Grumpy

No, not me. I am not grumpy. Not right now anyway.

But I encountered a grumpy person today. This person jumped down my throat because I asked a question. Now, mind you- it wasn't a sarcastic question, or rude. It was question asked to clarify something I was unclear about. I just asked, "is is A, or is it B?"

That was the crux of it. And the guy wrote back and retorted that he did not appreciate me suggesting that he was lax about getting back to people. Quite honestly, I didn't know what the hell he meant by that. I should add that he did answer my question right before his retort. But, where the hell he got that I was suggesting anything at all, let alone that he was lax, I have no clue.

And at first, I was going to let it go, but then I thought "here he is, the bloated head of a national organization, and he's jumping all over a nobody for asking a question, and on behalf of nobodies everywhere, I should respond."

It might be said that I have problem with authority. I particularly have a problem with authoritative figures who jump to conclusions and respond rudely to minions. Or people they perceive to be less than them. So, I responded. Because he made me grumpy. Because I figure it this way- people like that shouldn't just go through life getting away with acting like that.

So guess what, grumpy guy didn't respond. Ass.

So maybe I am grumpy now, because of him. But at least i am not an ass.

Offline moments

So I replaced my phone today. And I don't like my new phone as much as I liked my old phone. Oh well. And for a brief moment today, I wondered why I was even bothering to replace it. Quite honestly the only things that my phone does that my ipad won't is fit in my pocket and make phone calls. And I don't even like to talk on the phone.

And there really are times when I think I'd be better off never getting on the computer either. I mean, you'd never have to suffer reading this tripe on this blog if I just kept a journal. I'd have never sent a whole lot of, embarrassing as hell to me now, emails. And I never would have met the worst man in the world. And I also wouldn't stumble across the world's other most annoying people on a regular basis. You know who I mean? The ones that want to change the world and want to save the planet, and better theirselves and everyone else in the world, throught their "inspiring" tweets and facebook posts, and linked in-edness connectedness. You know, the ones who post inspirational ted talks that changed their lives and will change yours too. The ones who tell you about their life-moving interactions with other cultures or other species.

Really, I'd be a whole lot happier without their informing me of the latest break through in medicine or psychiatry or the super great organization that helps their child and their sister.

I think what I'm saying is i find it all pretentious. And sad.

But on the other hand, how would i research stuff so easily, and how would I talk to my daughter, and how would I take all those quizzes, and play words with friends.

I guess I will never be a mick hodge. And be off the grid. Which is good, because I do like hot showers and shoes.

A picture

This just makes me smile.

tipping hats to dogs

had a wonderful "talk" with a friend recently. he offered to hear any of my troubles. (don't get all excited about me finding a real soulmate, he's gay.) and i told him that i didn't really have any. except. that i lack love. in my life.

simultaneously, we were having a discussion about steinbeck novels. and i told him that i had always loved cannery row. because i love doc. because.... well, because this-


“Doc tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him.”


i told him that this is the man i could fall in love with. and i told him that i once thought i had that man, but that he turned out to be ..... well, not that.

no matter. he's more or less a caricature to me now.

but really, a man who "tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him."

what could be sexier than that? i mean, really.

so have you seen all the little facebook and twitter blurbs recently about sticking dogs into scanners and how they process human emotions? it's kind of crazy.

apparently, they can read emotions. and i think, "well, duh. who doesn't know that?"

but again, i ask, "what the hell are dogs?" are they people stuck in dog suits? are they fish wrapped up in fur? what the hell are they anyway? what's really on the inside of a dog? and why is a poodle in the same category as a beagle? or a Great Dane. or those ugly as xxxx greyhounds? really, what the hell is a dog?

and why can i eat a cow, but not a dog? i mean, cows seem every bit as soulful and individual as dogs? why can i eat a cow? and say it's delicious?

i just do not know.

the only thing i can conclude is that most of them are way better than most people. and i'm determined to find a people who is as soulful as a dog. but not gay.

my phone's no good very bad day

it all started about 2 weeks ago, when i went to the doctor. and the doctor said, "your thyroid is messed up (again) and you have high ldls. to which i said, "pffft."

but i went out and filled the new prescription, bought a big box of cheerios, and came home and started exercising. because let's face it, winter turned me into a sloth. and every day since then, i've been taking my meds, eating my cheerios, and exercising.

and as part of my exercise program, i broke out my old wii and started jogging in place, chasing little cats around. and today after i got home from my morning class, i came home and changed into my sweats and started showing the little cat who was boss. because it was too icy and snowy to exercise outside, and i didn't even want to go across the street to the fitness room. why trudge through the snow, when you can chase cats at home?

