Archery on Tuesdays, or, The Brothers Newman
I am not in the practice of posting things to my website while drunk, but it seems I’m making an exception, because right now I am as drunk as one can be on a Tuesday night, which, actually, is pretty drunk. Anyway, here are three things I felt vital enough to share with the interweb that I postponed my collapse onto my beddish area:
1) Joshua Newman always introduces me to great people, and gives me great books to read, and never lets me get too maudlin, and even sits with me for 45 minutes after everyone else has left and makes me tell him the story of how my parents met until I am sober enough to walk down the stairs and get on the train.
2) David Newman mixes an excellent rum and coke, and I’m not even a FAN of rum and cokes. I wish I could call them by their more fun name, cuba libres, but I am not one for affectation, or superfluous use of italics.
3) I am so terribly happy with where I am and what I’m doing, and that’s a pretty good thought to collapse with on a rainy Tuesday night.
Buster, Asunder
Click on the picture above to read about my trip to Texas and Tulsa, wherein I do poorly-advised things like show pictures of my family’s faces, and admit to harboring alcohol under my dress while in the House of the Lord.
Pre-occupation
Any sort of commotion you might have heard today around midtown was probably the sound of the heavens opening up and raining glory down on my head, because this morning I got offered full time employment, with medical benefits and a 401K and a solid gold rocketcar, at MORE MONEY THAN I ASKED FOR. The HR lady said, “What salary range are you looking at?” and I said “X?” and she said, “No, no, say Y!” and I said “Okay, Y!” I probably shouldn’t say that here, like I’m bragging or talking about money or what have you, but I’ve been sleeping on the floor so long that the etiquette my mother has so diligently drilled into my head since birth seems to have sloughed right off. Granted, I’ll miss my Irish construction workers, especially the one who says to me every morning as I step off the elevator, “Ahh, Sarah, you’re the love of me life,” and I’ll even sort of miss having to wear a hard hat when I walk to the ladies’ room, but this job offer is without a doubt one of the Very Best Things that could have happened to me, and the timing couldn’t be better, since I was about one more bad day away from climbing a clocktower and reloading.
You know what this means, right? It means I get to stay here in New York, continue my adventure with financial reinforcements, pay off my student loans, afford to buy my fish new shoes, but most of all, it means I get to be reunited with the second love of my life. (First love of my life.)
In all earnestness, thank you all for your words of encouragement. I know we don’t know each other, but it was often oddly comforting that complete strangers had nice things to say to me. The next round’s on me, internet.
Karnak
I’m back in Brooklyn again. I spent yesterday from 6 am to 11 pm in airports all over the country, and I hadn’t slept at all the previous night, having gotten home from the bar at 2 am to pack my suitcase only to discover that someone had hit my dad’s car in the parking lot, so I had to wake him up to say goodbye, ask him to drive me to the airport, and tell him that the hood of his car was not in its normal place. That was a lot of fun, especially since earlier this week, my brother had to tell him that his fancy new lawnmower had been stolen. From in front of the house. While my brother was inside. As Brian Byrne said, it was a bad week for my dad’s stuff.
Going home is hard, and so is coming back. Every time it gets a little bit easier, but every time I also have this long interior monologue that disintegrates into me asking myself WHAT ARE YOU DOING EXACTLY, SARAH? and then I answer myself by crying or drinking or falling asleep or chopping my arm, David Byrne-style. However, this isn’t all that different from every single day of my life, so I’m used to it now.
Vandalism and theft aside, it was a very good trip. I’d forgotten how good the midwest smells. I have a million things more to say about it all, but right now my window is open and it smells like rain outside, so I’m going to go lie on my bed and think things over, write some letters I probably won’t send, and then a few that I will.
Victorian lilac
I skip town tomorrow to do my stint on the Texas bridesmaid circuit, where I have been informed that I have a hair appointment with the bride and the bride’s mother on the day of the wedding, and I think we all know what this means: there’s an updo in Texas with my name on it. Also, the rehearsal dinner is going to be held at a barbecue restaurant, and while several people have encouraged me to make eyes at the groomsman with the biggest belt buckle, I just don’t think I have it in me. The two words I really hope get said during the ceremony are BUSTER and ASUNDER. I might high five the minister if this happens. After the wedding I’m spending a week in Tulsa, where I plan to do nothing but drink things with limes in them and run through sprinklers late at night.
So far all I have packed is my skull ring, a new, more lightweight flask (courtesy of Chris) because the other one was too heavy and kept sliding out of the garter and hitting the floor, three books, and my swimsuit. I think I’m going to stop there, because anything else just feels like overkill.
Sleuthin’
Today my esteemed colleague Erin and I were emailing back and forth about the skeezy 23 year old teacher in Florida who got caught having sex with her 14 year old student in the back of a car while his cousin drove them around. After looking at the mugshots of the teacher, I wrote, “You just know this girl wore a fake tiara at her wedding,” and less than five minutes later, Erin sends me this picture.
Clearly we should have our own crime-solving show on CBS where I’m the wavy-haired psychic with a sad secret in her past and Erin’s the hot but tough as nails detective who’s always wearing tank tops and not taking shit from anyone.
