Friday, April 17, 2009

Simon *Hearts* Singer

I am sure you've seen or heard about that nice Scottish Susan Boyle woman with the simple life and the stunning voice. While her lovely voice and sweet story makes me all teary eyed, this is the bit I love:



He fucking looks like he's imagining how her heart would taste coated in breadcrumbs and sauteed in butter.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Friday, A Vignette

The Yam* was chatty today, feeling helpful. He had to give advice, express appreciation, ask questions so that he could ignore the answers. The Yam does not respect personal space; he stands in my bubble. I think about stabbing him in his eyebrow, and wonder how his wife can stand to be around him. I expect she drinks, and that she has a lover. Maybe several.

The Chatterer* talked on the phone about her child who will soon be attending a party. There is much concern over what the girl will wear, over selecting the right color of jaunty cowboy hat. The girl is under two. The Chatterer does not know that her daughter will one day come to hate her. Eventually, the girl will come home with a shaved head, a bondage collar, and a girlfriend in flannel. Either that, or she will grow into the worst kind of spoiled princess. A young woman capable only of narcissism and avarice. No matter how this turns out, there will be screaming and recriminations.

The Chatterer is contemplating divorce, although she might not even know this yet. She does not like her husband, and likely never did. One day, in a year or 18 months, she will finally find a "reason" to leave him. I wonder if he knows.

I love my job.

*The V.P.
*His assistant

Monday, April 6, 2009

Blue Monday

Boring night here in the NoCo. After a rather shit day at work, I find myself decompressing on the couch and trying to convince myself that I don't really want to eat the remaining Thin Mints in the house...or at least not all of them.

It's been a boring and rather quiet evening. The Boy was good enough to fix dinner for us while I managed to get in and out of the grocery store without even once considering punching someone in the face, which any more is the best I hope when interacting with the general public. Since then I've planted myself on the couch, surfing the internet for utter bullshit and a few recipes.

Clearly, I need a hobby.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Annnnddd . . . We're Back!

I haven’t written. Again.

I have parted ways with Corporate Happy Fun Job, and I find that the decompression caused my brain to get all . . . fluffy . . . Not to mention, the sudden dearth of day-to-day contact with douchebags and morons has left me at a loss for things to write about. It seems that without someone actually in my presence being a dickwad, I can’t work up the necessary amount of irritation to write about anything.

Which means that my writing is like a pearl--an un-grammatical, profane pearl. Letters are the nacre I use to lessen the irritating grit that is Other People’s Bullshit. Or something. Doesn’t that sound nice? I think it sounds nice.

The intervening weeks have also seen me take a much needed trip to visit The Esteemed Liquor Fairy in her coastal lair; as well as winter entering its final death throes (even if it is supposed to snow tomorrow, which really? Fuck a bunch of that). April might be the cruelest month, but March turned into a most eventful one.

Now that I’m getting settled, more or less, in the new job and the new season I find that I’m somewhat more inspired to write and participate. Also, although the new job—CHFJ.2, if you will—is in no way as idiotic as the last, working for a living still pretty much sucks.* My new bosses are not either of them swaggering dildos, although the one does have that unfortunate spray tan addiction that makes one look all sweet potato-y. I see in my future many exciting days of self-control followed by evenings of profane venting.

*Currently accepting applications for a patron. Contact me through this blog.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

On The Eight Baby Lady

Ok, so the mother of octuplets? Batshit crazy. The woman exhibits many or most of the classic signs of an animal hoarder. Really, it's uncanny and rather terrifying.

“I know I'll be able to afford them when I'm done with my schooling.” I'm not sure which is more laughable, her plan to support a family of 15 on less than $50,000 a year (even with food stamps and Medicaid), or the the idea that she is going to go back to school in the fall with 8 seriously premature babies under 1 year and 6 other kids under 10.

I would almost feel better if she would just own up and say she was planning to exploit the fuck out of the kids for Discovery Channel and shitty Wal-Mart books. At least then I'd believe she had a plan.

