Sweet philosophical meanderings.

I read somewhere (Twitter, probably) that Coke Zero tastes like "existential bankruptcy." Well, having finally tried it, I can only agree.

But...it does taste more like Coke Classic than Diet Coke. So I guess that means that Coke Classic also tastes like "existential bankruptcy," but Chapter 7 existential bankruptcy ("real" bankruptcy) as opposed to the Chapter 13 ("reorganization") bankruptcy of Coke Zero.

Your life is filled with terrible emptiness either way. I think I'll stick to water, then.

(Sometimes I like to take a metaphor not to its logical conclusion, but much farther than it should ever go. You're very welcome.)

TMI Tuesday?

Okay, internet. My secret fantasy is actually real, and now I'm completely disappointed. I had been fantasizing about a Twitter trend that couldn't possibly exist: #TMITuesday. Like #MusicMonday and #FollowFriday, it could perk up the workday and allow great swathes of people to participate with their favorite faceless swarm of cyber-citizens in a new way: A massive tasteless oversharing with strangers. (Like that's new -- hah!)

But a quick Twitter search revealed that it does in fact exist (thought it doesn't trend very high), is mostly about farting, and isn't as amusing as I had hoped.

Here are a few examples I never had the guts to tweet:

• My vagina is weeping...weeping tears of blood. #TMITuesday (And only 58 characters, not bad -- easily retweeted.)
• I dreamt I pooped a 12 foot turd the other night, but I don't think I've ever topped 18 inches IRL. #TMITuesday (Bam. Just like that I'm as funny as Sarah Silverman. Which is not that hard, but still...)
• I don't know how I will pay for holiday gifts this year and I'm thinking about suicide. This is a cry for help, and also for cash. #TMITueday (See, they don't all have to be scatological.)
  

I am so very, very disappointed. Please consider this post a cry for help, and also for cash. Just joking. But not really. Fuck, internet. You get worse every day.

"Something more than mockery."

This morning I woke up to "Disintegration" by The Cure. When I got dressed, I donned my former teenage uniform: A black t-shirt with a denim skirt and black sneakers. And then I proceeded to put on some crazy eyeliner and bright red, Robert Smith colored lipstick (unsmeared).

Also, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to go home and watch some "Twin Peaks."

So apparently it's 1990 today. What the hell? Is this what a mid-life crisis feels like?

At least Bob Cratchit had a lump of coal.

I am a valued employee. (Except of course that I'm not.)

A while ago I tweeted about the TWO SERVERS on my desk, right? I'm not sure I ever posted a follow-up, but it took two months to remove them. TWO MONTHS. One month for each server. (Apparently.) Now the lights are burnt out in my windowless, cell-like office...and no one is fixing them. And I've let people know. Repeatedly. But the glow from my monitor has been deemed light enough for working, at least for me.

I am being moved next month to a new location, and while I had been looking forward to this move -- you know, fewer people eating at my desk, maybe, and even the possibility that I might have a more ergonomic desk set-up -- but I've found out that it will be even smaller, equally windowless, will still contain two commercial freezers, and I won't even have a desk. A DESK. I won't even have a desk!

They are seating me at a stainless steel prep counter.

Let that sink in for a minute.

A stainless steel prep counter.

That's totally, like 100% ergonomic, right? And won't say, be freezing cold at all times, either. Right?

I'm beginning to wonder if I will be allowed to have a chair.

Here's the thing. I write the checks. I compile the financial statements. I am a pretty important part of the business (or I should be) -- no one else does my job, and when the last bookkeeper quit without notice, it took six weeks to find a replacement. But it's like they don't want me to come to work. They make it as difficult (and as physically uncomfortable) as possible to work for them.

And yet I still go to work. It's boggling, isn't it?

Your own personal back hoe?

I recently saw a commercial for a personal back hoe. (Really.)

At first I thought it was absurd. But I gave it a little thought -- the commercial was very convincing -- and I was soon persuaded that everyone needs one...even apartment dwellers.

Because how else are you going to discreetly bury the bodies of people you kill in the middle of the night? I mean, you don't want to borrow a neighbor's backhoe for that, not at 3:00 a.m.

That would be an embarrassing conversation, I'm sure.

I shouldn't be a spokesperson, either.

