your best day (not to be confused with VH1's Best Week Ever)

Since I drive so much, I listen to a lot of podcasts and books on tape (Pro tip: if you love fiction, you must subscribe to the New Yorker fiction podcast. Start with the one where they read Bullet in the Brain. You will not regret this.).

A darling friend who's also a commuter handed off the Dave Eggers book about Sudanese lost boys, What is the What. I'd heard mixed reviews, but I'm totally engrossed. If you're feeling at all self-pitying and want to get the eff over yourself, check it out. Though if you're sensitive to, like, children being eaten by lions, watch out.

There's one part early on where the semi-fictional narrator is talking about how the walking boys -- refugees who have largely witnessed the slaughter of their entire villages -- have a hard time sleeping. They're orphans traveling across the desert with no water or food. Some of them have shoes. Boys stagger off the trail and die all along the way. I guess all that makes it a little difficult to catch Zs. One of their leaders (just a bigger boy) instructed them, as they lay down in a circle to protect themselves, to put together in your mind your best day. Think of your favorite breakfast. Then your favorite afternoon, your favorite evening. The narrator's best day includes a pretty girl, a bicycle, his mother's yellow dress.

So as I lay in bed the other night having a hard time getting to sleep, I thought about piecing together my best day. But I didn't actually end up doing that, because I quickly thought of one day that -- front to back -- was nearly perfect in itself. My 29th birthday.

My birthday is in December, and this year it was on a Sunday. It started at midnight, in a bar. I had gone out with my roommate, who'd just become my boyfriend, and one of my best friends. As we left one bar and staggered to the next, it started to snow, and we giggled and slid around. I honestly don't remember going to the last bar, but I found out later that when we walked inside, my glasses fogged up, so I took them off and stood, swaying and smiling. When someone (an acquaintance?) said hi, I blinked blindly and cheerfully said, "It's my birthday!"

I do remember that my darling roommate had stayed sober and drove us home, and on the way, I instructed him to go do some cookies in the snow somewhere. He obliged.

The next morning, my new love woke me with a thoughtful gift, and made me eggs benedict on croissants -- if you think that sounds too rich to be good, you're incorrect. Hollandaise cures hangovers, by the way.

It snowed all day. If I lived in a different town than Bend, my party would have been canceled. But the troopers started pulling into my driveway right on time, and they hucked their shoes and snowy coats in a growing pile by the door, and started filling the kitchen, unloading bags of food and wine.

I'd recently become enamored (via Lynn Rosetto Casper and a book that I refuse to link to Amazon for, because you should do like I did and order it from your local independent bookseller, goddamit, or at least from Powells) with homemade Asian dumplings, but they're really time-consuming to make. So I assigned each of about a half dozen of my gals to a filling, then told them to come over early and be ready to roll, fold, crimp and stuff. My poor roomate was stuck with a house full of chatting women who pushed up their sleeves, poured glasses of wine and got to work. As the trays of dumplings piled up, I turned on every burner of the stove and started steaming, frying and pot-sticking. The house filled with glorious smells, and the windows fogged with steam. The house hummed with our cheerful chatter.

As it got dark out, and we transitioned from cooking to eating, the husbands and boyfriends came knocking. Each time we opened the door, steam poured out into the night. Cars and even bikes piled up in the snow in my yard.

One of the husbands showed up with his two boys (whom I adore not least because as soon as they learned my name they became quite fond of it, and every time I see them they shout "Elliiiiiiiie," and how can you not love that? ) to drop off a gift for me, tease me, and bring his wife a Chanukah gift.

We ate until we were about to burst, then we tucked into the largest chocolate orange cream cake I've ever seen (The sad note here being that this cake was made by a former friend, one of those love/hate friends. We started teetering farther toward hate than love, and after I left the state without saying goodbye, she unfriended me on Facebook. I can't decide which of us is more petty.).

Anyway. This is all to say: My best day. Hot boyfriend (yeah, you know there are details of the day I'm leaving out. Use your imaaaaaagination.). Cooking and eating good food. And piles of my brilliant, hilarious friends.

Miss you guys.

Old southern women

Forgive me if you already saw some of this story on Bookface, but it's so awesome it bears retelling.

Not too long ago, I accidentally got sort of wasted while talking to my best friend on the phone. 

No. Really.

So the day after, I was as hung as I'd been in a long time. Naturally, Roomie and I took the opportunity to take a break from our weekend projects and catch up on movies. He's been pushing me to watch the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies (not for the lesbian scenes, I swear) for awhile, so we settled in. Problem is, we only had a love seat in our living room. No chairs. No couch.

