We're Finally Saying Goodbye To My Old Car (Maybe)

So I got home from work late, so I was eating by myself.  My parents got home from their post-dinner walk, and Father came up to me about a commercial he saw from a non-profit that takes cars (could be Kars 4 Kids, but you know what I mean).  He thinks it's time to say goodbye to my old car.  And I agree with him.

It'll take some time to process this.  Thinking about all the good times I had with it makes me tear up one way, and then thinking about all the stress and pain (and money) to fix it in its last years makes me tear up in another way.  I am getting sentimental about my old car now, but I have to admit I go days without thinking about it, and when I do it's usually thinking about how it is right now, underneath torn tarps and cinder blocks, with lord knows what is crawling inside of it.  It's a 30+-year-old car now.  I think it was fine to drive when we stashed it, but it certainly isn't in the (two, three ... seven?) years since, and it's so old now it doesn't have any safety features that would keep us from danger on the road.

I told him I would do research and get back to him.  There are several non-profits beyond the one he saw on TV that probably take old cars like ours.  But I might procrastinate because I can't quite say goodbye to it, even though we're not going to do anything with it.

I Get Distracted By Other Things To Worry/Be Depressed About

The cold and the furnace breaking down worried me last night, but that was quickly replaced by the windshield not being defrosted for a good 45 minutes this morning.  I was 15 minutes late because I simply had to wait for the ice to clear.  It didn't.  I literally had to crouch while driving all the way to work because the very bottom of the windshield was the only speck clear of ice.  I've never had that happen before, but I guess that's what happens when I park my car just as it's snowing and just before the temperature starts to plunge.  That ice finally melted away under the radiation of the sun's rays, but I wished that happened before, like when I had to drive to work.

That was bugging me at work, but then some asshole hung up on me as I was asking for some information.  Fine, whatever, your loss.  But I had to go home and talk to Mother about mail, so I was worried about that.  And then the Vikings shit the bed, so I forgot about Mother.  And so I'm stewing about how the Vikes failed again.

I guess I have to always dote and/or agonize over something or else I'll die.  Not a great way to live, tbh.

Spilled Lemon Juice

Several weeks ago, I squeezed out 35 mL of juice from a lemon.  I have never squeezed out so much juice.  I admired it, stared at the beaker into which I squeezed those 35 mL.  And then, after I spun the beaker around to make absolutely sure it indeed was 35 mL, I accidentally tipped it over.  I swiped my hand across the top of the beaker and didn't clear it, and I spilled nearly all of it on the counter.

Hate that.

It's stayed with me ever since, as you can tell.

Fucked-Up Fridays

Need to note that today/Friday, last Friday, and the Friday before last either were or will be fucked-up.  It has rained or will rain those three Fridays, and that's bad, but they've been fucked-up not just because of the rain.

Well, Friday the 9th was mostly fucked-up because of the rain.  I wanted to get to the volleyball Matches as soon as I could leave work, but I stayed in my car for, oh, an extra 20 minutes because of the steady rain (and because I couldn't bring my umbrella to the Sports Pavilion).  I'm glad I was able to see the whole Minnesota-Oregon Match after the Penn St.-Stanford Match, but I wish I could have seen more of the Nittany Lion-Cardinal Match than I did ... but for the rain.

Now, last Friday, the 16th, was kind of fucked-up because of the rain.  But I was mostly late to the volleyball Match between Pepperdine and Washington St. (which the Waves won in five Sets after being down 2-1 to the Cougars), even though I was going to miss its start regardless due to work, because I lost my fucking watch.  I was preparing to leave, was going to put my watch back on after I take it off the start my workday ... and I couldn't find the damn thing.  I went to my car twice, intending to leave and feeling as though my watch couldn't have walked away from my workstation, only to come back inside the building to canvas not just my workspace again but also everywhere else I was that day -- my main desk, the bathroom, the break rooms, etc.  I took an extra ... oh, between 15 and 30 minutes before I gave up and went to the Match.  I think -- I think -- I saw barely more than half the Match, and barely more than half the Points of a great contest.  Obviously I would have seen more than half easy if I didn't go back and fruitlessly look for my watch.

Still, I couldn't let go, so after the Match (and stopping by the place we usually see our alma mater's football Games) I went back to work to take one final look-see through my workstation and, voila, I found it.  It was behind one of the monitors.  I put it on its stand, then over the course of the day I guess I piled my paperwork on top of it, and then used it to push my watch to the back.  I crawled underneath the desk to look for it, for God's sake, but it was kind of disguised in darkness just behind that monitor.  If I had only looked back there in the first place, I could've saved myself 15-30 minutes, dammit.

