I have been waiting so long to go to Nerdtacular and this year was finally the year, and now I’m here and I feel so... fucking... miserable. I knew that it was going to be a challenge doing this alone, but I’ve done so much shit alone in my life and I usually almost always handle it in stride. I take pride in people looking at me and saying “Are you here alone?” Like, yes, motherfucker, I am here alone. @ me. I dare you.
But here, something’s different. I thought this would be an easier experience than some of the other things I have done in my life. I was more nervous about going to that UM show with someone I know because I feared being outsider than coming here alone, because here I thought I was going to get on well. I’m not saying I expected to walk into this place and suddenly make a million best friends. I just felt like I would get along well here, even if I was alone. But that’s not the case.
No matter how many places I have gone alone, this is the first time I have felt so totally alone. I do’t feel like I belong at all. I feel like an outsider. And I feel like people look at me like I’m an outsider. I watch people walking up to other people sitting alone and they go “HEY ARE YOU ALONE I’M SO AND SO LET’S BE FRIENDS!” And suddenly they’re having an engaging and smart conversation. Meanwhile, I’m sitting alone, and I feel like people give me these looks of pity. Like, oh, look at that girl sitting there alone. And I’m doing that college freshman bullshit advice thing where I’m trying not to be on my phone constantly, I’m not walking around with headphones in or sitting around listening to headphones before panels, I smile politely to everyone who passes. And yet, I still just feel like I am failing at all of this.
Not to mention the fact that I have had some rather negative run ins with other con attendees. Not like a rumble or anything, but I just feel like people are not as friendly as I expected. For years I have been seeing and hearing how Nerdtacular is less of a con and more of a family reunion. And while I’m not naive about how how everyone gets along, I just feel like I don’t belong here. I’m honestly considering maybe leaving tomorrow night and then getting a hotel or airbnb in the city and check out SLC some more before my flight on Sunday.
I just feel sad. I feel sad that this isn’t what I expected. I just had a super horrible moment at Battle of the Frogpants All-Stars that culminated in me just feeling like shit and leaving halfway through to go back to my room and cry. Which, honestly, is all I’ve been doing since I arrived yesterday. Intermittent crying. I feel so defeated and isolated and broken.
I have somehow gotten myself into this silly little project where my friends and I are going to sample all the beer brewed in Milwaukee. Or at the very least sample a ton of beer brewed at (hopefully) every brewery in Milwaukee. Initially it was going to be like, Milwaukee and the 'burbs but hahaha, jokes on us, there are like 20 breweries in city proper and another like 10ish in the immediate suburbs and then there's Madison, and the miscellaneous ones elsewhere in the state. So this endeavor expanded from like a fun day into two fun days to like, goddamn this is going to be like four fucking Saturdays long what the fuck have I done why is this my life. And the thing is, I was really excited for the Day(s) of Beer. I thought it would be interesting and cultural and educational. We could hone our tastes and really learn what goes into making a good beer. We are from fucking Milwaukee for Christ's sake. Our heritage is Pabst and Miller and Schlitz and Blatz. I mean, yeah, our heritage is shitty beer. But it's still beer. But I really thought this would be great. Until I remembered who my friends are. I love my friends, don't get me wrong. I like seeing them and hanging out with them and talking with them and doing things with them, but sometimes I don't. Sometimes I feel like I'm 90 hanging out with 12 year olds. And know what? I kinda don't want to share Day(s) of Beer with them. I mean, they'll love it and we'll have fun, but at the same time I just wish I had different people to share it with. People who would, uhm, enjoy it more? Appreciate it more? Would view it as something other than an excuse to day drink and get beer drunk by 5pm? Maybe I'm being prentious. I'm just in need of a new life.
