You have hankering for a different flavor, something a bit zesty?  With a sweet aftertaste of foolishness and the tang of teen angst?

We here at FRIGHTENED BY BEES WORLD HEADQUARTERS (my bedroom in Philadelphia) have something new and exciting for you:  Swap Meet.  ”A journey through space, time, bad haircuts, confusing sexual orientation, big cities, small towns, and many, many record stores.”

Check it out!

xo

Amanda (aka The Heiress)

6.

“The most important thing is to use the correct heat setting. Always check the label for the fabric content.” I gesture towards the dial, pointing out the cotton, silk, and polyester icons.

I am teaching Carrot how to iron. He had a dream about being mocked for wearing a wrinkly shirt. He was forced to wash away the aftertaste of imaginary ignominy with half of a plastic bottle of vodka. My concern for his liver–coupled with my own irritation from dealing with a drunk boyfriend at five pm–has motivated me to give this lesson. He’s so serious, he’s actually taking notes in an illegible scrawl on the back of a used envelope.

“If the garment doesn’t have a tag and you don’t trust yourself to guess, just use the lowest setting. It’s easy to assume that the hottest iron will guarantee the best results, but really you’re just going to burn your clothes.”

Carrot nods his head. “How do you know this stuff?”

I shrug my shoulders. “I guess my mom showed me somewhere along the line.” And then I remember. “Actually, I was obsessed with ironing for a while; I would beg my mom and my grandma to let me iron the curtains, the tablecloth, my grandpa’s pants…whatever. I found it very relaxing.”

Of course he laughs at this. “You know, that is the first time you’ve ever mentioned your family.”

Oh, he’s drunk. It’s a recurring theme, always fueled by bottom shelf liquor: “Ella you’re so mysterious and I don’t know anything about you.”

The next line will be “Why won’t you let me know you?”

When we first met, he would keep me awake in the wee hours asking questions. But nothing useful (and therefore, nothing that made me nervous). No, no…only the hard-hitting issues were covered, like, “Would you rather have a beard made of bees or a bee made of beards?” Hours of this every night. I would laugh and laugh, my answers growing sillier as I began to slip into sleep. An endless, foolish game of “Would you rather?” created a facade of intimacy. He liked this.

The best way to handle any uncomfortable prying is always by asking another question. A counter attack.

“Well, what do you think my family is like?”

Carrot likes this move. “I imagine that your dad is an English professor at a stuffy east coast university. And your mom is a debutante-cum-faculty-wife with a penchant for pottery. They have quiet, sarcastic fights. You were raised by college students posing as nannies. You wore frilly dresses and practical Swedish children’s shoes. You went to some sort of boarding school, maybe Choate? And then you blew everyone’s mind by choosing Smith over Brown.”

Of course.

Wouldn’t it be just as likely that my childhood was a melange of powdered milk and reduced cost school lunches? Plastic, no-name shoes coupled with jeans fished out of the “irregular” bin at the factory outlet? Scholarship applications and crossed fingers?

I could have been a smartass runaway, hiding from my wealthy-yet-morally-bankrupt parents. They would never understand me and my self-ordained revolution.

Or maybe I was a latchkey child eating microwaved frozen mashed potatoes for dinner. A single mother with 1.5 jobs. A revolving door of stepfathers and “uncles.”

I could be an orphan.

I once dated a terrible writer. He strung words into senseless sentences that formed meaningless, dense paragraphs. The paragraphs filled pages with nonsense, evolving into stories that said absolutely nothing. No plot, no characters, no anything. Of course I would always smile and say, “Good work, dear.” I was mostly drunk, and therefore, frequently jovial. It goes without saying that he also had a little cadre of female fans thats virtually wept at his imaginary genius, so he needed little cheerleading from me and my whiskey mouth.

One day he decided to write a little character portrait of me. It was a simmering stew of four-syllable adjectives and antiquated verbiage. I understood nothing, except for one surprisingly lucid turn-of-phrase hidden in the center of the otherwise undulating mess:

“Her father had left her, and so, she would leave everyone else…her husbands, her children, her lovers, her friends.”

I asked him, “Why do you assume that my father has abandoned me?”

And he said (without hesitation), “Because you didn’t know when Father’s Day was and you knew how to fix your own kitchen sink.”

I considered suggesting he focus more on detective work in the future, as authoring was unlikely to pan out.

But poor Carrot. Despite his excessive viewing of television crime dramas “ripped from the headlines,” he is no Sherlock Holmes. And so, he assumes I grew up on the set of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

He looks at me, waiting for a confirmation. “Oh, Mr. C. Flowers, you are so perceptive! Or did you just google me while I was at work?”

But instead I ask, “Would you rather have an iron for a hand or a hammer for a foot?”

7.

Carrot is the best liar I have ever met.

To avoid a shift at the clothing store, he tells his coworker a long sad story about his grandmother’s health. Chemotherapy and hospice care are included. “There isn’t much time left…” A single tear springs from the coworker’s eye. Meanwhile, his grandmother is playing tennis and drinking margaritas in Cabo.

When he decides that we need a video game system to entertain us during the long winter, he tells his mother that he needs money for an abortion. For me, obviously. “Oh, Ella’s just a wreck about this. I can’t very well ask her to pay for it herself.” And so the check arrives the next day, via FedEx, with a tiny scribbled note saying “If Ella needs to talk to a woman about this, I’m here for her.”

His skill is so impressive, it’s hard to be angry even when he lies to me. Generally I just want to buy him a sandwich or a trophy in honor of his unmatchable talent. I consider asking him to teach me his technique.

The thing is, his dishonesty is always obvious to me. His mouth is just a bit drier. His left eye twitches a little bit more than usual. And every sentence sounds vaguely like it ends with a question mark.

I tell myself that sleeping with someone every night can only lead to a certain level of transparency. My immunity to his deception was earned after hours, days, and months of folding his laundry and cutting his hair. Buying him a new new toothbrush every month. Serving his dinner almost every day. Comfort is found in always being able to discern truth from fiction.

Of course I pretend that I believe him. Always. There’s no need to rob him of his faith in his talents.

He’s nowhere to be found when I get home from work. It’s unlikely that he is out earning a paycheck right now. He’s probably at a bar with one or many of his attractive female coworkers. Or maybe he’s doing lots of coke and trying to get into fights. That was the agenda when he went out without me last Friday night.

I’m wondering how he will explain his absence.

“I was at the library, studying for the GREs.” That one always forces me to stifle laughter, generally leading to a dash for the bathroom so I can giggle into a towel.

“Oh, I was running. I’m trying to get fit.” Nevermind the tight jeans and beetle boots he might be wearing.

“I was just walking around, thinking.” Um. Okay.

I will just nod my head, smile, and offer a B-vitamin or a late night sandwich. The model girlfriend.

I grab cigarettes and book, before heading up to the roof. I sit cross-legged, petting a neighbor’s little black cat. Early is her name, according to the medallion dangling from her collar. I’m not even sure if she’s a SHE, because I’m far too delicate to peek at her privates.

Early visits me every time I’m smoking. She leaps from roof to roof, until she settles on my lap. I’m convinced that all felines are fans of tobacco. Their lack of opposable thumbs are the only thing saving them from emphysema and long bouts of lung cancer.

Cats filled my old life. If I nodded off on a bus stop bench, I could be assured that a little tabby would be snuggled under my elbow when I awoke. Strays gathered around me as I smoked unnecessary cigarettes on the corner outside any bar. Friendly house cats followed me home as I slurred and swayed after too many cocktails at happy hour. They climbed in my apartment window to lick my cheek when I was blacked out on the kitchen floor. In exchange, I gave them compliments, pats, and cans of chunk light tuna.

But Early is the only feline in my new life. I scratch behind her ears, cooing platitudes. She rewards my effort with a loud purr.

“Cats aren’t aloof at all,” I think. “They need people around to grant them the illusion of coolness and independence.”

I wish I could invite Early into my bedroom, to sleep on Carrot’s half of the bed in his absence. I’m sure he won’t be home tonight.

I should probably get a cat.

A writing professor (her hands covered with turquoise and silver rings) once told me “show, don’t tell.” And so, I’ve been struggling with that idea while working on this story.  There’s going to be a part 3…as this “little” story is evolving into a short, short novella.  Or a looooong story.  You pick.

4.

Carrot doesn’t get the twelve step program. “I mean, I’ve never even seen you take anything stronger than an Advil.”

I can’t explain it to him. But the idea is very simple: I go to these meetings so that I won’t do drugs. I am trying to protect my present and my future. The past has been unpleasant. Shameful. Destructive.