anyway, while i was kicking that cat's butt today, i was listening to npr on my phone. i learned about the use of blue lights helping alzheimer's, why americans living in other countries are giving up their u.s. citizenship, and about schizophrenia possibly being caused by a virus. among other things. and when one of the episodes was over, i put the phone down on a dresser, and apparently the vibrations caused by my cat chasing caused the phone to fall off the dresser and on to the floor.

and when i went to pick it up, the screen was black with blue stripes. a reset didn't help it. nothing helped it. so i backed it up (since i hadn't backed it up for awhile) to my computer. which was no small feat because i could not see the numbers on the screen to punch in the access code for all the blackness and the blue stripes. but i played like i was blind and succeeded so that i could sync. i wanted to make sure i had everything backed up because my last trip to the apple store ended up with some stupid apple babyface completely dumping every bit of music and every picture i'd ever taken. i did not want a repeat of that disaster.

so it was a bad day for my phone.

BUT as much as the day sucked for my phone- here's the great thing for me- in two short days, i am due for an upgrade!!!!!!

atypical

i found this site on tumblr called psychofactz. it's pretty interesting. you learn unusual things. such as "if imagine you hear your name being called when it hasn't been, that it's likely a sign of a healthy mind." which was super interesting to me because i just had this experience last week. to the amusement of a few of my co-workers. now i get to go back to work and tell them that i'm not nuts- i've got a healthy mind. ha.

so, another interesting fact i read was this: It takes the typical person 17 months and 26 days to get over someone they were in love with.

which tells me two things. one, that i'm quite atypical. because at 17 months and 26 days, i was only starting on the adventure of getting over "him."

two, that he never really loved me at all. which yeah, i knew. i figured that out some time ago, actually. it was the only thing that fully explained how it all went. but, even while my head knew that, sometimes even now, my heart still hates admitting that. so it's good when you get some outside reinforcement of it. like this fact tells me. because he didn't waste more than a moment getting over me before moving onto shiny penny girl. and well, you know. a normal person who was in love, really just can't do that.

and i know that, because darn it, i TRIED. i super really tried to move on. and i have to really apologize to some really fine people whose minds i messed with.

so now i know. i'm atypically slow. darn near retarded atypical, i guess.

and he was... well, i guess i have to say it. he was quite typical of a man who wasn't in love.

oh well, i guess. btw, another psychofact: "psychology says, the person you care about the most can literally shatter your confidence with their opinions."

when bad things happen to good people

the actual title to this post is" when bad things happen to good people, when good things happen to good people, when bad things happen to bad people and when good things happen to bad people.

i actually did read the book "when bad things happen to good people." because until i settled on my lack of religious beliefs, it really did upset me when bad things would happen to good people. quite honestly, i just could not get that my x sister in law who really was maybe the nicest person in the world, could get cancer and die and have to leave her little three year old twins. i mean, is that not the definition of UNFAIR? it was like a puzzle with impossible pieces that wouldn't fit, no matter how you tried to force them- trying to figure out how this could have happened. she did not deserve this. her family did not deserve this. her children most certainly did not deserve this.

and it started me thinking a lot, a lot, a lot, about how unfair the world was to MOST people in the world. murder, abuse, rape, hunger, cancer, violence, greed, corruption. whose life hasn't been touched by at least one of these to at least a little degree? but worse than that, how many people in the world live their lives from start to finish in horrible conditions? it's really staggering when you think of it. and i guess, when my sister in law died, it started me thinking of it. up to then, i'd pretty much had faith, that if you were good, tried hard, and prayed hard, things would work out for you.

how silly i was. anyway, so for awhile after she died, i think i was in too much shock to really think too much about it, but after about 6 months, it really really hit me. i don't know. maybe it was the holidays that coincided. i don't know. but all i do know was that it hit me. and that's when i started thinking. about how unfair it all was.

so, what i came up with is this. that what happens to you in this world is a badly rigged against you, crapshoot. there isn't rhyme. or reason. and there isn't any magic of any kind that can alter events in your favor. not magic. not belief. not nothing.

and whether you are good or bad or in between, good, bad, or in between things can and will happen to you. and really, all you can do is decide who you want to be. do you want to be a good guy or a bad guy?

i don't know why i chose to be good. i think because all the people i really liked are good people. people that are forgiving and who try to help you, instead of ditching you. and who aren't hateful. those are the people that i like. but it was no longer because i feared any sense of retribution from some diety if i was bad or could expect good things if i was good. and it also wasn't because i feared imprisonment or anything. i just up and decided that who i wanted to be was good. because i like the people who are good.

and that's a good thing for the world, i think. in that there are at least of couple of people, i could gladly kill if i wanted to be a bad person. and there are quite a few more that i would stick pins in, voodoo style if i followed my feelings and believed in such things. what i'm saying is that i could be really really bad, if i let myself. but i don't want to be.