I forgot my book the other day, so I spent my lunch break flipping through an old "Parade" magazine I found in the break room. It had a little blurb about how Christian Slater was working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on an initiative to reduce the high school drop out rate, because he had been a high school drop out himself and felt very strongly about the whole thing.
All I could think of was this: Do you think a celebrity who dropped out of high school and became famous and successful anyway is really the role model for kids who might drop out of school?

Okay, his "success" is debatable by Hollywood standards, but he looks pretty damned successful compared to unemployed roofers and people working at Taco Bell. I might get behind this thing if he was working on an initiative to encourage adult drop outs to get a G.E.D. (like Slater recently did). That makes sense. But I don't get just standing up and saying, "Hey, kids, I'm a high school drop out who went on to make such films as 'Broken Arrow' and 'Hollow Man II' -- don't be like me! Stay in school!"

Wait, maybe that is persuasive. Nobody's too proud of "Hollow Man II."

Never mind.

P.S.
I have a G.E.D. I am not dissing that at all, though I should add -- in the spirit of full disclosure -- that I didn't drop out. I was homeschooled and went to college early.

Narrative required.

I have to make up a story for everything, it seems.

For instance, my partner and I drove by the house on Woodhead with the dancing bear topiaries the other night. The bears are usually decorated for whatever holiday is current: Bunny ears for Easter, flags for July 4th, masks and pumpkins for Halloween, and so on. But the bears are currently bare, and I remarked to Lennox that I hoped the kids weren't getting too old for it. I said I would miss the decorations -- and that I really looked forward to them each holiday.

Lennox agreed, but just shook his head as I went on to re-enact an imagined conversation between the mom and the two kids (who appear to be gradeschool aged, as I have seen them in the yard). My performance included the phrases "Seriously lame" and "Do you know how hard it is to be the kid from the 'Bear House,' Mom? The 'Bear House'? This is Montrose, Mom, do you know what a 'bear' is?"

So, you know. I require narrative. And where it is absent, I create it -- from shrubberies, when necessary.

The long Lynchian walk home.

I am almost sure I just walked through a random scene from a David Lynch movie:

• Vague sense of melancholy as I stared at passing cars.
• Large white poodle, barking wildly behind a huge picture window.
• Forlorn, discarded goldenrod feather boa lurking in a shrubbery, a mystery never to be solved.

I mean, it wasn't from a specific film -- it simply had the feeling of the Lynchian oeuvre. You know? At least I didn't find an ear on the way, or get taken to Club Silencio by my (imaginary?) girlfriend...

Never mind. More of a fleeting thing, open to interpretation. As all Lynchian things should be.

The tweet that shook the world.

Okay, so I spent a good deal of the last week insulting William Shatner because he blocked The Bloggess on Twitter. It seems that pissing off people who love The Bloggess is now officially a Bad Thing To Do (tm), as we pulled together in an army and roasted Bill 'til he caved...and unblocked her.

It built gradually, but still happened pretty quickly. One day you're fine, and the next thing you know you have a code name* and you're in The Matrix, and then...victory. We didn't even have to wait four years to achieve our objective (unlike the Wachowski brothers).

And it'll be a huge BYOH** party in Zion tonight, let me tell you. Success is awesome.

Honestly, I haven't had this much fun on the internet since 1999 or so. And that is a high compliment to the members of the Bloggess Army. Also, it's a relief to know that there are so many witty people out on the web. It was beginning to feel like a giant infomercial out there.

So, thanks again to the Bloggess Army -- and a special thanks to William Shatner for being a sport about it. Really, Bill -- all my best to you, too!

*I am Lt. Ellen Ripley, from the Alien franchise.

**That'd be "Bring Your Own Hooker" -- which was kind of how this all started...

Coincidence?

Someone posted a link to H. G. Wells's "Man of the Future" on Twitter last night, and is it just me? Or does it look terrifyingly like Helium, of Strindberg + Helium fame? I know we all seem like variations on Strindberg now, but maybe one day we really will evolve into Helium-like beings -- cupcakes and all...

(Also, I had completely forgotten how damned funny those cartoons were. I feel certain that I will spend the rest of the day saying "Decay! Decay, decay, decay!")

Edited to add: Mac Tonnies posted the original link. Sorry -- I had saved it, but had forgotten the source.

My desk, my oasis.

