Protected: On second thought

Years Gone By and Still

Brought a huge pile of old crap home from my parents’ house yesterday. My Mom is sure that it’s my old papers that are cluttering up her basement, and I am going to let her maintain that delusion. Anyway, since I didn’t ever manage to leave the house today… (vodka = bad, apparently. At least +vodka -dinner = bad.) I thought going through some of this old stuff might be a good brainless thing to do while I munched veggie pizza and watched Chronicles of Riddick for the 179th time.

Tons of things I’d forgotten about in this first pile. Creative writing from high school and early college – typed on a typewriter even. Old pictures, cards, journals and artwork. Very interesting to read in the voice of my 20-year old self, especially. So many of the things I struggled with back then (in terms of the ways I relate to the world) are still things I struggle with today. It seems my view of them was much clearer back then, now it’s all covered in grimy layers of nuance and experience. Back then I was much more blunt, especially with myself.

Yeah, my hair pretty much looked the same back then. And yes, I still wear that exact style of shoe.

My favorite thing I’ve found so far was this little book that my first really serious boyfriend made for me. He was an amazing guy in a lot of ways, and reading his old letters lets me put a rosier glow on the relationship than it perhaps deserves. See, he was just the type that my stupid broken brain still picks out for me today—artistic, talented, emotionally needy and super-controlling. Such a delightful combo of traits! So that was not going to work out, of course. But there were good parts, like in any relationship, and looking through this makes me remember his insane sense of humor and how he always made me laugh. I actually think that he hated everything even more than I did, and that’s an impressive feat indeed. Looking back, I think part of my attraction to him was being the one thing he loved in the world. Or at least the one thing he didn’t despise. Being the center of that kind of attention was compelling, and the two of us together were an amazing asshole misanthropic duo.

When we couldn’t be together he was always making me things, sending me stuff like this. (Part of our relationship was long-distance, when we were both in college, so we did a lot of mailing.) I think I am part of the last generation to ever carry out love-affairs via postal mail. That’s sad. You can’t sketch crazy characters in the margin of an email. The feeling of getting a new mixtape in the mail from someone you weren’t going to see for two months carried an emotional intensity that you can’t really match in a world with on-demand video chat. We could only talk on the phone twice a week because long distance was so expensive. And I had to trade off phone time with my roommate, because of course we shared the same phone in our apartment and he wanted to be using it to talk to HIS girlfriend. No cell phones with text messaging and free long distance. I had to make lists of things that I wanted to remember to tell him when I talked to him. No instant messaging! No email! Having to go buy stamps at the post office! Writing so much that your letter was over the limit and having to add more stamps! It was insanity, I tell you! OK now I sound like someone’s grandmother, so I am going to stop there before I take to walloping people with my cane.

Anyway, here’s part of one of the little books he put together for me. Seeing it made me smile.

Continue reading »

Protected: Dark Night of the Soul

Protected: Putting the needle down

Protected: You are totally jealous of my wicked-awesome action plan

Protected: Plus/Minus

Protected: How My Night Behaves

Life Tends to get Distracting

As a result of the mind-numbing bullshitfest of boredom that has become my job, I am really easily distractable these days. Ask me to do something and I might do it. And then again it might be two hours later, I have 67 Firefox tabs open, I’m listening to some streaming audio, writing a blog post, checking my tweets and ordering a new handbag online. If you remind me about what you asked me, I will claim to be extremely busy and not had time to get to it yet, but honestly my brain is so distracted with bullshit and flinching from the constant barrage of INSANE ideas generated by my corporate overlords that I just couldn’t focus enough to get your shit done. Sorry.

Anyway, twitter so didn’t help yesterday. People kept posting the most distracting links, causing me to get lost for 30 minutes at a time. Here are a few.

@KBestOliver spread the joy with this little gem: http://www.whywomenhatemen.blogspot.com/which is all sarcastic commentary on men’s online dating profiles. It is sad and hilarious, and I am actually glad that a straight man writes it, as it gives me some faith in humanity after all. It reminds me of a time a year or two ago when my own blog had a large sub-section of horrific dating profile posts. (remember this guy? Or this one? Or this serial killer? Or my favorite “piss off the porch lifestyle” guy?[midway through that post])

There’s a companion site http://psychoticlettersfrommen.blogspot.com/ which is all whiny bitch-ass men crying about why women dumped their crazy asses. I love it.

Also @cbellers shared this gem FMyLife which has completely destroyed my last remaining hope that there’s any goodness left in the world. Just a bunch of horrible random bad things that happen to people, all collected together. Fascinating in a horrible way.

Then @violentecstasy posted she was looking for a new bag for her laptop, leading me to visit bluefly.com and this criminally expensive scrotal sac of a bag. And waste another chunk of time looking at bags.

And then somehow (popurls?) I found this link of 8 musicians who need to be punched in the face, which claims that the existence of Amy Winehouse is proof that “a Unicorn had once been fucked by Ol’ Dirty Bastard, sans prophylactic.”

OK I am sure there were more, but for now I have to go to work. Where I will toil with laser-focus and get a shitload of stuff done. Or update this post with more links.

Have I Become More Boring?

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

Protected: On Dipshits and Their Habits

OKCupid is the New Yahoo! Personals (not in a good way)

When I joined Yahoo! personals I quickly realized that it was THE lowest common denominator online dating site. Every illiterate hoosier in 125 miles of here was on there trying to get laid despite having fewer years of education than they had teeth.

