It's like "The Exorcist" or something, which I ended up seeing last weekend ("Almost Famous" too, which was entertaining, but certainly nothing special). I'm wondering if "The Exorcist" was re-released in the early 80's or something because I remember kids at school talking about it and this was before everyone had VCR's in their homes. I knew about all the scary parts even though my mom wouldn't let me see it in a million years. I don't think I've actually ever seen the movie the whole way through so it wasn't like I could compare the original version to the new one with extra footage. I think it's lost lots of its shock value. Things like heads twisting around and girls using words like cunt don't get much of a reaction these days. People were laughing at all the parts that were supposed to be horrendous. But everyone who's seen it, myself included, are completely creeped out by this new brief scene where Regan goes down the stairs backwards, sort of crab-walking, with blood running down her face. I don't know why, but it's really scary. My mom, the same woman who wouldn't let me see the thing years ago brought up this scene the other night on the phone. On an unrelated note, that mysterious fireplace smell is really coming from The Forest Pork Store up the street. I guess they're smoking dead pigs and it smells pretty darn good.

9/25/00
I've been getting so much junk mail in my inbox these days. I don't know what's going on. Like for every 8 new messages, only one will be from an actual person that I know. The other day I got this random one from someone called Aida with the subject line "I want to get more friend" and that was it, there wasn't any message once you clicked it. It gave me the willies for no good reason. I could certainly use more friend(s) too and took this as a twisted personal affront. What exactly was Aida trying to tell me? For the first time in eons, I was cold today. I walked in my apt. after being gone all weekend and it was chilly enough to start shutting windows and pull my slippers out of the closet. It's about time. I guess Fall officially started on fri. and it's finally kicking in. I got nervous when it was 86 degrees last week, like this summer was never going to end. Out of nowhere it's in the low 60's and I couldn't be happier. Perfect for sweaters or light jackets and you're still able to go bare legged or wear something cute like knee socks and not freeze. I have the sad feeling it will warm up since the news said something about this being unseasonably cold. This is the best time of year; the skies are clear and blue, the shadows are long and stretched out and leaves are starting to pile up on the sidewalks. Walking around my neighborhood the past couple of days I could smell fires or wood burning and it's really nice, but I can't figure it out since it's definitely not cool enough to be using fireplaces and I don't even know if the houses around here have fireplaces. It's a mystery smell, but a good one. For the past few weeks I kept walking by this trash pile strewn underneath the elevated subway tracks and noticed this "Craveo" plastic cup from White Castle. If you didn't know, I'm obsessed with the funny fake astrology, Craveology promotion they've been doing for I'm not sure how long. (Oh my God, you really need to check out the results of the White Castle Cook Off Contest. We're talking White Castle Pot Pie here. Just you wait and see what happens in 2001--I'm concocting a masterpiece a.s.a.p. ) I got turned onto it in early summer when they were giving "Cravies (Aries), the fry bearded ram" cups out with their combo meals and I couldn't believe how twisted the whole thing was. I mean, they really try hard to fit the word crave into places it just doesn't go. I personally like Craver for Cancer. I have to go at least once a month to see what sign they're doing and they never actually match up with correct astrology, but in Aug. they had the Craveo (Leo) cups, which was right and I got excited because it was my sign ("the cheeseburger chomping lion"-that's me!). I went on the last weekend in August to get these cups and it's always a gamble as to whether or not you'll get them. James and I usually go to the White Castle on Metropolitan Ave. in what is technically considered Williamsburg, but is really verging on the industrial, ghettoish no man's land before you get to Ridgewood and it's quaint and more suburban. But anyway, half the time the staff doesn't know what they're doing (I don't blame them, how seriously can you take a part time fast food job?) and it's always a game to see what the price will be for the sack of 8 cheeseburgers, 2 fries and 2 drinks combo. It has ranged from $7 something to near $11 and sometimes you'll get large fries, sometimes medium, sometimes a plain paper cup and sometimes the plastic Craveology ones. Well, on the last weekend of Aug. we got plain cups and I got all upset, especially since I saw other people sipping soda out of their Craveo cups so I made James go ask the guy at the counter what the deal was (I'm the world's biggest baby) and he said that you specifically had to ask for them, but since we already had our drinks James offered to buy extra drinks to get the cups (silly, I know, but I go nuts when I don't get something stupid like a fast food cup I want) and they guy just gave him one. So, I got one, but he didn't and it's irked me because now we won't both have complete collections and now they're on "Libracrave" and Craveo will never be seen again! So, every day I walked by this dirty