There are so many reasons that I have problems being around people. But as I was out last night I was reminded of one of my least favorite things about socializing.

To wit: for some reason, guys think that it is their absolute unfettered right to publicly critique the appearance of any girl around them and deem it “appealing” or “non-appealing.” No detail is too small for their consideration! Outfits, hairstyles, skin tone, muscle tone, ass fat, cleavage, handbags - they’re all open to dissection, judgment and potential scorn.

And citizens, these are guys that I LIKE, acting this way. These guys are my friends. These are guys who read and are aware of politics, hold professional positions, make house payments, supposedly live in the real world. But they still feel as if every woman who walks into their line of vision has apparently spent her entire life waiting for just such an occasion to present herself to them, and they do not shy from filling out their mental scorecards on each aspect of her appearance. It’s like it doesn’t even occur to them that women exist for a purpose other than visual pleasure.

And these are not above-average guys, either. These are normal, everyday people with no special claim to attractiveness and/or eligibility.

My favorite (of many instances last night) was a guy who was complaining about the lead actress in a superhero movie, because she was unattractive. Her level of not-attractiveness (according to his discerning taste) was such that it made the entire movie unrealistic. OK then. That’s what made it impossible for you to suspend your disbelief in regards to a movie based on a COMIC BOOK. The actress, someone who is professionally beautiful, is not hot enough for you. Ruined the whole movie. Mmmhmmm.

What compounds the confusion for me is that I see the women that these same men are with. They’ve somehow attracted mates, a few of them. And they’re just regular women. Regular looks, a wide variety of ass sizes, weird teeth, imperfect skin, smeared lipstick… regular women. And I can’t figure out if the guys have two standards in their head, one to judge a woman they’re currently fucking (”she can have imperfections, I can’t do any better.”) and another to judge women on the street. (”Not allowed to have imperfections, must be completely hot.”) If this is the case, then apparently the “woman on the street” category is broad enough to encompass you and me while we run to Target to pick up toilet paper AND professional actresses on the red carpet who’ve had 3+ hours of prep time for their photo op.

I don’t know if the guys who do this understand what it feels like as a woman to sit and hear that kind of conversation. It fucking sucks. That casual dissection of the female appearance is just unsettling, stacked as it is on the assumption that women are supposed to be visually appealing at all times and if they aren’t then they’re somehow doing it wrong.

It’s especially disturbing when whatever flaw they’re discussing is one you have. There are some sensitivity issues here. For instance, it would never occur to me, when speaking to a guy with a weight problem or snaggly teeth or bad skin or thinning hair, to start negatively critiquing another guy with the same issue. Honestly, is that something that people really need to be reminded not to do? Like remembering not to say “God, I hate cripples!” when speaking to a person in a wheelchair? I mean, we all got that message when we were about five or six years old, didn’t we? So when a guy is talking to me and starts ragging on the appearance of a girl who is already way better looking than I am, how am I supposed to feel? Does that mean I am invisible, or just someone whose feelings don’t count? Am I supposed to assume that there are two standards, one for the “real” girl the guy is talking to now, and one for the plaything across the room? Because I am across the room from someone, and I know that I don’t look any better from over there than I do close up. So I can only assume that there is someone over there saying awful things about my body, my clothing, my hair. And hey, guess what? That makes me as paranoid as all fuck.

And I don’t understand what’s doing it. What’s made every single outing an adventure in hot-or-not? Is it the InterTubes? Is it Photoshop? Is it plastic surgery? Is it the impossible beauty standard created by already attractive women who are then surgeried and ’shopped into an even more ideal image that is in no way connected to reality? Or is it just man’s innate tendency to be a judgmental douche?

It’s all disheartening. It all makes me dislike other people. It all makes me dislike myself even more.

I suppose that one of these days I am going to internalize and grow numb to the fact that all guys will fuck anything that moves while constantly keeping their options open in case a much-more-perfect specimen comes along. That all guys assume we exist only in an attempt to please their eyes and get their dicks hard. That no man understands there’s more to a woman they see than… what they see. But today’s not that day. And last night was certainly not that night.

What a nothing day, full of time-wasting inconsequentialities.

What a throw-away life I lead.

I don’t understand any of this.

I read some things that don’t matter, did some things that don’t matter, bought some things that don’t matter.

