The Mysteries of Employment: 69 Reasons to Hire Me

          I suck at getting jobs. I mean, I am really, just… amazingly terrible at employment. Once hired, I’m great - I work hard, I don’t steal, I try like hell to get along with everyone, but the process of procuring a job is like trying to stay sober at a wedding: damn near impossible.

FREEEEEEEBBBBBIIIIIRRRRRDDDDDDD!!!!

I’ve currently been out of work for a few months now after the treeplanting season ended. That’s right! Treeplanting: my calling for a decade. A job where my flagrant disdain for authority and tendency to chain smoke, swear like a sailor and get high school drunk every few days is not only condoned but embraced and celebrated! What other job would require you to organize a Canada Day party complete with Viking ship, potato guns, and a fully functioning casino? What other job would see the purchase of two flats of beer and a carton of cigarettes as necessary provisions to get you through the work week? What other job would the interview consist of your future crewboss ensuring that as long as you promise not to quit, you’re hired.  Treeplanting, you disease-ridden, booze-soaked, leather-skinned, junkie of a mistress, I love you so.

That being said, I just couldn’t face it anymore. The last few treeplanting seasons have seen some of my closest friends pick up and move on with their lives, and not to say the new crop of planters aren’t swell and all, but the heart just went out of the whole enterprise. Gone were the cowboy days of recklessness, cheap beer, nicotine stained company vehicles and brown liquor – now there are designer drugs, safety committees, designated smoking areas and girls and boys showers. It just wasn’t worth the agony anymore.

So here I am, living in the city - wearing heels again, putting makeup on and trying like hell to remember to apply deodorant every day. I’m trying to start a new chapter, if you will, away from the manual labour and forgotten social mores – I need structure, and an apartment that I spend more than a week at a time in, and maybe a fucking dog! Yeah! I need a real life.

So, first thing is fucking first. Job.

Fuck.

Remember I was saying how I’m terrible at jobs? Yeah, well, that wasn’t me being charmingly self-deprecating, that was stone cold fact.

Worst job interviews I’ve ever had:

#3) I won’t mention the actual organizations I was being interviewed by, but I will say that this one was a very very snazzy hotel and I was seeking out a position as what they called a ‘Gold Concierge’, which essentially meant that I did whatever the richest guests asked of me. In my mind it would have entailed lots of disposing of bodies of unlucky escorts and scoring them copious amounts of blow, but in reality it was probably more along the lines of walking their toy poodles and scoring them tickets to Jersey Boys. Regardless, I really needed a job and was somewhat qualified, meaning I had wholeheartedly lied on my resume to make it seem that way. So they call me back and request a phone interview, which I agreed to and they set a date and time, which I immediately forgot.

I should mention that this was in 2004 – and the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators were going at it in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and Ottawa had just lost in game seven after Patrick Lalime, my one true love, played some of the worst hockey anyone had ever seen, and was subsequently traded, breaking my heart forever. The night this happened I was appropriately wasted in honour of my dear departed Sens, and may or may not have tried to drunkenly kick a smug Leafs fan in chest but just ended up tearing my jeans and giving myself a charley horse. I was so drunk/sad I wanted to pass out and never wake up, but unfortunately, bright and early at 8 a.m – ring a ding-ding: it’s your future calling. I blearily answered the phone and winced as the woman’s professional, clipped tone suspiciously asked what probably sounded like a pirate hooker if ‘Ms. Fletcher’ was there. Oh shit. I instantly realized what was happening and tried to pull my still drunk self together. She asked the usual vapid interview questions and I answered as best I could without sounding like I’d recently been lobotomized until we got to the age-old question: ‘Describe your greatest weakness’.

Now I have hated this question every single time I’ve been asked it, and I’ve never been able to come up with an answer that sounded legit. I understand how it’s supposed to be some sort of test to see if you can twist a weakness into sounding like a strength, like ‘I hate being late so I’m always 15 minutes early’ or ‘My blowjobs are sometimes too good’, but I have never, ever been able to come up with something I could say without looking and sounding like I was desperately making shit up. So this time around, my exhausted brain tapped out, and let the liquor answer instead:

“My greatest weakness has to be beards, cocaine, and guys who let their fingers do the talking, if you know what I mean…”

Ahem.

The silence that reverberated from the other end of the phone was deafening. I could feel wafts of cold air coming out of the receiver, and I realized how fucking stupid I had to be to think that this woman would find that answer at all funny. I tried to backpedal with some panicky laughter and a ‘I’m joking of course!’ but there was no way I was pulling out of that tailspin. She muttered something about 'deviants' and promptly hung up.

Honesty is not the best policy. 

