Entries from May 2004 ↓

(Originally published on September 11, 2002.)

The wind had picked up with the volume of the chatter; lips loose, tongues lax. The aroma of whiskey and wine rode the breeze, then dissapated leaving the musk undertones of tobacco, maybe a pipe. Voices familiar reorganize–rise and recede–punctuated by laughter and pauses.

Cake is served and no one eats, returning to their cocktails and conversations. Cameras emerge and we stand next to whoever’s nearest for a quick snapshot of the attendees. Tall ones crouch and women try to find a genuine smile, yet fail, baring nothing but glossy teeth and spit. Cigarettes are stashed behind backs and I breathe in sharply, straightening my shoulders–hold the breath and stand dead still.

A hand from behind and to my left slips beneath my shirt–bare skin on unsuspecting bare skin. I arrived at this party alone.

White light overtakes my field of vision and I freeze, grinning, startled and wonder too calmly who might belong to the hand now resting on my stomach, just above the waistline of my pants.

I didn’t entertain the notion I was being accosted, the fluid movement was gentle and easy. I didn’t reel around to strike the perv who found my waist to be the best resting spot for his paw. But briefly, the tender carress that signified ownership–or kindredship–was so light and natural that I thought it just might have been intended for me. The next instant I knew, the flash no longer bleaching my sight, that, of course, that touch was meant for someone else.

He, too, knew and promptly jerked back his hand, taking hers in his–never meeting my gaze, though mine was aimed squarely at my shoes. I caught her face in my peripheral vision as he wrapped a strong arm around her rounded shoulder and pressed his mouth to her cheek.

She wrinkled her nose as if to suggest she’d rather he hadn’t and turned, oblivious, to retrieve a lipstick from her purse.

He shrunk away and I covered my expression and guilt with a goblet of burgundy wine.

While some of you are enjoying cold beer and frankfurters by the pool or on the lake or whatever, me and the VCB will be (already are) moving. Hoisting heavy boxes of books onto shelves. Trying hard not to break the fuck up as we wrangle my puke-ugly couch onto the moving van. We’ll be filling our new place with the sum of our combined shit.

(The VCB has alot, alot of shit. My God. So. Much. Shit. That’s okay, though. I balance things out by having an assload of WHINING.)

Anyway, part of the moving process entails a 10-day break from internet access. Ten solid days with no way to port into my Navi.* The VCB and I have already decided on frequent library trips until the 8th, when we’ll be back up and running.

So, you can come on back around the 8th for a lengthy update on All Things New and Nashville. Or you can check back every day, because I’m going to be throwing up old, long-ago written entries to serve as reruns. Through the magic of TypePad, I’ll be posting some interesting old-ass blog posts even when I am no where near a computer. Swanky, no?

First rerun post begins tomorrow at noon. Expect one a day, every day at noon until my return.

Miss me, bitches!

Thanks, Jpoulos, again for letting me borrow your LAIN DVDs.

I see credit cards all day long. All the time. And the other night was the first time one ever really stood out to me. One of my guests–a woman who drank cheap chardonnay spritzers made with Perrier and lime–paid for she and her friend’s dinner with a black American Express card.

I noticed it was all black with very little ink. I showed it to another one of the waitresses. I asked if she’d ever seen one like it. “It’s Mrs. Smith’s. She is the wife of this hot shot defense attorney, she eats here all the time,” she quickly informed me. I ran the pretty black card for the $60 amount and slid it into the pouch of the black check book. Later I started to wonder about the black card. My Dad once worked part-time for American Express and I never heard anything about those.

Thanks to the lovely interweb, I now know that the black card is known as the Centurion card, a card with no limit. Also, I learned how very incredibly rich that lady I waited on is. Here are the perks associated with having the invite-only card from American Express’ own site. Seems there is a bit of urban legend associated with the black card, which is covered thoroughly over at Snopes. You should totally read it all, but for those of your who don’t so much follow directions, here is a pretty good summary of what Snopes says:

Yet for all of its snob appeal, the Centurion is still a thing of mystery. Though we located numerous references to it on the American Express web site, nothing we came across explicitly outlined its eligibility requirements or benefits. The card cannot be applied for; it is either proffered by AmEx or it is not. As to how the company decides whom it should offer the preferred plastic to, according to American Express their applications for Centurion cards are generally provided to customers who annually charge $150,000 or more to other AmEx cards. Centurion cards are not offered to anyone who has been a cardholder for less than a year.

