Anchor minimums

I was at the Gaslamp in Long Beach for Tuesday comedy nights, and my friend Darlene and I noticed that there was a 2 drink minimum to sit at the table. I know that most comedy places require this, but we were at the Gaslamp of all places. Formerly known as Live Bait in my college days, complete with fake buoys, fishing nets, and plastic crabs aligning the walls while we made out with emo looking boys and puked up White Russians in the bathroom. But as a seasoned alcoholic, I realized that this was smart of many comedy clubs. One drink was not enough to do the trick, but much like an anchor baby from Mexico, two drinks was enough to wet your pallet and make you want six more.

Once Upon A Midget

Most of my Halloween costumes blow. For as creative as I claim to be, I often shop last minute through picked over slutty Halloween costumes the day before the holiday. I have been a Border Patrol Agent, a Golddigger, a Sailor Girl, a Cheerleader, and a Zombie Prom Queen. But this year I wanted to be something different...something that people in my small bubble of Naples Island would talk about for years. I have had friends tell me that I remind them of Chelsea Handler so I bought a blonde wig, but now I needed a prop. Belvedere Vodka, the preferred vodka of Chelsea, Ms. Handler if you're nasty, would not be enough. I needed something bigger...yet smaller. So I googled "Renting A Midget." The questions you find yourself asking when inquiring the going rate of a Little Person for chosen evening feels what I like to call "Leaving Vegas and needing at least five showers" dirty. But its all business, and I soon found that Halloween and Christmas are the Little People's biggest holidays. I only had days to decide between a Latino LP named Gaspar and an African American LP that went by the moniker of Five Cent. While the latter was tempting, the aforementioned was more practical.
The big day finally arrived, and I was a ball of nerves. I'm not sure if this is how newly adoptive parents feel, but I was nervous all day, making sure that his nursery, or in Gaspar's case my bedroom full of Magnum condoms and Marlboro Light cigarettes for picture taking were ready. He pulled up like a true gentleman, in an early 2000 model of Ford Taurus with push pedals and a booster seat to make driving easier. He wore a page boy hat and an argyle sweater, and was incredibly sweet. Since I had never rented another human being besides a stripper before, and really they don't count, they are not nearly as special, I found myself very attentive towards' Gaspar's needs. But since he was my bitch for the night, I put him to work. I let my friend Alisha carry him around, I played 'airplane' with him, he carried my bottle of Belvedere around and lit my cigarettes.
All was bliss until the day after the rental...and the six days following that. Gaspar texted, emailed,  Facebook messaged me and my friends, called...and then on the sixth day after I didn't respond, he deleted me as his Facebook friend. I initially went through all of the feelings of grief: sadness, anger, disbelief, finally acceptance. But really...can't a girl just rent a midget and call it a day?

Cat Scratch Fever

So I went to dinner with MFL Amy (short for My Favorite Lesbian) and her wife Michelle. I've known Amy for ten years, ever since the Enterprise days. We went down to Wokcano in downtown Long Beach for dinner, and in the middle of eating a Philadelphia Roll, Amy popped the question.
Amy: So, would you be able to take an animal?
Sapphire (my guard already up): What kind of animal?
Amy: Does it matter?
Sapphire: I hate cats.
Amy: Well you haven't meant Mama. She is a cat who has had babies (yep, I figure that), and we need to find her a good home. We just have too many animals (why couldn't you throw me one of your extra dogs then? Those I like). But you should know that Mama has feline AIDS.
It's still amazing to me that Amy is in sales with that little pitch of hers. Not only do I not like cats, but I do not want a cat that makes poor decisions.

You Know What I Hate?

When people write on their Facebook "OMG, I have so much to do today. Does anyone want to come over and (insert lame verb here)?" Um...fuck no. Why would I want to come over and clean your house, watch your kids, wrap your presents, mow your lawn, grocery shop, or wax your cooter? Let alone for free, and when I have my own shit to do. Really? Has anyone ever said yes to that? So stop this nonsense Facebook friends...you're better than that.

So what had happened was...