I fed the dogs rawhide chews and watched their Machiavellian machinations with one eye for hours while I read. Each of them strives toward the ultimate goal of lying on two chew toys and devouring the third while the other two look on in envy. Of course they have to drop their original toy in order to grab the other dog’s, and then come back and become puzzled when someone’s lying in their spot chewing their bone. Ring around the living room, it’s endlessly amusing for them, they never figure it out.

Sometimes I think those dogs are the only real beings I interact with in a day. Somehow they keep me tied to things that are authentic and immediate.

Now I am going to go and take a shower and go to bed, and tomorrow I get to do this all again.

The best is yet to come
and babe won’t it be fine?
You think you’ve seen the sun
but you ain’t seen it shine.

Various - The Best is Yet to Come

I wonder why it is that when we see something unique, special and amazing we almost always feel the need to destroy it.

Giant 3,300 Lbs Stingray Caught by Local Fisherman | Weird Asia News

Early in the morning around 2:00am a fishing boat near Hainan Sanya in China caught what is likely to be one of the largest stingrays ever caught.

Casting nets, the fishermen caught a 3,300 lbs Stingray, which took about 3 hours to pull back into the boat. The net was strong enough to hold the huge fish, but the struggle cause the stingray to die.

The stingray measured about 16 1/2 foot in width.

Well, my worst suspicions confirmed, the U-Haul arrived today. The crazy guy across the street said that they were moving in “the big stuff” today and they were asking him if he knew me. I said that I hoped he told them I had a pack of 18 itty-bitty yippy dogs and was a crazy-ass bitch to boot. Which is mostly true anyway. What total and complete fucktards. Imagine buying a house that shares a common wall with another house and never even SPEAKING to the person living in the next house? How fuckwitted do you have to be? (never mind that I did the same thing, the realtor fucking lied to me straight-out, talking about a three-foot brick firewall. Up his ass maybe. Fucker.) But I also know that they can’t have even seen their own air-conditioner, FF S,because that’s in my yard, to which they have no access while touring the place. Who buys a house without looking at the air conditioner? What house inspector would settle for that? And without wanting to get into my basement to see the venting and stuff? Which I would totally not allow, which would be their first clue that this house might have some issues. And they’re going to have to remove that ratty old AC unit from my yard soon-like, too.

Anyway, I don’t know if I accidentally left my radio off one day and that was the day they came to look at the place, or if maybe the blaring music coming from the other side of the wall didn’t clue them in. I don’t know. I am so upset, I have been crying all day, just at the thought of what I have in store for me with new neighbors. My blood pressure has to be through the roof, and I feel like I want to barf. Todd tried to say that they might be nice, but the situation we’re in doesn’t lend itself to prolonged “niceness.” The first time they have a fight, or turn their stereo up past 20, I am going to freak out. And I will spend the next however long living with the feeling that someone can hear every word I say. For someone with my paranoid tendencies this is not conducive to happy and peaceful living.

And wouldn’t you know it, just when I let my guard down and thought “Ok, things at work are marginally better, maybe my life isn’t the biggest shithole in the history of the world after all.” And then bam, the peace and quiet of my home gets snatched from my grasp, probably permanently. I try to look on the bright side. I try not to be pessimistic, but for FUCK’S SAKE, something is always happening to me. I have no peace, and I don’t think I ever will. And somehow I am sure it’s all my fault, like I have the wrong attitude or something.

Anyway, they were only moving some stuff today it seems like, and are not there now. I haven’t met them yet, obviously. I don’t have the heart for it, and I am a little afraid that I would freak out on them.

One day I will accept completely that bad shit is constantly happening to me (and always will) and that I should give up on wanting to be happy and just appreciate fucking sunbeams and shit. But that day is not today, apparently.

At home tonight, after a sleepy/lazy/industrious day, then a shopping trip then a jaunt over to Todd’s for Chinese food and backlogged Tivo. He watches shows that I only think are funny if I watch them with him. Like Reality Bites, which is just retarded and offensive, but when I watch it at his house is kinda funny. And Tim & Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job! same thing. I brought magazines to read so as not to distract him from his mission of Tivo-clearing, and caught up on some 3D World.

My Mom kept asking me what I wanted for my birthday and I kept saying “nothing” because there’s honestly nothing (that I would ask my Mom to buy me) that I can think of that I need. If there’s anything I want that’s low-to-medium priced I buy it myself, and I am at the age where it’s no longer OK-feeling to ask my parents to buy expensive things for me. So she ended up taking my word for it and giving me cash. I decided to spend it, and went self-birthday shopping for me.

