I was a writing major. I have a lot of friends who write.
I like food. I have a lot of friends who eat.

Take these things, add them up and you might guess I have friends who blog about food!
My long time friend (21 really long fucking years) has started a blog: http://foodweasel.com/

Read his shit. It's hilarious. It's tummy grumbling.
But, it's also new.
Bear with him like you have done for me.

It was 1998 and I was big into popping over the counter drugs.
No-Doze
Benadryl
Nyquil
You name it, I stole it. Mostly from the K-Mart up the street. One handful was a mix-match of fun. Everyone around me drank, but I took my pills and floated off into my own little wonderland. I listened to a lot of Denis Leary. I sang the Asshole song with my head hung out the window of a friend's beat-up 1980's Camry. I was happy to escape reality, even if only for a short time.

I refused to drink. The years of Alateen I endured while growing up had me saying to everyone, "I will never, ever drink."

My name is Drunk Girl, and I was a big fat liar. Eventually an 8 ball showed up with the kids I hung around with. Yes, cocaine. I was a freshman and hadn't had one sip of hooch. I smoked cigarettes and had smoked a little green now and then, but that was it. Suddenly, I was sitting on a friend's pool patio cutting up lines on a mirror.  Within minutes, I had poured myself a glass of Canadian Whiskey.

Is weed the gateway drug? Is alcohol the gateway drug? Is advil the gateway drug? Is cocaine the gateway drug?

Whatever it was, I had found my soulmate; my drug of choice. I had become Drunk Girl. The booze toting superhero.

Men, please understand that when a woman says she is PMSing, it is a real thing.
We are highly sensitive beings for a week (at least) and you should be respectful of this. While some women might, the majority of us do not use it as an excuse to act crazy, cry or eat chocolate. If we wanted to act crazy, we would be crazy all day, every day. The gorgeous bodies of ours have hormones that fly totally out of control because we were made to carry children. Trust me, we would love it if you got the periods, the baby carrying duties and especially the labor, but unfortunately this is not the way we were made. You get moody too and although you don't have the PMS 'excuse' to use, but if you can put up with our womanhood, we promise to smile and try to perk your spirits.

One day out of the month, I might want to sit at home with a pint of Ben & Jerry's and watch a tear-jerker on the boob tube. I might tell you it hurts when you are biting my nipples and I don't mean hurts in a good way. I might snap at you in reponse to a comment you make, when normally I am sarcastic and can dish it back without another thought.  I might even wear granny panties. Oh yeah, and if I am on birth control expect all this to double. Don't forget the reason I am on birth control is for both of us- for your sperm and my eggs- so that we can continue living our lives and so that I can have a strong cocktail in my hand.

Men, when we are PMSing, please just understand we really don't hate you. If we had any control over it we wouldn't be crying, miserable chocolateholics.

I have not written in hmmm, not sure how long, but it seems like a really fucking long time. Work has made me crazy, money has made me crazy, life has made me crazy. But I'm back! At least for a quick blog.
So, in honor of the impending holiday, I decided to blog about what I am thankful for. So here we go...

I am thankful for my health, especially since I have not quit smoking and put all sorts of bad things (aka dirty martinis) in my body. It has not failed me yet, and for that I am thankful.

I am thankful for my family, that most of us are speaking and only one of use has a major drug problem. If nothing else, we make great enablers. But seriously, my family is pretty freaking amazing.

I am thankful for my pets, my two dogs who have eaten two rolls of my toilet paper this week but managed to leave me a square. Also, for my cat, who has stopped crawling on my head when I am trying to sleep.

I am thankful for my job. Even if I hate it and am miserable, I really, truly am grateful for my awful job.

I am thankful for my boyfriend, who makes me laugh and understands the strange language I speak.

I am thankful for my friends. They really do offer me their ears for listening and shoulders for crying when I really need it. And I know my friends would buy me a drink (or 10) if that was the only thing they could do to fix me. Thanks friends, you really fucking rock.

I am thankful for Google. I don't know what I would do without you. Really, how did I survive before high-speed internet or the wonderful search engine that is Google? THANK YOU, GOOGLE!