I think I encountered some drizzle on my way to Maturi.  But it looks as though the rain will be steadier today.  And that absolutely sucks, because I want to go to the Twins Game.  Not to see the Twinks; they've fallen into the shitter the second half of the season.  No, I want to see their opponent for the tilt, the Anaheim Angels.  As bad (shockingly so) as the team is as a whole, they have arguably the two best players in Major League Baseball: Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani.  In particular, I've always wanted to see Ohtani pitch.  And it just so happens that Ohtani is scheduled to start for the Angels tonight.  And I'll be goddamned, there is a just-better-than 50/50 chance it'll rain at Opening Pitch of 7:10.

So it could rain so bad that the start of the Game will be delayed, or, it'll be delayed at some point after Opening Pitch, or, the Game will be rained out.  And even if the Game goes on, it'll be cloudy, cool, and quite windy -- not perfect baseball weather, in other words.  Is it worth all that to see Ohtani pitch?  It would ... were it not looking like a good possibility that it'll rain.  Fuckin A, man, I might not be able to see Ohtani pitch ever again after tonight, but this goddamn rain. ...

This Has Been A *Very* Long Winter

On Monday, as a point of reference, it reached 40 degrees.  And I want to say that Tuesday was mostly cloudy and not much warming than 40 (it was only two days ago and yet I can't remember what the weather was like, dammit).  If this were early January, we'd say it was a veritable heat wave.  But since it's late April, it's stupidly still winter.

Yeah, at least it's not snowing, and apparently yesterday/Wednesday morning is the last time this season we will have temperatures in the Twin Cities below freezing.  But it has been an incredibly slow slog out of the depths of winter, and we seemed to have plateaued at around 45 degrees, cloudy and windy for the entire month of April.  To me, that isn't spring; that's winter still not letting us go.  And it sucks, it honestly sucks.

Just needed to say that.

You Callin' Me A Liar?! Well ... I Can See It Her Way

I can't say yesterday was a better day at work.  I don't know if it was worse, but it certainly wasn't better.  I can say that if I am to get more comfortable with the position, things would have slowed down for me by now, as in I could get the work in faster and better.  But I didn't.  Like on Monday, I had work left over.  I guess this time around, unlike Monday, I gave less of a damn.

But about that work left over ... you see, before I left on Monday, my supervisor asked me if I had any work left over, by which she means forms printed out and e-mails that needed to be answered.  I told her no.  However, there were e-mails I left unread.  I didn't think much of them; frankly, I was too damn tired of the work to go over them, I wanted to leave, and I didn't think too much of them after I mentally made the decision to ignore them.  I could always go back to them in the morning.

So my supervisor comes up to me yesterday/Tuesday morning and she says, and I am paraphrasing, "So when I asked you if you were done with everything before you left yesterday, you weren't being honest (italics mine)."  And honestly, I didn't listen to the rest of what she said, because I thought, "You bitch, don't you ever accuse me of being a liar!"

And then it dawned on me; uh, she didn't mean those e-mails ... right?  And I went, "Oh, those?  I thought I could wait on those till tomorrow."  Whoops.

Yeah, guess I was wrong.  And even if I resent being told I was being "dishonest" when I didn't mean to, I can see things from her perspective and "yeah, but still" this, by which I mean yeah, I wasn't trying to lie to her so she's wrong, but still it sucks because she felt she had to stay and do all the e-mails when she thought you said you already did them, and above all the accusations of not telling the truth, she felt a little screwed.

OK.  I guess I should let this go.  But let's see what fresh hell she might bring me tomorrow!  And in the meantime -- well, maybe hanging out with her after work is something I won't ever do because of her shitty and unfair choice of words.  Boundaries.

Killed A Bug Sunday

Not intentionally.  At work.  I was taking one final leak before leaving for the day, and I saw this insect hobbling around on the floor.  It looked like it had only wing as it was veering back and forth, and it seemed to have stumbled into the caulk groove inbetween the tiles.

I noticed it, then proceeded to sit down to pee.  But then I got up.  Work now offers bottles full of disinfectant so our bums don't have to pick up the germs of other bums.  I was sort of in a rush to leave, but even though the pandemic seems to be receding in our rearview mirror, I thought it'd make sense to spray down the toilet seat and handle.  That bottle was on the other side of the bathroom, next to the sink, so I had to walk with my pants down in order to get it.

I took two steps and then I stopped.  "Wait," I thought to myself, "... did I ... just ... ?"  I got the bottle, duck-walked back and stooped down to where I thought it was ... and it was still there ... but in much, much worse shape.  It was now writhing in one spot, rolling back and forth because I crushed whatever little forward mobility it still had.