I recently read a story in the paper (or more accurately on a friend's Facebook) that told the story of a twelve-year old girl in Africa who was raped by her uncle as she used the outhouse in the middle of the night. His wife discovered them and beat the girl, and then called the police. The courts ordered the girl to 100 lashes and the uncle to 200 lashes. The girl died after being whipped 70 times, the uncle ran away after only being whipped twice. I'll be honest...before reading this story I had thought torture was watching a Vin Diesel marathon.

Chelsea y Chuy

For someone who fancies themself to be on the creative side, I am extremely uncreative when it comes to Halloween costumes...until this year. I wanted to be something so out of left field that people would weep and clap and throw rose petals at my feet for the sheer genius of my costume. While I often opt for a last minute store bought purchase (please see Border Patrol, Sailor Girl, Cheerleader, Zombie Prom Queen), this year I was going to be unconventional...and I needed a prop. I had tried stand-up a few times, and friends had told me that I reminded them of Chelsea Handler...so that's who I would be this year. But wearing a blonde wig and donning a bottle of Belvedere all night was not going to be enough. I needed my own midget, my own Chuy, but I didn't know if renting a person was even possible. It turns out that it is.
I Googled "Renting A Midget" on the internet, and found Tiny Entertainment, a troupe of little people who pimp themselves out to be oompa loompas and elves for the holidays. I briefly considered renting 5 Cent due to Chelsea's alledged fling with the rapper/horrible actor/Vitamin Water and Energy drink mogul, but somehow inherently knew that Chuy was the way to go. They only had one Latino LP (Little Person)...his name was Gaspar...and for the low low price of $425 for 3 hours, he was mine.
Gaspar far exceeded my expectations...although anything would have exceeded my expectations. I had rented a midget! It didn't matter that I used all of my money to rent him, or that I would be eating Ramen noodles the entire following week until pay day...the memories that he would bring would last a life time.
Gaspar was married to another LP, and they had an LP daughter named Gaby. He was very sweet, and was basically my bitch for the evening. He lit my cigarettes, deferred all free drinks given to him my way, carried around my bottle of Belvedere, and didn't put up much of a fight when my friend Alisha and I tried to carry him around like a child or play airplane with him. Before we even went out, I made him (bitch, I paid for him, don't judge me) pose on my bed amongst Magnum condom wrappers, empty bottles of booze and Marlboro cigarettes.
Not having children of my own, I had no idea until I rented Gaspar how protective mothers must be over their children. I felt the need to make sure that he was OK, and that he hadn't lost my bottle of Belvedere. Around midnight I started to fade so Gaspar walked me home. When we got to my door step to say good night, I wasn't sure what the proper ending should be so I slurred "We're not going to have sex." He shrugged his tiny little shoulders, told me it had been a pleasure, then hopped into his Ford Taurus with the gas pedal extenders and booster seat to drive back to Riverside.
Truly that should have been the end of it, but since my life is filled with weird occurences that have basically forced me to start this blog, it wasn't the end...but the mere beginning to a week of emails, phone calls, texts, and Facebook messages professing how great of friends we were. Um, if we were that great of friends, then give me my $425 back so that I could stop eating Ramen noodles until pay day. Knowing that he was married, and not wanting to be a Little Person homewrecker, I stopped answering his insistent communication. I was at my friend Angela's house the following Friday night doing our normal routine of drinking too much wine and stalking ex-boyfriends on Facebook, and I flipped onto his page to show her who Gaspar was...and much to my chagrin, saw that he had defriended me. Our six day friendship had been a whirlwind of unanswered text messages and emails, and now that it was over, it left me feeling hollow inside. It also left me with the age old question that I'm sure you've heard a million times: Can't a girl just rent a midget and call it a day?