And at these meetings, I have a rapt audience for my sad stories.
Hits like “that night I got so high that I fell and hit my head on the very same sink I had just been snorting heroin from, chipping a tooth and being dragged to the emergency room by my best friend.” The crowd loves any saga that involves a bloody face (check) and an exasperated lecture from a loved one (check).
And “that time I collapsed on the Max tracks, just before the train came and a wholesome young man with a degree in Chemistry saved me and my supposed gratitude forced me to go on three awkward dates with him.” Oh, yes, tales of obligation and guilt are welcomed with only the most open of arms. And it goes without saying that I was super high for the aforementioned dinner-and-a-movie appointments.

But wait! There’s more! Like that summer of slow suffocation from the fluid slowly filling my lungs (a common complaint for devoted heroin snorters). Or the number of times I woke up in places I did not recognize. The night I almost drowned in my own bathtub.

They are all glad to hear this. I am a beloved member of this family of fuck-ups and ne’er-do-wells.

Repeat, revise, revisit. “This is helping,” I tell myself.

I call Carrot from work to tell him that I am having dinner with my sponsor, Evan. “I am struggling with step two and he wants to discuss it again.”

Carrot’s scalding glare travels through the telephone wires, burning my cheek. “Well, whatever. I thought we were going to see a movie tonight. Are you sure you aren’t sleeping with this dude? Because YOU DON’T HAVE A DRUG PROBLEM.”

I laugh nervously and promise to take him to the movie tomorrow. “My treat, of course!”

For the past six months I have been stuck on Step Two: “Believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.”

“I’m sorry, Evan…but I can’t just turn into a Jesus freak,” I say over an iceberg lettuce salad at a diner in Center City.

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t have to be Christian. Have you tried other beliefs and religions? What about Buddhism? That was trendy with your people back in the 90s.”

It’s not that I don’t want to believe in something. I swear I’m an existentialist. I believe in myself and my power to overcome my problems. But that doesn’t fly in the 12-step world.

“I’m just not the sort of person who says Power with a capital P. Isn’t it enough that I have faced my problem? I’m coming to meetings. I haven’t done drugs in years. I’m not even drinking.”

A vague shrug from him. “I’m just telling you how it goes. This is what the program expects from you to indicate ‘success.’ Don’t forget that you go to these meetings for a reason.”

I do, I do. Here on the East Coast, I am a good, put-together person. I am no longer the sort of woman that drinks too much and sleeps with virtual strangers. I will never again pass out in public or eschew food and electricity for a tiny parcel of China White.

My co-workers think of me as a bastion of health and good reason. I complete my work in a timely manner, with occasional breaks to repair the printer. I make the appropriate small talk at the coffee machine.

My landlord appreciates my regular rent checks and my tidy apartment. The neighbors appreciate the quiet and lack of drama radiating from my walls.

The utility companies enjoy the on-time payments.

My student loan officer is thrilled by my ever-shrinking balance.

My liver enjoys a steady diet of vitamins and water.

I am new here.

5.

Carrot and I are smoking on the roof of our building.

He’s telling me about an incident at work. The manager called a female employee a “stupid cunt.” The workers are going to put together a petition. They are going to call the president of the company. They are going to write a letter to the city newspaper. Things will happen. They will not stand for this!

I nod my head as if I’m paying attention. But really I’m telling myself–for the 100th time that day–that my grip on everything is not tenuous. It is real. I’m not about to overdraft my checking account. The bills are paid and the bathroom is clean. I’m not going to forget to go to work tomorrow. I won’t accidentally burn of my bangs. Nor will I lose my wallet in a public bathroom. No, no. It is all fine.

“I think I’m going to quit smoking,” I announce, laughing as I light up yet another cigarette.

Carrot rolls his eyes. “Sure, give up the one thing we have left in common.”

I laugh some more. “Oh, c’mon…we have tons of stuff in common. We like the same movies and music and books. And I always giggle at the funny things that you say…”

He wants be melodramatic. His face transforms to that of Stage Carrot, man of the impromptu theatre: wrinkled forehead, grand gestures, and a voice one octave lower than usual.

“You’re not the same. You sleep eight hours every night. You never go out. I never even hear you speak to anyone but me. You go to alleged meetings for your alleged drug problem. Where’s the fun?”

More laughter from me, but this time it’s staged. “Well, I guess it’s time to start dinner, right?” And with that, I barrel down the stairs to the kitchen. Escape!

Last night Evan asked me, “How about your boyfriend? Is he helping you through your steps?”

An acidic chuckle escaped from my lips. “No, he doesn’t understand why I go to these meetings.”

Evan’s forehead was filled with question marks.

“He doesn’t know anything about me. He just thinks I was once fun, and now I’m not. I mean, I’m sure he’s just teasing me. After all, he has to realize that I am doing so much better now.” Even I didn’t believe this as I said it.

“But how can that be a healthy relationship? How can that help you get better?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Having him around helps me. I mean, I love him.” Of course, I didn’t add that I’m not sure I am actually IN love with him. But what does that mean anyway?

Evan just shook his head.

Okay, okay. I felt compelled to defend Carrot. “I like having him around, I think. No, no…of course I LOVE having him in my life. We’re a team right? We moved here together. This is our new life, not just mine. And well, we complement one another.”

I wasn’t not sure what to say. My boyfriend is an occasionally good sidekick. Someone to keep my warm at night. A way to prove to myself that I am keeping my act together. I clean up after him and he gives me someone to clean up after. It’s perfect.

I allowed him to travel across the country because I knew that loving him was safe. My feelings for him were so calm, rational…ADULT, I liked to think. The simplicity of our relationship gave me the opportunity to become the person I always wanted to be.

But if I fell madly in love with him, he might break my heart. I would have to get wasted to cope with the pain. He would occupy all of my thoughts, forcing out important things like remembering to pay the electric bill and wash my hair. My work would suffer and surely I would lose my job. Back to the Northwest, where I would continue to get high and lose.

Jealousy, heartache, longing…these were not feelings experienced by successful people. They were the domain of flaky artsy types. The main ingredients in a self destruction cake.

No.

Carrot doesn’t want to know that I was once a junkie. He could never imagine that I might trade my records and books for a taste of heroin. Certainly he wouldn’t want see the bones poking through the back of my dirty t-shirt as I stooped over to vomit on the street after buying something cut with poison. He is not strong enough.

If I were truly in love with him…if I fancied him “the one,” I would have to tell him all of these things and more. The sad stories would stream out of my mouth. And then he would leave me. And then more sad stories would be written.

I know this.

During a Skype date with my friend Lem, I whined “Every time I write a story, everyone thinks it is about me.”  He gave me a knowing look, “Well, it is somewhat, right?”  Isn’t video chat grand?  I dismissed him with a “meh” hand wave.

This story is fiction, I promise…with certain elements of myself, of course…peppered with bits of people I have known, things I have heard, and dreams I have had.  Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?

Here we go…”A Tragic Character….“

1.

Carrot isn’t thrilled to hear that I have sold the car.

“But why? How will we get around?”

He is from LA, where cars are mandatory and even going out for breakfast requires a thirty minute drive.

“We’ll ride our bikes or take the subway or walk. Cabs occasionally, I guess.”

His pursed lips indicate that he is not convinced. I’m certain he is subtly shaking his head.

Never mind that it was MY car. I feel as if I must defend my decision. “Neither of us knows how to park the car properly and we’re racking up tickets. I don’t even want to tell you how much money I gave the Parking Authority last week. We don’t live in a fantasy forest city any more. Our lives are completely different. We have to make changes.”

He shakes his head. “But we drove all the way across the country in that car. It’s one of the few things we have left from the west coast. It has memories.”

I know that he is serious about this, but I can only laugh. The car has smelled like feet since the six-day coast-to-coast drive. After much quibbling about various records and clothing that would be allowed to accompany us, we loaded all of our most valued possessions into my station wagon. I was going to be starting a job. A real job. With a desk and meetings and a stapler of my own. Carrot was coming along, because…well, because I couldn’t leave him behind.

Our new home was allegedly only a few thousand miles away. Initially it seemed so easy. The road atlas made it appear so close. But the long days of driving made me feel as if I were transporting us to another planet. I felt a twinge of sadness as I saw familiar streets and signs fading into the distance. By the time we passed the “You are leaving Oregon. Come again!” sign, I felt only relief. I was escaping myself and all of my bad decisions.

Despite a moderate case of food poisoning at a northern California Olive Garden early in the trip, I did most of the driving. Carrot’s vision is poor, at best. He had crashed three cars in as many years. No, our survival depended on me. Time was important. I had to start my job on the first of the month. Bathroom stops and sleeping breaks were minimal. I tossed back canned espresso drinks and b-vitamins as I blearily sped us across the Southwest.

I drove through rain and snow. Dark moonless nights. Rush hour traffic. Carrot laughed at my unconscious habit of crossing myself when we passed an accident. “I learned it from my Grandma, okay?!” I began to develop an affection for the truck drivers of the world. I tried (unsuccessfully) to engage them in conversation at various truck stops. They were not interested in my cheery comments about the weather and fuel efficiency.