Here is a sample of things “purchased” with a Centurion card:

* One cardholder wanted to locate and purchase the horse ridden by Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. The horse was located in a stud ranch in Mexico, purchased and delivered to Europe.

* Another cardholder wanted a handful of sand from the Dead Sea for a child’s school project on the Holy Land. Someone was dispatched by motorcycle to the shores of the Dead Sea to obtain the sand, which was couriered back to London.

* Yet another cardholder required American Express to organize a wedding, including designing the wedding card, drawing maps to direct guests to the banquet, renting tuxedos and shoes for guests, and preparing the hotel room with a jacuzzi for the wedding night.

* And for another cardholder who aspired to be an actress and wanted to be part of the crew of a weekly soap opera on TV, American Express contacted the director and arranged for an audition.

Anyway, she gave me a generous 20% tip and was nothing but nice the entire time. She could totally buy me with her Black American Express card, but on her way out the door she kindly patted my back.

I used to live just a few blocks from where he worked. I would go there sometimes for Get Back Juice* and a little people watching. Occasionally lunch. Once when I was about to order this guy with fantastic blue eyes asked if I was Brittney. Startled, I looked behind me for the candid camera. Once I was sure no one was there I agreed that I was. “You’re a good writer,” he replied, and all the sudden I felt really confused.

He informed me he read my weblog from time to time. That was the first–and last–time anyone had recognized me from my site. I already sort of liked the way he smiled at me, so after that day I stole a few extra glances.

A few weeks later I came in for a salad when he plopped down across the table from me. Finally. After afternoons of us sitting at tables apart, he on his break, me having an espresso. We began conversation easily. It was all about his job and my job and newspapers and MTSU and music, I think a little bit. We also talked about movies. We talked about how we both love to see independents, which you have to drive the 30 miles to Nashville in order to see. And then it was time for me to go to work.

I changed clothes at work, told a couple of people I might have a crush on the coffee shop dude, then left after a meager 6 hours. I left at around 10 p.m. but noticed halfway home that I left my shoes and a piece of cheesecake at work. I could have lived without the shoes, but the cheescake I had to have so I went back. I parked my car in the front lot, which I never did, and ran in for my forgotten things. When I came back out I was balancing all my shit when I heard a loud, “Hey!”

It was the coffee shop dude. He came over to my car and I kind of don’t remember at all what he actually said, or what I actually said, but that somehow after some noises came out of our respective mouths we’d agreed to a date. In Nashville, to see some good documentary or foreign film.

And I was excited.

But this story gets way better after I learned about the VCB’s personal circumstances that evening. Turns he was kicking himself for not asking me to a movie while we were talking earlier at the coffee shop. He thought about it as he worked all night, helping move a frozen keg that his boss had stupidly stuck in the freezer. Long story short, the VCB ended up with beer-soaked hair. Which, it turns out, did not stop him from taking a trip by Outback where I used to work, to see if I might be there. He said he was just curious, and that he’s made a bet with himself. That if for some reason when he drove by, I was out there, he’d stop and ask me out. Which, he says, was his way of making sure it wouldn’t happen. Because, seriously, what are the odds?

Which makes the part about me making a second trip back to the restaurant to pick up shoes and cheesecake quite the coincidence. Had I not gone back I’d have missed him, especially since I never use the entrance where he was parked.

A week or so later came the first date. Three hours and a bottle of wine at the Indian place made us miss Spellbound, which I still haven’t seen. We saw the very commercial 28 Days Later instead.

Otherwise, it was a fucking perfect night.

*Coffee

You know, I hear a lot of talk. I’m a waitress. I overhear snatches of conversations at my table. I overhear political arguments of martini-sipping bar guests while sitting behind the host stand. I engage in friendly debates on current issues with co-workers just about every day. (The bar t.v. is always on CNN, so there is an impetus for the discussions.) And one thing no one is talking about is the newest terror threat.

All day long it blares on the tube overhead: “Clear and Present Danger” Top U.S. officials are telling us outright that, “We will be attacked.” And no one bats an eye.

The terror alert stories are followed with reports on Bush’s dismal ratings in the polls. I overhear something about “coincidence.”

It is becoming apparent to me that most people, not just a radical few, no longer trust their President and his administration. Even when that administration predicts a catastrophe.

This gives me some hope.

Having a pregnant boss can be awesome. Sure sometimes she’s grouchy and looks pale like she’s gonna vomit any second, but sometimes she has a food craving so strong that a single serving of chocolate will not do. In which case, like last night, she comes back during the shift with an ENTIRE chocolate cake.

