Start every day with a smile... and get it over with.

A few months before my encounter with the Screaming Child, and once again standing in line, I was startled out of my reverie by a tap on the shoulder. I turned and came nose-to-nose with a maniacally grinning face. I took a step back. The man continued to beam at me.
"Smile!" He boomed. "It might never happen!"

Or, if it has already happened, drop some LSD and look for pink and purple felines...

I hate this - absolutely hate it - and for two reasons...

Reason #1
Informing me that I look miserable or pissed off (in however passive-aggressive or cheery a way) intimates that I am in some way ruining your otherwise rainbow-strewn and sunny day by not 'turning my frown upside down'. It's unlikely that I'm unhappy - I probably just have a vacant or non-committal expression on my face because I am either:

     a) pondering possible solutions for:
         - leaking toilets (duct tape, obviously)
         - rat-infested garages (figure out some kind of rodent rent, because those buggers aren't showing signs of leaving any time soon)
        - vet bills that would rival the national debt (consider prostitution), and
        - perpetual spinsterhood (buy more batteries and watch more daytime television involving shirtless, bronzed men)

Or:

     b) wondering how to prevent:
        - my small dog from chewing the crotch out of all of my underwear (I have no idea how he gets into the laundry hamper - he must be a perverted furry ninja)
        - my pool guy from showing up two days late (grow weed in the back yard)
       - people from being shocked when I wear a skirt (stop trying to be a girl), and
        - the mockingbird from claiming what little of my sanity is left (just go with it - sanity is overrated).

If my pool guy looked like this, he could turn up whenever he wanted... I'd just take the day off work...

I adore it when I see people smiling to themselves - it's infectious and makes me smile - but the average person standing in a line in a store after they just got out of work probably isn't smiling; they just want to get the hell out of there and get home.
So, just because I'm not singing cheerily like Mary Poppins or crapping Care Bears doesn't mean that I'm not happy. It's possible that I am just preoccupied.

Reason #2
I would never presume to tell a stranger to 'smile' or 'cheer up'. Why? Because they are unknown to me - I have no idea what is going on in that person's life. He or she may be looking melancholy for a reason; they may have experienced a death, lost their job, got divorced, or encountered a bill that they didn't budget for. Or they just may be contemplating something utterly mundane. It's absolutely none of my business.

 What do people think when they say this to a complete stranger? That the recipient of their trite comment will think, "Hey, they're right. I mean, I just got laid off, I don't know how to afford the mortgage, and my diet consists of cream cheese on toasted toilet paper rolls, but I should always smile!"

If I see someone looking sad, I will always smile warmly at them, but I won't assume that it is my place to correct their countenance. Shit happens - sometimes it happens to the best of people - but I am not the Smile Police.
I would never tell a family member or friend to smile if they were going through rough times. I'm there to listen, support, and encourage, not to make them paste an expression on their face that they don't feel.

See? So much better!

So what makes a stranger think that he/she can do it to another stranger?
I think I know the reason; we, as humans, want to see each other as being happy (especially when we are feeling happy ourselves), but the fact of the matter is that this is not always possible.

I opened my mouth to tell him to stick his comment where the sun doesn't shine... and then couldn't. His face was so alight with michief and good intent that I couldn't bring myself to do it. I am sure that he had the best of intentions, but I just wasn't in the mood for it. So I attempted a smile just to placate him and got out of there as quickly as my high heels could carry me....

Bloody do-gooders!

Just call me Miss. Anthropy.

Sometimes I worry that I am slowly inching over the line that separates 'mildly annoyed by people' from 'out and out misanthropist'. I find myself becoming more and more irritated by people in general and those who patronize my local CVS store in particular, almost to the point where I am sure that the other shoppers can hear the grinding of my teeth as I try to prevent myself from going nuclear.

The closest Ralph's grocery store is 1.17 miles away from my house and the closest CVS store is 0.69 miles... so bearing in mind that I am inherently lazy and absolutely abhor grocery shopping, guess which one I pick 9 times out of 10?

Over the last two weeks, I have experienced some truly obnoxious individuals who have made me want to separate myself from the outside world and get my groceries delivered in case I viciously inadvertently maim someone with a can of Campbell's Chunky Chicken Soup.
Over the next few posts, I will be describing these paragons of aggravation, so follow me, if you will, into the Land of the Unbearable CVS Shoppers.

The Screaming Child.
Those of you who have been following me for a while know that I am not a huge fan of kids, and particularly don't like the ones who make a lot of noise. I believe that there is a viable market out there for child-sized ball-gags, but that might just be me.
Last week, I was standing in the seemingly endless line for the cashier when an unholy noise slammed into my consciousness. Startled, I looked around to try and find the source when I spotted a small ululating child lying in the middle of one of the aisles... and it looked like it was having a seizure. Concerned, I looked around for its owner, wondering whether I should go over there and check on it. As I was about to put my basket down and leg it over there (to do what, I'm not exactly sure), the wailing started to take word form... "EEEEEeeeeOOOOOOOooaAAAAAAAAaaaIIIIiiiiiiiiiIIII WANT AN ICE CREAM!!!"

Holy shit!

