What's Up, Asia?

Blogger has this nifty tracking feature that lets you see how many times a blog has been viewed and where the viewers are located.  So far, I have told four (4) people about my blog.  Three of those people live in Massachusetts, and one lives in Oregon.  Today I checked my stats and saw that, over the past couple of days, I've had page views from India, Malaysia, and the Philippines.  Weird.

Anyway...hello, Asia!  Welcome to my weird head. 

My Dog is Better Than Your Honor Student

As I get older, I am consistently amazed by how obsessed humans are with breeding. I feel no need to breed. I have dogs and tattoos instead; those are my versions of commitment and permanency. And since dogs are one of my favorite species, and humans are around #4823 on that list of faves, they are the perfect alternative beings to devote my time, energy, and resources to.

Here are just a handful of the thousands of reasons why dogs are better than children:

• It takes about two weeks to potty train them.
• They don't go to college, so there's no need to save money for that eventuality. If someone says my dog is smart, I just think, "Cool," instead of, "Shit.  How much is this kid's education going to end up costing me?"
• In infancy, they do not look like aliens or underdeveloped, human larvae. They are adorable.
• When they're being difficult, or when you just don't feel like dealing with them, you can put them in a crate.
• You only need to teach a dog the following things:  sit; stay; lie down; come; go potty.  Here is what you need to teach human children about:

• They don't talk back. In fact, they don't talk at all. Nor do they scream incessantly for no apparent reason.
• They are absolutely thrilled with everything you do.
• They don't grow out of their clothes or shoes, because they don't wear clothes or shoes.
• It takes them a few days to learn how to walk, instead of an entire fucking year.
• They don't enter the world by exploding out of your body. You just go pick them up somewhere.
• They don't complain about their food. They are overjoyed with each cup of dry kibble you drop into their bowls.
• You really don't have to worry about them being dog-napped or dog-molested.
• When they get sick, they don't share their illnesses with you.
• They will never tell you that they hate you, you're stupid, or they wish they'd never been born.
• They can scare away burglars.
• You don't have to explain any rules to them; you can just say, "No!" They also don't throw temper tantrums when they're disciplined. They just tuck their tails between their legs and look pathetic.
• They are 100% loyal and love unconditionally.

In short, dogs rule. I think it's absurd when people tell me they don't like dogs because dogs poop. Um, hello? All animals poop. Babies poop, pee, spit up, and flat out puke all over their parents, but you never hear people say, "I don't like babies because they poop." Well...people besides me, that is. Babies shit out of their diapers and all the way up their backs. Now THAT is disgusting.

The Night I Squished a Frog Between My Toes

As I've aged, I've gotten much better at remaining calm and rational in stressful situations. This is exactly the opposite of how I was as a child, when it didn't take much for me to reach the conclusion that I, and everyone I loved, were about to be obliterated in the most horrible way possible.

To illustrate this point, I'll share a story of one particular evening from my youth. I'd like to say that I was 5 years old when these events took place, but when I reflect back on the details of the story, I have to admit that I was 11 or 12. 

My parents had gone out for the night, leaving my older sister in charge. Soon after they left, my sister's friend came by, and they went out to rent a video, leaving me alone in the house.

[CUE PANIC MODE]

As soon as I was alone, my house, which ordinarily felt like a very safe space, suddenly seemed more like this:

Soon after I was left alone, I heard a brief, shrill, alarm-like shriek. I stopped dead, broke out in a cold sweat, and waited. As soon as I'd decided everything was fine - "EEEE!!!!" - the shriek came again.

At that point, I came to the following conclusions:

1. My parents had had an alarm system installed in the house.
2. They didn't tell my sister and me because they didn't want to scare us.
3. Someone (or, more likely, a whole gang of killers) was breaking into my house.

With this newfound understanding of our home's breached perimeter, I knew I had to spring into action. I quickly pulled together a home security posse including my dog Annie (on whom I put a leash so she wouldn't wander off), a baseball bat, my stuffed monkey, and a terrified 11- or 12-year-old girl. I marched this posse from room to room, checking for intruders behind every door, under every bed and in every closet.