I am thankful for cheese. Cheddar, Swiss, Goat, Feta, Colby-Jack, Cojita, Manchego, you name it and I love it.  Especially, when a bunch of you get together and mingle amongst elbow macaroni. I am cheesily grateful.

I am thankful for my house. I own it, and it may be caving in BUT it hasn't fallen down yet. Thanks, house for my being my shelter during the storm.

And last but not least, I am thankful for those little brown round pills- Advil. You help me when Aunt Flo visits, you help me get out of bed after a night out, but most importantly you will cure my head after I hang out with family all day tomorrow.

-----------
Don't worry readers,  I am thankful for you too! So, please be safe this holiday season but before you go please tell me,
what are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

In starting out this blog, I am trying to give my readers a little insight into the many layers that make me, me. So far, you have gotten the smoker-me, the passive lover-me, the creative writer-me and now I am offering you the chance to read someone else’s view of me. I figure through all this, you will possibly, maybe, hopefully come to know me, even if I am trying to remain anonymous and Lextra Dirty.

------------------------------------------------------- 

A great friend of mine wrote me this letter a million years ago. Okay, more like 7 years but it feels like a million. Obviously, it wasn't addressed to XXX nor did he put XXX in quotations but the X's have been placed there to protect my privacy. Also, Sunshine is not his real name but a nickname he rather hated.

I saved this letter for many reasons, and one of those reasons must have been to share this with you. We all need a little sunshine in our lives. This was my sunshine in 2002 when the world was against me and out before me all at the same time.
I was 19 years old.
I was confused.
I was in college. I was madly in love with a boy who couldn't keep his dick in his pants.
But luckily, I had friends that left notes like this in my bedroom. Notes that made me realize how fucking awesome I really am. Enjoy, my readers. This is true friendship. This is love.
---------------------------------------------------------
Oct. 18, 2002
Dearest XXX,

    This is a note for you to come home to. The paper came from my journal, which I swore I would never tear a page from. But, for some reason, I wanted to write you this. Oftentimes, I write better than I talk, and I wanted to try and tell you some things more poetically than I can verbalize.
    If someone was to ask me, "Who is love?" my response would be, "XXX." You somehow manage to try to lock your heart away, and yet never can, because (and I truly believe this) you are made of the stuff people wish to merely experience.
    All my life, I have hoped to find an individual who truly inspires me. I never expected it to be you. You, who never stops loving, despite how much you think you shouldn't or wish you wouldn't.
    You, the only person that can always warm my heart each time I see you. You, radiance and turbulence in one sacred soul. My entire life could be spent trying to realize what took you only nineteen years to achieve. In truth, you have helped teach me more about love in the last few months than anyone has my whole life.
    The Chinese call love "symbol," or "Ai," which they consider the most powerful emotion because the symbol combines "person" and "heart." I'll leave you with this quote;
        Hurt and pain come as part of life.
        No one is exempt.
        But that is no reason not to love.
        Suffering accompanies life,
        but love is affirmation.

Amore Siempre,
Sunshine

 Drunk Girl likes her wine over ice in a coffee mug. It was a rainbow-striped coffee mug with tennis rackets along the top edge. She hadn’t yet turned 21 and felt that the coffee mug was the least obvious of drink containers.  The Red Solo cup screamed alcohol but not a coffee mug, a coffee mug was too innocent.

If the cops broke up the party, and they always do, she would set her coffee mug down where ever she was. Eventually the Party Throwers would clean their house and eventually they would also clean her mug. Drunk Girl has been known to show up at their house with a smile and sweetly ask for her mug back from last weekends’ party. The Party Throwers always kindly obliged.

One time, the Party Throwers weren’t home and she needed her mug. She let herself in and opened the kitchen cabinet to where her mug sat at perfect eye level. She found a syllabus and flipped it over to leave a note: “You were robbed. The only thing stolen was a rainbow coffee mug with tennis rackets. Luckily, the coffee mug wasn’t even yours to begin with. Thank you and have a nice day.”