Being A Cougar

Being a cougar is not all that it's cracked up to be. It's very much like dating yourself, but 5 years ago.
I met Paul at an Angels game at the end of April. I was still in the midst of using up any downtime that I had so that I would not sit at home and cry over what a mundane life I could have had with Graham. My good friend Keith is an A's fan, and got tickets for us on a Tuesday night. Our friend JR went as well, but said that some younger guys in his fraternity had his tickets, and he would meet up with us later.
I spent most of the night drinking beer and taking self-portraits of myself and Keith (or of the sky, our arms, anything but our faces). Since I was PMS'ing, I ate like a pregnant lady. I ate a hot dog (btw, Angels dogs are NO Dodger dogs) and nachos, and later, I would eat Paul's fries, double dipping (but not biblically, at least not yet) in his sauces.
I don't drink anything except for chardonnay, so when I drink any other type of liquor, I don't handle it well. After Keith and I had been up at the Bud Beer Garden, and after beer #4 or 6 or 12 I went to the bathroom. Stumbling back, I could not find my friend, one whom I had known for at least twelve years. I'm not sure how long they watched me scan the sea of red Angel hats for until they finally called my name. And that's when I looked up and saw Paul. He was cute. Really cute.
I saw Paul on Facebook the next day, and friended him. We talked casually for a while on FB, and then I sent him a message with my cell phone number. He texted, and then we slowly built a textual relationship. It was over a month before we finally sealed the deal, and I really felt like I had put in work.
Paul had a great body...and he required a magnum condom. But he was not circumcized. Which is fine, but there is something about an uncircumcized penis that is just so aero-dynamic. It's kind of like being f*cked by a Ford Windstar.
Since I had not been expecting Paul that night, I had went to dinner with my friend Coco. There is a great place right down the street from us that has $5 entrees and wine on Tuesday nights. Guess who has more wine than entrees? That's right. This girl.
I tried to set boundaries with Paul, like I'm not going to come over to your house after a night of drinking but I will send you a picture of myself in a bra and panties. Come on people, I was raised right. So when Paul sent a message that night and asked if I wanted to meet him and his friend out a mile down the street from me, I suggested a place in between (my laziness grows in exponential bounds as I age). Part of my putting up boundaries has to do with the fact that I'm not in my twenties any more, and I simply cannot exert myself like I used to. Double dipping, and not just in Paul's fries, is a thing of the past. People take notice if I'm wearing the same suit two days in a row now, and buying a toothbrush or panty hose on the way into work takes away at least five more minutes from my already bad REM sleep. Paul asked me to come over one weekday night around midnight, which I would have jumped at like a fat person clawing at a Twinkie, in my twenties. Now, these thoughts ran through my mind: 'I haven't shaved my legs. Do I have Scope? No. Crap, I'm going to have to brush my teeth again. Should I put makeup on? Straighten my hair. I'd only get a few hours of sleep after all of this preparation. Never mind. I'm just going to go to bed.' In my twenties I would have thought: 'This is just like a Porky's movie. Awesome,' and then I would have floored my car at 80 mph down sleepy Long Beach side streets to get to his place.
The second Angels game came a few days after Paul and I did the deed. The deed did not consist of earthshaking or mountains moving, but it was nice and I was hoping that a summer fling could commence. He brought his friend Nathaniel, who was a 4'11 Caucasian Jewish hip hop artist with a patch of gray hair on his bangs. The day was filled with booze which spilled back to Second Street after the Angels game was over. Paul was clearly over hanging out, but Nathaniel still wanted to party. My cousin Mindy, Nathaniel and I went back to my place where we downloaded Nathaniel's hip hop songs, and drank beer. I told Nathaniel that I wanted to hump Paul again...nothing more, nothing less. I'm still not sure where the distortion lies, but Nathaniel suggested that I send Paul a message, talking about what a great guy Nathaniel was and how funny he was, and how I'd like to hang out with Paul again soon. Exactly. The message was more of a bromance written note a la The Notebook than a message to get me laid.
Paul's birthday was shortly after that. Neither he nor Nathaniel bothered to invite me to the bash, which hurt my feelings since I had gotten them into the Diamond Club less than two weeks before. I wasn't looking for a relationship, but I felt kind of used and disrespected. I definitely wasn't planning a wedding and a future that included a baseball team of kids and quincineras. But the flirting was fun, and all I really wanted out of my friendship with Paul was the textual part of it. I really don't need much more than a man with opposable thumbs.