Yes, I Now Have a Blog

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately and it’s given me the itch to write more often.  Previously, I had posted a bunch of stories – ranging from moderately funny to, well more than moderately funny – on myspace.  However, I pretty much despise that site now and only go on there if I have to link someone to one of the stories I wrote.  As a result, I just put the best stories on here (see below, and read from the bottom up for the best effect) and decided to keep on writing.  I plan on updating this with random thoughts, moments of hilarity and future stories.  At this point I would attempt to wow those of you unfamiliar with me with snide and witty commentary on any and all things, however the basketball game is on and I have to pack for my trip to NYC.  More soon…

The Perfect Storm

After Paul voiced his displeasure in the conclusion of the Roommate Chronicles, I racked my brain for a defining moment that accurately depicts the frustrations and humor (only upon reflection) of my track record of roommates. I managed to come up with one night. It was a night where all the elements came together and the planets aligned. There was: alcohol, urine, blacking out, alcohol sickness, Mexican food, more alcohol, bitchiness, girls and boxed wine. It was, as some scholars refer to it, The Perfect Storm.

It was the summer after my law school graduation. It was a time I was supposed to be dedicating to studying for the California bar. It was also a time that one of the my best friends, Yohance, had to move back in with his mom in order to help her with bills and save money himself. As a result, I was left living in an apartment with Jackie (a 20 year old girl from Texas with almost as many myspace friends as Forbidden and Tila Tequila….as I mentioned previously she’s a sweetheart though towards the end of our time living together we didn’t exactly see eye to eye). We needed a third roommate and Jackie had a friend in town, Jessica, who was in dire need of a place to stay. She seemed rather into herself but Jackie vouched for her and she had the money to pay, so, problem solved. Turns out that was a poor decision. For the next month and a half I doubt I have detested another person more that did not physically harm me or someone I care about. She was the epitome of all things I despise: fake, two-faced, bitchy, back-stabbing, selfish, self-conscious, self-aggrandizing and just plain fugly (though she was technically a “model” it should be a giant red flag to you as a “model” that in order for them to take pictures of you they have to transform you via makeup and camera tricks and editing to make you look nothing like…you). Below is my sister’s interpretation of Jessica following that night, courtesy of photoshop:

Jackie’s friends Becca and Anne were in town visiting and my sister Alice and her friend Sam were in town visiting and Bitchy McBitcherson still lived with us. For those scoring at home, that’s Clint……and 6 girls, only one of which was old enough to drink (Sam), according to laws I learned in law school.

Around 5 PM Alice and Sam talked me into taking the night off from bar studying and hanging out with them and Anne chimed in that she had been wanting to drink since she showed up a couple hours before so we all decided to play drinking games for most of the evening and then go to dinner. Apparently the drink of choice for Sam, and thus the rest of us, is Chillable Red (yes, that’s the type, like Merlot) boxed wine and she picks up 2 boxes, which equals 10 liters. After they got back with the alcohol and before we start playing, I was playing xbox 360 and Jessica discovered that i’ve de-friended her on myspace. Apparently this is on par with kicking her in the uterus and thus, supremely offended and bewildered she proceeded to call me out in front of everyone “ohmygodwhydidyoude-friendmethat’ssooooooooooserious”.

I dismissed her by saying something to the effect of, “I was mad at you.” However, this wasn’t sufficient and she wanted to know why and seemed to really want to break down my utter contempt for her in front of everyone. But, I didn’t want to start our evening of fun by verbally bitch-slapping Satan’s only daughter in our living room so I told her we’d deal with it later. Two minutes later as I sat down at the table to play our game, Anne came out of the bathroom in a panic as she had flooded the bathroom cause someone before her had clogged the toilet (with tissue, not poo) and neglected to tell her. One’s natural inclination would be to assume that either the person who flooded the bathroom or who clogged the toilet to cause said flood would volunteer to clean up or both. One would be an idiot in this situation because guess who’s job it was to clean the whole flooded bathroom floor with no one even putting their drink down to help?….Clinton. While I mopped up the floor with 4 towels and hung them up outside I had to listen to Jessica pretend-whisper to everyone with the subtlety of a jackhammer that I had de-friended her. Fortunately everyone else despised her so they didn’t pay attention.

So I finished cleaning the bathroom and we started drinking. During the next 2 and half hours we put away almost 10 liters of this fake ass grape juice wine and the following events took place: Anne passed out in 45 minutes, Jackie cancelled two dates and put 25 poker chips in her mouth, Becca got wine on her white pants and shirt, Alice almost passed out laughing 3 times and Sam spilled wine and salsa all over the table twice. Throughout the entirety of our drinking game, we also had to listen to Jessica alternate between trying to include herself in everything we did and telling us that she was too good for us and what we were doing was stupid.

Next, we decided to go to dinner and since none of us were in any shape to be conscious, let alone driving, we walked down the street to El Cholo. Jessica somehow managed to invite herself along, even though no one wanted her there and we had to suffer one casualty prior to leaving as Becca passed out on the couch before we could get out the door. On the way Jackie lifted up the back of her skirt to show her no-draws wearin ass at least twice, Jessica was still mumbling about me de-friending her, Anne couldn’t walk without holding on to me, and Alice was documenting all of this in pictures. At dinner at El Cholo, since we all OBVIOUSLY needed more to drink, Sam and I decided to order margaritas. Upon seeing that the waitress failed to ID both of us, my sister, next in line, decided to try and order one as well. This started a waterfall effect, concluding with Anne sounding more articulate and put together than she does sober and ordering a margarita. A feat that she capped off by almost falling face first into her water glass. After we all ordered, the waitress decided that now was a good time to ID everyone. However, Sam and I are the only ones actually old enough and Jackie has a shitty fake. But, as luck, or unluck based on the outcome, would have it, the waitress decided that if half of us were old enough then we all probably are and we all get drinks.

At dinner, Anne broke her water glass trying to pick it up, almost passed out in her food, drooled on herself and jessica yelled at her every time she said anything, which prompted Anne to shout back at her in slow motion (“HEY…..HEY…..SSSSHUT UP…..you shut up…..stop yelling….HEY….SSSHUT UP”). So, I got the check ASAP and paid for everything so we could get out of El Cholo before Anne threw up all over the table. We rushed out and sure enough we got right outside the door Anne started to gag. So I ran her across the street to some bushes and she threw up everywhere. I then decided that we weren’t even sober enough to walk back and put everyone but Sam and I in a cab.

20 minutes later we get home to find Jessica calling Becca a cunt because it appears that while we were gone Becca had stripped off all her clothes (when the girls returned her thong was on her head) and pissed herself and the entire rest of the living room. Guess who has to clean up the pissy living room even though Alice, Jackie, Anne, and Jessica have all been there for 15 minutes?…..Clinton. All they’ve managed to accomplish is Jackie and Anne passed out in Jackie’s room and locked the door, while Jess yelled at Becca and Alice tried to get them not to fight. So I went to Walgreen’s, got paper towels and cleaned up the whole living room. I then proceeded to calm down the partially clothed Becca, who wanted to fight Jessica, and I don’t blame her, for being a complete bitch and causing the whole situation to escalate.

Jess left, Alice passed out, Becca passed out and I was about to go to sleep on the couch (Alice and Sam have been sharing my bed) when Sam decided that she wanted to sleep on the couch and that I should share my bed with Alice. This leads to one and a half hours of her not leaving me alone until my sister woke up and told her to bring her ass to bed. However, in that time, Jess returned from whatever Hollywood-ish thing she went to and informed Sam and I that she got some job in San Diego for next weekend. We asked her what it was about and she replied “Oh I just basically have to go down there and look hot.” To which I replied (in my head), “Um, you can’t even do that here.” But eventually I got to pass out with no blanket (since Becca pissed on our last spare one) and no pillow (since Becca pissed on our last spare one) at 3 AM on a couch that may or may not have a little pee on the last cushion. Apparently this is what it’s really like to live with women, not at all like the fantasies men may have. A lot less bra and panties pillow fights and a lot more bitchiness and omnipresent urine. Good times…

The Roommate Chronicles, Vol. 3

Les moved in after the divorcee moved back to Salt Lake to try and salvage is failing marriage that was in the final stages of a divorce. Upon first impression, he seemed like a rather normal kid. He was social, nice, had similar tastes in sports, movies, music and so actually Les and I hit it off fairly well. He was much more prone to head to happy hour with me than Hance, who was working his ass off downtown and didn’t have the energy for stuff like that during the week. He actually introduced me to a girl a dated for a couple months (though admittedly it was kind of on accident – he was supposed to meet up with this girl he met on myspace and he dragged me along cause I had nothing better to do and she was bringing a friend….so we met up, he talked to the girl, I talked to the friend and halfway through the night the girls went to the bathroom and we looked at each other and said….”um….I like your girl better, let’s switch”….and so we did).