All I wanted was children. I wanted to be a mom. That's all I ever wanted in my life. I love my children.” Well, fucking AWESOME. You know, animal hoarders claim to love the animals that are suffering in their care. The difference between normal people who love animals and people who hoard animals is that normal people recognize that their means, their space, and their energy are all finite.

Do people manage to successfully raise and provide for exceptionally large families? Yes. However, it's pretty un-fucking-likely that she is going to join their ranks. Most people who have 14 children don't have them under the age of 10--biology doesn't often work that way. Further, most people who choose to have not only older children to help the household run, but an adult partner.

Do I think that there is something wrong with single parenthood? Nope. I don't. Do I think there is something wrong with having really large families? Not exactly. I sort of question the ethics of bringing so many lives into the world from a an environmental standpoint, but really? People can choose to raise their kids to consume little and tread lightly, and maybe that huge family will consume less than the West County trophy family and their 1.1.1 ratio of individuals, bathrooms, and Humscalades.

HOWEVER
I do think that there is a fundamental problem with bringing children into the world for whom you cannot provide--regardless of how many children are in question. The only way that this woman can ever hope to provide for those kids is by exploiting the holy living shit out of them, and that's a pretty fucked up plan.

Suleman? Yeah, batshit crazy. Her doctor? Should have his license balled up and shoved up his ass. I have not experienced the pain of infertility. I cannot imagine what that's like. Per her statements, Suleman had difficulty conceiving. Who knows why? I don't believe she's shared her diagnosis.

Whether she needed help to conceive or no, she could obviously carry a pregnancy--the woman already had 6 kids. So her doctor placing six embryos into her 33-year-old body is completely fucking ridiculous. This was not some last ditch Hail Mary attempt. This was a woman with SIX children. Two split? WHO GIVES A SHIT? Even if they hadn't, she still would have had sextuplets. How the fuck is THAT a good outcome, for mom, for babies, or for the community?

Clearly, what we need is for the medical community to step up to the plate and police themselves--with rules and guidelines and big-like-the-hand-of-god consequences for those who flout them. Like I said, I've never experienced infertility, and I'm not a reproductive endocrinologist. There might be cases where it makes a certain amount of ethical and/or medical sense to transfer that many embryos into a woman. This was CLEARLY not one of those cases.

However, if doctors don't do something about themselves soon, then lawmakers will. Don't believe me, and think personal choice will prevail? We have in place all manner of laws to protect people from their own stupid fucking choices. Example? Suicide is illegal. Call 911, say you plan to kill yourself, and soon the cops will be at your house to lock your crazy ass up for your own good.

I've read on various blogs and online communities that this is an issue of reproductive freedom and choice. And to some extent, I agree. Further, laws are very rarely subtle or sophisticated, and by design they are not meant to deal with the individual, but instead the aggregate. It would be a bad thing for lawmakers to regulate the use of these technologies because they really won't be able to do a very good job, but it would be a worse thing for no one to do anything.

Monday, February 23, 2009

The Resignation Letters I Wish I Could Send

Dear Immediate Boss,

I know you're going to miss me, my knowledge, and the opportunity to take credit for my ideas. However, because you're an ass-kissing yes man, I feel confident that you have a future of middling achievement ahead of you here at Corporate Happy Fun Job.

While I do regret that I will not be present to witness your future grammatical flights of fancy, I can only trust that your tangential understanding of the English language will continue to serve you and your unending pursuit of mediocrity.

I cannot thank you enough for all the important things you've taught me, including exactly how much alcohol a 32-year-old woman can reasonably expect to consume and still make it into work the next day. In return, please do contact me here if you should need assistance in my absence.

Sincerely,
etc.

Dear Swaggering Dildo,

I really do not know how to thank you for the opportunity to labor in in the unventilated mine shaft of your team for the past . . .god, it's so hard to tell time in this place without light. . . let's just call it a year.

Your inability, nay, unwillingness to listen to anything but the throbbing of your own engorged-yet-tiny penis has been an important lesson to me. To wit, that knowledge is secondary to swagger, and that knowledge is secondary to swagger.