As my eardrums started vibrating, I looked around wildly for a parent-type person (though I couldn't imagine how anyone would want to lay claim to such a thrashing little monster). From the corner of my eye, I saw someone approaching the child. Calmly. A little too calmly (I was thinking 'Xanax. Lots and lots of Xanax'). "No honey, you don't need an ice cream", soothed the woman. "No," I thought, "What the kid needs is a straight-jacket." "BUT I WANNA...!!!" Howled the brat. "No honey," repeated the woman (and at this point, I figured it must be Xanax with a Vicodin chaser), "You don't need an ice cream."

The child fixed its eyes on its mother and slowly and very deliberately sucked in a breath, obviously with an intention of releasing the kind of scream that would put a horror movie actress out of a job. As I dropped my basket and prepared to clamp my hands over my ears to prevent brain-death (and fought the urge to instruct everybody to 'assume the crash position') I heard the mother say, "Ok honey. You can have an ice cream."
What?!
Way to negatively reinforce the kid. Guess what it's going to do next time it wants something and you say no? And the Parenting Award goes to....

As I drove home (ears still ringing), I idly imagined what would have happened if I had behaved like that when I was little, and had to suppress a whole-body shudder. The hand print on my arse would have shown up on my grandchildren's grandchildren's arses.
I'm not saying that my parents were into corporal punishment at all - they were not - in fact, I can't remember my parent's ever smacking me on the backs of the legs, but I'm sure it must have happened at some point. I'm also not saying that I condone it, but I was raised in a time when you could still smack your kids without having the cops called on you for child abuse.

When I was small, the only thing needed to keep me in line was my father's presence - all it took was one look from him that said, "I'm disappointed in you," and it felt like a stab to my little heart. I was Daddy's Little Girl (and still am), and I hated disappointing him in any way. The result of this was that I behaved myself. 
My brother was another story...

My brother was a 'hyperactive' child of the 80s (if he had been born five years ago, the doctors would have had him so stuffed full of Ritalin by now that he would have rattled. Way to go 21st Century - if in doubt, drug your kids). He wasn't allowed anything with artificial preservatives or sugar in it because the ingestion of either of those would cause him to bounce off the walls like Speedy Gonzales on crack. As a result of this, he was a bit of a handful...

... but my father figured out a way to calm him down...
One evening, we had gone out for a family dinner, and my brother was in Tazmanian Devil mode. He got his hands on anything that could be squeezed, spilled, thrown, or shook (despite these things having been moved out of his reach - he was a regular Houdini), and decimated a 10 foot radius around us. Finally losing his temper, my father dragged him off to the bathroom for a 'chat'. When they returned, my brother was incredibly subdued and remained so for the rest of the meal.
From that day on, if we were in public and my brother began acting up, all my father had to say to him was, "Do you want to go to the bathroom, Tom?" Invariably, my brother would settle down instantly. "No, Dad." "Are you sure?" "Yes, Dad."
And that would be the end of it.

Nowadays, it seems that reasoning with your child (or giving it a light slap round the back of the head) is unnecessary - just give the child whatever it wants... and reap the benefits of having an entitled adolescent. I'm sure that will be glorious.

UPDATE: I just want to reassure those of you who are about to start bashing out an indignant response to my post that this is just a 'bit'. I don't hate all children - I'm just not good with them - and I have no idea what kind of pressures today's parent experiences (especially single parents), so I'm not bashing them either.

Heaven knows there are days when I come home from work and the last thing I want to do is deal with my dogs, but I do, because I love them. It's not the same, but you get my drift.

This blog is purely for my (and I hope your) entertainment purposes only. It is a 'cynical' blog, and not to be read for edification...

Boracic Gnome Purchases.

Isn't it incredible what we will consider doing for money when we are absolutely boracic*? Things that would never have crossed our minds, or that we would have dismissed completely out of hand when were 'flush', suddenly start to seem appealing when you are trying to shoehorn yourself under the couch to get away from the creditors.
My creditors don't actually bother me very much, as I just let Boscoe do his usual 'insanely angry, potentially rabid, and certainly cross-eyed' routine at the kitchen window, and they usually scarper pretty sharpish; protectively clutching their meat and two veg with one hand, whilst hysterically throwing their paperwork in the general direction of my front door with the other.

(*Boracic - Cockney Rhyming Slang for 'boracic lint' = 'skint'. And 'skint' translated into American is 'broke'. So much effort... I probably should have just said 'broke' to begin with...)

The other mind-boggling thing about being broke is the crap you buy when you know that you are clutching your last $50 until payday in your sweaty little (borderline homeless) hand. I walk around Ralphs, feeling awfully grown up and piously frugal, mentally encouraging myself to make fiscally responsible decisions, and then... holy shit... it's a garden gnome! And, awwwww, he's the last one left... he must feel lonely. He might be the only one left because he looks like he might have had Electric Shock Therapy... so I HAVE to take him home.
This actually happened. And here is the proof:

I tried to think of a name for him, but I couldn't come up with anything remotely P.C., so he is just 'The Gnome'.