There were random things to adjust to when learning to live with someone new, but nothing that bothered me all that much – he would dip (chew tobacco), spend many Saturdays on the couch in a cocoon made of sheets with the TV blaring and managed to recycle the same joke about drinking out of a straw at LEAST every other time we went out as if I had never heard this marginally entertaining anecdote before which sounded like the staple joke of a failing comedian at a shitty comedy club (“you ever notice how you can’t look all hard and manly and drink out of a straw in the club….you be like…” at which point he would proceed to tongue down the entirety of his straw…har har). Les, who is black, grew up in whiteasfuck Fresno and seems to have adopted the majority of the white suburban mindstate, which isn’t necessarily bad, but particularly entertaining when contrasted with my friends, but especially me as he would constantly tell people that I was blacker than him.

About a couple months into Les’ residency in our apartment I was at home relaxing, studying and listening to music on Les’ entertainment system in the living room. Les arrived home from work, still in a suit and tie, almost busting at the seams from excitement. He informed me that he had an AMAZING new CD he had to play for me. As I like to stay up to date on most things related to music and amazingness in general I told him to go ahead. He proceeded to pop in, and crank up: 80’s rock ballads. It sounded like something one would purchase at 4 AM from TimeLife, if one was a complete moron with no taste and a great deal of expendable income; apparently Les was only 2 for 3 since he was always broke. I rolled my eyes as he geared up for a full performance. He started off just singing along to the song and getting roughly 68% of the words wrong. But clearly, that was enough to entertain an audience of 0 since I stopped paying attention and he began to dance. I got up, partially to get away from him and partially to find a witness to this train wreck, so I went down the hall to get a neighbor to come watch. While near the front door to the complex, I noticed a guy who looked strikingly similar to Debo from Friday, and let him in. He said he was looking to pick up some cable boxes from my apartment (Les had forgotten to return said boxes when he moved out of his last residence…..in West Hollywood…..MESSAGE). So I walked with him and my neighbor down to my place only to open the door to find Les in the living room. Tainted Love was set at a decibel level meant for peeling the paint off the walls and there was Les, clad in wrinkled white linen shorts that barely made it halfway down his thigh and an extra smedium polo shirt with the collar flipped up, with a huge grin on his face, doing the Carlton dance from Fresh Prince. Debo paused…..looked at Les…..looked at me and before he could say anything I offered….”don’t ask me man, we found him on craig’s list.” Les, seeing the look of disgust on this man’s face quickly disappeared into his room to find the cable boxes.

However, the weirdest thing about Les was that he was entirely uncomfortable with his sexual orientation, whatever it was. I certainly have no issue or discomfort with anyone because of their sexual orientation, but Les seemed to put his inner conflict in everyone’s face…….*pause*……yup, meant that figuratively and literally. Essentially EVERYONE, within 20 minutes of meeting Les was convinced he was gay. And Les, who insisted that he loves women and who craves attention like I presently crave food, would play it up, adding a lisp, tying up his shirt, getting not only near but inside your personal bubble (I realize that was fraught with double entendres as well). The thing about Les is initially I thought he was acting up for the audience, whenever people would come over he would do one of his shticks and get laughs when he was there and eye rolls and wtf?s when he left. However, this opinion of him soon evaporated because of acts like trying to hug or tackle Hance, who was significantly smaller than Les and Hance would try to fight him off as Les acted more and more effeminate…high comedy for me when I would hear what was going on in my room and walk out to see them wrestling. I also remember one time when I was napping on the couch and woke up to Les poking me in my ribs (WITH HIS FINGER) and I looked up to see him lying on the back of the couch. Barely awake and confused I was greeted with a “heeeeeeeey” which I promptly returned with a forearm shiver knocking Les on his ass behind the couch. And the worst display is the time he ran around the apartment in his red thong underwear, and nooooothing else, with just me and my girlfriend present. Question 1: why do you own a pair of red thong underwear? Question 2: I reiterate question 1. Question 3: I cannot stress question 1 enough. Question 4: Why?…..Just….why? If any of you readers need more evidence that this was a seriously confused individual, or if you just want to laugh…really really hard, check out Les’ music page. Yes, he made a music page, and yes, those are songs that he wrote and is singing: http://www.myspace.com/lessowilli 

All in all, (mo)Lester Williams III wasn’t THAT bad a guy. We could hang out, so long as there weren’t people willing to give him attention for being out of his fucking mind weird. But, Les was also very irresponsible with money and was always late on rent and bills (he managed to be so late on a phone bill in my name that he said he took care of that it went into collection) and to this day owes me several hundred dollars so we’re not exactly close….and by that I mean I want to punch him in the nose if I wasn’t positive he would try to sue me (he has told me that he would).

My roommates since Les left haven’t been that bad. I lived with a girl with amazing furniture and a TV that brought tears to my eyes (57″ HDTV) and a young kid who’s a ball boy for the Clippers. Both of them were nice enough, social people but just not ready to handle the responsibilities of living with others and not having things taken care of for them at least some of the time. Now I can say that I’m happily residing in a great spot where I pay less than my last place, it’s MUCH bigger, roommates are cool and responsible and there’s parking as far as the eye can see (*sidenote: FUCK meter maids and street cleaning*).

The Roommate Chronicles, Vol. 2

As I mentioned in the previous blog, my last two years at Pomona, as far as roommates were concerned, were great. Junior year I had my own place right down the hall from two of my best friends and senior year I had my own place that was big enough to house two, count em, two couches among other things. After pulling off an upset of NC-State over Houston in the ‘83 title game proportions by somehow getting into the UCLA School of Law, I spent the summer at home with my parents in Seattle. I worked an easy job, saved money and was able to secure an apartment in Santa Monica sight unseen. Everything about the place made perfect sense: great location, on a bus line to school, plenty of places to eat and shop in the area and living with two guys. One of the guys, Matt, was about to start law school with me and the other, Kraig (yes, with a K…..*sigh*), had just finished up law school at UCLA. I thought to myself, “wow self, great job apartment hunting…one guy to share in the experience of law school and another to bestow wisdom upon you…you are smart….and possess looks of the above average nature…..and are humble.” As it turns out I am a terrible judge of roommate character.

Matt was nice enough and harmless. He was clean, quiet and kept to himself a good deal of the time and on more than one occasion joined in the 1L-woe-is-me-law-school-is-hell pity parties I threw. Kraig, on the other hand, was one of the more unique and strange individuals I have ever met in my life. For some reason, the two occasions on which I spoke to Kraig on the phone prior to moving in he sounded perfectly normal, fun and a potentially good roommate. When I met him in person the phone version of Kraig was nowhere to be found. It was like seeing someone’s picture on myspace and being truly impressed and then meeting them in person and being severely underwhelmed by what is in front of you. You can tell it’s the same person but you can’t help but feel a bit betrayed.

I honestly don’t even know where to begin. Kraig was 25, fresh out of UCLA Law and had decided he didn’t want to practice; he wanted to go get a PhD in Anthropology in Chicago. He went to undergrad at Columbia where he was the Chair of the Young Republicans club (and yes, my fingers trembled just now writing that). Rush Limbaugh was one of his idols (one of my fingers is bleeding). He epitomized the proudly ignorant neo-cons and loved to engage in arguments with me where he refused to make sense and was quite content with himself for doing so (I’ll continue writing when I regain my vision)……..

Ok. All of the aforementioned qualities of Kraig simply made his viewpoints worlds away from mine and thusly rather obnoxious but that really wasn’t the issue with Kraig. He was painfully socially inept. I would describe him to people and they’d laugh and say “haha, oh Clint, everyone has weird roommates, stop whining” and then they’d meet him and look as if they’d seen a ghost. This was typically followed by a heartfelt hug and a shaking of the head. He was unable to communicate with people. At all. He couldn’t sit still and would often pace around the apartment while talking to me about anything that took longer than 45 seconds to discuss. He was rather OCD and on more than one occasion I came home at 3 AM to find him scrubbing and mopping the floor of our kitchen. He mumbled to himself quote often while racing in circles around the living room and seemed to somehow be on the losing end of all these arguments. The worst part though (yes, the worst is yet to come) is that he had a habit if getting right in your face while talking to you, saying something PAINfully UNfunny and laughing directly at you while his eyes searched you over for confirmation. Every time, from every person, this prompted an awkward forced laugh and a “Clint…..what the fuck is going on here?” look. There are two moments, which, to me, typify Kraig’s tenure in my Santa Monica apartment.

