The Cat On The Moon

when it’s back again

Beyond the red glow of the heaters and the hot-white of the spotlights, the massive drafty room is dark and quiet, broken only by the instructor’s whispers and the scratch of charcoal on paper. Me, I’m just dozing, ‘cause my ancient dorm was heated with creaky old steampipes that never really got warm, and with the new extra-powered space heater alongside the others, that night was the warmest I’d been in a month. I dozed, basking in the glorious warmth.

And then I fell asleep.

And then I fell off the stool.

I woke up rather abruptly on the cold wooden platform, and looked up to see an entire ring of terrified and worried faces around me. Everyone had their hands up, ready to help me up, except no one had touched me. Naked chick laid out face-down on the floor, and all the men and women were suddenly acutely aware they couldn’t just grab a half-asleep dazed naked chick.

Fortunately someone had the bright idea to tear the sheet down from the backdrop, lay it over me as a wrap, and then everyone was quick to help me up.

After that, the instructor and students got used to taking turns talking to me, just to make sure I wasn’t dozing off. Which was weird, at first, because I’d done two semesters just being a silent prop, and now I was interacting. It gave the class a vibe completely unlike any other I’d modeled for, and it ended up one of my favorite modeling experiences. 

I just got off the phone with mom, and we came to the realization that my family has lived in a series of unplottable houses for a couple generations now.

-The First Unplottable House is on my dad’s side of the family, in Delphi, Iowa.  The directions to it are the stuff of Buried Treasure:  Turn off the county road with a fraction in it’s name, to the Named Dirt Road, then turn at The Discount Eggs Sign on to the Unnamed dirt road that takes a meandering path THROUGH a corn field, DO NOT take any forks on that road or the farmer will shoot your ass, then take the paved road that dead-ends on ALL the way to the end- No, farther, the road keeps going it’s not a cliff-The only indication that You Have Arrived At The Correct Driveway is that a fat gray pony will charge the car, screaming, then escort you the rest of the way there.

It’s on the side of an enormous river, they’ve owned the property since 1911, and that’s the ONLY route there.

-The Second Unplottable house is in Bedford, Ohio and belonged to my mother’s parents.  It’s at the corner of two side-streets, right across from the tiny Italian grocery store.  Due to strange development decisions, the house is about 30 feet above street level and rendered invisible by a chestnut tree so majestic Hyao Myazaki would probably put it in a movie.  The driveway, however, is VERY visible from any of the surrounding houses, the grocer, or the street.  

At least in theory and old photos, becuase if you actually GO there,  your eyes slide right past it to the neighbor’s lillac bush, or to the retro neons of the grocery store or up the Chestnut tree.  it is literally HARD to look at that driveway, all the world around it wants to pull you away.

-The Third Unplottable house is in Salinas, CA, home of my paternal grandparents.  It is the single most BORING house possible- like, if you were to ask a third-grader to draw a prototypical house, they would draw my grandparent’s house.  Utterly Unremarkable. 

Except for the part where my Grandfather, spurred by his success with the “non-fruiting” peach tree, decided to plant a California Redwood Tree, and it grew to approximately 150 feet over the course of a few short decades.  It is the tallest damn thing for miles around, and SOMEHOW deliveries keep being missed, mail is delivered to the neighbors, and any non-blood family that tried to visit would end up on the other side of town.

-The Fourth Unplottable House was the one I grew up in CA.  The Directions to it are as follows:  It’s the Bright Orange house Right Across From The School.  You know, the one with six flamingos and the Volunteer Avacado Tree.

SOMEHOW, we got everyone’s mail but OURS (we still wonder about the letter from Fort Knox for Mr. Thomas Saxophone), the other kids got lost trying to visit and ended up in Mr.Phan’s yard on the other end of the block.  Officer Brown, Mom and Dad’s friend, who had GPS back in the early 90′s becuase silicon valley, regularly got lost looking for our place.  The Flamingos did nothing.

-My parent’s current house is the second house on the right  after two right turns off the state highway that runs through town.  Sounds easy, right?  

