Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Tacky and Unrefined, yet Not Very Delightful

If you just saw a busload of busload of blind people get off the bus, get the fuck out of the way. They're blind. They cannot see you when you stand in their path. That's why they have on dark glasses and sticks. Believe it or not they're not all Neo from the Matrix imitators.

You don't get the right to turn your nose up because he bumped into you. Take your tacky Ed Hardy luggage (Jesus Christ, that man makes lugagge?) and move out of the way.

Monday, September 27, 2010

My Hate-It List for Today

I hate men's feet.

I hate men's feet that are gross.

I hate gross men's feet.

I hate gross men's gross feet. Especially those who refuse to wear socks. Even with sandals.

I hate rain.

I hate weddings,

I hate the bus station.

I hate my hair.

I hate the sweater I have on.

I hate my pants too.

I probably hate everything but because I hate caring at this point I cannot make an evaluative statement about everything. Just know that I probably hate that too.

Ah, the Joys of Singledom.

The thing about being single and almost 30 (Gasp!) is that it's not the same as it was when you were 25 and single or 22 and single. When you're 22 and single the only time people ask you if you have a boyfriend is when you're about to seal the deal and both parties want to evaluate the risk of partner repercussions. You have to honestly weigh the benefits of getting it on and having to fight with a disgruntled, pissed off partner at a later date. But if no one else is in the picture the risk of the sex becomes much less and depending on your outlook is either more or less fun that way.

At 25 people don't ask if you're single. They ask if you have a boyfriend. Then if you're my mother you proceed to ask if you have a girlfriend. But when you reply to the negative in both regards they smile and acknowledge that you're enjoying life and not weighing yourself down with the stress of managing a significant other. Unless you're my mother and then you see the lives of your yet unborn grandchildren flash before your eyes.

David Sedaris writes that his brother once said: 'Motherfucker, I ain't seen pussy in so long I'd throw stones at it.' While I'm not sure why one would throw stones at something you haven't had in a while I'm in the same boat, well substitute male genitalia. And I think it's a great visual. This is why on a particular Saturday evening I found myself face to face, sucking face with a bartender from my favorite bar trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with me. It's not that I don't find him attractive, it's not that we don't have things in common. I like gin and he gives it to me. But the issue lies in the fact that at a certain point I no longer see men as much as I look at them and evaluate the degree to which they could help me with my little problem. It's not that I'm desperate, I'm bored. And tired. If one more person asks me if I've got a boyfriend and then ask why not when I don't reply in the affirmative, I'm bound for the funny farm. I understand that we as humans are designed (Bad word choice, but work with me.) to be with someone. At this point I've been single long enough that I need to consider that I may be single for a while and maybe a committed relationship isn't for me. Maybe I'm supposed to not be involved. What if I'm supposed to be single so if someday I'm at the bank while it's being robbed I can sacrifice myself in lieu of the bank robber killing the new mom?

Okay so that's a little far-fetched but the point is that if I sit down and seriously evaluate my feelings on the matter I find that I'm not as panicked about it as I should be. It's seriously difficult for me to think about having a boyfriend because I descend into a panic when I'm faced with the option of having to talk to someone who has the least bit of interest in me. Hysteria. Panic. Anxiety. It's seriously not a fun time. I think it has to do with the fact that I'd then have to relinquish control but that's a different post entirely. But I cannot get past the guilt that comes along with just getting the job done because every once and a while you just need to get the job done. So when found face to face alone in the dark with your favorite bartender you're aggravated. Because out of the two of you, he shouldn't be the one who can't make up his mind. I'm supposed to be the wishy-washy one, I'm wishy-washy. To me it's not a matter of if we do or don't. Honestly I don't care either way, but make a fucking decision. I've got to go to bed.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

My Strange Magnetic Field.

I need to ingest more heavy inorganic metals or something because every piece of electronic equipment I have dealt with in the last little while has kicked the bucket. Except for the confocal, and that's the way we like it.

Here is a list of the electronic issues I've had in the last two weeks:

Ahem.

1. There was the whole DVD burner dying. Not a slow quick death but a long drawn-out ordeal in which it's function gradually just stopped.

2. When I got the new burner it promptly burned 3 DVD's and then quit for 2 days. (I've found that if you let it rest between burnings it behaves quite well.)

3. The battery in Department truck. But that could be because it sat all summer without being driven.

4. For some reason Hulu won't work for me anymore. It tells me to connect to the internet in the player window while showing the rest of the page. Which usually means I'm connected to the interwebs. And yes I cleared my browser cache.