Elton John-type pink plastic sunglasses; tank tops of the kind that say 'Tag Your Bitch, I.D. Your Pet'; what must be hundreds of pashmina scarves that I buy, never wear, and ultimately end up giving to my Peas; Wind chimes with saccharine sentiments... you name it, I bought them when I was broke. Stuff that never appeals to me when I have money suddenly has me reaching for the nearest justification I can find. There must be a name for this phenomenon, because I can't believe I am the only person who does this. If I am, it's probably time for the little men in white coats to put me in an 'I Love Me' jacket and take me somewhere quiet and padded where I can drool undisturbed.
I have enough of that kind of crap to open one of those 'Utterly Kitschy Shit' shops that you see in town - the ones whose haphazardly scattered merchandise is covered in at least an inch of dust. These are the same shops that make you wonder how in the hell they stay open when they are purveying prancing neon-pink unicorns with half the glitter missing, and various grubby gnomes with facial expressions that make you think they should be on the sex offenders registry.


"I have a large pipe... would you like to smoke it?"

I began writing about my possible second job considerations and got sidetracked by the inappropriate spending of a 30-something woman with more money than sense. And when you consider that I am down to my last $100 for the next two weeks, we are not talking about a whole lot of sense here. I will leave the job considerations involving poles (deep-sea fishing, obviously) until next time, but I will leave you with some more truly disturbing pictures of gnomes, because these freaky faces weirded me out, and I have to share the love ickiness. I mean, my gnome is a little 'special' looking, but these little bastards are downright creepy...

What's happening below the photo cut-off? I'm imagining a squirrel who's hard up for nuts last winter...

"Heeeeeeee'res GNOMEY!"

"I wonder if I can snort this..?"

Lock up your small domestic animals people!

Glorious!

I challenged my good friend, Jacob Naasz, to come up with a design for 'Six Speed Avocado'... and the boy excelled himself!

As soon as I get my arse into gear, I will be putting it on a t-shirt!
Happy Friday all, and have a wonderful weekend..

But do the gears shift smoothly?

I don't know whether my ears are packing up because I am getting older, or whether I am just spending less time paying attention to what is going on around me, but my hearing is shot to shit.
People are beginning to think that I am genuinely mentally deficient (and they may have a pretty sturdy point), due to the fact that I spend half my time asking them to repeat themselves, and the other half vacantly gazing at them like a Vicodin addict while I play the conversation back through my head to try and figure out what I may have missed.

This past Saturday was a perfect example - I wish I was sane creative enough to be able to make this stuff up.

M.P. decided that we were going to spend some 'girlie' time together, as we hadn't done it in a while... if, in fact, we ever had. My idea of 'girlie' is wearing a skirt and/or not saying 'F**k'. When she suggested a 'mani/pedi', it was all I could do not to swallow my own tongue. M.P. frequently gets her nails done, but it's just something I don't do. Given the choice between a gasoline enema and a mani/pedi, I'll take the regular unleaded every time with a cheery smile and a 'Whoopsa Daisy!' I view my fingernails as implements to hook the gunk out of my dogs' eyes, and my toenails as things best hidden in high-heeled boots. But, as M.P. and I hadn't spent a lot of time together in recent weeks, I decided to swallow my terror instead of my tongue and go for it...
...Which was a mistake on so many levels.

As soon as we walked into the salon, I was overwhelmed by the sheer presence of oestrogen and had to physically stop myself from faking a seizure to escape. I was less a fish out of water and more an alien who had just landed on the Vagina Planet. I watched one girl get up from her manicure, stroll casually over to the mirror on the wall in the middle of the room and start preening. The hair was fluffed and brushed, the lipgloss was reapplied, the mascara wand was waved... the whole shebang. To me, that's the kind of thing you do in privacy - in a bathroom or something - not in the middle of a room teeming with people. She spent another full two minutes admiring herself before she smirked at her reflection and sauntered to the counter to pay. I felt like a teenaged boy who had sneaked into a peep show - was this what women really did?!

As I was goggling, a manicurist came over and said something to M.P. and I, smiled, and walked away. My mate immediately knew something was off, because I cocked my head to one side and squinted like a constipated owl.
"What's up?" she asked.
"What did she just say?"
"She said that we should go and pick a nail color..."
"Ohhhh...Well, that makes much more sense..."
M.P. frowned quizzically at me. "What did you think she said?"

"I thought she said, 'Six Speed Avocado'"

Before you ask, I have never smoked crack, but at that moment I almost wished that I had have done at some point in my life, just so that I had something to blame my wonky mind on.

M.P. and I spent an inordinate amount of time laughing about it (the same amount of time it would probably take to get a gasoline enema), and then went over to pick the nail colors...
...and as I looked at the nail polish, I wondered what a 'Six Speed Avocado' green would look like...

Note: For those of you who actually read the drivel that I write, I apologise for not having written for a while - I will try harder...

Not just scraping the barrel, but wearing through it!

When I first started online dating, my friends got a huge kick out of my relaying the deplorable and occasionally downright scary encounters that I subjected myself to, and one of them encouraged me to write about it as a kind of catharsis, to prevent my soul from being destroyed.
In fact what Miss. Eds said was, "I swear, you could put together the funniest blog about this. Seriously - write it down. It will make me laugh at least!"

Unlike stars, they can help you laugh at your misfortunes and encourage you to write about it publicly...

Can you feel the love?