1. About a month into law school, I had made some good friends and decided to host a party. I had told everyone to start showing up at 10, which meant that no one would be there until at LEAST 10:30. However, there it was 9:45 and no one was there and Kraig decided that this warranted him mocking me for my unsuccessful party. “Way to go Clint, GREAT party…you should…you should be a party planner HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *pause*” I shuddered, shook my head and reminded him that normal people are typically not on time when it comes to house parties. Sure enough within an hour and a half, our apartment was full, with a good ratio of girls to guys and everyone was having a good time…..except the girls who got cornered by Kraig. A few of them were nice enough to talk to him for more than the 10 seconds it took me to introduce them. Unfortunately for them, this often led to him yelling laughter in their direction and making them feel about as comfortable as a person walking in on their parents having sex. I got more than one punch in the arm and “why the hell did you leave me over there?” At one point I looked over at our couch and there was Kraig seated in the middle, attempting to talk to three girls sitting on the same couch. Within 4 minutes these three girls had stacked themselves on top of one another on the arm of the couch in an attempt to get as far away from him as possible without actually getting up and leaving. Around 1:00 the party was in full swing and Kraig, who had apparently worn himself out pacing around the apartment prior to anyone’s arrival and dejected from his lack of success with the ladies decided he was going to go to bed. I wasn’t about to fight it and everyone breathed a sigh of relief once his door closed. 15 minutes later I got a call on the house phone requesting that we turn the music down as this person was trying to sleep. For months I had thought this was a neighbor making a perfectly reasonable request. No. It was Kraig. Calling our house phone from his cell phone. From his bedroom. To ask us to turn down the stereo, which was located no less than 4 feet away from his bedroom door.

2. I had been living with Kraig for almost a year and came home from a night of drinking at around 2 AM to find him drinking beers and watching TV by himself. I stumbled in, said hello, and drank a couple cups of water while I sat with Kraig and watched TV with him before wandering off to bed. An hour and a half later I was sound asleep and Kraig damn near broke my door in half.

Kraig: CLINT! Wake up…something’s……something’s not right…..I…I don’t feel good, you gotta take me to the hospital.
Me: Whoah….um….ok….what’s going on?
Kraig: Something’s wrong man, I don’t know what it is, I feel funny
Me: Are you drunk? Have you tried throwing up?
Kraig: No no no no…I gotta go to the hospital, get dressed, you’re driving me right now
Me: You do realize that there is an emergency room one block away right?
Kraig: No no no no…we gotta go to the UCLA hospital right now, get dressed

So I got out of bed, threw some clothes on and opened my door to see Kraig speedwalking through our living room and kitchen. I stood there, dazed by his lunacy, and just watched until he decided to park himself on the couch. He plopped himself down and, without even looking in my direction, stuck his hand out and said “get me some water.” In my head I was thinking “dude….you were just in the kitchen 7 times in the last 30 seconds why didn’t you get yourself some damn water then.” But I got his water for him and asked if he was ready to go. “Actually…..actually…..i think I’m starting to feel better.” To which I said, “um, what?” He downed the rest of the water and then started nodding to himself. “Yeah….yeah I think I’m fine now…..ok you can go back to bed.” Throughout this whole ordeal there was not nary one please or thank you, just the demands of a madman hopped up on beer and diet soda.

After Kraig moved out, my friend Yohance (who replaced Matt midway through Kraig’s tenure) went through a couple roommates. One was a no show from Chicago who screwed us out of two months rent and another was a misogynistic Mormon from Salt Lake. The latter, when not working, would sit on the couch, stuff his hand in his pants a la Al Bundy and mumble things like “mmmmm…look at the tits on her…mmmmm” It turned out that this guy was also married, but his wife wanted a divorce and in Utah there’s a 6 month waiting period so he left the state and moved in with us while the whole thing went through the appropriate process. However, Yohance and I were not done with the roommate drama since, immediately after the divorcee moved out we were graced with the presence of one Lester Williams III who will be the focus of the next (and last, I promise) Roommate Chronicle.

The Roommate Chronicles, Vol. 1

Upon reflection, my first roommates may have indeed been my best. Considering the fact that they bought me things, cooked for me and charged no rent in exchange for some household chores, my parents were pretty awesome roommates. Apparently the feeling was not mutual because as soon as I finished high school they paid large sums of money for me to live somewhere else. Of course they would get nostalgic and drop in and buy me a fan or a lamp (I love lamp) and take me out to dinner. For this reason and others, we remain close.

My first REAL roommate who wasn’t directly responsible for my presence on this planet was my freshman roommate Carlos. I forget Carlos’ last name but he sucked. I hold him directly responsible for ending my great roommates streak at 1 and beginning a new trend: Clint has awful awful roommates. If anyone who has lived with me in the past and isn’t named Jackie or Yohance or Eric is reading this, please ingest feces. But I’m getting sidetracked, let’s get back to Carlos and his terribleness.

Carlos started off seemingly harmless and somewhat quiet. None of the guys paid much attention to him but some of the girls in our hall liked him quite a bit (which may or may not have led to me mentally declaring war on Gretchen and her ass-crack, which I stuck a spoon in…more than once – to be fair this was warranted as she had an ass-crack the size of the Rio Grande and jeans which opened up to display said crack of ass when she sat cross legged in the middle of the hall….for four hours a day….every fucking day). What I remember most about Carlos from those first few months we lived together was that he was completely in love with his girlfriend and that he took hard classes, which apparently were a bit out of his league…of course at this point I was taking mediocre classes and struggling so he was ahead of me.

Around the second month it became readily apparent that Carlos was homesick and, luckily enough for him, his family and his girlfriend lived in LA. So Carlos began to drive home every weekend. This quickly turned into extended weekends even when holidays were not being observed (which was roughly never as I went to a private school and the only holidays we got off of school was MLK day, which was part of Christmas break anyways so it was totally fucking useless with regard to time off from class….by my senior year I was a bit more liberal when it came to the holidays I observed….Flag Day?….there’s no way I can go to class). This was fine for me, as I effectively had a single whenever Carlos got homesick. This quickly progressed into a more serious issue for him as he could not pry himself away from his girlfriend or family for more than a day at a time (or he was lazier than Jabba the Hut). He started missing weeks of school at a time, which again, for me was great.

The problem arose when he would return from being gone for weeks at a time and want to act like everything was normal. I felt like an NBA (or WNBA for that matter) player’s wife. He was on the road constantly and wanted to come back and act like nothing happened. Awkward silences operated as the soundtrack to our little charade and all the banter about classes and girlfriends and other stuff I pretended to care about months before I openly didn’t care about and it showed. I’m not really sure if this directly influenced his actions or not, but he became extremely territorial upon his returns. I had grown accustomed to having a single and he operated as if there was a line down the middle of the room dividing everything and exchanges like this were not uncommon:

Carlos: Clint?!
Me: Yeah?
Carlos: Is this yours?!
Me: Um….you mean that stapler? Yeah that’s mine….wh-
Carlos: -what the hell is it doing on my desk?!
Me: Easy turbo, reign in your exclamation points, it’s just a stapler…
Carlos: That’s not the point, this area is MINE, whether I choose to be here or not, I AM paying for it……!!!!!
Me: Riiiiight, but you’re nevereverever here so pardon me all over the place if I set it on your desk one day…

Somehow this exchange, when repeated 20+ times, led Carlos to take it as a personal attack on him, his family and his race (don’t jump to conclusions, Carlos was not Latino……..he was Mexican…..i’ve seen a shirt that informed me that these two things are drastically different). In any event, Carlos took my lack of understanding when it came to his need to go home constantly and skip class as a lack of understanding of his culture, his heritage and his race. In my defense I just thought he was a terrible fucking student and a shitty roommate and I wanted my single back. This continued into the second semester when Carlos took February off and wasn’t seen again after mid-March. Carlos spottings became the talk of the hallway and worthy of spreads in US Weekly (“I’m pretty sure I saw him heading toward the math and science building in late April but I can’t be sure…”, “I heard he was at the dining hall in February but my source isn’t 100% reliable.”). I had people coming by laying dibs on his belongings, including a wonderful Voltron action figure that I should have taken myself.

