Sunday, March 13, 2011

friend crushes

I am not going to have crushes on boys anymore because it's really painful, awkward and embarrassing, for my boyfriend, who I fabricated to make my crushes jealous. Crushes on boys just take up an unwarranted amount of my energy that should be focused on comedy and writing. So I'm over it. I have, however, recently developed this ability to have weird platonic friend crushes on girls I want to be friends with. Is that normal? Like I'll meet a really cool girl and be like "holy crap she's so fricking awesome, how many days do I have to wait before I call her? I don't want to seem needy. How many days do I have to wait before I give her this best friends forever heart necklace that is split in two so we can each have half?"

Sidenote, those necklaces were super popular in 5th grade so I got one and tried to give it to a girl and she did not want to be one half of a best friendship with me. My mom was like, just wear both necklaces, and that is how sadness starts.

Recently I was in New York and there's this girl who I had previously thought was cool. I got to spend an extra half hour talking to her and she was so amazingly kind and genuine and friendly and down to earth and awesome that I was overwhelmed with a platonic friend crush. How do you ask someone to be your friend? In grade school it's so easy. "Hey you're a kid, let's be friends!" When you're in high school it's like "I hate everything, do you hate everything? Hooray let's hate everything together!" When you're in college it's like "I'm drunk... Hi." How do you make friends as an adult? How do you ask someone to hang out as a friend? Maybe it's still the possible to form close personal bonds and I'm just too much of a scaredy cat pussey to do that. I don't know how to make friends anymore. I come across as desperate, needy, eager, retarded, emotionally unstable, and/or bitchy. Like yeah, I'm introverted, and that's okay. But do I need to be the kid who laughs loudly about holocaust jokes when everyone else is quiet? Why can't I just be shy and quiet, instead of the kid who mutters rapidly about suicide in a squeaky annoying voice? Who the heck wants to be friends with that?

Friend crushes are even harder than romantic crushes because you can't just start making out with someone to make them like you platonically. I've done that on dates before. "Well I guess we ran out of shit to talk about, let's do some liplocking." I guess there's a tip for daters out there, if you want to make out, fake poor conversational chemistry.

In Boston I had a slightly similar situation watching a comic. I was like "holy shit she's so hilarious and cool! I want to be her best friend!" After the show of course I overcomplimented her, shuffled awkwardly, put my foot in my mouth, acted retarded, and then stumbled away. At a comedy conference a writer said the best way to network is to just be friendly and nice and the person everyone likes at the party. That would totally get in the way of my saying stupid things and then running away to be alone and eat ice cream and hate myself in private. I'm introverted. I like people, but they exhaust the hell out of me. And I know there are people who would probably be willing to watch a movie or hang out and talk with me, but I do stand up every night and when I get a chance to be alone I revel in my alone time. And when I do get to get coffee with a girl, I feel like I'm interviewing her. I'm really awkward at smalltalk and the paperwork is ridiculous. Friend dates can be as uncomfortable as romantic dates. Just because you memorize someone's facebook profile doesn't mean you have any sort of preexisting report.

Making a new friend is a lot like going to a super amazing fun party. I hide in the bathroom throwing up to stave off crippling panic attacks.

You know you're lonely when you write friend pick up lines. Here's some I wrote! How do you like your eggs in the morning? I was just hoping we had something in common because I'm desperate to relate to someone. Did it hurt when you fell from the nondenominational afterlife nirvana-esque scenario? Please hang out with me.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

trying to study

"Hey, Brian how's it going?" Dean cheerfully said, flopping down on the common room couch. Brian sighed quietly as Dean and his three loud friends invaded what had a few minutes ago been a quiet relaxing area. The four boys popped open small cans of Raineer and turned on the television.
"Hi Dean," Brian said. "Hi.... guys." Sitting at the table behind piles of books and papers he tried to crawl back into the mindstate of concentration but it was like he had lost the key. His notes seemed scattered and he lost his place in the book.
“Dude so then Jennifer was like ‘what’s a keg stand’ and you know she was like totally wearing a skirt or some shit,” Dean said.
Brian put his head in his hands in exasperation.
“No way, a skirt?” Carl, one of his meathead friends echoed.
“Bro, I don’t know; I’m not a homo,” Dean said.
“Hey can you guys please try to keep it down?” Brian said.
“What’s up, Brian? Why you gotta be pissy? You on your period or something?” Dean asked.
“No. What? No, I’m sorry. I just have a test tomorrow so I’m trying to study.”
“Why you got these crazy mood swings? Did the shoe store sell out of shoes?” Dean said.
“Nice one!” Two of the frat brothers high fived each other.
“Did you take forever to get ready and then by the time you were ready the mall wasn’t open anymore?” Dean asked.
“Sorry I brought it up. Never mind. I didn't think it would have been that much to ask to just whisper in the common room or go somewhere else."
Dean laughed and said, "Yeah I'll whisper, into your pussey!"
"Just ignore me,” Brian said.
“Maybe he was on his way to the mall but his sense of direction was so bad he couldn’t find it,” Dean said.
“Ohhh shit, can’t do any shopping without a mall,” Carl said.
“Fine. I’ll go to the library,” Brian said. He stood up and began to gather his papers and notes and put them in his bag. He put his sweatshirt on.
“Sorry, Brian,” Dean said. “I didn’t know it was your time of the month.”
“Shut up, idiot,” Brian said.

Just then Brian felt something warm between his legs. He stood there glaring at his classmates with his books and bag in hand. Hot dampness began pooling on his inner thighs and Brian thought he was sweating from frustration. But the warmth and plethora of the swampy liquid surprised him. Less than a millisecond later a river of blood rushed down his thigh out the hole of his basketball shorts. Little droplets of blood splashed and splattered onto the floor between his feet, angrily spraying at first in a Jackson Pollack design and then pooling together in a smooth small pool of blood. His friends gaped at him in silent horror.

Embarrassed, Brian tugged on his now wet basketball shorts. The screams of his parents echoed silently in his head and he stared frozen at the mess on the floor. Demons snuck into his thought, clutching around any sort of positivity and squeezing and squelching any smile in his heart. Sharp pains cut through his chest. A dark shadow came over his vision, creeping into his thoughts and pushing him farther from the room, from his schoolwork, from his life. Tiny globs of blood clung to his sticky leg hair and shellacked his goosebumpy skin. The sludgy pond of blood continued to grow and ripple, edging out to almost touch his sneakers. Brian tried to move out of the way. It bulged and oozed more like a gel than a liquid. Its consistency held together like a solid but a stream of fresh liquid blood poured into it like red sludgy pudding or ghostbusters slime.

“What… the… fuck…” Dean gasped.

Brian’s face burned bright red, and as he blushed, the flood of period blood came more freely. He ducked his head and turned away from his acquaintances. He held his books to his chest, scrunched his shoulders into himself. As the blood rushed down his leg, equally warm and embarrassing tears began to pour from his eyes. He slowly walked out of the common room wordlessly, a trail of blood droplets falling to the ground beneath him in a bloody Hansel and Gretal breadcrumb river oozing after him as he left.