mizChartreuse! redefining success

It is just after midnight, Oprah is wrapping up, and my boyfriend has been cooking meatballs in the kitchen FOR THE LAST FOUR HOURS. Yes. FOUR hours. Of cooking meatballs.

I’m doing my usual lazy thing, lounging on the comfy pseudo-leather-looking-but-truly-vinyl black couch, randomly refreshing Facebook and Twitter and perusing my Blogroll, and he’s been busy chopping onions and garlic and gauging the temperature of the meatballs with his new handy-dandy food thermometer which we just picked up at the local Target. Wherein we ran into my lovely @AngeliqueK and talked about cell phones and parents and being sick and phantom internet boyfriends and IKEA.

Also @Target, a 2-year-old girl ran up to me, away from her grandmother, screaming, “No! No! I Want Mama!” and cradled my leg without looking up. It was the most precious thing that has happened to me this week. I can only imagine what went through her head when she lifted her tiny blonde head, only to see me, a chocolate girl with crazy big hair, smiling back at her.

So anyhow, I’m here on the couch and @bokeen just came in, lovingly cradling a medium-sized Pyrex glass mixing bowl with a blue plastic lid (which we also just acquired @Target) and said, “This reminds me of my dad. He used to have a Pyrex bowl just this size growing up.” Then he walked back into the kitchen. Precious.

I admire Sean’s dedication to things as simple as a nice dinner and wine night in with friends. He is awesome for always cooking and taking care of me, a girl who prefers simple, fast meals that don’t require much preparation. He’ll slave in the kitchen for hours to make me a great steak dinner or make papas fritas from scratch. There’s a reason why the posts in the “In the Kitschn with Charlotte Shay” section of this website are sparse. Thank GOD we balance out one another.

I love everything about the man, even the things that make me crazy and make me yell. Like how he comes over, hands me a cigarillo (which he incorrectly calls a ‘fume,’ as in the Spanish verb ‘fumar,’ which means ‘to smoke’), and lights it, even though I have a full pack right next to me on the couch, which I took from the carton in the backseat of his car. Or how he refills my cocktail glass. Or the way his stupid custom made Alice in Wonderland White Rabbit ringtone alarm goes off in the morning: “I’m LATE! I’M LATE! FOR A VERY IMPORTANT DATE! No time to say hello, GOODBYE! I’M LATE I’M LATE I’M LATE!” That makes me crazy and was cute only the first three times I heard it. Not so much anymore. Or the way he asks questions about what goes into doing and maintaining my hair, and not just in that stupid white boy jungle fever omg-i-love-exotic-women way. Or the way he still loves me even when I act disinterested and moody and pissed, which I am prone to do because I’m WAY more emotional than I ever let on to be.

He’s a good, good man and I am insaneeeely blessed.

*****

A preview for Jimmy Kimmel just came on: “You smile with your eyes. We learn this from Tyra. It’s called ‘SMYES.’” Jimmy just gave a lesson to a Guillermo, who is dressed in drag, about how to smile. That man is so ridiculous I almost pee myself sometimes. “Try to look a little crazy.”  LOfreakinL.

I don't care what you say, I love Tyrant. I wanna be her. Or on her.

Today was a weird day. Yesterday, I met a friend for lunch, which ended up being a super-extended all afternoon hangout session complete with me “feeding the meter” every two hours, which really means “swiping my credit card” at the Pay Station, because everything has to be electronic nowadays, which was annoying because I have SO MANY QUARTERS IN MY POSSESSION. So anyway, my friend and I had a couple glasses of wine and smoked a little Mother Green, so this morning I was feeling a bit off, not to mention I was feeling the aftermath of a silly fight with a man whom I love with all my heart (but that happens when you mix two volatile people). So for most of today I felt pretty OFF, which is the best way to describe it. Kinda lacking the motivation to do anything other than write, but also struggling with the writing aspect of things (I’m a participant in 2009′s NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month] competition and want to kill myself with every word). As I’ve said before, I love writing but I don’t really like to do it when I’m forced to. Even though I made the decision to partake in this painstaking, 50,000-words-in-one-month challenge.

Then I received a lovely phone call.

My longtime friend Candice gave me a ring, and surprisingly, I answered, even though it was an unknown number. And I NEVER answer unknown numbers, because in general, those unfamiliar digits are connected to the receiver of someone who’s all BITCH GIMME MY MONEY and I’m all WELL YOU ALREADY TOWED MY DEAD CAR OUT OF MY POSSESSION SO WHY SHOULD I PAY YOU FOR SOMETHING I DON’T EVEN USE? Like I can be worried about you booting my car when it means nothing to me.

In a perfect world:

“Hi, I’m looking for a Charlotte Mutesha?”

“Who is this?”

“This is the city of Chicago Department of Revenue, we’re calling about a payment on the parking ticket payment plan; there are actually two payments that are missing.” [Really? I haven't paid that shit in MONTHS. The fact that you just said two months is surprising!]