As I came up the stairs from the basement, the "EEEE!!!!" sound blasted right over my head. In full-tilt panic mode, I screamed, threw the baseball bat, and sprinted up the stairs, tightly clutching my stuffed monkey and Annie's leash.

[Poor, sweet Annie. She must have been so confused by this whole ordeal. Why am I on a leash in the house? Why is my human carrying a bat? Why are we running?]

When I started to breathe again, I took a moment to recenter in reality and realized that the smoke detectors were making the intermittent shrieking sounds. So, even though I had just walked through every room and surely would have noticed if any of them were on fire, I decided there was a fire in the house. Therefore, I called 911.

Apparently nothing of interest was going on in town that night, because a firetruck arrived in about two minutes. Several uniformed firefighters stormed into my house and began searching for a fire (while intermittently casting down concerned/confused glances at the girl with the leashed dog and stuffed monkey). After a few minutes, when it became clear to everyone that there was no fire in the house, one of the firefighters asked me what the problem was. I told him that the fire alarms had been going off, and he explained, with a saintly degree of patience, that fire alarms emit warning beeps when they have low batteries, are dirty, or have spiders living in them.

The disgruntled firefighters began to file out of the house. After leading them to the door like a good hostess, I noticed headlights in the driveway. Oh, no! I thought. My sister's home! She's gonna see the firetruck and have a heart attack! As I dashed down the front steps, I felt my foot squish into something but ignored it because my primary concern was for my sister. I ran towards the car, waving my arms in the air like a lunatic. [In the moment, I believed the arm-waving would indicate: "Look at me! I'm fine! There's nothing to worry about!" But when I think back on it, the running + arm-waving must have looked more like: "AAAAHHHH!! SAVE ME!! I'M IN THE PROCESS OF BEING MURDERED!!!!"]

Anyway, it wasn't my sister. It was a police car. The officer, alarmed by my frantic running and arm-waving, stepped out of the car and asked if I was okay. I came to an abrupt halt, dropped my arms, and mumbled, "Oh...yeah. I'm fine, thanks," then turned around and walked back to the house, utterly humiliated by every single one of my actions that night.

Upon reaching the front steps, I looked down to see what I had stepped in, barefoot, during my panicked run to the cop car, and discovered a dead, decimated frog that one of my cats had killed and left on the doorstep.

And that, friends, was the icing on the cake of my evening alone.

Down With the Stupids

Before beginning this rant, I'd like to differentiate between ignorance and stupidity. In my world view, ignorance results from a lack of exposure or knowledge, and therefore can be handled via the generous application of relevant information or experience. Stupidity, however, is more intentional.  Stupidity occurs when people have been exposed to, or have open access to, relevant information that clearly disputes their flawed ideas and opinions, but they blatantly refuse to incorporate or accept that information because they are just dead set on being stupid fucking assholes. Examples of this phenomenon may include (but are not limited to) any/all of the following beliefs:

• Death panels are totally a thing
• AIDS exists because God hates gays
• Obama is a socialist Muslim
• A woman could never be president because she would go crazy once a month & quite possibly start a nuclear war
• Nuclear is pronounced "nook-yuh-lur"
• People in abusive/violent relationships enjoy being abused
• Fast food and high-fructose corn syrup are appropriate to feed to children, but nutritious food is weird & gross
• Atheists worship Satan
• Sexism and racism don't exist anymore
• Homosexuality is a choice
• "An eye for an eye" (frequently articulated as, "If someone disrespects me, I'm gonna disrespect them") is a completely logical and rational way to approach interactions with other human beings
• God made the world as a gift to humanity, so we can destroy it as we see fit

When I am exposed to stupid people and their stupid ideas, which they seem to hold onto with a vehement passion that knows no bounds, I am frequently reminded of one of my favorite childhood books, namely:

I loved that book! But that's not why exposure to stupidity reminds me of this book; I am reminded of the title of the book because, in my most evil, violent, primitive state, I would like to murder all stupid people. However, if there are two things I've learned in my 35 years on this planet, they are:

1. It's actually not possible to kill ALL the stupid people, so why bother killing some of them, and
2. Everyone is loved by someone (usually a mom) and therefore (probably) shouldn't be killed.

