Random crap of the day

• There are two inches of hard-packed ice in my parking pad, and last night I almost fell and cracked my head right open. Ice melt isn’t helping and it seems like the sun never reaches that area.
• I am listening to too much industrial music right now, and I don’t know if that’s feeding my anxiety, or my anxiety is fueling my need to hear it.
• I got my doctor to switch up one of my medications for an extended release version, which may in fact make me feel slightly less sick. Fingers crossed because if this doesn’t work I am going to stop taking any of this shit, and damn the consequences.
• My soul is deeply dissatisfied, and needs some stimulation. Usually this results in my doing something really, really bad for me in order to have something to worry about. Should be fun – stay tuned for the upcoming breakdown, and feel free to tell me later that I have no one to blame but myself.
• I am really over slutty stupid t-shirt graphics. If you want to be a big attention-seeking whore then fine, but the unfunny t-shirt on top of that is just annoying.
• I am enchanted with writers like Neil Gaiman who choose to share so much of their lives and processes with us. What a wonderful way to be in the world. What unimaginable access the internet gives us. How exciting technology can be.
• Right now I am also loving Paulo Coelho’s blog.

His current question regarding “Saving the Planet” speaks to the way I feel about the terms in which our approach to conservation is couched. We talk about “saving the planet” as if the planet is a thing we control. Something we could possibly destroy. Our hubris is astonishing. By destroying our habitat and the environment we’re destroying many life forms, and possibly ourselves – but this planet will be here long, long after we’re gone.

If you think of the Earth as an experimental closed system, and take the part of an outside observer, what do you see? What one factor in this system throws all the other factors out of balance, and creates non-sustainability and chaos? What uses more than it gives back? What part of the system causes the other parts to fail? That’s right kids, it’s us. No other species or life form in this system is so out of balance with its surrounding environment. Everything else finds ways to adapt, live in harmony with its surroundings. Not us. We’re a uniquely destructive force, bending the world’s limited resources to their breaking point, destroying that which sustains us and ultimately marking ourselves for extinction. It’s unfortunate that we’re taking so many other things with us on our flaming death spiral, but in the end I can’t say that the extinction of humans is a bad thing. Think how the planet could restore itself to balance without us fucking everything up.

We are the cockroaches of the universe; devouring, infecting, using our giant hive minds to adapt the world to our needs rather than adapt ourselves to the world. For now we’re entrenched and as long as we’re here we’re going to keep destroying everything we touch.

As an observer seeking order and trying to maintain some kind of workable system, guess what dysfunctional life form I would pluck from this equation? You got it.

If there were a god, he’d totally disappear us. The fact that we are suffered to exist is enough proof to me that no one’s in charge. So no, we’re not going to save the world. We may save ourselves, but I doubt it. Since saving ourselves is a net negative for the planet, I am not even sure that it should be encouraged.

Anyway, that’s not meant to be depressing, that’s just how I see it.

Everything that I said I’d do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on

- The Weepies “World Spins Madly On”

Find Some F*cking Balance, Already

One of these nights I am going to rediscover the midpoint between a) soberly loathing everyone I see and b) falling-down drunkenly not minding them as much. But that night was definitely not last night.

Progression of the night was something like this*:

1. “WTF do you mean there’s no parking? Fuck this whole street full of people.”
2. “Oh gross, Backstreet is here and is the first person I see. Bleh.”
3. “Yay! Matt and Todd!”
4. “OK this end of the bar is fine, I like these people. Can I get a drink over here?”
5. “Yay! Dave!”
6. “Yay! Jessica!”
7. “Oh! Mix CD from Jessica, sweet.”
8. “WTF do you mean the men’s bathroom is broken? Great. Love to share the ladies’ bathroom with the guys. As if the bathroom situation here wasn’t fucked up enough already. Umm, no Dave, we’re not going to pee together holding hands across the table. No, not even if I have three more drinks.”
9. “Why are there so many people standing behind me? Stop standing behind me you horrible standy motherfuckers. Go away. Preferably somewhere dead.”
10. “Who’s Todd talking to? Oh, for fuck’s sake. Not THAT GUY. Yeah, I still recognize and hate you with your beard shaved off, dickweasel. And your boyfriend, by association. Ugh. And HER too? And I even have to pretend to like her. Do I have to talk to her? I am going to pretend to be invisible. Fuck this noise.”
11. “Give me another drink please? Also I think a tranquilizer might be in order right about now, to take the edge off of how much I hate you all.”
12. Drink, drink, talk, drink. Hate on people.
13. “OK, whatever, these people suck some serious ass, but I don’t even care all that much. Hey, can I get another drink over here?”
14. “Yay! Molly!”
15. “Wait, where did Todd go?”
16. Txt to Todd: WTF I hate everyone where are you?
17. Txt from Todd: I am nine feet away, calm yourself. Don’t hate.
18. “OK, Todd’s within an acceptable range, although not visible. Can I have another drink please?”
19. Drink, drink, talk, drink. Hate on people, add people to list, talk, drink, talk. Begin greeting people I loathe with hugs and kisses.
20. “Oh, these are all my favorite people! What wonderful people I know! How wonderful life is! Srsly!”
21. “I am not sure if I can drink all of this drink, I feel a little oddball right about now.”
22. Sip drink, talk, talk, glance askance at drink, avoid drink, talk more.
23. “Oh, people are the best and most fun! What interesting conversation! How witty we all are! Life is so delightful!”
24. “Wait, I feel seriously strange right about now. Can I have some water or something?”
25. Txt to Todd: Srsly WTF? Where are you now?
26. Txt frm Todd: W/E! I am coming back!
27. Todd comes back!
28. “Todd! Hello Todd, only person I love in the whole world!”
29. “Todd I feel like maybe I need to go stand outside for a minute.”
30. “Todd, it’s really fucking cold out here, I feel like we need to go back in.”
31. “Four. Cheez-its. No, no dinner. Did I skip a step? I don’t want to be here anymore.”
32. Sit, talk, chat, talk, drink water. People come and go.
33. “Yay! Hotpants!”
34. I don’t feel well at all. At least I don’t have hiccups.
35. “Todd, I really wish I was at home in bed right this minute.”
36. “Mangia? Are you fucking kidding my shit? No. Home, bed, please.”
37. Home.

So I am going to chalk last night up as mostly FAIL. I had fun, but then felt so bad at the end that I couldn’t even enjoy the fun I was having. I don’t know what happened to the perfect therapeutic drinking level balance that I was rocking for the last 6 months, because that was really working for me. I think that the worse my work-week is, the more I think drinking is going to fix it on Friday, which is (duh) obviously not the case. And I resent trying to have fun and then being forced to talk to people I don’t like, because I can’t talk about anything real with people I don’t like standing right there. They always try to jump in with their opinions, and I want to punch them in the face for their presumption. My brain has learned that drinking=not minding people as much, so then I drink more faster because I really want to not hate everyone.

But next time I’m going to just count on my hatred of everyone slowly dissipating through the night as I relax, rather than wanting it to be immediately gone and pounding down drinks until that happens. That process = a world of bad stomach feelings, pronounced dizziness and sometimes hiccups.

Also I have a really strong feeling that someone gave me a Girls Gone Wild DVD last night and I left it at the bar. However I also have an equally strong feel that was a dream, because I can’t imagine who would do that or why.

Also, when I talk about hating everyone, I don’t mean YOU. I mean, you’re one of my favorite people! Of course I don’t mean you! It’s the others. The others I loathe, precious.

*texts are paraphrased because I don’t feel like going to find my phone and figure out what they really said. That’s what I remember of them. Also some details have been glossed over and/or omitted so as to protect the dignity of your friendly neighborhood superBadGirl.

My New Place

As I tweeted, I’ve totally decided that once I come into some money I am opening up a new place in StL. It’s going to be a combination deli and 3 a.m.- license bar, and I am going to call it “The Last Resort Meat Market.” It’s going embody all of the very worst elements you usually find at the last bar to close, leaving defenseless, drunken women surrounded by all the totally random horny guys who just realized they don’t have anyone to fuck tonight. The lights will always be up, the drinks will be both weak and expensive, and it’s going to smell permanently of sweat and bad cologne, with a hint of barf for a piquantly stimulating upnote.

Also it will sell meat in cases.

I understand that @narcise is going to be a roller-skate waitress there, and she will be sorely needed to keep some fuckwits in their places.

@todderickv is going to be the bouncer, but will be totally ineffective since he will let absolutely anyone in as long as they’re not taller than him.

On opening night we’re going to have a special show promoted by @gatewaygroupie – Pollyanna Blowjob is going to be opening for Jake Speaks L337, with special guests, Shitting Liquid.

That’s as far as my plans have gotten, but I am really warming to the idea. I think I would make an excellent proprietress for this type of establishment, as a severe, disapproving frown is already my default expression.

Once I come into some money, people. Just you wait. Let me know if you think there’s a role for you to play at The Last Chance Meat Market.

Protected: Things that are confusing

Cary Tennis is talking to me. Again.