Then I stumbled onto OKCupid which had a somewhat higher-IQ user base. Sure, there was a fair percentage of freaks & geeks, and lots of polyamory wannabees who couldn’t even get one chick, let alone a couple of ‘em, but I have a soft spot for geeks and the site was fun. But someone must have told the Yahoo! white-trash brigade, and now everyone within 100 miles of me is once again a total hoosier freak. Examples include (verbatim from self description):

just a laid back type of guy who dont like cheating ,people who judges others,love sports like ,baseball,football,basketball,fast pitch softball.i love camping,cooking,i just like to have fun life is to short to hate people

Seriously, what the FUCK is a smart chick to do? Aside from hole herself up in her room and cry at the thought of never finding any kind of suitable companionship unless she moves to a coast?

Sidenote: there are few things stupider than a white-trash guy wearing a do-rag, and yes I am talking to you, Mr. Sleeveless Shirt at Michael’s today. You look a fool, and like you smell bad.

Ik wil
Een contract
Bij een notaris, dat het waar is
Jij hoort bij mij
Ik hoor bij jou
Een contract
Bij een ambtenaar, in het openbaar
Jij blijft bij mij
Ik blijf bij jou

…but because it is his

Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his.

If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading. – W.H. Auden

My name is Susan, and I’m addicted to narcissists.

Though I have known for years that I tend to form strange-attractor relationships with narcissists, each time one of my new “friends” is revealed as having Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I am again stunned at my peculiar (perhaps willful) blind spot for this condition.

I am not talking about people who are just self-centered and/or occasionally grandiose, but people who have clinical NPD – an inability to see others as real people with wants, needs and feelings. To clinical narcissists we’re all just cogs in their massive ego-feeding machine. We’re wanted as long as we’re useful for that purpose and we’re disposable once we’re not.

Narcissists can be hard to detect; they can masquerade as normal people for a surprisingly long time – when it suits them. Some of them can successfully hold down jobs, and since they hate to be alone they are usually surrounded with “friends”. Some of their actions toward you or others may seem altruistic or even benevolent. For instance they like to be seen as helping others, rescuing the less-capable or using their “special” abilities and knowledge to assist friends and family. They’re also quite skilled liars/serial exaggerators (especially about other people and events in their lives) so unless you get to know them in their native habitat and can assess their truthfulness for yourself, you may be taken in. For instance, a narcissist may complain incessantly about the inadequacies of their friends, family or coworkers. They may explain to you in detail how they have helped/assisted/educated/saved these people. It’s not until you meet them that you discover the contribution of the narcissist was probably rather less than they have claimed, and the other party was not in quiet as hapless, helpless and inept as they were reported to be.

One of the key indicators of narcissism (and my particular downfall in recognition of them) is that they have no empathy whatsoever and show no interest in other people’s lives (unless they think that person is of a special importance/level of expertise and/or will impact their own life in some way that they desire). They will expect you to be very interested in them, their projects, their day-to-day heroics (or minutia) and whatever else they want to show off about. But they will almost never ask what you are thinking/doing/working on, and will not be able to dredge up more than the most superficial interest in things you attempt to convey to them.

I almost never recognize this because: Continue reading »

You can take a break from it, but it’s still gonna be there when you return

I’ve been avoiding any kind of dating sites for a few months now. I’ve had neither the energy nor the interest required to deal with that kind of nonsense. But I got this email that was all “People have been checking you out! Log in or we’re all going to hold our breath UNTIL WE DIE!” and I don’t really feel like working this afternoon, so I logged in.

First of all, I know darn good and well that you get a little “this person hasn’t logged in since such-and-such” message on these profiles, so people who are messaging me when I haven’t been online in months are particularly non-observant. The quantity of the messages was surprising, but the quality was refreshingly consistent, with such gems as: (bolding mine)

I would like to become a very close personal friend and companion with you. I am seeking sexual encounters with good looking affectionate female. You do look wonderful. I seek NO strings attached, or also some strings attached, which ever you prefer.

That’s clear enough then, thanks.

Then there are my favorite, blanket emailers who have never read ANYONE’s profile.

i love to play golf,camping,writing and watch sporting games and a whole lot other things to make me busy and don’t lonely.

That’s good, because one of MY favorite things to be is “don’t lonely” too! I am always don’t lonely when I am playing golf while camping!

Then we have a mix of guys who are

1. married
2. 10-15 years younger than me
3. unemployed
4. Wanting me to be their polyamorous love-slave
5. Dutch guys who want to strike up an international romance/get a green card
6. Guys who are coming into town at some point in the near to middlin’ future and want to “get together”

Usually they’re even a mix of the above. Like a 21 year old unemployed polyamorous motherfucker who rides a Harley and wants to engage me in some no-strings group sex. Ugh.

Anyway, there’s nothing new under the sun, and nothing of interest either.

Something I Would Have Told You, Free.

Clueless Guys Can’t Read Women – Yahoo! News

More often than not, guys interpret even friendly cues, such as a subtle smile from a gal, as a sexual come-on, and a new study discovers why: Guys are clueless.

Profile of the day

This is like someone going hunting and using moldy Jello as bait. Who in the world would be interested in the man who describes himself thusly?

hi there i am divorced white male 36 years old i have not been with a women in 6 years and i am looking to see whats pit there

Pathetic, no attention to detail, whole words that don’t even have any business being there… I don’t know what people are thinking. Srsly.