Craveo cup in the trash heap I debated whether or not I should pick it up and take it home. And furthermore, would James really wanted a secondhand Craveo cup (I was going to wash it first)? Today I decided I would scrounge it out of the pile of rubble and as you may have expected, it wasn't there anymore! And whenever I can't have something it just makes me want it more. I couldn't believe it. There was a lesson to be learned here about pussyfooting and hemming and hawing and missed opportunities. I went about my business and tried to put the unfortunate incident out of my mind. A couple hours later I started heading home, but decided to take a different route because I wanted to go to the bank, the liquor store and to the deli to pick up a ready made salad because I was feeling too lazy to chop up lettuce and tomatoes and I was cutting through all sorts of streets I don't usually take and trying to walk slow and look around and take in all the new fall weather instead of barreling past moms with strollers and elderly folks with walkers like I normally do and I was seeing nice things like carefully crafted ghosts hung on stair railings (that's one god thing about living around lots of families, foreigners and senior citizens--they take their holidays seriously and really go to town with decorating). Then between the curb and a car tire I noticed a bit of white plastic sticking out that looked suspiciously like the side of a White Castle 32 oz. Cup! Oh dear God, my blood started racing as I got nearer. I couldn't stand the suspense of what sign the cup could be. Sure enough it was Craveo!! My prayers had been answered in a matter of hours and all was well with the world. I snatched it up with no hesitation. Never mind that the thing was sticky and filthy and full of leaves, feathers and assorted goopy chunks. It was mine. I think I'm learning that there's no such thing as a once in a lifetime opportunity. When your hopes are dashed and it seems like a losing battle, don't get mad. Just step back, reflect on the little things that really matter and you'll be rewarded down the road (literally).

9/21/00
Well, I've now been officially unemployed for two months and I'm not really as bothered as I should be. I'll probably never have another six free months like this for who knows how long, maybe never so I should really be savoring it, sorting things out, getting my act together etc. I'm a little nervousIn such a work-oriented city it's hard to enjoy perfecting the art of doing next to nothing. It looks odd or suspicious to have big gaps on your resume so of course I don't plan on sticking out my full six months, though I will admit that I'm not as motivated as I could be considering I'm making more doing nothing than I was working. Why would I not be picky as heck? I did not get that job I was talking about and the peculiar thing was that I saw it posted on a job website the day after they told me I didn't get it. This either means they offered it to the other person and she turned it down and they were forced to look again or else we were both so horrible and incompetent that they had to start over. It's irksome, but I don't think it was really for me anyway. I did wonder a bit if someone at the company read my characterization of the boring mommy types who work at women.com and this soured them on me. I would not doubt it because my site is on my resume and it was mentioned in passing, but I didn't really think anyone would take the time to actually sit down and wade through any of this drivel. Women.com can go to Hades for all I care. Now I've got more time to watch judge shows, paint my new Ikea table, and lift weights. I'm so not the exercising type, but I'm really getting into my daily gym routine. It was demented, but at my high school reunion they had this dumb collage thing they'd done with candid photos from various yearbooks 1987-90 and I was looking to see if I was included in any way and much to my dismay was one measly photo of me in gym class LIFTING WEIGHTS. I mean, of all the photos they could've dredged up. It was me at the bench press with my manly friend who everyone was convinced was a dyke (and I'm still convinced even though I haven't seen her since the early 90's and she was about to get married--to a man) Holly Bullock spotting me. I was sort of horrified. I hated gym, I would not be lifting weights if it wasn't required of me and this is how I'm remembered ten years later? I got a letter the other day from the Canadian Counsulate saying they had my passport so I guess that's good news. I'm also eagerly awaiting my stolen bag to be mailed to me since I'm curious as to what's left in it. (I do feel a little guilty since none of James's stuff has turned up at all, but that's probably because he had shiny new purchases and my crap was mostly personal and lame and got immediately tossed to the curb.) I know I was supposed to be concerned with my passport, but the three things that upset me the most were my make up, my scaredy kat necklace and a disposable camera with a photo of a raccoon popping out of a garbage can at this lighthouse in Montauk. It's so dumb because the camera was finished and for some reason James told me to pack it and we could develop it in Portland and I was like why not wait and do it when we get back to n.y. since it seemed pretty silly to tote a used up camera across the country, but I did it anyway because I'm easily influenced. If those damn Canadian junkies kept my camera with the raccoon photo, there's going to be hell to pay.

