The Chronicles

I remember the day I drove into town on October 13, 2006. My car was packed with whatever could fit in the trunk, a large TV in the front seat, my two cats taking up the entire back seat, and a baby gate tied to my seats prohibiting the cats from coming up front. I exited off Highway 311 onto Main Street and saw the small town that was now going to be my home. My jaw dropped at what looked like the set from Hope Floats and I immediately grabbed my cell phone and texted April. "What have I done?"

I instantly hated my new town. I spent months crying, repeating those words, "What have I done?" until things changed. I reconnected with my old, dear friend an hour away in Charlotte, met some fantastic new friends, and experienced...duh, duh, duhhhhhhh SUNSHINE! I'm still not a fan of High Point itself only because I prefer artsy, more liberal places to reside in. However, it's grown on me. I no longer cry about living here and magically, I'm...dare I say, happy? I'm talking content and happy in a peaceful existence totally independent and single. I'm loving life! We broke a record here today, 81 degrees and my god, how can you not love even Hell when it's 81 degrees in March, surrounded by blossoming cherry trees, birds tweeting all around you, and crickets lulling you to sleep at night with your windows open? It's bliss even if I'm not in a bigger city that doesn't support Bush.

I remember being worried that life would be boring, and though it often is, yet in a fufilling "I have time for myself" type of way, it also is full of strange sitings and adventures. I have been cat-called by teenagers for walking around with my pants undone (I can blame this on wine that particular night), watched drunks fall in the garbage-ridden ravine next to me, encountered a battle between one man and a dumpster, lived with a ghost that bored itself of me and has been on hiatus, almost burned down my deck with a smoldering pot of cigarette butts, and now I have my gym.

I love my gym. It's this glorious strange existence that is not a meat market, has patrons ranging from 14 - 80, and even has a "Lunk Alert". What is a "Lunk Alert" you ask? They're all about being comfortable and embracing the differences, so they are unwelcoming of the macho, grunting bench pressers. There is a rule at my gym. If you grunt loudly or drop heavy weights, making loud noise, they press the "Lunk Alert". This is an alarm that sounds so that the perpetrator is publicly humiliated and will never repeat their mistake again. I have yet to witness this, but the manager told me he's had to use it twice.

I joined back around Christmas and have pretty much stayed consistent there, minus a 3-week stretch after being sick. This was a good thing considering I just read that Maureen McCormick a.k.a. Marcia Brady is on the newest Celebrity Fit Club, and she was the same height and weight I was upon moving here. This freaked me out tonight when I read this. Though I've called myself fat, and despite the fact that everyone who knows me says I wasn't, I apparently was. So the gym has been a good thing, helping me lose a good chunk of weight so far. It has also become my latest source of news and entertainment.

I typically go twice a day, weights at lunch, then cardio after work. I love lunch workouts because it's empty. However, after work it's packed as most gyms are. I love to people watch while there - the red-faced men who all look like clones, lifting absurd amounts of weight who are surely giving themselves a hemorrhoid; the elderly woman who was in my training class, pumping iron; and this particular pair of rather large women who sit on the inner and outer thigh machines just chatting away, NOT doing the machines...just leaning back gossiping. I love it!

However, none of this beats what I've witnessed in the last 24 hours.

On Thursday, I went at lunch to do my weight then went to the stretching room to stretch. As I entered the room, I heard someone apparently having sex.

"Uhhhh. Ohhhhhh. Uh-uh. Phewwwww. Ohhhhhhh."

What the fuck? I quietly enter and head to the corner and notice this noise is in fact, NOT sex, but a woman in her 30's doing crunches. Man, I wish crunches brought me that much pleasure! I started stretching, thinking she'd quiet down now that she wasn't alone. That was apparently too much to ask.

"Ehhhhhhh. Phewwwwww. Oh! Oh! Oh my god, uhhhhhhh."

Do not stare, Heather. Do not stare. Why is she doing this? At least stop for god's sake! Quiet down or stop! I was slightly embarrassed for her and was trying to quickly get through my stretches so she could finish her apparent crunches/masturbation session alone. And then it stopped. I looked around, and she was gone. Thank god!