I have two part-time office jobs, and one of the issues I have to deal with is shared and/or inadequate work space. "Artistic temperament" aside, I am actually an organized worker -- and I adhere to some pretty minimalist standards for my workspace.

For instance, here is my desk at Job #1.
I took this photo right when I walked in the door on a Monday morning. The desk is clear and ready for work. Everything to the right of the pencil sharpener is my space.

Here's a closer look.
See how tidy everything is? Adding machine, stapler, tape, tissues, calendar, weird albino rat under the monitor. (There's also a stained glass heart hanging under the window -- it's not an inhuman workspace. I have tchotchkes.) I stopped using a pen cup years ago, because people tend to view these as public property and will take your writing utensils at whim. I keep my supplies in a drawer: one mechanical pencil, one black pen, one red pen, one click eraser, one Sharpie, and one highlighter. I absolutely don't need anything else. There are also binder clips and paper clips in my drawer, along with a legal pad and a single square of sticky notes. The second drawer is for work in progress, and the third drawer is where I keep my backpack.

Everything has a place, it's easy to access, and there's nothing extra I don't use. It's pretty close to perfect. I admit that the paper storage issue is a non-issue here -- the office is paperless, and the only paper I deal with is either scanned and shredded or returned to clients.

I have had trouble with temps using the desk during tax season, though -- but only because the desk was so reliably neat they thought no one actually used it.

So, you know, you might think that my inherent anal qualities might object to the mismatched furniture, or something like that. I don't really care about that in this case. So what's the issue?

Well, here is the other side of the room.
See that tiny bit of grey countertop to the right by the chair? That's the end of my desk.

I used to share this space with another employee. Here's where her desk used to be.
Chaos. I work in chaos. I think my intense neatness is partially a response to work environments just like this -- because this is not the messiest place I've worked. It's not even the messiest place where I currently work. I cannot post pictures of that workspace, because it sort of makes me want to cry.

And there's a little window into my workday for you...

Requiem for a record player.

I once attended a literary event at a record shop -- an actual record shop, though they also sold CDs. Now, you might clean your house for company, and you might expect a business to tidy its restroom before hosting an in-store event. You might expect it, but...it might not happen. What you may find is that you are expected to relieve yourself in the middle of a room filled to the brim with broken turntables.

Like an elephant graveyard strewn with massive bones, these ancient record players stretched to the rafters, encroaching upon even the toilet itself. The sight of it has haunted me for years -- to the point that it has become a frequent background to my dreams. It was so surreal, to see hundreds of turntables packed into that restroom -- I would almost believe I had dreamt it in the first place, if I didn't have other witnesses.

The sight of all of those dead machines prompted a memory of my first record player -- a portable printed all over like denim fabric -- and realized that I didn't know what had happened to it. Was it buried somewhere in another record store restroom? Hidden in the dusty recesses of someone's garage? Moldering away at the bottom of a landfill? I had loved it intensely, but I replaced it with a hot pink cassette tape player without a second thought.

Each of these turntables had their own stories of abandonment, I'm sure -- each one unique and slightly sad.

When I left that place -- that haunted place place where turntables go to die -- I felt like I had been let in on a secret that I didn't particularly want to know. There are no last rites for record players, no ceremonies of attrition for those of us who walk away from them. There is only a room filled with mute, broken turntables.

I hope I fare better in the afterlife.

An Explanation.

"An Explanation"

We call it

Western Zen:
Empty, well-styled rooms --
Opulent, but minimalist.

Airy, with perfect
Clean lines,
And hidden electrical jacks.

Hand-picked greenery,
Hand-made pottery --
Decor pornography
For the discerning.

But things change,

For now we face
The shambling dead,
We have been overrun
By grave-ripe corpses.

They have upset
The bowl of designer rocks,
And left cemetery stains
Upon the eco-friendly cork flooring.

I apologize.

I did not know
It would be
Such a bad day
To schedule
The "Dwell" photo shoot.

They'll put the "SCA" in "scare."

I'm having a bizarre irrational fear today. I'm afraid that one day we will be besieged by reports of ghosts dressed in medieval garb...but seen in the United States. These reports will be dismissed out of hand ('cause, you know, not a lot of medieval crackers running around Tennessee or wherever, far flung Viking explorers aside), but they will be real ghost sightings -- sightings of the spirits of renaissance festival performers and SCA members!