In response to a letter-writer who complains that he’s losing it in public in response to relatively minor, everyday annoyances, Cary writes the following:

I do not see how anyone with a critical intelligence could go through one day on this planet without being appalled and outraged at the world’s failures to live up to our expectations — and to its own potential! But the world ignores our memos pointing out its manifest sluggishness to correct deficiencies, its shortsightedness in planning freeway exits, its seeming indifference to quality control and continuous improvement, and the lack of proper signage in public transit stations. The world stares back at us like a sullen teen, reveling in its own incompetence.

and after some other commentary that I found annoying because it’s true about how we have to suck it up and deal with incompetence and inconvenience without losing our shit because that’s what grownups do, and fit-throwing belongs purely in the realm of the childish and mentally unstable, he continues:

Such is life. You encounter resistance and setbacks and howlingly insane incompetence and covert resentment from service personnel and all manner of cultural revenge and subterfuge and psychological sabotage and you have to take the hits and pick yourself up and keep moving toward that hill. You have to recover and keep going, with a smile. It’s never going to stop. It’s not going to get any easier. We have to surrender, shake it off, remember what we’re here for, and get the job done.

via I’m losing it in public, a Since You Asked column by Cary Tennis | Salon Life.

And my whole question is: What job that we have to get done is worth all this noise and bullshit? What of any import could any of us possibly have to do which could make up for all this crap? I don’t think there’s anything worth it. I am all for smiling and putting on a brave face when there’s a monumental task to be accomplished, and sucking it up and soldiering on in service to some great cause. But what about when it’s not in service of anything? What about when it’s just plain old regular boring life? And the only reward to “soldiering on” is getting to go the grocery store to buy food we don’t want to prepare or eat?

What if the only reward for our patient navigation of the highways and the car-repair place and the gas company’s shenanigans and our neighbor’s insanity is… getting to take a hot shower and then go to work? What then? What happens when the “reward” is in no way worth the effort? What happens when you realize the return on the investment you’re making in your life is just about the same as the net value of your home now that the housing market has tanked?

There’s sucking it up and soldiering on for a cause – which I understand. But what if there’s no cause? Then what do you do?

I remember talking to my therapist once about something my boyfriend at the time was torturing me with. Something he expected of me that I didn’t feel like doing. Going out to some work dinner, or something involving being around people, if I recall correctly. I was angry, and overwhelmed and I didn’t want to do it and I didn’t want him to guilt me into having to do it.

I said something to the effect of “…and I just can’t do it, not on top of everything else!” to which she replied “On top of what else?”

That took me by surprise. I mean obviously there’s a giant “everything else” involved in my negotiations with the world that she should have understood about. So I thought about what “everything else” meant. And then I told her “On top of being awake and alive.”

It was one of those crystallizing moments that make therapy so worthwhile, when some truth you didn’t know was so self-evident steps blinking into the clear, clean light of day. For some of us, the strain of being awake and alive and navigating the world is already so overwhelming that any additional unexpected event is just too much. Some of us wake up at the end of our ropes.

So yeah, maybe losing your shit in public is childish and unhelpful and damaging to children and a bad way to be. And maybe we should all just shut up and soldier on and remember the mission or whatever the fuck. But for some of us, there’s no mission. And for some of us, leaving the house this morning was already sucking it up and soldiering on. So I while I endeavor to lose my shit as infrequently as possible, and usually confine my shit-losing to private forums, I am just not going to be that hard on myself when I do lose it.  My grasp on it was already fucking tenuous.

Whatever it is, it’s impending

One of the main reasons I have a blog is so I can keep track of all those things that seem so intensely important on any given day, but then rapidly slip away into the cavernous past, never to be thought of again. Because those things are shaping me, in ways I don’t realize and won’t remember.

I know that the things that happen to me, combined with how I react to them, make me who I am, and that refusing to examine them imperils my (admittedly already anemic) growth as a person.

However looking at the past me – the one who doesn’t know what’s coming me – is sometimes sad and scary. This time last year I had doom barreling down on me like a freight train.  A world of hurt and misery and despair. And I was just bumbling along, miserably oblivious to it.

I know that we’re not allowed to know what’s going to happen because if we knew the future we’d probably all just give up and stay drunk 24/7.  But reading back on the musings of that person who couldn’t sense serious bad getting ready to happen—it makes me terrified of what else is coming my way that I can’t see. I have no idea what I am counting down to right now. What I will look back on later and think “Oh wow – that was only three days before… three weeks before… a month before…”

I don’t want anything else to happen. I don’t want tomorrow. I want to go sleep in the closet with a baseball bat and a book of spells and wallop anyone who comes near me.

Somewhere there’s sun
and you don’t need a reason.