After I was dumped last November, I decided to get back on the horse and try online dating again. I suspected that it would be a mistake, and I have yet to be proven wrong. Over the last few months, I have subjected myself to a veritable parade of the socially unhinged, mentally defunct, and reality-challenged, and whilst my self-esteem and any hopes for the future of mankind have taken a hit, I continue to do it. Why? After much (insomnia induced) consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I am either an unwavering optimist, or a complete masochist... which might actually be the same things... and maybe a cat-of-nine tails for my own personal use would be a little less mentally wearing...

I was complaining to one of my mates last week about the caliber of individuals on online dating sites.
"For f***'s sake!"  I gesticulated wildly, slopping Peeno Greeg all over Viola,  "What the hell is wrong with these people? It's as though most of them have crawled out of a Goonies Fan Club and they all want to be Sloth! Mentally, emotionally, truthfully, and socially damaged! The people on these sites are all nutcases!"
Taking advantage of my pausing for breath, my mate innocently asked, "So, everyone on these dating sites is nuts?"
"F**ck yes!" I exclaimed, assuming an understanding and failing to notice the monster about to bite me in the ass.
"But," she said calmly, wiping Viola down with a paper towel, "You are on these dating sites too..."
"..."
Shit.

I have been accused of being a little picky. Actually I have been accused of being downright exclusive, but I ask you - what's wrong with that? I don't think 'settling' is the answer... I already did that, and one divorce later finds me perusing the dating shelves looking for the male equivalent of the undented tin that hasn't passed its sell-by date.

I'm not saying that I am in any way a 'prize', but I am fully aware of that fact, and don't misrepresent myself in any way. It would take more than the entire fleet of Greyhound coaches to carry the baggage that I drag around with me, but at least I'm honest about it... unless asked directly about my criminal history... and then I hedge...

But honestly, pickings are seeming a little slim... and even if I relax my admittedly ridiculously high standards (I was raised on Disney movies and happy endings against unreasonable odds, so sue me), I still get to read gems like this - a message I received on one of the dating sites:

"Hello ther my name is ######### just trying this on line dating thing out. Kinda new @ this so bare w me please..lol im also a dog lover i have my owen dog trainning slash dog walking buissness that i do on weekends plus my full time job in constuction that keeps me busy most of the time. Kind of hard finding that speical someone in my life rt now due to work. I live in Carlsbad just N. Of Sandiego about 5 blocks from the beach. Sorry no pic yet but if needed ill give u my facebook name where u can see me if ur intrested...? Hope to here back from u soon :o) by the way it says here that ur online rt now is that so?? Get back w me lets chat alittle & see what comes out of it??"

Or not even then...

*Shudder*
Even if I weren't an unreasonable grammarian with more than a passing respect for the English language, that would be enough to send me sprinting towards the nearest spellcheck. On reading that, I had to fight an overwhelming urge to dig out my own eyeballs with a rusty spoon to ensure I would never have to experience that horror again... and yet I probably will...

I have started to wonder why I am bothering... my vibrator can't talk and inadvertently use a dangling participle, nor use a keyboard to type something that would make my eyes bleed...
On the other hand it doesn't enrich my emotional life, nor would it look healthy if I took it to dinner in a nice restaurant...

I guess I'll 'keep on keeping on'... for now...

"Said the Nun to the Bishop!"

I can squeeze a double-entendre out of practically any statement or question. "It needs to be a little bigger", "I can't see it", ""Is it meant to be green?"... anything even remotely snigger-worthy is fodder for my depraved mental cannon, and "Said the Nun to the Bishop" is an almost involuntarily verbal reflex. I can't seem to help it any more than I can help giggling when I hear the word 'Uranus'. I have no idea where, when, why, or how my sense of humor became permanently arrested at Teenage Boy, but I have warmly embraced it, as I have embraced my Vehicular Tourettes and my Spontaneous Facial Combustion.

Some people are amused by it, in much the same way as people are amused by monkeys scratching their arses at the zoo - I (like they) don't seem to have evolved to a point where anything else can be expected, so a pat on the head and a humoring smile is usually forthcoming.

Some people are irritated by it, and I have been called, at various times, 'purile', 'childish', and 'juvenile'. To this name calling, I usually respond with a dignified and intellectual retort along the lines of, "I know you are, but what am I?"

I can amuse myself for hours spotting double-entendres, and it is rare that one will go by without my commenting loudly and gleefully. I live in cold-sweating fear of the day when I can call myself a 'grown-up' with a straight face, smugly aware of my comfortable bank balance, underwear that covers both cheeks, and undead houseplants... which is why what happened this morning was so terribly shocking...

For the last couple of days, I have been trying desperately to find an online store that is based in the US and sells British food. There are a couple, but their prices are astronomical, and the British-based ones charge half the national debt for shipping.
During my 'research', I came across a store based in Ireland that, for the cost of a Lamborghini, would ship proper pork sausages to the US. 'Mmmmmmm..... sausages...'. I have never been able to like the weird stuff that Americans do to sausages over here, so the notion of selling a couple of kidneys and having them shipped over has been tantalizingly.... tantalizing. I went to sleep dreaming about them.

This morning, I was talking to my friend, Miss. C., about the online British food stores as we walked to the coffee shop around the corner from work. Due to a combination of dreams about dancing sausages and a chronic lack of caffeine, I don't think I was completely mentally present as we placed our orders and stood chatting at the counter. The Barista was listening to our conversation with half an ear whilst he made the coffees, and I was expounding on the superiority of British sausages. Without an ounce of consideration, out of my mouth tripped the words...