I went to make my second trip to the gym that day, and was dumping sweat on the elliptical when I noticed these two girls in their early-20's who kept dropping their keys. There is a key rack by the front door, but these two chose not utilize this fine convenience so they could show their asses. Every machine they went to would start with them dropping their keys in a very overdramatic, huffy fashion. One would then get on the machine while the other chomped her gum, talking to the exerciser, and look around with an annoyed expression. They would then switch places, finish up, TURN AROUND so their butts were towards everyone and bend down to pick up their keys, legs straight so their asses stuck out from their short shorts. The first time it happened I wanted to point at them and scream, "I SAW CHEEK! I SAW CHEEEK!" I felt the internal mother that will likely never be, rage and want to go lecture them on how to be a proper lady (this coming from the girl who used to drive around Seattle with her bra rolled up in her window).

"Maybe they're just dumb," I thought. But alas, they did it every time. I secretly wished for one of those black, censor boxes used on TV so I could avoid seeing their butt cheeks every time they picked up their keys after using a machine. I thought of my old friend Jennifer Johnasen, who when on acid, went up to some couple fucking in their car at the entrance of Nike Park, screaming, "This is a fucking family park for God's sake!" into their steamed up windows. Considering the things I was doing at their age, I would certainly be the pot calling the kettle black. So I ignored it. Then came the kicker. After finishing my cardio, I went to stretch and that's when I saw the Cheeky Twins leave...or so I thought. I was in the stretching room and there they stood on the other side of the window SMOKING! I kid you not, now when I smoked (I have recently quit once again), I would be evil and smoke in the car after leaving the gym, but never have I smoked in the middle of workout. I was shocked! Dismayed! Ashamed! They stomped out their ciggies as I did my crunches, and then re-entered as I left, reeking of smoke. Who the fuck does this?

Friday I missed my lunch workout because I was too busy. Instead I left ten minutes early and hit the gym. As I pulled in, I saw one of the Cheeky Twins leaving, wearing shoulder-length dangly earrings. "Thank God, they're gone", I thought. And while this was a good thing. I had no idea what I was in store for this time.

I was almost done on the elliptical, wearing my headphones, watching CNN when I heard it.

Boom, bum, boomp, boomp, BOOMP!

I turned around and that's when I saw it. People were jumping off their machines, running to an empty, running treadmill. Huh? And then I looked down. There floundering like a fish out of water lay a rather large woman on her belly, her arms flailing on the running treadmill. She had flown off and was flopping around on the belt! People were hitting the Stop button, but it kept running! At this point, most of us had stopped our workouts and watched in horror.

Now, those who know me know that I have this horrible habit of laughing when people fall or get into awkward situations. This is because falling is funny to me, and I laugh at myself when I fall or injure myself otherwise. While I think this is great to be able to laugh at myself, others don't necessarily find it funny when I laugh at them in their unfortunate moments. Take the time when I was 14 and my friend Kim's Ked was sucked into an escalator. She luckily curled her toes in time, but she stood there with her foot stuck at the top of the escalator screaming, "HIT THE EMERGENCY BUTTON!" What did I do? Lay on the floor laughing so hard I peed all over myself, while some man coming up the escalator behind us pulled her foot out. Or the time that my friend Amy fell through a dry-rotted deck at a party, and I laughed at her as she was pulled out scraped. Or the time that my best friend in high school rolled my car five times downhill and was screaming and crying, and I crawled around on the ceiling of my car laughing, trying to find my cigarettes.

I know this may seem mean or completely inappropriate, but this is how I deal with fear, danger and nerves. I laugh. I once fell on a treadmill at my house in Scottsdale. I was on the phone and became interested in my hair clip on the hand railing and reached for it. Immediately I flew back, my arms hitting the machine and the phone flew. The running belt threw me back and my foot was wedged between the machine and the wall, as it ran under me taking skin off my knees, I tried to roll to the side to break free of the cardio hell I had found myself under, while screaming to the phone, "I'M DOWN! I'M DOWN!" through a wave of giggles.

Now here I was witnessing this woman in the same predicament I once was in. She fell, she was flailing like a guppie on the floor and I had to bite my lip. "Heather, do NOT laugh. Do NOT laugh!" screamed my brain. Instead I made this loud noise as I suppressed it, that could have easily been disguised as fear or near tears. The woman on the machine across from me looked at me and said, "She'll be okay." It worked! She thought I was going to cry! I turned my head and shuddered a giggle again.

They managed to turn off the machine and get her up, as I contorted myself fighting the laughter. I finished my workout, stretched, and as I headed out to leave, I saw the woman and her friend sitting in a chair.

"Are you okay?" I asked as I approached her.