- The Weepies, Little Bird

Antisocial Networking

People baffle me. Particularly the way that they use social media/networking, and how they conflate the various sections of their lives online. Don’t get it, can’t understand it, possibly never will. I suppose I can be considered as keeping kosher with my personality – the different areas of the life I lead (work, family, friends) must be kept from touching and mingling with the other parts, on pain of my feeling nauseated,vaguely sinful and ashamed.

I don’t want to go out for dinner and drinks with my colleagues. I don’t want to run into my employees while out at the bar. I don’t want my family to meet my friends, I don’t want my online friends to know my offline friends. No political and religious conversations with my coworkers. No family at work, no coworkers in my online social network – no crossover is what we aim for.

That’s why Facebook befuddles me so hard. All of you people using your real name and real picture and posting links and comments on each other’s walls whilst joyfully commingling the dairy and meat of your social circles… just eww!

For one thing, that content is never going to go away – so how can you possibly be yourself? The real me and the work me and the casual friend me and the good friend me aren’t the same me! I don’t talk about the same things and in the same way to any of those audiences.  And I really don’t want future employers (or my mother) finding my online crazy foulmouthed ramblings. And if you think Facebook’s privacy/security is actually secure – well you’re wrong. They’re in the business of monetizing your personal data. Hackers and employees’ lost laptops aside, that vast stash of raw data they’ve accumulated is going to be mined. Believe it.

Nonetheless, I am not immune to the pleasures of finding old HS friends online and laughing about how you always hated them, and how dumb their family photos are. I have old colleagues I’d like to stay in touch with, but not share my intimate life with. I am interested in a purely voyeuristic way in linking up with old college buddies to see what they’re doing now. So for that you have to use your real identity, so they can find you and spill all their crazy at your feet.

But I also want to interact authentically with my actual monkeysphere. And to do that I can’t be the “real” me, because all the old colleagues and HS idiots and college buddies are not privy to the real me. Eyeballs off.

So it’s a conundrum, sort of. Which I’ve solved this way:

If I’ve ever worked with or for you, or gone to school with you (HS or college)  – if you’re my sorority sister or someone I met at a seminar, you’re friended under my real name acct. and chances are you have no idea who superBadGirl is. (which means you’re not reading this, so fuck off anyway.)

If I’ve ever gotten drunk with you and/or sent you filthy text messages, if I met you online, if we talk/chat on a regular basis, if I’ve ever cried on your shoulder, or made you look at LOLcats, you’re connected to my superBadGirl account.

They’re both real, they’re just two halves of the whole real.  Of course, some of you poor saps know both halves of me, and I had to choose one for you. So if I had you connected under my real name and unfriended you today, it’s because I have you on my other account, and those two cannot commingle without me having to call a rabbi.

The rest of you, who mash everything up together into a big old squishy life-burrito and then happily munch it all down… just eww. It makes my brain itch just thinking about it! Don’t come crying to me when those pole-dancing photos of yours come up in your job interview 10 years from now.

Why it sucks, being only one person

Integration of my online/offline realities is challenging for me. I am used to a strict segregation between the two that offers me complete freedom to comment/opine/wax psychoanalytic about my life and the lives of those around me. But the more people I know offline who also know me online, the narrower my ability to dissect my real life becomes. That’s because A) there’s rather less I want to share about my thought-process with people I know online + offline, and B) because I’m ascairt of getting caught snarking on people I don’t know very well.

For instance, I would love to give you an amusing and true-to-life account of  last night’s MyTodd™ NYE party activities, but I can’t. Rest assured it was full of interpersonal drama of a most hilarious nature, but on the off chance the people I am talking about might come here and catch me being amused at their expense, I don’t quite dare. Well, except for a couple of people I don’t care about at all, and whom I suspect are too stupid to use a computer. Them I might rag on later.

Yeah, I am talking to you, male-model guy who’s going to inherit $1.4 million when his dad dies. I am most certainly talking to you. Making a girl with a gimp foot get up and hobble hastily away from you not once but TWICE— just to escape your monotonous masturbatory monologuing—is worthy of a full-on contemptuous write-up.

Anyway, I am not sure I like being only one person. It seems overly restrictive. And not in a fun way.

Balls to all this Christmas nonsense.

I am really having a hard time getting into this shit this year. I put the tree up. I put bells on the door. I have the Christmas doormat on the fucking floor. Fine. Why am I doing this shit again?

I think I am crabby because I don’t have anything that needs DOING for Christmas. I don’t have many people to buy for, since I don’t exchange gifts with my friends, there aren’t any little kids in my life, and I have no earthly idea what to buy for my family. There’s nothing that anyone in my family actually needs, and there’s nothing I can think of that they might want, either. It’s all just a bunch of polite smiles and “Oh you shouldn’t have!” as they set whatever it is aside, and then my Mom opens up whatever my brother got her and cries for half an hour because she’s so fucking touched by the fucking Jim Edmunds bobblehead or whatever the fuck it is that he got her. And you know, no matter how much thought I try to put into gifts for her, I can’t match the level of emotion she reaches with sports memorabilia. Although if my brother gave her a gold plated turd of his she’d set it on the mantle for all to admire, and shed a few tears over it.

