2004-05-27 - 11:13 a.m.
The thought came to me like a kick in the ass from an angel who knows what�s up: �Fuck my karma wheel, I�m going enjoy punching this bitch in the face.�
We�re washing down Spanish fries with margaritas. It�s surprising how well peach flavoring and tequila complement jalapeno. There is no music beyond the high and low timbre of our collective voices, as we embark on a discussion of plastic surgery. Pastori-i, wearing his signature outfit of jeans, a white t-shirt that lovingly frames his new pecs, and a backwards Kangol hat, exposes his love of mind numbing reality TV.
�So these chicks on The Swan get all this plastic surgery, and they still look like shit,� he says.
Since I�d already outed him for watching such shitty shows as The Bachelor, Who Wants to Marry a Midget, and other sordid programs, I refrained from comment. The birthday girl starts talking about how there�s so much pressure for women to be beautiful and to have perfect bodies.
�Then they should go to the gym,� says Pastori-i, drunkenly hitting his elbow on the table for emphasis. I bang my elbow down also, in agreement. He�s exactly right. I knew there was a reason I liked this quasi-whore.
The birthday girl can�t let this string of the conversation fall. She mentions something about saggy tits not being fixable by time at the gym.
�You just have to do this exercise,� I tell her, mimicking the chest press machine. �It makes them all kinds of perky. It worked for my twins.� My drunkenness makes me unable to resist telling the whole table about my new bigger, perkier 34Cs. (By the way, does every woman get new breasts in her 26th year of life?) We�re all laughing, until Birthday Girl says, �Yeah, well yours are so small, it couldn�t have been that hard.� Our laughter stops, yet she continues laughing, alone.
My ire rises and before I can say anything I remind myself to breathe through the discomfort, as I do in yoga. Though I�d love to remind her that her 40-year-old breasts have lost all hope, my higher self wants me to refrain from mirroring her shitty behavior. She is the Birthday Girl, so this little exchange will be her get out of jail free card. Perhaps she is self-conscious, because everyone at the table is more than 10 years younger than her. I pinch my boyfriend under the table, and he squeezes my hand, letting me know he�s proud of me for holding back; he knows my temper.
Pastori-i adroitly changes the subject and starts talking music with Birthday Girl and her boyfriend. I watch him as he talks; he seems to be pedaling that bike pretty hard, but isn�t going anywhere, nor is the conversation. She takes the lull in conversation as a sign that it�s time to shit on Pencopal again, and proceeds to jokingly refer to something that once caused me a lot of pain. Only she and her boyfriend are laughing; him out of ignorance and her out of malice. Pastori-i and my boyfriend are straightfaced, because they know there are things you just don�t joke about. It�s at this point that the angel urges me to make things right and give this bitch what she�s asking for. My eyes flash, my sweetie grabs my hand again, and Pastori-i brings asks me how things are going with my book. All whoring aside, a truer friend you could not have. Birthday Girl, bored with talk about my book, takes leave to use the bathroom. While she�s gone, we give props to Pastori-i for manipulating the conversation as skillfully as he would a marionette.
We walk over to the next bar, and we start talking about cheesy old skool music, shit you bust out every once in a while that you can�t believe used to be awesome.
�Remember this: Look at all these rumors,� I start.
��round me every day,� says Birthday Girl�s boyfriend. �I just need some time, some time to get away, oh oh,� we finish, laughing. We go through songs from Craig Mack to Tears for Fears to Salt-n-Pepa. She sits there, not saying anything, not participating. I remind myself that it�s her day, so I ask her if she has some songs that she used to love, but viewed through today�s eyes, are actually pretty bad.
Her chin juts forward and she smirks. �No. All the music I used to listen to is still cool.�
Yes, she said that in a serious manner, not a joking one. WTF? Which one of us is closer to high school, me or the 40-year-old with the low self-esteem? What�s making her take every opportunity to say something that slights me? Fuck that bigger person shit. Martyrs suck. I'm unleashing the full Pencopal fury next time her poor self-image gets the best of her, and she feels the need to shit on me to make herself feel better.
People are a trip. That�s why I hate them.
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