9/17/00
I don't really know much of anything, but I like to pretend that I do. Maybe it's sort of like that stereotype of how guys can't ask for directions. I never can ask questions because I don't like looking dumb or out of the loop, but then I'm always left unsatisfied and wondering. Like I think I know about music and though I was an obsessive record buyer in my teens, I haven't had much of a clue for like the past 10 years. Of course I know what I like and all that, but I just don't get all immersed and fixated like I used to. But anyway, there's this 70's song that I hear not that frequently and it's really good and I know I should know who it is, but I don't and fri. night they were playing it at this restaurant and anyone else just might ask who it was, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was already humiliated because James asked the waiter what was in the sauce on our mussels (tomatillos were the ingredient I couldn't pin down) and that's so stupid because who cares if you ask a question like that, but I certainly wasn't going to ask two dumb questions in one sitting. Luckily, the internet affords the socially retarded opportunities to research dumb questions in the privacy of their own homes. This morning I figured out the song in question is "Needles in the Camel's Eye" by Bryan Eno and that a version of it was on the "Velvet Goldmine" soundtrack, but since I never saw that movie I didn't know and the millions of people who did see it were all one up on me, but what can you do? You can't know everything. I used to think I was one of those people who knew stuff, but I'm obviously slipping. I'm so afraid I'm going to turn into some Cathy (i.e.bland middle class office lady) and this is just reinforcing it. Like I really need to get a job (even though I just got a "raise" from unemployment. It's insane, you do nothing but sit on your ass and they increase your weekly check. No wonder people get so outraged at welfare moms and the like) and the only places I can seem to get interviews at are pretty mainstream, boring type companies and I don't know why I should care because I get so irritated with "hip, cool" places and the people who work there. I don't want to be around people who think they're hot shit all day, but I'm scared of mommy types too. I've gone through two interviews at women.com and it's narrowed down to me and one other candidate and they're making a decision tues. and it would pay a chunk more than I've ever made (though still considerably less than anyone I know in n.y.) and part of my really wants the job and the other part is freaked out that I'll end up on a scary path of no return that's paved with pregnancy, diets and creating stronger marriages. I keep getting jobs where I have to be self-conscious and worry about things like sleeveless shirts (no one's ever said anything about tattoos, but it's just easier to cover them up and avoid any potential negative attention) or my foul mouth or that I live in a shit hole in Queens when all my coworkers would be living on the upper east side. But I would barf having to work with a bunch of people who are consumed with trends, name drop, live in lofts and know all the hot spots too. I guess this is why I've spent so many years working with spastics in libraries. It's so much easier to deal with bile-filled freaks who may snap at any given moment than to compete with average joes in the real world. I don't know who I'm trying to fool.