We had a little party at table 31. The Cake Just ‘Cause party.

Goodbye world’s largest cedar bucket.

Goodbye Davis Maket, you who is the center of the universe, just like it says on the window. I could always count on you to be stocked to the brim with import beer, tons of porn and those little crackpipes that have roses in them. Goodbye endless rows of churches. I will miss you as much as the strip malls and plethora of chain restaurants. No more deciding between Applebee’s, O’Charley’s or Flingers. Goodbye busiest intersection in the state, even though I have masterfully avoided you for years by taking the time warp over the railroad tracks and down by that brick company. Goodbye Greenway that runs beside the stank-ass Stones River and under the overpass and behind the convenience store, where all the homeless people and swarms of gnats love to hang out. I have found many a dead animal on you. Goodbye Dodge Store, better known as the Chicken Store, since that is what they say to you in your individual speaker at the pump as you pull up for gas: “Welcome to the Chicken Store!” I am no longer a slave to your greasy pizza sticks and Jo-Jo potatoes, but there are times when I have bartered perfectly good drugs for your deliciosity. Goodbye abnormally high number of good-ass indie rock bands thanks to a state of the art recording industry program at the local university. I will miss the new breed of emo kid that blossoms as each new year arrives.

Goodbye Videoculture, you locally owned video store you, with your eclectic walls of smut and high art and anime and foreign pieces and walls dedicated to dozens of directors’ entire oeuvres. You will be irreplacable. Goodbye to my tiny apartment on East College St. where I spent days and weeks and months holed up with myself, learning to like that person a little bit. Goodbye Marti & Liz. Your designer shoes are butt-ass cheap, which totally made up for the constant gospel music over the speakers.

Goodbye Carmike Crap-plex that only ever played movies with Hillary Duff or Ben Stiller or Rob Schneider. Goodbye Uncle Dave Macon Days. Goodbye Kleer-Vu.

And Goodbye Scarecrow.
I may miss you most of all.

Today while I was driving to work I came over a hill to find a dead deer on the side of the highway covered in vultures. Maybe a dozen of them.

The sight of the bald, broad-winged things ripping at the flesh of a decaying deer made me feel all woozy inside. I wanted to vomit, but it was also this visceral tingling in my guts. It was horrifying.

And, well, that pretty much set the tone for the whole day.

Saturday I attended a family reunion. I ate hot dogs and hugged people I barely remember and took over this kids’ Nerf ball and bat only to send the ball onto the roof. I also scored some old, old photographs.

Thought I’d share.

So, check it out, I’m moving. The VCB and I are moving out of our janky, overpriced three-bedroom house in nasty ol’ Murfreesboro. This week we signed a lease for a seriously adorable one-bedroom apartment inside an old brownstone building. It’s little, but I fell in love with it. I cartwheeled through the living room screaming down to the VCB who was coming up the stairs, “GET IN OUR NEW HOME!”

It’s well-lit with fresh new carpet, and a back balcony and a backyard surrounded by hedges for private summertime sunbathing. The VCB was thoroughly impressed with the fancy new gas stove. We have washer and dryer connections in a building just out back, which might mean in a few months: “YAY! No more hauling bags full of dirty clothes to the laundromat!” The place has got a lot of charm and an archway instead of a doorway and it’s just a block from a small park on a great street in a really safe and pretty part of town.

We went to swanky town (aka Belle Meade) to the landlord’s house to sign the lease. It was this surpsingly woodsy terraced log cabin-type thingy filled to the fucking brim with dead animals. They were hanging, their eyes glazed and defeated, on every wall. The wall we faced while signing the pages of paperwork featured six buck heads in a shoehorn pattern. From my chair I saw a dozen or so geese all flying in the same still direction. A stuffed fox held a stuffed quail or something in it’s bared, open mouth. Under th epool table was a bear skin rug.

In the silence of the reading and the page turning and the in-brain figure totalling the VCB says out of nowhere, “So, you’re a vegetarian?”

Rather than laugh I tried to gauge our new landlord’s reaction to what my boyfriend just said. This is obviously a very serious man. He likes to kill and has the guns with which to do so. I thought of my cutie new apartment and how I did not want to have to settle for a duplex with bars on the windows. And how I already missed it.

After, seriously, a full minute our landlord laughed his ass off.

We have keys and can begin moving in immediately. Photos to come.