#2) This particular interview was for an organization that made various ‘handmade’ cosmetics, such as soaps and lipgloss and shit. The job I had applied to wasn’t for actually making anything, just standing in the patchouli scented madness of their store and trying to trick people into buying an eleven-dollar bar of soap made of oatmeal and sand. I was, again, desperate for work and was ecstatic to get the call. I showed up at the interview, sober as a judge and freshly showered and everything and open the door and there are nine freshly showered, nervous looking women staring back at me.

A group interview.

I hadn’t heard of these monstrosities before and was instantly excited – were they going to get us to complete challenges or fight to the death until there was a sole surviving victor, like the Hunger Games? ‘Cause I’m not gonna lie to you, that’s kinda what my whole life has been leading up to. Unfortunately, no weapons appeared, but they did get us to sit around in a semi-circle like it was fucking story time and asked us to say our names and one thing that described ourselves. Because I arrived a little late I was first in line and because I’m a cynical, sarcastic, dead-inside husk of a person and detest these kind of namby-pamby, jovial, bullshit exercises, I answered that my name was Maddy and I was ‘kind of hungry’. Everyone laughed, but the interviewers wouldn’t let me get away that easily, ‘no, no, Maddy, what is one word that describes the real you, on the inside?’ My knuckles whitened and my eyes narrowed but I kept my voice upbeat: ‘ummm…’ Say something positive dammit! You need to eat this month! ‘…positive. I am positive’ –that I’m gonna slap someone before this interview is over. They blessedly moved on and I got to learn that my fellow tributes were ‘perky’, ‘silly’, ‘bubbly’, ‘zany’, ‘happy’, and honestly I stopped listening in fear of losing control of my fists. It’s not that these girls were bad people; it’s just the amount of bullshit in that room was reaching a critical mass and I seemed to be the only person affected by it. I took a deep breath and soldiered on.

The next few questions were along the same vein, ‘what’s your favourite colour’, ‘favourite movie’, ‘favourite band’. I lied for each one hoping to make myself seem like someone who these imbeciles would actually hire as opposed to the person I actually was. That is, until we got to the ‘when is your birthday’ question. I answered and they immediately followed up with ‘so what does that make you?’. I frowned and answered ‘twenty-two?’ and everyone laughed again. I was confused for a minute before I actually realized what they were asking. One of the interviewers explained anyways, ‘no, silly! What’s your star sign!’.

Colours and movies and bubbly and zany are one thing, I can understand if you’re trying to get to know people and aren’t imaginative enough to realize that my whole persona doesn’t hinge on the fact that I don’t mind turquoise and saw The Dark Knight in the theatre eleven times. But when you start making business decisions based on ancient bullshit about what the constellations were up to a thousand years before I was born that doesn’t even match up now, well… That’s too bitter of a pill for me to swallow. I awkwardly sat in silence for a few seconds before grabbing my purse and tearing the door open and slamming it behind me, leaving the remaining nine tributes in stunned silence. The odds were never in my favour.

#1) Now this interview was a tough one to get. It was for a high-end organic grocery store that had a smoothie and Panini bar and all that jazz. They sold agave nectar and hemp hearts and those copper bracelets that are supposed to magnetize your bones or something. It paid well and you didn’t have to wear a uniform, just a black shirt and a tiny apron, which I could live with. I also desperately needed a job. So I see they are hiring, and I get a friend of mine to drive me there and she waits in the car as I go hand in a resume. All of sudden, I get ushered to the back of the store where I’m handed a five-page long application. They hand me a pen and let me sit down in the office to fill it out. Horrified, I turn page after page and see questions like ‘define organic’, ‘describe six benefits of whole grains’, and ‘organic vs. GMO – discuss’.

Now, I knew that they would want me to know something about their products, and I did know a fair bit about organic farming, but I didn’t expect to write a fucking exam on the subject before I even got the job. You’re a grocery store, for fuck’s sake, not a lobbyist group! So I’m resigning myself to another job that is out of my reach, when I’m struck by a flash of genius - my friend, waiting in the car, she just got a smartphone! Now this is before the days where everyone over the age of two had a fucking smartphone, and I was still rocking the flip phone with the T9 texting and absolutely no way to surf the internet, but my friend most definitely could…she was probably watching cat videos on Youtube as I sat there. So I quickly texted her all the questions on the application and she googled them and sent me back abbreviated yet perfect answers. I must have looked like the goddamn rainman of organic food. I left the store feeling elated and smart and like there was no way I could lose. I got called in for an interview about five minutes after leaving and I was so smug I could barely contain it.

That changed when I actually got interviewed.

I figured they wouldn’t bother with the technical questions, since I’d already knocked those out of the park on the application, but the young hippy that was interviewing me did start asking about my attitude towards organic.  She asked if I tried to lead an organic lifestyle. I cringed inwardly at the magnitude of the lie I was about to tell: Of course I did, most definitely. She smiled and made a tick on her clipboard.