9/13/00
I've lost my keys so many times that I can't bear the thought of asking my landlord if she has an extra mail key. Luckily, Jessica had a spare set of my house keys, but the mail key is a problem. I lost my keys some time back and the landlord scolded me and they had to replace the whole lock and told me they couldn't do it again or it would break. I've been trying to figure out how to pick it since I have over a week's worth of mail in there including my unemployment check. But this afternoon I was heading out the door and spied the mailman up the street so I waited for him and got into my box. It's a good thing I did because there was a letter from the Vancouver police saying they had property of mine. It was dated the 6th and my stuff was stolen late on the 5th so it had been sitting in my mail for a while. I called and they said someone turned in a bag with "make up and papers" they found on the sidewalk. I didn't get any more detail than that. I'm pretty sure I can kiss my passport goodbye, I'm assuming my checkbook was in there since it's the only thing with my address on it (not that it matters anymore since I had to pay my bank some fee to put a stop on all those checks anyway), I'm hoping my necklace is still inside, but some freaky Canadian junkie is probably wearing it now. Oh well, at least I think I'm going to get my make up back. Call me superficial, but it makes me happy. As for James's stuff, I don't know, he didn't get any letter, but then, if they took our passports he wouldn't have any ID in his bag. It's still a mess sort of. Anyway, after returning from Canada we had two days left in Portland and we sort of just hung out. I met up with old friends and did things like eat greasy west coast burritos that you can't find here and got traumatized at what used to be Farrell's (I think it's called Portland Ice Cream Company now), but that was the point. My last night in town was my high school reunion and it was sort of a neutral affair. I didn't love or hate it. The best part about it was that my friend Jane's sister was the bartender so I got free drinks all night and therefore drank more than my fair share. The whole thing was pretty bland. The freaks and the dregs of humanity didn't show up and neither did any smart and/or successful types (all 2 or 3 of them) so I was left with jock types and semi popular girls that I wasn't terribly close with in the first place and they're boring as an episode of "Big Brother." I hate to say it, but the cliche about everyone getting fat is all too true. I mean, I'm not petite, but I've only gone up one size since my teens. These girls went from like size 2's to...god knows what. Huge. Absolutely huge. The guys too. It was kind of creepy. The first person I saw when I walked in the door was Becky Cunningham the chunky Mormon I used to envy for all the sweets and Smurfs she seemed to have in abundance. I can't say that I envy her much anymore. We got a "memory book" and I wish I could reproduce it here. About 90% of all the female's photos are of themselves with their kids and/or husbands. For the "what have been the highlights since high school?" question about 99% listed having children, getting married and buying a house. Is something wrong with me?! And I don't even mean like one baby, I spoke with a handful of people who had four, many had ten year olds! And for jobs there were way too many homemakers (one "home management") for me to believe. I think second runners up were (part time) administrative assistants and teachers. Not that those aren't real jobs, but they're such typical nurturing, mommy-ish professions. Out of about 350 students, 251 still live in Oregon, most still in Gresham, but many, many more moved to even smaller, more rural towns in the state. Places like Eagle Creek, Rufus, Troutdale, Fairview...it's just weird to me. John Lopez, the now 300 pound former class president came around to all the tables to do his duties and was all excited that I live in N.Y. I guess he's a manager at Costco in Salem and while it doesn't really utilize his college education he's up to 4 weeks of vacation and is at the top of his pay scale so he's kind of stuck. It was like talking to my freakin' dad, minus the collage education part. Scary. So scary. He gave a speech and mentioned couples who'd married other alumni (four) and then made a big deal of people who'd moved away (five) and I got mentioned like you're an instant success if you can even manage to move more than 25 miles away from Gresham. The weird thing was that it turns out one other person lives in New York, my best friend from grade school, Rolanda Gaines. It figures really. She was the only black girl in all throughout school and her mom was one of those wealthy, career-minded, assertive types that hammered those you're a strong black woman notions into her head to the point where she was an obnoxious go-getter who had like 10 million extra curricular activities going on. I heard she got a full scholarship to Stanford. We weren't friends in high school, it could've had something to do with the fact that she was a cheerleader and had a debutante ball/coming out party, which for the 90's was just plain strange. I guess she does marketing for ESPN now. At least it's not home management, I suppose. I was outside smoking when Amber Wilson approached me and said, "I still remember the Barbie incident." I have absolutely no recollection of any incident involving dolls. It freaked me out. Amber Wilson used to get me into a lot of trouble. She wore lots of make up and was having sex in middle school and wore sexy baby doll pajamas when she spent the night at my house and my mom couldn't stand her and said she was "sneaky." I don't know why, but from 11-14 I hung out with the sluts. I was pretty skittish sex-wise, but looked old for my age, liked wearing make up (as you've heard) and they were never popular popular (due to their bad reputations) and neither was I (just because I wasn't) so somehow we always ended up together. The best part was when Amber said she had to leave early because she had to teach Sunday School the next morning. Oh, what has the world become? Even the two former goths that showed up were all