She’s telling me lately about how emotionally fragile he is. Can you believe that? He’s made of 98% Teflon, and yet she’s worried about his mental state. That guy hasn’t expressed a humanoid emotion since 1984, and she’s crying to me on the phone about how worried she is about his feelings. Fuck me sideways.

But I digress from the whole gift thing. So I actually like to buy gifts, and wrap them, and give them. But I don’t have that many people that I give gifts to. My friends don’t exchange gifts, or cards even—and I refuse to be the weird awkward chick who gives out gifts to people who don’t in any way expect to exchange gifts with her. I bought stuff for my employees, and I will eventually find some waste of money bullcrap to give to my parents and brother, but that’s not really fun since they won’t care about it at all. And honestly, I resent buying things for people that I know they won’t give a shit about. It’s annoying. It’s irksome. But they buy themselves whatever they want, and need nothing. I mean, if wanted to get something for my Dad he would both appreciate and utilize I could buy him a few cases of beer, but then my Mom might retire to her bedroom weeping. And not my-brother-related tears of joy either.

Fuck it.

I am going to make a gingerbread house this weekend, and that will be fun. I will make that shit fun, because at least it’s semi-creative. I could bake cookies, but I don’t know what for. Don’t people have enough cookies this time of year?

Seriously, fuck this Christmas bullshit. I swear it’s designed to make people feel inadequate for not being happy with huge loving families and a batrillion drunken parties to go to. I kind of want to have a Festivus party, but I am sure my house is too small to hold any decent crowd. What am I going to tell people, go stand on the second floor and holler down if they want to air a grievance? Everybody stand in the kitchen and pogo? Well… actually that would be pretty funny.

And I love how I am convincing myself that if only it were warm out I’d have a huge party and use the deck and back yard to hold everyone, but once it’s warm I will convince myself that the yard doesn’t look nice enough.

I have never met anyone as determined to be miserable as me. I need recognition for this shit, people. A major award, a framed certificate, a faux-marble plaque. Something to set on the mantle to recognize my skill in profound emotional dissatisfaction.

That’s all. Balls to this Christmas shit.

Adventures in Dipshittery – Pt. 602

So tonight MyTodd™ and I grabbed a bite to eat at Onesto on Macklind, then ran some errands. (Sidenote: I love their URL, because it looks like the name of the place is One Stop Pizza, which I assume was unintentional.)

Afterward we took a run to Target to pick up the five things I forgot to get each and every other time I was out running errands this weekend, and some Liquid Plumber Foaming Pipe Snake for Todd, which I just like to repeat as often as I can. Liquid Plumber Foaming Pipe Snake. Why couldn’t I have been on the team of marketing gurus who thought up that kick ass product name? I would rest so hard on my laurels, they’d be permanently squished out of shape.

Anyway, when we were ready to leave we played Checkout Challenge, each attempting to find the quickest checkout line among many. Whoever gets the shorter one gets to make outraged, impatient faces at the loser. (I had already won the quest for Parking Primacy, so I was on a roll.) Todd not only kicked my ass really hard at Checkout Challenge, but suddenly there was a bizarre fiasco unfolding in front of me and I couldn’t escape to a better lane, because all my shit was already on the belt thing.  The guy in front of me was normal, but when he cleared off the cashier turned to a couple who was perched at the end of the lane with a large cart full of crap. Apparently there was some irregularity with their checking account, mainly caused by their not having sufficient money in it to pay for their purchases. They’d tried once before and now the cashier tried to ring them out again, making me wait while she did so. Todd was finishing up at this point, and I didn’t want to wither like a hothouse bloom under the scornful gaze he was sure to aim in my direction, so I was understandably impatient. The cashier futzed around with them for a while, but the check still wouldn’t clear.

I am trying, very hard, to find some non-theist charity in my heart to offer to these people whose poor financial planning made it impossible for them to purchase these goods they seemed to desire. However, charity for people who hold me up in line is always in short supply. People who hold me up when someone else is waiting on me, and is soon to begin lording his lane-picking skills over my own inferior ones… well, it’s nonexistent.  Once it became abundantly clear that the check was not going through, these grifters poor souls gave up and walked away, leaving their whole cart of goods sitting there, which I assume you will agree was an asshole maneuver. So, you know, glad I didn’t waste any charitable feelings.