you know, i haven't talked much about my mother on here. and that's because we are such very different people and i often do not know how to deal with her. just as i know she does not know how to deal with me. but one thing i do know is that she's a really good person. her heart is good, i mean. she makes me crazy often, but she's a really good person. and she hasn't deserved a lot of the crap that has happened to her. she certainly didn't deserve to have to spend her retirement years alone without my dad, i know that. but she confounds me sometimes with the way she thinks about things. and i often think she's just plain wrong.

but i'll tell you one time, when she completely nailed it. i remember the moment vividly. she stopped by my house just after i was ditched. just after. and i was sitting there alone. and it was one of those horrible moments when i could not hide my tears, which i always like to do if possible. and i could barely speak. and when she askeed me what was wrong, i somehow got out "xxxx just broke up with me." and without hearing anything else, or knowing anythng about it, she said this. "This is NOT your fault."

how the hell she ever thought to say that to me astounds me to this day. because she knew nothing about what happened. she also had never ever said this or conveyed this to me about absolutely anything else in my life. in everything else, she'd always pretty much taken the stance that whatever it was, was my fault. that's how i always felt anyway. and for her to say this to me at this particular time, was striking.

because you know? i wouldn't believe her for a full 10 years. i always have blamed myself. always. but the funny thing is- now i do believe her finally. i really do. it was not my fault. it was just stupid, really. and whether i was or am a good person or a bad person, had nothing to do with it at all.

and in the end, all i could really do is decide who i want to be. whether good things or bad things happen to me from here on out.

one no longer walking swiftly

so i don't even like giraffes. and i'm not a bleeding heart animal activist. i don't send money to save whales and monkeys. i don't join campaigns to get better living quarters for baby cows. or chickens. before they became gay-hating chik-fillets. i don't take in strays.

i probably should. all the good perfect girls in the world are animal rights activists, you know.

but here's my deal. it's not that i don't care. it's just that i only have so much time, energy, and money. and if i'm going to give, it's likely going to go towards a people thing. more than likely a child thing. stopping child abuse, saving public education, ending world hunger. those things first.

but i heard this story today that kinda made my stomach churn. this zoo in copenhagen killed a giraffe. why? because he didn't fit in to their z00 plan. and when the interviewer asked the guy why they didn't sell or give the giraffe to another zoo, he said something to the effect that all the quality zoos would kill him too. and all the non-quality zoos would likely sell him and he could end up in a world of misery. perhaps in a circus.

apparently the giraffe killer thinks the circus is one of the circles of hell? i don't know.

so he claimed there was no place for this loser giraffe who apparently would have started a horrible inbreeding issue had he been allowed to live on. the interviewer then asked, why they couldn't have just castrated him.

to which giraffe killer answered something to the effect that loser giraffe would have been eating up too much precious giraffe chow and sucking up too much zoo oxygen.

and the normal part of me wants to say "hey, it was only a giraffe. and i don't even like giraffes." but the abnormal part of me, is saddened because the giraffe was treated worse than a red-nosed reindeer before he was prized for his luminary talents.

it made me sad. and i thought, "i hope this giraffe killer comes back in his next life as a loser giraffe, himself."

but then i think, "well, but on the other hand, i don't believe in any afterlife." and if i don't believe in any afterlife, i guess then, it doesn't really matter that they killed the giraffe in the first place. just another dead thing, that doesn't have to suffer any worldly woes anymore. and being dead and nothing perhaps is better than being unwanted.

there's not much worse than being unwanted.

oh yeah. and one more thing. following the giraffe killing, they held an open autopsy. and the killerman said it was a wonderful learning experience for the kids who came to watch. wow.

http://youtu.be/DTiJXo5-aqw

a joke

i heard this joke today. i liked it. i thought i'd share it with you.

"Did you hear about the man who lost his left side?"

"He was alright."

Homer speaks

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”

aw.

so you ever have anyone tell you something really nice about yourself? someone complimented me so today. out of the blue. and out in public, to boot.

and when someone says something nice about you, don't you just feel all "aw" inside?

that's how it made me feel anyway.

there are a lot of nice people in this world, really. i don't really consider myself one of them. but you know, every once in awhile if someone thinks you are, it feels good.

and it makes you want to actually attempt to be nicer.

rubicons

"A limit that when passed or exceeded permits of no return and typically results in irrevocable commitment."