boring. I was only semi-friends with them in high school even though I was wavey-goth, myself because I couldn't stay out late clubbing and didn't get heavy into drugs and got decent grades and they thought I was sort of a goody goody. But they were all bland and one had a 4 year old and the other is all into hiking and the outdoors and her photo she submitted was of her rowing a canoe. It was certainly an experience, but I'm not sure I learned much from it. Sunday we had to catch our plane at 2:30 with a connection to St. Louis, MO (there are no direct flights from n.y. to Portland). I was feeling good since I managed to pawn off the rental car with the busted lock and missing key (they gave us two) with no questions. We got on the plane and sat for a really long time. It was announced that there was a problem with the battery and they were trying to locate a mechanic. This went on for over an hour and at this point any hopes for making our connection flight were dashed. There weren't any other flights to n.y. that day and I was getting really pissed. After even more time they declared the plane "dead in the water" and made everyone get off. We waited for another hour in line and the two options presented to us were taking a later flight to St. Louis, spending the night and flying out the next morning. This would not do. I'm an unemployed gal, but James had to work the next morning. It was fucked up. The other option was taking a Alaskan Airlines (we were on TWA. NEVER fly TWA) flight to LA and ending up in n.y at 6:00 am. We were supposed to be back at midnight sun, I was not happy, but we did this anyway. Well, they'd over sold the LA flight so we couldn't sit together and this pissed me off. We were on the same row, but on two separate sides both in the middle seat. A hefty middle aged German couple were occupying the aisle seats so I asked if they would switch with one of us so we could both sit with our parties and I got some nasty lecture from the woman on how she booked it that way, she always flies that way and that she wasn't moving. I assume she requests the aisle seat because she's an obese bitch who likes shoving her arms into the person in the middle's rib cage. If I even tried mouthing something across to James the couple would give me a nasty look, yet they yapped across the aisle the whole flight. I had a baby named Andrew in front of me who kept peeking over the chair the entire flight and everyone loved him and was getting out of their seats to play with him and the German bitch gave him her cookie his parents were all gloating over his precociousness and they didn't have seats together either, but since they had a baby and made a passive aggressive fuss the woman who was supposed to have their window seat was forced to move and sit next to me and acted all gracious and was happy to let Andrew have her window, and I got a stupid bible verse in my meal with pasta salad and a snickerdoodle (I may be a pig, but those are two foods I hate) and I'd bought a pack of cards to play on the plane now was forced to site alone and forgot my magazine in the rental car and some stupid couple had just gotten married on the plane so the pilot gave them champagne and made an announcement how their entire family was waiting for them in Fiji for their honeymoon (what a treat that must've been) and everyone chuckled and seemed so eager to get back to LA and I was going who knows how many miles out of my intended direction and I couldn't take it anymore and started bawling. Well, silently. No one saw me. I just sat there with a huge scowl and contemplated telling the German woman what a cunt I thought she was. Then I tried sleeping and the perky, seemingly concerned window woman started talking to me and creeped me out, her tone was like someone who was trying to recruit you for some religion. She kept asking personal questions and asked me if I was going to marry my boyfriend and it totally disturbed me, then she started talking about how she was a "raw foodist" and started overzealously explaining her lifestyle and since I'm stupid I acknowledged that I knew was raw foodists were about, which got her more excited and I guess she used to be part of the "Fat Gestapo" and her skin was all dry, but her raw food diet is surprisingly high in fat with all the nuts and avocados, but she's still skinny and now her skin is so soft. At first it was like a desert and oil kept poring out, but now it's balanced itself out. I got to watch the Emmy's in some airport sport's bar and drink $6.50 beers and eventually made it to n.y. the following morning. I basically lost an entire day. Sun. morning I was eating breakfast with my mom and the step dude and now it was mon. morning and I'd been doing nothing but sitting in planes and airports. NY is only 6 hours from Portland, you know. So, we were back, but guess what? Our luggage wasn't. It was lost. Not only had my other bag been stolen, but now all my remaining possessions were god knows where. I just about lost my shit for real this time. All I had to my name was a tiny purse with my wallet, a pack of cigarettes and birth control pills. This was pure evil and I was convinced someone had it out for me. We had to fill out all these forms go through all this rigmarole (how do you spell that?) just to leave empty handed. At this point I was so tired and after getting into Manhattan were still locked out of James's apt. We called a locksmith who said he's be there in 10 min. though in reality we sat outside for over an hour waiting. I really don't know if I'll be travelling again any time soon. It's not like I didn't have some fun during my trip, but it's hard to say if the good outweighed the bad. I was the one who made a big stink and wanted James to come with me to Portland and now he thinks the entire N.W. is hell on earth and I tend to agree. All those people who say, "oh you'll be back" are dead wrong. For all the headache that n.y. is, I experienced more torment in 8 days in the N.W. than in over 2 years here. Oh, I forgot to mention that we did get our luggage back. It got sent to St. Louis or who knows what and they had to deliver it to our homes late mon. night. There's a bright ending note for you.