I went to the Galleria which has instituted a policy of no under-18’s alone after 3 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. That was in response to some violence at the mall involving youth, and it’s been in effect for several months. Maybe a year even? Anyway, whether in response to the ban or the good weather or the fact that people now think the mall is violent, it was dead there. And even though it was dead it felt run-down and dirty. Like a big, sloppy crowd had just cleared out five minutes before. Lots of closed stores with no “coming soon” signs on the boarded-up storefronts. Things like the Kenneth Cole store and the BreadCo closed down. Who ever heard of a BreadCo closing? I grabbed some coffee at Starbucks and it was grimy there, like no one had wiped the counters down all day. Gross.

I went first to Sephora to get a new bottle of Euphoria, and they were doing a decent business. Decent enough that no one asked me if I needed any help, even though I was in there for a good 10-15 minutes looking around with a bemused expression on my face. Deciding that they must not carry Calvin Klein fragrances anymore, and that I was damned if I was paying $22 for a tube of Stila lipgloss, I headed into the Apple store. (That shitbag place is always hopping. I swear that if I had to work in there I would kill myself and others within an hour.) Anyway, I wanted one of those iTrip things like I borrowed from Todd for my Savannah trip. But if you can imagine, no one asked me if I needed any help, and I couldn’t find it on my own. I found one that was similar, but the price tag was torn off, and there was no one to ask about the cost. It wasn’t the same model anyway and I wanted to get the same one because it had worked so well. So I fought my way back out through the crowd and left.

OK, 0 for 2. I am beginning to form a theory of inverse helpfulocity, in which shop workers only ask people who are clearly browsing if they need help, because people who look like they need help may want… help. And that’s work. It’s much easier to swan around bothering people who are just looking. This is based on my own personal experience of being bothered by many, many shop people when I want to be left alone, and never finding anyone to help me when I want to ask questions and buy something. I headed to Aveda to see if they’ve come to their senses and brought back Deep Penetrating Hair Revitalizer. (They have not. I hate them.) If you can bring yourself to feel astonishment one more time, no one asked if they could help me as I searched fruitlessly for anything that might be a decent replacement. (Seriously. I got home last night and my hair looked like it belonged on a deranged maiden-aunt who’d escaped from a period romance via the tropical rain forest.)

Not quite so much gray, but seriously it was huge and scary-frizzy.

They have some new moisture line and I have to commend myself for not just buying it, but testing the conditioner on one wrist and the masque on the other. A few hours later when I was at Todd’s and scratching at both welt-covered wrists I knew I had saved myself a trip back to return the stuff. Anyway, I bought some Anti-Humectant pomade, as if anything could fight my hair’s attraction to humidity or vice-versa.

After Aveda I went down to Macy’s, where a girl actually asked if she could help me! I asked her if they had any Euphoria gift sets, and she pointed out to the ones which were cleverly hidden right where I was standing. Genius strikes again, in the form of my enhanced powers of perception!

So here’s where it gets funny. She walks away and I peruse the prices and the gift sets on offer. Small bottle (1.7 oz) of perfume = $58. Large bottle (3.4 oz) = $75. So I am getting the larger one. You know, value. So I look at the gift sets and realize they aren’t really all that gift-setty. They’re a silver bag that you could reuse for storage with a silver fabric headband wrapped around it, which you could use if you take up being a ballerina. But the price for the bag that contains the 3.4 oz bottle of perfume is $70. I look at the bag which contains the small bottle, and it’s $50. So basically I can save anywhere from $5 to $8 by buying the same size perfume and taking a free bag and headband. Sweet. I go to purchase it and the girl who’s checking me out doesn’t scan the bag, which has a regular price and bar code on the bottom. She opens the bag, takes out the perfume box and scans that. Which rings up $75. I point out to her that the bag says that it’s $70 not $75, and she talks to the lady at the next register, defaming some not-present “she” who “switched out all these gifts yesterday” and “must have not changed the prices” (sic). She then turns to me and says “This has gone up since yesterday.” Expecting that to make sense to me, when I know darn well that the price of the perfume itself is fixed, and if anything the price of the set was incorrect, not magically raising and lowering like a deli special.