The cashier started to move my things to the front of the line, then stopped and said she was just going to clear away all of the assholes’ goods before she rang me out. Fine, whatever, I busied myself with ignoring Todd’s solemn head waggles in my direction, and started doing my debit card thing. Which, by the way, I don’t care for Target’s new system, which goes like this:  Input PIN –> Do you want cash back Y/N? –> Do you want it all on this card? Y/N?

If you answer “Yes” to that last one, the machine automatically debits your card when the cashier totals the transaction, without letting you review the charge. I think that’s some kind of gimmicky thing to keep you from seeing right away that they’ve made pricing errors, but I am suspicious like that.

The cashier is now staring at the assholes’ abortive receipt and notices that – hey, their charge actually went through. They’ve paid for their shit after all. She starts looking around to see if they’re still in the vicinity. They’re not. She hits the light and calls the manager over. Todd’s lips are pursed into a state of practical non-existence, and he’s now mouthing questions and making irate hand gestures at me over the heads of the other shoppers. I shake my head back at him helplessly, trapped into this Twilight Zone of a never ending checkout lane. The manager comes over and then she and the cashier stare at the receipt, look for the long-gone couple, look at the receipt, look at the basket of goods, look at the receipt, look each other, etc. I am going to slap some bitches in about 12 seconds. Then the cashier looks at me and says “You didn’t put your debit card in there, did you?”

And the dawning realization that I have just paid for the assholes’ $350 basket of crap hits me. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask them, with a casual, “Are you fucking kidding me?” tone to my voice. But no, they are not fucking kidding me. I’ve just paid for $350 of asshole crap. (The worst kind of crap, really.) So then they assure me that they can void that right out (you betcha!) and proceed to do just that. They give me an extra-special voided out receipt to show they did it, then ring out my own pile of crap, which I pay for. By this time, it’s been 62 hours since Todd checked out, and he’s become permanently grafted onto the railing over by the escalator. All the way to the parking lot I had to hear about how I have no lane-picking skills, and how anyone could have seen that was a bad, slow, evil lane. I am not going to live this one down for awhile, especially considering that at least 1/3 of the dipshittery here was mine-all-mine. I shouldn’t have been so impatient and started my transaction while she was still clearing that other one. But I assumed that she knew what she was doing and was in fact clearing it, since she had already started handling my stuff. Target’s asshole non-clarification of the amount debit system is a piece of crap too, and exacerbated the whole mess, since I would have noticed that I wasn’t actually buying that much junk.

Anyway, I have yet to check my account to see if I have been correctly debit/credit/debited, because even if it’s all wrong there’s nothing I can do about it tonight. I can wait until tomorrow to holler at people, if that’s what will need doing.

I am sure there’s a lesson here somewhere, and I suspect it has something to do with doing all my shopping via internet, where there’s never anyone in line ahead of you.

and shut up about it already.

OK, seriously? For the last time? People at the social places I go? I am NOT SAD. I am NOT DEPRESSED. Stop asking me what’s wrong, there’s nothing wrong, my FACE JUST LOOKS LIKE THAT.

My neutral expression = frown/sad face. If I am thinking about something and not talking/drinking, I am going to be frowning. My mouth naturally turns down at the corners, it’s doing it right now. Consider it a birth defect, whatever. I also tend to like to lurk in dark corners, people watching. Unless you see the razor out, I am not planning to sit over there in the dark using my wrists for cutting boards.

Here is an actual sad face, for reference

I accept that you think I ought to be sad. But I’m actually not. Sometimes I just want to sit on my own and watch what’s happening, rather than participate. It’s called introversion, and i know it makes you uncomfortable. Get over it.

Introversion isn’t always the same as anti-socialism. Introverts are social in a different way. It’s not a wrong way, it’s just a different way.

And really, stop asking me why I am sad, because you’re making me paranoid.

In any case, even if there WERE something wrong with me, “Hey girl, you need to come play some darts with me and my strange group of shady looking friends you never met before, won’t that be fun?” Isn’t going to be the solution. I don’t even like darts.

In other news, I actually had a pretty good time last night, everyone was relatively nice and the whole place felt gezellig. I didn’t realize that everybody in the world had a birthday in December, but it seemed like everyone at the bar was celebrating their b-day last night. I was able to get there early enough to buy a round for the whole bar in celebration of my raise without bankrupting myself (although I skipped buying one for that pinball playing guy who was there in the corner because I can tell he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. So there. See how it’s done?) I was pleasant to all my secret nemeses, and ignored completely my non-secret nemesis, because I really wish he would fall into a vat of mixed petrochemicals, and I refuse to pretend otherwise.

Today = errand running with MyTodd™ and maybe the craft show at Mad Art? Then this crazy bacon party tonight, and I still don’t know what to bring.