9/12/00
I'm back in n.y. attempting my first sept. entry and I don't even know where to begin because there's been so much chaos in the past week and I don't want to bore you with pointless minutiae, but it's hard to refrain since I love petty detail. Let me see...I left for Portland on the 2nd, feeling pretty eager and confident that I was forgetting nothing (in fact I probably packed too much as most people do--there wasn't really a need to bring my checkbook, passport or 10 different eye shadows, but the problem that bringing unnecessary items posed will be explained later). Unfortunately, I only packed sleeveless shirts, summery skirts and sandals and neglected bringing a jacket since it was so hot and sweaty here. It's not as if I have been away from the n.w. for so long that I've forgotten their weather patterns, but I didn't expect to go from the high 80's to rainy mid 50's in a mere 24 hours. Needless to say, I was very cold during my vacation. But that was alright. It was just weird driving out to my mom's woodsy mobile home and having to actually turn on the heat and use heavy blankets the first week of sept. I got to see my cat and that was nice. James and I slept in my mom and Robert, the "step-dude's" bed and that was creepy. Sun. we visited my dad (the Mexican Hank Hill) and his wife Vicki (the fetus with a tight perm) and it wasn't horrible, sort of what was to be expected, some chit chat about bad health, jobs, cars and big cities (remember, these are the folks who warned me about the dangers of Chinatown). I got a $100 money order for my birthday, which I suppose I should be grateful for since I usually get no more than $40, but I really should've gotten this in my birthday month (July) wouldn't you think? (this too, will pose a problem later). He told me he mailed it weeks earlier, which obviously wasn't true. Mon. we did the Izzy's dinner with my mom, her husband and my grandma. I'd forgotten what a menace my grandma is. Honestly, like she's not right in the head. She's loud, wisecracking, and often borderline inappropriate (uh, sounds familiar, but I'm entertaining, dammit). When she visited n.y. last May she went to dinner with a bunch of my friends and kept bringing up how my Irish friend Rory was so hot and everyone kept joking how he was going to be my new grandpa. The only comment she had regarding James (we weren't dating at the time) was that "he knows how to speak to adults." I guess this stuck in his craw because now he's convinced that my grandma doesn't like him. I don't think that someone's grandma not thinking you're hot is insulting. But anyway, we realized her true dementia when she started talking about recently getting online and meeting "penpals" and how her screen name is TarBaby2000. I mean what the fuck is that about?! That's like the nuttiest thing I've heard. You can only imagine what sort of freaky guys must be writing someone with the name TarBaby, let alone the 2000 part which makes it even crazier. Ah...enough family. I did my daughterly duties the first two days and thought I'd just relax and have a good time the rest of the week. So tues. we headed up to Canada, the plan being to stay in Vancouver two nights and come back thurs. I hadn't been to British Columbia since I was 11, but had vague good memories, particularly of The Butchardt Gardens. (My other memory consists of me and my sister seeing this store with a cool Duran Duran poster in the window that we'd never seen before and totally spazzing out, but it was an 18 and older store so my mom told my dad to go in and buy it for us, but he wouldn't. His bashful morality really put a kink in our D2 collection.) I think I've talked about them before, how me and my sister were all wowed and wanted to marry Duran Duran there (not the whole band--she'd get Simon and I'd have John) and how in '97 I had planned to go with my boyfriend at the time and he pussied out and instead of saying he didn't want to go, broke up with me. (This break up was on Sept. 8 [Henry Thomas's birthday] and he suggested getting a drink at The Mallory, [I said no] which turned out being creepy since I found out later that's where he broke up with his last girlfriend. I attempted to get a drink there with James and my friend Todd on my first Sunday in Portland, but it was closed. We joked that maybe fri. [Sept. 8] would be a better day to go. Funny coincidence or not, I didn't want to risk going to the break up bar on that fated date.) I was determined to make a success of this Buchardt excursion (which did end up being the best day of the vacation really). We made it to Vancouver and checked into our B&B, The Penny Farthing Inn. I never considered myself the bread and breakfast type and with a name like Penny Farthing Inn I should've been warned, but we