Back in the heady days of 2014, in between the end of Nicole's CP and the end of mine and Luke's friendship, I was at the peak of pretension. I was flying on emotions and excitement and feelings. I felt /everything/ so deeply in that month and a half. I felt indescribable joys and pains and anxieties. I felt invincible and omniscient. I felt manic. At that time, I endeavored to memorize the entire poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg because, again, pretentious. I thought it would be a cool party trick? Like most theatre kids, I definitely have a Shakespearean monologue in my back pocket in the event I ever am challenged to give a monologue (it's a Viola monolgoue from the second act of Twelfth Night. I don't know why either). But I figured I also need an ultra pretentious poem, you know, just in case. Like most people, I obviously knew and still know the first line of the poem, but I felt like I needed to get the entire thing down. It never happened because everything else crashed around me and I know longer was that person anymore. That person existed for a flash in time, but she was operating at levels I could never dream to achieve again. She was such a different person. But today the words bounced back in, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness." It inspired me in a broken way? I thought, wow. I should revisit that INSANELY POINTLESS goal of memorizing Howl, which, for the record, is longer than the monologue I am ready to bust out on command. And when will this ever serve me? When will I be sitting around with someone and have them be like, "God I love the poem Howl." And for me to just, out of the blue be like "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness..." and then what? They stand up and applaud? I hang out with people who don't discuss capital L Literature or poetry or counterculture. We don't smoke weed or take psychedelics and ~feel~. We passively recount our mundane lives to each other and then sometimes casually discuss what we're watching on netflix. And not even cerebral docuseries about human development or space. I mean like rehashing Parks and Rec episodes we've all seen a million times. So do I need to memorize Howl? No. Will I memorize Howl? No. Am I going to spend all afternoon futilely trying to memorize Howl? Of fucking course I am.
Around 6pm this evening I crashed. I crashed hard. Out of nowhere I was laying in bed sobbing for no reason, feeling like I was losing my mind. I called my best friend and she had no time for me. I went to trivia with the officemate and boss and drank more than I should have, and it delayed my emotions, then as soon as I left, I crashed again. I cried. I came home and showered and cried in the shower. I called my best friend again and again she didn't answe and I cried to her voicemail. I feel so indescribably lonely and I feel so empty and I feel so lost and I feel so, angry. How did I get here?
Both spokenly and unspokenly, I felt like I had made a solid agreement with the officemate about Saturday night. So many times we both mutually said "We will never talk about this again, cool?" Yesterday when we got into the office and it was a little awkward and uncomfortable because, of course it would be, we both again agreed that we would not speak about, chiefly, me going back to his place and crashing there. I mean, there is other shit we agreed to not talk about, most of which I don't even remember what we did or why we didn't need to talk about again. But still, we agreed on this big thing. This big. Goddamn. Thing. And then today, not a day later, he casually drops in front of the boss and a homemaker that we had a fun sleepover on Saturday night. I wanted to kill him. It's not that anything terrible happened that my boss cannot know about, but I am embarrassed. I mean, I had a great time on Saturday and I still feel this indescribable high inside my soul because I do believe this pulled me out of my mild depressive state, at least for now. But I'm embarrassed that I had to crash at his place, that I couldn't handle my shit enough to know when to say no and when to drive home. And honestly, it makes me paranoid for what else could come up, what else I don't even remember that he could say. He alluded the the weed. That froze my blood for a moment. The boss said something about men not doing what other people tell me to do, and he said "Oh, I mean, she plays tough but she'll give in to anything to fit in." I didn't say no to smoking weed with him because before I even got there, before I even left my house, my best friend and I discussed how I was probably going to be smoking weed with him. I knew what I was doing before I did it. I was prepared. Should I have smoked so much? Probably not. But was I peer pressured into it? Nah. I was wholly prepared. I have willfully and readily accepting joints, pipes, bongs, and vapes for twelve years at this point. Never has anyone forced me, or guilted me, or peer pressured me into getting stoned. From the time I was twelve, I've always been so quick to light up and take a hit. But whatever. The point is not that he was making a joke about me giving in, it's that I don't want to talk about the weed or the sleepover or concert at all. I don't want my boss to know I'm a goddamn shitshow all the time. Just some of the time. The Packer party was bad enough. And now we're going to play trivia tonight and the boss keeps joking about how we need to get the officemate liquored up bc she has questions for him. It's all a joke but seriously, get three beers in him and it's a fucking roulette game. What will he say? I don't regret Saturday. I just wish this shit could stay buried.
