Weee.... eeeellll....

[exhilaration]

So, a couple things I want to write about, here, one being one of the lj comms I'm on. I started a livejournal for the comms. I wrote in it, yeah, like one day a month or something, but it was really just to participate in the comms. Fandom stuff, some, and other things that just had to do with life, like art and photography and things like that. One comm I've been reading for a while is poor_skills (which I did mention the other day) and it can be a little infuriating how self righteous people can be about how much they're willing to sacrifice to be cheaper than everyone else in existence... but there's a lot of good information on that comm, especially for someone like me who often finds myself in situations where I'm like, uh oh, didn't expect this one, what do I do, I know, I'll call my mom, she knows, oh wait, not speaking to her, huh, wonder how I sort this one out? And so on.

So there's this girl who's been posting there a lot and it seems she's out of work because she broke her leg. Okay, so, she doesn't know what to do because she can't work because she's hurt, and she's trying to deal with having no income. Great. Okay, so poor_skills is a good place to get some pointers. Fine. But I've found myself, tonight, just wanting to shake her. Or at least leave her a nasty comment. Which I'm not going to do, because it's probably not a good idea, but... really? Really, she can't cook, because she's on crutches? Really? Really?

HAS IT REALLY NEVER OCCURRED TO THE GIRL TO SIT ON A DAMN STOOL?

I mean, seriously, I swear I am no type of supergimp. I am so far from that. I don't cook often, because I think it's a pain in the ass cooking for one person, and I never feel like doing the dishes anyway so my solution is just not to use them, and yes, that is called being very lazy, but... I can cook. I can cook really well. It never occurred to me to think, ok, I can't cook because I'm on crutches, I have to keep my hands on them or I fall down (her words, not mine) so I have to eat only things that don't need to be prepared, because I can't cook.

Obviously I'm just being really unsympathetic here. Which is why this is here on my personal journal and not on the comm. And yeah, pretty much all aspects of life are harder when you can't stand up on your own. But harder doesn't have to mean impossible. Really. It doesn't.

So I've been seeing quite a bit less of Erica lately.

I kind of think she must be hooking up with someone. I think I was her "single girl" friend while she was bouncing back from this ex of hers she left at college, and now she's hooking up with someone else. Or maybe she's got some other friend she hangs around twenty four seven now, or something. But she's gone from being completely available at the drop of a hat and always, and I mean always at my house to being kind of hard to get a hold of.

Even so. When I said I thought maybe I'd like to do a beach day, she jumped right on that, and the planning began, she was totally gung-ho about it and even then I was a little bit thinking she'd bail at the last minute, because she's been doing that recently.

Bevan did tell me, specifically, that if I ever wanted to go to the beach for the day to tell him because he wanted to come with me. So, after much deliberation (that I tried to mention to Erica but she wasn't really paying attention) I did call him. This makes, oh, maybe three times in my life I've actually called him on the phone. I hate the phone. But I did call him and said I was planning to go to the beach on Thursday and reminded he told me to invite him, so I was inviting him. He asked if it was okay if he brought Jory along. I was like, er, of course it's okay, how could I say it wasn't? I wasn't really expecting him to actually come along in the first place, let along both of them coming, but, yeah. I couldn't exactly be like, no.

Those two are... not going to stay together. They can't. I just don't see how it would work. She's going back to college in a few weeks and they both screwed around on each other the last time she was gone and... I don't know. They just don't see enough of each other or something, whatever, maybe I'm just totally interpreting this all wrong. His whole face lights up when he talks about her. She's pretty much the same way about him. Maybe it will all work out in the end.

Whatever. I don't want to be the reason it doesn't. So anything that could remotely resemble a date between the two of us just isn't going to happen. I was kind of figuring that Erica was going to bail on me. Meaning that Jory would have to come along because otherwise it would just be me and Bevan, and that's a little like a date.

But in the end it was me and Erica and her friend (that I know from work) Lindsay and Bevan and Jory and Jory's friend who's name I forget and Bevan's friend Rich. We all went to Wildwood together. It was only about a half hour drive, which isn't bad considering all the summer traffic. And it was a really gorgeous and perfect day (during the day, at night there was a thunderstorm, but it's all good) and I wore something very cute and very skimpy and beach-worthy and I got a bit of a sun tan, imagine that. Also, Wildwood is, well, wild-er, and there are like bars and liquor stores right on the island, so we got to stop so I could get some alcoholic freezy-pops. It was very exciting :P

So. The part I was really dreading, the part where I'm expected to get from point A to point B on sand totally kicked my ass. The beach in Wildwood is really, really wide. I guess in my head I was picturing a beach like the one behind my house that I really still can't walk on but somehow since it's much smaller I was figuring that somehow it would still be okay.

It wasn't okay.

And of course, I, stupidly, told everyone to go ahead and pick out a spot on the beach and that I'd just catch up in a while.