So okay, I won't kill all of them. I don't really have the resources or energy to do that, anyway. Plus, I'm against the death penalty, so being a one-woman killing machine is a little counter-intuitive. But I do have an idea that would allow for the removal of stupid people from our planet while permitting them to keep their stupid lives. I call this master plan:

THE SPACE POD RELOCATION PROGRAM

"Welcome, Stupids!"

Here's how it works: when someone is deemed too stupid to live amongst the rest of us (I volunteer to do the deeming, just to keep things simple & consistent), he or she will be placed into a one-person space pod with enough food and water to last for the duration of an average human life. Then that person will be shot into space, never to be seen or heard from again. I know it's not very cool to throw our trash into space, so I suppose we could also consider sinking these pods to the bottom of the deepest oceans, but only if there were a guarantee that they would never be able to resurface.

I also suggest that the SPRP be utilized to dispose of other problematic individuals, such as serial batterers & sex offenders, meth dealers, and Dick Cheney.

Tequila at 10 a.m.?

My husband has just informed me that 10:43 a.m. is not an appropriate time to start drinking.  Ordinarily I would agree with him, but today I wholeheartedly disagree, because right now our household is simply way too stressful to bear whilst sober.  Here's what's going on:

1. We are infested with fleas.  And not the cool kind, like this:

Oh, no.  The absolutely revolting, armored parasitic kind, like this:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I HATE FLEAS!!!!  We've been battling them with Frontline, Borax, vacuuming, flea baths, endless laundry, etc. etc. for about six weeks, and they keep coming back.  They're on our pets, in our bed, on our couch, in our carpets, and laying their disgusting eggs anywhere a microscopic entity can fit (meaning every-fucking-where).  I am now in a constant state of creepy-crawly heebie-jeebies whenever I'm in my house.  Stupidly, over the past couple of days we'd thought we were starting to win this battle, but this morning I found 4 fleas.  I feel like burning the house down & shaving all the pets bald.

2.  Our dog has 8 stitches and a drainage tube in his head.  Right now he looks like an astronaut:

The other night I was taking a lovely, late-night walk with my two dogs, when suddenly two off-leash dogs who were out on a jog with their owner came bounding across the street.  I lifted my dog-aggressive dog up in the air by her harness and left the other one, who we refer to as "The Ambassador" because he's so gentle & friendly with all creatures, down on the ground to meet the dogs.  Well, the off-leash dogs proceeded to maul him, and now he is stitched, drugged, and has a cone head.  He has had two surgeries in the past two days.  I just went to give him a kiss and noticed that now he is covered in hives.  Awesome.

3.  Someone who lives over 1000 miles away is sending me an endless stream of text messages saying she's going to kill herself.  Trying to assess for safety and do a suicide intervention via text is no simple task, but she won't actually talk to me on the phone.  It feels like a prolonged, really stressful act of complete futility.

4.  Our basement has flooded.

This house is relatively new construction, and while we like it for the most part, there are some aspects that make me believe that, when the house was about 80% complete, the builder decided that all remaining work needed to be completed in 90 minutes.  Maybe this house was featured in some speed-building reality show I'm unaware of. 

So apparently the window downstairs was sealed & caulked appropriately, and then taken out, put back in, and not resealed.  For us, that has meant a flood and lots of structural water damage.  Two very nice Eastern European window dudes came out today to seal the outside, and they said they'll tell the builder that the inside needs to be fixed as well.  The bummer for us is that said builder is in the process of going bankrupt.  It's front page news.  Yay. 

