Misanthropic

When did every one around me get so fucking entitled, y'all?

I swear to God, if it's not the guy cutting in front of me in line at the convenience store (because clearly his need for 5 cigarilloes, a cigar, and rolling papers is immensely more important than my need for gasoline to get to work...also, dude, we all know what you're doing. Which, rock on and all, but your need to wake and bake is not more important than my need to be at work on time in order to get paid in order to continue to live in the lifestyle to which I have chosen to become accustomed. You know, with the groceries and the electricity and the gasoline and the whatnot. Or maybe it is; I don't know. My point is, I was there first asshat)then it's the guy going 75 in his Datsun on the shoulder to cut around EVERY ONE else waiting to get off the interstate because clearly he has important heart surgery to perform or his girlfriend is in labor or something. Every fucking day. Like the rest of us can't possibly have anywhere we would rather be than sitting on the fucking off ramp for no good reason.

Then there's the people I talk to on the phone. I have this conversation routinely,

"I'm sorry, [my supervisor] is out of the office."

"Well, I need to talk to him."

"Would you like his voice mail? Or I can take a message (even though I'm not actually a secretary you entitled douchebag)."

"No, I really need to talk to him right now."

I mean, I'm sorry - or maybe I'm not - but the fact that you want to do a thing RIGHT NOW doesn't actually make it possible for that thing to happen RIGHT NOW. I mean, right? Did I miss the memo where they changed all the rules and wishing now makes things so? Because my check for a million dollars hasn't come in the mail yet, and maybe I need to alert the post office or the president or something. Whoever handles that kind of thing.

Actually, that would be pretty awesome for awhile, but then every one would start having conflicting wishes and then the universe would implode or something.

But seriously, people, we are not really special snowflakes, no matter what our mommies taught us. You are not more important than me, and I'm not more important than that guy over there picking his nose. I would like to believe that I'm more important than him, but I'm not. So can everyone just chill the fuck out, accept the fact that we are all in this together, and that sometimes you have to wait your fucking turn? I mean, shit, they taught us that in kindergarten didn't they?

Please make my life better by following these me-approved rules. Please do not look directly into the wormhole I have created in my own logic. You do not want to fall in there.

Does anyone else remember Small Wonder? Man, I really wanted to be Vicki. Vicki never had to feel emotions and shit.

It's not that life hasn't been interesting; it's that I have no idea how to talk about it.

A couple of months ago I realized my OCD was beginning to seriously impact my life. My mother was seriously ill and I had to abandon routines and schedules in order to go home for a couple of days to take care of her. It occurred to me in the car on the way that I was seriously angry and incredibly anxious. Not because my mom was really sick, but because her sickness was impacting my routines. I tried to convince her that she wasn't actually throwing up every 20 minutes because...that just wasn't going to work for me. I wasn't going to be able to do the things I NEED to do in order to keep my shit together. This was a problem. I've never really had an issue with keeping my issues from seriously impacting my life, but I was definitely heading in that direction. I knew I needed to start practicing the therapy again. Where you basically just don't allow yourself to succumb to your compulsions and wait out the anxiety that brings on. That was a really fun month. The thing about OCD is that you don't cure it, you only control it. Unfortunately, sometimes the things you use to control the OCD become things that need to be controlled. In my case, exercise, eating right, and going to bed at the same time every night help me control the worst of the anxiety. Things that are helping you slowly become things that you are compelled to do, that you can't NOT do. So I had to take some time off.

Later on, fabulous tales of watching movies I pre-hated (Eat, Pray, Love) and an hour long conversation with two women in front of a RedBox Movie Rental machine. One of whom has apparently studied the Bible very, very seriously.

I am Dead Serious. Kroger is Awesome on Valentine's Day

Image courtesy of 7deadlysinners.typepad.com.

Valentine's Day seems to be a require blog topic, so I'll tell you about mine.

Basically, my husband and I shared the most ridiculous, pun filled cards we could find (because that's the best part!) then we split a carton of chocolate covered fortune cookies while rolling our eyes at the fortunes (Never frown because you don't know who might be falling in love with your smile! Someone will love you for your constant support!)Because he's a man and I have the soul of a 13 year old boy.

(Seriously: someone will love you for your constant support. I'm immediately put in mind of serial killers and the women who love them. Also, jock straps, support hose, and really good bras. He's thinking of deadbeat dads with 13 kids by 18 women.)

Then we made VD jokes, and then I went to the grocery store. Where two cashiers almost threw down in front of the 5 customers in the store. I have no idea why. All I know is, one of them must have been pretty condescending to the other. Because she kept screaming, "Do not talk to me like I'm a child! I am NOT a child!"

No, ma'am, you most certainly are not.

I am totally calling this day a success.

I have had way too much time on my hands.

I've been snowed in and haven't been inspired to write anything here. But I just really need to say something, and this seems like the best forum.

Playtex Sport Tampons suck.

1. Does not do what it says on the tin. I ran, I biked, I did yoga. These were not any better than my preferred brand. In fact, these were worse. Do not be sucked in by the hype.

2. They are trying to boss me around. There are weird "inspirational" messages written on the wrappers. Things like "Walk like you mean it". I do not know what that even means. How do you walk like you don't mean it?

3. I am perplexed by how many ways there seem to be to engineer a piece of cotton to make it pretty much exactly the same. Advances HAVE been made in applicator technology, but the newest trend seems to be aimed at improving the tampon itself. Aside from obvious changes like making it smaller or bigger or thinner or fatter I haven't noticed any real success. Also what are these laboratories like?

I have spent 3 days contemplating this.

Please send help.

Mysteries

I'm in the mood to make lists, which reminds me I'm working on a post about OCD because it has occurred to me that sometimes it makes me a slightly shitty person, but until that post takes better shape I'm giving you another list (someone needs to get their perscription refilled). Some of the great* mysteries in my life:

*For certain values of great.

1. Why is Anthropology (anthropologie?) e-mailing me? I've never shopped at Anthropologie in my life. I have perused one of their e-mails enough to know that they charge a lot of money for their clothes. I don't have a lot of money. But how did they find me? Are they watching me right now?

2. What is with people honking at broken down cars? Is there some magical repair that is effected by the horn honking that will make the car go again? Because I'm under the impression that doesn't actually help.

3. My vacuum cleaner will pick up a bowling ball but will not pick up the dog hair or little pieces of dead leaves in my house. Please explain this to me.

Okay I've never actually picked up a bowling ball with the vacuum cleaner. I don't own a bowling ball and I'm perfectly willing to accept whatever the television tells me as the truth (but not the internet; I don't accept everything the internet tells me as the truth. Mostly because for everything it tells me there are 18 contradictory things it tells me at the same time. Plus, that one time it told me I have prostate cancer. Which would be really mysterious indeed considering I don't HAVE a prostate. As far as I know). But, even if the tv lied to me and the vacuum won't actually pick up a bowling ball, I still don't understand why it won't pick up the other things.

I'm beginning to believe the dog's hair is made of a magic indestructable substance and maybe we should consider insulating the house with it. Should only take about 2 days to get enough hair for the whole project. This is how much she sheds.

4. The truffle part in cheap chocolate truffles fascinates me. I'm under no delusion that this is actually TRUFFLES like that pigs root out of the ground and cost something in the vicinity of your first born child and your soul. But what is it and how can they call it truffle if it's not truffle? Like you can't call Cheez Whiz cheese its a cheese product? Does that not apply to other things?

5. Why do some animals hate water so much? I have seen one of my dogs literally walk on water to avoid getting wet, but I don't really understand what the big deal is? Like, other dogs love it. Most people don't really mind it for the most part (unless they're all dressed up to go somewhere or something, and frankly, my dog never has anything that important to do). Also she's not rabid. I assume. We pay a lot of money for those shots.

I Submit that Pima Cotton is Actually MUCH Softer than Cashmere.

I hate many, many things that other women feel certain I should enjoy. Here is a list of those things:

1. 100% Cashmere. Y'all, it is itchy. I have been assured that finding cashmere itchy is basically a fate worse than death. In fact, judging by the reaction I got from one of my husband's female co-workers, this may be a tragedy on par with Darfur.

2. Pedicures. I do not like people to even think about touching my feet. I have been this way since I was a baby. You know how at horse shows and rodeos (I assume everyone has attended one of these; I may be mistaken) where they grease up a piglet and people chase it around and try to catch it? My mom says that trying to do anything to my feet (including putting shoes and socks on them) was like that game except after you catch the pig you have to put socks on it. I also vaguely recall being completely traumatized by an episode of Magnum P.I. (...) where someone shoved bamboo under Higgins' nails. This still makes me shudder, but at the time I was practically hysterical at the thought. It made my next nail trimming session EVEN MORE SUPER PLUS FUN than normal. My mother was thrilled, to say the least. Well, first she was really fucking confused and then she was thrilled. And then I was allowed to trim my own toenails. Yes, I have had pedicures. I would rather be waterboarded. I am not exaggerating. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. Still. Pedicures = torture.

3. Weddings. I am sorry, but I don't really find weddings that romantic. Or weep inducing. Under this heading, I'm going to go ahead and lump anything that can be termed "a shower". No, not the bath. The wedding/baby/dress up and bring me a gift while only surrounded by women and wearing a toilet paper dress over the pretty dress I asked you to wear kind of shower. At 28 I don't think it is really unreasonable that I don't want to participate in pointless games that were boring even when I was 5. Also? I just don't have that much squeal in my heart, previous comparisons to piglets aside.

4. Jeans. Okay, hate might be a little strong, but I'm not in love with them the way other people seem to be. I'm not even a little in lust with them. They have a function, they make my ass look good on occassion, but they are not comfortable. They aren't even all that warm. I stay just as warm in a skirt and a couple pairs of tights. Which are also more comfortable.

5. What Not to Wear. I don't always HATE it, per se, but I generally dislike it a lot. I mean, there are some episodes I've seen where someone lost a trillion pounds or was a poor working mother and I thought, "That's a really nice thing they did for that person." But a lot of the episodes seem to be taking these really original people with their own sense of style and then dressing them like everybody else. Not to mention, I watched an episode not to long ago where they trash talked someone's sweater, talking about it being old lady wear. But when the woman later voiced an opinion that a sweater they wanted her to wear looked like something an old lady would wear, they said No! You're young, so it won't make you look old! Maybe I'm just missing the nuances here. I think the one that clinched it was the one with the witch? In Salem? And they want to change her style because a "friend" didn't invite her to her baby shower because of her clothing? And MY response would be, "Fuck that shallow bitch. One less gift for her, and it would have been an AWESOME gift." Their response? Change yourself to be more palatable to your friends! Maybe that's my real issue with the show. Because I did this in high school and I was miserable. Hmm. That's a bit more psychology than I was expecting from this little exercise.

6.Ice cream. Yeah, I said it.

7.Musicals. ALL musicals (except the Gene Wilder version of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory...that's not really a musical though, in my opinion; it's more of an acid trip with belching), but especially the Sound of Music. If you were to call me up, all excited, and say, "Yay! The Sound of Music is on!" I would wonder why the television network hated me. It has been proposed that this indicates I am a soulless bitch even less pleasant than a combination of Cruella DeVille and the Wicked Witch of the West (yes, I even hate the Wizard of Oz).

That last one will probably cause me to lose most of my followers. You aren't allowed to hate the Wizard of Oz, after all. I mean, I'm sure there's someone else out there who finds the chirpy chipperness of Julie Andrews to be scalp-crawlingly annoying, but the Wizard of Oz is apparently holy and above reproach. Screw it, I'm feeling reckless anyway.

What do you dislike that everyone else seems to love?

I don't like change. And then they went and changed my sign.

So...did all the zodiac signs change or did they not change? Sometimes the internet says they changed. But then some people say no, the zodiac we use isn't based on the constellations, it's based on the position of the sun on the equinoxes(or something, I don't know).

This is bothering me rather a lot. I mean, yesterday I would have told you I don't even BELIEVE in astrology. I don't check my horoscope ever. But I have been a Taurus for 28 years now, and all of a sudden some people are trying to call me an Aries, and I DON'T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE.

P.S. You guys who recommended Persuasion so strongly? Y'all were SO RIGHT.