"Prettttay pretttay pretttay pretttay good."

I was so lost, but then I found Jesus.
Actually, his name was Justin, and he was riding a golf cart, but he looked a hell of a lot like Jesus.
“Lost?” he asked me.
“Very.” As if he couldn’t tell by the 80 maps I had in my hand, class schedule, and Starbucks. C’mon.
“Lemme guess,” he squinted in the 9:06 AM sun. Six minutes late to my first class. “Theatre?”
I wondered how awful I must have looked for him to think I was a theatre freak, “English.”
“Oh.”

School wasn’t that bad, and I’m pretty fond of this whole done by noon thing. I’ll be damned, I think I kinda like college, but I’m not gonna lie; I thought college would be more exciting from the way everyone over 35 talked about it. I was expecting every guy to be drunk and every girl to be coked out of their minds. I wanted adventure! Vomit! Seizures!

All I got were a bunch of guys with sunglasses on the back of their heads and baseball caps because they can. These are the guys who high-five each other when they burp and jack off to their girlfriend’s Cosmo magazines because she won’t put out. They get drunk on the weekends on cheap beer and stumble into class on Monday with Friday’s outfit, a pathetic hangover, and stubble. The kind of guys I knew in high school. The kind of guys I don’t date.

“Pick Phi Alpha Betta Malpha Falpha!” signs accompany me wherever I go. Pledge, baby, pledge. We’ll keep you intoxicated enough to make you forget you’re in college! Oh, wait, sorry, not you. You’re fully clothed.

Fake blondes with great bodies in itty bitty skirts prance around like Bambi on Red Bull; blowing smoke into my face as I overhear their conversations, “What a bitch! She’s so not invited on Friday!” Basically, college is just like high school but with ashtrays and free condoms.

And way better parties. I was getting invited to stuff even before classes started.
I think this about sums up my first week at college:

Drunk Friend: (2:07:34 AM): hey
Drunk Friend: (2:08:16 AM): I'm so fucking drunk'
Drunk Friend: (2:08:22 AM): we found a party, obv.
Drunk Friend: (2:08:30 AM): more tomorrow
Drunk Friend: (2:08:34 AM): news atr 111
Drunk Friend: (2:08:40 AM): college rockzorz

Yeah, I agree, college rockzorz.

Quote of the day:
Mac Guy: “Everyone I work with thinks I’m gay!”
Stefi: “You’re not?”
- A bad reflexive answer to the guy who was helping me at the Mac store.

"You don't remember me, do you?"

I never imagine I'd be going to college. High school I thought a lot about, then my first failed marriage, and ultimately, The Rest of My Life; but I always seemed to casually skip over college. Usually in my warped sense of reality I just magically mature into an author or famous actress/weather girl in a Prada suit being interviewed for primetime TV by Barbara Walters' preserved head.

"So just what is it like to now be married to the sexiest man alive?"
Amazing. Thanks.

In the streets people come up to me and say things like, "I wanted to kill myself, but then your work inspired me to live again and enjoy life!" I'll graciously allow them one picture with me where I tilt my head in a very MK and A way and I'll sign whatever scrap of paper they happen to have on hand. "Best Wishes!--Stephanie Sparer" They'll gush, "Thank you!" and ten days later, after Googling myself, I'll find the crumpled up Mobile gas receipt baring my signature on eBay with a winning bid of ten dollars.

And I only bought it so that I wouldn't look pathetic when no one else did.

I guess I just never thought about college, which, certainly showed early in my senior year when I realized I should probably start applying places. Best. Counselors. Ever. She never once called me in when I gave up on math class. I never got a little white letter begging me to come in so we could discuss my future while I sucked on the cherry Jolly Ranchers she always had on hand.

"When's the last time you turned in a math assignment?" I wanted my counselor to ask me so that I could answer, "For real? Or like, BS'd?" I'd hold the true answer ransom for a Kit Kat bar because lord knows she hides the good candy for the students getting letters from Harvard.

"Please apply! Harvard's campus is beautiful in the spring!"

Now I just sit around late at night and think about what I would have changed if I could do high school all over again. The usual regrets are all there: The bangs, my Lesbian Era when it came to wearing pants every damn day, I probably should have gone to English more often- but for the most part, I can't really complain. I came out with everything that I wanted. I kept the friends I wanted to keep and I did everything I wanted to do. All in all, I say job well done.

Friends are leaving and things are changing but I know that in ten years when I see them all again, everything will be the same. We'll mingle in the same crowd, albeit, this time with legal appletinis and Manhattans. Sissy drinks with designer names because everyone but the jocks'll be too cool for the Budweiser of their lost youth.