5. My printer which has never misbehaved ever. Ever suddenly couldn't pick up the paper yesterday.

6. The poster printer thought about not behaving for about 20 minutes this morning but I gave it the stink eye and it decided it was in its best interest to work.

My mother has always sworn that every computer problem she's ever had is my fault. I didn't even have to be in the room for the computer to hiss and fizz and bang. But it could be that she just doesn't like me too.

Needless to say something is off about me.

But I guess that's a moot point.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Koo-Koo Banana Crackers Yahoos at Yahoo

The horoscope writer at Yahoo has gone off the deep end. So much so that I am thinking about writing a letter of concern to the folks at Yahoo. My favorite theory is that the normal horoscope writer left her position to start a psychic hotline and they've had to pawn off the responsibilities of the horoscopes onto the underwriter for the inspirational writing dude at Yahoo. Here is my horoscope for today:

It's hard to imagine you lacking imagination. Actually, it's impossible to imagine. So now, don't worry -- there's no need to imagine you lacking imagination, because you're so imaginative. You just won't have time for anything else (like imagining lacking imagination). You're fielding great ideas left and right, and the ones you like you're holding on to. You'll implement them all in good time. Yes, all in good time.

Here is my horoscope from yesterday:

There's something new up ahead, and you think you've gotten a glimpse of what it might be. Is it a new project? A new apartment? A new love? A new lease on life? New energy? A new sport? A new car? A used car with a new car smell, thanks to somebody's bright idea to sell a spray that smells like a new car? It could be exciting, whatever it is. 

I'm not one of those people that directs their life from their horoscope and frankly, I'm concerned for the people that do. Read both of the above horoscopes and you'll find one thing in common, that they don't actually say anything. And they don't actually say anything worse than they normally don't actually say anything which is hard to imagine because you'd think that horoscopes should actually say things, important things, things that matter, things that direct, things that encourage, things that discourage, or things that look like they're encouraging but the subtext is that they're really discouraging. Needless to say, it's odd. 

Friday, September 17, 2010

A lesson in Dichotomy from Muddy the Mudskipper

In my freshman English honors class (I know, I know, I was smart once. Seriously.) there was this guy Andy. Andy had two aggravating characteristics. One being that he looked exactly like Muddy the Mudskipper from the Ren & Stimpy show. It's really hard to think about Emily Dickinson when 'Don't Whiz on the Electric Fence' is on repeat in your head. The second aggravating thing about Andy was that his favorite word was dichotomy. Everything was dichotomous. Or characters exemplified a dichotomous nature. Dichotomy, dichotomy, dichotomy. It took me three fourths of a semester to actually look it up because I refused to on a matter of principle, but one day he actually did get a 'That's a good point Andy' from the professor so I thought it might help. Needless to say his usage only escalated from there and we were all tremendously fucking grateful there was only a quarter of a semester left.

Anyways, I'm in a very punchy mood today. Mostly because I've had the Golgothan touch this week but that's beside the point. I was talking to a friend of mine about the imminent street festival downtown and he was aking if I was going and I believe I said something like 'Hell No. I moved downtown to get away from the degenerates of this town; I do not relish spending an entire day in their presence. I spend enough of my spare time at the bus station to satiate my thirst for the masses.' Then I just went ahead and saddled the high horse and rode it for all it was worth.

Then I realized that 'Fucking Muddy' was right!

People are extremely dichotomous. (Or at least I am.) Maybe he was onto something or maybe he was ahead of his time and realized something about the nature of people that our young minds weren't able to fathom yet. That as freshmen in college we were so convinced of the constancy of our nature that the idea of any kind of duality in our person was unheard of. We hadn't yet failed at anything and our faith wasn't tested and our experiences went without grounding.

Then again, he may just be a stupid mudskipping fuck and I may just be crazy.

Fat Girls in Hooker Shoes

Here's the problem with fat girls in hooker shoes. It's not that they're trying too hard or trying to overcompensate for being chunky or for having too much junk in the trunk. It's not the fact those shoes are hideous with their bedazzled strapiness and platform soles. I don't even mind that the shirt you're wearing with the pucci print clashes horribly with your camo handbag. We'll also ignore that your shoes are adorned with pink rhinestones.

Homegirl does get kudos for not having butterflies on her shoes and not having one of those mini bookbags for a purse.

