27

I've had a rough couple of weeks. I'm still having issues at work. My friends have been, well, they're stressing me out. 

And the 27th has been drawing closer and closer, casting an ugly black shadow over everything.

Saturday was the year-anniversary of my brother's death.

I spent the day doing my bridesmaid-duty and wedding dress shopping with Bridezilla and Hope. I wasn't going to go; Mommo and I should've been in Oregon with TheFish. I'd been looking forward to Oregon. I haven't seen TheFish since she left for school in September. I NEEDED a break from work. Unfortunately, the snow storms in the mountains prevented us from travelling, so I'd spent my hard-won week off on the couch at home and avoiding my grief, my friends, my work, etc. So when Saturday came around, I had been wallowing for days and I thought that maybe the shopping would provide a positive distraction.

I made it through the shopping. Barely. I helped Bridezilla choose a beautiful dress. I smiled. I laughed. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to go home. I drove home through the rain and made it back to the sofa before I cried. I was emotionally exhausted, drained, headachey. 

But I'm proud of myself. And I did something sort of frivolous to distract myself. The girl I was a few years ago would've skipped dress shopping. She would've bought a bottle of alcohol and gone to a guy friend's to drink herself silly and sex it out. I'm not going to lie, I thought about it. So-and-So's is on the way home from the dress boutique. I could've easily picked up a bottle of Crown and seduced him to make myself feel better. But I didn't. I went home and I cried. 

I guess this is what growing up looks like. Fuck. When did that happen?

Do Not Pass Go

My car is leaking antifreeze. 

I learned this sad fact on Wednesday when Puddin approached my desk about ten minutes after he should've left for the day. He had his serious face on and he informed me that there was a puddle of antifreeze the size of Delaware under my car. 

I guess that I knew that my car had antifreeze. And I know that antifreeze shouldn't be ingested. I live in a place where nothing freezes EVER, so I always sort of thought that maybe antifreeze was... unnecessary. You know, like those things people in Alaska have in their garages to make their cars work in the snow. I could tell from his tone that it was actually fairly serious, so I did what any person with no practical automobile knowledge would do.

I looked at him very blankly and said, "I have no idea what that means." 

So he explained to me (without being condescending) that it is never good when something is leaking from a car, and that mine was in danger of overheating. He said that I must buy antifreeze at the gas station and drive directly to his house without any detours, and wait for him to get home from class to help me. Then he texted me to remind me to watch the temperature gauge and call if my car overheated. Twice. 

In my head this translated to something along like "Your car is a DEATH TRAP that leaks TOXIC CHEMICALS and is about to SELF DESTRUCT". 

I found myself purchasing antifreeze (pre-diluted) from a man with one front tooth, and white-knuckling it fifteen minutes down the highway to Puddin's. I don't think that I took my eyes off of the temperature gauge the whole way down PCH. I was convinced that my car was going to blow up ANY MINUTE. When I arrived, I had a cramp in my wrist and my hair had frizzed out. Awful.

I went to the movies with Skinny and Manonna while I waited for him to get out of class. (Life As We Know It, cute but predictable.)

When he got home, Puddin pointed out the things under the hood by the light of the LED light on my Droid. I learned to identify the radiator and the fan belt and lots of other things that I previously considered "the stuff around where the oil goes". This my friends, is progress. 

Next week Puddin and Pumpkin are going to try to fix the leak. They have used various pieces of man-knowledge to determine that it is totally something that they can probably fix. Probably a hose. I'm cooking dinner in exchange for their somewhat dubious mechanical skills. I'm hoping that they can fix it. Otherwise it will be just like the time that I went over to help them paint. Except reversed... The next day I had a hangover. And I was scrubbing Gobi Desert paint from under my fingernails and between my toes for like two days (that stuff does NOT come out!).

The walls look great though. 

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