Now, if there had only been one set like that I might have gone along with her unlogic, because I don’t want to seem as if I am scamming the store. But there were 3-4 sets just like that, with various sizes being sold at lower than face value because they were in this price-transforming silver bag. So I just raised my eyebrows and looked at her. (Eyebrow-lifting is the first step you take in your transmogrification from regular person to Angry Customer Lady.) Her companion at the other register said “Just give it to her.” (Note: Thanks Macy’s! I love for you to mislabel your shite and then make me feel like a scam artist!) So anyway, that was a bargain. I guess. Todd thought the headband was cute, though he didn’t want it for himself as far as I could tell.

I tried to look at shoes, but their whole shoe department looked like a bomb went off, and even the displays of regular-priced shoes were fudged up. The whole wall that had Born written on it was stocked with nothing but Easy Spirit shoes, and no matter how farked my feet get I will not wear Easy Spirit shoes. I was vaguely embarrassed to be inadvertently looking at them. So I just left. Wow, looking back at my total experience, that whole mall was a real shithole tonight.

I don’t know. All of St. Louis seemed totally dead. There was no one on the roads, no one at Borders when I stopped in there, no one on the highway. I don’t know if people were holed up in their houses or all out of town for one last hurrah before school starts on Monday, but it was dead as a doornail.

And that concludes all of Susan’s Wild and Soapy Showertime Shopping Adventures for this Saturday!

Oh, and one more side note regarding the bar on Friday night: Just because I am at the bar with my friends at/after last call doesn’t mean I am looking to be picked up by your drunken skank ass. I happen to like to stay out late when I choose to go out, and closing down the bar doesn’t mean I care to be treated as if I am easy-pickings, or the last-resort chick. I am planning to go home to bed, alone, and your drunken last-minute ramblings when you realize you’re inadvertently planning the same are not impressive. That’s all.

she says
any two points can make a line
but i know i can never make you mine
i can never make you mine

Deb Talan - Two Points

Sometimes I go back and see what I was doing a year ago, because that’s one of the reasons I keep a damn blog in the first place. And 08/05/07’s post was way funner than anything I have to say at the moment.

Don’t know if I’ve gotten more boring or just more jaded. Actually, I didn’t think more jaded was possible. Maybe that’s the lesson from last year to this year  - It’s always possible to become more jaded, bitter and cynical than you are right now! Can’t wait to see how that plays out for next year. I think I may just take up carrying an Uzi full time by then, and casually shooting anyone who uses ironic quotation marks incorrectly.

I know, I know, I always get more introspective this time of year. Yeah, I know, you didn’t know it was possible for me to actually ramp up the level of introspection periodically, but it is.

Right now, for the record, what I feel is kind of sorry for myself. Kind of like I wasted this year. Kind of sorry for other people I know, who seem sad and unable to grow. Kind of bored of all this, and really not understanding the point. Kind of lonely. Kind of wishing things were vastly different. Kind of lucky they’re at least as good as they are. Kind of frustrated that I can’t be a different sort of person.

I had determined that this year was going to be a year of Big Change. And I did do lots of different things. And lots of things happened to me that I wouldn’t have chosen. So things did change. But I still feel the same.

One thing hasn’t changed from last year to this though - I still think all sports are a retarded waste of life, and will gladly not-watch sports with any of you, anytime.

Time makes you sorry for the things that you’ve done
Sometimes you walk away and sometimes you run
And the weather’s fine here; I can feel a slight chill
Some things change babe, and some never will

So I call you up just to tell you why
Why I left you and say goodbye
Ooh must be the mood I’m in
I’m thinking of you again
I call you up just to tell you why
Why I left you and say goodbye

Eva Cassidy - Say Goodbye

So last night I was planning on taking it easy, chilling at home and minding my business. I really did not treat myself well last week, got next to no sleep and was exhausted. Plus, my retard boss was out on Thu-Fri but someone let him have access to a computer at some point and he emailed me some bullshit late Friday afternoon that almost made the top of my head pop off in sheer anger. I have been trying to enhance my calm with all things involving that fuckwit, but for some reason I couldn’t do that on Friday afternoon, I think because I was really exhausted and cranky. So I came home, took a two-hour nap and prepared to just watch some TV and hang out with the doggies. Then I let said doggies outside. They let loose with such a caterwauling that I had to go see what the problem was. Normally this just entails opening the door and calling them back in, or telling them to shut it already, but they were going NUTS, and then I heard another big-sounding dog bark so I had to get my shoes on and go out there.