Looking bewildered she sad she was.

"You know, if it's any consolation, both my sister and I have bit it on the treadmill before. Those are tricky suckers!"

She looked at me with lawsuit in her eye and asked, "Did that happen here?"

I shook my head. "No I fell at home." Uninterested in me now, she waved me away. I walked out to my car and burst out laughing.

Add one more notch on the "Why I'm going to hell" stick.

I happily grabbed my take-out order of Thai food last night and hopped in my car. I was excited for a quiet evening at home with my Pranang Curry and Hollywood Land, which had been sitting on my kitchen counter for over a week now.

Now, my mind seems to race all the time. I think I made some deal with God before I was born, that since I would fuck up and make lots of sin, I would be eternally cursed with a constant Heather's Life movie montage, running through my head. I have accepted this, and it often brings me much amusement as I giggle at things that have happened, or create scenarios of could-be's. The montage seems to run overtime while I drive, shower or am on the toilet. This is where either great ideas or tragic memories seem to wash over me.

As I drove home, my car beginning to stink from my food, I was thinking how happy I was in the blissful sunshine. Yeah, I hate the town I live in, but that would change after my lease ended. I was thinking how content I was in life. I was near my family, had a job I didn't hate, was crowned with glorious sunshine near-year-round, had a great apartment with a view of decorative garbage in the ravine next to me, had wonderful friends (even though most are across the country) who I loved and they loved me, and for the first time in my life I was truly happy being alone. The last part is the thing that has really stuck out to me lately.

I've never been one who was always in a relationship or anything, but I've spent a good chunk of my life in relationships, dating, or just messing around with various guys. I'd been living a life date-free (minus one date with a psycho who serenaded me with a Backstreet Boys song, then online stalked me for a month), relationship-free, and slut-free. I finally had learned not to jump into things I shouldn't. I had learned how to keep my zipper and legs closed. I had learned that it can be very good and very fulfilling to be alone, and I felt very happy and content with it all. Life is good.

That's when the Heather's Life montage kicked in, and my brain screamed, "You shouldn't be so proud, Heather. You're basically doing community service for the bad things you've done!"

What?

"You're saving men by keeping away from them. You're a MEAN girlfriend!" answered my brain.

Where was this coming from? I was happy. I was a good person with a good heart. My friend, Isaac even called me "a good egg" in his email that day. Then I realized what triggered this...
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I quit smoking a year ago January and made it six months before the alcohol smoking would start on occasion. I was able to maintain my "social smoker" status until I accepted my job in High Point, North Carolina. The only glory this town holds is that it's the Furniture Capital of the World, though the talk of the town is that Las Vegas is trying to steal our bi-annual International Furniture Market event. The thought of moving and leaving all my dear friends freaked me out. I was leaving Seattle, a land of great music, the arts, diversity, and open-mindedness for a small town in the South whose pride was a giant chair in neighboring Thomasville. This would cause a nun to start smoking.

I have had brief quit spells here on numerous occasions, but being in the land of tobacco, not far from the world empire of the tobacco industry, has it's drawbacks. You can smoke everywhere in this town. Restaurants, bars, and I've even busted the clerk at the Shell station on the corner smoking in there! You can't escape it, so it makes the chore to quit more difficult.

Then something happened two nights ago. Something that struck me like a thunder bolt, that showed me what my life would be like if I did not quit smoking.
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There is a time in everyone's life where they have that definitive moment of knowing who they are.

I'm a successful, career-driven mother of nine.

I'm an old soul with a fondness for organizing jelly beans by color.

I'm a nervous wreck of a whore who only feels good when sucking down a pint of ice cream or getting laid.

I'm on a path to curing cancer and I sponsor five children in Africa with $10 a month.

I'm a mother. I'm a father. I'm a sister. I'm a brother. I bring joy. I bring sorrow. I find the good in life. I'm scared of everything. All of these things could be someone's acknowledgment of who they truly are. This last weekend, while in Phoenix, I had my defining moment and knew who I truly, truly was.

What would this realization be? Read on my friends. Read on.

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It was supposed to be a simple trip, two nights and two days in Phoenix for my dear friend, Heather's wedding. What happened instead blew me away. How could so much happen in such a short amount of time? It was fun and I laughed my ass off, but I also found myself just shaking my head thinking, "How the hell does this happen?" Well, I'll tell you, but it's so much that I must break it down into different Chronicles.

First, we start with the flight out there. Read More