When in my new role I am compelled to make a decision I will follow your fine example and simply masturbate--because input from knowledgeable actors invested in the process is for communists and losers.

In short, fuck you. I wouldn't piss in your mouth if your teeth were on fire.

Yours,
etc.

Dear Co-Workers,

God help you. You're all so fucking stupid that I can't imagine how you don't just die because you forget to breathe.

Please note: before my final departure, all inquiries will be filtered through the ticking clock of my remaining days and answered accordingly. Following my departure, please seek your answers here, or when in doubt, here.

Word to your mother,
etc.

Dear Corporate Happy Fun Job,

Behold, my sublime left tit.

I'm out. Peace.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Bitter

So, this week at Corporate Happy Fun Job has been crazy making. At this point the negativity surrounding my job has gown, cancer-like, to the point where it is beginning to blot out the sun. There is nothing, nothing not eclipsed by the ticking clock that counts the minutes between now and when I have to go back to that place.

I am particularly susceptible to career-related disgust right now because they announced our raises this past week. The fact is this: I knew that I was going to be righteously pissed by the entire affair; that there was no way they were going to give me what it would take to make me happy. What blew me away is how VERY, VERY pissed off I was. As my boss sat there and blathered on and on and fucking ON about how generous CHFJ’s fucking package is, I just sat there and stared at the sheet in front of me. The one that, in black and white, laid out for me just how underpaid and overworked I am; just how worthless the hours I’ve wasted making everyone around me money while I struggle and get nowhere.

What I said was, “I see this, and I am disappointed.”

What I thought was, “Only a fucking retarded person would be satisfied with this, and I am not fucking retarded.”

At this point, I am permanently exhausted. I spend 40-50 hours a week biting my tongue; 40-50 hours a week avoiding the truth; 40-50 hours pretending that somehow I am not totally, terribly, pissing away my life in this ridiculous place with these ridiculous people.

And it’s not working any more. Do you have any idea how much self-discipline it requires to lie convincingly for 40-50 hours per week? Because I sure as shit didn’t. It’s excruciating.

And then, and then, AND THEN . . . The stupid bint asked me to coach (coach?!?) the fucker on our team who has the job I should have—who makes more money than I do—because he’s underperforming.

*sputter*

At that point, I think a part of my brain actually turned black and died. Collapsed on itself, like a wee dying galaxy. The part of me that is the real me, the part of me that I like and bring out off-leash to spend time with loved ones, wanted to jump up and overturn a chair. It wanted respond with a perfectly reasonable “Are you shitting me?” My god, the woman has no sense of irony and no concept of timing.

Instead, I sat there like a whipped fucking bitch and just took it. And today? Five days later? Recalling the conversation makes me want to cry. I’ve become complicit in my own fucking failure, my enthusiastic disappointment.

Working on not spending half my waking life with people I hate doing things I detest, and waiting for Spring.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Musing on a Sunday, Not At the Office

The lingering winter and my steadily deteriorating work situation have worked in concert to lobotomize me. My brain is mired. I am completely uncreative, totally uninspired, and borderline unable to interact with people. My life has, in essence, turned me back into me at 13, but without the urge to write truly awful poetry.

I mistakenly believed that things wouldn’t ever get as bad at Corporate Happy Fun Job as they did last year at this time. I can only attribute that ridiculous assumption to optimism born of desperation—to have believed otherwise would have melted my soul and destroyed me. Now, in the throes of misery, I’m too close to it to reflect upon it. There is only the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other forced death march, interspersed with momentary speculation about how much my manager resembles a swaggering dildo frat boy.

That explains a lot, actually. That whole swaggering dildo thing.

As works sucks up more and more of my time, the rest of my life concomitantly begins to ravel around the edges. Things like socks and clean panties sort of fall by the wayside, and let’s not even talk about the whole damn dust situation.

And winter. . .winter. I am so done with winter. Rather than becoming more accepting of the entire season situation as years go by, I fight it more and more. I feel like I have done my time and paid my dues, and should no longer have to suffer the indignities of winter. Unfortunately, February is only beginning. Spring is at least a six weeks away, and the days when we can be confident there will be no frost are longer still.