We passed through the misty mountains and into the desolate desert. I had always dreamed of oversized cacti and football fields of sand. Plateaus and mesas! It was so exotic in comparison to my childhood in the rolling hills of the mid-Atlantic states. And the absolute opposite of my rainy longtime home in the Great Northwest.

I pulled the car over to the side of road as the sun was setting over New Mexico. I slipped off my shoes and stepped into the sand. It was colder than I thought it would be. I crossed myself–a trinity of ”no scorpions, no rattlesnakes, and no broken glass”–before I took off running into the horizon. Carrot took photos of me, a black and blue blur colliding with the cadmium sky.

“This is it,” I told myself. “The new life starts as soon as you enter the Eastern Time Zone.”

2.

“Remember when we met?”

Carrot asks this as I am carefully applying makeup before work. I am unaccustomed to seeing him this early in the morning, as he usually sleeps well past noon. He occasionally works at a clothing store, folding t-shirts and discussing obscure indie rock albums. Otherwise, he stays up all night, drinking and watching movies. Occasionally he dials up a west coast friend in the middle of the night. His calls are rarely answered. At some point, he ventures out to shoplift candy bars at the convenience store around the corner. He eats these until he falls asleep, tossing the wrappers under the bed. Of course, I am blissfully unconscious during all of this, thanks to over the counter sleeping pills (Simple Slumber) and silicone ear plugs. But I discovered his stash of candy wrappers while vacuuming the bedroom last week. I have seen the late night calls on our shared phone bill.

But here he is, sitting on the side of the bathtub, drinking a beer at 7:00 am. His eyes have the wild, glassy look of someone who hasn’t slept in days. He has probably run out of his anxiety medication again. I’m going to have to remind him to call his mother–handily enough, a psychiatrist–to request a new refill.

“Of course, I remember…how could I forget?” I close my eyes, envisioning the scene in crystal clarity and surround sound.

I had drunk a little too much at a gallery opening. Or maybe at the bar earlier. Regardless, I was tipsy. I was laughing so hard, tears were slipping from my eyes. I could barely stand. My friend Mike slung me over his shoulder and carried me out onto the sidewalk. We were meeting another friend outside. One of her high school buddies was visiting from L.A.

My dress was no longer covering my ass as Mike continued to lug me down to the corner. Our friend awaited. Her visitor was pale and blonde. His clothing was entirely black and far too tight. He giggled at my lace-covered rear.

I reached out my hand to him in greeting. “Hi, I’m Ella. And I’m a tragic character.”

He laughed. “Of course you are.”

“I’ve heard you’re thinking about moving here. I have to tell you, the black clothes and deep v-neck shirts are not going to fly here. You’re going to have to invest in some plaid shirts and cuffed jeans, like my faithful manservant here.”

At this, Mike dropped me onto the sidewalk. I stood up, brushing imaginary dust off of my skirt, and then giving the blonde visitor an exaggerated wink. I was going to win.

Later, in the most notoriously “hipster” bar in the city, we drifted into a silly conversation about toast.

“Oh, yeah, I could eat toast three times a day if given the opportunity,” I said as I took a drag from the tenth cigarette of the evening.

He giggled out everything I said. GIGGLED! Of course, I was charmed. I was enamored with anyone that laughed at my foolishness.

Eventually I invited him back to my house for toast. He enthusiastically accepted.
I leaned across the table, hoping I didn’t smell too much like gin and smoke.
“I think you should know that every time I say ‘toast,’ I mean ‘you should fuck me.’”

He blushed.

And now we are thousands of miles away, in a pale blue bathroom.

He’s shaking his head. “You know, when you said that, I decided I would follow you to the ends of the earth. Girls just don’t act like that!”

I ignore him as I try to draw a straight line with a dull kohl pencil.

“You were different then. A socialite! Here you just go to work and stupid 12 step meetings. Who are your friends? I miss the old Ella!”

I pause my work to scowl at him.

I was a mess then. A socialite? Maybe. But I was drunk and sick and slutty and sad. I could barely bother to wash my laundry. I sometimes passed out on the living room floor because my bed was too far away. I slept with boys I secretly hated and I made mistakes I could never undo. I lost things! Not just possessions. But relationships, power, and sleep.

And of course he misses this.

I want to shout. “You should be glad to know me now! I make our lives work every single day, by going to my job and cooking nutritious meals. I iron our clothes and scrub the shower. I write the checks and pretend there is a budget.”

If the socialite returns, we will lose everything we have. Can’t he see this?

Instead I rummage for my “understanding and concerned” voice. It’s not difficult to find, because I use it more often than not. “Why are you drinking in the morning?”

He winks at me. “Your sobriety makes me dry. I’ve got to quench my thirst somehow.”

3.

His name is not really Carrot.

But some time in his late teen years, in a quest to prove his hipness to his peers, he had the cover art from the quirkiest album he knew tattooed on his arm. Of course he won admiration from every misunderstood, bookish girl in the greater Los Angeles metro area. His name was scribbled in no less than 1000 speckled notebooks. Marginal poems about him were published in high school literary magazines. He was officially the coolest, most sensitive boy in Southern California.

Now it has assumed a vintage charm. Older artsy women blush with delight when they see it. Even tipsy fellows have approached our end of the bar to compliment his choice. “Nice ink, dude.” Naturally, I find it charming, too.

And so now I call him Carrot Flowers.

At first I referred him by his real name. A wholesome moniker, popular among parents producing sons in the late seventies and early eighties. There was nothing wrong with it. But lying in bed together, after delivering the promised toast, I said, “I can’t call you A____. I was in love with another boy with that name and he broke my heart.”

“That seems silly,” he replied. “It’s not my fault that some fool hurt you.”

“It’s not the name; it’s the connection in my mind. I have also dated four boys named M___. I didn’t love the first three, so it didn’t matter when I met the fourth. But he broke my heart within minutes, just reducing me to a mess. And so, I can never love another male named M___ either.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m just saying that I want to give you a fair chance, despite what your parents decided to call you decades ago.”

And so he became Carrot. The next day, he arranged to have his belongings moved from L.A. to my house hundreds of miles away.

On the other side of the continent, he remains Carrot.

Before I left for work this morning, I wrote the following note for him:

“Attn. Mr. C. Flowers:
Tonight is trash night. I will be at my meeting until very late, so please please please take it out for me.
Much love and thanks in advance,
Ella”

But here I am, close to midnight, dragging blue bins overflowing with empty beer cans and gin bottles out to the curb. Bag after bag of takeout food containers and dirty dental floss. An errant bit of pizza crust escapes it’s plastic prison and smears my shoe with tomato sauce. I exhale the longest, loudest martyr’s sigh I can muster. No doubt he is off at a bar with his t-shirt clad co-workers. Or at the deli trying to purloin an egg salad sandwich. Yesterday he declared “From now on, I’m only eating food I have stolen.”

Meanwhile, I was at an NA meeting. Narcotics Anonymous. I’ve been going to meetings twice a week since I moved here. Occasionally, if I’m feeling particularly overwrought, I go every night. That has been happening a lot lately.

I’m serious about it. I have a sponsor, Evan. I met him at the first meeting. He spoke at length about his struggles with cocaine and finance. Lost accounts and fractured relationships. An ugly divorce, followed by a rock bottom in the first class cabin of a flight from the Dominican Republic. Standard issue at these types of gatherings.

He came up to me afterwards, while I drank muddy coffee from a styrofoam cup, wondering if I should try to make small talk with the other addicts.

“Oh, fuck,” I thought. “He’s going to hit on me. A dude is about to try to pick me up at a fucking NA meeting. And he’s wearing a fucking suit.”

But no. He was trying to help me. Did I need a sponsor? He was willing to assume that responsibility.

I squinted at him. Of course I was skeptical. “Well, first I have to ask you something. Are you aware of the complete and utter cliche of being a cokehead stockbroker?”

He smirked. “As long as you’re aware that being an overeducated hipster with a heroin problem isn’t the most creative concept, either. Did you read a lot of Burroughs and just get turned on?”

I laughed. “Okay, you’re hired.”

We shook hands.

“And by the way, it was the rock and roll music that turned me into a junkie.”

1. Try not to lose things.  I tend to misplace keys, wallets, important documents, and telephones.

2. Be more forthcoming with my feelings.  Those of you who have read enough of “Peeling an Onion” know that this is not a new affliction for me.

Thinking about the second, infinitely-more-challenging resolution lead me to re-read/revise the following story, “The Foreign Tongue.”  I originally wrote this last year, after thinking about this.