OR

a river in north central Italy. Julius Caesar crossed it and a war began.

and here is something a friend wrote me that got me thinking about rubicons: "As for being careful what I wish for....I crossed on the river there'll be no returning I crossed all the bridges and I watched them all burning and now I'm a stranger to a strange land I'm driven where all is forgotten but nothing's forgiven"

ms. personality

i think i wrote about this before. maybe. i can't really remember. but so, in case you didn't know, according to personality tests, my personality type is INTJ. in a "portrait of an intj" it is said that "other people may have a difficult time understanding the intj." it goes on to say that a lot of that is actually the fault of the intj, him or herself. i will concede this as a truth.

i don't like it, of course, though. in fact, it sort of ticks me off,because also inherent in this personality type is the tendency to put forth a great deal of time and effort into understanding others. and well, it seems to me that it would be only fair that others spend the same amount of effort into understanding me.

ok, i know. that's ridiculous. it's not any other person's responsibility to understand me. but even so, i can wish, can't i? that for once, someone would actually take the time and make a true effort.

i'll tell you what though, it can be worse. i really really hate it the most when someone thinks they understand me, when they really don't. that's not just annoying, it's often downright hurtful. my feelings feel completely disregarded when someone sums me up, inaccurately. and it's annoying as all get out when someone assumes i'm feeling like they think i ought to feel.

so the intj is actually the hardest personality type to anger. or so they say. i kind of think it's true. it takes a real real lot to make me angry. you have to be doing something incredibly mean and stupid, hurtful, cruel, or wrong to anger me. on the other hand, it doesn't seem to take much to frustrate us. but on the 3rd hand, a lot of times people think we are angry when we aren't.

so what's all that mean? i don't know. it is what it is.

it's me. just in case, you happened to want to know.

so, why don't i listen?

actually, i am far too good at listening to others. and just terrible at listening to myself. i KNEW my med level wasn't right. i KNEW it. i was far too tired all the time. I was gaining weight. i was feeling more depressed than i had for awhile. and so i knew it! but would i listen to myself?

oh, no. of course not. i would not listen because i didn't want to go into the doctor and have the med levels checked. and i just wrote off my fatigue to that i was getting older, and that it was winter and it was dark all the time. and i wrote off my weight gain to that i was more sedentary now that the winter was here, that my job doesn't demand the hours and the physicality like the old one did, and that i hadn't been watching my diet at all.

so no, i wasn't going to listen to myself, because the meds had not run out yet, and i didn't want to go back for an extra blood test before they did.

so, NOW. because i wouldn't listen to myself, i not only have to eat better, lose weight and go back for another doc appointment for these meds, the goofy doctor feels my ldl levels are too high, and i need to go back to have those checked again. grr.

and not only that, but he suggested to me that i might want to have other tests to see why it's high. when we both already know why it's high. it's high because that goes along with my condition when it's not medicated properly for too long.

grrr. grrr. grrr.

someday, i'm going to learn to listen to my damn self.

and in the meantime, i will take the new higher level meds, and i will be more careful about what i eat. and i will get back on the exercise routine. i will go back in 6 weeks and have the med levels and the ldl checked again. i'm thinking i'm going to pass on the other tests though. Seems awfully silly to me to go to all that expense and trouble when i already know why it's off, and i can fix it myself.

poorlytraveled

United States, mexico, canada, norway, denmark, norway, finland, sweden, japan, and germany.

those are the only countries i have ever been in.

indiana, illinois, wisconsin, utah, nevada, texas, colorado, florida, georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, pennsylvania, connecticut, michigan, ohio, kentucky, tennessee, hawaii, kansas, oklahoma,arkansas, virginia, West Virginia, arizona, (District of Columbia,) california New Jersey, New York, missouri

those are the only states i've ever been in.

it's a big world. and i have seen very little of it.

knock, knock, knocking on hade's door

i read an enormous amount of crap on the internet each day. it takes up so much of my time, it's hard for me to imagine what i used to do with my time.

ok, i know. what i used to do with my time, but the point is, i do read an enormous amount of crap each day.

and every once in awhile, i'm rewarded with something really special. such as the following quote from a "news" article about a house that is allegedly being haunted:

"If it’s true this home is a portal to hell, then I want to go there and see what happens,”

don't ya love that? that there's a guy walking around in this world with the unintentionally comic (no, i didn't mean cosmic) spirit to look at a reporter with a straight face and say, "If it's true this home is a portal to hell, then I want to go there and see what happens."

ha. seriously, i mean it. ha.

and well, how do you hold a straight face as a reporter when someone says something like that to you? i believe, i'd bust a gut, right in the ghostbuster's face. and i'm afraid that i'd have to headline the story i wrote with, "There Sure Are a Bunch of Nutjobs in this World, Aren't There?"

and for the record, if there were such things as portals to hell, i'd personally recommend staying the hell away from them. but, if you're dumb enough to say something like this to me ever, i'd seriously think about giving you a push.

that would be a headline, wouldn't it? fit for a tabloid. "I Pushed Someone Into a Portal of Hell"