betsy (bets-eh?) (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} petalpicker) wrote,@ 2009-07-06 12:42:00 |
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It's time to reflect on these last few days.
No, I still don't have my car or my phone. Since Kenny is out of town I have the precarious privilege of driving the Julie-mobile, whose brakes are close to nonexistent at this point. So until Julie or Kenny gets back, whichever happens first, I have sort of a car. That's neat.
Yesterday was the most out-of-place day ever. I mean that in the most positive way possible. I had known for a few days that I was invited to tag along to Bradley's niece's birthday party, which included hanging out on the roof of the W hotel downtown for a pool party and a nice dinner, but I wasn't aware of how luxurious a situation it was to be. Bradley woke me up around 11 yesterday morning and since Emily was sleeping on our couch and woke up at exactly the right time, we invited her too. The W is officially my favorite hotel chain ever. Every detail of the place is so well thought out, so perfectly manicured it's astonishing. The pool felt like bathwater, the djs were fantastic, and the drinks were unique and tasty. Bradley's sister, Sylvia had decided to splurge on two rooms for Lindsey and her guests + us, and we had full permission to charge our drinks to the rooms. Therefore, Emily and I tried everything on the signature drink menu that sounded at all appetizing throughout the course of the afternoon. It was funny hanging out with Lindsey's group - a bunch of East Cobb kids who have lived in their little bubble of spoiled Pope/Walton lifestyle without ever giving a second thought to what might live beyond that bubble. After I invented a story about a wild and rugged knife fight that I got into with Emily's brother (the reason I have a stab-like wound on my inner thigh) after which I strangled him to death behind the Clermont, the young man I was describing the details to revealed the nasty underside to the spoiled Marietta kid - "Say, is it just me or are there an awful lot of black people at this party?" Aw, Marietta kid, you seemed all right before then. A little dumb, sure, but all right. "Yeah, you're in Atlanta, buddy. Black folks have got 60% of the population here." He looked astonished. Bradley popped in at this point to tell him in no uncertain terms that the people we were sharing our pool space with undoubtedly made more money than any of us ever will. Poor kid. He had to find out all at once that not only are there still black people left in this world, some of them even have homes! It's a lot to swallow in less than five minutes, I guess.
The birthday guests held up the same basic attitudes throughout the party - reasonably cheerful, too loud, and ranging between mildly and extremely offensive. I suggested Two Urban Licks for dinner, and everyone was impressed with the selection. (Dinner went on the credit card Sylvia had sent along with Lindsey.) As dinner drew to its end, Sylvia tried to call Lindsey and she pitched a nice little fit about how controlling her mom is, always having to check in on her. Bradley took the responsibility of talking to this obviously oppressive woman (who at this point had spent upward of $2000 on the night we were enjoying) but made Lindsey promise to call her mom after dinner. I had the pleasure of overhearing that conversation, which was mostly an extension of the temper tantrum she had started at the dinner table. But damn, my steam pot was as good as I remembered, and by this point in the night Bradley, Emily, and I had formed a little triad of eye-rolling, astonished glances, facepalms, and stifled giggles at our fellow guests' behavior.
The rooms Sylvia booked (TWO rooms, couldn't fit all that ego in one) were astonishing, following the theme of the day. I've never flopped onto a more comfortable bed, even the bathroom had mood lighting controls, there was a martini bar next to the bed (excuse me, ONE of the two beds), and to top it all off, rather than a Gideon's Bible, they left us a kaleidoscope. When we first checked out the rooms, Lindsey handed us a key to one and we were under the impression that we were somehow to get away with the three of us getting this to ourselves for the night. We were, of course, mistaken, but it was nice to dream for a few minutes. By the time we got back from dinner and into the room, it was clear that we were NOT the only ones with a key to 1508, and the room had already been 'used'. To my disappointment, someone had already gone through the supplies at out little martini bar - not that it was even enough to feel sad about. Our good fortune was glaring at us all day. We spent the last hour of legal drinking in the hotel bar, where Emily and I tried the last two cocktails left on our list, and polished our drinking off with our favorite two of the day. From there, we went back to the beautiful pool and Emily and I tipsily swam in our fancy dresses.