Now, I have to say that there is a demon inside me. Not your garden variety demon, mind you, not the one that makes you guzzle booze or take pills or get in fights, those aspects of my personality are embraced and make me the charming, rakish, scoundrel that everyone knows and loves. No, this demon, when encountered with people I find to be living or saying or demonstrating a lifestyle or idea or concept that I find to be obtuse, or vacuous, or ignorant, well, my particular demon forces me to tell them this. I have tried biting my tongue. I’ve tried placidly opening a civil dialogue; I’ve tried walking away, to no avail. I always say something. It always devolves into a fight. Every single time.

So when answering if I try to live my life organically, I should have said yes, and left it at that. But no… I quickly added, before the dread-headed manager could begin her next question: ‘when I can afford it’. She looked up from her clipboard, somewhat quizzically. I felt her silence urging me to continue. ‘Because it’s so expensive… compared to regular food.’ She put her pen down and smiled, ‘well, you get what you pay for,’ her voice had developed a slightly condescending tone which immediately got my hackles up, ‘and not only are you paying for a healthier lifestyle, but you’re paying to save the environment.’

This is when the floodgates opened. I felt myself leave my body and watched, floating above the scene, as this demon who was wearing my skin started spouting facts about how there are no studies giving credence to organic food being healthier and that because organic farms are less common and therefore not available everywhere, they have to ship the food farther, thus using more fossil fuels and creating more emissions, not to mention the fact that they use more pesticides and more land than conventional farming…

I returned to my body in time to hear the manager telling me to get the hell out.

I did not get that job.

I really, really, really need a job. And not just because I’m broke as all hell and beginning the sad spiral of not being able to afford to drink the pain away, but because if I don’t get a job, a real job, a job where I don’t wake up every morning screaming: I’ll go planting again. I don’t want to, but I can already feel it calling, and I’ve made certain promises to myself that I have to keep, no matter what.

So if anyone knows of an opening for an attractive, somewhat irrational, bad-tempered, alcoholic, smart ass with five incomplete university degrees, a license to operate a chainsaw, and who once got suspended in high school for ‘instigating revolution’, well, you know where to find me.

Being Kicked Out of Bars: An Artform

Things That Have Gotten Me Kicked Out of Bars:

• Phil Collins

Phil and I don’t know each other personally, but I’m familiar with his work, as I suspect he is familiar with mine, but hopefully Phil doesn’t view my hilarious thoughts on drunk texting with the same ire and outright revulsion that I have for his thoughts on writing outrageously shitty drum machine-fuelled aerobics music and then using made-up words as lyrics.

Seriously though... WHAT THE FUCK!?

So Phil and I disagree on some fundamental issues, like what qualifies as 'music' and what is just mechanical, synthesized, horseshit smeared onto a CD. But that being said, lots and lots of people LOVE Phil Collins and his work, and unfortunately it was one of these misguided aficionados that approached me one night at the bar after I'd just chosen a few songs on the jukebox. He told me he had loved the songs I'd picked and that I must be really cool. Now, I am forced to agree that I am, by far, the coolest, but this guy was definitely using this approach as some kind of pickup line, and I usually respond to them with differing forms of roundhouse kicks. As a pickup line, however, that really wasn't the worst I'd ever seen... but I once saw a guy dip his dick into a girl's pint and then say 'whaddayathink?' before being beaten to within an inch of his life by her and her six friends... so...

So, the guy with awesome taste in me seemed earnest enough so I smiled politely and thanked him for the compliment and started turning away but then he grabbed my shoulder and leaned in close and whispered/slurred: "Sssso I played this ssssong jussst for youuu". I frowned and leaned back a bit, trying to hear his choice over the din of the bar, and guess what I fucking heard...

'Easy Lover' by Phil goddamn Collins. 

So I screamed: '...EASY-FUCKING-LOVER!?' at this guy while shoving him away, knocking him into a table and spilling approximately a hundred bucks worth of booze on ten different people. The Phil Collins fan went down with a shocked and innocently confused look on his face as I felt the bouncer's steely grip clamp down on my shoulders and was dragged outside while screaming 'FUCK PHIL COLLINSSSSSS!' at top volume while shaking my fists at the heavens.

Fuck Phil Collins.

• 'I'm the DJ Now!'     

This one is easier to understand as I imagine more than a few people have decided through the wonderful, happy fog of alcohol that they could do a way better job than whatever asshole is in the booth right now and have tried to take the reins. This story however, has a bit of a twist. When I sauntered up to the DJ booth that night, all I wanted was to request some sweet, sweet 'Humpty Dance', but it turned out that the tribe of dick-sniffers that were playing an endless loop of Skrillex were not taking requests. As I walked up, I noticed that while one guy was wearing the headphones and turning some dials that didn't seem to control anything, there was one seemingly also controlling nothing on a laptop, and one furiously pretending to 'scratch'. They were all wearing basketball jerseys, they all had long hair, and they all had on sweatbands. Two of them were wearing sunglasses... I don't want to judge anyone based on appearances, here, but the words 'douchebag, hipster, cocktards' springs immediately to mind. When I finally got the attention of one of them, and leaning in, voiced my desire to request a song, I was immediately waved off and told that "we don't play songs for ugly girls"...