[Tangentially:  In years to come, what will replace the expression "front page news," since newspapers will be a thing of the past?  Also, how long will it take for people to stop tapping their wrists to indicate anything related to time, since watches are phasing out?  Hmmmm.]

5.  My husband and I are flying across the country at 6 a.m. tomorrow and will be gone for ten days.  Hooray for holiday travels!

Considering that fleas are taking over our whole house, our dog is injured, the basement is screwed, and someone we care about is preparing to do herself in, this doesn't feel like the right time to be packing up and leaving.  But that's exactly what we're doing!  Oh, and wrapping Christmas presents!  I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.

And I'm not allowed to drink.  So right now I'm drinking peppermint tea.  It's...well, it's pretty meh.  I know people say tea is supposed to be calming, but I must admit that, compared to my preferred beverages (such as coffee & tequila), tea is bullshit.

  
Yes, much like Mike Tyson.  What a douche bag.

Where My Ladies At?

If I were an alien visiting from Uranus (huh-huh huh), watched a bunch of American movies, cartoons, and TV shows, and was then asked to estimate the percentage of men v. women on Earth, I would probably say there are about 90% men and 10% women.  Women make up approximately half of the world's population, but where are we?  And when we do get to exist, our roles in mainstream media for the most part are limited and predictable:

1. love/sex interest

2. mom

3. rape/murder victim (to be avenged by male hero)

4. innocent little girl (to be protected by male hero)

5. evil temptress/betrayer

6. stripper/prostitute

7. princess

[Cartoons are the worst offender in that final category.  Come on, folks.  How many fucking princesses do you know??]

Personally, I feel like I've played other roles in my life, but I rarely see any females I relate to, or would like to identify with, in the media.  There are so few intriguing and interesting female role models, and so many boring/vapid/pathetic/obnoxious/dead ones shoved in our faces on a daily basis.  Instead of seeing a sea of pole dancers, crabby girlfriends/wives, cheerleaders, nagging moms, and sexually tortured girls ("sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous..."), I would love it if little girls could see more images of female strength and general wicked-coolness like this:

How cool is she?  I love her!  In addition to more interesting females, I'd just like to see more females as a rule - like how about if women played half of the characters in any given movie, television show, or cartoon?  Like in real life??  What a concept!

I live in a city with something like 2 strip clubs for every 3 people.  That's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point.  There are lots of strip clubs here.  Yay for me, and yay for all the young girls in this town seeking role models & a life path!  :/ 

There's a club that I pass on my way to work each morning, and they have a neon sign outside that is supposed to read: "PEEKABOO MODELS."  When I used to see that sign at 7:30 a.m., the thought of peekaboo models & the people peekabooing at them would significantly elevate my ever present early morning crankiness.  However, most of the letters have burnt out, so for the past 2 months the sign has read:  "PEE MO."  Now it seems like a strip club that specializes in golden showers.

Here is what I like about the PEE MO sign:  it makes me smile, and over the years, I've learned how valuable it is to find anything amusing within the structures that make me want to kill people.  For example, whenever my husband and I are flipping through the channels and happen upon one of those woman-rape/torture/mutilation shows that people seem to love so much, we both yell, "ESPECIALLY HEINOUS!!!"  Then we change the channel as quickly as possible and have a little laugh.  I much prefer laughing to screaming or crying, and I think it's healthier, too.  Give me laughter over rage any day.

So rock on, golden shower club.  I hope you never fix your sign.

LOL v. SLI

I know I've already expressed my dissatisfaction with text speak, and, to my eyes, one of the worst text speak offenders is "LOL" (or "lol" - both versions suck equally).  I think I care so much about this particular stupid expression because I love laughter and humor and get really irritated when those things are fucked with.

For me, when someone writes "LOL" to express amusement about something, the thing they allegedly found funny suddenly becomes less funny.  What the hell is wrong with "HA HA HA!" or "bwah ha ha ha!" or a simple ":D"??  I mean really.  [:D <---Look!  It's someone actually laughing!]