The view from this pool begs description - swimming to the infinite wall of glass at one edge of the pool, we could see most of downtown to our left and in front of us and the tiny, busy interstate to our right. During the gray day, the city loomed, important as ever, stared us in the face, and relaxed and exhilarated us simultaneously. At night, when the sky had mostly cleared, the moon reflected off of the Westin directly in front of us and we felt almost like we were floating higher and higher away from the ground.
It was after night swimming that our evening got a little silly. Back in the room, where all of East Cobb followed us back, Bradley and Emily and I hopped onto one of the beds and put on some music (an iPod dock came with the room, of course) and changed the flat screen TV's channel to E, which was playing Bring it On. Everyone sort of milled in and out of the room, and once we were left alone, we decided room service was in order. We ate our way through two personal pizzas and a plate of chicken fingers before the shit hit the fan in the form of a skinny, perfectly tanned East Cobb reigning princess.
Lindsey came into the room to confront Bradley. "My friends say you're being rude to them," she complained. "I haven't taken any of their shit, I've dished it back, if that's what you mean." (This was true. The East Cobb boys were antagonizing, as is their nature, and Bradley, Emily, and I tried to playfully throw it back in their faces as much as we could). "Well, I need them to be able to sleep somewhere. And you're taking up a bed." "What do you want me to do?" "Ugh, Bradley, you make everything so difficult. Why do you have to make everything so difficult?" "Lindsey, if you want us to leave, just say so! My condo is five minutes away. But it would have been nice if you had said something earlier." "Bradley you're such an asshole! God!" "What do you want me to do? Just tell me, Lindsey, and I'll do it. I'm taking up one bed, three people, one bed. If your bratty friends need more room to spread out, we'll leave." "Bradley you're such an asshole!" "We're out of here, don't worry about it, you spoiled fucking brat!"
Eek. Meanwhile, Emily and I are hiding under the comforter to avoid having to take part in this unfortunate discussion. We popped out and threw on our shoes and took off. The thing is, Bradley organized this whole adventure of a day. He's the one who got Lindsey plus her friends onto 'the list' to hang out at that party, it was his idea to do everything we did that day. Now, I don't care that we ended up at the condo rather than in the hotel - I had a way more luxurious day than I deserved. But I really can't believe someone could be so spoiled and so bratty as to kick her uncle, who had planned her entire party, out of said party so her friends could (just a guess) orchestrate a gang bang in more comfortable quarters. I shouldn't have been surprised, seeing as she couldn't stop complaining about her mother, the sponsor, all evening, but such selfishness never fails to surprise me.
Anyway. I know I'm really indulging in this entry, but it's been a long time since I was able to sit and spout my thoughts onto a screen or a non-biased party at all.
The past couple of weeks have been so topsy-turvy, so bizarre and so different from what I'm used to. If I hadn't been the one to do it all to myself, I would accuse someone of having pulled the rug out from under me. I feel like I've been in freefall all this time, encountering positive and negative but not really having the authority to take care of any of it or even observe it for more than a few minutes at a time. Every day I have no idea where I'll end up or what I'll be doing by the end of the night. Who I'll meet for the first time or who I'll encounter for the 45th time. I've had very little time to myself, and I haven't been organizing what time I do have very responsibly. I've been 90% happy, overjoyed even, but that leftover ten is a combination of confused, a little sad, some doubtful, and a tiny dash of sheer terror.
I miss the friends I don't see by default and the ones that I've developed phone relationship with. I have almost no way of contacting certain people until I get my phone back. I even had a dream I found my phone last night and the disappointment upon waking was devastating. I know I'm being overdramatic about this, but I feel like I've lost an important tie to the world over these few days. On the flip side, there's something awfully freeing about the situation. Time to take care of business though, wake up from this weird fog I've been living in.
I'm going to end this entry now because I'm tired of typing, not because I've run out of stuff to say. I have so many events to relay, so many ideas and emotions I could spell out, things I'll want to remember when I inevitably come back to this entry in the future and marvel once again at how different yet similar my life is at that point. Obviously, some of the most important aspects of my life are missing from what I've written today but I just don't have it in me to get them out right now.