"I love a good sausage"

... and I continued to blithely warble on about the cost of shipping them... dimly aware that something was amiss - that Miss. C. now had a fixed grin, and the Barista seemed to be having contractions - but caffeine-deprived enough that I completely managed to miss my own double-entendre.
I can only vaguely recall the conversation that Miss. C. and I had when we left the coffee shop, but it basically boiled down her telling me what I had said, both of us wondering how in the world I had missed it, and the fact that it was likely that the Barista would need to change his shorts.

Thankfully, Miss C's humor seems to mirror my own, so we entertained each other for the rest of the day by randomly yodeling, "I love a good sausage!"

Now however, the laughter has subsided, and I am thoroughly ashamed of myself... how could I have missed that? "I love a good sausage" indeed...

Why was the tomato blushing? Cos it saw the salad dressing.

Think back... think waaaay back to your grade school days...
do you remember that kid in class - the one whom upon being asked a question by the teacher would turn a florid red color and stammer out an answer at the decibel level of a flea fart? That kid was me. To be more accurate, that kid is me... except that I am now thirty-something years old and couldn't shoehorn my arse into a tiny classroom chair anymore if a million dollars was riding on it.

My uncontrollable and spontaneous facial combustion appears to be one of those idiosyncratic things that we all seem to possess. Put me in a room full of my friends and watch me act the fool to make them laugh. Put me in a room full of people I don't know - or don't know well - and watch me try and fade into the upholstery. I just don't like people I am not familiar with looking at me.

Definitely one of my ancestors.

Take my wedding day for example; that was the most excruciating day for me, because I spent the majority of it trying to cool my face down. The photographs all looked as if Andy Warhol had had a go at them, and the overall impression of a tomato in a wedding gown wasn't helped by the fact that my mother-in-law had hired a make-up artist whose usual clients were apparently women of questionable repute. She slapped so much rouge on me that I was just waiting for one of the guests to ask me how much for the whole night.

It happens when someone I don't know overhears something rude I'm saying, and it doesn't have to be about them: Have you ever experienced the following - you are having a conversation in a loud and noisy place, and a millisecond before you yodel out a word like 'penis' 'discharge' or 'handcuffs, the room suddenly goes quiet? Take any hour out of my day, any day, and it will have happened to me at some point.

It happens when a cute guy looks at me, which is usually followed up by my doing something incredibly clumsy (like walking into a door or tripping over a child), or something revolting (like snorting coffee out of my nose or drooling slightly).

Don't think for a minute I like Family Guy - I don't, it was just a great visual...

And when it happens, there is usually some kind person on hand to point out the virulent creeping redness, just in case anyone in the same zip code could have failed to notice or missed experiencing the resulting heat. Those persons are usually my friends. The bastards.

It also happens when I am put on the spot.
Which happened yesterday.
At work.
At my new job.

There was a staff meeting. We all crowded into a tiny room and smiled politely at each other. Even though I had met everyone, I had only been there a week, and I usually don't let my freak flag fly until I have been there at least a month or have a contract stating that I can't get fired for being a lunatic.

The CEO welcomed everyone to the meeting and then stated, "Ok, we have quite a few new people in the company, so I am going to put them on the spot, let them introduce themselves, and tell us a little bit about them."

... I do on the other hand like Grover - he rocks.

Ohhhh shit... I could feel it starting... and what I wasn't aware of is that my dread had caused me to start slipping down in my seat... which everyone noticed. And which the CEO commented on. Which was awesome.
When it came time for my turn, all eyes were on me, and were slightly widened - I assume because they thought I was going to explode or start whistling like a kettle - and I couldn't have been more uncomfortable. It also didn't help that the CEO introduced me as, well, a name I haven't been addressed by since I was 5 years old (imagine 'Katie' as being the childish moniker of a woman named 'Kate') - and I didn't have the balls to correct him. I muttered that my name was 'Katie' (thereby ensuring that everyone at work will call me that until I
a) die,
b) quit, or
c) get fired for cracking and kicking the shit out of someone for calling me 'Katie'), and that I liked to read and I liked dogs. Wow, talk about forthcoming. There was an awkward silence until everyone realized that I wasn't going to expound on anything more about my life... and then the next unfortunate was called upon... though many pairs of eyes continued to dart back to my scarlet visage.

I wish I knew why it happened, and even more, I wish I could stop it. It's like a horror movie, where the Creeping Crimson Crud takes over the necks and faces of otherwise fairly intelligent people, affecting their ability to communicate and walk in a straight line. If a movie is made, I think I should be the star - they would save a fortune in make-up and special effects.

You Arse Biscuit!

I think back to when I got my driver's license at the rosy-cheeked and innocent age of 16, and wonder what happened to turn that optimistic young driver* - who always stayed two car lengths behind, stopped at red lights and took speed limits seriously - into the frothing 30-something year old road-beast that I have become.
In fact, that's not true - I don't wonder at all - I know exactly what happened; I moved to California.
*The use of words such as 'innocent' and 'optimistic' is due to a combination of artistic license and the rose-tinted hue of skewed recollection.

If it's ok for her Majesty, it's ok for me.