The note hangs on the fridge unnoticed for three weeks until they throw another party and Drunk Girl points it out. They all laugh, and she pretends she doesn’t know who wrote it and she giggles as she drinks wine out of a rainbow coffee mug with tennis rackets.

Word vomit. It's how we talk many times after drinking- with no filter. Words spew straight from our brains to our mouths and into the ears of those around us. With no thought of the consequence those words might have, we say things we might regret the next morning. As we reach for the bottle of Advil we conveniently keep on the nightstand, we remember the countless friends we turned into foes the previous night.
 
Vodka, help me here. After 3 martinis’ I can’t say anything to the man who has seen me totally naked, and still likes me flaws and all but I can tell the bartender serving me stiff ones that I love him. Granted, the love I declare to a bartender is not the same love I am trying to say to my guy. Plus, I know drinking and then saying things like ‘I love you’ for the first time is not the smartest plan. I can see it already…he is holding my hair back and as I vomit (real vomit, not word vomit) I say “I love you”. How fucking romantic.

People say, “you should say it in an intimate moment.” Um, excuse me but what the fuck is an intimate moment?! Of course, when I’m orgasming I am in love! I mean, really. If I am going down on a guy that is the last time I want him telling me he loves me for the first time. Maybe ‘I love when you do that with your tongue’, but please for the sake of a currently healthy relationship, save the ‘I love you’s’ for a better moment.

Okay, so the definition of intimacy is not just sex and I know that. But I still don’t want this moment to be all romantical and shit. I just want it to happen, and be over with so that I can get these damn butterflies out of my stomach. I think a fart would be a good lead in to saying ‘I love you’. You know, an icebreaker and some laughing to lighten the mood.  Okay, so I am not being entirely serious, but that’s how our relationship is. It’s not necessarily sunshine and rainbows and smiley face posters. It’s not a Lisa Frank ad. It’s nonsense and picking on each other. It’s sarcasm and laughter. It’s REAL. And it’s the most real thing I have ever been in. Ever.

So, I am sure you wonder why I am having all this back and forth inside my head. Three words. I AM HUMAN. Of course I have a fear of rejection. I am just going to have to force myself to suck it up and actually blurt out those three little, yet huge words, and hope that something and not nothing comes out of my mouth.

I Google every thing, incuding love and as I discussed my search engine results with a friend, she told me, "Google can not tell you when to say I love you. Only you can tell yourself."
I was baffled, "but Google knows everything!"
Well, screw you Google! I’m getting this one on my own!

There is no better morning combination then a cup of coffee and nicotine....
I made it 12 hours, then 24, then 36, but just as I was inching to 48 I failed.

Around 10pm last night, I decided to drive to Walgreens. I made it into the store and bee-lined it for the candy aisle. The damn clerks kept walking past me like I was trying to steal candy. Come the F on! I am a regular there.
Anyways, I grab some of the new Sea salt Dark Chocolate, a monster pack of Tic Tacs and some wintergreen gum. I head to the checkout counter where I let one of my candy aisle stalkers ring me up, give me the total and then I say, very softly and practically under my breath, "and one pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights". The less dorkier clerk says, "No."
Let me remind you that at this point I have not smoked in nearly 48 hours, so this is where I envision myself jumping over the counter and delivering a roundhouse kick to the little punk's head. I pay. Thinking to myself that I need no reminders of what I just purchased I say, "You can trash the receipt". I leave.
I drive home to eat one piece of chocolate while staring at the plastic Walgreen's bag; the Marlboro logo peeks out throught the plastic .
I quickly tear open the bag, then the pack of cigarettes- like a crack addict who had just met with her dealer.
I pull one out, I light it and inhale. Suddenly, I feel all this weight lift off my shoulders. With each drag, I feel calmer.  I try imagining it tastes like shit, but who am I kidding?
Then I feel guilt and throw the entire pack away only to dig them out of the trash this morning.
Can't someone just lock me in a room, strap me to a bed, and treat me like I am a heroin addict?! PLEASE!