The madness, he is lurking.

On the bright side, the dark and hopeless days of the Bush administration are finally, fabulously, behind us. President Obama (*swoon*) has impressed me incredibly during his first two weeks in office. Further, I don’t believe I’m impressed solely by the contrast between Obama and his idiotic predecessor, but rather by his determination to do right; to be a statesman and a leader rather than a politician.

When he signed the Executive Order to close Gitmo, I sat there sort of dumbfounded, thinking to myself, “Huh. He can just do that. Just . . . make good things happen. Because he’s the president. Fuckin’-A right.” And then he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law, and I almost wept, because suddenly I no longer felt so much like I had a target painted on my ass and a sign around my neck that said “Fucking Sucker” in letters 3 inches high.

Hand to god, I would likely hump the President’s leg, but it would upset Michelle and his kids and the Secret Service would wallop my ass. The Boy, though, would understand because I am a woman of serious and sudden wants and, as my husband, he knows and accepts this about me.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Welcome, Mr. President

I had to work today, and didn't get to take time out to listen to the Inauguration address until hours later.

However, driving home from work, I got all teary eyed over the people on NPR referring to "President Obama." Somehow that shift, from President-elect, to President, brought it all home

Since then, I have been weepy eyed over the speech, over the new President's stinking adorable children, over the people who traveled for hours and days to see it happen.

Wow. For the first time in a long time it is a fucking righteous day to be in America.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Buh-bye, Bush

I can't believe it's over.

We got through eight years. Eight long, fucked up, "Brownie, you're doin' a heckuva job" years, and tomorrow they come to an end. I almost can't believe it.

The economy is terrible, and America has pissed away its good name the world over. Things are as bad as they've been in my lifetime, or the lifetime of my parents, and yet I still feel relief, because the eight year reign of terrifying, mind-bending stupidity is over.

I hear that there is some question that Bush will be able to find gainful employment after he leaves office. Being that unlike most presidents before him he's a barely literate asshat, the traditional occupations of memoir writing and public speaking might be out of reach. I would like to propose that he occupy his ample free time traveling around the country and apologizing to all of us. He can start with the families of the soldiers his lies have killed and work his way around to the rest of us.

George W. Bush, you have been a terrible fucking leader. You are a liar, a cheat, and fucking fool. When history judges your sorry ass, I can only hope that time does nothing to dim the memory of your failings. Better to remember, and not to repeat.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Too Dumb To Teach

Ok. Seriously?

If you’re so stupid that you:

1. Spend $1100 on a laptop to write papers –and-

2. Buy said laptop with an operating system you’ve never heard of –and-

3. When you prove unable to successfully operate said OS you’ve never heard of, you respond by dropping out of school rather than finding someone who can help you at, say, the computer lab . . .

THEN one can reasonably assume that your school career was not on an upward trajectory anyway.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Who The Fuck Is He Kidding?

People said, well, the federal response was slow. Don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed. I remember going to see those helicopter drivers, Coast Guard drivers, to thank them for their courageous efforts to rescue people off roofs. Thirty thousand people were pulled off roofs right after the storm moved through. It’s a pretty quick response.

-President George W. Bush's final press conference. January 12th, 2009




Reuters/Jason Reed found at http://tinyurl.com/99r8ns\

Real timely, there George. Note the lack of WATER. And medical personnel. Note the lack of help.

George Bush has been a terrible, terrible president. A blowhard and a fool who cannot speak with the intelligence of the average college sophomore. There are so very, very many things for which to blame him.

None, though, are is incredible to me as Hurricane Katrina. I will never forget the film of the mother with her newborn sobbing to a camera crew to help her because he baby was unresponsive. The people sobbing at the Superdome. Some officious prick general talking how hard it was to get into New Orleans to Anderson Cooper of all fucking people. How Sean Penn beat Bush and most rescuers into the city.

Never have I felt more keenly ashamed of my country. Someday, when I have a child, I will sit her (or him) down, and I will tell her about the most shameful time in American history.