Carlos wasn’t the worst roommate I’ve had by far as he was gone so often that he was typically a non-issue. But when he was around, especially second semester, it was like being forced to live with an ex that cheated on you. I avoided my room and complained about his presence constantly. But soon freshman year ended and it was on to living with Eric.

Eric was actually one of my better roommates. He and I were close friends throughout sophomore year and lived down the hall from our good friend Tyler, so it was a great setup. However, E was beyond anal when it came to cleanliness, which isn’t necessarily a bad quality to possess, especially among college-aged men. However, this prompted E to throw a glass of dirty ass water on Tyler for dropping a shred of lettuce on his side of the room (this time there was an actual line dividing our rooms) and refusing to pick it up. Ty was ready to fight and shoved him for this act and E, who was equally upset but still cognizant of the valuable possessions in the room, immediately ran out into the hallway and waited for Ty to join him so they could fight. Of course the whole exchange was thoroughly hilarious to me so I laughed at them until they realized how idiotic they were being….and then threw things at me. There were other things that bugged me about living with E (e.g. you would borrow $20.08 for a meal and hand him $20 at a later date and he would sit there and look at you like you handed him a turd sandwich and ask “Um…..where is the 8 cents?….”) but it had nothing to do with him as a roommate and these are qualities he has since abandoned and I still consider him a good friend.

I was fortunate enough to avoid any and all roommates for the rest of college and actually spent my senior year in a room the size of two rooms, which drew the envy of everyone and deservedly so. Sadly, nothing in college could prepare me for the roommate horrors I would soon face in the form of law school roommate Kraig Odabashian, whom you will learn about next time.

Clint Smokes for the First Time

Since my first year at Pomona College was taken up mostly by basketball and a long distance relationship, my sophomore year in college was really my first exposure to the real college partying lifestyle. *Note* the previous statement should be taken with a grain of salt considering I went to fucking Pomona College (enrollment: a whopping 1,600) where there were no fraternities or sororities, only 2 fake frats of guys who drank a lot together, one of which named themselves Kappa Delta, a national sorority…we are well aware of our nerdy status *End Note* I played a lot of drinking games (became very good at caps), took my first 8 oz. shot, had girls pull bottles of beer out of their pants and cleavage that they had smuggled into school sponsored parties and give them to me AND smoked weed for the first time.

I was living with my friend Eric and we lived right down the hall from our really good friend Tyler, who lived with a walking human asshole named Austin. All three of them smoked on the regular and had offered me and been turned down enough times to know that I didn’t smoke but still suggested it every once in a while. Thank you, D.A.R.E. One night before heading out for the evening we played a game of caps, where there really are no losers (either you win the actual game or get drunk or both), got thoroughly inebriated and decided it was time to go. For the three of them, a joint was entirely appropriate before our departure, so one was rolled and lit. They were smoking and enjoying themselves and so I said, lemme hit that (apparently D.A.R.E. didn’t cover peer nonpressure from people who appear to be enjoying themselves quite a bit while doing drugs). Me asking to smoke probably fucked them up more than the weed but it was puff puff pass, the joint was finished and we headed to the party.

To be honest, I didn’t feel anything and Eric and Ty explained to me that a lot of times when people smoke the first time or two it doesn’t hit them. What kinda fucked up logic is that? Your body builds up a tolerance so that weed fucks you up more? Then again this was likely the logic of a 34 year old pothead trying to get a 17 year old girl to try weed while the two of them hit under a blanket in his mom’s basement “you probably won’t even feel anything…” In any event, I felt nothing other than drunk and had a great time at the party. Afterwards, Eric and Ty decided enough was certainly not enough and more weed was indeed in order. They told me they were heading up to “Dan Tan”’s room, who was apparently one of the dealers on campus and I decided that given my newfound weed-smoking status, I should accompany them and smoke some more.

We walked in to DT’s place and it looked like a college weedsmoker’s room: tapestries all over the walls, fake rasta shit everywhere and the standard Bob Marley poster. Eric and Ty quickly explained the situation, that my weed cherry had been popped earlier that night and this prompted DT to unsheath Excalibur from under the sofa/futon. I’m not entirely sure (in fact the whole night was a blur, so I’m not even partially sure) if the bong’s name was Excalibur, but here are the facts: it was 6 feet long, one person had to hold it up while another lit it and a third smoked, I hit it 2-3 times. We must have smoked something with a name like Bubonic Plague or Grandfather (not Grandaddy) Time cause my lungs were so high that my soul inhaled. All I remember was sitting down on the sofuton and feeling it so deep in my chest that my kidneys coughed.

THIS PORTION OF THE EVENING IS NOTABLY ABSENT FROM ANY AND ALL RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PARTIES INVOLVED.

An hour and a half later I awoke in the hallway immediately outside my dorm room, on my stomach and crawling towards the bathroom at a pace that would rival a two toed sloth. Said bathroom was about 100 feet away from my room and it took me 2-3 minutes to crawl the equivalent of a couple steps. However, the combination of weed, alcohol and exhaustion caused me to pass out every couple minutes. So the whole process operated like crawl crawl, sleeeeeeeeep, crawl crawl, sleeeeeeeeep. I started to notice this trend and halfway down the hall requested that Eric, who was watching this whole train wreck in slow motion and laughing his ass off, bring me my pillow so that passing out was more comfortable. This periodic, drug induced narcolepsy was apparently not a battle I was fighting alone though as I learned once Eric brought me my pillow. It was at this point that he pointed out that Ty had been crawling down the hall along with me; a task that had started out as a way to mock me but soon became a struggle to stay awake and keep up with my frantic 3 feet per 5 minutes pace.

Upon reaching my destination I stood up, realized that after all that spinning in my head and discomfort in my stomach, I did not, in fact, have to puke. That half hour of crawling in anguish was all for naught and it took me all of 30 stumbling seconds to get back to my room. As soon as I walked in and greeted Eric with a grunt I laid down on my bed since I had had enough and needed to sleep. My eyes were closed for all of two seconds before the Earth stopped, and then started spinning in the opposite direction at a high rate of speed. It was as if somebody put my head on a turntable and hit play while my body stayed in place and it felt like my body was nailed to my bed but my head was floating around the entirety of my dorm room. I finally managed to open my eyes….”ERIC! WHAT DO I DO?!?!? Everything’s spinning sooooooooo bad.” To which he replied, “um, I dunno man…sit up and look at something.”

So I did. I managed to make it into my desk chair and shook my mouse to wake my computer from its screen saver. Of all the things I could have watched on my computer, (DVDs, video clips, Winamp visualizations) I settled on something operating at the same bandwidth as my brainwaves: my AIM News Ticker. It was in blue font on a black background, it was moving at about one word per 8 minutes and it was utterly FASCINATING. I didn’t move for the next 45 minutes as I watched the news pass by slower than I had been crawling earlier and by the time I rolled into bed, I had absolutely NO idea what it said.

The next morning I wasn’t really hungover, more than anything my head just felt really cloudy. Apparently the weed had picked off the best and the brightest of my brain cells as every question posed to me over the next two days caught me completely off guard.

Eric: Good morning man, how you feeling?
Me: …….WHAT?!
Eric: Haha, still a little drunk huh, you wanna get some breakfast and head to the pool later?
Me: ……wait, wait wait wait……..wait……what are you saying to me right now?…….the pool?…….what the hell does the pool have to do with food?……eating in the pool would be gross and probably not very hygienic…..wait WHAT?!

Since one of the things I pride myself on is being fairly witty I feel crippled on the days after I smoke and therefore generally avoid it. I’m pretty sure the last time I smoked I damn near disappeared in the couch before attempting to pass out on my bed. A task which was thwarted by my friend Tunji choosing the exact same place on the exact same bed as the best place to pass out, even though I was already occupying that space and have never been confused with being “petite”. But I will absolutely drink while you smoke and laugh my ass off at you, especially since I get funnier the higher you get.

Ow, My Pride

Several months ago, via the miracle that is my macbook pro, I had a videochat with a couple friends from high school.  In the process of rehashing old memories and whatnot, Kaite (my first really big crush and 8th grade girlfriend) and I reminisced about our first kiss. She was my first kiss period and apparently I was her first French kiss. It was truly a groundbreaking moment. However, since I was the oldest child and the only people I had to learn from about girls and whatnot were my dad (my mom begged him for months to send her a mushy letter when they were in college and he sent her a bag of oatmeal) and my mom (who begged for the aforementioned mushy letter and finds it terrifically endearing that my dad actually sent a bag of oatmeal) it wasn’t exactly ideal when one thinks of firsts or kisses or happiness in general.