Recently I was reading a friend's Facebook posts and saw this conversation:

FRIEND:  someone please tell me a joke.

FRIEND'S FRIEND:  what's red and smells like blue paint?

FRIEND:  what?

FRIEND'S FRIEND:  red paint.

FRIEND:  lol

FRIEND'S FRIEND:  lol

Now, I almost did laugh when I first read the joke.  Simple, obvious humor just tickles me; I know it's dumb, but I don't care.  However, when I saw the "lol...lol," I proceeded NOT to laugh.  Instead, I frowned most intensely (fmi) and began festering in a pool of lol-induced irritation (fiapolii).

Then there are Facebook status updates like this:  "just woke up late lol.  guess i'm gonna be late for work lol.  oh well maybe i need a new job LOL!"  These updates make me want to shoot myself in the face.  Thankfully for me & the potential clean-up crew, I don't own a gun.  [Tangentially, approximately 7 times a day I give thanks for the fact that I don't own a gun.  Short-term results of gun ownership?  Sweet!  Long-term results?  Bad.]  But seriously, who laughs out loud after each in a series of completely mundane, unfunny statements?  Pretty much only The Joker.

Here are my two main issues with LOL:

1.  I am certain that, 9 times out of 10, the person writing "lol" did not actually just laugh out loud, so the statement is a bald-faced lie.  Lying is dumb.

2.  If you speak the word "lol" as it's written, it doesn't sound funny.  It sounds dull - really dull - like working on a history assignment in the library at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday.  Lol.  Blah.  There is nothing funny or remotely titillating about that word.

Thankfully, I have a solution to this problem that allows for the continuation of utilizing stupid text speak while providing a more honest and titillating (sorry - I just wanted to use that word again) option.  And here it is:

"SLI"

"SLI" or "sli" stands for "strongly laughing internally."  If you think about it, you will realize that "sli" is approximately 3,829 times better than "lol."  First of all, it's way more accurate.  When we see something funny on the internet, we are much more likely to strongly laugh internally than to actually laugh out loud (and don't even get me started on "ROTFL").  Also, if you say "sli" out loud, you can pronounce it with a hard I like "sly," as in, "Dude, you are so sly for making that amusing comment."  Or you can pronounce it with a soft i, which is hard to say, sounds silly, and is kind of funny in and of itself, entirely unlike "lol."

So there ya go.  Replace "lol" with "sli," and I guarantee that your life will become happier.  Or at least mine will.

Blog Goals: Less Weirdness; More Magnanimosity

This is one of my favorite Demotivators from Despair, Inc.  It's wonderful because it is so true.  I think that, in general, blogging is pretty stupid.  However, here I am doing it.  This reminds me of a time when someone asked a good friend of mine to impersonate me, and she put her hand on her hip, curled her lip, and snarkily proclaimed, "I do what I want!"  Yes, that about covers it.  I do what I want, and currently I want to blog.  Blogging is pointless, no one will read this, and I'm writing it. So here we are, or here I am; there is no "we" since, again, no one is going to read this.

Something I'm hoping this blog will help me with is reducing the amount of time I spend talking to myself.  I do this all the time, much like a crazy person. I'm so happy that the Bluetooth has become popular, because now (hopefully) people who happen to witness my dysfunctional behavior will think I'm talking on the phone rather than babbling endlessly to myself.  I have a variety of reasons for this strange habit.  Sometimes I'm rehearsing an upcoming conversation; sometimes I'm replaying old conversations and saying what I wish I'd said; sometimes I'm giving answers for an interview that isn't actually occurring.  I'm reliving a break-up; I'm on a talk show; I'm arguing with some corporate jackass.  I suppose it's all very entertaining and stimulating for me, because, like I said, I do it all the time.


