Hello. Is it me you’re looking for?
6:20 pm | Shorts | Conversations | 6
Met a girl at the dog park today. She asked my name and replied with I know you!
Oh yeah, how?
From your blog!
That’s never happened to me before. Hello, Cortney.
Too bad that dog park smelled like and was covered in shit. Humans, there is a poop scoop law in Houston you know.
Not in a good way
10:44 am | Blog | Conversations | 1
Clyde Daniel’s is the asshole of all asshole’s, and not in a good way — Women’s room graffiti at the Engine Room in Houston
Bachelorette Party: Day 11
4:18 pm | Blog | Conversations, Girly | 2
Despite the fact that I have tons of wonderful friends coming out of the woodwork with offers to take me out to dinner or distract me with Elvis Costello tickets, I’m still having a difficult time adjusting to life sans C, at least for the time being.
The other night, after spending several hours taking advantage of my friend Steven’s high-speed Internet access to redesign this site, I went home at midnight and decided to watch a movie.
I fixed myself some food, curled up on the couch and turned on the DVD player. Nothing.
I grabbed one of our four remotes (four!) and pressed the “DVD” button. Nothing.
Another remote, another “DVD” button. More nothing.
I spent about 45 minutes frantically trying to get the DVD player to work. I could hear the opening titles song, 30 seconds of it, on a loop, playing over and over and over again, as if to taunt me, but no picture. Only the repetitive sound of Brittanie going mad.
I got so frustrated that I wanted to find the heaviest remote and throw it at our ginormous flat-screen hellaciously expensive high-definition television. But instead, all I did was start sobbing.
These are the types of things that usually get me very, very worked up. It runs in the family. In fact, two Christmases ago I remember a very similar incident during which my non-technology savvy dad was trying to set up their brand new DVD player and, unable to figure it out, stormed out of the house in a disgruntled fury. The fact that my stepmom and I were cracking up laughing the whole time didn’t help matters.
Typically, however, C the zen master is able to take control and make everything better, giving me time to simmer down.
Now that he’s in Korea, though, I’m out of control.
A couple of mornings ago I decided I wanted to try to call him and wish him goodnight. So I dialed the number I had, but it didn’t go through. I tried a couple of different times, dialing 1 first, then dialing 0 first. No luck. So finally, frustrated as usual, I dialed the operator.
“Hi. I’m having difficulty trying to place an international phone call from Houston to South Korea.” Although I was extremely stressed out, I was actually holding it together here, and asked in my sweetest and most polite voice.
“What’s your long distance carrier?” the operator said in a tone even more exasperated than I felt.
“Umm, I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to connect you to I Don’t Know long distance?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I can connect you to I’m Not Sure long distance.”
“What? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?”
“Ma’am, those are all names of long distance carriers.”
You men and your size thing
6:27 pm | Blog | Conversations, The Man | Comments Off
My friend Lance, the e-mailing genius, the part-time photographer, the man who will be photographing my wedding, sent me another e-mail yesterday. The text in parenthesis was added by me so the e-mail makes a little more sense:
“hey ding-dong, i was planning on going (to the Y) tomorrow night after work but i may be going to a “gentlemens club” to take some photos for my hempstead rd project. ill let you know tomorrow morning. hows life minus a (future husband’s last name redacted)? we should sell his tv and buy a fucking helicopter. if you get lonely come over and have a drink. that soundtrack (“The Life Aquatic”) is the bananas, annie has it.
When C and I first started dating, one of our very first dates was a “movie night” at his house. We both love old movies and artsy films, and he subscribes to Netflix, so much of our time together in the following months was spent on his couch in front of his TV. I had been to his house before, but this was the first time we had really planned a night in. I think he cooked something, and I’m positive he mixed some rum drinks.
As we sat down on the couch, he turned to me, in all seriousness, waved his arm in the general direction of his six-foot-tall flat-screened high-definition television, and said “You know, there’s only one TV on the market right now that’s bigger than this one.”
That right there sealed the deal, folks.