Okay so this one time (I think I posted about it?) Rich came to pick me up in his Jeep and I freaked out and got really, really pissed off because there was no way I could get into it. The floor of the Jeep was like three feet off the ground. There was a little step up ledge but that was like two and a half feet off the ground, and I just couldn't figure any way to get in, and instead of letting someone pick me up (which I guess was an option, sort of) I just got really mad and wouldn't go at all and went back in my house and stayed home instead. So, ever since that disaster of a day... and yes, I know I was totally obnoxious to everyone involved, thanks... Bevan has been sort of... discreetly observant about what might be an obstacle for me that ordinarily would be nothing to worry about.

So he kind of lagged behind and was like, look, if you tell me you're fine, I'll just go away, but if you need some kind of help, just tell me what to do.

And I was like, I AM FINE OH WAIT IM ACTUALLY NOT AT ALL AND NO I DO NOT WANT YOU TO PICK ME UP SO JUST DONT TOUCH ME.

I was so psyched to go to the beach. And I have been out on a beach plenty of times before, I've been on the beach with my friend Matt more times than I can count and it should not have been that big of a deal but maybe I was just building it up in my head for so long ever since I moved here that I was just freaking out over nothing, I don't know, but I seriously almost lost it.

But I think I covered it up pretty well. And I did get across the (five mile wide... okay not five miles but still really wide) beach, really slowly, and with lots of help, and Bevan said something along the lines of one summer he broke his leg and knows that crutches on the sand are really tricky, and I just kind of snapped at him that ITS NOT THE SAME THING AT ALL and he pretty much didn't even blink and just said yeah he knows it's not the same he just figures it's hard enough with one leg to hop on and he assumed all along that my big insistent aversion to the beach had to do more with the sand and not much at all to do with not actually liking it.

Which is pretty much entirely true.

And... on our (long and laborious) trek across the absurdly wide beach he also asked me if it wouldn't be easier to use a wheelchair. That is a pretty touchy subject with me, too, I mean, unless you can actually relate to my exact situation, I really don't want to discuss it with anyone beyond yes, I can go down your basement stairs, no, I can't climb into your stupidly designed jeep, and perhaps no, my legs don't hurt, but my shoulder sure does.

Anyway, the answer is, of course, that while I've never tried it, I would imagine pushing a wheelchair in the sand isn't exactly possible either, unless it was one of those super duper all terrain electric kinds or whatever. Someone would still have to help.

I don't really like asking for help. Even from my friends. Even from my really good friends. It always sucks. Every time.

Anyway. Whatever, if every single person on the beach was staring at me, I don't care. I had a really good time. I really did get a sun tan. The weather was pretty much perfect, the sun wasn't absolutely blazing (because there was a storm on the way) but it was still gorgeous outside, I had my freezy pops and one of Jory's Smirnoff Ices, and I got ocean water dumped all freakin' over me and I built a sand monster and dug a pit, and we had hamburgers at this 1950s diner-type place on the boardwalk and I played this game where you toss balls at moving targets and won a big stuffed thing and gave it to Erica and she kissed me on the cheek, because she is the kind of girl who gives cheek-kisses all the time.

We went on the ferris wheel and Erica and Lindsay went on this bungee-thing that bounces you around in this cage thing and we did NOT sit under the boardwalk and get high because we have all outgrown that phase of our lives...

YEAH RIGHT.

No, actually, we did not smoke up under the boardwalk, but it's not because anyone's outgrown anything.

BUT.

It was really weird, but we kept passing these kids, well, not kids, our age really, early-mid twenties I guess, who looked like they stepped directly out of 1998. It was so strange. Every time I went to the shore there were always these groups of freaky-looking kids hanging around. They had their own pavilion at my beach but they were all around the other beaches too, but I'm talking about the mid-nineties here. As we got further into the new millenium these groups shrunk until there were no more gothy pockets of freaky kids hanging around on the boardwalk at all, because no one is goth these days, that went out of style or something.

'Cept these kids. The guy was wearing UFOs. Suspenders with zippers on them. Docs. A spiked collar. A Misfits shirt. The girl was wearing black lipstick. Had black and purple dyed hair. Knee socks. It was like looking a decade into the past. I was thisclose to hollering "hey, the nineties called, they want their UFOs back!" cause I'm just that obnoxious (in my head. Out loud I'm a total pussy.) And the guy was skipping behind the tram car.

I swore I would never, ever miss being a teenager.

But I kind of missed being a teenager. Just for a split second, though.

Rich says he knows a mechanic who will give my car an inspection sticker and knows a place where I can get it registered. The only thing he can't fudge is the emissions test, and as far as I know the emissions are okay. I hope this is for real. I'd still be kind of scared to drive it, since the car is all kinds of messed up and I'd probably end up getting pulled over (excuse me, miss, but your tail lights are COMPLETELY SHATTERED AND YOUR TRUNK DOES NOT CLOSE) but that's still one step closer to having my own transportation again. At this point I'll take what I can get.

I really miss living near public transportation. I really, really do. I miss living in the city. I don't like having a car and I don't like driving and I'm the worst driver ever.

And that's... yeah, that's about it, that's all I got for tonight.

Oh. Oh, there is the fact that I hate my job. I really, really hate my job and I fantasize every day about telling off every stupid, condescending, self-entitled customer and then getting fired. I can't wait.