Saturday, May 15, 2010

My hat is to the back and my pants keep sagging...

I remember one of the first nights I ever spent in Santa Cruz. My friend, that I moved here with, and I had come out for a week to find a place to live and we stayed in a hostel on Beach Hill. Before we even got our stuff to our beds, we struck up a conversation with an older gent that was staying there as well. He told us some useful things about the area and how to get around. Just as we were heading in our room, he called out to us, "Oh, and there's a hot tub around the corner. You can wear your swim suit if you want."

I was confused. Well duh, it's not like I'd wear regular clothes in a hot tub. "What else would we wear?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Like, naked?"

"Indeed."

When we got in the room, I expressed my disbelief to my friend. "Dude, I am so glad that mother fucker told us that shit cause if I did find out about the hot tub and went out there, and there was was a bunch of naked people hanging out in it, I don't think I could've covered up my shock. How are people just gonna be walking around naked? I like clothes way too much for that shit."

This is the moment I thought about years later when I was standing in the middle of the road with my drawstring pajama pants around my ankles with a clothes basket in one hand and my cat in the other. I had stayed at my boyfriend's house the night before and did my laundry there. Kitkat had tagged along as usual because I hated being away from her so I just dragged her everywhere I went. I had come home to get ready for work around 6:30 in the morning and as I walked across the street, completely loaded down, my pants fell to the ground. I looked around and even though it was already day light, there was nobody out of their house yet. At first, I tried to shuffle along with my pants around my ankles but I quickly started to trip. It was a very awkward situation and I couldn't quit laughing because I was imagining what I must look like standing there in the middle of the street with my pants around my ankles laughing incessantly.

Sheeeze! Someone missed a Kodak moment for sure but I figured if people could walk around, getting in hot tubs naked,what was the big deal if someone got a shot of my underwear. Since nobody was there to catch it on camera, this is just an idea of what I looked like. LOL


Saturday, May 8, 2010

Some Things Never Change

On my latest visit back to the Red States, I scored some shitty ass weed from a friend of a friend. Weed in the Carolina's and weed in Cali are two totally different things. (I thank God every day for bringing me to California - 'Land of good and plentiful Herb'.) I'll have to admit, I have become a weed snob and I am not apologizing for it. Some people like fine wine, well I love good bud.

I went to visit one of my best buddies who had also come home for a visit the same time I was in town. I went and picked him up and we headed into town for a Walmart run and on the way back to his house, I broke out a joint. "Hey Man. Let's smoke this shit before we get back to your house."

He looked very hesitant. "Oh, I don't know if I should. Ya know, I never really smoked weed unless I hung out with you. And I don't think I'll get high off a joint, I think I need to smoke out of a bong."

"Dude, quit being a poo boy and hit the fucking joint."

Twenty minutes later, I could have kicked myself for my persuasive ways. We'd already been sitting in the driveway for almost five minutes while he unsuccessfully tried to contain his howling laughter at nothing. Between giggles he managed to get out, "That must've been some really good shit cause I'm so fucking stoned...I can't believe how good I feel right now...Did I ever tell you I wish you were my sister?"

I was trying desperately to be authoritarian but was too tickled to keep a straight face. "You have got to get it together cause we can't sit in the driveway much longer. Your parents are gonna wonder what the hell we're doing out here. And if you go in there laughing like that, they're gonna know something's up."

Instantaneously, I felt like I was back in high school because he started trying to create an alibi. "Okay, so let's just say we went to the bar and took a bunch of shots and that's why we can't quit laughing...what kind of shots were we doing?"

We both laughed at his ridiculous lie. "That is so dumb. Why is getting all whiskeyed up and driving home any better than smoking a joint? Besides, we are almost forty fucking years old. Let's just go in, and if they ask why we're eating everything in the house and can't quit laughing, then we'll tell them we smoked a joint. What's the big deal?"

The laughter pursued before he spoke up. "That's even dumber. No way am I going in there and telling them I'm stoned. So here's what we're gonna do, I'm gonna go in and go straight back to the bathroom and if they try to talk to me, then I'm gonna pretend like I have to shit real bad. You come in and handle the small talk cause you've always been good at talking to them when you're stoned. And then, you grab the ice cream out of the freezer and meet me in my room and we can say we're just looking through old pictures and shit. Okay?"

Game went as planned. May the kid in us live forever!


Monday, May 3, 2010

Liberal Redneck?

I had gay friends before I moved to California, but when I first got to the paradise known as Santa Cruz, it seemed like almost every new friend I made for a while was homosexual. I've experienced stranger things in life and knowing there was going to be a much larger gay community in California, I brushed it off and thought about how celibacy wouldn't be the end of the world if I couldn't eventually find a single, straight man suitable of getting to know 'in the biblical sense'. I've never been big on the dating scene anyway so I really wasn't losing out on too much.

My first and best California friend to this day, is a hot gay guy. We worked together at my first job where I soon developed a crush on him before seeing him out at a bar and realizing we were both checking out the same guy. I was shocked but then I looked over and saw another girl we worked with and she was hugging another lady, and not in a just friend way. "Oh wow! Are they gay too?" I asked, still in shock about the first discovery.

"Yes, Redneck. That's why they're all hugged up on each other." Jay had already given me the nickname before, after a few conversations we'd had in the break room at work about the deep fried South. "Those are my housemates, just a house full of homos." 

It wasn't long before I became a fixture in the 'homo house'. We had fun times together and they loved hearing my hillbilly stories about four wheeling escapades and drinking whiskey with the boys and us beating the shit out of one another just for fun. Let's just say, we were all enlightened.

Gay Pride rolled around in the spring. I never had seen people celebrating being gay before but in Cali, these homos do it up right! Gay Pride was the buzz in the air and as it got closer, Jay, my new BFF, asked me, "So, what are you wearing to Gay Pride?" as if my attire was something I'd ever spent much time worrying about.

"Uuuummm, I'm not gay. I thought you had to be gay for that shit."

He laughed at me like he still does to this day. "I swear Redneck, I can't believe the shit that comes out of your mouth sometimes. You should have got out from under that rock a hell of a lot sooner."

Long story short, I went to Gay Pride, got ripped and the homos dressed me up in rainbow beads and bracelets and I had the time of my life. Does that make me a liberal redneck?

I've attached a picture from the Gay Pride parade (2009). That's my darling friend, George, holding up the "We're so gay!" sign. If you want to be yourself and not feel scrutinized for it, live in Cali!

One Love!