For years (no joke, YEARS) in Portland, I was hung up on a particular guy.  Each time I consumed more than three alcoholic beverages in rapid succession, I gave my friends the same monologue, tentatively entitled “I am secretly in LOVE with _____, and I swear I’m going to tell him tonight.”  My friends graciously encouraged me, even though I’m sure they all knew I was just going to go over to his house and coerce him into drunken sex OR just fall off my bike on my way to his house.

This story is not about him.  But then again, maybe it is….along with the small handful of other fellows that have co-starred with me in this same, stupid situation comedy called “we’re friends with benefits and I’ll never tell you how I truly feel about you because I  fancy myself a tough modern woman.”  Perhaps I’m typecast at this point, but I play my part to an impressive degree of dramatic excellence.

I just counted…that would be a total of four fellows, spanning from Chicago to Portland to Philadelphia.  Ack!  Okay, read my story…

Some illnesses creep on slowly, with symptoms so minor and simply inconvenient, that one suspects nothing. A runny nose. A stiff neck. A twitchy eye. Time passes, until a raging fever or grand mal seizure forces one to accept that something is terribly wrong.

Other maladies strike without warning. Hindsight reveals no clues.

I can remember the first time I realized something was terribly wrong with me. I was at the bagel shop down the street from work, ordering lunch. The not-so-unattractive boy behind the counter asked me, “How do you feel about banana peppers?”

Ugh. I despised them. I would have preferred to eat a glue stick for lunch. I could feel a scowl creeping across my face. This guy had made no less than 150 sandwiches for me in the past year, and he couldn’t remember this? Was he somehow too attractive to note the preferences of his valued regular customers? I put my hand on my hip, leaned to the left, and opened my mouth, preparing to issue a sassy-yet-flirty answer.

And then I was interrupted by someone else. “Oh, wow…I think they are great. The more the merrier, you know?”

Startled, I turned around to confront the rude stranger with a knack for imitating my voice. The rest of the shop was empty. I wondered if there was a particularly skilled ventriloquist hiding behind the counter, stifling his or her laughter.

I spent the rest of my lunch break picking a seemingly endless supply of rancid pickled peppers out of my sandwich. What had just happened? It seemed like some sort of psychedelic experience. I told myself that I need to get some more sleep. No more late nights drinking whiskey with my co-workers before tipsily pedaling across the Burnside Bridge.

The next day my boss asked me to give one of the sales associates a stern talking-to. I pulled him into the office toward the end of my shift.

“Hey, what’s going on,” he asked nervously.

“Well, listen…you’ve been coming in late a lot lately.”

He solemnly nodded his head.

So far so good. I had issued so many of these verbal warnings in the last few years, that I practically had this speech memorized. I would give him a stern-yet-understanding look, inspired by my tenth grade geometry teacher. Next I would touch on the ways in which tardiness negatively impacted the rest of the team.

The taste of stale coffee was distracting me. I jammed a piece of cinnamon gum in my mouth. Now where was I? Oh, yes, the ways in which tardiness could negatively–

Someone else–with a very familiar voice–joined the conversation. “But you know what? That’s okay. I understand you have a life outside of work, so how can I expect you to arrive exactly at the moment your shift begins? In fact, are you making enough money here to finance your outside endeavors? Because maybe I can get you a small raise.”

Who was saying something so ridiculous? I looked around, expecting to see someone hiding behind the safe. Maybe one of the other managers. They were all a bunch of drunken pranksters. But we were the only two people in the room. And apparently those words had come from my mouth.

The sales associate looked at me skeptically. “Um, I’m confused. Are you being sarcastic?”

“Well, yes, of course that was sarcasm,” I sputtered. “Now stop being late.”

I stormed out of the office, making a beeline for the bathroom. What the fuck was wrong with me? I splashed cold water on my face. I felt fine…well, except for the embarrassment burning up my cheeks. Maybe I needed a vacation or maybe I should just get laid. I had been working pretty hard recently. I deserved a break. Yes, that was it. Exhaustion was affecting my ability to speak and think clearly. I would request some time off at the next manager meeting. I felt better already.

Biking home that night, it hit me: this might be the manifestation of a serious ailment! If I were a character on a prime time medical drama, my inability to control the words coming from my mouth would surely indicate a rare variety of brain cancer. Oh sure, initially it would be dismissed as the product of exhaustion and alcohol abuse. But then, in the last fifteen minutes of the episode, one rogue doctor with a true commitment to his patients would realize that every other doctor had missed a tiny-yet-virulent tumor hidden deep within the darkest folds of my brain. Experimental treatment would be required, perhaps involving lasers.

I was fairly certain that the insurance I received as one of the meager benefits of my job as a professional t-shirt folder would cover neither lasers nor rogue doctors.

Feeling upset, I decided to look for some distraction. So I stopped by the house of a male friend. Well, I guess we were more than friends, since we had been sleeping together for months. And honestly, I considered him the most amazing person in the world. I secretly wished that he would be my boyfriend. I wanted to spend the rest of my time at his house, listening to his records and making out in surprisingly cozy bed.

Unfortunately, I was really more of “you’ve got to hide your love away” kind of person.
I was tough.
He was cool.
So instead, we had been “friends” the whole time. Every once in a while, spells of giddiness made us declare that we were “best friends.” Or my favorite (and this was for truly special occasions, like that time we had sex on the roof of his house): “I love you, you know, as a friend. But really, I do love you.”

But that night, I was considering revealing my true feelings. I would probably need him by my side during my struggle with this almost–but not absolutely–deadly neurological illness. No doubt great-yet-inexpensive advances in medical technology would save me. I would emerge on the other side of it all as a better person. An inspiration to everyone. And we would be closer than ever. At our wedding, he would tearfully exclaim, “I’m so glad you decided to declare your feelings to me on that particular night.”

Yes, I should definitely do it. This had been going on for too long.

He was drinking a beer on his porch when I rolled up. “Hey, what’s going on? You just get off work?”

I nodded my head as dragged my bike up the steps. He handed me a can of PBR as I sat down next to him.

There was some small talk of the “work was stupid” and “my friends got drunk” variety. I tried to make a boring story about a difficult customer seem funny. He laughed out of obligation. And then silence.

I bravely put my hand on his thigh. A deep breath. “Listen, I have been wanting to tell you something for a while. I mean, I have been thinking about it every day.”

This was it. Now was the time I would say all of the words that swirled around the inside of my head as I drifted off to sleep each night.

He sat down his beer, giving me his full attention.

My heart was pounding. I could hear the woosh-woosh of blood through my body.

“Well, I just wanted to tell you that you are not my boyfriend. And I hope you aren’t thinking that you are.”

I watched him pick up his beer and take a long sip. What had just happened? I covered my mouth with my hand, lest any other untrue syllables and sentences wanted to slip out.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, while I replayed my words no less than fifty times. My head was deluged with exclamation points.

I jumped up and grabbed my bike, tripping as I ran down the steps.

I ran back to my house. I didn’t pause to cross streets. I didn’t even take the time to hop on my bike. All I could think about was getting back to my place and hiding my head under a pillow.

Instead, I grabbed a half-full bottle of gin from my freezer. I spent the rest of the night lying in the empty bathtub, alternating gulps of liquor with drags of cigarettes. Something was very wrong with me. And now it was ruining my life. Most likely I would die alone and unloved. I would probably pass into oblivion in this very bathtub. Eventually someone would come to look for me, probably because I hadn’t shown up for work or I owed them money. My poor mom would have to bury me in a cardboard box.

But I wasn’t ready to die! I was still young. Well, young-ish. I mean, I wasn’t a completely dried up old crone. Of course, my eggs were expiring at that very moment. And my closest relationship was with my cat. But still…I had reasons to live! I had a BFA!

With some determination and telephone melodrama, I was able to get a doctor’s appointment the next morning. As I sat on the examining table, crumpling the paper liner with my sweaty hands, I realized that this day could change everything else in the future. I might be too sick to work. Would I lose my health insurance? Would I have to move in with my parents? Oh, god, just telling my mom was going to be really–

“What brings you here today?”

The doctor was examining my chart.

“Oh, actually, I’m fine. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

He laughed. “Are you sure about that?”

I clutched my forehead. “Oh, god no. There is something very, very wrong with me. I can’t stop saying the opposite of what I’m thinking. That’s what happened just now. Well, not the stuff I said in the last few seconds, but what I said before. You know, when you asked me why I was here? It’s like something else is controlling my tongue. I don’t even realize that the words are coming from my mouth until it’s too late. ”

“A lot of people have that problem. Do you have any other symptoms? Headaches, dizziness, that kind of thing?”

I shook my head. “No, just this. Something is definitely wrong with me. Do you think it might be a brain tumor?”

He laughed. “I’m going to check you for some neurological issues, but I have a feeling this might be more mental than physical.”

This was not what I wanted to hear. Was he implying that I was crazy?