Fucking asshat. When the fucking secretaries from CNN and the weather monkey from Channel 5 beats you into a city, you are fucking slow. Maybe not as slow as you were in school, but slow just the same. Douche.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

I'm Just Here for the Check

I can only describe my current career related mental state as being the final stage of professional grief: acceptance.

Things at Corporate Happy Fun Job are fun indeed. At present, I can best compare our management to my dating and mating habits prior to the boy:
1. Inability to learn from past mistakes
2. Noteworthy powers of denial
3. Insistence that a difference in appearance must indicate a difference in substance

Also similar? If I could go back in time, I would kick my own ass. And if I were the evil overlord, I would most assuredly be dispensing some ass kickings to the people captaining this particular ship of fools.

I have accepted that for the time being I should at least maintain at least a small amount of humility because I do have a relatively secure job, even if at times said job can best be likened to inserting pine cones into my butt. It is what it is. If I could travel back in time, shortly after I got done kicking my younger self in the head for her dating habits, I'd send her off to learn how to do something fucking useful. Alas, non. C'est la vie.

That being said, I am NOT A FUCKING IDIOT. So when I realized today that various co-workers and I were all more or less working for free in an increasingly vain effort to meet the whimsical flights of fancy--also known as goals--laid out by management, it took me approximately 30 seconds to decide that this shit was going to stop. I do, and will continue to, work my ass off. I do a difficult job and I do it well. However, it is a job. My family, my friends, my knitting, my booze, my books . . . these things are my life. My job is a Life Subsidizing Device.

What really blows me away about this entire thing is that so few of my co-workers were even really that pissed off about it. What the fuck, over? I get being afraid for one's job, but really? There is always a bum outside the blood bank looking for a handjob.

Whatever, I went and had a chat with the HR person that basically said we were being indirectly pressured to work for free. I believe she broke into a mild sweat and her butt cheeks took a bite out of her ergonomically correct office chair. That in itself was pretty much worth the conversation.

Seriously, fellow Pink Collar Wage Slaves. Repeat after me. "I am not your bitch."

Monday, January 5, 2009

Mad Dining Skillz

I love to cook. After a shitty day at work, filled with failure and stupidity, I can come home and do something that 1. makes me feel reasonably competent, and 2. reasonably productive.

Also, whereas at work everything I do counts as pearls before swine, here at least The Boy will appreciate my efforts.

Further, new skills I learn at work inevitably only open doors to new and interesting wells of suffering. Very rarely does a new cooking skill leave me wishing I'd never heard of it, and in the rare instance it does, you can bet your ass I won't be using it long.

Like cream sauces. The secret, I now know, is that I need to be much less of a chickeshit when it comes to heat. Big fire, don't turn around, whisk. Who knew?

Don't answer that.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Getting Here From There

A few weeks ago for shits and giggles, I decided to add a Stat Counter to this blog. I have it invisible because 1. I don't really care for them much on pages, and 2. I have some dignity and don't need anyone to see how paltry the visit count is, and 3. I don't want any of my two or three regular readers to realize how un-fucking cool I really am and be scared back into the ether.

I get a few hits from places I recognize as belonging to people I know. I also get a lot of shit from, like, India--I suppose most of those kind souls are concerned about the size of my penis and would like to help me enlarge it.

My favorite, though, are the random search strings. A couple folks arrived here after searching for "Bommarito Nissan." Hi guys! If you found this after googling Bommarito Nissan, all I can say is FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY DO NOT DO THAT TO YOURSELF. Life is too short, and frankly, you'd be better off walking--which now that I think about it is what you're likely in for if you go to them for service. Just saying.

The other common theme I'm finding is people who are searching for answers to various grammatical questions. God help them if they find it here. While I can as needed deploy a heaping helping of Queen's English in the service of good, here I mostly don't concern myself with many of the niceties of grammar. Whatever poor bastard takes his or her writing tips from this blog is in a world of fucking hurt. Vulgar, nasty, ill-willed fucking hurt to be exact.