My problem with the whole situation is that it defies the physical laws of nature. If your feet look like blood sausages that have been crammed into little miniature strappy bedazzled tourniquets then it has to be next to impossible for you to remain upright. I would surmise that the enormity of your nether regions brings your center of gravity closer to the ground thus enabling you to wear your hooker shoes without toppling over. How your ankles don't become impacted I'll never know.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

On The Subject of Lunch

So there is this woman who lives in my building who obviously, obviously has an eating disorder. We call her Skeletor, but that may be because my roommate fancies himself to be He-Man and it makes him happy to think of our building as Castle GreySkull or whatever. The point being is that this chick is skinny, unhealthily so.

You can tell first and foremost by her hair. It literally looks like straw. I am prone to my gremlin moments when my hair has a mind of it's own but at least it looks healthy whilst messy. Then you see her in a bathingsuit and you cringe. You cringe because you know she's not having her monthly menses and that her bones are brittle as hell and her heart probably has a few hundred more beats left before it shuffles off this mortal coil and she's pushing up the daisies. It's really sad.

But this morning on the elevator she got on with me and we had quite a pleasant conversation. Here's the kicker. She's a PhD, in Cancer Biology. So she has to know that her body is suffering, right? No matter how nice and cordial she is, nor however much I could milk her for a job in Winston, I cannot even reasonably think about being her friend because I'd compulsively feed her sticks of deep-fried butter. Or corn bread and pintos. Or something. Food. Lots of food.

The funny part is that she takes a lunch box. I guess she feels like she can fool people by toting a lunch box around. Then I started thinking about what could be in her lunch box, which got me thinking about what was in my lunchbox. Here's what was in my lunch box: 2 slices of cheese pizza, 1 caesar salad, 1 cup of applesauce, 1 peach (that tasted like nail polish. Yay for pesticides.) and a diet pepsi.

Obviously my heart would have problems for the exactly opposite reason. But I have to have a nice lunch and some snacks. And I only ate one of the pieces of pizza.

People say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day but honestly breakfast makes me puke. So that makes lunch the most important meal of my day. And in Europe I hear that their biggest meal is lunch and they've been around for forever so they can't be all wrong. I'm going to lobby Congress to put more emphasis on lunch. Lunch should be the most important meal of the day! It's in the middle of the day! At the peak of the day really! Hence it's eating as the best time of the day so it's the best meal!

But I do really like dinner too. . .

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Another great idea from Anna Gray!

Are you tired? Lonely? Do you feel your life operates without a sense of purpose?

Then do yourself a favor and prove it with the new and improved BIO 543 - Biophysics!

Did you think you were smart? -- Biophysics can disabuse you of that notion instantly by mathematically proving diffusion and osmosis!

Were you mislead into a career that boosted your self esteem? Can you complete your daily tasks? -- Where is the fun in that! Why get things done in a reasonable time when you can waste hours of your life trying to find answers to impossible mathematical problems! Ten-thousand factorial? By Jove! My calculator can't do that!

Is the majority of your free time spent smiling? Do you speak sweetly and without vehement outbursts laced with curses and foul language? -- Your neighbors already look at you funny. Why worry about adding insult to injury? Biophysics can teach you to swear in more creative ways than you though possible!

Do your pencils still have erasers on their ends? -- You're a pompous ass. Nobody is that good. Hurry up and eat them so you fit in.

Do you feel validated as a human being? -- What? You want a freaking cookie?

Remember! If you're unsure as to whether or not you're a glutton for punishment be sure and choose BIO 543 - Biophysics! You'll be glad you did!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

It's time to regroup.

Here's a quick and dirty narrative of the latest saga of my life.

I have been charged with backing up one of the computer systems at work. So, I go the secretary and she orders me 100 DVD-R's that end up not working apparently because that drive only reads DVD+R's. So, I regroup.

I know! I'll get someone to take me to Staples to get DVD+R's. That way the DVD burner will read them and I'll be good to go. I go ask someone, they say yes. Then they say no. They'll bring me DVD+R's tomorrow. They forget to bring the next day and the next day and the next. So, I regroup.

'I know what I'll do!' I say to myself in a moment of brilliance. 'I'll purchase an external hard-drive to back the data up. . .and I'll use the department truck to go get it!' I go to get in the truck, and trundle off to Best Buy to get said external hard-drive. I purchase the external hard-drive with a fair amount of ease and think my luck is turning around. I go out to the parking lot to get back in the department truck and crank it.

Click, click, click. So, I regroup.

Try again.

Click, click, click. So, I regroup.

Obviously the battery is dead. I'm in the parking lot of Best Buy in a town 30 miles away from the one in which I live in a state owned vehicle. After several phone calls the Physical Plant guy comes and jumps the truck and I make it back to campus.

