The "Charm"ing Conversation Incident

So Boob week was a fail. I've been moving, on new medicine for one thing and sick with another thing. I am scattered between three cities - most of my stuff in my hometown, technically moved in at my college-cottage but spending my nights and most of my days at the boyfriend's family abode. End excuse, start story.

I have one piece of jewelry that I wear every day. I have kept up with it for over a year, which is very impressive considering my knack of misplacing and forgetting things. It is a very simple charm on a plain fake-silver chain. I wear a small metal bicycle. 

My beloved bicycle. I guess if this picture extended three
inches lower it would still qualify as "Boob Week" worthy.

It garners a lot of notice for such a plain, drab charm. From the pizza guy at my favorite local shoppe (Second favorite actually, after Bob's Pizza in SoHo - represent!) asking if I'm an avid biker, to the customers at my artsy job asking about its construction and origin, most people notice it and it intrigues them enough to ask. Tonight at dinner, the littlest princess at the house I'm currently living at asked me where I got it. A simple reply, right?

Does acquiring jewelry usually involve a decrepit warehouse, a pervy old man, and advice to enter the adult entertainment industry?

I think not. 

Also, I had no idea how to make the actual story PG appropriate for a seven-year-old girl.

Our story begins many months ago, on a hot late summer day. I had just dyed my short pixie hair a dark brown, and colored in bright red lips. With a black ensemble, I felt very audrey hepburn, old-hollywood glamour. I headed downtown with my dear friend Emme for an afternoon of antiquing and girl time. Emme dates one of my favorite guy friends, and luckily we have a lot in common and were able to develop a friendship outside of our respective (and in my case, now former) significant others.

So antiquing we shall go.

My favorite shop overflowed with thingamabobs and whatchamacallits and really hideous cast-off clothing. Pre-legs Princess Ariel would have loved it. We scavenged like hipster hyenas, but could find nothing salvageable amongst the wreckage. On to the next shop.

This place loomed two-stories tall with more individual "booth" type set ups. Lots of creepy dolls and weird lighting. It holds a set of luggage I have long lusted over but have never bought due to price and practicality. I have awesome luggage. It is hot pink and giraffe print. This set looks like a reject consolation prize from 1970s The Price Is Right. But I slather over it every time. 

Once my luggage lust had been satiated, Emme and I admitted defeat and began to leave. A glimmer on the corner of a counter caught my eye.

Thankfully it was not the moving glass eye of one of the many possessed Depression-Era dolls.

"Charms $1"Scrawled in octogenarian calligraphy on a plain sheet of paper over a small plastic bowl. Inside piled a whole plethora of tiny shapes. Something about everyday objects in delicate miniature, like  Monopoly pieces mixed with magic, captivated me. I immediately picked up a tiny bicycle. 

It seemed so simple and quirky. I rode my bike on occasion - a purple beach cruiser with wide handles. In high school it was my favorite way to relieve stress, after mothering my wild and crazy friends and keeping my emo friends from death's doorstep. At the same time, it was slightly random, a bit odd. Why a bicycle around your neck?

Well, why not?

I held it in my palm as I opened my wallet for the requisite dollar. The old man behind the counter seemed jovial and friendly enough, one of those old indie types who might have been in a psychedelic band sixty years ago. He struck up a conversation.

"That bar in yer ear, did it hurt?"

I love my industrial piercing, and was flattered by the mention.

"Oh no, sir! I've had it forever. Got my bellybutton pierced too, that hurt a little more."

"Got anything else pierced?" That's weird but of course he's not talking about my naughtybits I'm being paranoid. 

"Oh, haha, nope. Just those two."

"Got any tattoos?"

"Ha, uh, nope. Just the piercings."

And then, ladies and gentlemen, the weirdest compliment I have ever received:

"Has anyone ever told you, you look like one of them Suicide Girls? With the dark hair and the makeup.... I bet if you got a couple more tattoos and piercings you could be a Suicide Girl."

I thanked him awkwardly and hurried Emme out of the store. She asked the question that's probably on the mind of 95% of the readers right now:

"R... what's a Suicide Girl?"

Suicide Girls is a softcorn porn site of alt/goth/indie girls, very naughty burlesque / classic pinup. With you know, naughtybits exposed.

A random old guy suggested I looked like I should be in indie porn. 

I thought I'd dressed rather professional and polished that day. But no. Clearly I flashed PORN PORN PORN.

Emme was horrified at his audacity - who just SAYS that kind of thing to a stranger? I just laughed, and told her it would give me a great story to tell when people asked me where I got my charm.

Which it did, of course, but I am not explaining the porno punch line to a second-grader.

So ummm....

"I found it in a downtown castle guarded by a creepy, creepy, CREEPY old man..."

The Sick Skiers Incident

I am addicted to caffeine.

I get worse headaches around 5pm from a day without caffeine than a night of drinking. I get more irritable and weepy without caffeine than PMS in high school. I get more homicidal rage without caffeine coursing through my veins than Hannibal Lec- okay, you get the picture.

I drink maybe two of three sodas a day. Or starbucks in the morning and two or three sodas later. The folks at my corner starbucks not only know my name, but my drink preferences depending on the weather and how tired I look, and major life events. I went there religiously first semester at 7:30am before my movement class, spending ungodly amounts on flavored, sugared, chocolatey espresso concoctions. I think they liked me because I was never like "soy, skim, no sugar, extra crushed iced, pretentious blah blah blah" but usually "can I get extra whipped cream? Of course I want WHOLE milk." They took pity on my at Starbucks because it was 1) always ungodly early and 2) after a bad breakup, and expensive coffee was one of my few comforts. Which the baristas heard about. In detail.