When I was in my early 20s, I moved in with two housemates.  Soon after moving in together, in an effort to be preventative, we had a frank discussion about our quirks.  I began the conversation by mentioning to one of the housemates that I'd noticed she had a tendency to create very elaborate and complicated beverages for herself, take a few sips, and then just leave the drinks around the house.  I would go into the bathroom, for example, and find a cucumber-flavored ice water with a mint sprig and two squeezed lemon wedges just sitting next to the sink, creating a sad, wet ring of purposelessness.  I found it fascinating that my housemate would put so much effort into making these concoctions, only to abandon them. 


Other eccentricities were revealed:  a life goal of becoming a "crazy cat lady;" a complete inability to keep track of material possessions; a clown phobia; a tendency to sleep with open eyes and wake up with an intense startle response; etc.  Feeling brave from all of the sharing, I mentioned that I talk to myself a lot and warned my housemates not to be alarmed if they heard me doing so.  The drink-abandoning cat-lady-wanabe paused, looked at me, looked away, sighed, and then stated, "Huh.  Well, I don't talk to myself.  And I would think it was really weird if I did."  [Translation:  "You are weird, and now I live with you.  Crap."]  This conversation occurred ten years ago.  Clearly, I am completely over it at this point.

My new favorite word is MAGNANIMOUS.  Here are some definitions taken from a variety of definey-type websites:  very generous or forgiving, especially towards a rival or someone less powerful than oneself; generous in forgiving an insult or injury; free from petty resentfulness or vindictiveness; showing or suggesting a lofty or courageous spirit.  I need to practice being magnanimous; that is my new goal.  I would make it a New Year's resolution, but those are totally ghey.  

[Ha!  Okay, I don't actually use that term, but I would like to take a moment to give a shout-out to the younger generation for their attempt to take the offensiveness out of the derogatory use of the word "gay" while still permitting themselves to say something that sounds like "gay."  It doesn't work, of course, but nice try, Generation Y, or Z, or whatever the fuck you're called.  I, too, wish there were a way to say something that sounds like "gay" without implying that "gay" = "stupid."  Same with the word "retarded" (maybe we could just spell it "reitahrdead"?).  There is something just viscerally satisfying about using both of those words in an angry, spiteful way.  But I suppose that brings me straight back to my need to be more magnanimous, rather than devoting my time & energy trying to create less prejudiced ways to be cruel to people.] 

[Oh, and while I'm at it, I would also like to thank Generation Whatever for the term "epic fail."  It's hilarious.  But I give them a big thumbs-down for "imma," like, "imma eat now" or "imma txt u l8r."  Ugh.  SHUT UP.  In fact, I give a big thumbs-down to text speak in general - as if Americans don't have enough trouble with spelling without the influence of text speak and Taco Bell telling us that "stuffed" is spelled s-t-u-f-t.  Text speak is also much like New Speak from 1984, and that should make everyone very nervous.] 

All of that being said, I really think New Year's resolutions are pretty pointless, especially given the almost universal expectation that no one is going to abide by them.  "I'm going to lose weight and exercise more...starting tomorrow!" proclaim millions of sedentary, obese Americans on December 31st.  Right - that's totally going to happen.  Self-deception is one of the most depressing human behaviors.  If you want to make a change in your life, make it now.  Don't wait for some arbitrary date, especially if you have no honest intention of making the change.  And if you're not going to make the change, then don't talk about it.  Just be a fat, lazy smoker, or whatever you are.  One of the only times I've experienced someone following through with a New Year's resolution was when a friend of mine resolved to party more and do more drugs in the coming year.  One year, I resolved to be less arrogant and self-righteous, and that certainly didn't happen.

Okay, back to the issues at hand, namely:  cutting down on talking to myself & being more magnanimous.  My goal with this blog is to accomplish both of those things.  I also know that I will do a lot of ranting about humans and the things they do, but within those rants, I will (try to) work on cultivating my magnanimousness.  And here is a funny thing I just discovered:  blogger.com does not recognize the word "magnanimousness," which is a real word, but it does recognize the word "magnanimosity," which is only a word according to the Urban Dictionary. 

And here is another funny thing - if you do a Google image search of the word "magnanimosity," this is one of the first pictures that pops up:

What the...