Now armed with the external hard-drive I go to backup said computer and wait, there's people on it. Can't do it now. So, I regroup. 

I check the sign up sheet and wait an hour after they're supposed to be off the machine. But they aren't. I'll wait until tomorrow. So, I regroup.

Tomorrow comes and I successfully manage to copy the data off of the computer onto the external hard drive. Today, my luck has to have turned around. But it hasn't. I've spent the last 4 hours of my life trying to get my own machine to burn DVD-R's of which it is completely capable. I've re-installed drivers, re-installed software, downloaded new and different software, re-started my computer at least 14 times, used 5 different DVD-R's and 2 different DVD+R's and begged, pleaded, threatened and repeated the process all over again. It still is not working. So, I must regroup.

It's five minutes until 5 and I have to go because it will take the whole five minutes to dissemble my CPU from the monitor and lug it down the hall to the elevator to the roof, pitch it over and get back to my office in time to collect my things to catch the bus.

I believe thoroughly in creating your own luck.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Do you want to join my new support group?

I'm starting a support group. It's going to be called MDOMWTIF (AICDAAI).

It's short for: My Doctor or My Wii Thinks I'm Fat. And I cannot do anything about it.

I put that last part in parentheses because it's mostly vowels and acronyms really need consonants to make them work.

If you've had the pleasure of conversing with me lately you've noticed the extreme mood swings that are exemplary of dieting and/or hours of a frustrating video game that may or may not have taken over my life at the current moment. (Seriously, there is no need for a video game to be that damn frustrating. The stinking bosses are easier than the stupid elk-seal hybrid experiment.) But I've been dieting and I was pseudo successful. As of last Thursday before the Mellow Mushroom trip and before the weekend of food that was this past weekend, I had lost one pound.

Now at my family practice doctor's office, not only does the nurse check your temp and pulse and put you through the grueling process of weighing you in the middle of the nurse hive so that they all may judge you conveniently, they now get out a tape measure and measure your middle.

Because really, you weren't aware that you're fat?

'Who me?' You always say. 'I'm not fat, I'm big-boned. Now hand me those cheesy poofs.'

And in case you were, in fact, in the dark about your body size, your video games now can weigh in on the verdict. Yes, I have plopped onto the Wii Fit board and had it determine, that I, am obese. Yes, you read correctly. According to the Wii I am obese. I personally choose to believe that the Wii was built for tiny Japanese people and thus it believes that all Americans are over-sized, over-sexed and generally gigantic.

I understand that there is an epidemic sweeping this country and that as Americans we're the heaviest we've ever been and we're raising a nation of children that are the heaviest they've ever been as well. As an adult I look at myself and compare myself to the other women in my family and I realize that I indeed look exactly like they do. Yes I may have an extra 10 pounds that I could stand to lose or an extra 30 but for as far back as I can remember the women in my family have always whined about losing weight. In fact I believe it's what links me to them genetically. Not that we all have the exact same body shape and are emotional messes but that we all want to lose weight and can be only marginally successful. Yes, I could probably lose ten pounds if I ran a marathon everyday but I'm not going to change my body shape and I need someone to accept that. If I need to drag my entire family into the doctor's office with me the next time I go to prove to that man that I will look like this no matter what I will. (He's been my doctor my entire life. Yes, he was my pediatrician too.) I know he's dealt with my mother on more than one occasion so he should compare us and see that I'M ALWAYS GOING TO LOOK LIKE THIS. It isn't going to magically go away.

But then he'd probably say anything to get the gaggle of women that is my family out of his office. We're kind of a mess.

Anywho, first support group meeting this Friday, 7PM. . .at someplace where we can eat fried food. I can't talk about my vulnerabilities without being fat, happy and full. And knowing that my arteries are screaming.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The Beach: The Hurricane Can't Stop the Critic.

I thought it would be fun to title this post like a bad B-movie horror flick.

I went to the beach this past weekend with my mother and dog. I was going to do a daily blogging from the beach as the ocean normally makes me feel all introspective and thoughtful and stuff. But the before we managed to even leave my mother had smashed my phone in the trunk.

Not that my phone was inside the trunk and she shut it, sealing it away in the trunk for a length of time--that she shut the trunk on my phone, my phone was physically in between the trunk and the body of the car and she closed the trunk onto my phone. Multiple times. Because it wouldn't close and what do you do when something doesn't close? Try, try again.

Hence busted phone screen. Hence weekend at beach without external communication. Hence hysteria.

