Are the stars misaligned or something? Look what I got from iTunes this morning.

I am going to assume that this is not a world-wide anti-me conspiracy, and just a laughable coincidence, that these would all get released a week AFTER I was desperately searching for them and wondering why there was no Death Row available for online download. I thought maybe Suge Knight was just being a prick. But no, with delicious timing, here they are! You gotta laugh, cuz it’s funny.

Has everyone seen Bus Uncle? It’s worth the watch.

In other news, I went to the doctor (keep doing physical therapy exercises at home, only have to come back if I get worse) and then went to Home Despot to get my flowers ($96! Should have brought Mom, for sure!) and then I get home to find that the new group of amateur roofer/tuckpointers has got their ladders all over my balcony! So I can’t even plant everything today! They had better finish with that shite today, and they better SURE as shit not leave those ladders leaned up from the ground to my balcony (see previous post) or I am gonna go postal on them.

Anyway, my hip and thigh are sore from carrying two small bags of potting soil, so I have to go and rest *eyeroll* Oh, the joys of being infirm!

Also, it’s effing hot.

Wow - talk about emotionally draining. But now, The Amber Spyglass is finished, and my eyes are all swollen, and I have to decide whether to shower and face the world, or just sit here all pajama’d up and wallow in aloneness and introspection.

You know, there’s a feeling of isolation in the summer that I don’t get in the winter. In the wintertime, your home is closed up against the cold, but heated and warm and cozy. All the activity and glow is inside, and even when you’re alone you’re still wrapped in something that keeps you away from the stillness and cold outside. It’s solitary but safe.

But in the summer, all the activity and warmth and life is out there, and the cold and stillness is in here. And the space is the same, same closed doors and windows, same couch and rugs and bed and computer, but the feeling is one of isolation, and loneliness, instead of protection.

Oh, and I forgot, third goal accomplished, I am taking the acrylic painting class at the artist’s guild, instead of the drawing class at COCA. Now I just have to go sign up for it. But the Loop will be crazy busy today with nuts who enjoy hot weather - so some other time this week sounds OK for me.

Yesterday I was talking to my Mom, and she told me (”not to scare you, hon!”) that there is a serial rapist active in a neighborhood not too far from mine; shinnying up drainpipes and entering open second-floor windows to attack the women inside. He does this between 3-5 a.m. and apparently has been stalking the women, as he raped one half an hour after her husband left for work. I had to go and read all about it in the paper, and there’s not much that they know apparently, but they thought the public should be warned.

Now, let me tell you what it’s like to be a girl. Last night I was afraid to go to bed. I stayed up until 2 am just fooling around on the computer, and when I did finally go to bed I couldn’t sleep. I kept jerking awake at any noise, and I felt like sleeping with my phone in my hand. Continue reading »

I have no idea why this is so funny. Or if not generally funny, then just particularly appealing to my sense of humor. Anyway, I’ve read it now for like the 14th time, and now I want to marry the guy who wrote it. I mean, he’s got scrambled madlibs for a brain. That’s just too damn sexy.

District Bulletin: Wanted Offenders

In other news, I went to World Market and almost went postal on the crazy cart contingent, who won’t move their carts or their asses out of the fucking middle of the row, no matter how obvious it is that you can’t get through unless they do. Fuckwads.

Then I got dizzy, I don’t know if it’s from the heat or my medication. I was thinking of going to see X-men, but then I thought that since I have the week off I might go some other time when the theatre wouldn’t be full of rabid 14 year old hormone bombs on their first dates. Because, you know the testosterone would screw with my cycle. So I went to Target and accomplished my first official task of my vacation!

Footprints

There’s a new service on this site that let’s users see from which states - and countries - people reading our blogs are from. It’s interesting.

Control - Poe

Don’t you mess with a little girl’s dream
Because she’s liable to grow up mean

Surprise you to find that I’m laughing?
You thought that you’d find me in tears
You thought I’d be crawling the walls
Like a tiny mosquito and trembling in fear

Well you may be king for the moment
But I am a queen, understand
And I’ve got your pawns and your bishops and castles
All inside the palm of my hand

While you were looking the other way
While you had your eyes closed
While you were licking your lips
‘Cause I was miserable
While you were selling your soul
While you were tearing a hole in me

I was taking control

Now I have taken control
Now I have taken control…

This is beginning to feel good
Watching you squirm in your shoes
A small bead of sweat on your brow
And a growl in your belly you’re scared to let through

You thought you could keep me from loving
You thought you could feed on my soul
But while you were busy destroying my life
What was half in me has become whole

While you were looking the other way
While you had your eyes closed
While you were licking your lips
‘Cause I was miserable
While you were selling your soul
While you were tearing a hole in me

I was taking control

Now I have taken control
Now I have taken control…

So this is how it feels
To breathe in the summer air
To feel the sand between my toes
And love inside my ear
All those things that you taught me to fear
I’ve got them in my garden now
And you’re not welcome here

Come a little bit closer
Let me look at you

I gave you the benefit
Of the doubt it’s true

But keep in mind my darling
Not every saint is a fool

While you were looking the other way
While you had your eyes closed
While you were licking your lips
‘Cause I was miserable
While you were selling your soul
While you were tearing a hole in me

I was taking control

Now I have taken control
Now I have taken control…

Don’t you mess with me

Tonight marks the start of a week’s vacation for me. Not going anywhere because… well there’s nowhere in driving distance that I want to go, and I didn’t want to dip into my savings to fly somewhere. And I relish the thought of a week to myself to do whatever I want and swan around the house in my bathrobe if I am so inclined. Except of course tonight, when I should be all filled with giddy anticipation I am instead forlorn. Because it’s my damn contrary nature to be. *eyeroll*

When I have to work I fantasize about not having to, and when I have time off I start stressing about getting depressed because I am not keeping busy! Or reverting to full-on sloth or something, and being unable to return to work later due to my dagger-like claws (which are quite good for hanging in trees with, however)

Anyway, my plan to avoid this fate (depression, not sloth) is that I am going to make a list of things I want to accomplish, so at the end of the time I don’t feel like I have wasted it. So, I want to:

• Buy an indoor/outdoor rug for my balcony so I don’t have to walk on hot tar paper this summer (cost = $67 from Home Despot) It was only $15.98!
• Buy dirt and flowers and herbs to plant on said balcony (cost hopefully = $0 due to strategic shopping trip with maternal unit)
• Plant some nice viney fast growing things out there, so the Republicans can’t see me if I want to go out and read or something
• Do at least 5 tutorials in Hexagon and learn more about how it works
• Watch the director’s cut of “Return of the King” (I’ve been saving it)
• ,Finish the last book in the “His Dark Materials” series
• Read “The Selfish Gene” and that Noam Chomsky “Failed State” book.
• Get a recliner for the balcony. See if Mom wants to go shopping again.
• Get a shelf for my bedroom and finally make some order of the design books I’ve been piling haphazardly.
• Find a copy of “The Chronic” used somewhere in town, since it’s not available on iTunes. Grrr.
• See “X-Men 3″
• Make serious progress on my graphic novel. Three pages per year is not an acceptable output level.
• Take Bruiser to vet for annual checkup & shots
• Go to gyno for fun yearly stirrups-fest.
• Write very nasty letter to Epson and demand refund for wasted ink cartridges.
• Do some freelance work to get some money in the coffers.
• Go to YMCA and sign up for summer water aerobics and try to meet Pilates instructor to see if I like him/her.
• Try to find out if I want to take that art class at COCA or that Artist’s Guild place.
• Break in new camera, and order new mini tripod to replace broken mini-tripod.
• Update my online gallery, make new Flash version.
• Do up the t-shirt designs that have been rattleing around in my head.
• Go to the Zoo or the Art Museum.

OK, for now that’s it, but already I am feeling better! As long as I have goals, you know? Of course there will be much laying about time in there as well. And showering and stuff.

You know, there’s really nothing to compare to a poseable scrotum. (I feel as if that is a significantly statistically-improbable phrase, and might lead some freaks to this site accidentally. How about you?)

Is anyone but me REALLY really tired of 3D flowers?

Traveler’s Light Works Studio Sets

OK, could ANYTHING be cooler than this??(bolding mine)

…Focus Features has worldwide sales distribution rights to director Henry Selick’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s 2002 international best-seller Coraline, which features songs from They Might Be Giants.”

I am having some profound, non-specific, free-floating anxiety all day today. And I am not quite sure why. I may be ovulating, now that I think about it. Anyway, I can’t even keep pace with all the shit whirling around in my head, and I had to go get a pedicure to have something to do. And also because I was at the Apple store today and I saw this college-aged guy with flip-flops and the most calloused, gnarly heels in history. And I looked at him with moral superiority and thought “He should so get a pedicure. My feet are looking way good at the moment.” But when I got back to the office I realized that my feet were looking their own version of shoddy, and I felt shame. So I got home, and freaked out because my ass-sucking moron landlord took the awning off my back window. Now, I am hyper-sensitive to changes in my environment. Changes make me mental. Some of you know that from experience. Unexpected and unwelcome changes in something as sacred as my LIVING space are completely unacceptable. I hate that fucker. The quality of light in my bedroom is TOTALLY changed, and not for the better. As well as the fact that this is the warmest room in the house in the summer, and it’s going to be hotter than sweaty balls this summer if he doesn’t put that fucking awning back. Also - how can I sit at my computer with the window open as it pours down rain if I have no goddamned AWNING? Fuckweed. Continue reading »

Isn’t there anyone to do an intervention for this girl? I swear, I didn’t even care for her before all this mess, but I would be willing to go in and give her a talking to?— something! I mean, come ON! Has she no one in her life that will tell her what the hell is up? Where is her mother? Doens’t she have a best friend? An assistant? Something? Everytime I see her she’s all alone except for that baby and some random body guards. Someone be her friend, please. She needs you now, whoever you are.

For god’s good sake. http://www.wellbeingworldusa.com/

I don’t know whether I find this product more stupid or more offensive.

It’s hard to tell in my pre-pregnant state.

?

What, you didn’t know I was pre-pregnant? Well, you might be too! Welcome to the days of being valued only for the potential life your body can yield.

“New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves — and to be treated by the health care system — as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon”

Continue reading »

To be honest, this thought does not surprise me.

“Bush denies spying infringes on privacy”

OK, get ready for the May render remix, cuz it’s posted here. http://www.superbadgirl.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=1

Otherwise I am tired, and will update you on the monitor saga anon.

I am in customer service HELL. I am trying to maintain a stable blood pressure, but it’s really hard.

OK, so you know my monitor that I got last week? Dead out of the box? Called Viewsonic customer service, and they confirmed it was a hardware failure. Said they would send me an email with a form for a replacement. No email came. I called, they sent me to a web address where I could download the form. (why not do that from the start?) Of course, after the form was downloaded I couldn’t print it (stay tuned for the freaking printer story - I told you I was in hell) and even had I printed it I couldn’t fax it over the weekend, because I don’t have a fax modem in my computer. So I had to wait until this morning. I faxed all the details through, made sure I had enough money in my checking account to cover the cost of ANOTHER monitor while they were waiting for my return. I called a few hours later to make sure they had my fax. Guess what? The department that collects and processes faxes only works the 4th shift! Naturally! I asked if I could scan and email the form - no go, it has to be faxed.

10pm tonight, I get an email from them, I didn’t enclose my proof of purchase. I enclosed my invoice from newegg.com, so what the heck did they need? I called, thank something that they were open this time of night (some department except the fax moles, that is) and the CS rep I got on the phone was quite nice, went to check on the fax and found that the form and the POP came in separately, and they did have what they needed. I am approved for a replacement. But, she has to tell me, the monitor I need is out of stock. She has no idea when it will be back in stock.

O.O

ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!

So, I freaked out with a loud “OMG don’t tell me that!” and when she heard it was brand new she told me that newegg.com should honor a 30 day replacement policy, even though they say on their site that all problems are handled through the manufacturer. Anyway, she told me to contact them with the return authorization that Viewsonic gave me, and they should help me. So I sent them off an email, since their CS is only open for calls every third Tuesday between 10:00 and 10:17 a.m. I am willing to bet that?they will reply that they can’t help me, and I know for a?fact that even if they can I am going to be stuck paying the return shipping?fee, because their website says “We didn’t make it, it’s not our fault it doesn’t work.” Providing they even have the?freaking thing in stock. What I picture happening next is that newegg will send me a new monitor, and charge my account?until they get the return. So?I’ve got $355.00 charges for the both the original and the replacement. Then, even though I canceled the replacement through Viewsonic, they will get one in stock and send?it to me, charging my account a third time (but this time for the SRP, which is $411.00) Lucky, lucky me. And if the damn thing was out of stock, why couldn’t the FIRST person that I talked to on Thursday tell me that?

So, the printer? It’s broken, it’s a hardware problem,?it’s out of warranty. Never mind that it’s a known hardware problem and design flaw, I am SOL. Their?suggestion? They will?give me a “very attractive”?price on a new printer.

O.O

A) Like I want another Epson, if they’re really this crappy with NO support for defects.
B) Imagine how many of these effers are in landfills right now if that’s what they did for?everyone.
C)?What about the now-useless $60 worth?of ink?I bought last week? WTF? ?

Why should I buy a new printer, even for a “very attractive” price, when this one was fine before I changed the ink and your damn defective unreachable nozzle came loose? So I am going to call them tomorrow and tell them I want them to pay for this printer to be fixed. That’s crap, throwing away a perfectly good printer that I am satisfied with, that’s only 18 months old, and full of toxins and heavy metals and who knows what else. Planned obsolesence is one thing, but this is ridiculous.

Also, did I mention that the tripod that I got from newegg has a head with a stripped screw so it won’t lock in place? I swear to God I am feeling like an old fogey. I want to gesticulate wildy with my cane while I talk about the good old days when things were built to last and people gave a damn about service. And the crappy thing is that this is all online and over the phone and I am so damned helpless. I can’t make some guy in India fix my printer - I can’t bring my monitor back to the phone and get a replacement. It almost makes me think I won’t order anything like this over the net again.

GAH!

I took the long way home today. Half because I go that way I pass a drive-thru Starbucks (the ultimate American lazy luxury) and half because the highway I would have taken is being deconstructed and reconstructed again ad infinitum. And it was a slow and?relaxing way, and everything was so intense. I felt almost drugged on the day. There were so many things to look at and see and inspect. There was peeling paint and broken glass and cathedrals silhouetted against gray-blue skies. There were people with bleached hair and faded t-shirts and all different colors of skin. There was some grass that was going to seed and I never realized how much yellow green grass had in it. And I felt like I never wanted to get home, only keep driving around and absorbing all these fascinating things. And I think Richard Dawkins (see earlier post) and his attitude of “can’t wait to get up in the morning because the world is so damn fascinating” has invaded my subconcious, where it’s doing battle with 30 years of self-protective ennui.

I was listening to a very mellow collection of songs, (having finally figured out that if I burn a CD with no more than 45 minutes of music my car’s CD player won’t spit it back out in disgust.) one of them being “All Dead, All Dead” by Queen. And I remember the very first serious boyfriend I had, my first lover actually, and he was the one who taught me to appreciate Queen. My Cure and Siouxsie-loving self had considered them hopelessly 70’s, but through this?boy I saw something fun and sad and magical about them. He was an amazing artist - and a truly tortured soul. I never knew anyone who embraced desolation and depression like he did. He swam in it, he smoked it, he painted and sketched it. He was in many ways amazing, and in many ways very bad for me. I’ve never had a partner who hasn’t broken some part of my self-esteem, and he was the first in a long line. Part of why I don’t have or want a partner now. Keeping a sense of self intact when you’re so involved with an “other” and an “us” is very hard for me. I may be capable of it now, but I don’t really want to try. Anyway, now I appreciate Queen, and Emerson Lake & Palmer, and Bob Mould and The Who, and my world is more subtle and nuanced because of it.

Damn that dog, she just scared me to death, jumping up and running into the living room to bark furiously at the bookshelves.

Maybe because I’ve always kind of identified with the Cookie Monster. Me like cookies too, as a matter of fact.

COOKIE MONSTER SEARCHES DEEP WITHIN HIMSELF AND ASKS:
IS ME REALLY MONSTER?

Me know. Me have problem.

Me love cookies. Me tend to get out of control when me see cookies. Me know it not natural to react so strongly to cookies, but me have weakness. Me know me do wrong. Me know it isn’t normal. Me see disapproving looks. Me see stares. Me hurt inside.

Read the rest at McSweeney’s

Also, I’ve decided that I have a pathalogically dirty mind. There is nothing to which I can’t assign some crazy smarmy meaning. Is this an indication of my being caught in some adolescent phase? Discuss amongst yourselves.