Birthday Etiquette

So my roommate had a birthday over the weekend. The big one. At least for now. The big 3-0 birthday.

Friday, yes, Good Friday was the big day. We all went to dinner over the weekend. All equaling Jim, Chad, Chad's girlfriend, and Chad's cousin...oh, and me.

We went to a sushi dinner down the street and also had some adult beverages. I skipped lunch on Friday and it was a late dinner, so the adult beverages took a much bigger toll on me than they usually do. (That's code for I got really tanked on Friday)

We're all having a fun time and the bill comes. Suddenly, thirty minutes later, we are the only people left in the restaurant. I grab the bill because I can see the waitress wants to leave. Jim, the birthday boy, grabs the bill from me and tells me I can't pay for it. I say, "We're all going to chip in, it's your birthday!"

Chad says, "If he wants to pay, let him pay!"

Jim ends up paying for his birthday dinner and for ALL of us. I feel terribly about it. He wouldn't take money from me.

Then, we all head to a bar for drinking and dancing. It is super fun. Around 1am, my feet are about to bleed from dancing, and I realize Chad and his girlfriend are gone.

Clumsy: Dude, where did Chad and his lady go?

Jim: I just got a text saying, "Don't come home for an hour. We're screwing like rabbits."

Clumsy: You've got to be kidding me.

Jim: Nope.

Clumsy: They ditched you on your birthday and then left us with his weird cousin from Uruguay who hardly speaks? Wow.

Jim: And I met my ex-wife 6 years ago today. So, today kind of sucks.

Clumsy: Well, your birthday is officially over. Let's go home.

Jim: Yeah, let's go home.

Anyone else think Chad had some really poor birthday etiquette on Friday?

My advice:

1. Try not to let the birthday boy pay for dinner.
2. Don't ditch your friend on his birthday.
3. Don't pawn off awkward foreign visitors on the birthday boy.
4. Don't tell him you're screwing like rabbits when it's obviously something he won't be doing that night.
5. Be a nice person.

Patty Day Party

My new roomies and I threw a party on Sunday. Sunday Funday. Sunday before St. Paddy's Day.

I got up at 8am to start cookin' jello shots and making things like guacamole and sugar cookies and cheese dip. I told the boys they were in charge of the beer, the trash and the grill.

The kitchen itself...it's MINE. ALL mine.

Or at least I like to think so.

We only invited a handful of people. But seeing as we live on the ocean and have a two story patio overlooking the water, it came to no surprise at all that there were forty people on my porch.

Forty people and only about five that I knew firsthand.

Some of my friends were able to make the long haul here and it turned out to be a crazy day.

Here's a recap:

1. I had ten jello shots before people I knew arrived.

2. I had a green beer grin...I truly looked like the Joker from Batman.

3. I danced to Thriller practically by myself and there is a video of it floating around. And not a flattering one.

4. Chocolate bars were pelted across the room.

5. One of my roommates passed out 2 hours before the rest of the guests left.

6. We ran out of food, but I didn't get to eat anything all day.

7. At 9:15pm, there are 6 of us left, right after the THRILLER dance party, and the cops came. The music was off, and there are 6 of us. The cop looked around and didn't give us a ticket because it didn't even look like a party anymore! hahaha.

8. My phone is no longer working, mysteriously.

9. Flippy cup was played.

10. Woke up to 80 red cups scattered around my living room....whoops.


Overall, pretty good day. Which turned into a pretty good night.

P.S. Insecure Boy was supposed to show, but didn't. He sent a text saying, "Had a bad Taco Bell incident, be there later."

EW.

Two Dudes and a Beach Babe

I've been living in my new abode for almost a month. This month has FLOWN by so quickly. And my new roommates are awesome...but they might be as quirky as me.

Here's the scoop:

They are both engineers. They both say they HATE hanging out with other engineers because they are boring and only talk about work. I only half believe them because a lot of their friends are engineers.