I was putting my faith in modern medicine. I obediently followed the penlight with my eyes. I was silent and still while he checked my blood pressure. I didn’t flinch when he looked in my ears.

“Well,” he said as he returned the stethoscope to his pocket, “I think you’re fine physically. You do seem to have an ear infection, but that is unrelated to your problem. I’m going to give you a referral to a good therapist. I’m pretty sure your insurance will cover it. And I think she can help you work this out.”

I scowled. “Listen, I don’t think you know how serious this is. It’s going to ruin my life. In fact, it already is. My youth is passing me by!”

“Then I suggest that you call that therapist as soon as possible.”

I stomped past the receptionist’s desk with a prescription for an antibiotic (for my ears) and a card for some stupid psychiatrist. I was definitely not going to fork over the co-pay for this visit. Some help! What a waste of time. Maybe I should have seen one of those wacky herbal doctors or whatever! I was definitely suing him for malpractice when I was diagnosed (by another doctor) with that terrible brain tumor!

I was going to have to solve this problem myself. I bought a pink notebook at the drugstore while I waited for my prescription. I would need this to collect data.

For the next week, whenever someone asked me something, I wrote down both the exact wording of the question, along with my response.

I began to notice trends.

If I was asked something that could only be answered with a yes/no response, I always responded correctly.

Do you work on Tuesday? Did you bring your lunch today? Is that a new dress?

If it was not a yes/no question, but it was something I had been asked many times in the past, I could also answer truthfully.

What time does this store open on Sundays? What did you do last night? What do you think of this band?

It was the open-ended, surprise questions that triggered my foreign tongue. And even when I was asked nothing, untrue sentences just slipped out of my mouth unprovoked.

Out of the blue, I told my best friend that I thought her boyfriend was great and she should just learn to live with constant cheating.

“What the fuck? You’ve always told me the opposite. So you’re saying that I can’t do any better and I should just accept it?”

I apologized. “Lately I have had no control over half the stuff I say.”

She hugged me. “Have you been drinking too much? Do you need to talk about something? Have you been taking diet pills? Because you do seem a little thinner…”

No, no. Everything was going to be just fine. But did I really look like I had lost weight?

I began to write down the appropriate responses for various common situations. When I pulled an employee into the office to lecture him about his tendency toward secretly eating fried chicken while working the fitting rooms, I consulted page 49 of my notebook.

“Various policies exist for a reason: so we can serve the customer effectively. For that reason, certain actions are not permitted on the sales floor…”

I mastered the art of “reading aloud while not appearing to be reading aloud.” Everything was coming together. I was learning to cope with my disability.

One glaring problem remained: the boy. No, not “a boy.” Or “just any boy.” THE BOY. I had been forced to change my regular bike route, lest we encountered one another while coasting down Ankeny. I pedaled no less than ten blocks out of the way. I told myself that the extra exercise could only improve my health.

I had not spoken to him for weeks. I was thankful that he did not own a phone. In the past, this had been inconvenient. I had been forced to leave notes at his house or throw rocks at his bedroom window. I had complained about this, calling him a “hippie” and a “petulant teenager.” I had once drunkenly offered to BUY him a phone. Now I was glad that his own hipster pride had prevented him from taking me up on that suggestion. At least I would not be tempted to drunkenly call him. But I was thinking about him all night, every night. He was in the background of every dream, leaning against the wall or sitting across from me on the bus.

Of course I had a plan. I spent nights in my empty bathtub, writing down everything I had been wanting to say to him. Every fleeting thought, every dreamscape declaration. Furthermore, I practiced writing as small–but legibly–as possible. This was an important element of my scheme.

When I finally had put together all of the right words, I printed them as tiny as possible on the back of my left hand. I had so much to say, that the sentences snaked up my wrist, almost reaching my elbow. I used permanent ink.

I practiced in front of the mirror. Reading from my hand was a new method. I didn’t want to seem as if I was staring at my feet. Eye contact would be essential.

I wore a dress and stockings. This would impress him. I brushed my hair 100 times and I sprayed myself with expensive French perfume reserved for special occasions. I even filed my fingernails. “The wrapping is almost important as the gift,” I told myself.

I strolled over to his house on a Tuesday at dusk.

Fortunately he was sitting on the porch. I hadn’t prepared myself for the possibility that I would have to knock on the door and then work my way into his house. This could have derailed my entire plan.

I smiled broadly as I approached him. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“I’m just watching all of the crows in that tree. It’s like every crow in the city is hanging out here. They’ve been coming every day around this time.”

It was true. An army of black birds were blocking out the setting sun, while screaming at one another in glee.

“Do you mind if I sit down?”

He moved to the right, making some room on the step. “Go ahead. I haven’t seen you for a while. What’s that all over your hand?”

I looked down at the microscopic paragraphs. “Oh, that’s just one of those stupid hippie henna tattoos. Someone talked me into it.”

He nodded his head as if he believed me. “Well, you look nice. Big night out?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “My only plan is seeing you.”

Further head nodding.

I cleared my throat. “So listen, I said some stupid stuff to you the last time I was here. And I just want to set it straight.”

He smirked. “Yeah, it was definitely a little weird. But I figured, ‘Hey, she’s always saying something wacky.’”

I blushed. This was probably true.

My left eye consulted my hand–covertly, I hoped–while I looked at his face. Big swallow. And then,

“Remember that weird old-person diner place near work that closed last year? We used to go to lunch there all the time when I first met you. And there was this buffet in the middle of the restaurant that held only condiments and plastic cups of water? You came up with the idea that every time we had to get some ketchup or a napkin, we had to stand up and do a full lap around that buffet thing. I thought it was the funniest thing. I would laugh so hard, that tears would slip out of the corners of my eyes. I couldn’t do the lap with a straight face. But you would just stand up and do it, as cool as a cucumber. And that just made it funnier to me. All of the elderly customers thought we were crazy or on drugs or something.”

My left eye moved to my wrist bone.

“That’s when I started to realize that you are the most amazing person I have ever met. Ever since that first night together in your bed, I have forgotten that other boys exist in this world. And when one of them is brave enough to talk to me, I am just reminded that no one can compare to you in my heart.”

And then the words running along my ulna.

“I don’t know why I said that I didn’t want you to be my boyfriend. Because that’s the exact opposite of my feelings. I want to spend more time with you than anyone else. I want to hear all of your stories and know all of your opinions and listen to all of your dreams. In other words, I love you.”

He was silent. I figured he probably needed a moment to digest what I had just said. This was obviously a really pivotal moment. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, waiting. I began counting the seconds.

Onetwothreefourfivesixseven…
Thirtyninefortyfortyone…
Seventyeightseventynineeighty…

At 148, he spoke.
“I know this is going to sound strange, but sometimes I just can’t hear. And just now, I didn’t here anything you said. I could see your lips moving, but there was no sound. I think I have hearing damage or something. Old age, maybe. It happens at the most random times.”

I sighed with relief. Everything was going to be okay. “Oh yeah, I was just asking if you wanted some gum.”

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. I rummaged a pack out of my bag and he took a piece.

I reached for his hand. We sat in silence, watching the crows caw and carry on, our mouths filling with the taste of cinnamon.

I am nothing without my readers.  Yes, it sounds cheesy, but it’s also very true.  All of you have given me the reason to write, even on days when I would have preferred to lie in bed with a pillow over my head (and there were definitely a lot of those 2009).  I’ve appreciated ALL of the correspondence I have received from everyone…and I apologize for some of my delayed responses.  I promise that I save every email/Facebook/MySpace message that I have received about my blog.

So! One of the things I want to do in “honor” of this auspicious occasion is repost/revise/update some of my most popular posts.   That’s where you come in…please tell me what you have liked most.  It’s fine if you just say “oh, that thing about sleeping in the grass” or “that time that guy said he was an artist and therefore, he couldn’t just have a job.”  But it would also be great if you could tell me WHY you liked it!

How can you do this?  Well, posting a comment here is probably the easiest way.  But if you’re shy and/or you prefer to spell check your correspondence, you can email me:  vonlonewolf@gmail.com. If email makes you feel like you’re getting too serious with me, you can also send me a message via Facebook.  Wait….is that more serious-er?  And if you’ve never written to me before, this is a really good time to start something new.

Thank you (in advance)!

xo

Amanda (a.k.a. The Heiress)

A mural of Gauchito Gil, a popular character in Argentine pop culture. Check out his story on Wikipedia!

