sy"phyllis" can be treated and cured

last boring entry on this subject: after much soul searching and deliberation, i finally decided to bite the bullet and swallow the jagged little pill that was my release from my recent 'bout with ol' syph...

according to the CDC: "Syphilis is easy to cure in its early stages. A single intramuscular injection of penicillin, an antibiotic, will cure a person who has had syphilis for less than a year." that sounds a bit like my phyllis, too. however, i took a couple of shots of vodka and wrote her off that way. i was nice about it. i gave her a heads up before giving her the boot on facebook; it really just boiled down to not wanting to put up with the shit anymore. i'm not twelve-and even when i was, this stuff bugged the hell outta me. now that this has dragged on for nearly a year, i thought it was high time to move on. some things are just not worth the effort. cheese and booze-always worth the effort. especially when they're free. bitchy girls-not worth the energy at all!

besides, there are no certainties in life (except death and taxes as they say!), but it is not uncommon for friends to come and go. some things were not made to weather the storms. shoot, some people don't even pay their taxes, so that's not even a certainty. furthermore, with walt disney being deep-frozen by cryogenics, even death has become more and more beatable.

anywho, i need to let go and except the fact that my money and that damn lavender dress will never be sent back to me. my books and any other belongings that were swapped when we were super buds are long gone, too...and i s'pose at the end of the day, stuff is just stuff. it doesn't make me who i am, but it sure does piss me off due to the principle of it.

i just don't get why some women have to be so hard to get along with. i hate sexism. i don't think that human beings are that different overall, but there are times that i really do think that men are easier to get along with than women...then again, i was an only child growing up, so i know that there are other days where i hate men equally and really only get along well with myself. at least i can always count on me. :) sarah silverman claims to be a "me-mosexual" so maybe i am a me-santhropist...i do tend to like myself much more than anyone else. ;)

sy"phillis" update

that damn purple dress (see post #3 "how to lose a friend in one dress") has become the bane of my current existence. sy"phyllis" (once phyllis) has become a full blown case of mental distress to me, much like the effects of the actual syphilis disease that can lead to insanity and blindness...
i am blinded by a fury that is leading to my insanity!
to recap: we left off in february with the rupture in our friendship. after stewing on this for about a week, i decided that we were too old to be behaving like adolescents and i e-mailed syph to let her know that while i definitely felt we had drifted, i didn't think it was insurmountable. this seemed to temporarily open up the floor for discussion. we both got some things off of our chests rather tactfully, i felt, and i was certain that we could move on. i had feared that our relationship would be altered, and it has in fact been difficult to repair. nonetheless, last month i packed up a small box of books (two, i think) and stuck a friendly note in for syph apologizing for having kept the books so long, wishing her and the fam well, and requesting that she send me some of my things at her earliest convenience as we are trying to box our life up and ship it out of mayberry.
i've heard nothing.
i posted a note on her facebook (yes, when we "reconciled" syph re-added me as her buddy). still nothing. that was over a week ago, and i have been creepy enough to stalk her. she's had time to add new friends and update her profile picture. THIS IS RIDICULOUS! i was NICE! (which is not easy for me). ugh.
so yesterday i e-mailed her. STILL NOTHING. at first i thought, "okay, she's busy." but then i thought, "babies are portable!" (i keep one several times a week. it's energy draining, but they are very mobile and permit you to live your life in spite of their constant need for food, sleep, and attention). then i started to get pissed. and the more i stewed, the madder i got. it has now turned into a full-fledged syphilis flare up. i am raging. i am also ready to send her a nasty e-mail telling her to send me my FU@#$%*& dress/money from her wedding (now almost a year behind us) as well as some of my favorite feminist novels that i lent her. argh!!!! i'll give it through the weekend so as not to act rashly, however, regardless of what i hear from syph at this point, i would really just like to throat punch her snobby ass.

how to lose a friend in one dress

the luscious lavender dress to your left is what i was subjected to this summer in a friend's wedding, plus gold hooker heels. strike one. i'm not built like the skeleton in the picture, however, and that much lavender looks gross on anyone. david's bridal is also not known for quality...so you can imagine my woes. what's even funnier is how over the past months this dress has come to embody so much more than just my hatred for sweatshops in china, or the color purple. it has become somewhat of a metaphor, or symbol, an omen if you will, of the friendship that once forced me into those duds.

i mentioned earlier this week while ranting about suburbia, that i had been dumped by my best friend. well, things have only gotten worse. for a brief recap: my friend, (and for the purpose of this blog, we'll refer to her a phyllis) and i met five years ago at a not-so liberal midwestern college. i didn't really want to befriend her in the first place as i am a grouch by nature, but eventually realized that she was a nice person and perhaps worth my time. we did margarita nights, i would spend the night at her house once a week to avoid commuting in the dark, we would listen to music and occasionally smoke some pot only to find that we were really good at jeopardy when we did. phyllis would occasionally come to my husband and my house for dinner as well. over the years we saw phyllis through various boyfriends: mister i love god so let's get married tomorrow, mister has less personality than a paper plate, mister i seem as though i could be on parole, mister hefty leprechaun, and two 'bouts with mister current husband.

now, i'm not trying to make it sound as though i am faultless in our relationship. however, i think i did a pretty darned good job of supporting phyllis in all her life choices. when phyllis and mister current husband decided to tie the knot, though, the circumstances were less than favorable and also very forced by members of phyllis' family (yes, it was one of those weddings). nevertheless, i attended extravagant bridal showers and assisted with as much wedding goo as i could from a distance. i couldn't help feeling that there was a lot of waste taking place, however, and so i mentioned this to phyllis. she told me i was just jealous. not so much, but okay, lesson learned. mouth shut. what i would guess to be several tens of thousands of dollars later, the wedding took place and phyllis was a lovely bride albeit exhibiting behavior that was less attractive than that of a demure debutante. in other words, she was kind of a bitch to her bridal party and guests. i bussed tables at phyllis' wedding instead of partaking in the wedding festivities because phyllis' mother asked me to. strike two.

phyllis then left on a honeymoon and i did not hear from her for nearly two months. then one day a belated thank you showed up from the wedding. now, i'm not miss manners, but proper etiquette for thank you's tends to fall in the week to ten day period for most civilized beings. helas, our blushing bride must have skipped over that section of bride's magazine during her pre-wedding mani/pedi.

from this point, phyllis and i drifted further and further apart. she partaking in the new found joys of suburbia and planning for spawn #1, and i working three part-time jobs and writing a thesis while trying to remodel a home and keep a marriage healthy. indeed, we had less and less in common than when we first became friends. the real jot came sunday when phyllis deleted me sans warning from facebook. strike three . a couple of sassy e-mails from the both of us ensued, but in the end i decided to take the high road. i plead my case to phyllis in an e-mail that more or less called a truce...i have still heard nothing from her. you're outta here! despite this, she has kept some "mutual" friends on facebook, which irks me because they are people i introduced her to.

in addition to hurt feelings, i don't even have the hideous dress in my possession to dispose of: consignment or the chiminea seem appropriate at this point. i tend to analyze everything from a feminist perspective, but i can't get over the sexist notion that men "duke it out" when they have a problem and women get "catty" and mean. i don't understand how two relatively intelligent beings can fall into this trap, but apparently we have, and sadly, i am out nearly a $150 for the dress and shoes, as well as the dress itself, and more importantly the friendship that landed me in the dress in the first place. woe is me for the loss of a hideous dress and previously good friendship. i've got hurt feelings, but thank goodness for good cheese in my fridge. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzUPEB1TkkI