She’s filing her nails while they drag the lake
10:54 am | Blog | Conversations, Listening | Comments Off
The following phone conversation took place two weeks ago:
“Hey Steven, Elvis Costello is coming to town. Wanna go?”
“Yeah, but I don’t have an extra $70 lying around to buy tickets.”
“Damn. Uh, neither do I. Oh well.”
Then I got a phone call yesterday afternoon.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. I just got done with a run and I’m sitting here at the park trying to cool off.”
“Go home and take a shower.”
“What?”
“Go home and take a shower. You, me, Linda and Kenny are going to see Elvis Costello for free, courtesy of KPFT.”
My friends are the best friends in the world.
A collection of completely random and unorganized thoughts that do not merit their own independent posts
5:51 pm | Blog | Conversations | Comments Off
The following comments may or may not have been overheard either in my workplace or during private conversations in recent months. That’s right, I eavesdrop. ALL THE TIME!
— “I’m not going to have you wearing shitty-ass shoes at your wedding,” said by my wonderful stepmother, after making me promise to call them and ask for money for afore-mentioned wedding in the case that I need it.
— “I don’t call you to BS, so I’d appreciate it if you called me back when I leave you a message,” said by my publisher into the phone shortly after reprimanding me for not being polite enough to readers when they call me to complain about a story they wish I hadn’t written.
— “If he gives me a good angle we’ll do a story. What — does he want me to just write about his dojo?” Sounds really dirty, huh. Spoken by my editor after receiving an annoying phone call from one of the thousands of people who think their everyday lives merit an entire story in the newspaper. Most of the time these people own completely unoriginal businesses and want publicity. One word: advertise.
— “Anybody wanna try some of my cheese?” Okay, I said that one during lunch yesterday.
— Also, the head of advertising, a 50-something white woman, recently attacked the only black girl in the house, a recent college graduate, by talking about how hot black men’s posteriors are, punctuated with “Right! Right!?”
Other things not necessarily of note:
My friend Lance called me at work the other day.
“Hey, I have free tickets to this movie preview and I wanted to know if you want to go with me.”
I was busy so I was only kind of half listening to him. “Hmm. What’s the movie?”
“’Sausage.’”
“’SAUSAGE?!?’”
“No, you dummy! ‘Hostage.’”
“Oh.”
Vocabulary
Lance also coined a new phrase, thanks to a song on Gwen Stefani’s horribly horrible new CD. Since I’m trying to cut back on the sailor-like vocabulary, every time I want to say something is the shizzle! I’m now going to say it’s the bananas.
Bob also coined a new word: Vietnails. Synonyms are Japanails or Chinails. I don’t think you really need me to tell you the definition, but suffice it to say that before my wedding I’m going to get my Vietnails done.
My favorite word right now is screwvenir. That’s what you take when you leave the house after having noncommittal intercourse with someone.
My friends are funnier than I am
11:41 am | Blog | Conversations, Friends, Houston | Comments Off
My friend Lance will be having the very first public showing of his photography starting this weekend. He sent me this e-mail about it the other day:
“yo im putting ten or twelve photos on display at the king bizkit bar and grill on white oak, rich people hang out there so hopefully ill sell something… im hanging them friday afternoon, they gave me good space behind the bar with spotlights. congrats on the impending nuptuals, if jesus doesnt call me home to glory before then ill take the photos. that will be my gift (no refunds). its unreal, all of the things that are happening to you and C. if you told me you had been chosen to be the first blonde on Pluto i wouldnt blink.”
Lance doesn’t really spell that horribly. He does take awesome pictures, though, and I’m more than honored to have him memorialize the only wedding I’ll ever have. Lance and a handful of other people make up the group that I like to refer to as my Houston family, a family that is just as dysfunctional and crazy as my real family, but I love them anyway. Often, when we’re intoxicated and it’s Christmas Eve and the world seems full of possibilities, Lance and I talk about working on a book together – him taking the photos and me writing the text.
So basically this is a shameless plug for anybody who can to go see Lance’s artwork. He even plans to put a photo he took of me in New Orleans on display. I may go, if I have time, but I have to pack my bags and get ready for my upcoming trip to Pluto.
