Okay, I am exaggerating a bit. I also look forward to watching Who Wants to be a Superhero on Sci-Fi. (There ain’t nothing like watching a big woman in spandex and a freakin’ goob who cries all the time).
I am not exactly living the life I had envisioned for myself as I left Ole Miss in the Ryder Truck pilled full of sorority mementos and stolen beer mugs from the many Thursday nights out on the Oxford square. I was headed for greatness with two useless degrees and bank balance of $7.30. Now 10 years later and so jaded I pee green, I have accepted the life that I have chosen – with the help of several mood stabilizers and a daily tranquillizer.
With chemical assistance, I manage to make it through most days without a slipping on some Nikes and pouring myself a tumbler of tainted Kool-Aid, but at least once a week, someone has to coax me off the ledge with a Snickers and Diet Coke.
My best friend Audrey surfs through life on a wave of Prozac and Zanex. She says she sees the world like Barbra Streisand in the movies – a little fuzzy to cover up the wrinkles and age spots. Audrey refers to it as bi-polarpaloosa. It really works for her. We’ve been friends all our lives, and I can’t remember what she is like without chemical enhancement. The meds give her character. You never know what you are going to get most days – fun and outgoing, quiet and reflective, or psychotic and delusional. I prefer the latter. Raises the stakes a bit… scares the hell out of most people.
Let me explain.
Every year until Hurricane Katrina, Audrey and I would drive down to
The last year we went, Audrey and I had just wolfed down our fourth beignet at the Café du Monde and headed down Market Street to go browse the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company store when the most insane, turn-your-umbrella-inside-out, wet-all-the-way-to-your-drawers storm hit. We were at least 12 blocks from the hotel and wearing liquid eyeliner. We looked like the members of the Alice Cooper Soccer Mom fan club with our runny eyeliner and twin sets, and we were not about to actually go into a store looking like that to wait out the storm. We refused to make a spectacle of ourselves.
So we ran the twelve blocks – squealing and shouting obscenities – through the French Quarter of New Orleans.
When we finally fell into the hotel lobby (literally), I imagine we weren’t looking our best. In fact, I made a baby cry in the elevator.
After the best of three rounds of rock, paper, scissors, I won the first shower. Finally warm and wearing the complementary hotel bathrobe, I left my sanctuary. Audrey was sprawled on her stomach across one of the beds in her bra and panties and a tiara (she carries one with her at all times), holding a little bottle of vodka from the mini-bar in one hand and a Marlboro Light (clutched between her first two fingers) and a wad of praline (between her ring finger and pinky) in the other. She was singing “I’m a Little Teacup.”
“Shower’s open.”
“Cool beans.”
Bi-polarpaloosa, people. It might be raining shit and shingles, but with with a teacup full of
vodka and a Zanex chaser, you can coast right through life never realizing you have become Courtney Love.