Before I moved here, I had never experienced a jot of road rage. I used to be the kind of person who would shake her head and merely 'tsk' at drivers who took corners on two wheels, leaving a cloud of smoke and the stench of burning rubber behind. I have now become a bad driver, because it seems to be the only way to survive on the roads; if you can't beat them (preferably with a tire iron), join them.

I know that the California Driver's Handbook exists - I have seen it - but I am guessing that most people are using it to sop up coffee from their dashboards after having executed a three-lane swerve in rush hour traffic. There are the official rules of driving, and then there are the 'I'm More Important Than You' rules. For example:

Freeway Driving.
CDH Rules: To drive faster, pass, or turn left, use the left lane. When you choose to drive slowly or enter or turn off the road, use the right lane.
IMITY Rules: The aim of this game is to make one or more of your fellow motorists shit themselves. Weave in and out of traffic at high speed, leaving just enough space between your car and theirs for a mouse fart to squeak through. For extra points, drive at 50mph in the fast lane, and then swerve right when someone tries to overtake you on the inside.

Signalling.
CDH Rules: Before you change lanes on a freeway, signal for at least five seconds. Remember to cancel your signal after turning.
IMITY Rules: There are two schools of thought. 1. Turn signals are for pussies, and in this day and age, everyone should be telepathic anyway. 2. Having turned the signal on, crank up the stereo so that you can't hear the clicking, and continue to indicate for at least another three miles, or until someone throws shit at you.

I have three of these...

It seems to me that the main reason people here get into their cars is to spread a little misery amongst their fellow San Diegans. The fact that they might have somewhere to go is apparently secondary.
Since I have been driving here, my vocabulary of profanity has increased exponentially. Words like 'asshat', 'motherf****r', and 'doucherocket' stream freely and loudly from my mouth within minutes of my putting the key in the ignition. And apparently, not satisfied with the smorgasboard of vulgarity already available to me, I have started creating my own curse words. I called someone a 'cock weasel' yesterday, with absolutely no awareness of what I was saying. I'm going to call the phenomenon 'Vehicular Tourettes' and use that as my excuse.
I might even get a bumper sticker made...

Molly's got a brand new bag.

I had an epiphany on Monday afternoon shortly after starting my new job, and shortly after receiving an email from one of my best friends that put the proverbial boot up my arse, with good reason: for the last six months or so, I have not really been living. At best I have been merely existing, and at worst I have been doing as much as possible to completely destroy all the good things in my life.
I have been doing the bare minimum of everything I should do (and the maximum of all the things I shouldn't do), just to make it to the end of the day, in order to start the ambivalence all over again the next morning.
Looking back over it, my philosophy seemed to be, "Life sucks and then you die."

You think?!

I have a new philosophy...

I started a new job on Monday. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, and the pay is a lot less than I was hoping for... but, as my roommate put it, "It pays more than zero", which is exactly what I was earning while I was sitting on the couch watching endless episodes of 'Charmed' and inhaling every cheeseburger stupid enough to come within grasping distance. Halfway through Monday, I realized that everyone in the office apart from me was wearing jeans - I was decked out in business casual, which is how I have always dressed for work. As soon as I realized this, that old saying 'dress for the job you want, not the job you have' popped into my mind... and when it did, I had the epiphany...

...I could apply that philosophy to my entire life! I could 'dress' for the life I want, not the one that I have been living. A veil seemed to lift. I decided to become the person I know I have always been, but has been kept imprisoned by my negative self-image and generally shitty outlook on life.
Last week, I ordered a memorial plaque for my recently departed Darcy, and on it I wrote, "You taught me serenity, patience, and to overcome limitations with grace and humor". She did teach me those things, but I haven't been practicing them. To continue not to do so would make those attributions a lie, and disgrace the indomitable spirit that she possessed.
So, I decided to start being proactive, start doing the things that make me feel good, start doing the things that make other people feel good to be around me and stop being such a selfish and self-involved bitch. I decided to be nicer... well, that felt a little ambitious, so I settled on trying to be the best 'me' I could be.

Darcy was with me for four years. She was riddled with cancer throughout her body, only had use of three legs, but still enjoyed life more than any human I have ever met.

...And it seems to be working...

 - My dogs now get walked every day, rather than when I feel like it,
 - My laundry is done when it needs to be, rather than when I am down to my granny knickers and holey leggings,
 - My house is tidy, rather than resembling a hoarder's nest,
 - My car is clean and detailed, rather than looking like the inside of a dumpster,
 - I have spent every night this week with friends, rather than holing myself up away from everyone,
 -  I have kept my word in everything, rather than flaking and lying,
 - I sing loudly to music I love on my way to work and on the way back, bouncing around in my seat, rather than listening to sad songs that make me want to take a swan dive off the nearest bridge, and
- My plants and lawn are watered and thriving, rather than turning brown and crunchy and making my house look as though it belongs to someone other than a white trash plant killer.

I have a mantra that I tell myself every morning and every night: "You are a good and loving person. You have less than some and more than most,  yet you have a tendency to be lazy and procrastinate. When your face smiles and your body dances, your heart and mind will follow."

I bought my coworkers muffins this morning and made them smile. I gave a homeless man my umbrella this afternoon and felt as if I had done something good. I took the dogs for a walk in the rain this evening and I loved it....

