Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat

First posted 7-16-07

"Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!"

- Fight Club

So weekends suck. I'm discovering this. I had a....shitty weekend, on the whole. Wait wait wait, before you run off from the terrible bitching and wailing that is sure to proceed, I have at least one strange and interesting moment to share. But you'll have to read through the bitching first. HA!

Yeah, something is up with my girlfriend. She's avoiding me. Why? Not a clue. We watched a movie two Saturdays past (we watch it over the phone, it was Young Frankenstain. She likes Robin Hood: Men in Tights so I've made her watch Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, i.e. GOOD Mel Brooks films). Ever since then, she hardly says a word to me each day. I've asked her what the problem is, she says nothing. But she keeps avoiding me. It's like she refuses to confront whatever the problem is. And, if you haven't figured it out by now, I am one paranoid fuck. My mind creates huge, overblown scenarios. In other words, I think too much. Which is why I think I need to become an alcoholic. I'll get to work on that. So I'm thinking that she wants to break up but doesn't have the courage to do so, or she's cheating on me, but in all probability she's just avoiding me cause she wants some space and doesn't want to tell me that. It's probably no where near as bad as my mind is making it to be. But, of course, I don't know. I need a hobby. Like alcoholism.

Anyways, the longer I've been in this relationship the more and more I learn things. Such as:

1. I know fuck all about women.
2. I know fuck all about women.
3. I know fuck all about people.
4. I know fuck all about women.
5. I think too much.
6. Cliches are simultaneously based in reality but terribly not cool
7. I know fuck all about women.

So yeah, stressed out all weekend about whatever the problem is. Which is unmanly, right? The man is supposed to be cool and aloof, the woman is supposed to be paranoid and worrying and over-analytical. I have to check every once in a while to make sure I still have a penis.

Wait....

Yup, still there, the little devil.

But anyways, aside from that, this weekend I went to a Bastille Day party. It was a real Bastille Day party (as opposed to all those fake ones you've been to). A post-doc in my lab is french. Actually from France, and so is her husband. She speaks in that french accent...yeah, totally hot. Anyways, they had people over for a "barbecue". There was "grilling". What was being grilled were kabobs. Of tofu. And turkey gizzards. There were "snacks". Bread with anchovie paste, or sardine paste, or goose-liver pate. They had liquors, pastis, other strange things (I nursed a normal looking beer throughout the night and had homemade peach ice cream at the end, not the rosewater and pistachio ice cream. I am a culinary coward). Not only was it a severely weird "barbecue" but there were tons of other nationalities. There was a guy from Romania, an italian, a guy from Portugal and several people from China. Strange and sundry languages were being tossed about over strange and sundry foods.

But it was the chineese that took the cake for the evening.

See, chineese people, as I learned, do not have an alcohol dehydrogenase. What this means is that they cannot hold their liquor. And there was liquor at the party. Things got...weird. First, there was the tiny little chineese woman. Who drank a bottle of hard cidar. And passed out on the ground. She was sitting in a chair, leaned over the back of the chair, then fell out of the chair. Her husband had to carry her indoors so she could throw up and fall asleep. After one bottle (aka, beer bottle size) of hard cidar.

I thought, hey, she was a tiny woman, not accustomed to drinking. That explains it. But no. Oh no. A little later, a chinese guy was standing with a couple other guys on a sloping driveway. I watch as he staggers violently backwards a few steps, then pauses. He seems to rally, then completely topples backwards into a bush. Fortunately it was against a fence so he stayed roughly upright. But yeah, completely out like a light. I think he had one, maybe two beers. Bam. Asians were dropping left and right. It was strange and hilarious at the same time. I was only drinking the one beer because I wasn't eating and had to drive, but I kind of felt that the gauntlet had been thrown down, that what I really needed to do was down several beers and hold my verticality as a champion of european stock that can hold their booze. In sort of a Raiders of the Lost Ark duel kind of thing.

Fortunately there was another guy that did it for me.

Also, not one, not two, but three people cut themselves with the same bread knife. It was cursed, I'm sure of it. It draws it's power from human blood. It was an evil sword of an ancient king that slew whole armies and conquered foreign lands, and only needs a few more blood sacrifices to regain it's former glory.

So if you see George W. walking around with a bread knife in his waistband, beware.

Budum bum. Yeah, Bush joke. I've hit bottom.

	Posted by Coyote @ 07/16/2007 07:03 PM PDT
	Understanding doesn't help I'm afraid. I've studied psychology (obsessively as is my way) and I could analyze everything my ex was doing and why she was doing it in a flash. Didn't help. Not one bit. I'm not going to try to give advice here because I am a broken bitter shell of a man and anything I say will likely be, y'know, bitter. I was going to berate you for leaving me for so long but the party story was awesome so I've decided not to berate but to instead hump shins. I need some asians and some beers. Stat!

	Posted by Bluejeangirl @ 07/16/2007 02:47 PM PDT
	I hear you about the figuring people out. I'm a firm believer in saying how you feel (constructively for the most part) and not torturing someone by making them guess what's bugging you. It's not just chicks though, I promise. Guys do it too. It's annoying and you could actually save so many wasted days and nights if you'd just learn to talk about it. If the person you're talking to doesn't agree or doesn't get what's bothering you, maybe that's telling you something. Of course, I say this after the majority of my adult life has been spent doing exactly the opposite. It's only been since I met and married my husband that I've learned that it's really okay to just say it. I wish you luck my friend.