A Mrs. Understanding
10:30 am | Blog | Conversations, Hitched | Comments Off
Finally, this weekend, we worked up the nerve to call the parents and give them the good news. We actually wanted to wait and tell them until we had a few more details straightened out, you know, like THE DATE for instance, but we were dying to tell our friends, and so we figured the parents should know first.
C is an only child, and that, in combination with the fact that he’s never been married means that his parents are, like, totally dying for him to settle down and make babies already. I’d like to think that they really adore me, but as Lance put it when we told him, “All you are is a baby factory.”
We called them first, and we had them on speaker phone. C talked for a while, just a normal conversation as if, yeah, you know, nothing new is really going on. All the while I was sweating like a pig at a BBQ, I was so freakin’ nervous for some reason. Telling my parents would be a breeze but it was his parents that were intimidating.
Suddenly, C stops the casual flow of the conversation by saying, “Well, there is some news. We’re going to be adding a new member to the family.”
His dad laughed, but the comment set off his mom’s What Alarm. You know, that long, sustained, confused and surprised “Whaaaaaaaatttttt?!”
“Well,” C started to explain, “On Wednesday, when I asked Brit to marry me, she said she’d like to take my last name.”
The conversation progressed, while we explained to them that even though we hadn’t planned out anything, we knew we just wanted the whole event to be as simple as possible. They were so excited, and I didn’t really realize that the conversation had taken a wrong turn until his mom asked, “Have you put your hand on her tummy to see if you can feel it yet?”
“No!!!!” I shouted into the phone, while C just laughed and laughed at his own mischief. “He meant me! I’m the new member of the family!”
Seoul survivor
3:03 pm | Blog | Below The 38th Parallel, Conversations | Comments Off
A couple of days ago Lance sent me this e-mail:
Subject: license to il..
n. korea has the bomb now, yikes! dont forget to pack your sunglasses and geiger counter. i got you a going away gift as well…”How to Survive In a Postapocalyptic Wasteland for Dummies
When I didn’t respond, he sent me a second e-mail:
Subject: Re: Death of a Playwright
want to meet up for lunch tomorrow or sunday? did you hear about n korea? THEM NIGGAS GOT THA BOMB BITCH! THAH-MUTHAFUKKIN-BOMB! scary
This same friend, my dear Lance, also called me at work the other day to find out when C and I were going to be leaving for South Korea. All panicky, as if we weren’t going to tell him.
“This sucks,” he said. “When you and C move to Korea, that means half of all my friends will live in Korea.”
We likely won’t officially move until summer, and then we’ll be gone for three years. But suddenly all of our usually flaky friends want to spend as much time with us as possible.
I was talking to my Mom the other day and she started crying uncontrollably. “I don’t want you to go,” she sobbed.
“But why, Mom? I’m happy. Don’t you want me to be happy?”
“Yeehehehesss,” she replied. “But you’ll – be – so – far – away – from – mehehe.”
Two years ago, after years of false starts, I finally moved out of Oklahoma. Moving to Houston was the best decision I have ever made — not because Houston is that great of a place or because Oklahoma is that horrible, but because I am in a better place. People always say you can’t run from your problems, but I did it and it worked pretty good for me.
I marvel at how much happier I am here. I had gone through a series of devastating relationships, all my friends had moved away, and I felt like college had been the peak of my life, the top of my performance, and there was no place to go but down. You can only be an overachiever for so long before it gets old.
When I moved to Houston, my mom was not very happy. I did so desperately, with very little planning and only $500 in my pocket, a car full of clothes, and a Boston terrier.
The best decision ever. Almost immediately I made some wonderful friends whom I love dearly. I only wish I would have known before how easy it was going to be to transplant myself, because I would have done it much, much earlier.
Now I am planning to leave all this too.
My Mom and Grandma call randomly. They don’t really have anything to say to me, they just want to know if I know when we’re leaving yet.
And our poor friends. They act as though C is just going to steal me away under cover of night, whisking me off to Korea, where I’ll live as his kept woman, writing my memoirs and eating kimchi.
Which I will. But don’t worry. We won’t leave without letting you throw us a going-away party first.