They work out a lot and this is great motivation for me, but it also makes me feel like a chunker occasionally. And by occasionally, I mean almost every night when I slam back a pint of good 'ol Haagen Daz (aka my new boyfriend - Caramel Cone).

My friend Kim was in town a weekend ago and she told them I have a blog. Kim is moving out to the Best Coast and I am SO excited, I am going to forgive her for outing me and my blogging world. Well, that, and the next weekend I got really drunk and showed one of my roomie's my blog and I'm pretty sure he text messaged himself the web address. Whoops. So much for this whole "anonymous" thing...but I am still going to write about them anyway.

Jim - He's about to turn thirty. Poor Jim had a rough year. It involved a divorce, then a whirlwind romance, then a breakup, then a new start. He's given up dating for the next year and I sure admire that. And after all of the bad dates I have been having, I might jump on that bandwagon. Or not. I need some new material. Last weekend, Jim and I got really drunk with his ex from college (not the ex-wife) and it was interesting. I was able to pick his brain about all of this "baggage" and I really enjoy that kind of stuff. Gives me a little break from all of the chattering I tend to do.

Chad - He just turned thirty. He has a 22-year-old girlfriend or something. The first night I moved in, his "friend" came over to hang out and then I heard them banging in the next room. So loudly, in fact, that I went to the bar by myself with no makeup on and got silly drunk. However, this "noise pollution" problem has since been fixed with closed vents and the fact that I found my ipod. He grew up in Uruguay and speaks several languages, which makes him pretty interesting. He's a little bit more arrogant that Jimmy, but he's smart, funny and a little silly. He makes up words like hirarious and thinks they are hysterically funny. Good for him. He thinks he's funnier than I am. :)

Clumsy - I am the mother/little sister dynamic of the group. I feel like they totally would watch out for me. And, I feel like I can do all sorts of fun mothering things like Easter egg hunts and make mac and cheese and stuff.

We're having a party on Sunday and it's sure to be interesting. We will see how it goes...

Overall, it's a pretty good dynamic and we're all pretty nice. I love it. Best place I've ever lived.

Seriously. I am ridiculously blessed.

Did I mention I live on the ocean?

Bathroom Blabber

People who talk in public bathrooms make me SUPER uncomfortable. It absolutely drives me crazy.

It's already hard enough for me to go to the restroom in public places after my dad grew up telling me, "Never get a tattoo and never pee in a public restroom."

Thanks, dad. I'm super-neurotic already and scared to pee at work. Sometimes I spend HOURS crossing my legs in meetings holding it so I can go when I come home.

On this particular occasion, I drank a ton of coffee in the morning and absolutely HAD to go into the shared bathroom of the floor. We share it with a large, well-known corporation filled with a lot of overweight secretaries. I know, I'm rude like that, it's such a true cliche.

I almost RAN to the bathroom from the meeting. There are four stalls. I usually go for the handicapped stalls (having a fear of public restrooms IS a handicap) but I was in a major rush and had to go to the first available stall. I end up in the 2nd stall and have a person on either side of me. They are having a conversation and I am about to piss like a racehorse.

I am hoping they finish up so I can start to pee...I usually wait until everyone leaves, but I couldn't hold it anymore. I even took extra caution by putting a seat cover AND toilet paper on it.

While I am relieving myself, I can't help but listen to the ladies' conversation.

OVERWEIGHT SECRETARY #1: My son, Bobby, used to call several times a week. Now I'm lucky if he calls once a month.

OVERWEIGHT SECRETARY #2: I know, my son is the same way, but my daughter is much better about calling.

(Puff. Pbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbp. PHfuuart. Plop. Plop.) Insert gag reflex here.

OVERWEIGHT SECRETARY #1: Ungh. Uh. (is she really having a conversation and pushing out a turd? EW!!!) I wish I had a daughter.

My internal monologue: Ew. Don't laugh. Don't throw up. Don't laugh. Don't throw up.