"Fuck man," my friend will whisper, "he got so fat."
"Which one?" I'll ask. They've all put on weight.

By twenty-eight some of us will be divorced, regretting that stupid tattoo, pregnant, maybe happy, but probably not wealthy. Not yet. Well, just me.

"How'd you do it?" those who aren't badmouthing me in the corners will ask.
"Hard work and dedication," I will lie. Really well.

My famous boyfriend will smile and rub my back. "We are so happy" as quoted to Us Weekly. Can't you tell by our fabulously capped teeth?

Quote of the day:
Taylor: So it's "protein bars with Robert" again tonight.
Stefi: That's your dinner? What are you a fourteen year old girl from LA?
- And so it begins.

“Is that fish in the fucking blender?”

Last minute plans brought me to Jillian’s after hours Wednesday night. A much-needed outing after the weird and horrible day I’d been having. Dying of thirst, I wandered over to the bar, which I didn’t realize would serve me alcohol without checking my ID since it was 21 and over until it was too late and last call had been made. Bitch please, like I’d even risk it anyway.
While waiting for the slowest bar tender ever to take my order for water, I felt an arm on my shoulder and immediately thought someone had once again mistaken me for Monica Lewinsky. Those people often feel the need to touch me.
“Heyyyyy!” A voice sounded in my ear and I knew it wasn’t who I was with. I turned around to see what kind of situation I had. “What are you doing here?” Their question seemed genuine.
Naturally, it was someone I’d known in high school, I was at Desert Ridge, after all.
“Hey!” I reply back with just as much enthusiasm as him and accept his hug. “I'm just getting water?” my response acted more like a question.
“But it’s twenty-one and over right now?” he blinked, confused, “How’d you get in?”
“I walked in…” It was the truth, and I didn’t think such a big deal.
“Wow! I can’t believe they weren’t watching the door!” he replied, amazed, as if Jillian’s were The Viper Room.

“What are you doing here?”
He adjusted his shirt and smiled that I-Make-Six-Fifty-An-Hour smile, “I work here! I’m waiting for someone to check me out, I just got off.”
I ignored all innuendos in that sentence and moved on, “You quit Hollywood Video?” I feel an invisible hair by my mouth and begin to try to remove it without looking like a complete idiot.
“Had to,” he shrugged and I didn’t question it, my attention more-so on the hair I have just successfully lifted from my face, “Who are you here with?” he wants to know.
“Taylor,” I say and turn around to see what he’s taking a picture of or blowing up, but I can’t find him. I flitter my fingers in a general direction, “He’s around.”
“Taylor’s a boy?” He seemed shocked, then once he caught a glimpse of the kid, he leaned in, interested, “Is he gay?” the question seemed more like a wish.
I shook my head no, “And he’s already married to his camera.”
Taylor saddled up behind me soon after and I begin to introduce the two, “Taylor,” I say, “This is-“ And then I blank. Time slows down, the bad beat Jillian’s pounds through the speakers cuts out because blood has rushed to my head, and I begin to panic. I am sweating bullets. I had gone to school with this guy for four years. We had Writers’ Circle together. I helped him with his problems. I’ve gone to lunch with him. We have hung out. Shit, what was his name? I finally remember a drama nickname, Big P, which brings me to his actual name.
“PRESTON!” I announce with relief, then, naturally, my ever-ready laugh. “Oh, PRESTON. PRESTON, I could only think of your nickname for a second!”
He laughs the laugh of someone who has no idea what you’ve just said, but figures it was meant to be jovial.
I turn back to Taylor who is starring off into the distance, unaware of anything that has just happened, “OK, do you have that, uh, game card?” is all he wants to know.
I’m hoping it was too noisy for anyone to hear my slip-up.

Taylor leaves tomorrow for college, but we secured him a bank account before hand with Brandie; a WASPy woman in fake Chanel who can’t spell her own name but managed to garner her own cubical at Wells Fargo.
“How can I trust them with my money if they are still using stagecoaches?" Taylor jokes while looking at a pamphlet covered with the horse drawn buggies, "Do they at least carry guns with them?”