These things keep me up at night...

Hugh let the dogs out.

I have been going to bed early since I got so sick in December, and though I have been getting much better the early-to-bed (and its early-to-rise sidekick) have stuck with me.

Suffice to say that I am not normally up before 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

Since I was up early, I decided to catch up on my e-mail. My desk at home is right by a window with a good view of the sidewalk across the street, and I am used to seeing a good number of dog walkers.

I am not, however, used to seeing so many dog walkers dressed in pajamas.

I don't mean lounge wear, or super casual knit wear. I mean pajamas. Actual pajamas. (And in one case, fuzzy slippers.)

But the icing on the cake was the Hugh Hefner look-alike in red silk patterned pajamas topped with a burgundy velour robe. He looked like he was ready for a romp at the Playboy mansion, not just up for trotting two energetic puppies around the block.

Crazy!

You shouldn't ask me for advice.

So, it's snowing in Houston right now, and a friend just called me and asked me to talk her into getting a Greyhound ticket to visit family for the holidays. Instead, I tell her about the guy who got his head cut off by a (supposedly) Wendigo-possessed madman on the bus in Canada last summer.

I am a bad friend. Possibly also a bad person.

And now I'm afraid that the Wendigo might travel south. It likes snow.

Whimper? Or bang?

The Large Hadron Collider kicked off today, and I believe that I have experienced a personal side effect from this:
I finally figured out from where I knew the theme song on "House."

I know this sounds completely unconnected, but let a crazy girl finish. We'll get there in a second.

Okay, so "Mother Jones" has a music column online. (Don't ask me why, but they do.) And it was talking about some schmuck band that beat out Radiohead's "In Rainbows" for some UK award. So I went online and sampled that band, which I did not enjoy at all. However, the column mentioned another contender for the award -- "Untrue" by Burial -- so I sampled them, too. They are apparently newer wave trip-hop (and pretty darned good, in my opinion) -- which brought to mind some old Massive Attack that I liked a lot back in the day...which led to further sampling and the startling discovery that "Teardrop" was the theme to "House."

See, I've been trying to place that song for years. Really. I just couldn't figure it out without the vocals. Apparently, I am a little bit dumb, since after I crowed my new-found knowledge to the heavens, Lennox pointed out that this musical tidbit was pretty obvious on the end of the show credits. It was like living next door to the person of your dreams for four years, and then meeting them online when they move three states away. DOH! I just never have a Clue [TM].

So...long story still long...I bought two MP3 albums this afternoon, and now it will be 1998 and 2008 simultaneously on my iPod. A whimper or a bang? We've got both, baby! Right here!

And that, I believe, is a side effect of the Large Hadron Collider. Thank you.

I want to believe (that I am not nuts).

So, I have had a bad case of "X-Files" fever lately. I saw the new movie, and although I found aspects of it completely shocking (no aliens? WTF? Mulder and Scully are shacked up?!?!), I did enjoy it. However, that's not where the fever originated. I have been watching the series from episode one on DVD.

Herein lies the problem, see.

Okay, I can watch 2 or 3 episodes a night, and although I am pleased to report that it really was a good TV show (and not just a fancy of my ill-spent youth), it probably was best savored once a week. And I am fully frickin' saturated at this point.

I mean, do you know how to tell you've watched way too many "X-Files" episodes in a row? First of all, you write a poem about Leonard Betts's severed head. And then...then you call Lennox "Mulder" on accident.

(At least it didn't happen during a particularly "intimate" moment, just a really sleepy one.)

That's pretty disturbing. I actually like Lennox, but I can't stand Mulder. He is, in the parlance of our English friends, a total knob. Lennox is my dearie, and not knobbish at all. So, you know, there's that. He's also more of a Scully, particularly when compared to me, as I both "want to believe" and have the poster on order to prove it.

Maybe I should watch a few episodes of "Arrested Development" or something, just to cleanse the palate. And buy Mul...um...Lennox some flowers or something.

A post in which all of life's pressing questions are answered with aplomb.

I know only too well that the internet is a series of tubes, but the thing I love most about this series of tubes is how often it surprises me with the kind of information that my entire life had been lacking -- only I hadn't known it.