OVERWEIGHT SECRETARY #2: Well, my daughter almost calls too much.

OVERWEIGHT SECRETARY #1: At least she makes the effort.

OVERWEIGHT SECRETARY #2: (Poof. Pbpbpbpb.) Yeah, she does keep me up to date with all of her drama. Hahahahaha.


I'm not kidding, they were dropping deuces and still talking like nothing was plopping in the toilet. The smell was worse. And I can't post a scratch and sniff blog.

What is wrong with these people? It really pissed me off. Pun intended.

Are you a poop talker (one who makes phone calls while pooping) or a bathroom blabberer (one who makes small talk in public restrooms)?

Am I weird for being grossed out?

Paddy-cake, Paddy-cake, Baker's Man...

Dating is awkward.

Unless you're not awkward.

But I'm The Clumsy Chatterbox, and I'm awkward. Awkward, clumsy, and single.

I keep in touch with a lot of people from high school. The Sparkles, Insecure Boy, some other high school boys. If you're random and from my high school, we probably have kept in touch via facebook or something. I'm weird like that. And I was friends with everyone.

A high school friend and his wife came in town two weekends ago. They invited me out on the town and I met up with them. It was a mini-high school reunion and I saw several peeps I hadn't seen in a while. It was a lot of fun catching up with them. It was also pretty obvious they were excited to introduce me to one of their friends. One of their friends....aka...the Ridiculously good-looking guy (RGLG) I went on a date with over the weekend.

I play it cool for a while. Uninterested, hard-to-get, smart and witty. It usually lasts for a few hours before people catch on and realize what a total cheeseball I am. So, here I am, flirting with RGLG and I have all of my high school guy friends surrounding me, so I almost look cool. The perfect place for SUAVE Clumsy. SUAVE Clumsy only gets to make an appearance on very special occasions.

SUAVE Clumsy made an exit just around bar-closing time. RGLG asks if I am going home or coming to after hours at his friends' place. I say I am going home (I go to great lengths to sleep in my own bed) and he says, "So nice to meet you. Looking forward to dinner on Sunday." (We are all supposed to go out to dinner in a big group)

He puts up his hands like he is about to give me two high-fives. I high-five him, but he doesn't put his hands down. So, I kinda slap them again. Then, he kinda intertwines our fingers, I get confused, and he ends up shaking my hands up and down. Picture the body-shake scene from JUST FRIENDS, and you will totally know how awkward this was.

What's even more awkward is that I ended up on a date with him on Friday in which the following events took place:

1. A double-date with a 5th wheel. An engaged couple and RGLG's 22 year-old friend who drove us to the sushi restaurant and tagged along all night.

2. We went to a sushi restaurant in which the chef got drunk with us. Then, he and 22-year-old cracked eggs and put them in their beers and chugged them. Then, they put a whole egg in their mouth, chewed, swallowed and spit out the shell. No joke.

3. RGLG arrives at my place, calls me and tells me to come down to the car. His friend is driving. He doesn't get out of the car or open my door so I shake the friend's hand and get in the car.

4. The other couple tells a story at dinner that involved my date "boning a chick on the top deck while at Semester-at-Sea."

5. RGLG telling me about his ex who is an Olympic horse-back rider.

6. RGLG making me guess how many times he's been arrested. It was more than my guess of four times.

7. RGLG rode a unicycle.

8. The sushi chef thought I was dating the 22 year-old. I secretly wished I was too! He stole the show in story-telling.

9. When I got in the car at the beginning of the night, RGLG said, "You look really nice." and then his friend chimed in..."Yeah, you do look really nice!"

10. Insecure Boy's best friend saw us getting food, came over to say hi! and asked if he was one of my new roommates.

Don't know if Paddy-cake or the entire date was more awkward.

Needless to say, I totally sucked face with him. I mean, when else can I say, "Remember when I made out with the ridiculously hot dude?

And at least I now know why he's single.