Morning arrived at hyperspeed. The unstoppable summer sun was streaming through the glass above the double doors to our room, winding down and around to the bottom bunk where I was sprawled out. No anemic winter sunlight here! I leapt out of bed, feeling thoroughly refreshed and energized. The first thing I thought of was MC Hammer (yeah, I was concerned, too). And then I began to think about a boy that had once removed my long-beloved white belt* using only his teeth. We had just “ironically” drank a bottle of Nighttrain (I do not recommend this) while watching Kubrick’s Lolita. I feigned drunkenness, forcing him to take drastic action. And then my undying respect was garnered. It was a complicated metal buckle! I continued to marvel at his obviously top-notch dexterity as I wandered over to the communal bathroom to brush my own teeth.**

I stole glances at the young men using the sinks on either side of me, wondering if either of them were capable of oral belt removal. The one on the left seemed to timid. Certainly not a go-getter! And the hairy fellow on the right probably specialized in removing all sorts of garments and fashion accessories with his remarkably pointy teeth.
He caught me staring. I began to blink rapidly, hoping that he would think I had something in my eye.

I watched the water drain down the sink backwards (thanks, southern hemisphere) as I washed my face. Whoa! I was doing all of the boring stuff I do every single morning in Philadelphia, and nothing was really that different at all. Face lotion, birth control pills, and hair detangler. All the same stuff brought with me from the Estados Unidos, wearing my same black pajama pants and still, I was in BUENOS AIRES!

INTERLUDE: This is probably a good time to confess just how much clothing I brought to Buenos Aires. Let’s just say that my enormous suitcase weighed 57 pounds. The check-in attendant in Philly had let it slide, because she “guess[ed] a trip to South America required a lot of stuff.” BOTH of my guidebooks has mentioned that the inhabitants of Buenos Aires were very fashion conscience. I was warned to leave the hiking boots and drawstrings back in the USA, lest I brand myself “TOURIST.” As if my slow gringo Spanish wouldn’t betray my true heritage…

So what did I bring on my trip? Hmm…two pairs of boots, one pair of clogs, and moccasins. Ten dresses, two pairs of leggings, and countless black undershirts. One bathing suit. My shredded japanese Levi’s. Two hats. I don’t think these seems to unreasonable for an eight day trip to the underside of the planet, but my traveling companions thought I was crazy. On the other hand, I have taken just as much clothing to SXSW, and that’s only five days. I have a clothing problem. And I’m the worst suitcase packer.

Okay, back to morning in B.A…

Breakfast at the hostel was not terribly impressive: hard little rolls with margarine and dulce de leche (essentially caramel sauce), the world’s worst coffee, and shriveled oranges. This was not going to work, especially when I remembered that I had essentially consumed only bread***, cheese, and booze the previous day.

I turned to Lacey. “I’m going to need a salad. Or some tofu. Some sort of vegan delight filled with b-vitamins and calcium.”

She laughed at me. “Salads” as we spoiled Americans know them, do not exist in Buenos Aires. Even a crappy McDonald’s salad served in a plastic cup is leaps and bounds beyond the standard Argentine plate of anemic iceberg lettuce with a few shreds of chewy onions. And vegan food? Not so much, in a country dominated by beef and cheese. However, Lacey’s brain also functioned as a hippie guidebook to South America, so she knew just the place. She, Shaina, and I headed for El Centro (also known to outsiders as “Montserrat,” the historic center of B.A.). Reyna stayed behind, still asleep, because she had found herself at a bar around the corner until nearly sunup.

El Centro was crawling with business people bustling around in lightweight suits. This was in sharp contrast to me and my meandering buddies. Somehow I had forgotten that the rest of the world was not on vacation. The sun was brutal, forcing us to stop at a bench for a sunscreen application break. I snapped photos of street art and beautifully decaying old buildings.

We stopped at an electronics store so I could buy an electric adapter. None of my guidebooks had mentioned the need for any kind of adapter for my assortment of portable electronic devices. However, I discovered this oversight within minutes of checking into the Ostinatto, when I tried to charge my nearly-dead Ipod. Crisis! The thought of being unable to use my laptop for a full week gave me chills.

Our next stop was Farmacity (ubiquitous Argentine drug store chain) so Shaina could buy soap. Lacey and I wandered the aisles laughing at product names (i.e., “Enjoy” brand tampons).

At a decidedly American-influenced cafe (it offered bagels!) I ate possibly the best salad of my life. Shaina and Lacey ordered smoothies and vegan muffins. Not “authentic,” but just what we needed…especially since we were already anticipating the impending wine consumption of the late afternoon and evening.

We decided it was time to head back to the hostel to wake up Reyna. We were planning to go to Palermo (allegedly the most “fashionable” barrio in the city) that day.

As we approached the palm tree-lined Plaza de Mayo (the focal point of the barrio, and home to the Casa Rosada, the executive government building), I noticed a whole army of police in riot gear. I pointed it out to Lacey.

She was unimpressed.  “Oh, there must be another protest. There’s usually one here almost every day.”

I looked at the cops in their Stormtrooper armor and helmets. Several military tanks idled behind them. This was obviously a serious and potentially dangerous situation. I remembered that one of my guidebooks had informed me that protests were a frequent occurrence in B.A. The book’s advice was very direct: “Don’t feel nervous and whatever you do, don’t get involved.”

Wildly dangerous protest!

I considered suggesting a detour around the Plaza, but I didn’t want to seem like a scaredy cat. I dutifully followed my companions as they cut through the center of the Plaza. The protest consisted of twenty young women, dressed in black gowns, singing in shrieks. Their signs made no sense to us. Further confusing us, they had made a large paper mache ass (or buttocks, if you will) and placed it in a cage.

The aforementioned paper mache buttocks. I love that guy's facial expression!

“Some sort of feminist issue,” I chirped to my friends. We laughed. Of course, then I was filled with instant Riot Grrl remorse. I assuaged my guilt by smiling at the protesters and giving them an enthusiastic “thumbs up.”

In the next episode: We shake Reyna out of bed…I smoke too many Le Mans cigarettes on the balcony…We travel to Palermo and experience the incomparable magic of the Subte…And I learn that red wine mixed with Fanta is muy delicioso.

*I wore this belt for years and years (back when I wore pants/jeans on a regular basis) because I felt that it embodied a mixture of mod sensibility and mathematical prowess. I’m not sure where/how/why the latter conclusion was drawn.

**I should add that this fellow, a former resident of Portland, OR, was perhaps the most stylish person I’ve ever gotten to know in the biblical sense. He also made little gifts for me on a regular basis and he owned a large collection of metal and early-90s hip hop tapes. Whoa! What’s not to love? Alas, I suddenly and coldly rejected him because I decided he just wasn’t “complex” enough (i.e., not nearly enough of a broody crybaby that would torture me emotionally).

***For those of you who don’t know me “in real life,” and/or have not been forced to eat at a restaurant with me, I have celiac disease. This means that I can’t eat most foods containing flour (as well as other weird stuff, like most soy sauces and faux meats). I knew that eating pizza and dinner rolls was asking for trouble, but I just threw caution to the wind. And actually, by some sort of miracle, I wasn’t sick at all in Argentina. Meanwhile, upon my return to Philly, I accidentally ate muesli that inexplicably contained wheat for three days in a row…for days, I had a low grade fever, rash, and a really horrible stomachache.

Our hostel included a tiny rooftop pool, a cheap well-stocked bar, and lots of foxy Europeans.

At the front desk at the hostel, I discovered that Reyna had not yet arrived. This, coupled with the realization that I couldn’t just check in and take a nap because all of the bed sheets were in the dryer, deflated my spirits. I had been picturing some sort of teary-eyed, squeaky-voiced reunion. And instead I was in Buenos Aires, alone and possibly unable to speak Spanish. Nevermind that I was also smelly and bleary-eyed. A shower and a few minutes of sleep would have been fine consolation prizes.

I was signing the hostel’s contract, agreeing to never bring in alcohol from outside (the Ostinatto had a bar) and always be quiet after 11 pm (no problem, since I’m a grandma about peace, quiet, and beauty sleep), when a girl with dreads appeared next to me. Well-worn, practical clothes and the kind of shoes that never hurt one’s feet.

“Oh, shit,” I thought. “I’m totally out of my league. I’ve got an enormous suitcase full of cowboy boots, sundresses, and lacy panties, and this girl has a duffle bag of the barest essentials. I doubt she brought flip flops to wear in the shower.”

People my age were probably supposed to stay at a nice bed and breakfast.

I was trying to focus on transcribing my passport number onto my check-in paperwork (no easy feat, because at this point, the numbers were performing an enthusiastic line dance before my eyes), when I heard the girl say that her reservation was listed under “Shaina* or Reyna.”

I jumped to attention. “Actually, your reservation is under ‘Amanda.” And we’re roommates, I guess.”

The timing was amazing. This girl, Lacey, had received an email from Shaina that morning, saying something along the lines of “Hey, we have an extra bed in our room in BA, because our fourth buddy dropped out.”** She headed over to our hostel in San Telmo right after receiving the message, only to run into me about five minutes after my arrival.
Perfect! After learning that Lacey had been in South America for nearly a year, backpacking and exploring every corner of the continent, I knew that I was in good hands. We stashed our bags in the hostel basement before heading out into the street.