“Are you going to U of A, too?” Brandie asks me in a way that sounds almost real.
I snap out of my daydream where I was thinking about how I’d redecorate my own cubical (by getting an office), “Oh, um, ASU,” I shout over the techno music the bank insists on playing.
“I want someone to start dancing on a desk,” I said earlier while Brandie was on her phone. “I feel like I’m in a bad club.” All they needed was Tara Reid.
“Oh, ASU! You guys are gonna be rivalries then!” Brandie smiles as she remembers her days as a cute co-ed. Or what she can remember out of the times she was sober.
“Yes,” I say, “Big “rivalries”. We may not even be friends after next week.” She laughs out of politeness and I cut the crap after that. I hoped that was the last of the conversation because I wasn’t feeling too witty that day.
I felt sorry for her; ripped pantyhose and all in her small, boring cubical across from a doubt-y woman in her forties who I smile at when she catches me staring. I begin to wonder what her home life is like and how many pets she has. I wanted her and Brandie to do something better with their lives, or at least put up some cat posters or something to liven up the place. “What would you do to your cubical?” I asked Taylor as soon as Brandie left to deposit money into his account.
He glances around, “I’d put up pictures of retarded kids and say they were mine,” he smirks, then mocks a conversation with a co-worker, “Yes, they’re mine. We are so blessed.”

Quote of the day:
Rachel: “My dad says not to watch any R rated movies.”
Stefi: “And he also said that ‘the gays’ are taking over America, so…”
- Before watching American Beauty

“Secretly awesome.”

Happy Sunday. With the school year fast approaching, the days have slowed and my mind can now distinguish what day of the week it is. Aren’t you proud?

Life’s been a series of good-byes lately. Everything is just a reminder of how in six days most of the people I know will be across the country or three hours a way in either direction. It’s ridiculously depressing.

Regardless, the farewell parties are fun.

At Rachel’s yesterday, I ended up talking to these two kids I’ve known since I was about ten, but haven’t really seen since then either. It’s amazing the stuff you choose to forget and the little things you tend to remember.

Why I remember people by their teeth and hair is beyond me, really.

I keep getting calls from New Seniors, usually late at night or early in the morning, depends on your outlook. I tend to sleep now, so I don’t get the calls until I check my phone the next morning.
“STEFI” their messages always start out. I can practically smell their anxiety over the phone, “STEFI, I NEED YOUR HELP!”
The first message I got like this, I panicked until I heard the next line, “SCHOOL STARTS NEXT WEEK! I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!”
You’ve got to be kidding me. I did pretty well my senior year; I didn’t have to call anyone to stress out. I begin to wonder if these calls are strictly because kids know there is Xanax flowing like water at my house.

So, here’s my advice; Take things in stride. Watch Grease. Eat cookies. Drink juice. Hate to break it to ya, kids, but there’s not a hell of a lot you can do about fleeting time. (Have we learned nothing from Steven Hawking?) Make the most of what you have and stop stressing. Be cool my babies! You still get out in time to watch Saved by the Bell at four in the afternoon.

The first day of Senior year for me was a little bit like the last day- depressing. Summer had been amazing and the monotony of school was almost too much to handle. Three minutes into first hour English everyone looked drained and bored. Except for Daniel Thai, who was erect and overly sweaty. But I distinctly remember Phoo (shout out) being asleep. And then taking her picture. Or, that could have been the third day. After that, I just stopped going all together. Senior year, hate to say it, is pretty pointless.

With that said; have a great year, everyone!

Quote of the day:
StephanieBrown: “…Taylor, what are you doing?”
Taylor: “Just messin’ with the jets over here.”
- Brown to Taylor while he was swimming in the pool.

“You’re no Jersey Girl! False advertising!”

Sweet home, Arizona. It’s good to be back. I never thought I’d miss her, I really didn’t. I didn’t think I’d miss Dyke City or The Gay Denny’s or the fact that the only thing to do after eleven is hit a strip club or eat, but I did. I really, really did.

There used to be this song that my choir teacher would make us sing back in grammar school called “I Love You, Arizona” and I fucking hated it. I didn’t hate a single song half as much as I hated that song. Mr. Brady would say in a sing-song voice, “Open your mouth very wiiiiiiiiiide, and sinnnnnnnnng!” and just to spite him, I’d mouth the words. The rest of my little Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle clad “friends” would “sing” at the top of their lungs though, and at the end of the song, Mr. Brady would yell at us.
“You call that singing? YOU CALL THAT SINGING?! I’ve heard cats howl better than that! That was awful! On a scale of one to 100, that was easily an 8. We’re doing it again.”
Fuck me, I hated him and that song, but suddenly, it has taken on an all new meaning.
But, don’t get me wrong, I still hate it.

New York was amazing. It was everything Billy Joel told me it would be.