booked it ahead of time not really giving it much thought. It was all quaint and gross and our room was called "Abigail's Attic" and the key was some hunk of wood cut into a heart and covered with decorative folksy painting and there were heart pillows and Celine Dion cds and sherry in a decanter on a silver tray. Like my mom would shit herself over all the faux Victorian touches. There was some hand out about the place and how there were three cats, one named Hendrix (yes, after Jimmy) and how one plays the piano as we may have seen on TV, breakfast was to be served between 8:30 and 9:30 and I hate that kind of thing. What if I don't want to get up til 11:00 and don't want to talk to the other house guests? Whatever, so we thought we'd go shopping and see if we'd get good deals due to the exchange rates and check out this Chinatown night market that I'd been all excited about. I didn't end up buying much of anything, but we did go a little crazy at Lush (a Canadian-based store selling handmade soaps and cosmetics without being hippyish). I'd just gotten a bunch of Lush products for my birthday from my sister, but it didn't stop me from buying more. I think if you know if you can't get something in your own city then it seems more desirable. James never buys new clothes and kept hemming and hawing over these pants at Banana Republic, which were freakin' expensive even in Canadian money at $225 so we left and bought a pair of shoes instead and that was about it. We headed over to Chinatown, which was plain freaky. It was like nonexistent. I remember going as a kid and it's in all the guide books as the second largest in North America (I still can't figure out if N.Y. or S.F. is #1), but at 7:30 on a Tuesday it was completely dead, no restaurants were open, no one was on the streets and there wasn't any 6-midnight street market to be seen (I guess it's only on weekends). We were totally starving and I was gung ho on Asian food as I normally am so we parked on the corner of Main St. and since it seemed a touch sketchy put our stuff in the trunk (I'm the type who doesn't even lock doors usually) and found this nutty Vietnamese place Van Pho with a cute cow logo that was huge and all lit up with absolutely no patrons. I know New York is an exception and things are always going on, but this was a total ghost town by anyone's standards. We had a good time anyway eating pho filled with beef tendons and tripe and watching kareoke (I always spell that wrong) on a big screen TV. We flipped through our Vancouver guide book and noticed a paragraph about dangerous areas and laughed because the block we were on was like the worst in the city and I thought about Vicki's stupid warning about not going to Chinatown. Ha ha, but we weren't laughing when we got to our car and it had been busted into and all our stuff had been stolen. What cruel lesson was this?! Not to scoff at step moms who look like walking fetuses? Not to let your guard down in smaller cities because you think you're some cool, jaded New Yorker? Not to get excited and buy nice things because they'll be taken in less than an hour? They got practically everything. It was just so fucking stupid. We left our suitcases with clothes in the B&B, but brought our intermediate bags with us. The bags that had just about everything else in them--checkbooks, passports, my birthday money order (if my dad was normal and mailed it in July I would still have it), my Scaredy Kat nameplate necklace (which had sentimental value since it was a Valentine's present--when I found out it cost over $200 I got even more upset), our house keys, James's shoes, my phone book, the car keys (!), and ALL MY MAKEUP! Some people thought this was the silliest thing to be mad about, but I happen to like makeup (in fact, I think I have weird issues with make up and maybe this was supposed to be some learning experience. I've mentioned before how I have reoccurring dreams involving make up. I'm not beauty obsessed or overly fixated on my appearance so this has always been strange. The dreams tend to involve finding some ultimate item and then not being able to find it again. I know I'm not the only one who has these lost and found type of dreams. Lord only knows why for me the item is usually make up) and stupidly brought all my expensive stuff with me and had just bought a bunch of new things the week before, it was easily over $150 worth in my bag. All I can say is that it really sucked and a week later it still makes me really angry. Beyond physical items to replace, there's the hassle of things like no house keys (James had to spend over $200 yesterday to have his locks replaced, I had spare keys with a friend, but can't get into my mailbox), no phone book--I couldn't call anyone all week. We had to waste a bunch of