This is Lacey. She is holding a photo of disinfectant spray that we found atop a pile of garbage on Calle Chile. Yeah, I don't get it, either.

A light rain was falling, enveloping the narrow streets in a romantic mist. Walking was a challenge. The cobblestone streets were treacherous, but not nearly as slippery as the tiled sidewalks. Overwhelmed by human traffic of the street feria, I tried to focus my eyes on the sky. The hole in the ozone layer was hovering above me, but nothing seemed different. A Bowerbirds song escaped from the window of a movie store. It would be the only time I heard anything other than vapid dance music in Argentina.

Lacey guided me to a cafe, where I drank my first boozy coffee of the week: coffee (obviously), frangelico, whiskey, chocolate, and a bit of milk. Oh yeah! In minutes, I was drunk on sugar and forbidden dairy. We talked about Andy Warhol and the revolution of pop art. Then feminism. Latin American spanish. Socialism and the shortcomings of communism. I craved cigarettes and straight whiskey.

We decided to head back to the hostel, since Reyna and Shaina were allegedly arriving at 2 pm. On the way, I found myself caught up in trying on clothes at the feria, using a window as a mirror. Eighty pesos (and some intense negotiation, with much assistance from Lacey) later, I was the owner of an amazing suede/sweater jacket and two “boho” blouses.

And Reyna! She was there at the desk at the Ostinatto, laden down by numerous duffle bags.
I was so excited to see her! After gathering our sheets and calculating everyone’s hostel bill, we giggled breathlessly up the winding stairs to our third floor room. We lounged in one of the bottom bunks, catching up on four months.

“Well, first I decided that I was over him.”
“…and then then he was emailing me every day, even though I don’t even really have email down here.”
“I’ve been hanging out with this guy, and it’s stupid.”
“I’ve been thinking about this guy, and it’s stupid.”

Reyna (aka, Rey-Rey, Babeznay, other names that I use only when I've had more than three drinks).

And then it was lunch time…the soft rain had evolved into a downpour, drenching my hair as we ran to a restaurant. I learned several important things from my first meal in B.A.:

1. Pizza is good. Especially with gorgonzola cheese. And I guess this is a good time to mention that I was taking a “break” from veganism while on vacation.
2. Wine is cheap and delicious in Argentina. Even the cheapest 10 peso bottle (about $3) tastes like heaven.  I’ve always been a loyal fan of the brown liquors, but since I’ve returned from my trip, I’ve had a constant hankering for Argentino wine.  I mean, not in alcoholic way or anything.  I swear I’m not drinking malbec for breakfast or substituting cabernet for interpersonal relationships.
3. The service in Argentina is bad. The food doesn’t arrive for 30 minutes (at best). The check arrives about two hours later. And don’t expect frequent refills or amiable check-ins a la “how is everything?”. But a generous gratuity is 10%, so why complain? Except…well, I silently complained every time, until Friday when I met up with Lem. Then we bitched about it non-stop. “We’re awful Americans. We expect efficiency. Time is money, after all.”

After lunch, we walked around San Telmo in a tipsy haze, laughing at sexual harassers and the few obvious Americans we saw. At one point, in the midst of the soft slur of spanish surrounding us, we heard a loud midwestern accent announce, “Empanadas! We can cross THAT off the list.” This became one of the biggest recurring jokes of the trip.

At some point we had dinner. And some time before and/or after, we sprawled in our beds, drinking fernet*** and Coke. I shared the latest gossip from Portland, while Reyna and Shaina filled me in on the intricacies of dating in Argentina. Overall: beware of sudden, uninvited tongue kissing from strangers. Noted.

Shaina, on the third floor of our hostel (I was standing in the lobby).

Eventually I took the hottest shower and fell into the darkest sleep. I don’t remember putting on my pajamas. I certainly cannot recall saying “good night” to my friends. Somehow I put in my earplugs and pulled my sleep mask over my eyes.

And then…I was walking through Center City Philadelphia, when I spied an old boyfriend in a phone booth.

“This just might be the last phone booth in North America,” I decided.

I did not trust him. Who uses pay phones in an era of cell phones and Skype?
I decided to spy on him, pulling my coat’s huge collar around my face. Someone once told me, “Nobody looks like you, Amanda.” So I knew that my mission would most likely be unsuccessful.

I was already rehearsing excuses. “Oh, that was YOU in the phone booth? I didn’t even notice…you see, I was skulking around because I was looking for my contact lens. It’s somewhere here on the sidewalk, I think.”

He did not notice me, because he was engrossed in conversation. With my little sister in Los Angeles. “She’s not who you think she is. She’s not your real sister. It’s all a sham. Beware.”

I backed away, blinking in confusion. And then my eyes must have been closed for a second too long, because when I reopened them, I was walking along the Delaware River. The wind was blustery but the sky was the blinding blue of a kindergarten painting. A long strip at the top of the page, followed by a weighty expanse of white.

He was in the river, flailing around and screaming my name. Without thinking, I ripped off my clothes, and jumped in. Normally I’m a wimpy swimmer at best, but just then I had super human speed and strength. I began to drag his slippery body back to the shore. He fought me the whole way. I tried to cover his mouth, hoping that he would pass out for a few moments. No luck. Instead, he bit my finger and declared, “I’ll never thank you for this, you know.”

When I took a good look at his face, I realized that he wasn’t at all who I thought he was.

I pushed him away, before tossing a piece of driftwood toward him. “Hold on to this. I’m never coming back. You’ll figure it out.”

I swam back to the shore, wrapping my coat over my sopping clothes.

I opened my eyes. My hair was still wet and I was somewhere strange. A bunk bed in South America. And I had just dreamed about Philadelphia for the first time ever.

*Shaina was Reyna’s new friend from her university program in Argentina.  She is actually from Eugene, OR, so they became fast friends.

**I never met the original fourth member of our entourage.  She was stranded in Colombia, thanks to some financial and immigration issues.  It worked out fine for her, because Colombia is a cheap paradise.

***A mysterious herbal liquor.  Argentinos will try to tell you that fernet will never cause a hangover.  THIS IS A LIE.  DO NOT FALL FOR THIS SCAM.  In fact, it may induce the worst hangover of all time.  And I’m fairly convinced that it causes intensely real and disturbing dreams if consumed within four hours of bedtime.

In the eighties, my grandparents’ neighborhood was a middle class paradise. Imagine streets lined with sensible ranch houses. Every manicured emerald lawn held an aquamarine kidney shaped pool. Each yard was surrounded with symmetrical shrubs and an ultra-white picket fence. The streets were named after trees: “White Oak Drive” and “Maple Lane.” The mailman knew everyone’s name and he even gave me a stamp every time I lost a tooth. The post-war dream was alive and thriving.

I spent most of my summer days hanging around my grandma’s house. She worked in her office in the mornings, while I jumped rope in the yard and watched games shows in the cave-like family room. At one, she emerged for lunch and Days of Our Lives. I watched this program intently, taking very serious notes on a legal pad. I was convinced that the action-packed soap opera was not only a paragon of fine writing and exceptional acting, but also, an easy way to learn the ways and means of adults. I used the “data” collected from a summer of daytime television viewing to write numerous plays and short stories during the school year for my easily impressed “gifted and talented” program counselor.

After Days of Our Lives ended at two o’clock, I usually took a stroll around the neighborhood. Most of my grandma’s neighbors had watched my mom grow up, so they were always happy to shower me with cookies and Snoopy Sno-Cone Makers. Or I might play in the pool until my skin was pruny. I checked the trees for bird nests (a rare occurrence, but I still fantasized about raising a family of loyal starlings-cum-carrier pigeons). I mapped out the most likely locations for high bee density and then labeled them with yellow construction paper flags. This benefited only me, but I reasoned that at some point my grandparents might entertain guests with bee sting allergies.

At least once a week, I would make the longer trek to Rutter’s (a convenience store, about half a mile away). The best part of this store was neither its comprehensive selection of Garbage Pail Kids nor the large freezer of frozen treats. No, its true appeal was found at the edge of the parking lot: a little used phone booth. I would fish a quarter out of my Poochie purse and dial my grandma’s number.

She feigned surprise when she heard my voice on the other end of the phone. “How are you doing, honey?”

“Guess where I am, Grandma?” I hoped that she couldn’t hear the trucks passing by on North George Street

She always asked, “Where in the world are you?”

The answer changed. “Oh, I’m in Paris.”
“Today I’m in Australia.”
“Lockerbie, Scotland.”

It really all depended which city or country had been the focus of the NBC Nightly News the previous night. I always watched it with my grandpa after dinner. (Side note: as a result, I have always felt a deep attraction to Tom Brokaw).