I think I might just paint a big fucking joker smile across my face though, so people will stop asking me what’s wrong with me. They’ll be too scared.

The Most Kick-Ass Deer Ever

I wish this deer could have done this guy a little more damage.

Dear asshole, if you’re going to get off on killing things, make sure they’re actually dead, lest they try to seek revenge on your ass.

STLtoday – Wounded deer attacks hunter who shot him
Wounded deer attacks hunter who shot him
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12/01/2008

SEDALIA, Mo. — A Sedalia hunter bagged a big buck on the second day of firearms season, but the kill caused him a lot of pain.

Forty-nine-year-old Randy Goodman said he thought two well-placed shots with his .270-caliber rifle had killed the buck on Nov. 19. Goodman said the deer looked dead to him, but seconds later the nine-point, 240-pound animal came to life.

The buck rose up, knocked Goodman down and attacked him with his antlers in what the veteran hunter called “15 seconds of hell.” The deer ran a short distance and went down, and died after Goodman fired two more shots.

Soon Goodman started feeling dizzy and noticed his vest was soaked in blood.

So he reached his truck and drove to a hospital, where he received seven staples in his scalp and was treated for a slight concussion and bruises.

On second thought, I wish this would have been a zombie deer. Maybe it was, and that’s why it went for his scalp. Zombie deer eats your brains.

Random Thoughts for Mid-November & the Weekly L.I.E.

Yesterday was a good day. It was miserably cold (for November – which is the same weather that we’ll consider positively spring-like when it shows up again some time in March.) and we saw the first snow flurries of the season. But I didn’t have to go anywhere, so I cocooned here with the dogs, writing and napping and cleaning the kitchen and baking frozen pizza. I wrote more than 5,000 words, and they were pretty easy to write. On Friday I barely yanked 1,000 words out of my highly-recalcitrant brain, and each one hurt. Yesterday’s words practically jumped out onto the page. That’s a nice feeling.

This whole thing with taking all the Fridays in November off to use for extra writing time, it’s not working exactly as I thought it would, but it is really working. Instead of turning into some kind of writing machine on Fridays I’ve been using the day to decompress, run errands, get my mental house in order. And just not having to be in the cosmic shithole of stress and aggravation that is my job, that’s a benefit in and of itself. Then on Saturdays I can get some writing done, since I don’t have to use that day to decompress.

I’ve also been going out on Fridays, as usual, and that is adding to my mental well-being too. I had a moment this Friday where I looked around and realized I was surrounded by people I really liked. (Of course I’d had a few drinks, so even people I don’t like all that much were seeming more like people I at least sort of liked.) It was just such a cool feeling, hanging out with a bunch of friendly familiar faces, talking about things with people who either share your point of view or will argue vehemently against it and maybe change your mind. I caught a fleeting glimmer of why other people like to socialize. Because for just that moment the world felt like a warm, friendly place. For a few hours I lost that persistent feeling that life is perpetually gearing up to clock me in the face. I relaxed.

I wonder if the world feels like a friendly place to other people all of the time, or at least most of the time? And if it does, I wonder if they know how lucky they are?

I also made more of an effort to pay attention to what was going on around me, but it was really hard. When MyTodd™ and I went out on Monday there were four separate occasions in which he had to point out to me that someone was either trying to say hello, goodbye or converse with me. Which is why, as he explained, people sometimes think I am an asshole. (Which, yeah I am an asshole, but not the kind who purposely ignores you if you’re trying to talk to me. Seriously, I didn’t see you there.) And on Friday someone came up to me and waved at me for 15 seconds, directly six inches from my face before I figured out they were trying to get my attention. Anyway, we’re going to call that “extreme internal focus” and not “criminally absentminded cluelessness” because we’re trying to be nice to me, OK?

Of course it’s never me going out unless I end up having some type of Ludicrous Interpersonal Exchange with someone, and this week’s exchange actually came from a guy that I know, rather than a random weirdo stranger.  (Sorry weirdo stranger guy at the bar who was eyeballing me and seemed to be vying for this week’s most ludicrous exchange, my friends helpfully created a physical barrier between us for most of the evening, and I made sure that I was never alone so you couldn’t get weird with me.)

Anyway, when I walked in I was greeting everyone. That’s a standard social convention to which I subscribe. But of course there’s always that thing when you’re greeting a bunch of people where you know you’re in the friendship stage at which you hug some of them hello and then you end up hugging like two-thirds of the group, but then there’s a few people who you don’t know well enough to hug, and they’re standing there all unhugged-akimbo and it’s awkward. And you try to fuss with your purse or order a drink to cover up how you’re not hugging them, and then it’s all over and the awkwardness is done for another week. Or until it’s time to leave.