... unfortunately, it seems that nothing can be done about my incoherent road rage that closely mimics Tourette's, or the fact that I want to maim and kill the bastard mockingbird that seems to have come back to torture me for another year...but it's baby steps...

And I'm still a cynic, I'm just a cynic with a smile...

Goodbye, sweet Darcy.

I'm sorry that I haven't written in a while. I have been struggling with being unemployed, dealing with the remnants of my break up, and the ill health of one of my dogs, Darcy.
I have wanted to write, but was unable to come up with anything that wasn't just downright depressing.

And then two nights ago, my sweet Darcy passed away.

I wish I could put into words just how much I loved her. I wish I had the vocabulary to do justice to her sweet face - how her deep brown eyes were so calm and full of love all the time, and yet so full of mischief. My friends and I called her 'The Bombproof Beagle', because that is what she seemed to be. She was fifteen years old when she died, and was riddled with cancer in every part of her body, yet she kept on trucking until the very last minute.
When she developed an enormous mammary tumor that had to be removed in August of last year, the vet warned me that she probably wouldn't live until Christmas. When she developed an inoperable cancerous tumor that wrapped around her front elbow, making the use of that leg impossible, the vet warned me that she certainly wouldn't live until Christmas. Darcy seemed to pour her heart and indomitable soul into proving them wrong. And she did. She gave me one last Christmas with her, and I will never stop being grateful for that.

Darcy, Christmas 2010.

Two weeks ago, she wouldn't stand up on her own, and every action seemed to exhaust her. She wouldn't eat, and she wasn't wagging her tail. After two days of seeing her like that, I decided that I had to make the tough decision to put her to sleep. On the Saturday morning that the appointment was scheduled, I opened the room to let her out... and she came bouncing out like a kangaroo on speed. She gobbled up her breakfast and hopped out to go to the bathroom. I cancelled the appointment.

Looking back, I was nowhere near ready for her to leave, and I don't think she was either. Although I had known deep down that I didn't have much longer with her, I was stuck firmly in denial, and hadn't prepared myself emotionally or mentally for her passing. I firmly believe that she chose to give me a couple more weeks to try and come to terms with the reality of her age and her sickness.

Last Sunday morning it was obvious that she had slowed down once again, and something in me knew that her last rally was exactly that. I took her to the beach in her little red wagon, and hoped that it wasn't the last time that I would wheel her around in it... although I knew somewhere in me that it was.
On Tuesday night, she couldn't hop more than a few paces without collapsing. She wouldn't eat, and even standing was an effort for her. After I had put her to bed, I could hear her get up in the night, which she had never done, and I went to check in on her four times, which I have never done before either. The last words I said to her were, "Hang in there for me baby girl."
When I went to let her out in the morning, she was gone.

I want to think that she went peacefully in her sleep. I want to believe that she wasn't in pain or struggling when she passed. The  fact is that I don't know, and it's killing me. I feel so desperately guilty that I wasn't with her when she left this earth, and there is nothing I can do about it.

I only hope that she knew how much I loved her, and how much joy and laughter she brought to my life. I hope that she knows that I will never stop loving or missing her. I keep listening for her 'hoppity-hop' across the floor... until I realize I will never hear it again. I keep walking past the place where she ate when I feed the others, and feel an ache in my heart when I realize I will never again put a bowl down for her and listen her go at it as if she were in an eating competition.

I adopted her when she was 11 years old - already an old lady - and I had four beautiful years with her. The grief of losing her is unlike anything I have ever experienced, but I know it will grow less with time. I loved her so much, and in a way, every tear I shed is a testimony to how strongly she touched my life.

Rest in Peace my Darcy girl.
You will be missed more than you could ever know.

Darcy: 1996 - 2011.

Priority shipping, please!

I don't like shopping.

There, I said it. 

I know that's tantamount to blasphemy if you are female and happen to live in Southern California, but there it is.  I have said it before and I will say it again: if I am indeed destined for hell (which all the signs seem to point to), my personal hell will consist of a giant, over-perfumed mall with no bookstores, be replete with anorexic and overtly perky staff, piped in Yanni music, and Woody Allen impersonators. 

Kill it, kill it!!

I cannot stand malls for a number of reasons:

1. I don't feel as if I belong there in my five year old jeans and tank tops, as the stores have fashionable items that don't appeal to me at all. Society seems to have reverted to eighties fashion, and I already did the eighties. I personally don't think that leg-warmers or off-the-shoulder drape tops look good on anyone outside of a chronically out-of-date hair salon magazine.

2. Whilst I am not over-sensitive to scents like my best mate MP, the odor that wafts out of every A&B store makes me want to spend the gas money to drive to Montana just for clean air, and seems to be impossible to get out of your own clothing unless you wash it on the 'bio hazard' setting.

3. Finding a parking spot. Locating, negotiating, and maneuvering into a parking space in a San Diego mall should be part of some tactical driving class that everyone living here should have to attend in order to get their license. Locating one is hard enough, but having to deal with:

     a) The absurdly irate soccer mom who sincerely believes that she got there first, despite your having sat with your blinker on for the last three minutes;

     b) Spotting a likely looking place, and then driving over there to find that some moron apparently thinks that it's acceptable for their metal penis-extension to take up two spots; 

     c) The idiot who comes the wrong way down the one-way system to snag a spot, and upon finding you have taken it, gesticulates at you as if you just finger-banged their cat. (Popular reference!)