See, Roomie is 6'2". Snuggles are nice for awhile. Not for 4 hours on a teenytiny lil loveseat with someone with allll of those limbs -- it seemed like he sprouted a new limb every time something violent happened.

By halfway through movie 2, we were on Craigslist. We found a guy selling a giant leather and micro-suede couch for cheap. I took another Aleve and we hitched our moving trailer to the truck and headed to town. On the way out there,  Roomie's mom called with an offer for some free furniture we needed.

While nice southern boys helped Roomie load up, I got to talk to the old southern women who were watching over the moves.

First, the Craigslist guy's grandma sat on the stoop, smoking a cigarette (which she referred to as "my habit") and telling me about how she had recently been so sick she thought she was going to die, but just as soon as she got out of the hospital, her husband had been diagnosed with brain cancer. He died two weeks later. Then her sister died.

"So," she said, poking her smoke into the air in front of her and shaking her head, "You can forgive me for my habit. I don't know what I'm going to do."

I forgave her.

Then we went to Mama Roomie's landlord's house. She was a sweet, tiny thing named Dell, and she wandered around muttering intelligible things as her grandson helped Roomie. She asked me to help move a few things, folding chairs and such, and praised Jesus that I was strong enough to do so. Then she told me I could only use her bathroom if I gave her a quarter.

As we stood on the front porch, she started waving her little hands around as she asked Jesus to bless our vehicle on our trip back to Aynor, and to fill it with angels so no demons could touch us. Then she looked at me, shrugged her little bird shoulders and said, "You're good now."

Two vignettes

1.

Last night, I glanced at my phone and noticed a missed call from my Bestie. We've been trying to chat for a few days, but keep missing each other.

(It should be noted here that both Bestie and her mother, Itinerant Woman, are notorious Anglophiles -- especially on such an occasion that the Anglo is a goodlooking man. Bestie also so happens to have a mini wiener dog named Ralph.)

I had a dinner guest over, so I couldn't call back. I sent her a text (which was all true, by the way):

"Hi boo. I'd call you back but Roomie and I have an Englishman over for dinner. His name is Ralph. I'm sure you understand."

Her reply:

"Of course. Carry on."

2.

A friend of mine recently called me "demanding."

"You know I mean that with love, right?," she asked.

"I also demand love, so yes," I replied.

But when I got home, I told Roommie about it.

"Did I tell you Jules called me demanding? Do you think I'm demanding?"

He looked at me with some surprise.

"Of course. You didn't know that about yourself?"

Miracles

When I visited Ssadie in Idaho last summer, I was a runner. She was not. She'd go to the gym with me and hike with me, but the few times I tried to get her to run with me, it just wasn't happening.

But since I've been down with this (motherfuckinggoddamnitshit) heel injury, she's picked up her running shoes. Oh, and roller skates, too, since she's now a derby queen.

This weekend, she ran her first race, a 12K. She love it, of course, and came back with this little story:

About .5 mile from the finish I heard a man clapping and hooting (like a gazillion other spectators). "You're all amazing, keep going!" he cheered, "Almost there, it's a blessed miracle you're running today!"

I turned my face to send him a weary smile, and I saw him; an old man, perched awkwardly on a stool. He was an amputee.

It's hard to run and cry at the same time. fyi.

Not working

So, S.Sadie has decided Roller Derby is cooler than waking up at 5:30 a.m. to call me and wake me up and force me to go to the gym.

Asshole.

If I look fat in any of the pictures from the wedding I'm in this summer, I'm blaming her, her whole team, and Drew Barrymore.

But, still. Now I get to say my bestie is a kickass hotass radhot roller derby mama, and there's something to be said for that.

So, a little help? The best thing about roller derby bitches is their names. What should she be? And you should know (though you don't have to use these facts in the name, they may spark your lil imagination): She is, in fact, a mama. She is also a hot bitch. She also has long red hair and pretty nice T and A. Idears?

In case you're wondering, it's gonna be just like this, but with more fishnet:

Because I know the internets were dying to know

My alarm went of at 5:30 a.m. today. I turned it off and rolled over. Two seconds later, my phone rang.

"What."
"Wake up, hey come on wake up," she was singing.
"OK."
"Go, git!"
"I hate you."
"I hate you, too."
"OK, bye."
"Bye."

Then I got my ass out of bed and went to the gym. Because my best friend is rad, and because if someone is willing to wake up at 5:30 and dial your number to try to make you do something that's going to make you feel better, you should probably do it. Also, my best friend is kind of a bitch and wouldn't let me live it down if I lied to her.

Also, I only have like one pair of pants that fits anymore. (As my 15 year old niece would say, FML.)