So I am just woken up, cranky, tired, headachey, sweaty and just generally aggravated. I get out to the fence and shut the dogs up, and my neighbor pops his head over the top of it. I say “hey” to him, apologize for the dogs being obnoxious and then find out it was his big, sweet dog who was barking at them. So I ask how he’s doing, trying to be neighborly, and he tells me that his wife has driven to Kansas to see relatives in some old car he bought for $20. I nod - they’ve always got a story like that, he buys all his cars for $20, or trades a pile of bricks for one, or finds one at a junkyard he just has to have and then he tinkers with them until they run somewhat. They’re that kind of people. So I am expecting some story about how the car broke down on her. No such luck.

He tells me that his wife is doing all this stuff, she’s out of town for the next few days. This is when my alarm bells start ringing, due to my past interactions with this guy. He then looks around furtively, licks his lips and says “Hey, you want to sleep with me this weekend? [My wife] allows me dalliances.” And when he says “dalliances” he makes a scrabbling little gesture with his right hand, halfway between drumming one’s fingers on a table top and rotating some of those Chinese exercise balls. Perhaps this was meant to illustrate the nature of the dalliance I could expect were I to take him up on his proposition.

I gape for a moment and then let out with a peal of laughter, because I know he’s serious but I don’t want to act like I am taking this seriously. I want him to take the hint and laugh it off like it’s a joke. So I just laugh a little and say something about him having all that free time and no one to do, ha ha, so funny. And he says more insistently “No, I am serious, do you want to?”

So I have to answer, and I say very seriously and slowly while shaking my head back and forth: “No, I am all booked up this weekend.” He nods sagely. “I thought you might be.”

Now I kinda wish I’d gone for the 8ft fence instead of the 6…

Now, if it had ended there it would have been bizarre and creepy and gross enough. But you know me, it didn’t end there, it had to get insulting on top of that. You’d think that Mr. Smooth would quit while he was totally behind, and I really don’t know if this next part was attributable to his utter cluelessness or some kind of passive aggressive jab at me for daring to refuse him.

“Well, I thought you might be.” he said “And I think I am going to see if I can find a skinny girl to fuck anyway. It’s been a while since I have been with a skinny girl, and you’re really just more of the same of what I’ve got at home.”

:-|

OK then. So I point out to him that there are some really skinny crackwhores in the apt behind us, but he’d have to pay for that. And then his friend who was in the garage tinkering around on the car called him and he said he had to go. So that’s me then, hoping for a peaceful Friday night, but ending up hot, tired, cranky, now bitten by bugs, rudely propositioned, insulted and disturbed. Just a typical day in the life.

So I went in and considered this for a moment. Not considered the proposition, but considered how fucking irritating it was and why. That guy has been making comments to me for more than a year that led me to believe he thought he might get a piece, despite my NEVER, EVER being in the least flirty and pretty much only ever talking to the guy when I am in some yoga pants and a t-shirt covered in sweat, OFF! and garden dirt.

I wasn’t totally startled for him to say something like that, just more startled by the bluntness of it. And irritated by him thinking that I would just be up for fucking whoever made an offer, and irritated by his assholishness in basically calling me an unfuckable fat chick (that he nevertheless wanted to fuck) and irritated by the fact that despite how irritated I was, I had to smile pretty and pretend it was all HILARIOUS and good fun. As my next-door neighbor there are a million ways in which he could make my life miserable if he wanted to, so maintaining the peace is important. But I wanted to hit him in the face with a rake.

There are too many situations like that in my life right now, where I have to pretend that things are fine when they’re not, that people aren’t being assholes when they are. Too many ways in which I have to keep the peace, be the bigger person, act like a rational adult when I want to punch people.

That’s one of the reasons that the Urf! cartoon about the offline box forums delighted me so much, because I think that the chance to holler whatever I am thinking to people who are in the same room pissing me off would be totally intoxicating. I feel as if I am surrounded by a thousand anti-social retards at all times, and I am the only one who considers what they say before they say it. And if I don’t have a chance to say true things to someone, sometime, then I am going to absolutely implode.

Update 08/03/08: 7:30 a.m. Get up and let dogs out. In my bathrobe, as one is at 7:30. Neighbor calls at 7:34 a.m. & leaves message that he has a package for me. Swear. What makes this worse than anything? The only package I am expecting is from Toys in Babeland.

Maybe I am not helping the environment any, but rarely does someone with a Rambo knife pop up behind my seat and decapitate me.

Man decapitates passenger aboard Greyhound bus in Manitoba: witness
“When we came back on the bus, it was visible at the end of the bus he was cutting the guy’s head off and pretty much gutting him up,” said Caton.