“Oh. Well, aren’t you already in possession of my dead car? The infamous Jetta? The one that even if I paid the fines for, I wouldn’t even be able to get it out of your impound lot because last time I turned it on the transmission was so shot that I couldn’t even shift gears except for into 2nd gear and the engine sounded like?”

“Well, yes, but we still need the payment for—”

“Well NO. You guys already raped my ass since I’ve moved to the city what with all your stupid tickets and fines and fees, and I don’t have a car registered in my name, so is there really any point in me paying you? It would be for nothing, right?”

“Your account might be referred to a collections agency if this situation escalates—”

“Good day. I said GOOD DAY.” [Click.]

Yep, I checked. Still don't care.

But in reality, I feigned interest, tried to act concerned, and pretended to write down the account number (even with the murmured repeating of the numbers as she read them to me) and told her I’d pay it online.  Such a pussy. And then I saved the number in my Contacts list as “Bitchyoubetta Gimmemymoney.” Done. Never to be answered again. As some people would say, my kind of behavior is probably typical of the “rules don’t apply to me” grandiosity of pathological narcissists. Aaaand, I don’t care. I’m just trying to live, shit.

So ANYWAY, Candice called me today. I’ve known her since I was in junior high, through high school, and we even lived on the same floor freshman year of college at Northern Illinois University—wherein we bonded over our love for Incubus and doing nothing productive whilst on campus. She was always holed up in her room or at her boyfriend’s place in the suburbs, and I was always pulling all-nighters and binge-eating mozzarella sticks, going to sleep at 8 a.m. when I should have been going to class at that time. But I digress.

Candice sent me a message on Facebook asking how I was doing and if I was a P.I., because it was maybe something she was interested in doing.

Pause.

P.I.? I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out what she meant by P.I. I’ve done Public RELATIONS…P.R.? But P.I. made absolutely no sense to me. I wrote her back with my number and told her to hit me up, and she promptly did about three minutes later. Being in the OFF mode that I was, I wasn’t very keen on answering the phone or talking to anybody today, but I sensed it was her and answered, tentatively expecting a telemarketer or bill collecting harasser to greet me on the other line.

Caillou's gonna feel like such a failure when he enters kindergarten and is completely unable to spell his French-ass name.

But it was Candice, lovely as day, three-year-old daughter screaming in the background that Caillou wasn’t playing anymore (precious). I explained to her that I have never done anything remotely related to Private Investigations, but I do have a friend in his 50s who was a P.I. and that was the extent of my knowledge. “That’s funny,” Candice told me. “That’s what Zack told me you did, saying you’re really good at getting information about people and stuff.”

Whaaaat. Um, I Google people?

By the way, Zack is her brother, the music producer with whom I used to work but decided to sever ties as a result of his inability/unwillingness to pay me. It must also be noted that he’s been in love with me since back in the high school days and I’ve always rejected him/never taken him seriously, because I always saw him as “my friend’s silly little brother,” despite the fact that he’s just a few months younger than me.

Regardless, I used to do PR and writing work with him, but his method of handling business transactions and professional communications is so absurd it’s just a joke. He even went as far as to call me stupid, saying he “never needed me” and I “suck” and should “find someone else to mooch off,” and texted me something ridiculous like “funny, all this time I thought writing was your passion but it turns out you prefer lying and hoeing.” SERIOUSLY. That is grounds for immediate excommunication from the realm of mizChartreuse’s Wonderland, Charlotte’s Web, whatever. Over it. He’s a liar and a lot bit crazy and I’M A WRITER NOT A FUCKING SALESMAN.

Which would also explain why he told his sister that I’m a fucking P.I. WTF?! And he also told Candice that the reason for his and my falling out was BECAUSE I LIKED HIM AND WAS UPSET THAT HE WAS TALKING TO MY LITTLE SISTER. Seriously? SERIOUSLY. What a weirdo. Good riddance.

Regardless of the sins of the pesky little brother, Candice has been my girl for years, and even though I’ve lost touch with her from time to time, we’ve always been connected by the social networks and whatnot.

Social networks. Meh. It was SO NICE to talk to her on the phone for over half an hour about life, love, hardships, triumphs, learning, experiences. Other than with my BFF Allie who lives over an hour from me, I never have extended phone conversations. And it’s SO DUMB. I was on the phone with a T-Mobile representative the other night and he noted that I barely use my minutes. I don’t. Of my 1000-minute plan, I average 300-400 minutes per month, if that, and I’m sure the bulk of those minutes consist of 3-minute or less conversations.

Sad.

Today’s “random” encounters with two girls whom I deeply care about makes me feel like I should really start talking on the phone more. I’m like a vampire, but instead of being allergic to the sun I’m allergic to a lack of social interaction, and somehow, Facebook just isn’t cutting it for me.