It was in my twenties when I started to realize that being dead oftentimes is better than being alive but in such a handicapped state that it's not worth it to live.  And if you caught me on a different day, I would have said a little prayer for it, peed, washed my hands and left it to die.  But this time around I went back to the other side of the bathroom, ripped off a piece of towel, pinched the little bugger up and disposed of it in the trash.  Maybe it was better not to allow its misery to be prolonged.  Or, maybe I didn't "do the merciful thing" for the insect but for me.  Or, maybe I should have just not stepped on the insect in the first damn place.

Yeah, I know I have probably inadvertently stepped on ants in my life.  But I'd like to think I can avoid killing insects I had just observed ten seconds before.  And yeah, I probably won't even remember committing murder on one of God's creatures by the end of the week.  But it's been two days and I still haven't let it go.

A Forty-Fifth Trip Around The Sun!

Shit, man, 45.  I didn't think I'd make it.  Well, I'm not saying I thought I would die before reaching 45.  But as obsessed as I am with old age and death now, I was really cognizant of birthdays when I was a kid, and when I was a kid, 45 seemed so far away.  And now it's here.

But here's the thing: I still feel like a kid.  I probably feel that way because I still live in my childhood home and under my parents', uh, oversight.  And, you know ... this might sound weird, but maybe I want to still live like I am a kid because I still want to see myself as a kid.  Does that make sense?  I don't want to grow up.  It's scary as fuck growing up.

---

I really, really wanted to stay up last night.  I gave myself the day off from work; there should be a law against working on your birthday.  But probably because I went to the library to print out some March Madness stuff and some tax forms, then treated myself to a massage from ******a (I saw her boobie), I had no evening nap, but fought through and finally succumbed to my fatigue around midnight.  I really wanted to last until 4 in the morning to watch World News Now.  And I can't do that now because I work tomorrow.

I am getting old.

---

I also owed myself a birthday wank-off.  Thought I would do that late last night, if I stayed up.  But I woke up a bit past 7, like a 45-year-old, and I decided it was a quiet time to rub one out to the Hooters calendar for February.  And I stroked myself and stroked myself ... and then I pudded out so meekly all my cum landing on my finger.  I laid out my cum towel, and I don't think any of my semen hit it.

Maybe I need my body to wake up more.  Or, maybe I am getting old.

I Became A Trash Panda At Work Tonight

I was working second shift Monday; got home just now.  I want to treat myself for this shift because there's no one around and I get to relax because I don't feel the pressure of deadlines and stuff.  Oftentimes I get a sandwich, and I did this time, going to Jersey Mike's.  And I brought a Vanilla Coke with me, which I bought earlier in the day after getting tested for COVID-19 and had drank some of with the White Castle I bought for my first lunch (notes: I had WC because T-Mobile gave me five bucks off, and the second lunch was at home and was a big plate of spaghetti).

I threw my food in the work refrigerator and I planned on having "dinner" more than halfway through my shift.  I come back out to get a swig of the Coke ... and I didn't see it there.  Then I remembered: Mondays the cleaning crew comes through and, around 5 p.m., they clean out all the contents of one of two fridges in each of the two break rooms in the building I work in.  There are signs on the door of the fridge that will be cleaned out that upcoming Monday.  And the fridge I threw my stuff in apparently was the one that was getting cleaned out this Monday.  Want to be pissed, but I can't blame anybody.  This was all my fault (although, and I'm just saying this, there was a bottle of store-bought cold brew that was still in the fridge that I remembered was there when I stopped by earlier to take a swig of my Vanilla Coke -- so why didn't the cleaning crew toss that bottle, but still, all my fault).

I could have let it go.  Nah!  Jersey Mike's is hella expensive.  I paid, like, six-and-a-half bucks for their small sub.  I want that back!  So I hunted down the cleaning crew, and after going back to the first person I encountered, she said that she threw all the food in the fridge into a bag, and then that bag into the trash receptacle next to the recycling bin.

OK, so it must be done.  I knew there might be people who could see me and thus judge me on what I was going to do, but I was going to do it, and if they see and judge, so be it.  I went into the break room, opened up the lid of that trash can (for the second time, actually; the first time I looked in but didn't have the heart to do more than that) and pulled out a bag.  It was my bag.  And after tossing aside a couple empty food containers, I saw my Jersey Mike's sub, still in the bag.  (I also saw my cup from the Hawaiian ice vendor from whom I bought a cup of ice at a parking lot at Maplewood Mall over the summer.  They said that if I kept the cup and brought it back for another ice, for example at the Minnesota State Fair, where they're a vendor, I could get some bucks knocked off.  That seems kind of silly, keeping around a plastic container until the Fair rolls around, and seeing it touched by actual trash convinced me to take both that cup and that bag home and throw them into our recycling bin.)