Except that due to a couple small trees and a bend in the road, the house is invisible from the road.  I have to stand out in the road if i want my pizza delivered.  The Mailman is the only person who could reliably find the box, but he drives a subaru that’s older than my sister from the passenger side by leaning over, and delivers mail based on the aztec lunar calendar, so he’s probably not actually human.  I tried to host a party, tied rainbow balloons to the mailbox, and all nine friends had to be waved in from the street.

-My current apartment building Does Not Exist, according to my Bank, medicaid, Google, and City Hall which was a bit exciting when I first moved in and had to call everyone that yes, I was sitting in a building that really exists.   

Guliya’s roommate recalls me dropping her off at the dorms, which is really peculiar.  Another classmate, Jeff, was at the party with Guliya, and they thought it was my place too.  Jeff is a jackass and I’d never invite him to my place.

No sooner do I set foot in the door, and Mrs. Nguyen snaps up and shrieks YOU!!  and I am much distressed and confused, because I adore Mrs. Nguyen.  She kept My Intended alive last passover when the cafeteria covered literally everything in flour.

She insists that some time in august I had dined with a large group of friends and then skipped out on a $200 dollar tab.  This is even more distressing and also impossible, as I had been in Oregon at the time, and only have like 3 IRL friends.  She is livid, and absolutely insistent that it was me, and that I pay the tab or she’ll call the police.  Being very distressed and not eager to have a panic attack in front of police, I pay up $216.87 and am banned forever.  I go home in tears, without my Pho and am very sick for a fortnight.

Two months later, it’s Polish Butter Christmas, and I locate the source of my woes.

Polish Butter Christmas is the invention of my Intended’s friend/domesticated internet troll, where everyone deemed a friend or at least interesting party diversion is invited to their house and we all consume massive amounts of Traditional Polish Cooking, which is about 60% butter by weight.  everyone eats way too much, most people also get shitfaced and i usually end up on the floor playing with 4-6 corgis, depending on who’s invited that year.  in 2014, it was all six of them, rustling under the table like a pack of obese furry sausages.  

Among the guests invited are myself, my Intended, The Troll’s girlfriend, and her friend.  The latter is 5′2″, whiter than mayonnaise, with bright purple hair and green glasses.  I also am 5′2″, glow under black lights, had bright purple hair and still have green glasses.  We learn furthermore, that we have the same first name and live on the same side of town.  This is laughed off as Most Amusing, at first.

The celebration goes on, and I become steadily less amused as I learn that Not-Me is a BITCH.  Racist jokes, yelling at the dogs to make them cower becuase “They look so funny!”, and generally abrasive and cruel.  Everyone is uncomfortable and Troll confides quietly to me in the kitchen that she is not invited next year, but needs an excuse to throw her out, or his dad will have a fit.  Troll’s family is as much a gang of cryptids as mine, and cannot go around Un-Inviting people without Due Cause.  So we agree to suffer quietly and laugh about it next year.

Eventually, the conversation turns to “Youthful Shenanigans”, and while most people have the sense to tell stories where they did something dumb but not actually illegal, Not-Me recounts with utter glee “That time me and my hoes dine-and-dashed that one chink place hahaha”

I suddenly put two and two together and realize that This Bitch Has Personally Wronged Me.

“You CUNT.” I tell her, furious at the realization ad the fact that she’s been steadily ruining Polish Butter Christmas for the last three hours. “Mrs. Nguyen thinks I did that! I HAD TO PAY THE TAB!”

“Oh, uh my bad, haha…” She laughed awkwardly.

“HA. YES. FUNNY. WE ARE GOING TO THE PLACE, YOU ARE APOLOGIZING TO MRS. NGUYEN AND PAYING ME BACK YOU INSUFFERABLE BITCH.”  I yelled, grabbing her arm and dragging her towards the door, Corgis yapping excitedly at our ankles.

“Whaa?  No!  fuck you!”  She said, winching her arm out of my grip and doing an amazing four-inch-heel-sprint for the bathroom, locking herself in.  