Anyways, free Sbux publicity aside, I know how bad caffeine is for you, being Dr. Dad's kid. I know caffeine addiction is a hop, skip and jump away from being a dope fiend. Yesterday I'm asking my friends in the drama department for an extra quarter so I can get a soda before rehearsal; next week I'm Marion from Requiem for a Dream doing ungodly things on a coffee table for more heroin. It's a vicious cycle.

I tried to quit, once. I really did. This is my harrowing story of recovery and descent back into madness.

New Year's Eve my sophomore year of high school: I decided to give up caffeine. Namely, soda and coffee.  At this point I drank maybe four or five cans a day, and it was seriously messing with my sleep and bladder. at 11:59pm, I ruefully drank the last few gulps of orange soda in my can. I wished the flavor would linger forever.

The first couple weeks were brutal. The irritability, the mood swings - I was going through actual WITHDRAW. The headaches were the worse - not completely debilitating like a migraine, where you know if you just pop some excedrin you can sleep it off. These headaches lingered, gnawing at the back of brain. It would be so simple to cure them, I thought... just a couple sips of soda. No one would know. But I held firm. In my weakest moments I - dare I say it - allowed my mom to brew me black, black tea. It didn't really count, I thought, sipping it greedily like a strung-out junkie at a methadone clinic.

I also developed the attitude often seen in recovering addicts or, more similarly, people who have picked up a new dieting craze. OH! The health benefits! I feel like a new person! The world is my oyster! Everything that was wrong in my life was because of soda! Why isn't everyone giving up soda! They must be weak - I must spread the word! I am so much better than all these poor saps still fettered to the yoke of caffeine addiction!

This exultations would usually bring on another withdraw headache, and I'd curl up in a ball on the couch for two hours.

Then came the youth group ski trip. We were going to the mountains of west virginia to go skiing. We got to ride in a big van (I hoped I'd sit next to a cute boy) for hours. It was going to be just the best thing ever.

After some really spicy Bojangles for dinner, we continued our drive north. I finished my water in two minutes and thirstily opened the cooler to grab -

The cooler was entirely stocked with soda.

Not a water bottle or juice box to be found.

I couldn't  just grab a soda. I would be a HYPOCRITE. In front of church friends! Church friends were always doing something naughty, like getting to second base, but never in front of everyone (eww). They would judge me.

"Well," I said smugly, trying to hide the fact that my mouth felt like sandpaper and the can of soda felt so sleek and sinful in my hand."I guess I'll just have to wait until the next stop to get some water. I have given up soda for New Years' and I am going to STICK WITH IT." Cue appreciative gasps from the rest of the kids (and probably eye rolls from the adult supervisors).

Two things happened in quick succession. One of the guys offered to share his water bottle, and a couple of my friends also declared they wanted to give up sodas too. Right then. We could keep each other accountable. Christian friends are all about accountability. It makes you feel superior when someone else screws up. It helps you stick with your goal. Also we got to share a water bottle with a boy.

"Oh ha," we laughed. "Hope none of us get sick! Otherwise we'd all be in trouble."

Cue the owner of the water bottle violently vomiting the entire next day.

Those of us who rode in the van, in such close proximity, looked at each other in horror after the full day of skiing. We had breathed the same air. Touched the same stuff. And for half of us - drank the same water. I might as well have been a 14th-century Snow White and accidentally called a sea of rats to clean my cottage. Sure, things would looks pristine and I would still have my dignity... as I died a vicious death from bubonic plague. We enjoyed our last few hours of life on the way back. I think one of the trip leaders even lead a prayer about how we knew we were going to get sick, but at least make it quick and as painless as possible. Two people in a different van fell out on the way home. Frequent stops.

I thankfully lasted another couple hours, but when I woke up in the middle of Sunday night, I knew I was a goner.

Between vomiting, I shooed away my Lady Mother's offering of soda to settle my stomach with carbonation and help balance my electrolytes (my parents are all about some electrolytes whenever me or Little Watz gets sick).

"Drink this! Ginger ale is good for you. It doesn't count as soda because you're so sick. You need it to restore your electrolytes."
"WOMAN," I shouted as I clung to the toilet. "I cannot give up now just because I'm sick. This is just a test. I can get through this. Get me gatorade. Or ice chips. Soda will not touch my lips. TRIAL BY FIRE (1 Peter 1:7 reference. 1000 good Christian girl points)." I alternate between really mean and really pathetic when I'm sick. "What does it matter? I'm probably going to die... sniff, sniff, at least I'll have remained resolute to my resolution until the bitter end."

I managed to overcome my sickness without a drop of soda. Those of us who drank from the bottle were hit the hardest. One of my friends called me the next day, equally sick and miserable, to admit she had drank some coca-cola to settle her stomach. I felt a little better. Morally. Physically, I think I threw up again.

I kept to my goal until summer came around. It was hot. I was bored. No one really cared that I wasn't drinking soda anymore. I think the first thing I drank was a Pepsi. Nothing significant happened. So I drank another. And another. (Though to be fair, only half the cans. I rarely drink a whole can. I tend to leave them around the house, half drunk, a testament to my presence. One day Lady Mother went around and stuck sticky notes to all of the cans, saying "EXHIBIT A" and so forth. I was not amused.)

I asked Lady Mother to hide the sodas, to maybe deter my cravings. I found them later that day, not so creatively hidden under my parents' bed. Really? What a lame hiding place.

With the challenge and my scruples gone, I returned to my caffeine-imbibing ways without much fanfare. Every now and then, usually on a weekend when I'm off my schedule, a certain gray headache will reach its bitter talons around my frontal and temporal lobes.

"Remember me?" It will ask with its fizzy, effervescent sweetness. And I will oblige.