Take for instance, this answer:
7 - 12 slices.

It is the answer to this question, but it might as well be the eternal why. I never asked that question before, but it seems to be the only question I would ever need to ask.

This is all we need to know. Our lives are now complete.

Hang tag truthiness.

Man, the time gets away from me. But I have a question for you:
Do you think "with love" is subtle code for "sweatshop labor"?

I can't decide.

AT&T is the effing devil.

It's true, I hate AT&T with every fiber of my being.

Please allow me to explain.

I have been trying to contact AT&T to find out why my basic phone service has increased 25% in price over the last six months. This is tricky because I won't just call customer service. I learned a long time ago that calling AT&T leads only to pain and suicidal ideation. You see, several years ago (possibly while they were still SBC), I needed to change the features on my phone. I called and had them change the service, and although they tried their hardest to sign me up for every damned package known to mankind, I firmly declined until they finally did what I asked.

When I got my next bill, I had been signed up f0r a package that was twice the price of my service...something I had specifically refused. I had to call back to get it canceled, and I did get a refund. And that's bad enough, but they did it again the next time I called for a change.

Just a couple of years ago, I had a lot of static on my line, but when I called for service it didn't get fixed. I think I had to call on the same problem four times? Something like that. It didn't matter who I talked to, nothing would happen. I could schedule service calls all the live long day...but my phone wasn't getting fixed. It was only after I called to cancel the service that they finally sent a repairman out to my house.

I decided right then and there that I would not call AT&T ever again, if at all possible.

Since then I have conducted all business with them over the internet. This has improved my quality of life greatly, and I have had few problems...until just recently.

Over the past six months, they have raised the price of basic phone service by 25%. Including increased surcharges and taxes, this means that I will be paying the equivalent of two extra months of service a year. I have basic, basic phone service, no bells or whistles -- I don't even have caller ID. I have a phone line that makes and receives calls, and I generally only use it to access Teh Magical Intarwebs, as I am still on the caveman dial-up.

I typed a wonderful (though admittedly snide) plea for explanation on the price increase, but I never so much as received a "thank you for contacting AT&T" form letter, let alone a reason. I typed out a second letter this evening, only to be shown this:


I know that this is teeny-tiny, but what you are seeing is an actual screen shot of the page denying my customer service form. In case you don't have super hero vision, what it says is: "The phone number you entered was not found. Please re-enter the phone number you are trying to contact us about so that we can better assist you."

Okay, I have had the same phone number since 2001. I have given it to countless pizza delivery people, friends, and potential employers. I do not have any form of dementia. I know my own phone number.

But apparently the company that supplies me with said number has no record of it.

I, uh, entered my phone number correctly. But I checked it, double checked it, and even took the time to look it up on my mobile phone (it was correct). In fact, I called it just to make sure I had not completely lost my mind.

So I started over. I cut the text from the original page, and began the whole process again.

And I got the SAME ERROR the second time.

This is almost as much fun as the time I called AT&T customer service, and when I pressed the number to speak to a customer service representative, having not heard the correct topic on the endless computer menu, I got only a series of clicks followed by a dial tone. When I called back and waded all the way through the menu again, I discovered that it wasn't a glitch. Apparently, "speak to a customer service representative" is actually secret code for "we're hanging up on you now."

Good times. Good times.

I think I'm going to go jump off a tall building now. Thanks!

Time to lodge a complaint.

You know, it has been a long time since I've really gotten through a good complaint. But something came to my attention the other day, and I think it's high time.

What the fuck is the problem with plus sized clothes manufacturers? I would like to clue them into something: The average plus sized woman is not 6'7" -- though for some reason, they seem to think so.

I had to look for a fancy dress in December for my partner's holiday office party. This involved going to strange and new places (like Dillard's) to find something both shiny and tent-like to wear to the shindig. I say shiny, because that seemed to be the predominant option, and tent-like, because that also seemed to be the only thing on hand -- but that's another story. The point was that while browsing in the frumpy circus tent section, Lennox grabbed a pair of pants off the rack to compare to himself.

Holding the hem at the floor, the waist of the pants came up to his chest.

Before you accuse me of dating a "little person" (which, as those who know my dating history could tell you, would sort of be par for the course), I would like to point out that Lennox is around 5'11".