The attacker ran at them, Caton said, and they ran out of the bus, holding the door shut as he tried to slash at the trio.

When the attacker tried to drive the bus away, the driver disabled the vehicle, Caton said.

“While we were watching the door, he calmly walks up to the front with the head in his hand and the knife and just calmly stares at us and drops the head right in front of us,” said Caton

Only way to stay safe is to minimize/cut out most contact with strangers and crowds and enclosed spaces. Seriously. Not that people you know are necessarily safer, but at least you may have some idea when they’re going to blow and know where they keep their weapons.

The fuck.

Why I do not now, nor will I ever, ride the Metrolink. At least if I am in my car I can run your thieving, assaulting ass over, motherfucker.

STLtoday - MetroLink riders attacked minutes apart at 2 stations

ST. LOUIS — Police are investigating two violent attacks on MetroLink riders that occurred within minutes of each other late Saturday night at the Delmar and Forest Park stations.

St. Louis police arrested two teens after one of the attacks, officials said. At least three of the victims were taken to area hospitals.

I hate that my Mom and brother ride the Metrolink to the ball games. I think that whole system is a filthy, gang-and-thug-infested attack waiting to happen. When you have a group of 10 violent thugs who have no qualms in attacking *groups* of people, you have a serious problem with your security presence.

And no, I have nothing against public transport, I used it pretty much exclusively when I lived in Europe. But public transport with free and unregulated on/off access which goes to and from some of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the country… that’s just a retardedly bad idea. Especially in a city with the murder rate St. Louis has.

Maybe it’s because Metrolink stations look too much like front porches, people think that the riders are asking for it.

This anti-fan letter was so wonderfully constructed that I had to comment on it. That second line is pure poetry. Plus my favorite in letters, Totally ranDom Capitalization. It’s almost as if the capitalization carries its own hidden message, too. Lowercase “neil” and “gaiman” but uppercase “Batman” and “Writing” and of course “Fuck You.” Overall a pretty awesome letter.

Neil Gaiman’s Journal
I hope this reaches neil himself. Never have i ever known of anyone as full of himself as well as shit, than you. Now another milestone in your over-hyped career, Writing Batman. Not only are you under the impression you can write, but write batman? Fuck You. You Tried before and it sucked. It was just gaiman… With Batman in it. Fuck You.

If I’d known that Secret Origins of Batman Villains #1 had made that much of an impression on people, I would have… actually, probably not done anything different, really. I was rather fond of it.

If you think you won’t like the Batman comic I’ll write, probably you’d be best off not reading it. It’ll just be a two part Batman comic, you can save your money. Although if you’d bother to write me a letter like that you might buy it just to prove to yourself that you hate it as much as you know you’re going to…

I can’t imagine having to deal with the public regarding things I’ve written and/or otherwise created. Am far to sensitive and don’t know if I could carry the weight of the skin I’d have to develop.

While on a standard type of clothes-hunt at the Galleria today, I spied two rare lifeforms wandering the marble floors. Observe:

To the left of the image you have a rather sad figure, the lone frat-boy.

Observed more regularly in bands of three or more (and in their native south-eastern Missouri habitat) this individual frat boy looked rather nervous and ill-at-ease without his standard protective pack formation.

His posture and body language (clenched fists not visible in this image) indicate his discomfiture at this solo excursion. Though his plumage boastfully indicates that (in their native territory) his pack is “kind of a big deal” I think we can all agree this is not the case at the time the photo was taken and the contrast between his evoked status and actual status make us a little sad.

In front and to the right of the lone frat boy, we have an even more rare phenom the Midwestern Guido!

I was excited to spot these three youngsters together, and wish that the faux-hawk sported by the left-most Guido was more visiible. They are still in a formative stage, as the collar on the middle Guido remains mercifully un-popped, and full-on tanorexia has yet to set in. But the copious amounts of hair gel, the gold chains and those douchey plaid shorts (guy on the extreme right is clearly lower-status, as he is wearing rayon manpris, meaning that either he cannot afford douche-plaid or was not contacted prior to the excursion to inform him that douche-plaid was de rigueur.) show that these fledglings are well on their way to becoming full-Guido.

We don’t see a lot of this in the St. Louis area, so I was excited to get them on camera, with the lone frat-boy as pure bonus!