Wow, I bet you guys all forgot that you were following me, this wordy blog that only pops up on your dash once every few months to spew angst. You might not even remember why you followed me in the first place, and are looking at the “unfollow” button as it taunts you, but you’re still kinda curious. Who is this girl (I’m Natalie) and why do I follow her (I used to blog about Disney and the dcp) and how come she only comes and goes from my life when her life is falling apart (I’m selfish)? Well, guys, here’s a long post under the cut about my weekend, with a little bit of back story sprinkled in, if you dare to approach.
Catch Up
Quick background as to what I’ve been up to. I’m still at that same job I’ve posted about hating so much for the last year and a half. Yep. I’ve been there one year and five months now. I cannot even believe it myself. I have the same boss and the same office mate. However, since the start of 2017, our office dynamics have been shifting a bit. The officemate has been sensing my days are numbered since the day I started, but now his days too are numbered. He’s going back to school in the fall so his day, too, are numbered. Also, the three of us (boss, officemate, and I), have been spending some extracurricular time together. We went to a Packer party in January where I got absolutely trashed and made a fool of myself (and the Packers lost). Then on Valentine’s Day, we all started playing Tuesday night trivia together every week. It’s been an experience for sure. It’s become a weekly occurrence for me to have 3-4 beers (always IPAs with higher ABV because I’m human garbage) and then to say one or two things that I definitely regret the next morning and pray that upon walking into the office no one remembers me saying. It’s cool (also humiliating).
There are some other things that have been building for a while between the officemate and myself. Not sexual tension or anything. He’s in a happily committed relationship and I’m happily so irritated by all human beings that I have no desire to be in any sort of relationship, sexual or otherwise (I’m still working through issues that arose from that one thing that happened to me at a party back in Florida although it’s been like a year and a half but I’m still not huge on being touched in any capacity). But there is a sort of camaraderie. Friendship? I have a friend crush on him, I think. Like, I just want to be apart of his world.
Well, I pushed my shitty self into his life this weekend. And that is why I have come here to write this obnoxiously long post. I want to capture this weekend to remind myself that I am capable of being a human dumpster fire and also still come out the other side feeling damn good about myself. To start, we should discuss my Vision Quest (more backstory).
The Vision Quest
A few weeks ago my boss walked into our office and said to me, “Natalie, what is that one thing you want to do this summer?” And I looked at her blankly like, what the fuck? And she kept pushing. What do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish? Well, what she does not know is that I am planning on moving. And I don’t mean, move out of my parents place into the city (oh yeah, I’m still with Mom and Dad). I mean, move move. Out of state. Out of mind. Denver, Salt Lake, Austin, Charlotte, Nashville. Those are my options. I want SLC or Denver. My best friend Nicole wants Austin (she was born and raised there, and that’s where her mom lives) or maybe Denver/Boulder. But I did comment that I’m going to Utah this summer (for Nerdtacular) so I guess that’s my Big Thing.
She told me I needed something else. She’s right. I’ve been pretty depressed the last few months. Not debilitating like it has been in the past, but I’ve definitely had a mood shift. I’ve never been the most happy-go-lucky person, but there are some day I would just drag myself into work and barely able to function as a human being all day. I’d stare into the middle ground. I’d get agitated and angry at homemakers and clients over dumb shit. I’d snap like a motherfucker at the officemate. I’d almost always apologize, but I definitely would snipe at him unjustly. So I said I needed a Vision Quest.
When I said I needed a Vision Quest, I meant it mostly as a joke. Also, in the sense of culturally appropriating Native American folklore of going through a series of trials and coming out a man on the other end. That’s what I was talking about. The officemate interpreted my Vision Quest and I need to try psychedelics. He didn’t say that directly, but he linked me to an episode of The Simpsons where Homer eats a hot pepper that sends him on a psychedelic trip. He out of the blue started sending me articles about 60s counterculture, and more specifically, Owsley Stanley. Jokes on him, because what he didn’t know about me is that my senior year high school research paper was a 20 page long research paper into how drug culture impacted American history starting in the 1940′s to present (2011 present). I find all of that shit so fascinating to begin with, so then I spent my day at work listening to songs about the counterculture and psychedelics and in a Wikipedia wormhole clicking link and link to learn about so many different kinds of drugs that are lesser know variant of lsd.