You goddamn right I fished it out of the bag.  And you goddamn right I ate it.  I made sure I washed my hands after I opened up the bag and then opened the wrapper in which the sub was rolled, though.  And I smelled the sub, too -- and I couldn't detect a whiff of trash smell.  Now, I'm no aficionado.  Maybe people slag on Jersey Mike's.  But I have always liked them, and frankly, eating that sandwich last night made me so glad that I looked for it and that I took it out of the trash to eat, because last night, Jersey Mike's tasted sooooooooooooo goooooooooooooooood.  No regrets ... assuming I don't get sick from going through trash.

---

Aside: I was lucky to have found my sub in the trash.  The four-person cleaning crew split up to cover the whole building.  One couple tosses the fridge's contents into the trash can; the second takes the trash from the can to the dumpster in the back of the building.  Usually it goes in that order.  Last night, for some reason, they did it the other way.  So, in a sense, I was lucky, because that sub should have gone to the dumpster.

And I will confess: If they had told me that my sub was in the dumpster, I would have asked them if I could go to the dumpster to see if I could get it out of there.  Fucking Christ, I spent six-and-a-half bucks for it!!!

---

Oh, speaking of the Vanilla Coke: I didn't see it in the bag.  So, naturally, I looked in the recycling bin right next to the trash receptacle.  And on top there were two empty bottles.  One of them was Vanilla Coke.  The other was Cherry Vanilla Coke, and I brought with me, in the plastic bag, a bottle of Cherry Vanilla Coke that I had finished while at WC (I had the Cherry Vanilla, I bought the Vanilla, I went to the Castle, I drank the rest of the Cherry Vanilla, and I started drinking some of the Vanilla).

I grabbed them out of the bin.  This was around the time where I noticed someone walking across the break room.  I wouldn't have minded anyway, like I said, but I don't think anyone saw me as I dove through the trash bin, and thank Buddha for that, because the recycling bin is a bit ... cleaner than the garbage can, right?

I planned on scanning the codes underneath the caps of both Cokes as soon as I got done drinking all of the Vanilla (I didn't have time to do the one underneath the Cherry Vanilla before I had to go to work).  But since both were empty, and I already had decided I was going to take the bag and the Hawaiian ice cup home to recycle, I figured I should take some stuff off my hands, scan the codes for both Cokes at work, and then, ironically, throw them back into the recycling bin.

I planned on doing those scans during my second break after I ate the sub.  I looked at both Cokes, both of which still had caps screwed on them.  The guy who cleaned out the fridge dumped the contents of the Vanilla Coke into the sink, most likely.  However, there was a miniscule, miniscule amount of Coke in both bottles.  Now, I was thinking the first part of my night at work at how fat I felt.  It probably was due to the White Castle and the spaghetti serving as my lunches.  But drinking Coke virtually daily isn't good for my health, either, and with every swig I took yesterday I could feel my waistline expanding.

And yet, I felt kind of screwed that the, oh, half-bottle of Vanilla Coke went down the drain.  That's, like, $1.15 that was wasted.  (Again, I'm not blaming the cleaning guy; this was my fault for not putting my stuff in the refrigerator that wasn't going to be cleaned last evening.)  Plus, you know the adage that you don't know what you got till it's gone?  My ballooning stomach due to the sugar in the Cokes was the farthest thing from my mind.  I.  Needed.  Coke.  So you goddamn right I went bottoms up on both Cokes in order to consume every last milliliter!  Who cares, the liquid didn't touch the recyclables!

One More Accomplishment From 2020, If I Do Say So Myself

I think this marks the second consecutive year when I blog posted at least once every day.  I want to be consistent.  I remember that I either forgot or deliberately did not write the second-ever day of Wailing And Failing, and for some reason that fact stays with me.  I know I will forget, and in the future there will be extenuating circumstances that will not permit me to blog post.  But I have done so consecutively all through 2019 and now all through 2020, and I will endeavor to keep that going in 2021!

Oh, I'm Inheriting Your Properties? Bullshit!

So, My Fucking Mother just freaked out after dinner.  She wanted my help deciphering an e-mail she got from her property manager -- again.  (Sometimes she says her English is good, and sometimes not.  Whatever.)  This e-mail was just a reminder to send ... well, something to the now-former tenants of a property my folks own.  This e-mail was the latest in a chain of back-and-forths, the originating message of which came from the prop manager stating, among other things, that the owners of this property, aka my folks, need to cover their legal obligations by sending an itemized bill in the wake of cleaning up said property to the tenants.  It's important to note that they don't know where these tenants have moved to, but legally, all my parents have to do is send this bill to these people's last known address.  The reminder reminds my parents to do it soon.