No, I still don't have my car or my phone. Since Kenny is out of town I have the precarious privilege of driving the Julie-mobile, whose brakes are close to nonexistent at this point. So until Julie or Kenny gets back, whichever happens first, I have sort of a car. That's neat.
Yesterday was the most out-of-place day ever. I mean that in the most positive way possible. I had known for a few days that I was invited to tag along to Bradley's niece's birthday party, which included hanging out on the roof of the W hotel downtown for a pool party and a nice dinner, but I wasn't aware of how luxurious a situation it was to be. Bradley woke me up around 11 yesterday morning and since Emily was sleeping on our couch and woke up at exactly the right time, we invited her too. The W is officially my favorite hotel chain ever. Every detail of the place is so well thought out, so perfectly manicured it's astonishing. The pool felt like bathwater, the djs were fantastic, and the drinks were unique and tasty. Bradley's sister, Sylvia had decided to splurge on two rooms for Lindsey and her guests + us, and we had full permission to charge our drinks to the rooms. Therefore, Emily and I tried everything on the signature drink menu that sounded at all appetizing throughout the course of the afternoon. It was funny hanging out with Lindsey's group - a bunch of East Cobb kids who have lived in their little bubble of spoiled Pope/Walton lifestyle without ever giving a second thought to what might live beyond that bubble. After I invented a story about a wild and rugged knife fight that I got into with Emily's brother (the reason I have a stab-like wound on my inner thigh) after which I strangled him to death behind the Clermont, the young man I was describing the details to revealed the nasty underside to the spoiled Marietta kid - "Say, is it just me or are there an awful lot of black people at this party?" Aw, Marietta kid, you seemed all right before then. A little dumb, sure, but all right. "Yeah, you're in Atlanta, buddy. Black folks have got 60% of the population here." He looked astonished. Bradley popped in at this point to tell him in no uncertain terms that the people we were sharing our pool space with undoubtedly made more money than any of us ever will. Poor kid. He had to find out all at once that not only are there still black people left in this world, some of them even have homes! It's a lot to swallow in less than five minutes, I guess.
The birthday guests held up the same basic attitudes throughout the party - reasonably cheerful, too loud, and ranging between mildly and extremely offensive. I suggested Two Urban Licks for dinner, and everyone was impressed with the selection. (Dinner went on the credit card Sylvia had sent along with Lindsey.) As dinner drew to its end, Sylvia tried to call Lindsey and she pitched a nice little fit about how controlling her mom is, always having to check in on her. Bradley took the responsibility of talking to this obviously oppressive woman (who at this point had spent upward of $2000 on the night we were enjoying) but made Lindsey promise to call her mom after dinner. I had the pleasure of overhearing that conversation, which was mostly an extension of the temper tantrum she had started at the dinner table. But damn, my steam pot was as good as I remembered, and by this point in the night Bradley, Emily, and I had formed a little triad of eye-rolling, astonished glances, facepalms, and stifled giggles at our fellow guests' behavior.
The rooms Sylvia booked (TWO rooms, couldn't fit all that ego in one) were astonishing, following the theme of the day. I've never flopped onto a more comfortable bed, even the bathroom had mood lighting controls, there was a martini bar next to the bed (excuse me, ONE of the two beds), and to top it all off, rather than a Gideon's Bible, they left us a kaleidoscope. When we first checked out the rooms, Lindsey handed us a key to one and we were under the impression that we were somehow to get away with the three of us getting this to ourselves for the night. We were, of course, mistaken, but it was nice to dream for a few minutes. By the time we got back from dinner and into the room, it was clear that we were NOT the only ones with a key to 1508, and the room had already been 'used'. To my disappointment, someone had already gone through the supplies at out little martini bar - not that it was even enough to feel sad about. Our good fortune was glaring at us all day. We spent the last hour of legal drinking in the hotel bar, where Emily and I tried the last two cocktails left on our list, and polished our drinking off with our favorite two of the day. From there, we went back to the beautiful pool and Emily and I tipsily swam in our fancy dresses.
The view from this pool begs description - swimming to the infinite wall of glass at one edge of the pool, we could see most of downtown to our left and in front of us and the tiny, busy interstate to our right. During the gray day, the city loomed, important as ever, stared us in the face, and relaxed and exhilarated us simultaneously. At night, when the sky had mostly cleared, the moon reflected off of the Westin directly in front of us and we felt almost like we were floating higher and higher away from the ground.
It was after night swimming that our evening got a little silly. Back in the room, where all of East Cobb followed us back, Bradley and Emily and I hopped onto one of the beds and put on some music (an iPod dock came with the room, of course) and changed the flat screen TV's channel to E, which was playing Bring it On. Everyone sort of milled in and out of the room, and once we were left alone, we decided room service was in order. We ate our way through two personal pizzas and a plate of chicken fingers before the shit hit the fan in the form of a skinny, perfectly tanned East Cobb reigning princess.
Lindsey came into the room to confront Bradley. "My friends say you're being rude to them," she complained. "I haven't taken any of their shit, I've dished it back, if that's what you mean." (This was true. The East Cobb boys were antagonizing, as is their nature, and Bradley, Emily, and I tried to playfully throw it back in their faces as much as we could). "Well, I need them to be able to sleep somewhere. And you're taking up a bed." "What do you want me to do?" "Ugh, Bradley, you make everything so difficult. Why do you have to make everything so difficult?" "Lindsey, if you want us to leave, just say so! My condo is five minutes away. But it would have been nice if you had said something earlier." "Bradley you're such an asshole! God!" "What do you want me to do? Just tell me, Lindsey, and I'll do it. I'm taking up one bed, three people, one bed. If your bratty friends need more room to spread out, we'll leave." "Bradley you're such an asshole!" "We're out of here, don't worry about it, you spoiled fucking brat!"
Eek. Meanwhile, Emily and I are hiding under the comforter to avoid having to take part in this unfortunate discussion. We popped out and threw on our shoes and took off. The thing is, Bradley organized this whole adventure of a day. He's the one who got Lindsey plus her friends onto 'the list' to hang out at that party, it was his idea to do everything we did that day. Now, I don't care that we ended up at the condo rather than in the hotel - I had a way more luxurious day than I deserved. But I really can't believe someone could be so spoiled and so bratty as to kick her uncle, who had planned her entire party, out of said party so her friends could (just a guess) orchestrate a gang bang in more comfortable quarters. I shouldn't have been surprised, seeing as she couldn't stop complaining about her mother, the sponsor, all evening, but such selfishness never fails to surprise me.
Anyway. I know I'm really indulging in this entry, but it's been a long time since I was able to sit and spout my thoughts onto a screen or a non-biased party at all.
The past couple of weeks have been so topsy-turvy, so bizarre and so different from what I'm used to. If I hadn't been the one to do it all to myself, I would accuse someone of having pulled the rug out from under me. I feel like I've been in freefall all this time, encountering positive and negative but not really having the authority to take care of any of it or even observe it for more than a few minutes at a time. Every day I have no idea where I'll end up or what I'll be doing by the end of the night. Who I'll meet for the first time or who I'll encounter for the 45th time. I've had very little time to myself, and I haven't been organizing what time I do have very responsibly. I've been 90% happy, overjoyed even, but that leftover ten is a combination of confused, a little sad, some doubtful, and a tiny dash of sheer terror.
I miss the friends I don't see by default and the ones that I've developed phone relationship with. I have almost no way of contacting certain people until I get my phone back. I even had a dream I found my phone last night and the disappointment upon waking was devastating. I know I'm being overdramatic about this, but I feel like I've lost an important tie to the world over these few days. On the flip side, there's something awfully freeing about the situation. Time to take care of business though, wake up from this weird fog I've been living in.
I'm going to end this entry now because I'm tired of typing, not because I've run out of stuff to say. I have so many events to relay, so many ideas and emotions I could spell out, things I'll want to remember when I inevitably come back to this entry in the future and marvel once again at how different yet similar my life is at that point. Obviously, some of the most important aspects of my life are missing from what I've written today but I just don't have it in me to get them out right now.