vacation time dealing with police, the Canadian Consulate and banks. I won't even go into it because it's annoying and boring and it's not like we'll ever get our stuff back or be financially compensated in any way. But my favorite part was trying to get a hold of the police and there's absolutely no pay phones anywhere to be found, we eventually find a police station and they tell us to go and call from our hotel because we're going to be on hold for an hour since these things happen a hundred times a day and if we're standing around that long on a pay phone we're going to get stabbed in the back. I mean, what the fuck?! What kind of city is this? I thought New York was supposed to be dangerous. People just go around robbing and stabbing in Vancouver, B.C.? Anyway, then the B&B lady, Lyn with one N turned out to be a horrible cunt (I know people hate that word, but what can you do) and we forced ourselves out of bed bright and early to be good sociable houseguests and got downstairs and the table was empty and she was all, "It's about time you came down, I was about to throw your breakfast out" and was all nasty and after asking us what we planned on doing for the day (going to Victoria by ferry) said that it was too late and that we should've been on it by 7am (my ass). Then I realized that it was 10am and they hadn't set the clock right in our room and brought it to her attention as to explain why we'd missed breakfast and she was all "well, you should turn it back" and that was the final straw and we decided to just go to Victoria and stay there instead that night and get the hell out of Vancouver and never go back. Of course she threw a fuss and said she was going to charge us for that night anyway and it was all stupid like I guess Canadians think Americans are all rich (the police basically implied this, like it was our fault for going there on vacation and getting robbed) and I forget how the west coast is more casual so if you wear a suit and tie [not me, duh, James] you appear wealthy or something) because she made a comment to this effect. So, Vancouver was a nightmare. After not finding a place to stay in Buffalo during 4th of July we got suckered into some Holiday Inn discount club so we made a quick call and booked a room in Victoria. Holiday Inn saved the day once again. There's nothing finer than the uncultured bliss of a chain hotel. After we checked in everything was great. The Butchardt Gardens did not disappoint, they're sort of cheesy and Disney-esque with all the crazy lighting, fountains, fanfare and Japanese tourists, but still cool. We even ate dinner in the "fancy" restaurant being rich Americans and all we could afford the pricey meal. The next day we hit the Wal-Mart as we do in every city out of curiosity and to re-buy crap like Advil, a nose hair trimmer and various toiletries and only suffered a minor disappointment. James needed a Primatene inhaler and they only sell those with a prescription in B.C. and got scolded by the pharmacist. You can get codeine over the counter, but I guess bronchial inhalers are illegal. We spent the day doing touristy things like having tea, eating "Dickens Wings" at some pub, going to Miniature World, which was freakin' creepy (you can ignore all my other links, but don't miss this one. I'm serious) and going to another Lush and buying all the stuff that was stolen the night before. It makes you sick to your stomach paying money for all these things that you had in your possession 24 hours earlier that you never even got to use. Thurs. night we took a different ferry to Port Angeles, WA and thought we'd have a nice drive down highway 101 which I'm sure is pretty during the day, but it was rainy and dark and this thing twists and turns through a national forest and completely scared the shit out of me on top of making me car sick. After an hour we were still in the middle of nowhere and there weren't any other cars or houses and our gas was almost gone and I started to panic and it totally Blair Witch and then we started hearing this freaky noise that followed us for about 10 miles that sounded sort of like a motorcycle, but more like a mechanical chopping sound. It was really loud and if you opened the windows, it was all around, not coming from any particular direction. I kept waiting for a Sasquatch to come barreling out onto the highway, but the only real freak we saw was the Twin Peaks style gas station lady that we eventually found. We finally made it to I5, a real freeway, stopped at a Taco Bell so I could throw up in the parking lot and made it back to Portland around 3 am. Whew, I've almost had enough Canada to last me a lifetime. Since I've got to get up bright and early for a job interview tomorrow I will continue this oh so fascinating saga a little later.