But do not mistake this for me wanting to drop acid with my officemate. That is definitely not something I have any intention of doing. (At least for now. Again, changing dynamics). Nicole and I have joked about how it’s so goddamn weird that he has not at all broached the topic of smoking weed together (like a normal goddamn person who would want to do drugs with their coworker) but he went right to “we should do psychedelics, a deeply profound and person experience, together.”
As Nicole and I would joke about that, I did say, I’d smoke with the officemate any day. It’s the lsd that gave me pause. That was about a month ago now. But I never thought that would be a line I’d cross with him. Until...
Last Week
We’ll get there. I’ll let those words hang. I mean, we all know where that’s going so I will fill in how this last week has gone. The officemate is huge into a jam band. The kind of thing where he travels around the country seeing them and getting into them, and this week they were on his home turf for a three night event, and the officemate’s 100th show was set to be night two.
The officemate invited us to join him on either night 1 or 3. He mostly wanted us there on night 1, though. I, though, have *spoiler alert* debilitating anxiety that makes it hard for me to believe that any would actually want to hang out with me. He asked the boss and I to go with him and I said “hahah, yes” cause I thought it was a goddamn joke, and then I proceeded to feel so much anxiety about it leading up to it because I was convinced he didn’t actually want us there. The boss also said that she would go. So come Thursday, the boss actually went to the show with him and I... Went to trivia with my friends out in Burlington, a half hour past where I live, which is already a half hour outside the city. So I was a solid hour away from Milwaukee, four Landsharks deep with my friends, rocking our nearly perfect trivia game, when he texts me. Are you seriously not coming? The weight of guilt hit me so hard in that moment. He wanted me there and I stood him up.
I felt like shit. I also kind of just regretted not going. It has been so long since I’ve done something outside of my comfort zone (anxiety, depression, that sort of thing) that I hated that I couldn’t bring myself to go. So at work on Friday, he gave me so much shit about it, but I kind of just let it go. I felt better. My anxiety was easing up. I had nothing to worry about, and then he said to me just as he was heading out the door Friday afternoon You should seriously come tomorrow night. I brushed it off. Yeah, Maybe. I’ll text you tomorrow?
Full disclosure: I wasn’t going to go. Again, I’m still not convinced that he wanted me there. Sure, the boss went on Thursday and had a great time, but how much fun could that have been for him? Partying with his boss? And the next day the boss comes in chatting about the clouds of smoke hanging low over the crowd. Sweet, sweet innocent boss. And I’m sure I can hang just as well as the officemate. Well, maybe not as well, but I can hang! I’m cool! I’m hip! I can do the drugs! (Convinced?)
Saturday Afternoon
Saturday my sisters and I took the dogs to the dog park in the morning. It was finally a day that hinted at spring. Afterwards, Sam and I ran to Target and then we had to hit up my cousin’s daughter’s first birthday party.
Here’s where I had a Come-to-Jesus moment with one of my cousin’s. She 31, has three kids, and really did a good job at embracing “life.” Despite having her first kid at 21, and then subsequently going through a series of pregnancies and miscarriages, before having her son, and then later another daughter, my cousin has lived a life. She, too, is major into following around a jam band across the country. Not as much as she used to being a 31 yr-old mother of three, but her three kids have each been to more Phish concerts in their short 10, 6, and 3 years on this earth than I have been to any concert ever. But she’s getting older and tired. So Saturday we were sitting and chatting.
“You look tired, did you go out last night?” No, I’m just tired. “What are you plans for tonight?” Nothing, probably just going to take a nap. “You used to have so much fun. What happened?” (Editor’s Note: The first and best people I ever get in trouble with are my cousins. They were the first people I got stoned with. The first people I go drunk with. The first people I’ve ever pursued guys in bars with. But all of that was a long time ago. I first smoked weed with them at 12. Drunk at 13. We’d troll “Up North” Bars when I was 14/15/16. But now I’m 24.) I’m getting old Heather. “Shut up. You are not old. Wanna see Beauty and the Beast with me and the kids tonight?” Maybe. I’m not sure. “I just can’t believe that you have no plans whatsoever. Nothing.” Well, the guy I work with offhandedly invited me to UM tonight. “Oh. You. Are. Going.”