Kaite and I had been “going out” – my mom used to say “going”, as in “who are you going with now” or “are you guys going together?” and it drove me insane – for a little over a month and I had decided that it was high time we kissed. However, since I lived out in the middle of no where and since it was Bumbefuck and well, since it was me, we couldn’t have just gone to the movies and kissed or at some party. No no, I have a tendency to do things thinking they are perfectly normal and then find out years later when I’m mentioning them off-hand that they decidedly were not. As a result, it was my bright idea to invite Kaite up to my house for the day with no real agenda (other than my plan to kiss her at some point) and I’m pretty sure that more than once my mom referred to the whole thing as a “play-date.” “Weren’t you in 8th grade, 13 years old and about to enter high school?” you ask…Yes…yes I was. I am a complete and utter dork.

We spent the better part of the afternoon playing board games with my sisters and jumping on our big trampoline. Now you understand why most of you reading this had your first kiss in grade school and mine took place just before high school. I had been thinking about it for a while and finally suggested that she and I go for a walk in the woods behind our house. We had about 4 acres (I actually have no idea how big an acre actually is and haven’t heard the term used since I left Oregon) of forest behind our house with trails zig-zagging all over the place. So I grabbed her hand and held it like middle-schoolers in relationships do (with each finger interlocked with hers) and trudged off into the forest.

We walked and talked for a while and in my head I kept thinking “you gotta find a place to stop or sit down or something so you can lean over and kiss her.” Clearly the hug-her-and-kiss-her-when-she-looks-up-at-you move wasn’t yet in my arsenal. Sadly, I never found such a place and cursed the trail I had chosen. As a result we ended up back at my house, hand in hand, still kissless. Chocolate milk was made and consumed, more board games were played and more frustration swelled (single entendre) within me at my inability to be the Rico Suave I had always pictured myself being when it came to women. Not one to be deterred by a completely awkward and unsuccessful stroll through the same woods that gave me poison ivy and made me look like the kid from Mask (the 1985 movie, I didn’t look like a green Jim Carrey), I decided I needed to give it another shot.

“Soooo, Kaite…..do you wanna go for…..another walk in the woods?…..”
“Um…yeah ok I guess”

I gave myself a mental high-five and this time made a much better decision as far as trails go. We walked for a couple minutes and found a good log to sit on and parked ourselves there with her on my left. At this point it felt as if all of nature had a meeting and came to the conclusion that if they made no noise and just stopped what they were doing, they might be able to make the situation a little more awkward. Result: success. In my head all I heard was crickets playing the 5th Symphony and I was fully expecting a tumbleweed to roll by as the time passed. If there was a way to sum up how it feels to be awkward, shy, embarrassed, anxious and nervous all at once that was me. The perfect storm was wreaking havoc on my internal organs and my internal monologue was going berserk.

“Just kiss her already…come on moron, do we have to examine the facts?….1. she’s come on 2, yes 2, walks in the woods with you…..2. she likes you, you know this…..3. you’ve known her forever, relax…4. She’s your GOTdamn girlfriend, kissing pretty much comes with the territory.”

Sadly, my motor skills didn’t see it the same way and every time a synapse fired in my brain telling my body to move, it may as well have been in Portuguese cause nothing happened except more awkwardness. As a result, and with me not saying anything at all, Kaite apparently felt the need to try to get the ball rolling.

“So…..who’s gonna do it?”
(“Just DO IT….come oooooooon!”)….”Um….do what?….”
“Make the first move….”
(“Say ME…….just say ME and then kiss her, come on you wuss”)….”Um…..”

At that point I’m not really not sure who moved first, it felt like we moved at the same time but I could very well have been reacting to her moving a little. In any event we kissed. It was the most glorious 3 seconds of my life up to that point. I had wondered for al long time what kissing would be like and I can remember thinking, “wow, this is great, I should do this more often.” Sadly, it was not to be as 3 seconds in Kaite pulled away, stood up and started laughing. And not in the cute, I like you, I’m happy we kissed giggle way. No. More in the hahahahaha that’s hilarious I’m laughing at you while staring into the depths of your soul type of way. Ow, my pride.

As it turns out Kaite was laughing at the hilarity of the situation, which I somehow missed completely. It was ridiculous to her that we had been such good friends for so long and dating for over a month and yet a little thing like a kiss had turned us into such strangers awkwardly stumbling around the familiarity of our friendship and to be fair, she was right. Yet as we strolled back to my house, her all smiles and laughing and me morose and devastated, all I could take away from the situation was that I was one of the worst kissers in recorded history. I mean, who gets laughed at by their first kiss? Not to mention the fact that there was no follow up kiss or anything. That’s it. Three seconds of wonderment and hours of laughter echoing through my ego.

To make matters worse, Kaite and I never kissed again. She actually dumped me and starting going out with my friend Andy and (lucky me) the three of us were all on the two week trip to Washington, D.C. together where I got to see them cuddle and make out the whole time. As a result, Kaite and I weren’t all that close for some time after that and so I wasn’t made aware that she was laughing at the situation, and not my kissing skills, for at least two years. Fortunately, and by that I mean unfortunately, during that period of time, affectionately referred to as “the drought” or “the awkward years,” I had not nary a girlfriend and thus no more awkward kissing moments to stress over. I eventually got over the whole mental block of kissing and am proud to say that I’m currently ranked in the top 75 Kissers in Los Angeles. However, that first kiss after Kaite (which came roughly 3 years later) was INCREDIBLY awkward. But that’s another story for another time.

Talons of Glory

I was a bit ambivelant about posting this story as i have no ill will towards the young lady involved and would feel bad if she took offense.  That being said, the circumstances and awkwardness that resulted from this date make it hard to deny as one of the funnier dates i know of and after much lobbying from some people who know the story, here it is.  Yes, i just might see you in hell.

PROLOGUE
Several years ago while in the midst of adjusting to the first year of law school and getting used to not being around my friends from Pomona as much as I would have liked and at the urging of a couple friends in law school i signed up for this thing called myspace.  This was prior to people “pimping” out their pages and engaging in other acts of foolishness.

*Sidenote* – Top 10 things that bug the shit out of me on myspace:
1. People with 3,872 images to load on their page……they have a whole section of your page already dedicated to pictures which is entitled the “view more pics” section…..the theory behind this being that if i wanted to see more pictures i would click on said link, these people have stripped me of my decision-making ability and it bugs me………not to mention the fact that it takes 12 years to load their page
2. People with 2 videos and 3 songs loaded and playing all at the same time….i either spend 7 minutes trying to locate all the culprits of the noise pollution on your page or i just leave………consequently i am not friends with these people.
3. People who put up celebrity pics as if they were their own and then thrown in one actual pic of them from 50 yards away in the dark with no flash on the camera…..do you really think i don’t know who vida guerra is?…..thefuckouttahere……
4. People who have color and font schemes with pictures in the background that make it impossible to read what they wrote about themselves…….ladies, i’m really trying to come up with something witty and inciteful to say to you but if i can’t read what you wrote i will be forced to compliment your ass cheeks hanging out of your shorts in 6 of your pictures…..neither of us want this so help me out
5. Ladies who throw up a scantily clad picture to attract attention and then attempt to lecture you about the objectification of women……either own the sexy you are advertising or take the pictures down
6. Guys, put your GOTdamn shirts back on………..and yes, some of this annoyance may be borne out of the fact that i don’t have a shirtless pic i feel like sharing with everyone….mostly because i don’t have the body for it
7. pEoPLe wHo RanDoMly uSE tHe SHifT bUTtoN…….you and i both know that it takes MORE effort to type like that and certainly does not make the sentence look better
8. Girls with webcams who act like they are not girls with webcams…….hmmmm let’s see you just sent me the same message word for word under the names BellaSexxxy, SexxxyBaby and BellaSexxxyBaby inviting me to “cHaT on aIM sumtyme LOLZ” SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUTUP
9. People on myspace who are under 20 and over 35, grow up or get younger
10. Anyone who has dedicated any time on their page to inform the masses about “haters”……e.g. “i luv the haterz cuz they want what i got”……”fuck the haterz i’m doin me”…….these people typically fall into two categories: (1) 24 year old obese women from watts with 4 kids who drive an ‘82 accord with spinners (the only people hating on them is the government and common sense) (2) spoiled twentysomething girls who “party like a rockstar” or claim to “rock out with my cock out” and have no responsibilities (i genuinely hate these people)
11. People with blogs and people who can’t properly execute a top ten list.