But here are a few gem's of my mother's conversations over the course of the weekend:

'He's nothing but an old fucking shithead.' - Obviously  some random old guy.

'They gave us a free order of hushpuppies for our trouble'. . .'No it wasn't nice of them. I told them to do it.' - Because the people at the BBQ place didn't assume that she wanted french fries with the sandwiches and she had to go back in and order them which is their fault, thus they owed her some hushpuppies. Hell, she got away with it.

'I wonder why no one else is parked here. Why are they all parked over there?'. . .'That no parking sign doesn't mean me, does it?' - No Mother, it doesn't.


It was a bad trip for babies, as she yelled at two different women. One for bringing her infant on the beach and the other was in the seafood restaurant. This woman was incapable of taking her child outside to cry. She felt it would be resolved more quickly if she merely asked the child to be quiet, which it wasn't. But I'm sure she wishes she would have taken him outside as my mother berated her in front of her whole family for being an idiot. To Mom's credit not one of her family members came to this woman's aid to defend her or anything. Maybe they think she's an idiot too?

Thursday, September 2, 2010

My Burgeoning Romance and/or Fuck You Dominos

According to my horoscope today, I am good at two things as a pisces: Being Psychic and Romance.

Obviously.

I'm supposed to be on my toes for a surprise meeting in which I use my unbeknownst mental faculties to manipulate someone into coitus. With me. I'm supposed to be involved in this process.

Neither of which have happened. I don't think my ESPN is working today. And the only dirty thoughts I've had all day occured first thing this morning when I had an email from Fucking Dominos about $5.99 pizzas. (Let me tell you. I could ravage some pizza.) For serious? Are they aware that I'm on the third successful day of my diet? That this, the third day, is truly the determining factor of whether or not I can stick to my diet; That if I can make it through today on a limited number of calories that I can make it work for a little longer; That the mere mention of carbohydrates and cheese to my starved, unsaitiated brain causes hunger tremors?

Maybe the Domino's pizza is Pisces.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Why Yes, There does happen to be a divot in my forehead.

I'm growing a horn. For serious. An actual horn. I'm not joshing.

Anyway, I'm bored so I'm feeling the topography of my forehead to see if my horn will be lonely and I feel the divot that has been in my head for about 17 years now and I thought...that'll be a good story.

Swimmy flashback stuff.

I was a pretty lanky, clumsy kid. I've retained the clumsiness. The lankiness, not so much. My gramma had this theory that we weren't allowed to play inside unless there were gale force winds outside so we, my cousins and I, were at the kid across the street from my gramma's house. We were probably hopped up on icee pops and Coke. The soda, not the drug.

My two cousins have no natural fear of anything. This has carried over into their adult lives without much incidence. Which I must honestly admit is more than a little amazing.


So there are five of us. Four boys and me. I happen to have been the oldest and the brains of the operation. Although I can't say without a doubt who decided we should play kickball. Or who picked out the landmarks that were to be the bases.

The other thing you need to understand is that as a child I was exactly the way I am now. Competitive as hell with a fairly large smart ass streak. 'Of course I must go first', I insisted. 'Of course, because I'm the oldest.'

Apparently since I went first I was the first to notice that there was a bird feeder in front of second base, which happened to be a dogwood tree. Needless to say that a lanky 10 year old can gain a lot of momentum in the short distance between home plate and first base and then increase that momentum from first to second.

I run smack-dab into the bird feeder. I imagine that my head snapped backwards and my feet kept going. I imagine this because A) I couldn't watch my ownself run, that's absurd and B) I was knocked out cold.

I woke up in an eerie silence staring at steeply swaying, yet mangled bird-feeder spewing seed as it completed it's swing back and forth. Then one by one 4 heads come into my field of view. Two were smiling, (Family, what can I say?) one was grimacing and one looked languid and pale. That's how I knew there was probably a fair amount of blood oozing from head. Poor kid never really could handle the sight of blood too well.

Thankfully the neighbor kid's mom was a nurse and she had enough sense to know that if things were quiet, someone was bleeding. (I'll say here that I spent a lot of blood at their house, I was never sure why.) She waited to deal with her own swooning child until she had staunched my bleeding and determined I didn't need stitches. Then promptly sent us across the street where I was instructed to stay on the porch because Mamow didn't want blood on her carpet.

It healed up quite nicely and I don't even have a scar. But if you ever have occasion to run your finger over my forehead you'll notice that there is a good sized divot in it. Yes, I chipped my skull on a birdfeeder.

Chalk yet another mishap to my inability to pay attention and my need to show off.