And so I went.
Umphrey’s McGee and My Life
I was late, not shockingly. I met his friends. It was uncomfortable. I pounded two beers and did three shots of whiskey in, oh, I don’t know. Fifteen minutes? That’s the thing about my anxiety. When I’m anxious in social situations with alcohol, I immediately start throwing them back like your drunk uncle at Christmas that no one wants to be there but no one has the heart to un-invite. That’s how I got so goddamn trashed at the Packer party. I was really anxious so I just started drinking because I didn’t know what else to do.
I didn’t really talk to anyone. His one friend made polite small talk with me, but that was about it. And then he leaned over to me, before the show started, and said, “You wanna go on that Vision Quest tonight?” To my SHOCK AND HORROR, I said, “I mean, what do you have in mind?” What I should have said was no. But don’t worry guys, this isn’t a post about my first lsd experience! He said, “Hah, yeah, not tonight. It’s too late. Some other time though.” And then, just about as the house lights go down he leans in close to my ear and whisper/shouted (remember, voices travel weird at concerts) “Can I ask you a weird question?” Yeah, what? “Have you, ever, in your life, been high?” I didn’t give a standard yes or no, because that’s not what I do. I said, What kind of question is that? “When was the last time?” Not since October, I don’t smoke like I used to. “Alright, then be careful with this shit.” And he hands me a goddamn vape pen. Here’s the thing I know about me and vaping instead of traditional smoking. I get always get too high, too fast. It’s too easy for me to inhale and too hard for me to judge how much I’m taking in. I know this about myself. But I never seem to learn from past experiences. SO OF COURSE I take a really solid drag. OF COURSE. Always. EVERY TIME. I know better. Then I enjoy the show. And a joint comes my way, and I take a good drag, because I’m better at smoking joints. And then the officemate hands me his whiskey and I take another pull from the flask. And then he refills my now empty beer cup with beer from his can. And then the joint comes back. And then an e-cig appears out of nowhere. And a pipe. So I’m smoking four different kinds of weed from four different sources, drinking whiskey and beer. And I’m having a goddamn great time.
At set break I vow to stop drinking and smoking. I do have to drive back to my bullshit suburb after all. But I get one Blue Moon to wash down everything else. And then the second set starts. And the vape pen comes back. And I say no, because I’m an adult and the officemate says “C’mon, we’ll figure something out about getting you home.” oof. I keep smoking. We polish off the whiskey. We share a bottle of water (thank god) and then we share a beer.
The show ends. I cannot drive home.
What to do. What to do.
I panicked. I was sobering up enough to know that I cannot drive home but I also have no other options. I don’t know what to do. I consider calling my sister, but she had decided conveniently to not go by her boyfriend’s that night. Her boyfriend lives five blocks from the theatre, that would have been ideal. Officemate offers to let me go back to his place. But it’s weird. We’re both weird about it. Neither of us want it to happen.
I’m still panicking. And apologizing. and panicking. and apologizing. We get a lyft back to his place. The whole fifteen minute ride to his side of town, I apologize profusely. We keep saying things that are hazy that both of us agree we will not repeat on Monday. I make him swear that we will not talk about this ever again. I do not want this to come up on Monday. I don’t want the boss to know that I spent the night at his place. He says I’m never gonna live it down. I tell him it sucks that I have to quit my job.
We get back to his place. It’s weird. We sit on his couch and he asks me what I want to watch. It’s Always Sunny is my chill out show. So we watch it for an hour. His roommate came back with some other guy and when they saw that I was there, they decided that both of them would crash at a different friend’s place to give us space? Mind you, the officemate is in a long term committed relationship with someone else. So now it’s weird. Even weirder. His roommate wants to get out of our way? What does he thinks gonna happen? Not to mention that they both have their own rooms. Nothing was going to happen that was going to bother anyone. But so they left.