And My Fucking Mother basically went, "WHA-WHA-WHA-WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!  I didn't know this!!!"  Even though I told her two weeks ago about this ... when she showed me that e-mail, the beginning of this thread, because she didn't fucking understand that e-mail either.  This should not comes as a surprise to her, but it did because she refused to pay attention.  So she told me to e-mail her saying, basically, that ain't my fuckin' problem, I pay you to do this shit.

But My Fucking Mother wasn't letting this shit go.  I was sticking around the living room so My Fucking Father could hand me that day's garbage that I would take out to the trash can.  It was (and is) thundering, but I was thinking I could get that garbage out there before the rain came.  I never got that garbage.  Instead, Mother started asking me again about that fucking e-mail.  I tried to explain to her that not only was her (as the "owner") supposed to send this mail, according to the e-mail the property manager sent to her, but that I told her this two weeks ago.

And then she started jibber-jabbering.  "I'm educating you!" she said.  Educating me?  You're the one asking me what you need to do!  And then she really laid the guilt trip on me.  "What happens if we die?  What are you going to do then?"  Anything that's better than the "advice" you're giving me, Mother.  Finally, after more bullshit came spewing out of her mouth, she tells me, in less-than-uncertain (?) terms, that all these properties are going to be mine some day, and I'd better get serious about running these properties.  This was a revelation timed for maximum psychic damage (and one I had already figured out, even though I put it out of my mind a lot), even though I have rarely seen any of these properties, even though these interests were and are my parents' and my parents' alone, even though the only exposure I usually have to these come in the form of problem e-mails my parents toss onto my lap because they play the victim because they say they can't understand any fucking English.  I'm not going to fucking care about this just because you tell me to fucking care.  And really, if they die and I inherit running these properties, goddammit, I'm selling them the first goddamn chance I get.

I had to retreat into my shell, again, just to shut both of them up.  (Oh, My Fucking Father got in on the yelling, too.)  All I could do was go back to the e-mail; they are going to follow up by dropping by the property manager's office tomorrow and tell them that, for all they know, they as owners just pay them to do everything, including mail these bills to cover their asses.  Seeing that nothing else can be done for the issue at hand until tomorrow, they quieted down.  And I find safety in my bed, and in this blog, and put out of my mind that, once again, I will need to clean up a mess I had no hand in making -- in the short-term and the long-term.

Now I Have A REAL Problem At Work

OK, so there was this co-worker who's now my supervisor, the one I thought was a bitch, then wasn't, then (maybe) was again and then (maybe) was not again?  Well, after how she treated me yesterday, she's a complete bitch -- a cunt even -- and she can't come back from that.

She has a penchant of, uh, jokingly complaining about someone.  She frequently says something to the effect of, "(insert name here) broke the computer again!"  She actually said it in the morning.  But a bit after that, after talking to the co-worker next to me, she muttered my name, and for what, I don't remember.  And I thought she was joking, like usual, so I said something not worth remembering back to her.  But she shot back: "I need to see if you're going to pull your weight."

Uh, excuse me?  I don't know what the hell she's talking about.  But I got blindsided that she came back at me with an insult like that.  That means that she isn't joking.  All I could do was stammer out something to the effect of, "We'll see about that," after the window for clever comebacks closed, if you know what I mean.

OK, so I'm already thinking that I need to raise this with my boss.  But she destroyed any chance we could have a workable relationship at the end of the day ... and it was my fault, even though I still don't really know what happened.  What I know is that there was a folder and there were applications that were missing, but ever since our hours were cut, I have seen that many times.  Now, I don't quite remember what happens in those cases, but I do know that I didn't want to speak to her, and usually when I do raise something to her, she says it's nothing.  So I thought it was nothing.  So I passed it through.

Ah, yeah, that was a big mistake.  On her way out, she was pissed at me.  Paraphrasing: "You know that folder you sent through?  There were, like, dozens of forms missing.  Why did you pass it through?  Why didn't you tell me?!"

So, what do you say to someone after you fucked up big time, but who passive-aggressively made an unfair accusation to your face a few hours before and now was walking away from you after shooting a look of disgust beneath her surgical mask?  You scream, "Sorry!  Have a nice weekend!" at her back with as much sarcasm as you can.  And I didn't have to wait a beat to think it up.  Now that's what you call a comeback!!!

Maybe I should have done better with that folder, to put it mildly.  But when her feelings for me aren't that great to begin with, and she told me as much, and her reasons for it are bullshit, I really don't have too many fucks to give ... even though I've been thinking about her behavior toward me ever since I got home.  Man, this water off a duck's back mindset I just cannot do. ...