Yep, apparently any woman over a size 14 is supposed to be 7 feet tall.

Now, I admit that I am petite -- but I am not that short. I am 5'3", near the upper end of petite sizing, which I understand to be for women 5'4" and under (for average sizes), or 5'5" and under (for plus sizes). However, I have been hemming petite pants for a couple of years now, because they have become ridiculously long. I knew that fashionable jeans lengths had gotten longer, but you know, longer by about 2 inches or something -- not 7 or 8. When you're 5'3" and your brand new petite length pants actually fold under your feet and reach to your toes...those pants are not just fashionably long. They are too long. And they're not intended for actual short people.

Since we know that the average height of a woman in the United States is only 5'4 1/2" -- who are all of the Amazons buying these pants?

See, here's the kicker. One of my friends wears plus sizes, but she is 6 feet tall. And on Tuesday, she admitted that she now wears petite jeans, because even the so-called average length jeans are too long. Let me repeat: She is 6 FEET TALL, and she has to wear PETITE JEANS.

I gotta tell you, there is nothing petite about 6 feet tall, even in Sweden.

On the one hand, it's so fucked up I don't know whether to laugh or cry. On the other hand, at least I know that I am not imagining things.

"Population: Tire."

So, I was listening to an old, old Shamen album at the bus stop on my iPod, and I realized that I was having a glow stick rave.

With The Cheat.

In my mind.

Yeah, we've been watching a certain classic internet cartoon on DVD. Does it show?

Double Roll, Double Confusion.

Some of you probably know about my Japan problem, though I try to keep it on the down low. I just don't want to be seen as yet another clueless white person obsessed with Japanese cultural...everything.

But...I have to open that closet door just a crack, just this once. Please amaze yourself with Pizza Hut's new Double Roll, available only in Japan. This is a pizza with not just cheese in the crust, but some kind of pigs in blankets. In the crust. And miniature hamburger patties on top. And a maple leaf on the ad, which either indicates a maple sauce somewhere on this bizarre food item, or that it is wholeheartedly approved of by Canadians -- and either option is surreal and sort of damaging to the psyche.

I just don't know if this is the best or worst fast food item I have ever seen. I am just that torn. Also, for everyone appalled by the weird stuff that Pizza Hut keeps stuffing into its crusts over here -- take heart, we're just getting the tame stuff, obviously.

And while you are thinking about all of this, go check out the kids page for Pizza Hut in Japan. Are those characters squid or Simpsons colored ghosts or what? And is the squid-ghost-dog farting on the soccer ball in the ad below?

Why don't we have awesome things like this on our own Pizza Hut page?

The LoA makes me itchy.

The last thing I needed today was a lecture on the "Law of Attraction," but of course that's what I got.

In case you have been living in a world of sanity and clarity (which would be both bookstore and Oprah-free), the "Law of Attraction" (or LoA for short) is an ages old quasi-mystical "positive thinking" bit of hoo-haw, most recently brought to new heights of hyperbole through the ubiquitous book/DVD "The Secret." Basically, if you think happy thoughts only good stuff will happen to you and you'll get marvelously rich and thin, and if you think negatively -- well, you deserve what's comin' to ya. And you brought it on yourself, you nasty thing, you.

I have written about this pretty extensively under a pseudonym, but my real-life persona got whacked with this crap today, so I'm re-ranting a bit. Or ranting for the first time as myself. Or something. (It's very difficult to maintain several personae at the same time -- I've always wondered how Agrimmeer managed to do it. However, that is completely unrelated, so never mind.)

Anyway, one of my clients is pretty deep into the whole LoA thing, and normally I just bite my tongue, because, you know...paychecks. Today I was far too irritated -- partially with him, partially with all sorts of things -- and I just had to admit, "Sorry, but that's nonsense."

Once upon a time, back in the dim, dark reaches of the early-mid-nineties...I was into that whole LoA thing myself. I was not just a dabbler, either. I was a full out mantra-in-the-mirror, treasure-map-drawing, positive-affirmation-stating, creative-visualizing New Age kind of chick. For realz! And I believed it all, too...until it slowly dawned on me over the course of a few years...that nothing was happening. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Niente. NOTHING. I never got a single thing I ever visualized, mapped, or positively affirmed. My career went nowhere, I had no good relationships (including positive friendships), and I managed to dig myself into some pretty serious debt. All of this culminated in my abrupt termination from a bizarre entrepreneurial cult-like organization when they discovered that I would not be able to raise the additional $10,000 necessary to go through the next level of "training."