Well there was one guy there who I know well enough to have just started hugging hello the last few times I’ve seen him. So I had greeted everyone else and I was going to be sitting next to him, so I was all “Hello <<Name>>!” and I hugged him. And I may have done a little air-kiss thing next to his cheek, too. When we were done embracing he asked me “Are we ‘kiss on the cheek’ friends now?” Which to me is a step up from hugging friends, but I didn’t want to be an awkward asshole, so was like “Of course!” and he said something like “Are you sure?” and I said. “Sweetie, whatever you want! You want a little tongue in the ear action, you can have that too.”

OK so obvious disclaimer here, that was a joke.That wasn’t even a particularly flirty joke, it was kind of a ridiculous joke.

Then somehow as I am fussing with my purse and ordered a drink he segues into “OK it’s decided then, we’re going to kiss on the lips now!” Seriously! And then he kisses me on the lips! And I was all ‘WTF just happened right here?’ in my head, but trying to play it off like he hadn’t just swiped half my lip gloss. So I just laughed and wished a lot that I could sit somewhere else. Luckily right that second he got a call that he had to go pick someone up, and took off. OK, that was weird.

So later in the evening my friend Dave showed up. Now, Dave is a most excellent friend because he’s extremely even-tempered, and he finds pretty much everything ridiculous. So you can totally point out ridiculous things and people to him all night long, and he gets the humor of it, but he just accepts everything with a nice calm way of being. Todd says it’s because Dave’s already seen every freaky thing in the world and there’s nothing left for him to get excited over, but I think it’s also part of his nature. It’s hard to explain, but it’s the perfect foil for my own sense of the ridiculous + tendency to freak out a little. His calm enhances my calm, and I like it. So Dave ended up sitting next to me at some point in the evening, just when I saw this other guy show back up.

Knowing he’d appreciate the bizarre contractual aspect of those kissing negotiations, I started telling him the story. “OMG, when <<name>> came in earlier, I was all “hey” and then he was all “hey, now we’re going to be ‘kiss on the lips’ friends!” and I was all “!!!” and then now we’re apparently kiss on the lips friends! Isn’t that fucked up?” And Dave was laughing that that was indeed fucked up, because he knows I am barely ever hugging on people I really like, much less kissing people I don’t know well. And then as I am sitting there telling him that story, here comes the original guy, leans over Dave’s shoulder and fucking smacks one right on my lips again! And then he says to Dave “We’ve agreed that we’re going to do this from now on.” and then he looks at me and says “Right?” and I am all “Uh huh!” and Dave is laughing his ass off. And I am realizing that not only does this guy think we’re kiss on the lips friends, but we’re apparently kiss on the lips friends every time we see each other in the evening! What? I mean, what prompts that, exactly? How long do we have to be absent from each other for that to kick in? If I leave to pee, when I come back do I have to do another round of lip-kissing? What?

And before anyone says it is some kind of weird hitting on me thing, it’s not. When the guy left earlier it was to pick up his girlfriend, who was then sitting right there for the return-kissage. I think he’s just kissy or something, I don’t know.

And even if the poor man was desperate enough to want to have me in his back pocket as some kind of “break glass in case of not having your dick sucked in six months” emergency ration, and this kiss thing is supposed to be laying the groundwork for that, it’s totally going to backfire, because now I am going to have to dodge him every time I see him! Tiresome! Anyway, that was the Ludicrous Interpersonal Exchange of the evening, for your reading pleasure. Now breakfast.

I Won’t Apologize for Relating to This

So what if I am depressive and misanthropic? Takes all fucking kinds, right?

Saturday Update, For Lack of a More Exciting Title

Work event went well today. Good crowd. good weather, things went according to plan. We like when that happens. I’ve been dreading this work event for 2 months, and I am so glad it’s over. However I am totally, bone-dead exhausted right now.

I was sick yesterday, very faint and light-headed all afternoon. Which is funny, because in the morning I had just been thinking “Wow, I’ve only gotten about 6 hours of sleep per night this week, max, and I feel fine!” Guess that shite caught up with me. Came home and napped, then took my ass out for some recreation and fun times. Enjoyed it so much. Was accused later of looking like I wasn’t having a good time. Pondering wearing a shirt that says “I am having a better time than my face will comfortably express.” but then of course sometimes it wouldn’t be true. And a shirt with messages that change during the evening seems too much trouble entirely.

Longer post at some point about how my social wants and needs have 180-ed on me in the last year.

Anyway, MyTodd™ took off for Chicago this afternoon, but he’ll be back tomorrow. And my happy exhausted ass is headed to bed.