Back to the story.  In any event, i signed up for myspace and soon received instructions from my law school buddies that this was a good way to meet girls.  I was quick to point out that up until that point meeting girls over the internet was reserved for Russian mail order brides and 47 year old accountants named Norm Templeton.  Nonetheless they weren’t entirely wrong.  I tend to have a rough time approaching women in bars and clubs as in my head it always plays out as:

Me: Hi
Her: Oh….hi
Me: Yeah….so i thought you were hot from over there……so i’m over here now
Her: I see
Me:  Prolly shoulda thought through the next step after coming over here
Her:  Yeah…..why don’t you head back and over and give it another shot….this time try it with someone who isn’t…..me
Me:  Ok….good talk….

That, coupled with the fact that i hadn’t perfected the helloi’msomewhatwittyandfunnyandsmartandgreatinbedandyouwillprobablyfallinlovewithmewithin3months handshake yet prompted me to give the myspace thing a shot.  After all, this way i could see if i actually did want to go out with the girl BEFORE the date as opposed to coming to that realization after i dropped $50 on dinner.

So i met this girl on there.  We exchanged e-mails for the better part of a week and then started talking on AIM (a MUST in the transition from that random person on myspace i got a message from to that person i know) and after several days of putting the IM in PIMP we agreed to go to dinner.  This was in the days prior to me owning a car in LA and so she agreed to drive over and pick me up.

When she arrived i went out, gave her a hug, brought her in and showed her around the apartment but my roommates weren’t home so she didn’t meet them.  She was cute, not am i dreaming dear God is that Salma Hayek? fine but cute.  She said she was tired of driving as she’d been in traffic all day and asked me to drive her car to the restaurant.  Seemed a bit odd as she just met me but i’m trustworthy and to be honest it was like a ‘89 Ford Escort so i doubt she was all that concerned with any damage.

ACT I
We drove down to Benihana and they sat us at the grill right in the middle with a family of 4 on our left and two couples on our right.  So we’re sitting there talking, good conversation but i can tell she’s still a little shy.  After we order the waitress comes around and asks us if we’re cool eating with chopsticks or if we need a fork and my date says “oh, i need a fork.”  So i try to tease her a little, make her more comfortable, joking back and forth -

Me: “oh come on, you can’t use chopsticks?….it’s real easy”
Her: “nah, i really can’t, it’s ok…can i have a fork please?”
Me: “aw, you not coordinated enough?…come on i’ll show you, you just put this here and this here and do like this” *choppitychopsticks*
Her: “no, i mean like i really can’t, right there, i’m missing a finger”
Me: *thinks she just means she’s awkard*……….*pause*
Her: *holds up hand*
Me: *counts fingers*…..*only gets to 3*
Her: “see…”

Apparently she had a birth defect where she was only born with 3 fingers on each hand, thumb and index and middle.  There weren’t nubs for the others or anything she just had a skinny palm and 3/5 of a hand on both hands.  So I found out the same time the ENTIRE rest of the table found out and at that point she realized that she hadn’t told me this very important piece of information about her.  So I’m trying VERY hard not to stare and look horrified at the same time and i can tell she feels awkward now so i try to act like this isn’t some new shit to me and very unconvincingly muster up “oh….right….i forgot….?”  At this point she’s realized what a weird position she’s put me in so she immediately tries to make me feel more comfortable with the whole situation by making jokes and teasing herself and whatnot.  But I don’t know her that well and I can’t just join in with “haha, you’re deformed” but i can’t ignore her efforts to bring attention to it so I have to laugh awkwardly through the rest of dinner while she’s talking and try not to obsess about her 6 digits too much.

ACT II
We finished dinner and headed outside and it was November or December and very cold for LA (so probably in the high 50’s) outside so i put my jacket on and she busts out her gloves….3 fingered gloves.  Apparently she works at a middle school and proceeded to tell me -

Her: “all the kids always come up and ask me if i buy my gloves like this”
Me: “….oh…”
Her: “but obviously i don’t cause they don’t sell 3 fingered gloves….hee hee”
Me: “riiight, of course not….that’s gotta be…..frustrating?”
Her: “oh but it’s ok cause my mommy just buys regular gloves and cuts off the fingers and sews ‘em up”
Me: “…oh….well that’s nice of her….”
Her: “YUP!” *big grin*

ACT III
We’re right next to the promenade and we decide to walk around for a bit and we end up in Urban Outfitters and wander downstairs to where all the comfy cushions and everything are.  I lie down and close my eyes and attempt to comprehend what the fuck is going on and just as I’m deep in thought….*WHOP*…her 3 fingers land on my forearm in a eagle talon like manner.  I jumped so damn bad and managed to come up with  “oh, sorry, you snuck up on me” instead of the actual “holy fuck something just perched on my arm” thought that was running through my head.  So I drove us back to my place, gave her a hug and said good night and before I could get to my room she had already texted me telling me how she had a great time and wanted to see me again soon.  I talked to her a couple more times and made it pretty obvious that I wasn’t interested (and to be clear, the hand thing wasn’t the end-all be-all, she was cute, but not BAD, she was cool, but not DOPE, the hand thing may have nudged things one direction but it wasn’t the only reason.)

EPILOGUE
About a month ago my friend Sandy and I were getting brunch on Main St. in Santa Monica and we’re almost done when I hear some girl telling a story loud as hell about her running from something or something like that.  I look over and see the three fingered girl 20 feet away telling a story, biting her nails and gesturing wildly.  I immediately hide my face behind my hand and look at Sandy, who I had told this story to before.  I was like “that’s her….look over there.”  It takes her a second to notice but as soon as she does, Sandy, who isn’t the world’s quietest person and whispers about as effectively as a fog horn says “OHMYGOD!” and immediately covers her mouth.  She then decides that she has to call her best friend Chelsea immediately and the whole time i’m telling her “shut up….shut up…shut upshutupSHUTUP!…………..hang up the phone…hang up the phone….hangupthephoneHANGUPTHEPHONE!”  So I grab the phone and hang it up and bolt out the restaurant telling Sandy that I’ll just bring the car around.  Sandy gets to the car 10 minutes later and starts asking questions like “why is she biting her nails when she only has 3 fingers?  why is she bringing attention to it?  how do you think she gives a hand job?  do you think she gets a discount on manicures?”, etc. and I drive off…
THE END

Clint and Eric Go to Greece, Plan Poorly

In the fall of 2001 I was fortunate enough to be able to study abroad in Prague, yes I was there for 9/11 but that’s another story for another time and decidedly less humorous.  I chose that place primarily because it was the only English-speaking program Pomona offered that I had the grades for outside of Australia, which just seemed to be California’s nephew with accents.  It is to be noted that Prague was the only major European city that wasn’t bombed during the war and so all the amazing buildings had their original architecture in tact (one of the few tidbits I remember from my studies there, which I may have actually learned prior to leaving for Prague).  In any event Prague was amazing, it was cheap, had some of the best beer in the world, home to some of the hottest women on the planet outside of Brazil and it was central to all of Europe, so it served as a great travel launch point. 

The program I was in organized several trips to surrounding countries like Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, which were all amazing, and above all else the people in charge were organized and knew what they were doing so it made for a smooth trip every time.  I would find out later, much to my chagrin, that my trip planning style was very….not that.  When fall break rolled around, my friend Eric and I decided to plan our own trip and chose Greece as the destination.  Paris and Madrid were too trendy and expensive and we weren’t too crazy about the idea of venturing too far east as there’s a limited number of times you can convince some random person you are Canadian and that you’ve actually owned that flag on your backpack for more than a week.  So Greece it was. 

We planned initially on spending the first couple days in Athens and then heading out to some of the Greek Islands (Ios, Santarini, etc.) and so we booked our flight and reserved a room in a hostel in downtown Athens for the first two nights we were to be there.  Somehow we managed to overlook three important things involving our first night in Athens. 

1. Our flight got in late as hell and we ended up not clearing customs until about 12:30-1:00 AM
2. Athens’ airport is roughly 30 minutes outside of the city of Athens and with the buses running less frequently that late at night, we didn’t actually reach Athens until 1:30 or 2:00
3. The buses that drop people off in downtown Athens from the airport don’t drop people off anywhere near the hostel we had made a reservation at (I know it’s a writing faux pas to end a sentence with a preposition…..so I added this parenthetical….take that, grammar).