We pass out. I woke up about three hours later, about 6:30. I peed. Grabbed my shoes. Snuck out. Got a lyft back to my car on the other side of town. Got no parking tickets and did not get towed (personal win bc I was definitely parked in a no parking after midnight zone). Haven’t heard from him all day. I’m glad.
Today
Some unique challenges of living with your parents is doing your walk of shame for the first time in front of them. Walking into the house at quarter after 7 in the morning, tired, reeking of weed and beer, blood shot eyes, unamused, while Mom and Dad are sitting at the kitchen table putting together their shopping list for the week while eating a well rounded breakfast. They smiled at me, asked me if I had fun. I shrugged. Then went to bed.
But honestly, can we talk about something cheesy and dramatic? I cannot stop smiling. My depression has been so ever-present lately that I did not realize I have been depressed. The signs have been there. People have pointed it out to me. But I’ve been ignoring them. But today, I have felt no anxiety, no exhaustion, no irritation. I’ve just been feeling so good about myself. Literally, I feel really good about The Future.
The officemate kept joking that this was going to be a life changing experience for me, and while I don’t think it’s wholly life changing, I do think it’s exactly what I needed. I needed to get pushed outside of my comfort zone. And for once, I don’t dread going to work tomorrow. I’m not nervous about facing the officemate. I snuck out without anyone noticing. I just disappeared. And I’m excited at the prospect of us hanging out again in a similar setting. I like stoned/drunk Officemate. He’s a different person but I like that person a lot.
Everything is getting away from me and every time I tell my best friend how hard I’m struggling she just says “I’m sorry.” And continues to talk about herself or her friends or roommates and I feel like she isn’t hearing me. I feel like no one is hearing me.
Everything is getting away from me and every time I tell my best friend how hard I'm struggling she just says "I'm sorry." And continues to talk about herself or her friends or roommates and I feel like she isn't hearing me. I feel like no one is hearing me.
I think the coolest trick I can do is spin myself into emotional turmoil just over the thought of whether I should go see Suicide Squad tonight or not.
Today is someone's birthday and I know it is this person's birthday and I am planning on wishing this person a happy birthday but... I have spent the entire morning trying to plan out when to text the simple phrase, "Happy birthday." To this person. And that's how I'm planning on saying it. No emojis. No exclamation marks. No gifs. Happy birthday. But I shouldn't be putting so much thought into a two word greeting. I would not say I have a crush, because I do not think that's what this is. I think it's a desire to further pursue and expand a friendship with this person while also maintaining a sense of aloofness that I have spent so long cultivating. But then there is the question why I'm so resistant to being nice to this person. Why do I insist of distant and emotionless interactions? Why can't I just let myself make an effort to be friends with someone? Maybe it's because I don't want to seem over eager or because I'm afraid of actually caring about someone or something or because the last time I let myself care so much about a friend in a similar situation I was burned so bad I'm still scarred.
I cannot stand the news on the shooting. I cannot read about what happened. I cannot think about it at all. I do not know anyone who were hurt or killed, but I do have friends who are suffering losses. It’s surreal to know that I was apart of the Orlando Community and that what I am seeing my friends post on Facebook is not general vitriol about guns or terrorism or immigration or radicalism. These friends aren’t just keeping victims and their loved ones in their prayers. They are the loved ones. They are mourning the loss on a personal level. But I cannot bear to read the news. I simply watched Anderson Cooper read the names of the victims and cried. I cannot talk about it in the office or to my friends here in Wisconsin. To them it’s just a news story, something horrific and tragic that happened. I suppose that’s all it is to me too. But to my friends, to people I love, it’s life. It’s reality. It’s knowing that they could have been at Pulse, they have been there so many times before, it’s the fear of hearing that potentially Disney was an alternate target, their work place. It’s losing friends and coworkers. It’s that their city is in shambles.
I wish I was there with them to hold them, but I am not. And also, I am glad I am not in Orlando. The sadness weighs too heavy. I’m too selfish. I can’t do this.
