forget regrets

'People in the Annex are really serious about their houses,' I'm told today. Oh, ambiguous. It's one of those blanket statements that she'll sometimes make when she's only listening enough to know that I want advice - but not listening enough to give it.

Odd as it is, though, her non-advice is always the best.

I was running late for work, and walking (when I should have actually been running) with a leaf of paper flapping in my hand. A letter from a landlord that's not mine, presumably addressed to me: dear house-sitter.

The landlord pointed out, in hardly-legible script, that the trash is removed on Tuesday morning. It's Wednesday. And it's still here, like I will be - until Sunday. As it turns out, I forgot about garbage day, like I have been forgetting about many other things. Sarah has a theory on why this is, but I forget that too. Not really, but admitting omission is worse, right? (Oops?)

On Sunday, I forgot something more important than garbage pick-up. I've been feeling rotten about it ever since Monday, when I was reminded: dear friend. This time in an email, and not a note taped to someone else's front door. Without fingering blame, he offered me the benefit of the doubt, acknowledging that there 'must have been a reason' that I missed his big night.

Truth is, there wasn't. At least not a good one. Forgetting really only applies to the geriatric.

Today I see photos of what I missed. It just twists the knife, a bit. And, still, someone else is going to have to deal with this garbage. I'll need to make it up to you, and to you, 'not my' landlord.

hbd gmb

I remember standing, ankles crossed, knees bent, bouncing in the bathroom line at the Pyramid. It was a Thursday, a Mod Night, and the wait to get in was impossible. Once inside, the lines were much worse. As usual.

'I just need to use the mirror!'

And suddenly, a wing of blonde hair flutters by, moving past me into the bathroom. The place that I so longed to be. That bitch, I thought. I can see her leaning over the sink and correcting her lipgloss, which needed no correction at all, I'm sure. Her outfit was spot on, her heels were high, and her voice even higher.

My bladder, how it throbs. I vowed then and there to never cut in line for a pee, or a primp, and of course, to never offer even the slightest of smiles, not even a nod to the girl who surely was causing me kidney damage. Could have been principle, maybe just jealousy, but most likely a merger of both.

Two years later, in another city, in what feels like a different universe, and in a dark, crowded wrong(choice)bar, I wait in line. Equally as pained as the last time. There are about four people ahead of me, and two people in each stall. It might take a while. And I wait.

'We just need to use the mirror!'

And suddenly, I'm hand in hand with the blonde, passing the people one by one, until in front of the mirror I stand. Her lipgloss is still perfect, her heels much higher than mine, and her voice, well, perhaps you've heard mine and you know she wins there as well.

Had you told me three years ago, while still bound in a smalltown social web, so tangled and complex; a hierarchical community ruled by kilts versus street clothes, who-slept-with-whom's, and age before everything, I would have never believed you. As she grows one year older today, and we all grow up decades daily, I'm one friend richer, and so much happier. And I never wait in bathroom lines anymore. At all.

Happy birthday to you; my line-cutting, gloss-loving, heel-stomping, high pitched, 'bitch' and facebook bride.