My Dating History and Ikea Art

I've lived with two people. Well, not true. I've had a million roommates at different points of my life. But I've lived with two. And I was deeply in love with both of them. The first one, the Actor, and I met in undergrad in Cincinnati. Together we moved from Cincinnati to Los Angeles. It's where actors go. The second, the Agent, I met years later. In a bar.

After we graduated, The Actor and I rented a little apartment in Hollywood, and one afternoon, we set out on a trip to Ikea to furnish our little Hollywood apartment. We bought a green couch, a coffee table, an entertainment center, a dining room table with four matching chairs, and planters, and silverware, and a salmon colored vase, and a spice rack. I'm sure there's other stuff I'm not remembering.

Near the end of our Ikea spree, we land in the art section. The Actor pulls out a really ugly picture with the green frame. He's grinning ear to ear.

"Can we get it?" he asks.

"Um. Honey, I don't think you're supposed to buy art work at Ikea."

"Why not?" he asks.

"Well, because...you're just not. Because then our apartment will look like everyone else's. Because it doesn't mean anything if you buy it from Ikea."

The Actor looks disappointed. "But what if I really really like it?"

I stared at him. He was beautiful. He was perfect. He was the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Needless to say, we got the picture. I actually contemplated getting two.

We lived there for about three years together. Always with that picture hanging above our green Ikea couch. I remember coming home from my bartending job at three in the morning, with him sitting on that Ikea couch playing Playstation, right under the Ikea picture, where he'd been since I'd left him earlier in the day. Where he'd been the day before, and the day before that. He was allergic to employment. But I loved him.

One day, we got in a fight. He kissed another girl. So I left. For Europe. For four months. And told him I wasn't coming back. I left him to pack up our apartment. I told him he can have whatever he wanted. He emailed me that he took some things and put the rest in storage.

About six months after I got back, it was time to get my own place again. I went into the storage bins to see if there was anything worth saving. He took the Ikea couch, he took the dining room set. He took the plant holders. But he left the Ikea picture. I was really hurt. He knew I bought it because HE liked it, and he didn't even have the decency to pretend like it was still hanging somewhere in his new apartment?

I moved into a much larger place, with lots of wall space. It was the first time I'd ever been able to make all the decorating decisions for myself. I had bought the most friggin awesome dining room table that I'd ever seen. Fuck the Actor, and the crappy little Ikea table. I had something new! And Grown up! And pretty! And actually, there was a really great space for the Ikea Picture, in my fabulous and huge dining room, on one of the walls. I hung it up as a symbol of something. But it became a part of me.

And then I met the Agent. I met The Agent, and 90 seconds later we were in love, and planning our lives together. She was everything I'd ever wanted. She was beautiful, and cool, and smart, and fun, and had really nice purses. Soon, she was moving in with me. I sacrificed my beautiful dining room table for a pool table, but the Ikea Picture, she thought, should stay up. She made the decisions. I went along. I even went along with our moving to the Valley, and leaving my beautiful dining room set behind. The Ikea Picture, she promised, would have a place.

Then, after a long and tumultuous ending, I moved back to Chicago, and went to law school. I couldnt bring a lot of things, including the Ikea Picture. The Agent ended up meeting the girl of her dreams, getting married, and moving back to Detroit with her.

Which is where I was this weekend. After I showed up at their beautiful home, and they showed me to the guestroom, I closed the door and sat on the bed. That's when I saw it, just hanging there. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. The corner of the wood, still stained with a bit of red wine after a particularly ugly fight with the Actor. The teensy crack in the glass from when the Agent dropped it while trying to make it hang perfectly. The little scratch that I still have no idea how it got there.

There was a knock on the door. The Agent's lovely wife came in with towels.

"Everything good?" she asked me.

"Yep! I was just looking at this picture." I said.

"Ugh. I don't even know where we got that."

"Um. I think it used to... be mine."

"Oh, Sweetie! You can totally have it back! We were going to just throw it away once we redecorated in here!"

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"Oh puhleaze," I said, swallowing the huge knot in my throat. "Just toss it. It, like, came from Ikea or something."

Is it just me?

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Wouldn't it be awesome to have Tone Loc read you a bedtime story?
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I LOVE BASEBALL SO MUCH

OK. That's not exactly true. In fact, I really fucking hate baseball. Sorry, everybody. I know that I'll probably get a bunch of bitchy comments about how that's just Un-American, and baseball is the "thinking man's game" and baseball has a tradition of bringing families together, and it's one of the few remaining sports that the average guy can afford a ticket to, well BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I hate it. So this blog is a rant about everything I don't like about baseball. If you don't like it, don't read it.

Why I don't like baseball...

1. There are too many games. Teams shouldn't play each other 3 times in a row. It's like watching the same Law & Order: SVU episode three times in a row. Who does that? Doesn't it get boring? Yes. The answer is yes.

2. The fans take up all the seats on the red line. At RUSH HOUR.

3. When someone goes up to the batting spot, one of only four things can happen. 1. They strike out. 2. They hit it up in the air and it ALWAYS gets caught. 3. They hit it on the ground and it ALWAYS gets to first base before the runner does. 4. It goes over the fence. That's it. It's so out of the ordinary for anything else to happen that they have a word for it: AN ERROR.

4. The bases are always in the same order. It would be a WAY more interesting game if they kept on changing. Like, if, as soon as the bat made contact with ball, one of the bases would turn into a disco ball, and that's how you know which one to run to. But it always changes, so you can never be sure.

5. There are VERY few, if any attractive players. There's that one who played for the Red Sox, I think. Johnny Damon, but that's really about it. Everyone else seems like they've spent more time saddling up to an all-u-care-to-eat buffet, than playing a national sport.