 
All of this added up to Eric and I being on the complete opposite side of an enormous European city at 2 AM with no ability to speak the language or guess at what signs meant because it was, quite literally, all Greek to us (that is either going to be received as painfully unfunny, or just blatantly corny enough to be hilarious…I rolled the dice).  We were tired as hell when we got off the bus, but after 45 minutes of wandering around looking for hostels with open rooms with no success I was ready to go sleep on the Parthenon.  Eric was (I would say is, but he’s gotten better with time) one of the more cheap people I’ve ever met and was horrified by the thought of paying double what we would be paying at a hostel for a hotel room, but eventually exhaustion got the best of him and we agreed to stay at the next hotel we stumbled into.  At around 2:30 or 3 AM Eric and I strolled into the lobby of what we thought was your average Greek hotel and walked up to the lady at the desk and asked for a room. 

Eric: Hi there, we’re exhausted, just got in from Prague, how much is a room?

Lady: For the whole night?

*Eric looks at me, looks back at her*

Eric: Um, yeeees.

*she looks at Eric and then at me and gave both of us a knowing nod and an “oooooh I get it” look came over her face* 

At this point I was walking around the lobby checking out the excessive use of neon and suede couches and wondering why Athens was stuck in the 70’s and Eric was too exhausted and concerned with the money we were about to spend to really process what she had just asked and told us at the same time about her establishment.  So after she had showered us with moderately disturbing anecdotes about her “lover-man” from America, we grabbed our stuff and headed upstairs to our room, which was at the end of the hall.  The room had more mirrors than I have moderately humorous analogous references in my stories (read: walls and walls of mirrors).  I might have thought something of it if I wasn’t so tired and somehow my brain managed to rationalize that hey, birthplace of Adonis, beauty, vanity….A+B+C…..carry the 2 = mirrors.  We also found ourselves sharing one queen sized bed and in order to fully amplify the awkwardness felt in the room we soon discovered that nearly 80% of the channels on the TV were porn.  And this wasn’t the skinemax-soft-core-a-girl-is-solving-a-mystery-and-engages-in-an-act-that-we’re-made-to-believe-is-sex-but-looks-more-like-overly-passionate-naked-dry-humping-porn.  This was we-don’t-need-a-damn-plot-dear-God-is-that-her-uterus-porn. 

I passed out very soon thereafter and stayed asleep as we Russells take great pride in our napping/sleeping ability (my dad once napped during a timeout one of my high school basketball games, which was caught on our game film and my coach noticed and made the team watch several times) but apparently Eric was constantly awoken by the sound of doors opening and closing and people coming and going in the hallway.  He relayed all this information to me and it was at this point that the gears started to turn and I allowed the possibility that this wasn’t just Greek culture to enter my head.  I don’t think any guy who considers himself “able” when it comes to the females wants to admit to himself that he spent the night in a whorehouse, but especially not when you spent the night in a whorehouse sharing the bed with a frugal, male study abroad student.  Thus, I decided to push such thoughts to the back of my mind for the moment.  Then, we went downstairs.  Lit with sunlight and looking at the lobby with well-rested eyes we realized that the signs were there all along.  Copious amounts of neon, velvet and suede all served as the cake to the proverbial icing of a blow up doll in the corner that neither of us had noticed the night before.  Austin Powers would have been truly jealous.

We spent a good portion of the day shaking our heads and laughing in between trips to the Parthenon (which was truly awesome) and other various bajillion year old landmarks.  However we came to the conclusion very quickly that Athens was really, really dirty and we had already seen most of what we wanted there in one day so we looked into heading out to the islands.  Not having a place to stay that night, nor one booked on Ios, our destination, we opted for the late night ferry that would drop us off in the morning and we could catch a nap on the way.

4 AM is technically the morning, but not entirely the time we anticipated arriving at Ios, especially given the layout of the island.  The ferrys dropped passengers off at the dock on one side of the island and it was a 10-20 minute drive uphill to get to the main town and another 10-20 minutes downhill to the other side of the island where we had read there was a good place to stay.  4 AM means no tram or bus is running and so it appeared we were walking up to town.  We finally made it up there a half hour or so later and the place seemed to be a complete ghost town.  All but a few lights were out and a majority of the this part of the island seemed to be built like a labrynth of buildings all connected with narrow, tall passageways.  As Eric and I were discussing what the hell we were gonna do now since we had no idea where the hostel was and no real way of finding out we heard some people speaking English………loudly…..and in a drunken manner.

Instantly we were on the hunt for these random loud drunken English speaking people as they were the key to a good night’s sleep……………or alcohol.  It took us a good 15 minutes to figure out where the hell these people were and after being suprised by random animals in the pitch black labrynth and damn near sharting myself i was ready to talk to these people, whoever they were.   So I made Eric knock on the door while I stood at the bottom of the steps.  The door swung open to reveal a very tan, very intoxicated man in his late 20s clad in only his boxers and looking like he had just endured a Class 4 tornado.

Eric: Hey man, we just - 
Drunken Greek: – You got the drugs?!
Eric:…..um…..no, we actually just landed down - 
DG: where are the drugs man?….did you bring em?
Eric: no no, no drugs we’re just wondering if you can tell us how to find a place to stay, we heard the English and wandered over…
DG: why don’t you have the drugs?……….it’s ok, come in come in…you’ll have a drink

Eric, not the type of person to turn down any kind of free alcohol shrugged and looked at me and said “ok” and followed DG into the house, who, in the process of welcoming us revealed that at least a third of his ass was hanging out the back of his boxers….somewhat of a trap door that was unable to close.  We followed DG through the apartment to the back patio where there were two guys and one girl, all apparently at the peak of an ecstasy high.  We introduced ourself and sat down, stone faced with the exception of our eyes which seemed to dart around relentlessly and scream out “whatthefuckisgoingonhere?!” every 8 seconds or so.  Two minutes later we were handed shots, and not ones to be rude, downed them.  The people on the patio were actually quite nice and we spent the next half hour or so til the sun came up, chatting about random things and playing “never have i ever” which i was under the impression was just a moderately entertaining game that middle schoolers in Oregon played but which apparently has some real fans on Ios.

Eric and I shared a cot that night in the middle of the living room and the next morning DG and the others walked with us down to the beach on the other side of the island and got us set up in a hostel where we could stay for about $5 a day 50-60 feet away from the beach.  DG also happened to be the bartender at the only bar still open on Ios, as peak tourist season had passed and most places packed up shop until the next spring. We had every intention of moving on to Santorini for a couple days but couldn’t pull ourselves away from Ios.

One of the days we were there, I had finished the book I was reading and was waiting for Eric to finish his so we could switch.  Not one to just sit on the beach and tan (mostly because my skin won’t allow it) I decided to go explore the hills to the east of the beach.  I was told I could see Santorini from there and felt like getting some exercise so i hiked on up.  I found a great spot on top of a rock which overlooked most of Ios and also allowed me to see Santorini off in the distance.  I sat there, peacefully thinking about life, existentialism and really hot women i’d like to be there with when i suddenly noticed some goats walking around below me.  Somehow i had missed the fact that in order to reach the rock on which i was sitting, i had to cross a fairly distinct pathway, which apparently served as these goats’ main walkway to take their kids (yes, a baby goat is indeed a kid) out to a field to eat and said pathway was a good 15 feet below me.  What started out as an “aw they’re kinda cute” admiration for these animals quickly turned into “um, i’m fairly uncomfortable now” once they took notice of and disdain for my presence.

The first mama goat crossed the path and got pretty much directly below me when she noticed me and froze.  She took what seemed like one step every half hour before her kids got restless and started headbutting her in the udders.  This situation repeated itself with every mother goat and her kids that passed in front of me as i got increasingly nervous and attempted to stay as still as possible.  This, however, was not the worst of it.  The mothers would certainly protect their kids but showed no intention of coming up the rocks to confront me, the male goats bringing up the rear of the herd were a different story.

Two males, one who looked to be the grandaddy of the herd, with horns that circled over 2-3 times and the other who seemed to be the up and coming young buck of the group took note of me and instead of pausing and continuing as the others had, they turned toward me and started pawing the ground.  At this point my liver karate chopped my kidneys and my heart and my stomach switched places and quite a few thoughts ran through my head.

