It was a summer not too long ago when I was in between love affairs, jobs, and educational systems. Funny, back then I felt that the transitional phase from Community College to the commuter State College not 30-minutes away was a major life hurdle. On top of this ‘stress’ I was transferring my items from one bedroom in my mother’s house to another bedroom. You can imagine how taxing this is on someone who was accustomed to waking up early in order to go downstairs and lay down on the couch for 3 hours of On Demand.  A break was long overdue.

In those days Adrienne and I made decisions that could be filed under “Stupid Shit: Fun” folder of our lives. Yet, given our effervescent attitudes towards life—eerily both pragmatic and carefree as we clearly knew what the RIGHT thing to do was but we both would ignore the plain realities and in some strange cases, the legalities. We justified what we did, arrogantly enough, and thought that no matter how badly we fucked up, we were blessed with families who would open the door and wearily say, “Come on in. Did you eat?” 

At this stage, Adrienne was working in a youth home. It was for kids who were troubled in some way. This position was live-in, I believed, and she worked up in the mountains of Riverside or Julian or some place. She would confiscate cigarettes from girls and eventually smoke them herself I believe. Something that we laughed about often. 

After some time, Adrienne took a new role in Arizona, California. I say that it was Arizona, California because regardless of the distance, it was drivable for Adrienne,  thus, she treated it as if it was a short commute. If her car had been a horse, she’d have shot it after it collapsed mid-journey, say, “You done good, HoneyBee, you done good.”, gone to a Horse Dealership, and hopped on the first purple horse with a moon-roof and a tinted ass. I mean to say, the girl put the miles on her vehicle. If someone lived in Hawaii and she had a transformer car with wheels that turned into fins, she’d visit three times a week. 

One hot summer day, she called me. I had just come back from the ‘Fitness Studio’ with Coach Berry. What a lunatic. He was a black guy who looked like Louis Gosset Junior from An Officer and a Gentleman (‘only two things come out of montana: Steers and Queers…and I don’t see no horns on you, boy!’) He thought he was a ninja. I started to believe him when I saw the ridiculously photoshopped images that he let his filipino wife create when she cut loose on her new Acer desktop. One, a massive poster, was of Coach Berry running in his ninja outfit. The backdrop was a waterfall which would be believable had I been a 5 year old with glaucoma, however, she went over the edge when she chose to enhance the drama with two wolves running WITH him in said waterfall. How dreadful. 

It was during one of the summer hits, Lord of the Rings. Coach Berry would walk behind me while I worked out, pause, watch my form (he called it The Goddess Stance) and then he’d nod his head in approval and say, “That’s it girl. Go’on, git yer precious. Git your precious, WOOOO!” 

Suffice it to say I was a thin as a rail back then. How could I let black ninja down? 

And so, when Adrienne I spoke on the phone that afternoon, we made a decision that I should stay with her in AZ for a while. She drove from Arizona to Oceanside and within a few hours, I was at a PILOT station where I was looking sexier and sexier to the locals the further inland I went.

I didn’t have a plan but for the official record, we say that I “lived in Arizona once”. I even got a crummy AZ identification card as a souvenir since it expired on November 22 of NEVER. 

Since it was AZ, she was able to procure an apartment that was basically the mansions of apartments. She shared this apartment with a co-worker. Particular about her living habits, it was a matter of days before Adrienne and the roommate were at the silent battle of wills. And I was privy to all of this.

One enjoyed sleeping in Arizona heat. The other enjoyed the AC on blast. One ate the other’s yogurt. The other hid facts about stuff. One was dating Adrienne’s Uncle. The other thought it was gross when they kissed. The other’s friend visiting from California didn’t like the sound of their big ethnic lips kissing while she tried to watch the evening news.  

Adrienne and I tried to sleep in the same bed together but our sleep styles are different in the sense that she snores like my brother and I am a princess & the pea type of sleeper. At some stage, she humbly moved from the bed to the living room. Adrienne was a sleep walker, sleep talker, and sleep murderer sometimes. Angered that cherubs floated above me and guarded my slumber, while she had a swap meet glow in the dark Our Lady of Fatima statue in that eery shade of verde,  she stormed into the room one night with her floral nightgown and house slippers on, reached under my head, snatched the pillow and said, “Give me back my pillow, you fucking bitch.”  

The cherubs pointed their arrows at her but she left the room far too quickly. 

When I reminded her of this the next day over breakfast at Jack n the Box, she denied she ever knew of what she did. In the same breath, she smiled and said, “So what.” 

She worked mostly during the day. And, like the lost soul I was and can still be from time to time, I lathered on tanning lotion and went out to the complex’s pool. By the time she came home from work, my main concern was not if the work she did affected her well-being, if a kid pulled a knife on her throat, or if she was emotionally drained but, “What’s for dinner?” and “How far is that Super Wal-Mart from here?” 

We went to the Super Wal-mart for dinner. Impulsive as ever, she purchased a martini drink mix set (mischievous as ever, I encouraged this purchase with a thumbs up) and enough booze for a black rap party. On a boat. With Jamaicans and Cubans. It turned out to be a racial thing. Truth be told, we endeavored to make Hurricanes / Slurricanes. I know. The next day, she returned the Martini Drink mixer set. The booze was dranked up. 

After a week, I realized that I had left without uttering a word to anyone. No one knew where I was. My mother called Aida to see if I had run off with some dickhead I was seeing who looked like Mickey Rourke (the NOW Mickey Rourke, not the 9 1/2 weeks Mickey Rourke). Since Adrienne couldn’t drive me home, I caught a plane. It was my first plane ride (aside from the prepubescent trip to the Philippines which doesn’t count if you hardly recall it). Back then, I would have never guessed that that would be the first of many adventures for me. And while I’ve yet to experience Europe, I am eager to go to there. Someday. Soon. 

At the time, that week or so in AZ seemed massive to me. Huge. A real page-turner. It was nothing, really .But it was an episode in life. And life is like that. It propels you forward. Sometimes, it’s a lazy few months where nothing is happening at all (still, the undercurrents are there that something is in fact happening) but sometimes with life, the rapid trajectory is so forceful, so much, you forget to appreciate it and zoom right through it, operating on adrenaline alone.

Current Mood: Treading water. 

Current Energy: Fitness with Kiana. 

Current Romance: GNO with Marie and Tara. 

Current Book: Breakfast at Tiffany’s. 

Current Attire: LBD whenever I can. 

Current Fears: None.

Current Research: Amsterdam.