6. I'm sorry, but I just don't think it seems THAT hard. There are several reasons why I feel this way, so we're going to break this down into a smaller list:

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Reasons why baseball doesn't seem to be that hard:

a. If it was very hard, wouldn't people have to be in better shape?
b. If it was very hard, wouldn't people not be able to play it three days in a row?
c. If it was very hard, wouldn't it be hard to play while stoned or drunk? I am aware that professionals probably don't play stoned or drunk, but the fact is there are recreational leagues where you can actually play with a beer in your hand. Are there recreational leagues where you can play basketball or football with a beer in your hand? No. Just baseball.
d. Go ahead and give me the stupid "Well, Grace, do you think you could hit a baseball off of a major league pitcher?" Well, no. Probably not. But here's the thing: NEITHER CAN MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. And they get paid a FUCK lot more than I do, just to try. And more often than not, to fail.

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OK. Now we can go back to our regularly scheduled programming of listing ways baseball is dumb.

7. Here's something I REALLY don't understand. People who keep score on their own little baseball paper. There's a huge scoreboard that serves precisely that purpose.

8. I also don't understand why people think it's the "thinking man's game." That makes no sense. And please don't feed me the "well, the lineup is VERY important, and takes a lot of thinking." Well, then, the players are just pawns, and we should all wear jersey's with the lineup maker's name on them?

9. Bats only come in one shape. Same with balls. Zzzzzz.

10. The season goes on WAY too long. WAY WAY WAY too long.

And yes, of course I have fun when I go to Wrigley Field or Dodger's Stadium and watch a game live. Duh. They serve beer there. I'd have fun at a pet crematorium if they sold beer and hot dogs.

OK. End of rant.

This Saturday, I am going to be in Detroit. For a Tigers game.

PS. Hopefully THIS will happen. It's really all anyone can ask for.

Dear Creators of the "TwoDaLoo"

I've been told I'm a commitment-phobe.

That I'm elusive.

That I need more privacy than normal people do.

I'm not Boo Fucking Radley, but I can't say these characterizations are all that off.

I'm working on it, though.

However, after seeing THIS, I am pretty much guaranteeing I will be be doubling up on the therapy sessions.

Thanks a million, Fucktards.

Sincerely,

Grace

Tagged

I've been tagged by the glorious Fannie. Figures she'd tag me with something book-related. She's smart.

Here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 (or more) pages.

Night of the Avenging Blowfish, by John Welter

2. Open the book to page 123 and find the 5th sentence.

The student assigned to me was Mria whose name I thought was supposed to be spelled M-A-R-I-A, but she spelled it "Mria", as if for all her life the first "a" had been missing from her name and no one had told her.

3. Post the next 3 sentences.

I thought that possibly her mother or her father, both of whom I assumed to be illiterate, sat down years ago with great affection to show their little girl how to misspell her name.

So I decided that now wasn't a good time to injure what little pride she had left by telling her a letter was missing from her name.

Before our first lesson, before I could show Mria the alphabet, and help her practice writing the letters, Mria told me exactly what she wanted out of the class: "I need to learn to write a suicide note."

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So, I am tagging three people:

Daisy at Legally Blonde Ambition

Brita of Brita's Random Rants

And to change things up a bit, let's see if I can get Ms. Foxy at Effing Reality to do it.

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Negotiating 101

Time: 12:30

Place: Vicinity of the courthouse. Grace is walking back from the salad bar.

Homeless Guy: Hey! Girl! Wanna make a baby with me?

Grace: No, thanks.

Homeless Guy: Well, then, can I have your lunch?

Grace: You can have my roll.

Homeless Guy: Can I have your roll and your soda?

Grace: Um. Ok. That sounds fair.
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Oy. This whole posting every day thing is daunting. I quit. It takes the irreverence out of blogging. I'll blog when I like.

Speaking of irreverence. I had a really bad day of public transportation yesterday.

First, the bus driver asked me out. His name is Lee. I smiled and said that was really sweet, but no. But really. It was just awkward. Funny though, today I ran into him in a furniture store with his girlfriend. Hmph.

Then I got on the train, and there were three REALLY obnoxious guys who rode the entire way downtown next to me. A couple of guys threatened to kick their asses. I called them douchebags. They called me a bitch and a slut.

Then on the bus home, I was reading my book. It's a fairly silly book. Whatever, though. I read lots of deep and important and artistic books. Sometimes. I also read things that are silly. So anyway, there's a guy sitting next to me, and he's reading Oscar Wilde. But at some point out of nowhere he turns to me and asks me if I'm enjoying my book. I was kinda surprised that anyone would care enough to ask if someone liked a book. But he did. And I responded, a little too cheerily that yes I did like it. That it was silly. And eccentric. And irreverent. And then I flip the book over to show the back cover, and if, to add to my feeling of book inferiority, right there on the back cover, in quotes, a reviewer had said "Eccentric! Irreverent!"

Then, as I was getting off the bus, a guy tapped me on the shoulder and and asked for some change, because he was saving up to take the postal worker test. I gave him a dollar.

Skirt Fucking And Why I'm a Fucking Loser

What are the two most commonly googled phrases that lead people to my blog?

1. Skirt Fucking

2. Why I'm a Fucking loser

I know. Kinda weak way to start the month-long blogging every day thing, but I find it fascinating that SO many people find my blog like this.

I'm also sick. I thought it was kidney failure until I found out that my kidneys aren't actually where I thought they were.

Now I don't know what's wrong with me.

-To the people who found my blog by googling "Why I'm a fucking loser," you're not really fucking losers. But the fact that you're googling blogs to find the answer to that question doesn't exactly score you points.

-To the people who found my blog by googling "skirt fucking," sorry to have wasted your time. Probably not what you're looking for.