Looks about right...

4. Having to watch the vapid teens and 20-somethings drift around the place as though they own it, or having to watch the 30, 40, and 50-somethings who won't release the stranglehold on their bygone youth drift around as if the world owes them a round of applause for wearing leggings. Which it shouldn't. I fall back on my constant belief: 'Just because you can doesn't mean you should.'

I do the vast majority of my shopping online, for the main reason of not having to deal with malls. There are people that enjoy shopping, and more power to them. They are probably the people I am trying to avoid, so we both win!

Have a great weekend all!

A Bollocking Sunset.

Have you ever sat and watched the sunset and seen hope, possibility, and a suggestion of peace in the pinks and purples and peaches? Until tonight, I thought that watching the sun go down was something that you were meant to do accompanied by someone with sweaty palms who wanted to get your knickers off - emboldened by a pitcher of Sangria - on the beach, surrounded by the discord of badly played mandolins.
Tonight, I discovered that that is not necessarily the case.
And I friggin' hate Sangria.

This evening, I sat on the couch by the window with a frosty 'near beer', watched the sky turn into the visual equivalent of Vivaldi's 'Spring', and thought about how incredibly lucky I am to have all that I do.
I have a terrible tendency to look back at 'what I could have been', compare it to 'what I have become', and get depressed.
When I am in the doldrums, I look at my life and see a 30-something unemployed single divorcee with five dogs, a mortgage that she can't afford, and friends that she doesn't deserve.
I have spent much of my very recent life in those doldrums.
Tonight, I watched the harmony of colors wend their way across the sky, and felt both small and grateful.
I have screwed up a lot, and my screw ups haunt me constantly. But I forget that every closing of every day brings the possibility of a new start with the dawn.
This is sounding a little optimistic for me, and I'm not sure what to do about it...

Today was a great day.
I spent a wonderful afternoon with an amazing friend (whom I shall call 'H'), who reminded me - without intending to - that life is what it is; that all we can do is keep living it, enjoying it, and working at making it what we want it to be.
It seems like five minutes ago that I was 25... and now I am 30-something... and I think I am letting my life escape.

My close friends know that some days I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning because I don't feel as if I have anything to get out of bed for; that some days I just want to drink the entire day away because there is nothing else for me to do except think about how my life went wrong; that some days I can't even look in the mirror because I am so ashamed of the person who is looking back at me with the same eyes that she had when she was eighteen, wondering how in the hell I became my mother when I swore that she was the last person I would ever become.

Today I started to make a change in the way I see myself. And I am going to try and carry that on. My friends aren't idiots - they must see something in me - otherwise they wouldn't waste their time.
My endeavor this year is to be the person that my family and friends see.
And I know she's in there...
...she says, "Bollocks!" a lot...

Bring on the winners!

I think I'm done with online dating.
There are only so many times that you can put yourself out there before the Ferret of Optimism gets flattened underneath the Mack Truck of Bullshit's speeding wheels.

Let's take the last three dates I have been on:

Exhibit A:
Described himself as 6'2, and his pictures backed that up. When he turned up for the date, it was apparent that he had taken some creative license with estimating his height, and that he probably had a buddy who was a professional photographer. At most, he was 5'4. Now, I'm only 5'5, but I generally wear heels that put me between 5'7 and 5'8, which is why I tend to go for the taller guys.
I felt like I was having dinner with a hobbit, and I was periodically struck by an overwhelming urge to check underneath the tablecloth to see if his loafers were swinging backwards and forwards like a child's in a high-chair. I also kept inexplicably expecting Galdalf to bring out the entrees. When the date was over, he went up on tiptoe to kiss my cheek, and that was it. I suppressed the overwhelming urge to pat him on the head and tell him to be careful on the way to Mount Doom, and left.

Exhibit B:
Was physically exactly as advertised... but the teensy problem was with what he had held back: the man was clearly gay.
Don't get me wrong, I have some great gay friends - and they constantly make me question my own femininity with their ability to bake - but I don't want to date them, per se. I tried to quash my initial reservations by telling myself that he was just really metro, but after he had said, "honey, please!" five times in as many minutes and complimented me on my shoes matching my necklace, I was pretty sure. When he kissed me on both cheeks and announced that it would be 'fabulous' to meet up again, I was damn sure. It's a shame (for me), because the boy was hot.

Like this... but better....

Exhibit C:
What can I say about this winner? I had been waiting for about fifteen minutes before he showed up and, when he did, he was stoned out of his gourd. And I don't mean randomly 'giggling at tablecloths' stoned, I mean absolutely 'do you know where your own arms are' stoned. I was already annoyed at having been kept waiting, so I asked him if he had been puffing before he came out. "Only a couple of tokes!" He announced, eying the menu. I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, despite the fact that his eyeballs looked as though they had been in a paintballing accident and were fighting for the same corner, until he ordered 5 servings of the jalapeno poppers and 3 Dr. Peppers. At that point, I excused myself and left. I don't think he noticed, as it seemed as though he was having a conversation about existentialism with the salad fork.

So that's it. I think I'm going to throw in the towel with online dating. The problem is, how do you meet someone when you don't work and don't really go anywhere that involves alcohol?
All suggestions very, very welcome.