So yeah, I really need to talk about this to my boss now.  He needs to know that if my supe wants to start a passive-aggressive war of insults, she'll fucking get one.  I have a right to stand up for myself.

Over My Head, Figuratively And Literally

Yeah, so I threw in the towel ... and the brush and the boxes and the magazines and the newspapers and the receipts into storage.  I am beat, and I know I lost.  And I still have some of my stuff I'm just going to shovel into my desk or something.

There were several big paper bags, several small paper bags in which I organized programs and stuff from Vikings Games, plus all the pamphlets from Auto Shows past, which I never got to.  Combine that with the Amazon boxes I could just not part with, I had, like, two dozen ... things I threw into my storage unit.

And I took a good look when I was there about an hour ago.  The pile was taller than my head, and the new stuff I threw in there made it even taller, obviously.  This is a huge monument to my failure to organize, curate, let go, and make decisions about My Stuff.

I think I need to spend a few hours a couple evenings per week at storage.  That means going there, taking out a bag, separating the things I truly want to keep to the ones I kept just to read them later, and read them right then and there.  But that would mean I need to buy a footstool ... and probably throw it into my storage unit.

More Of Mother's Blaming Bullshit

All I wanted to do was ask because I was concerned.

OK, so in the blog post I posted, like, two hours ago I said that Mother wanted my help printing some things at the library.  Just before leaving today (I am at Diamonds right now on the way to the Vikings game) I asked Mother if everything went well.

To which she replied, and I paraphrase: "You did not tell me about the other bills!  They were in the big envelope!  You were supposed to put them together!  I find them but I got so confused!  I paid the bills before I put them together!  You're supposed to put them together!"

Normal, well-adjusted mothers would say something to the effect of, "Those other bills came in.  They were in the big envelope.  I don't know why they all didn't come in that one envelope.  But it's all good."  But I don't have a normal, well-adjusted mother.  I have a bitch.

What I did was ask her if she was able to pay everything, which was the point of all this.  And then I turned around, gave her the finger, and said under my breath, "That's what I get for asking.".  But honestly, I am roiling inside.  Angry at her, and angry at myself for walking into her trap.  That fucker does this shit all the time -- blaming me for things that happen to her and, on top of that, communicating that in a way that is nothing more than finger-pointing.  I guess I missed that the bills were shipped in a different envelope.  But it ain't such a huge goddamn deal when you had all of them together, and it doesn't really matter if you were able to pay all the bills you need to pay, does it?

I can't let this stand.  My Fucking Mother has to know this bullshit she pulls is not OK.  But I don't want to go on and on about this because this will affect my frame of mind.  It already is; I kind of got into it with a couple of cars on the streets on my way here to Diamonds.  And I have to go to work and I know I'll have to deal with other stressors there which, once they trigger me, will pull me back to what this cunt did to me just now and it'll take my damndest to not spiral into an argument.

My "comeback," such as it is: Just before I left the house I took the Sharpie out of my bag, went back upstairs and, with My Fucking Mother right there in the kitchen, crossed out a date on the calendar indicating I am not coming home for dinner that day.  It's not satisfying because it's passive-aggressive, but I don't think I'm smart enough to do something more direct.  I'll refuse her food when I am eating dinner tomorrow, or something.

Process through, and try to let go.

Addendum To: That One "Friend" Who Stresses Me The Fuck Out

He's still going at it.  Well, we're still going at it.  Back and forth over our team.  There's been another game since then and we're still not letting it go.  I don't like arguments; I try to avoid them, sometimes at all costs.  But I also want -- well, more like demand -- to be right.  That sort of is a conflict.

Meanwhile, what does it say about him when he refuses to drop an argument after more than a week?  That has to be terribly exhausting if you're, say, his partner.  Then again, I'm doing it to.  But hey, I know I'm not partner material.

Maybe I'll get onto Facebook later today and see that he's finally dropped the subject.  Or, maybe not.

That One "Friend" Who Stresses Me The Fuck Out

So I know a guy -- I hesitate to call him a friend -- who I sometimes get into an argument with on Facebook over things.  Usually it's politics: He's a raving Republican lunatic, and I'm ... left of center.  He's the type of dude who makes his points forcefully.  In fact, in my opinion, he tiptoes on the line between being very passionate about his viewpoints and being downright crazy.

This argument, however, concerns our alma mater.  After they got the shit kick out of them Saturday night, I posted on Facebook how the team isn't very good and our quarterback isn't the answer.  Should have known that this ... oh, "frenemy" will weigh on this issue and disagree with me.  We have gone back-and-forth about this issue, but frankly, since this began on Saturday, he has stated his viewpoints extremely aggressively.  He's getting to be rude about it, too.