'Well! That was rude! I'm leaving this bar immediately and writing a harshly worded letter to this establishment's management tomorrow upon sleeping off the effects of all this alcohol I've so recently consumed!' -never went through my booze-fried brain as I gathered up all the electrical cables sprouting from the DJ equipment and ripped them out, shutting off all the laser, disco ball, fog machine bullshit and plunging the club into darkened silence in one glorious, furious tug. I was grabbed almost immediately around the waist by a security guard, hoisted onto his shoulder and hauled outside, but not before screaming "I AM NOT AN UGLY GIRL!!!!" amidst a chorus of booing.

I am NOT an ugly girl.

• Tripping While Sober

I wear heels. I do! I wear them all the time, of varying heights, and I look great in them. BUT - fun fact, guys: it takes a lot of practice to get competent at wearing heels, I mean, like, months and months. And that is just to become comfortable standing and walking at a medium pace, it takes upwards of a year of consistently wearing heels to get any good at dancing or light jogging, and trust me, you'll need light jogging when it's three a.m in December in downtown Ottawa and the bars just let out and it's minus twenty five and you're outside a shwarma stand trying to catch a cab with eighty thousand other drunkards. 

I have never eaten one of these sober, but I hear they're delicious.

So, I'm now a pro at heels - I could do that army thing where you run through the old car tires while wearing five inch pumps - but obviously this wasn't always the case, and the night in question was one of my first ventures out in a brand new pair of ultra-high heels that I had bought to impress this guy I was dating at the time. It was only our third date and he was pretty sophisticated and fancy and so far I had tricked him into thinking that I was too. That night he had taken me out for oysters and wine that didn't come from a box or five gallon jug, and then we had met up with a group of his equally fancy friends and were heading to a club nearby for 'bottle service', which I understand is a rich person way of saying 'alcohol poisoning'.

So I'm dressed all fancy in my fancy dress, and fancy makeup, and fancy heels, but especially my fancy manners, which this guy is buying hook, line and sinker, and we walk up to this club and bypass the line and as I'm walking past the bouncer who is holding the velvet rope aside for me, I misjudge the height of the step and trip. I didn't faceplant, by any means, but I definitely went down, and if the bouncer hadn't grabbed my arm I would definitely have broken an ankle in my stupid, fucking, heels. I am very, very embarrassed, of course, and turn bright red as my date begins fussing over me and asking if I'm alright. I brush him off and turn to continue into the club when the bouncer snaps the velvet rope into place in front of me. He sees my confused look and quietly suggests that maybe I've had a bit too much to drink? I am dumbfounded. I have NEVER had too much, that is why I KEEP drinking - but not only that, I only had one glass of wine with dinner! I'm trying to be sophisticated! I'm fancy! I try and stay calm in front of my date and argue that I innocently tripped, but the bouncer is hearing none of it. Then my date tries to intercede and calmly explain our situation, but the red mist has descended over my eyes and I catch myself screaming: "LISTEN, you cocksucking, hobo-fucker-" before letting the rage take over. 

The fancy guy didn't call me again.   

Things That Have Mysteriously NOT Gotten Me Kicked Out of Bars: 

• Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen and I have a relationship. A deep, meaningful, passionate, entirely one-sided relationship. I am obsessed with him, and if he ever so much as even glanced at me I'd die. I'd JUST DIE!!! So any time there is a jukebox around I'm digging for quarters, and scanning the albums for that shaggy-headed, golden-voiced, second-coming of Christ. One night in particular however, I was feeling a stronger-than-usual hankering for some New Jersey rock, and through a fog of Labatt 50 and Jack Daniels, I spent five dollars at the jukebox playing 'Born to Run'. Let me explain, each song counts as 1 credit, and a dollar buys you 2 credits, and I spent 5 dollars, which equals 10 credits - so, 10 credits, 5 dollars... carry the 2... 

Fuck math- I played 'Born to Run' TEN TIMES on the jukebox. IN A ROW. 

I was loving it, obviously, but weirdly enough, apparently so was everybody else. Instead of behaving like a regular drunk, slightly aggressive bar crowd would and becoming furious once they realized what was happening, the patrons thought it was hilarious by the third time it played, then, singing along, treated it as a chance to really nail down all the lyrics they didn't already have memorized by the sixth time it played. By play number eight, miraculously the bar had essentially formed it's own airband with yours truly on vocals. 

Everybody hugged when it was over. 

My next article will be titled: "'Born To Run' = World Peace".

•  'I'm the Bartender Now!'