You could tell who was a tourist and who was a resident. Mostly by the way they walked; their heads looking every which way and a lot of bumping into other people.
“Sorry,” the tourists say as they body slam people rushing off to somewhere probably not important. A real New Yorker wouldn’t say sorry, just “Watch where the fuck you’re going, asshole.”
I witnessed that a few times. It was awesome. I’ll say for the record though, New Yorkers are a lot nicer than I was told.
“Because of 9/11…” my dad says in that whisper voice as he rubs my back and tries to have a moment, “I think it mellowed them out.”
My dad made sure everyone knew where he was from; with his Arizona baseball cap and Sedona tee tucked into his jeans.
“Daddy, if you’re gonna wear that, at least leave your shirt tucked out!” I plead.
“No, why?” he says, admiring himself in the mirror, “It looks fine.”
“MOMMY!” I plead with her to side with me. She does and reluctantly, he takes his shirt out of his pants and sighs.
“It looked better tucked in,” my father grumbles before slipping his camera case over his shoulder.
I tried my best to pretend like I fit in because I’m a dork and bending my persona is what I do. iPod buds in ear, giant bag on shoulder, Mary-Kate sunglasses in check, water bottle replaced by some caffeinated beverage, and a very large distance separating myself from my family. By the end of the first day, people were asking me for directions.
“Excuse me, how do I get to 50th and Broadway?”
I turned to my mother who happened to be next to me at the crosswalk, “Mommy,” I hissed, “They think we live here.”
I couldn’t find my ass with both hands, so I had to have my mother tell the woman where to go.
I hailed a taxi though. I found that admirable.

I saw Samuel L. Jackson at one point, the first day we arrived. A gaggle of Girl Scouts, of all things, surrounded him, and what with my fascination- ok, obsession- with Pulp Fiction, I nearly piddled.
“OH MY G0D!” I probably shouted and then looked up to see that I was standing in front of Madam Tussaud’s Wax Museum.
Damn.

I did see Jeff Goldblum though. Really.

I play a game a lot called “Look Who It Is!” where I randomly point out a person who looks like someone famous or someone I know. Sometimes I just say hi to them which often causes my friends to sink into corners and stay there for a while.
“Do you have to speak to everyone you see?” a companion asked me one day as we came out of a late movie and I decided to speak to the security officer as I waited for him to do his usual After-Movie Tinkle.
I answered truthfully, “Yes.”
My mother plays it with me too, so when she said to me “Look, its Jeff Goldblum!” one night on the street, I thought nothing of it. I glanced, maybe, but not for long, I just kept walking. I’d already seen one star that night (Christina Applegate), I didn’t feel the need to ruin an evening with a Jeff Goldblum look-a-like.
“No, Steph,” my mom was now stopped in the street, “Its Jeff Goldblum.”
I was a mess. For once, I had no idea what to say to the man whom I’ve loved for oh-so-long.
So I said the first thing that came to my mind, “I love you.”
“Ohhh?” Jeff Goldblum said back to me (TO ME), “Well, I love you, too!”
“MARRY MY DAUGHTER!” My mother shouts to him as he takes a photo with me.
I think other things were said and I may have said thank you or something, but I’ll be honest, I was in kind of a daze. Jeff Goldblum was my first love. He was the only (only) reason I saw Jurassic Park at the age of eight. Yes, I knew I loved him even then. His photo and autograph will now reside in my room next to my pillow, for forever.

And then I went to Jersey for four days.

By the end of our trip, I was ready to come home. I practically skipped onto the airplane where we waited on the runway for about two hours- and for once in my life, I’m not exaggerating. I had taken full advantage of all the free liquids in the President’s Club just an hour before and I was fearing that for the first time in five years I’d be forced to use a public restroom. Not just any public restroom either; but an airplane bathroom. That’s only one step up from a gas station rest stop.

I thought carefully. Could I hold it for four hours and twenty-five minutes? Yes, I decided. But when the captain announced we were going to have a two-hour delay, I began to panic. Four hours or so I could do, but six?
Six?
I gave in and made the walk of shame to the airplane restroom. I didn’t want to, but I had to.

I have no idea how people become part of the Mile-High club. Those bathrooms are small and they don’t smell like roses. I was gagging all over the place. Two grown people couldn’t stand up in there. I’m thinking someone has to be sitting on top of the toilet seat cover to make anything work. There’s absolutely no other way and I doubt there could be any oral action. Frankly, I don’t think it’s such an optimal place to have sex in. If I didn’t have such a small bladder, I wouldn’t have even used it for it’s real purpose. But, then again, I don’t use public restrooms anyway. My track record for not using a public restroom was so good, and it was dashed away because I was careless with my fluid intake. I wouldn’t have had so much to drink if Continental hadn’t ruined the cord I attach to my camera to upload my pictures. They trashed it during a “routine baggage check” on the flight in and left me a note apologizing for any damaged personal effects. I felt that if I drank my weight in milk and water; that would teach them a lesson or something.
Whatever. I was jetlagged and eager to get home.

I missed you, heatstroke.

Sorry for the crappy blog. I'll write something decent soon-ish. Welcome me home.

Quote of the day:
“Who’s Ryan Seacrest?”
- My dad