In retrospect I can see that those were some of my worst years. No wonder "magical thinking" was so appealing...

Everything you see/hear/read about the LoA is pretty much designed to bleed you of money. And if you balk at spending more, you are reminded that you have to release your money-energy into the world in order to get more money-energy later. You must spend money to get money, because hoarding energy (even money-energy) will lead to problems or even illness. Seriously! That's the kind of craziness you run into when dealing with the LoA.

So when my client brought it up today, I admitted that I'd already tried that, and thanks, but it didn't work. He went into a long explanation about how I should hang up a picture of new car I want and look at it everyday, affirming that it would be mine. (I should point out that he is super-duper appalled by my ten year old hoopty, so this was more pointed than you think.)

I countered that just hanging up a picture and thinking "good" stuff about it was not going to increase my monthly income by $600, which is what it would take for me to make car payments and pay increased insurance.

He said, no, it wouldn't work that way. You would just "get it." Maybe someone would give me a car, he said.

I said that was crazy. I reiterated that I had already played that particular game and it had not worked for me. (I added the "for me" part, you know...because of the paychecks.)

He said that I must have done it wrong, then.

Yes! He said that I must have done it all wrong! As if you can make believe wrong.

It was really, really hard not to laugh.

I'm going to go and think very positive thoughts about graham crackers. I bet, if I visualize them hard enough...nah, I'd better go to the grocery store and just buy them.

It's an easier method, and far more reliable.

[Note: This particular client has also tried to sell me on two different pyramid schemes. Also, I had much greater success with folk magick than I ever did with the LoA. But that's another story.]

Transportation Explanation.

Man, sometimes I hate Houston so badly I feel like my human rights are being violated just by living here.

As I have mentioned (or at least alluded to), I hate driving. I'm a little phobic in the car, and I am subject to insane fits of road rage. (I have actually broken my car horn by bashing it in twice.) However, it seems like the bus is becoming less and less useful to me. It worked very well when I worked downtown in the morning. I took one relatively reliable bus from home to Job A, then another relatively reliable bus to Job B in the evening. I had a harder time getting home (unless Lennox came and picked me up after he got off work), but still -- it wasn't that bad.

But now I am working a morning job that requires at least one transfer (depending on route), and takes at least one hour each way -- though it is only 4.5 miles away. (I'm not counting the initial wait, either.) In order to reach the afternoon job, I either have to go about four miles out of the way (to reduce transfers and time) or transfer twice -- and either way it's over an hour and a half. Even going to the afternoon job from home requires a transfer, and generally takes over 45 minutes -- even though the job is only three miles away. Three miles! I mean, that's like driving four miles an hour.

I can WALK three miles an hour, easily. I mean, that's a stroll, not a foot race.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that all of the above assumes that the bus actually COMES, which cannot be assumed in real life. (For instance, just last week I waited 50 minutes for a bus that's supposed to come every 20 minutes. It's a very good thing I set my own schedule, because I would have been fired long ago otherwise.)

So...long story short, I've been driving a lot more. (It doesn't help that the second bus I take home only runs until 7:30 p.m. -- and I work until after 8:00 p.m. most evenings.) I don't like it, it's making me crazy, and it exhausts me.

It just doesn't seem right that the only choices I have in this gigantic, supposedly "world class" city are either lose at least three hours a day commuting three to four miles by bus, or stay enraged 24/7 by driving. Is that it? Is this all we really have to offer?

This is (and pardon my non-politically correct choice of wording here) completely retarded.

And you know, I was complaining about this the other day and someone asked me why I didn't bike. Well, I have considered it -- repeatedly -- and have come to this conclusion: It doesn't make sense to commute by bike without any form of health insurance and/or disability insurance in place. I have neither (and have been repeatedly denied the former), and even a small accident could put me into lifelong debt, and possibly keep me from working. It would be like playing Russian roulette, only with my bones and brain pan instead of a gun.

Also (and this is very minor, but still) I have nowhere to lock a bike where I live.

So...I don't really think biking is a viable option at this time. I feel a lot more secure on my feet, anyway.