Yesterday at the Moolah I had to do the “people you used to know” dodge, when I saw an old acquaintance of mine leaving the showing immediately prior to the one I was attending. This was someone with whom I had shared some mutual friends, hung out, chatted, had over to my home - but not someone who I would think to call if I was sleepless and crying in the middle of the night. (my personal Official Friendship demarcator) Anyway, after a while the friend/acquaintanceship waned, as they are wont to do, and then it gets to the part where it’s all awkward. Like… how do you tell someone you’re through being friends with them, when they’re not through being friends with you? And even worse, when you run into them there’s a social expectation that you’ll act very surprised and happy to see them, as if your failing to return their phone calls & emails for the last two years has been The Merest Accident and Something You Were Planning to Get to One of These Days. And then you have to pretend to care what they’re up to, and pretend to want to tell them what YOU’RE up to, and then you have to pretend you’re terribly late for Some Important Something and you MUST DASH but will CALL SOON and have lunch or coffee or some-such. Because your ignoring them was just an oversight. Really. Rilly.

Whatever. That’s all WAY too much pretending for me. I know it’s awkward when you don’t want to be friends with someone anymore, but I think after a certain amount of time you should be legally allowed to not acknowledge that person if you see them out and about. Can’t you revert back to being strangers after some socially-proscribed period?

Interestingly enough, this phenomenon never happens to MyTodd™ who is (or at least seems) always pleased as punch to run into anyone he’s ever known ever, and perfectly happy and comfortable catching up on the last 27 years of history with them as if it’s not all a boring waste of time because if you have your way you won’t ever speak to this person voluntarily again. This is one of the primary ways in which Todd is a better type of person than me, and also why he can keep up a vast, global social circle, the maintenance of which would drive me stark raving batshit. Todd is also my closest friend because he’s the kind of guy who sends me a text message to warn me if someone he knows I don’t want to see is at a place he knows I am going. See, I am nothing like him, socially, but he makes allowances for my eccentricities. Zees ees whai we loooove him zo!

Although… he does sometimes torture me with threats that he’s going to call a bunch of people he knows I don’t want to run into, and have them all “accidentally” meet us somewhere. And I’ve got tiers of people like that in my life, so it would be torturous. People I haven’t voluntarily spoken to in 9 years… 4 years… 2 years… 6 months… given my propensity for adding and dropping casual acquaintances it’s got potential to be a seven-layer dip of delicious awkwardness. We have also debated starting a support group/blog “superBadGirlRefusesToSpeakToMe.com” where they could spend time comparing notes and strategizing my downfall and leave off calling/emailing me.

Look I never said I was nice, or even 100% human. I know I have my (severe) interpersonal interaction limitations. But honestly, I would rather ignore you in good faith than fake wanting to interact with you. And of course I am not talking about YOU anyway. YOU I could never, ever do without and will have in my life always. Really. Rilly. Call me!

*Whenever I want to end a title of my blog with a preposition I always think of the joke that ends “Where y’all from, bitch?” I know that the way I have it written reads convolutedly, but I can’t just leave that “with” dangling at the end of the sentence.

I had to smallinate this for posting here, so click on it to go there where it’s from.

I want a box.

OH! The things I would holler.

What an aggravating day I’ve had. Of course over silly, petty inconsequential things—that’s a given. But aggravating nonetheless.

Got up this morning feeling achey and useless from all the yard work I ended up doing yesterday afternoon. Stumbled around for an hour or two, then decided to go run errands. I needed to get some frames for the (v. cool) Todd Klein prints I bought a few weeks ago, and needed a new cord to make my stereo’s turntable hook up to my computer, since the $20 one from ebay only makes loud hummy noises when I plug it in.

First I went to Michael’s craft store at 55 & Lindbergh. I hate fucking Michael’s craft fucking stores. Every branch I go into is populated with slack-jawed moronic scrapbookers, and everyone who works there is possessed of the most ridiculously unjustified asshole attitude. I mean, it’s not even a COOL store, but the women there are always unholy bitches. Their management must really suck to make every person who works there act such an unremitting c*nt. Anyway, I get there and I need to buy frames for two 11×17″ prints. I planned to get two 16×20″ frames and mats cut to 11×17″. Simple, right? No such fucking luck, of course, since it’s ME we’re talking about. Turns out that 16×20 frames come with 11×14 mats, not 11×17. No worries, I will buy an unmatted frame and a mat separately to fit. Right? Find out after the jump. Continue reading »