The defect in both of us is that we can't let this go.  We both need to get the last word.  So after he says something, I try to let several hours pass before I respond to him.  Honestly, it's because I want him to stop replying while I get the last word.  He last responded Sunday afternoon.  I wait until Sunday evening to reply, hoping that will be the end of it.  And after I run around all day, thinking I'm actually, well, free of this argument, I see on my Timeline that he responded to me.  And it's stressing me the hell out because he is bound to say something that is borderline cheap, and yet I know that I need to come back against him.

So, for right now, I'm choosing not to even look at what he said until I can respond appropriately -- forcefully, if I have to -- and that won't come until this evening.  I hope to Buddha that this doesn't stress me out during the day, because I have to be the one who's right about this while shutting him the fuck down.

Man, I like getting into arguments.  But not in the way he frames them.  Typical Republican, flying off the handle.  Damn, t's incredibly frustrating.

Great, Now I Have To Avoid This Co-Worker For The Rest Of My Life

When I was an usher, by far the worst part of the job were asshole customers.  But I learned over the years working there that usually I would never see them again.  Even in a town like this that seems so small, it was rare to have a second run-in with a prick at a show or a concert.  Once I realized this, it actually made my bad days sort-of better.  I found that if I don't see a motherfucker again, I can let go of the angry feelings that I remember from the run-in with that motherfucker.

The problem really started with this fellow usher.  I may have spoken about her in the past, and I don't want to give that closeted bitch the time of day, so if you don't mind, I'm going to gloss over her misdeeds toward me.  But these misdeeds, whenever she was in a bad mood (or, since I believe she has some psychological issues, I'll say she was "glitching"), I had to add that to all the other bad times I had dealing with her.  Those experiences added up, and when I had my final straw, my "I'm done with you!" moment with her, that's when I went to my supervisor and told him I cannot deal with that woman anymore.  Because she wasn't going away.  She was coming back, again and again and again, and I was just a sitting duck, waiting for her to explode and melt down on me.  I could not let go of my angry feelings of her mistreatment towards me.  And therefore, after a year of hemming and hawing, I realized that I would rather be free from her than have this ushering job, a job that I loved for eight, nine years.

Since then I've been weary of making enemies of people at my usual workplace.  Unlike strangers who come and go, your co-workers are going to be there, day after day after day.  There's no way to avoid them, no way to be free of them (besides quitting, of course).  So while I am wary of people who might not be so, uh, professional, I also try and not do anything to make enemies out of people, either.  Because there's no way you can get out of that.

So that takes me to this morning.  I was surprised when I woke up to see one inch of snow; the forecast said a dusting to 2/10 of an inch.  That slowed traffic to a crawl, of course, and even though I did set my alarm early just in case, I still got blindsided by the underestimation of snow.  Therefore, once again, I was trying to beat the clock in getting to the parking ramp so I can get into work before it was too late.

This morning, I had to take a left in order to get to the ramp.  I had to wait, however, as two cars coming in my direction were making a right.  They were -- no, are -- employees in the same company and building as I.  So, remembering that there is a possibility that I will run into them at some point in the future, I waited.

The first car took a right.  The second car flipped its turn signal on, but started to slow down, moreso than a normal car.  And I'm still edgy, trying to get to work, you know?  So I waited ... but then creeped out a bit, and started my right turn.  And then the driver, sigh, she (?) slowed down, presumably because she thought I was being aggressive and was going to get to the turn before she did.  But then I stopped, and then she stopped, and -- AARGH! fine, I'm going!

OK, so in retrospect, I should have just creeped out into the intersection, turned on my turn signal ... and stopped.  But geez, this woman was driving slow.  Serious!  If anything, I should have just taken the turn before she did straight away.  Me hesitating -- should I go?  Should I wait? -- that got me into this annoying and frustrating situation.

And since she turned into the same ramp I did, I hurried to a spot and tried to get into the building as soon as I could, assuming that this driver would be as slow in parking and walking into work as she was taking the right turn.  I think I managed to avoid her.  But I think she knows what I look like.  What happens if she sees me in the same intersection tomorrow?  Or, worse, what happens if she recognizes me in, say, the lobby some time next week?  See, this is why I try to be a choir boy when driving.  If somebody perceives you being a jerk, it'll come back to haunt you, because there's nowhere for you to go.

I have to take a different way to work tomorrow.  That might help.  Maybe.

Breaths, Deep Breaths

OK, so I went to a stripper party, and two of the strippers invited me to another party, this one a non-stripper party, but it was at ****i's place.  I thought, "Oh, cool, a party where there will be no nudity but I won't have to pay anything!"  So I got my rocks off at the party, and I told the two girls that I will go the party before them.