Well, kids -- what do I do? Which slow boat to insanity do I take? Do I go for the time-saving rage? Or waste almost as many hours per day commuting as I do working?

I'm not saying that this is a Sophie's Choice, but it is a hell of a Catch-22.

Between baking and bicep tatoos...

Okay, maybe even I have a reason to live now. Honestly, I don't know whether to weep or laugh, but I just had to share.

This is just...superb. In the worst possible way.

Trip the Light Spamtastic.

Okay, it's bad enough that the spambots want to enlarge my penis and make me look at poor crazy-ass Britney's hoo-hah, but now they have given me a nickname -- a term of endearment, if you will.

See, today I got two spams entitled "Sarahdaradoodledumpling."

I mean, that's kind of like a nasty cigar chomper calling you "sugar pants," you know? It's just wrong. Wrong!

Omni-padme-getthefuckouttamyway-hum...

So...today I saw a Hummer with an "om" symbol sticker on it.

Apparently driving a hyper aggressive war machine makes you feel at one with the universe.

I did not know that.

Soylent Rice is People.

It seems every day I wake to a new horror someone calls "progress."

First of all, I became irate this morning listening to a "debate" on one of my (formerly) favorite radio shows regarding genetically modified foods. First of all, they had two pro to one con (on a "progressive" show, too), and the most dogged of the two pro guests continually said the same thing again and again: The genetic modification of food crops is the exact same thing that farmers have always done, and that if we labeled food for genetic modification, we should label for any modification (like mutation through the application of various carcinogens, and whether the produce had been treated with radiation). Again and again he said this, and all I can say is: Cross-breeding two varieties of tomatoes through cross-pollination is NOT, and I mean NOT, the same as splicing a FISH GENE into a tomato.

Let me repeat that, for the sake of repetitive industry shills on the radio: Cross-breeding two varieties of tomatoes through cross-pollination is NOT the same as splicing a FISH GENE into a tomato.

Got it?

Okay. Now as two the second point, YES -- I would love to know (and avoid) produce altered through any of those nasty means. If people had any idea how much conventional produce (particularly produce shipped from other countries) was irradiated, they would freak out -- big time -- which is exactly why these things will never be labeled.

So, apparently I wasn't outraged enough, because I went and did a little research...and found this. Yes, they've put HUMAN GENES into RICE. Someone somewhere thinks this is a good idea, but I'm pretty sure that the someone in question is clinically insane.

I'm serious: Just the fact that we can debate whether genetically modified food is a good development or not proves that we live in an Age of Madness.

I am simply aghast.

Just when you thought it was safe to shop for canned goods...

This is all you need to know:
I saw a shelf full of cans of vegetarian haggis on Saturday.

Vegetarian. Haggis.

I have witnesses. This is true.

I believe we have reached full saturation crazy now.

Maybe it was just a really hairy baby?

Sometimes I can hear that announcer guy (you know, La Fontaine) in my mind saying, "In a world filled with madness...[ominous music cue]," because, well...the world is filled with madness.

Case in point: Saturday I went to Memorial Park and I saw a dog being pushing in a baby carriage. The dog didn't look elderly, and did not have a cast or anything. It was just a hairy little terrier...being pushed around in a pram. For real.

I mean, I was seriously wigged out by the entire section of Christmas cards FROM your dog at the Hallmark store in December, but that all makes sense now that I've seen a dog in a jog stroller. Sure, you're gonna purchase a card for your dog to give you...if you walk said dog around in a baby carriage. It all makes sense -- in a tragically bizarre sort of way.

Lastly, a message for the woman pushing the dog: When the guy at the breeder said that you needed to "walk your new dog regularly," he did not mean in a stroller.

Madness!

Only the (groundhog's) shadow knows.

A quick shout out to all the groundhogs in house. I hear Phil did not see his shadow -- so do we blame global warming? Ah, well. Phil isn't terribly accurate.

Does anyone else remember the Grandpa Jones song "Groundhog"? It includes, if memory serves, the lyric "groundhog grease all over her chin." Dude, were they eating groundhogs? Did I totally hallucinate that? Was I the only one tortured with repeated viewing of "Hee-Haw" as a small child? They even made me wear the overalls. I think it was one of the major causes of my current twistedness. Is that a word?

Never mind.