She has made a rather serious error in the Troll is both 1. a 6′6″ Sasquatch of a man, and 2. TOTALLY WILLING to take a crowbar to the bathroom window he’d been planning on renovating anyway, esp if it mean he gets to haul a bitch out and toss her into the back of the minivan with the three least-obese corgis, so that we may drive her, sobbing about injustice the whole way.

Nothing in my life will ever be so satisfying as dragging Not-Me into Pho 67, and seeing the look of horror and recognition cross Mrs. Nguyen’s face as she realized what had happened, then having Not-Me withdraw the money from the ATM at the front.

We then returned to Polish Butter Christmas and had a splendid time feeding buttered pork to the corgis.

So last night I’m out walking Charlie at 2AM becuase it was the first break in the lightning we’d had since 6PM, and I go around the corner and literally for half  second I thought I was about to walk into a mirror becuase I found  my local doppelganger and this time it’s WEIRD.

I’ve got weird curly brown hair that goes kind of Bride-Of-Frankenstein when it gets long, have a weird hound mix from AZ, and am art major with a science background.  I grew up in the bay area and moved to CO in middle school.  I’m a night owl with a bad habit of signing up for morning classes.  I’ve got a super-common first and middle name, and a less-common irish surname.  I’m in 105D

SHE has got the same hair and face, her dog is a weird hound mix that’s like a paletteswap of charlie also from AZ, possibly the same ranch, She’s a biology major with an art minor, grew up in CO and moved to the bay area in middle school, is a morning person with afternoon classes. We have the same first and middle names, in reverse order, and she has the other spelling of my last name.  She’s in 105A.

Statistically, some of this is not surprising- both combinations of names are common, and there was a lot of cross-traffic between CO and CA in 2004, all Rez dogs are shaped the same, and Art/science isn’t that odd a major/minor combo.

She did throw that party back in novemeber, and I was much relived, and she was glad to find out I exist-  We’ve somehow gotten into the same circle of art/science/queer friends without meeting up, and Guliya was bugging her telling stories of My Shenanigans, and attributing them to her.

This coffeehouse has bathrooms located at the end of a U-shaped hallway, so I was going to wait in the hall and Doppelganger in the main part of the cafe.  After a bit of chatting, D would get up to use the restroom and we’d swap places.  The idea was to see how many times we could swap before Guliya noticed something was amiss.  I hear Guliya arrive, and wait.

After about 15 minutes, D comes down the hall, gives me a quick update on the convo so far- the self-inflicted-illness of a professor and the astonishing number of bears about- and I go out.

Guliya notices NOTHING.

We talk more about bears and the terrifying lack of life skills some freshmen have and I go back, complaining of bladder issues.  D and I swap places 3 more times like this, before Guliya notices that we seem to be ill and she can recommend a specialist, so we decide to end the game.  We both walk out while Guliiya is texting someone and sit down across from her.

Knowledge is often described as “dawning’ on people, the soft illumination of understanding. This was like watching someone get caught by the totality of an unscheduled eclipse.  She looked up from her phone, delighted to continue the conversation and watching her face collapse into wall-eyed horror is something that I will treasure for ages.

“There are two of you!”  

“Yes!”  We said, in unintentional creepy unison.

She stared at us for a few moments, surprise giving way to puzzlement, then, relief.

“Thank Fuck.”  She sighed. “I was beginning to wonder when the hell you slept.”

Apparently she had conflated out two identities into some sort of double-major two-jobs constantly-awake superbeing and had been worried about keeping up with Us.

“I mean I don’t anyway. I have terrible insomnia.” I said, unhelpfully.

“Which one of you has the rant about Carvaggio?”  She asked.

“That’s both of us.”

“And the one who nearly got eaten by bears?”

“Still both of us.”

“Well how am I supposed to tell you apart?”  She grumbled.

“I’m the one passed out on the chemistry building couch, they’re the one on the figure-drawing couch.” D offered.

“We can only sleep when surrounded by dangerous chemicals and poor judgement.”  I explained.