I would make up a story based on my location.

“I rode a camel.”
“I saw the Eiffel Tower from a hot air balloon.”
“I climbed a volcano and I really touched lava…with a stick, of course.”

We would discuss the weather; I made statements based on my hazy knowledge of world geography and climate.
“Oh yeah, it’s pretty cold here because we’re really far from the equator.”
“There have been a lot of earthquakes today, because I am near California.”

Grandma would wish me a safe return trip before I hung up. Then I would go into the store to buy a Diet Coke for her. It’s always good to return from a trip with gifts for loved ones. I had learned this from my grandparents’ annual Caribbean cruises; their suitcases were always bursting with dolls, seashells, and bikinis for me.

I thought about this as I passed a row of telephone booths in the Ezeiza International Airport. “I should call Grandma, because now I really am somewhere else.” But I was on a mission. There was no time for sentimental indulgence. I had to remember how to speak Spanish, catch a cab to San Telmo, and somehow, hopefully find Reyna. I had no idea when she would be arriving at the hostel. And I didn’t want her to have to wait around for me.

I was tired.  I definitely smelled a little gamey.  The line for immigration had been long and boring.  The officer had winked at me and said “Amanda is a lovely name” as he stamped my passport.  As if Amanda weren’t the most generic name for caucasian girls born in the U.S. during the late seventies and early eighties.   I was incapable of charm, so he received only a robotic “gracias.” I changed clothes, exchanged money, and retrieved my luggage in a daze.  Customs revealed itself as a complex obstacle course of human drama and dangerous wheeled suitcases, as I watched a woman throw herself to the ground in tears because her four dogs (from Texas) were denied entry to the Republic of Argentina.

The cab was easier than I thought. The attendant at the desk asked me, “Do you speak Spanish?”

I could only say in feeble half Spanish “Normally I do. But right now I am sleepy and confused. Can we speak English?”

And then silently I scolded myself, “Way to be a lazy American!”

As a cute young boy guided me to my cab (while he asked me polite questions in perfect Oxford English), strange men began to vie for my attention. A man who was probably my father’s age grabbed my arm and pretended to swoon with delight. It was the first of many times that week that I heard the phrase “bruja hermosa” as I passed. It means “beautiful witch.” And yes, of course I was wearing a crazy witchy hat. After a few days, the constant sexual harassment became amusing. Traveling with a pack of cute girls guaranteed constant male attention. But that morning, with blue-black circles under my eyes and the faint panic that accompanies the first few hours in place that is most definitely not the good, ol’ USA, it was too much for me. I practically dove into the backseat of the cab. The driver tried to strike up a conversation with me, but I shut it down with a muttered “Estoy un poco enferma” (I’m a little ill).

Ezeiza is a 30-40 minute drive from the center of Buenos Aires. I was on the edge of my seat, knowing that I was going to burst out of the taxi the moment I saw the facade of the Ostinatto Hostel. I watched the scenery pass with wide eyes and a slack jaw. The signs were in Spanish! The cars were different! The architecture of the buildings was unlike that found in American cities, in a way I couldn’t describe. Billboards for Pepsi and cell phones passed in rapid succession.

I pulled a Latin American phrase book out of my backpack, hoping to miraculously master “vos” and the “ll=sh” concepts in just a few minutes. But I couldn’t focus.
Several months of saving money and worrying…of overthinking every possible outcome and changing my mind with each week…and now I was here.

The taxi stopped and the driver helped me drag my huge blue suitcase out of the trunk. There I was.

I reached for my phone. I tapped out a text to my mom as I waited for the desk clerk to answer the doorbell.

“Tell Grandma that I am in Buenos Aires and the weather is warm. It’s summer in the southern hemisphere.”

But wait….I was on the way to SOUTH AMERICA!  Stupid boys, crappy friends, and ill-advised conversations were forgotten, as I changed into my “comfy” clothes for the overnight flight to Buenos Aires.  Oh, you know…leggings, my sweet old lady flight compression socks (I SWEAR they help), a grey fashion t-shirt, moccasins, and (of course) a navajo print sweater.  Yeah!  FASHION!

I performed time-killing (yet essential) exercises:  tooth brushing, face washing, and hair braiding.  A visit to the ATM.  Forcing myself to drink water.  I inventoried my carry-on  half a dozen times (I was super paranoid about losing my passport, thanks to that little experience called “Losing my driver’s license at SXSW 2006”).

And then it was time to board the flight.  I couldn’t stop smiling as I listened to the boarding announcements in both English and Spanish.   I spent a few minutes at the gate trying to decide which of the passengers were true Argentinians .  Some tell tale signs included nice leather boots, blingy designer sunglasses, skintight jeans verging on camel toe (for the ladies) and baggy-yet-tailored pants (for the men).  I tried to appear blase as I flashed my passport to a harried American Airlines representative.  But my attempts at coolness were replaced by unbridled excitement as I actually stepped on to the plane.

I was going to Argentina!  All of the hand-wringing and ticket shopping were paying off!  At least a dozen times in the past few months I had told myself, “I’m not going to be able to go to Argentina.”  As if to make myself feel better, I would add, “But maybe I can go to Portland instead.”   But it was really happening.  Luggage was checked.   Gluten free meals were ordered.  Reservations were made.  Yeah!

Sleeping was a priority, because I planned on leaping off the plane and skipping through Buenos Aires all day on Sunday.  No rest for the wicked!  I took some homeopathic jet lag medication (I highly recommend this stuff, Jet Zone, because it really prevented my usual travel headache AND it made me feel very relaxed).  I followed it up with a dose of valerian root.  I should have stopped there…but then the blonde flight attendant (with a charming southern accent) took a liking to me.  She showed her affection with several airline bottles of wine.  I couldn’t say “no!”  The passenger across the aisle from me had just guzzled SEVEN cocktails.  If he could toss back booze with such abandon, then certainly I could drink three tiny bottles of wine.  Ordinarily I don’t track the alcohol consumption of strangers (really), but he piqued my interest when he ordered four little bottles of vodka right off the bat.   “Wow,” I thought.  “This seems like the kind of guy I generally find myself dating.  I had better keep an eye on him.”

At one point, while watching a stupid “romantic” movie, I might have eaten a couple Benadryl tablets.   And so, within an hour, I was ridiculously wasted.   The movie was forgotten.   I shuffled off to the bathroom to take out my contacts.  I practically fell into the sink.   I found myself staring at my hands and saying aloud, “These are really my hands!  This is what my hands really look like!”  Yeah, loaded for sure.

Suddenly dawn sunlight was seeping through the edges of the window next to my seat.  I was wrapped in a blanket and my silicone earplugs were tangled in my hair.  I smelled like booze.  The large screen at the front of the room indicated that we were just above Uruguay.  We were landing in less than hour!

The descent was bumpy.  No, no, “bumpy” is an understatement.   It was horrible!  Imagine the sheer terror of Space Mountain combined with a dizzying rapid succession of somersaults.  I was fairly certain that I was going to be sick, as I felt my stomach leaping into my throat over and over again.  A guy across the aisle from me (not the champion drinker) started retching.  The cabin filled with the acid stench of vomit.

Some fun facts about me:

1. If I see someone crying, I will start crying myself.
2. If I hear someone vomiting, I will start gagging.
3. If I see someone vomiting, I will definitely throw up.
4. If I throw up, I will start crying (and muttering my catchphrase “I can’t believe this is happening”).

I jammed my earplugs back into place and buried my head under a blanket.  There was no way that a great day in Buenos Aires could begin with puking red wine and quinoa (part of the gluten free dinner) into a tiny paper bag.  But the turbulence was worsening.   And I was aware that someone in the row ahead of me was also throwing up.  Babies were crying.  A passenger behind me was muttering a prayer in Spanish.  My body was tossed back and forth with intensifying force, forcing me to grip the armrests with all of my white-knuckled might.

“Please don’t throw up,” I whispered to myself.  I quickly added, “Also, I’m going to be really pissed if this plane crashes on my big, exciting trip.”

My ears popped and popped and popped some more.  We were nearing the ground.  I was afraid to lift the blanket from my head, lest I see aisles overflowing with vomit and dirty napkins.  I would wait it out.  I stayed calm by imagining that Moe $$$ was traveling with me.  My head was filled with a slideshow of travel photos, all including my svelte black cat…wearing a sassy red scarf.  If only it were more socially acceptable to travel with feline companions.

And then we landed with a screech/thud/piercing grinding sound.  Everyone burst into grateful applause and whistles.  I may have shrieked, “Oh, yeah!”

Tomorrow (or Thursday, because I have to help my dear friend Emily pack for her move to NYC):  I discover the magic of boozy coffee, I meet new friends, and learn to tolerate the incredibly slow service in Argentine restaurants.