Bartenders are rockstars in my book, which means I was really living the dream when one night I drunkenly vaulted the bar and started taking orders. The power I felt immediately radiated through me as I started pouring drinks for the screaming masses. I realized I had no idea what any of the prices were so I just started yelling numbers - five shots of tequila? Seventy bucks. Two pints? Twenty eight. A rum and coke? Twelve, thirteen with a lime. I was a little wary at first but then I realized that people barely heard me - they just threw money at me and began slurping back the drinks I had made them. I was riding a high I had never experienced before. I was commanding a respect I will never experience again, until the real bartender saw me. 

I froze, my fight or flight instincts drunkenly brawling in my head, but the bartender just smiled at me, grabbed a bottle of Heineken from the fridge and handed it to me. I took it and he pointed to the swinging door at the end of the bar, leading back to the real world, and I immediately felt my powers fade away as I once again became a non-bartending nobody. 

• Tripping Whilst Breaths Away From Alcohol Poisoning     

This one requires little to no explanation. I was hammered. Like, 'eyes-can't-blink-at-the-same-time' hammered. I had just been dumped by some idiot who wore a thumb ring and I was feeling particularly vulnerable, so I decided to drink all the alcohol. I was out with a few friends and they were trying to cheer me up so they do what all well-intentioned girlfriends always do, they dragged me out to the dance floor. I am not the keenest dancer, because I once saw a video of myself doing it while soused at a wedding and I looked like a homeless woman trying to play the drums during an earthquake. Not pretty. But I was amazingly wasted and sad and dancing is fun, no matter how embarrassed you are afterwards, so I went for it. Big mistake. I was having trouble finding the beat and staying upright, when one of my friends decided, being drunk herself, that what I really needed was a good-old-fashioned bear hug. From behind. As soon as she wrapped her arms around me, my brain decided that that was just about enough for the night, and went lights out. I went back like a tree and smashed her, with me on top, into a table covered with drinks. My brain turned back on as I was being hauled upright by some good samaritans, and my friend was being towelled off. I immediately raised both fists to ready myself for the approaching bouncers but they never came - I was ushered back to our table by my friends, and the guys whose table I had nearly cracked in half sent over a round of shots... 

Some mysteries are better left unsolved. But I'll promise you here and now that my quest to find new and exciting ways to be kicked out of every alcohol-providing venue will never, ever end. 

  

             

  

x

Old Fashioned Drinking: I'm Sorry Matt Mays

          A few weeks ago I attended a Matt Mays show at Ritual, a popular music venue in downtown Ottawa. I had been having a rough week and an even rougher month and needless to say that I was looking forward to some live music. In my book live music is the perfect excuse to dance, and I'm twenty six and I feel like I'm at the age where I'm starting to dance like a weird aunt at a wedding, and I'm just out of the pop culture loop enough to not recognize any of the songs and end up making requests that the DJ says he can't play because 'it came out before 2010 - get real'. Fucking assholes. So live music has become my one outlet to really get my groove on.

Still my #1 jam.

So I've been gearing myself up for this show all week, I didn't have a date but was going with my friend Lauren who has had my back in two bar fights that I can remember and apparently three that I can't, AND she is also single, but not nearly as chronically as me, so who knows? Maybe with some coaching and liquid courage this would be an ideal chance to meet a guy and give up this life of debauchery and pooping with the door open.

We start out at Lauren's apartment, Lauren just got off work and so while she's getting ready I help myself to some beers. Like, five beers. We hop in a cab and make our way downtown and realize that we're still like, an hour away from the doors opening at Ritual, so we head to a tiny little pub-style joint and sit at the bar and chat but more importantly I start ordering Old Fashioneds.

 In case you're unfamiliar an Old Fashioned has been called the original cocktail - it's a mixture of whiskey, angostura bitters, water, sugar, and orange peel which leaves your eyes watering and tastes like a barrel of jet fuel fell off the back of a truck on the highway, hit a guardrail, and sprayed all over an orange grove. I started ordering them because truth be told I wanted to be that girl who drank whiskey and was mysterious and knew her shit, but I continue to drink them because all other typical cocktails have lost their kick - I can down 'em faster than you can say 'cirrhosis' and end up being that girl who gets drunk at 8 p.m, won't stop requesting the Humpty Dance, and ends up puking into a mailbox. So the Old Fashioned worked, for a time - they forced me to pace myself and instead of nervously guzzling booze in order to try and immediately quash my sense of awkwardness when faced with most social situations that don't require screaming at refs or yelling at schlomo bouncers trying to eject me from their respected establishments, I ease into a drunk that is manageable but more importantly not hyper-aggressive and Messy with a capital Gross.

Unfortunately, my body, as usual, is trying to fuck with my clever, clever program, and has adapted my tastebuds into thinking that Old Fashioneds are no longer grimace-inducing stink waters but delicious and thirst-quenchingly innocent, and therefore I'm able to down four of them in an hour. This is not right, and it must be the five beers already partying in my tummy-works that blind me to this fact and cause me to miss Lauren's raised eyebrows as I sling back the whiskey concoction in two swigs and tell the wary bartender to keep 'em coming.

I am, at this point, about seven parts alcohol to two parts human. But Lauren has seen me rally from worse, so she drags me to a shwarma joint, crams some pickled turnip down my throat and then we clatter down Nicholas Street to make our appointment with Matt Mays.

Let me tell you, awesome show. The opening act, July Talk, were tight and had stage presence to boot. They are the last clear thing I remember because Ritual was serving Red Stripe in stubby bottles and man do those things go down fast. Not to mention that Lauren has developed a taste for what she calls 'jager bomb cocktails' which is just loading a rocks glass with as much jager and redbull it can hold and drinking them like water. She buys me a few and that's when things get weird.

I dance, I scream, I applaud, I push and shove a bit, but apparently not enough to get in any serious trouble, and then that's it! Shows over, Matt Mays takes some bows and exits, much to everyone's disappointment. As me and Lauren are deciding what bar to head to for some last call drinks, we notice a line forming stage left made up entirely of young ladies and Matt Mays at the front of it, posing for pictures. 'Well!', I said to myself, 'this is an opportunity you might not get again Maddy - you should definitely line up in an orderly fashion and shake the hand of such a talented young musician.' But with all the booze what really formulated inside my buzzing skull was 'MATTS MAYSSSS! PICTRURE!'. So stumbling but confident I managed to push myself to the front of the line with Lauren in tow. I'm told that in response to multiple cries of 'hey! there's a line!' and 'no budding, man!' I, at top volume, informed the disappointed and annoyed throng of girls that I didn't speak to peasants and proceeded to throw an arm around an undoubtedly super impressed Matt Mays, slurred some highly sexual, incredibly inappropriate and possibly illegal suggestions into his ear as well as my phone number and posed for Lauren's camera.

...Is that fear in his eyes?

I don't have a drinking problem, I really don't. I just get either so awkward or bored in bar type scenarios that I have to find some way of curbing the cynicism, and they're selling the alcohol right there, soo... As far as I can tell the only problem I have with drinking is that I don't have enough people, including a certain special someone, to do it with. I'm still waiting for Matt Mays to call.

The Drunk Text: A Beginner's Guide

I do serious, 'let-me-put-on-my-glasses' research on relationships and love and being in love and on the psyche and super ego and how according to Freud it attacks our basic sense of worthiness... But mostly I type 'how not to drunk dial your ex' into Google and read what 14 year old girls have to say on Yahoo Answers.

I get hungover. Really, crazy, pants-shittingly crazy hungover. So most mornings where I wake up after a night on the town (or on the couch with a bottle of bourbon- let's be real, here) I take a mental tally of my well being:

 - Stomach: Prairie Fire shots were the worst idea ever. Prepare for a day spent no further than 50 paces from a toilet.

- Eyes: You were too drunk to take your contacts out, they are now fused to your eyeballs. Congrats.

- Mouth: It's like every tooth is wearing it's own fuzzy little sweater!

- Brain: Familiar vague hope that your friends forgive you for getting tossed out of the bar, again. ...But also a distinct sense of shame and foreboding... why?

Hmmm... why, why, wh- And THEN I see it. My phone, lying so innocently next to me on the bed. With a shaking hand I thumb it on and stare at the last conversation as my brain metaphorically falls to it's knees, it's hands balled in fists of rage screaming: 'NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!'. I've drunk texted my ex again.

It always goes the same way. It starts out pretty guilt free, probably around beer number two and shot number one. Just a quick text to say hey or to relate something funny that just happened at the bar that vaguely relates to the ex in question:

'I just saw a dude do a karaoke version of 'The Gambler' even worse than yours! LOL'.

Innocent, spontaneous, genuine. People like hearing when something reminds you of them, right? It's a compliment! Then, by beer seven and shot four, things start getting a little steamy, at least on my end. I'm most likely having a bit of trouble typing through the haze of jager and almost overwhelming feeling that I'm the most attractive person in the bar. The texts begin to reflect how long it's been since my last sexual encounter, and not to paint a super detailed picture or anything, but lately when I go to the bathroom I've started checking for cobwebs. So the texts are getting a tad desperate sounding, but are usually extremely ego-stroking and complimentary:

'Ur R hotta then nE of the ddudes in tihs bar!!@!!'

Still, that's streets ahead of the crap yet to come. By beer 'kickass!' and shot 'hellsfuckingyeah!' the texts are coming hot and fast - I've even instructed my friends to physically restrain me if they see me texting after 11 p.m and apparently I've gotten into some pretty near fist fights to stop that from happening. So, sometimes, there's the rare occasion that my ex actually takes the bait and starts sexting me back, but more often than not I just get fielded with responses of 'that's nice of you to say' or 'seriously, how drunk are you?'. But man, do I not let this slow me down!

'I wissssh I cuold tazte UR [CENSORED] as u rram it down mY [CENSORED] & u [CENSORED] my [CENSORED]'

I'm the hottest.

But I would actually give up the ability to smell if things stopped there, but oh no. Now it's most likely around three a.m, I've eaten all the shwarma I'm going to that night and I've stumbled home with my friends and now I'm rummaging in the liquor cabinet fishing out that bottle of chartreuse or amaretto that I just know I have because who wants this night to end, guys?! Am I right!?!? Shots! Shots! Shots! I'm a white hot mess, I've reached the drunk stage where I've had 'deep and meaningfuls' with everyone in earshot and now fumble with my phone for some highly inappropriate emotional diarrhea:

'I stil luv U & alwys willlllll & wud d0 nething 4 u!!@#!'

This isn't me. Let me be extremely transparent on this issue. It's said that drunks and children always speak the truth but children are little punk idiots and drunk people are not the SAME as their sober counterparts. Drunk Maddy may look and sound very, very similar to Sober Maddy, except for the slow blinking and tendency to slurr, but they are two very different people. Drunk Maddy is a optimistic, wild, free spirit with a passion for dancing and hugging and high fives - Sober Maddy is a cynical, permanently annoyed hipster whose insecurities outweigh her securities. Drunk Maddy doesn't understand why Sober Maddy doesn't just find a nice boy and fuck him to death, and since Drunk Maddy can detect these residual feelings that Sober Maddy has for her ex, she decides to step in and give a little helping hand.

What a cunt.

I'm really trying to work out this issue. Deal with my past relationship in a mature and clear-headed way - deal with my trust and intimacy issues and try and forge some worthwhile acquaintances with some men who I could see myself developing feelings for somewhere down the road...

But really I'll just leave my phone at home next Friday night.
 

    

Being Single: A How-To Guide

Right now you’re picturing me as the stereotypical single twenty-something who hasn’t shaved her legs in weeks, who wears bulky knit sweaters and has a tumblr account and re-reads ‘Pride and Prejudice’ every couple of months and cries every time. And that’s just not me, aside from the leg shaving thing which I’m mostly doing to save on shower time. I’m a cool girl! I wear a leather jacket and hip bellbottoms and try my best to look like a cross between a more put-together Janis Joplin and a much, much angrier Zooey Deschanel. No sweaters and no Kleenex boxes next to the Jane Austen. I keep it pretty together.

That being said, I devote a lot of time and effort into keeping the howling, sucking, angry black void of loneliness inside me from spilling out into the world and engulfing the earth in a fury of harrowing sorrow. I usually hold back the tide by drinking, going through a 24 pack of Costco burritos in a week, chain smoking, listening to terrible pop music about teens breaking up, carrying a flask, masturbating, and finishing off a twelve pack while watching Friday Night Lights.  

If he's fictional, sign me up.

So why am I terminally single, you ask? Well, in high school I had bigger things to worry about than boys, like where to get more pot, or how to get money for pot, or how to not smell like pot. I wasn’t so much a tomboy as I was completely androgynous for a couple of formative years and therefore mostly didn’t notice the boys who mostly weren’t noticing me. Being a late bloomer didn’t help, neither did being a total smartass and also absolutely terrified due to inexperience. So I just never really understood what the girls were talking about when they broke out the Tiger Beat’s at sleepovers and went on and on about Devon Sawa and N’Sync and the rest of those horrible 90’s hair-gelled mama’s boys. In university, however, this overwhelming fear of the unknown translated outwardly as an aloofness that turned out to be incredibly attractive to a certain type of guy – who turned out to be a certain type of narcissistic sociopath. I dated a string of these winners in a succession of hazy party years that consisted of screaming matches, tantrums, groupies, weird sex and any intoxicants I could get my hands on.  Then, about three years ago I woke up - put my clothes on - walked home, and realized that it was time to stop looking for someone who could chug a bottle of absinthe and time to start looking for someone who I could hold a ten minute conversation with without reaching for the whiskey.

Ever since that fateful day I have been somewhat frustratingly yet mostly happily single. I’ve dated sporadically, sure, but nothing serious and nothing that’s lasted more than a couple dinners and trips to the movies. And sure, there are nights when Loneliness creeps in and brings his friends Desperation and Depression, but it only took me a short while to realize that these things have less to do with being single and more to do with being uncertain. Feeling lost is a horrible place to be and it’s hard to feel lost when you’re sleeping next to someone. Yet, I haven’t allowed that sense of being adrift to spur me into settling for some schlomo who doesn’t quite do it for me. As hackneyed as it may sound I’m holding out for something big, and as hyperbolic and histrionic as I may get in some of these entries, I want you to know that being single isn’t pitiful, it’s hilarious, and I hope you can laugh along with me as I wade through uncomfortable romance and misplaced passion and awkward flirtation.

By now I’m an expert.  

Adventures in Dating: A Rope of Sand

     Let me tell it to you straight: I am a reasonably attractive, twenty six year old female of average height and weight. I have no gross deformities, speech impediments, or facial tattoos (yet). I am athletic, as long as the athleticism in question involves absolutely no form of running, is called ‘pool’ and allows me to drink and regularly take smoke breaks. I have a partially completed degree in English – which, while being only slightly less embarrassing than having a fully completed degree in English, allows me to correct people’s grammar in Facebook posts and I do not require spell check nearly as much as regular people. Yet despite all these ridiculously attractive qualities, I find myself alone. Not, like, ‘can’t buy nice clothes because my thirty cats will just ruin them’ alone, but definitely lacking in what I like to call ‘Floor 69 – the Romance Department’. I’ve even reached that terrible plateau where all my friends are in steady, long term relationships. And their frustration with my seemingly eternal third wheel status has gotten to the point where my inability to trick someone into spending a few hours in my company on a regular basis as well as looking at me naked more than once has overshadowed every other aspect of my personality, and has become the defining feature of my lonely, desolate existence – e.g: “You remember Maddy? My single friend?” That’s me. So, after many, MANY false starts and failed attempts I’m venturing out of the comfortable valley of not having to shave my legs on the daily and starting the precarious descent into the dating world.

Date # 1: Sebastian – 29 year old food blogger, which I later discover is a really interesting and clever way of saying ‘hopelessly unemployed’. He does, however, spend the better part of an hour defending his ridiculous non-job by showing me his past week of meals in the photos he posted on Instagram. I have to admit; grilled cheese photographed in sepia looks doubly delicious. We meet for dinner at a hip restaurant and he arrives wearing a women’s trench coat, cowboy boots and jeggings. Actual jeggings. I immediately order a double and excuse myself to use the washroom and do a shot on my way past the bar. When I return to the table he is questioning the waitress about their selection of organic fruit ales. I order another double. When the food arrives he takes a picture of it. We spend twenty minutes discussing his passion and my confusion towards fixed gear bicycles before the meal is over and we part ways, politely agreeing that while a nice time was had by all, he’s looking for someone with more horn-rimmed glasses without lenses and I’m looking for someone who doesn’t look better than me in jeggings.  Total failure.

His food blog is surprisingly entertaining, I admit.

 Date # 2: Jason – 28 year old journalism student. I usually avoid other ‘writers’ like an STD but Jason struck me as really down to earth and not at all horribly pretentious like the rest of us, so I agreed to meet him at a small club downtown. Jason informs me that a friend of his is performing that night. Cool. As we chat I notice that the dark club is decorated with highly modern and somewhat terrifying art, which Jason informs me some of his friends created. Alright, neat. Our conversation is easy and he doesn’t mention blogging once before his friend takes to the stage amid a flurry of applause. With no introduction, he launches into his first ‘song’ which consists of playing one note on a synthesizer continuously while pouring a gallon of milk onto the floor. I burst out laughing and can’t stop. Jason drags me out of the club, tells me he’s never been so embarrassed, and leaves me on the curb, still laughing. Train wreck.    

Date # 3: David – 33 year old software engineer. David picks me up at my apartment in a decent car that does not smell of dogs or marijuana which is immediately disconcerting. He proceeds to take me to an upscale restaurant and orders wine without looking at the menu. I begin to sweat profusely and wonder if he can tell that I ironed my dress with a hair-straightener. He asks me lots of questions about my life and interests and all I can think to talk about is how disappointed I was that the new Total Recall movie was kinda stupid. He politely agrees and chugs his wine. He tells me that last year he volunteered with the Red Cross to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti. I tell him I once gave a homeless man a bite of my donair. He orders a double scotch. He pays for the best meal I’ve eaten in the last year and drives me home, turning down my offer to come up citing he has work in the morning. He shakes my hand goodbye and I trudge up to my apartment to crack a beer and watch Total Recall again.

       I wish I could be one of those women who are so totally with it but just can’t find a partner because they seem to be awash in a sea of weird, uncouth dorks who fall all over themselves in her presence. Instead, I’m realizing that I am one those dorks, and my goal should not be to find a partner who sweeps me off my feet with poetry and bathtubs filled with rose petals, but to find someone who will come get me from the airport at 3 a.m without too much complaining, convince me not to put my contact lens back in after accidentally dropping it in the toilet and altogether making me feel less weird about my aversion to feet by being more weird about his hatred of emoticons. So if you’re out there, dream guy, just know that I’m single, and that the new Total Recall wasn’t as bad as I first thought.