“It reminds us of our home dimension of Madness.” D continued.

“Fuck both of you, and any other of you out there.” said Gulia, downing more macchiato for strength.

“Don’t be mean to 27.” I said.

“He had nothing to do with this.” D continued.

Due to the well of my friends’ “def not an axe murderer” date recommendations drying up, I have turned to that most sacred of modern relationship institutions: online dating. As a very busy person trying to get it in with other very busy people, I prize honestly and directness above all else when it comes to profile creation. I include full body shots in my photos, try to minimize the use of MySpace angles in selfies, and write at the very top of the summary/caption/profile that I am fat. Not “curvy,” not “thick,” not “lots to love”–I’m f*cking fat. I’m not ashamed of it, but I also known that weight is a dealbreaker for lots of people. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.

About a year ago I met “Evan” via Tinder. We exchanged friendly messages for a few hours one night and agreed to meet up for drinks the following evening. I waited for a full hour past the designated time, and just as I was getting up to leave, the texts started rolling in.

“I can see you sweating from here.” “How long does it take you to roll out of bed every morning?” “Is there an earthquake or are you just getting up for more pretzels?”

Really idiotic, juvenile shit. Four separate numbers, commenting on things like my clothes, which clued me in that the senders were nearby. This went on for 15 minutes before I finally saw Evan, trying to hide in at a corner table and giggling with a group of buddies. I made eye contact, saw that he saw me, and then walked out. The texts kept up until I blocked the numbers a few hours later.

I ran into Evan about 3 weeks later. We got on the same elevator, and he tried really hard at being super interested in the emergency phone instructions. I just confronted him, and he admitted it was just some “game” that him and his friends play. He knew I was fat before agreeing to meet up; they all did, because that’s what they do. Match up with fat women, then either ghost them or “troll” them at the meet-up. It was also kinda obvious he’d never seen any consequences from this bullshit, as he was sweating pretty hard and looked more humiliated than I felt. I just said whatever and walked out, expecting to never see him again.

About a month ago, some local foodie wrote a great review of the restaurant I own, and we’ve been slammed ever since. In the past, I stayed mostly in the kitchen, but I’ve been doing more and more front-of-house stuff lately, and Valentine’s Day I was working a bit of a split between the two.

I saw Evan just as he was pushing in his date’s chair. My name isn’t on the restaurant, and he didn’t see me. I checked the section up at the hostess stand and saw that one of my favorite old-timers, Nan, was going to be his waitress. I went to the bar till, took out $400, put it in her hands, and said, “This is going to be your only table for the rest of the night. You are going to make this the worst date he has ever been on.”

She spilled every single thing she brought out to the table, all over him. I was waiting for him to blow up on Nan, but he bottled it up, obviously trying to make a good impression on his date. She seemed like a perfectly lovely lady; I told Nan to make sure everything was good for her and terrible for Evan.

She poured ice water on his d*ck. She smacked the back of his head with the edge of a tray. Spilled soup on his shirt. Dropped every fork he asked for. I personally oversalted his food, used the shit liquor for his drinks, used flour instead of sugar on his dessert. To be honest, I don’t know why he didn’t just walk out. He must have really wanted to f*ck this woman.

Finally, he cracked. Demanded Nan find the manager and bring her out. I was only too happy to emerge from the kitchen with my chef’s coat and say what, I’m not ashamed to admit, I’d been planning out all night.

“I would have said hi earlier, but I didn’t want the earthquake to disturb your dinner.”

I will savor the look on Evan’s face for the rest of my life.

He was a little too flummoxed to explain, so I pulled a chair up to the table and introduced myself to his date, Amanda. Told her how I met Evan. Showed her some fun old messages. Then I told gave her a voucher for a free meal on her next visit and told Evan to get the f*ck out and never come back.

me: sore

fencing coach: [[suddenly in a Russian accent]] Good. Make your thighs big as mother Russia. You know what they say about women with big thighs, yes?

me: [[also in a Russian accent]] Can crush head between legs like watermelon.

fencing coach: