What I never mentioned on my blog was that about 2 days before the arm pain started, I noticed these two bumps on my arm.

They were itchy, so I scratched them.

Then I sort of poked them in a ‘What the hell is this, now?’ kind of way.

 

So last night I was out with ‘J’ and company, and I mentioned the two bumps to her. She checked them out and said, “That’s a spider bite. I bet your arm hurts because you are having an allergic reaction to the venom. Scratching and poking the bite releases the venom quicker.”

 

Ok – apparently there was a spider in my bed that bit me while I was sleeping??? That’s just wicked creepy, but it certainly solves the mystery.

 

I don’t understand why a spider would want to bite me.

I’m way too big to be food.

Maybe I was squishing the poor little guy in my sleep and he got pissed off and took a chunk out of me like, “Hey bitch! Wake up! You’re crushing the life out of me!”

 

I guess it would explain the sudden arm pain and my problem this week with over-sleepiness. Man! I’ve been SO tired all week, and couldn’t understand why because I hadn’t been doing anything different.

 

So --- mystery solved!

‘J’ said the same thing happened to her.

How weird is that?

She told me to take a Claritin.

 

 

In other news:

 

Have you heard about all these people dying from the heat in California?

Call me insensitive, but What the Hell???

Those wimps!

 

What? They forgot how to take a cold shower?

They couldn’t afford a fan?

 

I don’t get it.

 

I know everyone is going to say that it was children or the elderly or whatever, and try to explain it to me rationally … but PLEASE!

 

The elderly should know better by now, and the children should have parents or something to keep them in the shade. Why don’t people know how to hydrate? It’s not that complicated.

 

I could see a couple of people just giving in and kicking the bucket, I mean, yeah --- it’s hot. Maybe it’s just not worth it to keep living. I don’t know.

I can see a couple of really old people saying, “Meh – I’ve had a good run. It’s just too hot to keep going.” And let the heat consume them, but I think the death count is up to over100!! That’s a lot of people just giving in to the heat.

… and not all of them were elderly!

They found two brothers dead in their beds in a house with no air conditioning.

Come on!

 

Isn’t self-preservation part of our natural make-up? Have we, as a species, become so lazy that we find it too much of a chore to try to keep ourselves alive? We should be more like that spider that bit me! He knew the end was near and made a last ditch attempt to save himself by biting into my flesh, he didn't just lie there and let himself die!

 

I could see maybe one of the brothers dying, but BOTH???

That’s just crazy.

You’d think one might say to the other, “Hey. It’s kind of hot in here. You think we should open a window or something?”

And the other might reply with, “Good idea … and do you think you could get me a glass of water while you’re up?”

 

This isn’t brain surgery here, people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So let me tell you a little bit about these bus / train wanna be’s I mention from time to time.

 

You’ve heard of the Big Dig? If not … look it up somewhere. (how about here?) I can’t give you all the details because they have been working on this project most of my life, and I still have no idea what the hell they are doing. Some of the changes to the city have worked out well and others … well … not so good.

 

This bus/ train wanna be is actually called the Silver Line and it runs from South Station to Logan Airport. It is mostly an underground bus, but does occasionally run on the streets for part of its journey. It is extremely convenient. My stop is one of the stops along the way.

 

ALL the busses stop at my stop, but only what is called the SL1 goes to the airport.

 

Well, recently another part of the Big Dig proved to be more of a debacle than anyone realized, when a giant piece of the Ted Williams tunnel fell on some poor lady and crushed her to death.

 

Since then, traffic in and around the airport has reached nightmare proportions.
This means that the Silver Line is constantly delayed. Not only the SL1, but also the SL2 and SL3.

 

It doesn’t matter which bus I get on, because all of them go to the stop I need to get out at. I pray to God, sometimes, that an SL3 will pull up instead of an SL1, because the busses that go to the airport (SL1) are always packed with people and luggage and tourists and people who have no idea what they are doing or where they are going or why.

 

Today, the platform at South Station where you wait for the Silver Line was completely mobbed. Apparently, the busses had all been delayed due to traffic in and around the airport. I waited for about 20 minutes for a bus, and when I saw the headlights, I said a little prayer that it was not an SL1.

 

Today I got lucky.
It was an SL3.

 

The bus was still pretty jammed full of people, though.
There were these three people traveling together who were … interesting.
One was a woman between 55 and 60yrs old; a bit over weight, short gray hair, faded blue tee shirt, cut off jeans and a stud through her lip which made her talk like she had a speech impediment.

 

She was with two men.
One was a bit younger and dressed like your typical city dweller.
The other was about her age.

He had longish gray hair, a mustache, and a wire shopping-cart-like thing, stuffed to the gills with bags of newspapers, old shirts, cans and who knows what else.

 

Did I mention he was wearing a mesh shirt?
Yeah.
Hadn’t seen one of those for a while.

 

I usually find it easier to remain standing on the bus. The ride to my stop is a short one. I was standing by the door and this guy and his weird cart were standing next to me. Then he goes around and behind me to talk to the weird lip-lady and the younger guy. Then he goes back around me over to his cart, then he goes back around me over to the lip-lady.

 

I was getting uncomfortable with the whole thing.

 

My hand was on the bar between myself and the lip-lady.
Mesh shirt-guy put his hand on the bar, right next to mine … touching it.
Then he moved his hand and grazed the back of my hand with his fingers.
TWICE!
It was like he was doing it on purpose!
I yanked my hand away, risking the inevitable toppling over to do so.

 

The next time he decided that he needed to be near his cart, he did this thing where he had one hand on the bar by the lip-lady, and one hand on his weird cart full of crap.

 

I was in the middle.
His front was practically touching my back.

 

It was oddly intimate ... if you get my drift.

 

I freaked.
He had me cornered.

 

WHY DOES THIS GUY KEEP TOUCHING ME???

 

I turned around ready to say, “Are you f*ucking serious?”

 

I think he could tell by the look on my face when I whipped around that I was getting totally weirded out by him because he muttered, “Sorry” and chose a position that was a bit less smothering.

 

By the time the bus reached my stop I practically shoved open the doors so I could get out of there.
It set me on a freaked out and annoyed mood that lasted through the day, and got me thinking about other creepy people I’ve seen on the Silver Line.

 

There was this security guard on there one night, as I was getting off the thing, who was walking backwards STARING at my chest.

 

I knew he worked at the same place that I do because he had the uniform that I see everyday at work on.
I was waiting for him to look into my face so I could ask him, “Can I help you with something?”

… but he never did …

 

Men!

When I bought my car a couple of years ago, I bought it used. I was broke and desperate for a car at the time. It’s kind of an older car and, you know, kind of a piece of crap.

 

It runs fine and it is not rusting or anything, but it’s nothing to brag about.
It gets me from point A to point B fairly regularly and is pretty good on gas, so I have very little to complain about, really. I don’t have a car payment to bog my life down, and I like that a lot.

 

Well, the previous owner had an alarm put in the thing, probably to save on insurance money. You can tell that it was not factory installed because of the wires wrapped in duct tape hanging out of my dashboard.

 

The thing that pisses me off about this alarm is that it self arms. Which means that as soon as you walk away from the car you hear it beep.

 

Now, mind you, I have no control over this arming.
I am supposed to have control over the dis-arming. You know, when you hit the little button on your keychain and the car goes, ‘beep-beep’?

 

Occasionally, and for absolutely no reason what so ever, the alarm will not dis-arm when I push the button.
I stand outside of the car like an asshole pushing this stupid car alarm button until my thumb cramps up, and the car just sits there staring at me.

 

If the alarm is armed, the car won’t start.
I also can’t open the doors.

 

The first time this happened to me was at the parking lot at my school during a brutal rainstorm … (I should say Monsoon.)

 

I think I started crying, but who the hell could tell? I was soaked from head to foot.
I had to work out a ride home that night and wound up driving all over town at all hours looking for a battery for the alarm button thingy, which turned out to not be the problem.

 

The problem is the alarm itself.
It’s just moody.

I have had to argue with people, trying to tell them that

a.) It is NOT the f*cking battery! Stop telling me it is the battery! I’m tired of wasting money on those f*ckin’ things!

and
b.) Don’t you think if I could leave the alarm dis-armed all the time I would? Don’t tell me not to set the alarm. I am not a f*cking moron, ok? If I had a choice in the matter, I would never put the stupid alarm on at all.

 

It’s a ’96 Ford Contour.
Are you desperate enough for a ride that you are going to steal a Contour?
Knock yourself out there, dude.

The only thing in the car is garbage.
No … literally.
I told one of my friends to lock the car door when he was getting out, and he said, “What are you afraid someone will steal your trash?”

 

I don’t even lock the doors anymore.
What’s the point?
That ridiculous alarm will alert me to any intruders rummaging through my empty Dunkin Donuts cups and cigarette packs.

 

My friend ‘J’ and I went to this bar that gets really crowded on the weekends, but they have free valet, so you don’t have to worry about parking. She kept saying, “Valet your car. I’m telling you. The place is packed. You’ll never find a spot.”

 

I was like, “There is NO WAY I am valet-ing my car. Are you joking me? I’d be mortified!”
Well, the place was jam-packed and there were no spots, so I was forced to take her advice and valet the thing.
Another thing about my car is that the driver’s side door handle sticks, and sometimes you have to open the door from the inside in order to get in the thing.

 

Between that and the whole back seat being full of trash, I was more than slightly embarrassed.
As I handed the kid my keys I said, “I’m sorry. Please try not to judge.”
He said, “Don’t worry, we don’t judge.”

 

He’s a liar. I know they judge.

 

Later that night when he brought me my car back, I saw him having to open the door from the inside and I hung my head in embarrassment. When he pulled up to me he was grinning.

 

I said, “I know. I’m sorry.” And gave him a big tip.
That poor kid shouldn’t have to deal with cars like mine.

 

So, lately, my car alarm has been moody, which is really a pain in my ass.
Yesterday I stood in front of my car pushing that stupid button for about 20 minutes … completely blank-faced.

 

It never beep-beeped.

 

I ran back up to the apartment, begged the roommate for a ride to the train, wound up missing my train and catching the next one in, making me almost 2 hours late for work. When I got out of work, the roommate was nice enough to pick me up at the train station, but because he didn’t get out of work until after 11:00, I didn’t get home until around midnight at which point I tried hitting the button -- and the f*cking car went ‘beep-beep’.

 

I felt like smashing the thing with a sledgehammer.
Since I did not have immediate access to a sledgehammer, I quietly decided to call some places and find out how much it would cost me to have the alarm ripped from my vehicle.

 

The thing is obviously useless to me for several reasons.

1.)     It’s a Contour – not high on the theft list. I don’t think the guys in the ‘Chop Shop’ are clamoring for Contour parts.

2.)     I live in an extremely low crime area. Little Tommy O’Malley will be stopped the next block over, embarrassed that he chose to steal a Ford Contour for his first Joy Ride in the ‘burbs.

3.)     I don’t care if they steal the thing. That’s why I have insurance! I don’t understand things like Lo-Jack. I don’t want it back. I just want the insurance money. You can keep the crappy car!

4.)     The only time I care about the alarm is when it won’t disarm, other than that, it’s not like I am using it as a security device or anything. I can make more ‘Mixed Tape’ CDs.

5.)     It’s a Contour!

I have yet to do the call around to find out if anyone will remove the alarm, but I already know they will try to rob me blind on it. You know how those mechanics are. He’ll convince me that the whole engine will be compromised if he removes it or something and try to charge me thousands of dollars for a job that will take him 8 minutes tops, while talking down to me the whole time like I am simply too bird-brained to understand the complexities of car repair.

 

Don’t think I haven’t been tempted to tear that thing out myself. I have stood hovering over those wires with wire cutters poised over them, contemplating the idea.

I have always been afraid that if I do it my car will never start again.

 

Lil help?

Someone out there must be proficient in car alarm removal. None of you have ever stolen a car?

Come on! 

 

Uggg ... now I have to clean it out for a trip to the mechanic ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My friend and I were supposed to go down to the Cape last night to see Brian Regan.
Do you know who Brian Regan is?
Well, he’s probably one of the funniest men in the universe. 
 

I fell in love with him in the 80’s. The first time I saw him was on a Showtime comedy special called A Pair of Jokers.
The two jokers in question were Brian Regan and another comedian named Dennis Regan.
I suspect they may have been related.
(Dennis is his brother, actually.)

 

After that I happened to catch There’s Something Wrong with the Regan Boy (also on Showtime) and laughed so hard I think I tinkled.

 

Back then he was doing the whole “You Too!” routine.
Anyone who knows who he is, knows what I am talking about.
It’s when you misuse the “You Too” phrase.
For instance;
A waitress says, “Enjoy your meal” and you say “You too”.

 

… you get the idea … you are a moron.

 

He does a whole bit on this and he’s ridiculously funny.
The guy makes me laugh till I’m in pain and I was really looking forward to seeing him, being in love with him for twenty years and wondering several times out loud why he and I are not dating, and all.

 

Well, my friend and I never finalized our plans together and it turned out that she was unable to go to the show.
So, you know what I did?
I went anyway.
By myself.

 

It takes about an hour and a half to get down to the Melody Tent from my house, so I hopped in my car, found the place, got a ticket, and milled around until they let us all in.

 

It was a little weird at first.
I kind of felt like Steve Martin in Lonely Guy.
He goes to dinner alone and a spotlight shines on him when he says, “Table for one please.” and the whole restaurant stops talking and stares at him.

 

He then pretends to be a food critic so he doesn’t feel so self-conscious.

 

Well, everything I asked for, I was asked in return, “Just one?”
I asked for one ticket and she said, “Just one?”
I asked for a Twisted Tea and she asked, “Just one?”
When I was escorted to my seat she said, “Oh. You’re a single.” All surprised and momentarily flustered.

 

So, I pretended to be a writer …

 

I had a really good seat. I was so close to the stage I could have touched him … but I was a ‘single’. What this meant was that my seat was sandwiched in between two couples. The girl on my left was very pregnant and the girl on my right was apparently deaf, because she kept asking her boyfriend over and over, “What did he say?” so I got the pleasure of continually hearing the punch lines twice.

 

I think the pregnant girl thought I was some weirdo Brian Regan stalker chick or something. I mean, I guess it’s kind of weird being there by myself … plus I am pretty quiet in person, so I guess I may have seemed like sort of a crazed fanatical weirdo. Plus, me and preggo were forced to do that thing I love: ‘small talk’.

 

I mentioned before my problems with this conversational form.

 

I asked her when she was due and she asked me if I have seen Brian Regan before.
I said, “Only on TV.” and tried to explain why I was sitting there by myself with a cup of booze clutched between my knees and a crazed look in my eye.

I think she was giving me suspicious looks, like I was some kind of ‘special’ person or something.
In retrospect, I’m sure I did seem a little strange gushing about how much I love him and sitting there all by myself staring off into the crowd like I was searching for my lost dog.

 

Yeah … not good at the ‘small talk’.

 

I should have busted out a notepad and pencil and tried to look important, but I didn’t.
I just drank my Twisted Tea and giggled a lot.

 

The other girl next to me, who was only hearing impaired when it came to punch lines,  was on the end seat, so technically I was sitting next to her smelly, skinny, 16 year old boyfriend with the Gene Wilder hair. Anyway, Brian Regan slapped her hand when he ran by us! (We were in the section right next to the aisle where he ran up to the stage.) She squealed all dramatically, “He touched me! I’m never washing this hand again!”

 

Ok. I make fun, but I was jealous.
I probably would have done the same thing.

 

The show was great.
Brian Regan was hysterically funny, as usual, and I had a surprisingly good time by myself.
Turns out, I am pretty good company … and extremely low maintenance. I hardly irritated me at all.
Who knew?

 

The funny thing about seeing comedians live is that people in the audience yell out ‘bits’ they want to hear the comedian do, like they are song requests.

 

This was mostly during his little encore at the end. Everyone was yelling out current material from his latest CD, but I really wanted to yell out “You Too!”, because moments earlier I had ordered a Twisted Tea and when the woman said, “Enjoy the show.” I almost said it. It was right there on the tip of my tongue.

 

I started with the “Y …” and then stopped, laughed a little, and caught myself with a “Thanks!”

 

Imagine being at Brian Regan and actually doing the “You Too!”

 

Well, at least no one I know would have heard me.

 

 

 

 

Make your own!    

 

Have you ever encountered an odor that made you question your very mortality?

Have you ever smelled something and wondered if a smell could actually kill you … or, at the very least, drive you insane?

Last week, on the advice of my Weight Watcher Meeting Lady, I cleaned out my refrigerator and kitchen cabinets. Apparently, this is somehow conducive to weight loss. It actually made me feel much better to rid myself of all that crap. It was like a little Spring Cleaning spree ... in July.

I really went nuts, too. When I was done we had a bottle of ketchup and 10 Amstel Lights left in the fridge.

That was pretty much it.

I even cleaned the freezer.

I thought I had taken all the perishable items out to the dumpster, but apparently I had thrown something in the new bag after the rest of the trash was gone.

Last night, when I got home from work, I detected a faint odor coming from the trash. It wasn’t a big deal at the time. I figured I could sic the roommate on it in the morning, because I hate dealing with the trash.

I do the cat box. He does the trash. I think it's a fair trade.

Well, by the morning, whatever had been rotting had reached its rot peak. The entire apartment smelled like a decaying carcass.

Believe me when I tell you that it was not only gag inducing, but had this effect on me that I can’t quite describe.

But --- I’ll try.

 

I remember when I was about 14.

Remember being 14?

14 Year old girls are fragile, emotional, stupid and insecure.

Well, we had to move.
We were moving to a new town.

I would have to leave the house I had grown up in.

I would have to go to a new school.

Teenagers rarely realize that the end of one thing is actually the beginning of another and that everything is not the end of the world. 

A lifetime of junk had to be stuffed into boxes. We had to decide what to keep and what to throw out. Big decisions.

Life changing stuff for a 14 year old girl.

There was so much uncertainty for me. You know how teenagers are. I was afraid of leaving; afraid I'd never see my friends again - even though it was really just the next town over - afraid of a new school.

Afraid of everything.

Plus I was 14, so there were boys and pubic hair and periods and hormones and I was really really stressed and freaked out.

I remember I'd had a tough day, during all of this, just before we moved. All of these thoughts were going through my muddled adolescent brain and I don't know exactly what I was doing, but I accidentally bit the inside of my cheek SUPER hard and it hurt like hell.

This one thing caused me to collapse into hysterical tears.
I just sort of sat on the floor, wedged between the dryer and the kitchen table, bawling my eyes out.
All the weeks of worry, fear and stress oozing out of me in this primordial weeping.

 

That's what that smell made me feel like.

I felt like ducking into a crawl space and crying with wild abandon.

I had to suppress this urge and get that trash bag with the offending item out of my apartment before someone called the police.

Yes. The smell was that bad.

 

I feel like it has seeped into the very walls – into my clothing and my couch – into my sheets and my curtains ... into my skin.

I feel like it will never leave me now.

You know when that horrific smell gets trapped in your nose and there is nothing you can do to get rid of it?

That’s what's happening.

 

I came home from work tonight and I swore I could still smell it. I don’t know if it’s just my imagination or not, but I really felt like weeping all over again.

 

I think it’s like a poltergeist.

I think it will slowly but surely drive me insane.

I think I'll have to get some fat little psychic lady in here to tell it to walk into the light.

 

 

Lately my sleep has been repeatedly interrupted during the night, which is something I am not very fond of.

I’m sure nobody is.

 

I have two cats.

Poe

 

 

 

 

And Little Man

 

 

 

 

Poe is about 12 yrs old and I have had her forever. She’s a thin, petite, little lady like thing with a vicious temper and an attitude problem. Kind of like her Mommy.

No.

Worse.

She’s what I like to refer to as an ‘alarmist’.

Everything sets her off into hiss-mode.

Lately she has totally given up on me unless she is out of food, and completely clings to the roommate.

 

Little Man is about 2 yrs old. I basically found him in a dumpster when he was a kitten, so I have a major soft spot for him. Plus he is a total sweetie and loves me to death. I started to get a little frightened when I realized that his paws were growing at an alarming rate. His feet are as big as mine … and his body still hasn’t fully grown into them.

He’s a big kid.

 

The thing about these two is that they are like oil and water. He loves to play and screw around, and she just wants to be left alone to primp and stare at the wall. So Little Man loves to start shit with her.

I keep telling her that if she ignores him, he will stop … but I don’t think she speaks English very well. I’ve attempted several conversations with her over the years, but we just don’t seem to see eye to eye on most issues. She either cannot understand the words coming out of my mouth, or she is a Republican.

Either way: Very Frustrating to try to communicate with her.

 

The two of them were the culprits in another night time incident that I have briefly mentioned, in which my face was torn open around my eye socket. They were fighting in my room and one of them ran across my face as I was sleeping.

I pretty much woke up screaming, with my hand clenched to my eye, praying to God that it wasn’t as bad as I woke up thinking it was.

Well, it was actually a bit worse.

My eye itself was still intact, but the skin around it was all gouged up.

I still have a scar.

(I wish I had a picture, but I was a bit camera shy at the time ... understandably.)

 

Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like for me if I had actually lost an eye while I was sleeping; if I had to explain the incident to people of how I lost an eye.

… and how much my life would change if I was forever seen with an eye patch on … or worse!! A creepy glass eye. Ew.

I suppose I would try to dress the eye patch up or something, you know, like different colored eye patches to go with my outfits.

Knowing me, I’d probably walk around saying, “Eye … Matey” a lot, and might take to carrying a parrot around on my shoulder.

You know I wouldn’t have to worry about the cats getting at him after I killed them, calmly made a stew out of them and ate them for dinner.

I’d be crying with my good eye and lamenting, “Why me? Why anyone??” a la Nancy Kerrigan, and shoveling spoonfuls of cat into my mouth.

 

(Don’t worry. I wouldn’t really kill or eat my cats!)

 

So, anyway, Poe has had the brains to completely retreat to the roommate’s room because Little Man likes to sleep in my room and if they are both in my room I throw them both out. I’ll never again fall victim to a night time mauling! And I won’t play favorites. If one goes, they both go. They can fight it out in the living room.

 

Little Man loves his toys. He actually has a toy box. He has these little mice – like toys that are full of cat nip and make him loopy; like Crack for Kitties.

 

So, lately he has been waking me up in the middle of the night plopping his toy in my face and then pawing my hands until I play with him. So I throw the thing off the bed and he goes and screws around with his toy for awhile, then comes back and does it again.

 

This has been happening all night, every night for the past week.

I don’t know if I can keep up the pace.

 

I’ve always secretly believed it was Poe who tore my eye socket open.

I’ve always secretly believed that she was getting revenge for bringing Little Man into her house.

 

People say that cats get used to each other after an adjustment period?

This is bullshit.

 

I should quit whining about Little Man and his toys and just be grateful that he’s not out for blood, I guess.

 

I can sleep when I’m dead … you know, after Poe is finished with me.

 

 

I went grocery shopping last night after work.

I’m a pretty good cook, but since I don’t really have anyone to cook for anymore, I pretty much buy stuff that is quick and easy. I just can’t justify cooking a whole box of cous cous only to eat a half a cup of the stuff.

Yes, I realize I could eat it leftover, but … it’s just not the same.

 

So I wandered around the supermarket, getting my usual stuff and came across ground chicken burgers.

So I decided to treat myself and buy them.

 

All excited, I rushed home so I could cook up my chicken burger and sing a little song while doing the happy food dance.

 

I put away all of my food and looked around.

“Where’s my chicken?” I said out loud to the cat.

 

I looked around some more.

 

“Where’s my chicken??” I demanded from the cat.

He seemed to shrug at me and proceeded to wash his back.

 

I searched the kitchen and then, out of desperation, ran out to the car, hoping I dropped my chicken and would find it in the car … or possibly in the drive way.

 

There was no chicken.

 

I came back in the apartment, looked at the cat and said, “Disappointed!”

 

The cat gave me that over the shoulder look that cats give you when you are acting like a lunatic and he went to play with his new toys … which had survived the ride home, unlike my chicken.

 

Can chicken patties magically disappear?

I wanted to call the lady at the store and ask her accusingly where my chicken was … but, if she still had it I would then have to drive all the way back to the store and pick it up.

I decided that $3.45 was a small price to pay for my continued comfort, and just let the loss go.

But --- how annoying is that?

 

I swear sometimes I just completely lose my mind. I think it comes from being an only child. I am frequently in my own little world doing my own little thing or thinking my own little thoughts and doing really stupid things at the same time.

 

I’ve come home from the grocery store staring at cans of things that I had apparently purchased, but have no recollection of said purchase. I know that I have grabbed this item in place of an item that I really did want, but being lost in my own world, I picked up a similar can instead and wound up with cherry pie filling or cream of corn or something else completely useless to me.

 

What the hell am I going to do with a can of Mushrooms? I HATE Mushrooms! Now, why on earth would I throw those in my cart?

 

Someday they will wind up in a non-perishable bin somewhere.

 

Actually - who am I kidding?

They will sit in my cabinet for the next 6 years until I get sick of looking at them and throw them out.

 

I wonder if I am too young to be suffering from Alzheimer’s.

It’s probably just that I am a total flake.

 

I bet that lady took my chicken home and ate it.

Bitch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the thing; I am not a high heel, pointy shoes, perfect hair, perfect lipstick and flat tummy kind of girl.

 

I am a flip-flop wearing, Ben & Jerry’s loving, Blistex addicted, 'my hair is pretty but a mess', kind of girl.

 

I don’t understand those women … or how they can look the way they do. It boggles my mind, like they are some kind of anomaly in my universe.

I used to envy them a bit, but now I just think that it must be so much effort to project that kind of image.

 

I literally take 5 minutes to get ready to go out.

I rarely dry my hair.

I wear makeup, but it is usually quickly applied and frequently uneven, so that one of my eyes always looks bigger than the other.

Lip-stick is an occasional thing for me. I am not against it, but it is not a part of my daily routine either.

 

I love things that are comfortable.

If I could reasonably live my life wearing nothing but tank tops, pajama bottoms and flip-flops, I would.

Happily.

 

 

… and the flat tummy thing …

 

Yeah … no.

 

I am the chick who gets on the bus and thinks she’s lucky that there is an empty seat, until she realizes that the cushion is soaked through with someone’s spilt coffee, then wanders around for the rest of the day with a light brown stain on her ass.

That’s me.

 

I’m the chick who decides to wear something sleeveless and then bangs her arm so hard she bruises immediately and spends the rest of the night looking like a domestic abuse victim.

Yup. Me again.

 

 

I am the chick who, on her small walk to work, gets shit on by a seagull and in her attempt to wash it off, leaves a rather large unsightly chalky white stain down the front of her shirt, which people intermittently stare at ... not daring to ask.

Oh yeah … that’s me.

 

I’m the chick who is sleeping peacefully when, all of a sudden, two fighting cats run across her face and tear open the flesh around her eye socket, leaving her with a scar which, every time she tries to explain, causes people to tilt their heads sideways in suspicion.

Me. Me. Me.

 

I’m the chick who decides to wear some trendy shoes one day and winds up limping home barefoot and crying over an extremely bad decision to not carry band aids with her that day.

Guess who? That would be me.

 

I am the chick who meets a guy at a bar, and when he asks her for her number, instead of being cute and charming, attempts a flirty hair flip and dumps an entire beer on herself.

Yup.

Me.

 

I am like the anti-perfect chick.

…and, actually, I am ok with that.

I may not be one of those super-power women with the perfect this and that, but I’m happy at least. So what if my tummy isn’t flat and my makeup isn’t perfect?

So what if my butt has a coffee stain on it and my shirt is splattered with bird shit?

 

Most of the time I am laughing.

... and I always have stories to tell ...

So that's something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?” --- Kurt Vonnegut

 

Is it at all possible that I have run out of things to complain about?

 

I’m sure it’s really just the exhaustion from having to complete a whole day being a little more than slightly hungover that is hindering my normal ranting tendencies.

 

I could complain about that, but really … who the hell cares?

I already know that when I drink on a Sunday night I will have to pay dearly for it on Monday.

I actually learn stuff from experience.

 

Someone once told me that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

 

So, what do you call it when you do the same thing over and over, know what the results will be, and do it anyway?

I wonder if they have a word for that.

 

At any rate, my day was long and weird.

 

I wonder why people are so damn screwy when there is a full moon in the sky. I had some guy call me tonight and tell me that me and my whole operation is “sleazy”, and that he would be complaining to this other company that has nothing to do with us.

I was like, “Knock yourself out, there, Dude.”

I found that a bit interesting, because we really are not sleazy at all, but the man just happened to not like the answer I provided him.

 

 

I wonder if on a normal day he would have just gone on with his life instead of making some federal case over something petty that he has no control over, like – perhaps the full moon had messed with his brain and his actual rational mind was vacationing somewhere else with a Corona grasped in whatever a brain’s equivalent of a hot little hand would be.

 

Why is it ok to verbally abuse a faceless customer service voice?

I’m a person, too, ya know.

I was not rude to him, or nasty.

I did not have an attitude.

I simply explained a situation to him that he did not find acceptable, so he let loose with a barrage of insults, like a spoiled little boy who could not get his own way; the adult equivalent of a temper tantrum.

 

People are crazy.

 

I can see why the word for ‘moon’ is the root of the word ‘lunatic’.

Werewolves are most deadly during a full moon, remember? That’s when they turn into beasts and eat people up.

What if this whole ‘Werewolf’ thing is just a legend? Let’s just say they don’t really exist.

Where did this legend start?

Did people used to get so intensely insane during the full moon that they ran amok eating people?

I kind of wish I could turn into a Werewolf and eat that guy's arm off, though.

 

Then when people asked him what happened to his arm, he would have to tell them, "This customer service chick I was rude to tracked me down and gnawed off my arm."

 

I bet that would deter people from continually treating us like crap. You know --- the fear of losing a limb over it.

Maybe it would make people take a deep breath and re-think their nasty little comments.

 

... probably not, though.

People are crazy.

 

 

Would you like to know what aggravates the crotch off of me?

 

The fact that it is 2006 and we still do not have teleportation capabilities.

 

When was Star Trek created? The 60’s?

If they could do it, why the hell can’t we?

 

Now, I know some people have been put off of the whole idea because of Jeff Goldblum and his ‘fly’ DNA problem, but I don’t think that should be a deterrence.

 

Sure, there may be some inside-out monkeys and mutated freaks running around for a couple of years, but I say it would be worth it in the end. I just don’t want to assist in the trials, that’s all. I want a fully developed, fully tested, trustworthy teleportation device that is economical and good on gas.

 

No, wait! Even better – it doesn’t use gas at all, but instead uses really long lasting batteries --- which are also inexpensive … like a car battery, perhaps.

 

Or, maybe the battery would be rechargeable, like a cell phone.

  

I think they should be hand held devices, and no Scottie anywhere that needs to beam you up; instead, you just punch in coordinates like a phone number.

I mean, who knows what kind of “Scottie” you might get? The guy could be sleeping on the job, or spilling his taco juice all over the teleport computer. You never know where you might end up … or in what condition.

 

They should already have all of this happening. I should not be the only one thinking that this is technology that is long overdue. As soon as they saw it on TV, every nerd in the free world should have been frantically trying to duplicate this technology into real life.

 

Who knows, though? Maybe NASA already has teleportation devices and are beaming each other to Mars and back every other day … but, since they had to forge a moon landing to get people’s attention, I doubt they have managed to transport a human being from one spot to another without faking it; like – pulling the trick off with identical twins or something.

"So, Bob, how does it feel to be the first human being to teleport?"

"Yeah ... I'm Bill."

 

One small step for Bob, one giant leap for Bob-kind.

 

At first, these teleporters would be giant devices, like the early computers, and practically useless. The only people interested would be total nerds and math majors.

 

Then they would be pc sized, and people would start getting them in their homes. It would be great! People would be teleporting themselves everywhere! It would also be free … just like Napster.

Then the government would come in with their ‘rules’ and ‘laws’ and ruin it … just like Napster.

 

By the time the teleportation device is hand held, everyone will have already figured out how to make money off it so the travel industry wouldn’t suffer ... and stalkers wouldn't gain the upper hand.

You know … like you would have to pay to punch in the coordinates like a long distance call and it would be charged directly to your credit card. You want to go to Paris? Fine. That’ll cost you $2,650.

Nice and convenient-like they pull it right off of your card, send you the coordinates, and BLAM you’re in Paris.

 

With this whole GPS craze going around right now, there should be absolutely no problem getting this idea off the ground. I’m tired of driving around, taking busses and trains, or using my own two legs like a sucker.

 

No more long car rides home from work in rush hour, or, for me, long train rides with drunks and loonies and guys with dry nasal passages and bloody tissues (shudder).

Just punch in your home coordinates and you are there – pajamas at the ready.

Think how much time it would save!

Think how late you could sleep in before you had to leave for work in the morning!

 

Maybe it’s me, but this idea is not only genius, but also about 40 years over-due.

 

I should probably shut up now … someone is going to steal this idea and make all the money that is rightfully mine.

 

So, maybe there will be a few early stages where people get melded with spiders, flies, cockroaches and the like, but I think we can handle it. I mean, think of all the cool things Jeff Goldblum could do!

 

Well, I think we all also remember the things that started falling off of him …

 

Maybe I could be the one to make money off of the brand new bug zapper/scanner you can attach right to your device to avoid any DNA confusion that may result in hairy palms, super human strength, uncontrollable twitching, and regurgitation.

 

...or maybe I could open a Cross-DNA Zoo / Freak Show ...

That oughtta bring in some bucks.

 

Yup.

I’m a visionary alright.

 

 

Something horrible happened today.

I …

 

I don’t even know if I am ready to talk about it yet.

 

It was … terrible.

 

Ok. You are my friends. I feel I can share this with you.

 

As I was getting out of the shower today, I inspected my face in the mirror, as I always do while putting in my contacts … usually I am looking for blemishes to pick at.

But today …

 

Today I found …

(SIGH)

 

Today I found a GRAY EYEBROW HAIR!

 

I didn’t know what to do.

I just stared in disbelief.

Then I started pacing around the apartment like a lunatic imagining the implications. Gray Eyebrows!

No.

Absolutely not.

 

The hair on my head started turning gray when I was 18, thanks to the wonder of genetics. I am not going to have to color my eyebrows too.

No.

 

I managed to contain my horror long enough to grab that sucker with the tweezers, inspect it very closely, then remove it from my sight.

 

I know that hoping that it was a one time deal is just denial. I can only imagine the growth rate for gray eyebrow hairs. Before I know it I will look like that freaky juicer guy from the three a.m. infomercials!

Or, perhaps I can go for the older Asian woman look.

You know – just shave off the eyebrow altogether and pencil something in …

 

Oh God …

 

I am going to lie in bed with a pint of ice cream and just … try to forget.

 

 

(it's like looking into the mirror of the future ... )