So I go to the party and I knock, and after I knocked a second time, ****i answers the door.  "Oh, hell, no," she says, to which I reply, "I know it's not that type of party -- so-and-so and so-and-so invited me."  And then she says, "Fuck no," and slammed the door in face.  I could hear her say from behind the door, "Get the fuck outta here."

This is one of those occasions where I brush it off as it happens but it pisses me off the more I think about it.  It's the rudeness and the passive-aggressive comments from someone who knows me that makes me want to throw things and scream at the nearest stranger.  Now, I don't consider her a close friend.  In fact, she's acted weird and even crazy before.  But not like this.  Hey, maybe it's because I haven't attended her last few parties.  If so, well, bitch, I won't be attended any of your parties from now on.

Still mad.  But I have to keep things in perspective.  One, it's just one stripper.  Two, I was able to blog this and do some work with my alumni club, so at least I was productive.  And three, I read on Facebook that the father of a few friends of mine died this morning.  I'm still fixated over how this woman treated me, but really, I have to get a grip.

Breaths, deep breaths.

Chose The Wrong Lane On The On-Ramp Again

OK.  Assuming that this isn't universal (although it probably is), I have an on-ramp I need to get onto the highway on my way to work.  It's a ramp that is two lanes wide, goes up and doglegs to the right, and it narrows to one lane as it merges onto the highway.  Just as it narrows from two to one, there are two columns of traffic signals, one for the left lane and one for the right.  Stands to reason, during rush hour traffic, all the oncoming cars who want to get onto this highway have to get into these two lanes and stop at the light.  When the light on the left column goes from red to green, the first car on the left lane at the traffic light can go.  Then the traffic light on the right column turns green, indicating that the car on the right lane can now proceed through the lane and merge onto the highway ahead.  And so on and so forth.

So, you can guess that as the cars get onto this ramp, they will separate in such a way that they will choose which lane to get onto according to the order they got onto the ramp.  And you would think that you would alternate -- one car goes on the left, one goes on the right -- because the way you got onto the ramp should be in the same order as you go through the traffic light.  Only fair.

Unfortunately, people are stupid.  Sometimes when you do the alternating thing, you wind up not leaving in the same order you entered.  I've been lucky that I've actually gone ahead of cars that I was behind when we got to the ramp, but just as often (if not moreso) I have fallen behind cars I was in front of.  I hate that.

The reason that happens is because the cars in front of the pack I'm in, the ones that are already waiting at the light when we get there, were unable or indifferent to the common sense that if the car in front of you is going in one lane, you go in the other.  Now, there are huge vehicles that might skew the length of the two waiting lanes off, and I can see that an inattentive driver would just automatically go to the lane that's shorter, not knowing (or caring) that it's the number of cars and not the length that matters and that in this case the longer lane might actually be shorter, but again, People Are Stupid.  Semis can also throw things off.  They have to take both lanes, so any cars coming up behind them have no idea how the alternating cars are going to go, so they have to take a guess, and they may end up falling behind the car that's tailing them.  That's also happened to me before, and that sucks and stays with me to this day.

I might be making excuses for people, and I don't want to when I would rather point the finger.  Anyhoo ... all of this incorrect calculating means that I fall behind other cars, and I hate that, so I have now gotten to doing quick counting of the cars waiting in front of me so I don't get screwed.  That usually works, but if there are some friggin' long buses and stuff that obscure cars that are ahead or behind them, I could get it wrong.  Well, I got it wrong this morning.  There were a bunch of buses and small trucks waiting, and I did the "eeny-meeny-miney-moe" thing and I thought I picked the right one.  Nope -- the bus on the lane I selected hid two cars that were ahead of it, so I fell behind the car that came up behind me.  Sucks.

And the worse thing is is that I was following a car onto this ramp and decided to pull in behind it instead of take the other lane.  I believe people just mindlessly go to the lane the car in front of it didn't take.  If I just did that, I would've been find.  But I regularly fight this presumption, and it burned me in the behind this morning, dang it.

I don't know why I'm still all hopped up about it.  It's a Friday commute and I got to work in just over half an hour.

A Rough Reintegration

OK, so it's been more than a day, and My Fucking Father still hasn't spoken to me.  Either he's tired or he's still pissed that I didn't pick them up Wednesday morning (more on that later).

Last night (Thursday night) I holed up in bedroom the whole night after dinner.  Didn't feel the need to invite any criticism from him.  Then again, holing up in my bedroom may also invite criticism one of these days.  He likes to hold grudges.  He is who I got that from.

Now, tonight, I'm going to this wrestling thing and I haven't told my parents yet.  What am I supposed to tell them?  How?  When?  This is going to be rough.