“holy shit don’t tell me they’re coming up here”
“i’m not moving i’m not moving i’m not moving i wish i looked like a rock so they would go away”
“what if they do come up here?”
“could i beat up a goat?”
“if i beat up one of them, will the rest of them come after me?”
“would i punch it or kick it or just try to wrestle with it?”
“what if i beat up one of them and get away without the herd attacking, these goats are owned by a farmer, will he shoot me?”
“i can’t explain myself, i don’t speak the language”
“shitshitshitshitshit they’re coming up here”

It seemed like at this point that God had gotten a good laugh out of the situation and finally said “haha, ok that’s enough i was just fuckin with you” since two of the kids got a running start and headbutted the two males in the balls, real real hard.  This certainly drew their attention away from me and they ended up taking them over to the field to eat.  As soon as they were 100 yards away or so i bolted off the rock and ran most of the way back to the beach and started drinking immediately.  To this day I wonder what the hell i would have done had those goats decided to climb up that rock and defend their goatly honor.

We spent the next few days drinking (where i learned that red wine + coke = delicious), reading, relaxing, cliff diving, swimming and i actually spent enough time in the sun to move me out of the range of Powder-i’m-so-white-i’m-bending-spoons skin tone i had acquired the past few months in Prague before heading back to a few months of snow and cold in wonderful Eastern Europe.  If you ever get a chance to check out the Greek Island you have to go, i just emplore you to plan a little better than I did and by all means, avoid the goats.

The Goose Lady

Living in McMinnville certainly wasn’t all bad.  Having that small town community and support, especially when it came to sports was actually pretty nice and the country was beautiful.  However, the more I talk to people from other rural areas (which has happened maybe a total of 4 times in the last 7 years, but even so) and the more i reminisce with my sisters about where we used to live, the more i’m inclined to say that McMinnville was just downright weird.  Some random examples:

-Someone owned an actual liger (of Napoleon Dynamite fame)

-There was an old man named Mr. Cook who was completely obsessed about his lawn (just about as far in the opposite direction as you can go from my dad’s landscaping sensibilities) and made a 1 foot high roped off barrier to his lawn with signs that said “Keep Off The Grass” everywhere and he could often be seen outside cutting and manicuring his lawn with scissors, which prompted many elementary school and middle school kids to dare each other to run across his lawn…….my sister actually got “I stepped on Mr. Cook’s lawn” shirts made

-There was an annual carnival that took place in the summer that the whole town, and neighboring towns in the county would all come out for…..there were about 4 rides (a Tilt ‘a Whirl and some other spinny things and a mini-roller coaster) and it took up the whole 6 block area generously referred to as “downtown”……the name of the carnival: Turkey Rama

-There was a burger joint called Alf’s, which consistently claimed it had won the city’s “Best Burger” award on it’s little sign (the best burgers were actually at a place called Tommy’s where apparently there must have been an unwritten rule that you couldn’t come more than once a week unless you were over 70, it was like a retirement home in there)…but when you walked into Alf’s the entire left side of the restaurant was just a big ass monkey cage with 3-4 monkeys in it throwing poo at each other and the window that separated you from them

-They finally built a second middle school which was finished in time for me to go there in 7th grade (whose school colors were purple and teal) and built two gyms inside, except one of them was 2/3 the size of the other and made of carpet

There are plenty of others but that just gives you a taste of how odd this place was.  Aside from the guinea pig story there was one other defining moment of the odd countryness of where i grew up that i remember vividly to this day, the story of the Goose Lady.

My sisters and I initially called her the Goose Lady because she was fairly antisocial and had a lot of geese (creativity and originality apparently weren’t my thing back then).  She lived on the opposite side of the meadow from us out in the country and up until the night in question I had never met her.

This particular night Oregon was in the midst of some of the worst rains it had seen in a while (which is nothing like the “ohmygod it’s misting there’s no fucking way i’m going to class” bullshit here in LA).  It had rained all or part of 90+ days in a row, everything was flooding and all the creeks, including the one running down the middle of the meadow which separated us from the Goose Lady, had turned into small rivers.  My dad was away on business and my mom (who is a nurse midwife) was at the hospital late delivering a baby.  I was about 13-14 at the time and since it was about 10 at night my two younger sisters were already in bed.  I was on the phone, attempting to put the SMOOTH in “So, do you like My dOOrmaT/nice guy cHarm?” with a girl i had had a crush on for months but who had deposited me directly into the dreaded friend zone when i got a beep for call waiting.  I clicked over:

“Hello?”
“HELLO, IS THIS JIM RUSSELL?!”
“Um….no”
“WELL IS HE THERE?!”
“Noooo”
“IS ANN RUSSELL THERE THEN?!”
“Nope, sorry”
“WELL THEIR FUCKING DOG IS OVER HERE TERRORIZING MY GEESE AND IF YOU DON’T GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW AND TAKE CARE OF THIS I’M GONNA SHOOT THIS FUCKING DOG IN THE HEAD!!!”
*gasp*………”ok ok i’ll be right over”

Apparently i sounded so baritone and deep voiceded (read: grown and sexy) on the phone that the Goose Lady thought i was just a housesitter and that my family was out of town.  We had a Samoyed dog, which if you’ve never seen them are cute as all to be damned, fun, loving (all livestock aside) but are prone to wandering a bit.  On this night, he had wandered over to the Goose Lady’s place and started a harmless game of wrestling between his teeth and the geese’s necks.  So i told my sisters where i was headed, grabbed my coat and bolted out the front door.  I got all of ten steps onto the guinea pig shit ridden lawn before I spotted my dog trotting up to me with a smile on his face that happened to be laced with blood.  I threw his ass inside and for reasons that I’m not to sure about now decided to run over to the Goose Lady’s place regardless.

I jogged the whole half mile over there in a complete downpour and met the Goose Lady outside her front porch.  It was dark, I was tall, voice was still grown and sexy and so in her mind I was still this housesitter.  She proceeded to tell me how awful and inconsiderate my whole family was and went on and on.  Some people i’ve told this story to asked why i didn’t stick up for my family there.  Let’s remember the facts as i knew them at that point.  1. this lady had a gun….2. she had threatened to use said gun to end a life….3. she was obsessed with geese…..So: Gun + Willingness to use it + crazyasfuck = Middle school Clinton doesn’t say shit.

So after her diatribe about my family’s tendency to suck in life I asked her what she wanted me to do about the situation since the dog was already home.  She said:

“Well, all my geese are back in the barn except my favorite one, their stupid fucking dog chased her off.”
“Um…..ok?”
“She’s out there somewhere, you have to go find her”
*checks around to confirm that it is indeed 10:30, pitch black and we’re on flood watch near a river before turning back and giving her the what the fuck are you talking about face*
“You’re responsible for their dog and their dog chased off my baby, now go find her!”
“Ok fine, how do i find her, where is she?”
“She’s over near the creek (river) somewhere i think”
“Ok, is there some special goose whistle i need to use to get her to come out?”
“No, she’s really good, just call her name and she’ll come to you”
*revisits the what the fuck are you talking about face*
“Seriously, she comes when i call her all the time”
“Fine, what’s her name?”
“Gertrude”
“….”
“Here’s a flashlight, good luck”
So I headed out into the cold downpour shining my flashlight here and there looking for this motherflippin goose.  It took about 7 minutes before i was completely soaked and though I kept calling out GEEEEEEEEEEEERTRUUUUUUUUUUUUDE it was somewhat hard to hear over the roar of the water in the river next to me.  I spent the next 45 minutes walking back and forth up and down that damn meadow looking for Gertrude but to no avail.  However, I was hesitant to go back to the Goose Lady empty handed so I kept looking around.  Fortunately, around this time, my mom had arrived at home and found out from my sisters what was going on.  She immediately drove over to the Goose Lady’s house and banged on her door.  For those who don’t know, my mom is a very sweet, caring, social, non-confrontational woman, but as they say, don’t mess with a mother’s children.

“EXCUSE ME!?! I’m Ann Russell, I was told my son is over here”
“That’s your son?  Well yeah your stupid dog was over here attacking my geese so i called over to get someone to take care of the situation and find my geese”
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!!? Do you not realize that we are on a fucking flood watch here, and you have him out there in the pouring rain searching for a goose? HE COULD HAVE DROWNED!!!!”
“I know exactly how you feel, my baby’s out there too and I’m worried sick….”

It was at this point that I believe my mom was contemplating karate chopping this bitch in the trachea when I walked up, as I had seen the car pull up.  Instead, she grabbed the flashlight i was holding and threw it on the ground near the Goose Lady’s feet and told me to “GET IN THE CAR NOW!”

My mom relaxed a bit once i was home and dried off and it was confirmed I didn’t have pneumonia but that event turned our neighbor from That Weird Neighbor The Goose Lady to THAT FUCKING BITCH WITH THE GEESE….and occasionally we would throw rocks at her place when we walked by.