Category Archives: Listing

And yet people continue to suck

Posted by Elizabeth in Daily, Lamenting, Listing, Muse, Politics, Random Shit, WTF?, You make me crazy when

I feel as though one day I’ll surely run out of bad things to say about people. Not yet, though.

1. Mostly all people are idiots. Note that I said mostly.

2. No one reads anymore. When I hand you a piece of paper and tell you to follow the directions, FOLLOW THE FUCKING DIRECTIONS ALREADY.

3. Don’t text while I’m talking to you. I used to think this was an understood common courtesy. Now I just think you’re idiots.

4. There’s some saying about failure to plan and emergencies and blah blah blah, but I think the bottom line of that is this: I didn’t wait until the last minute, you did. Case closed.

5. Get your kids under control, idiots. I don’t slobber on you, don’t let your kids slobber on me. It’s simple math, really. Also? Pens aren’t candy.

6. When I have a job to do, the chances of me wanting to hear your life story are oh, about slim to none. Keep it to yourself unless you like it when I roll my eyes at you. I don’t need to know how many siblings you have in rehab or that you had to take a year off because you got pregnant by accident and your car got stolen. Save it for Social Services, doll.

7. Freaking out because Democrats and Republicans just did a swap off is not interesting to anyone. Have you not lived in America for 45 years? Do you actually think it’s possible for something earth-shattering to happen before next week? Yes? You’re an idiot.

8. I love you all, really I do, but Facebook is not the place to tell me about your kids’ ass happenings. Poopy? Pee pee? Diapers? Potties? Shut the fuck up.

9. Your tattoos and piercings are not unique, I hate to break it to you. Everyone and their mother has a wrist one or a tramp stamp or an ankle thingy or an eyebrow ring or their ear cartilage mutilated. People don’t think you’re interesting. Sorry. I’ll tell you what IS interesting, though: your hair extensions. Those fascinate me.

10. If you are of sound mind and body, I’m not doing it for you, and I don’t care what “it” is. I’m not looking shit up on the computer for you, I’m not dropping this off or handing this to so and so, and I’m not just gonna call and see if he’s around today. NOPE. Find some other sucker.

Wow, y’all. I feel so much better now. Do idiots drive you crazy? Comment below. Seriously, feel free. And if I’ve offended you at all with this list, well…too fucking bad.

While sitting idly by

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Beach, Daily, Good Stuff, Listing, Muse, Random Shit, The Almighty TV, The Weather

One of my friends on Twitter this week said that she was thinking of starting a petition to keep me from going MIA. Don’t do it, Ashley; you will disappoint your signers. If my fucking HTC Eris Android phone ever starts to work again (VERIZON: Fucking get Apple to fucking let you sell the fucking iPhone al-fucking-ready, wouldya?) I could set an alarm on my calendar for blogging days and not get behind. Really I blame this all on the Droid. Who names a phone “Droid” anyway? Nerds need to get new lingo.

A few thoughts and observations, in no particular order, about no particular or singularly fascinating thing:

My friend called me tonight to tell me that he ran into the woman he THOUGHT he was dating, except she was having dinner with another man – her steady boyfriend. The “other man” was wearing a blue wife-beater, a camouflage hat and a gold rope chain. My friend wears tweed sport coats and those leather driving moccasins with the buckles. The irony was not lost on us.

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I went to the beach this week and it was absolutely beautiful. Fall is my favorite season anyway, and anywhere, but the beach this time of year is perfect. The crowds are gone, the air is crisp and salty and the seafood is extra fresh and comes quickly. Days are warm, nights are cool, and any time of day you can watch huge white yachts cruise by on their way to warmer climates. You really can’t beat it with a stick. True story: some giant rusty barge slammed into the side of a really shiny yacht from the British Virgin Islands while we were having lunch on a dock. It was kind of awesome. (I’m not evil; no one got hurt, except the side of the shiny expensive gigantically huge rich people’s yacht.)

I went to the beach this week because we’re on fall break and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I always lust for vacations from work because, let’s face it, I don’t like to work. I don’t like to do much of anything, really. But what always happens has happened again: I got home from my trip, have had a few days to myself and I’ve wound up couch-potato-ing the days away because I am out of my routine. I’m like a three year-old who missed a nap. When I’m out of my routine, I don’t take my crazy meds on time, I sleep too late, I take too many naps and I have chronically dirty hair. Not to mention the fact that the pantry mysteriously gets emptier and emptier. Remind me of all this two weeks from now when I’m counting the days until Thanksgiving.

What I need to do is grade papers, calculate percentage points, pay my business taxes before I get sent to jail and finish up invitation orders already. Someone tell me how YOU get motivated when there’s all this free time ahead of you, because frankly I’m stumped.

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In other news, the famed Power-Tool Pumpkin Carving Party is next weekend and as usual, we don’t have a pumpkin yet. Also as usual, I’m worried about what to wear around the 20-somethings. If I wear clogs, they’re in boots. If I wear jeans, they’re in cords. If I wear a sweater, they wear t-shirts and those infinity scarf things. If I didn’t actually care whether or not a 20-something looked my way, I’d drink more pumpkin ale.

Also in other, scarier, news…there is an arsonist loose in our neighborhood. I’m not even remotely kidding and I get terrified every time I leave the house that I’ll come back to fire trucks. Two houses that were recently vacated have burned in the last 6 weeks, and that’s just on the next street over from us. There have been other fires nearby and the police have resorted to fliers asking for leads in exchange for reward money. This is quite unsettling, and yes, we’ve checked the smoke alarm batteries.

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The Seven Year Itch. Yeah, Internet, we’re gonna talk about it. Not right now, of course, because that’s a whole other casserole in the oven. But it’s there. IT’S THERE. I’m referring of course to relationships and not a condition that requires vagina cream, if you were wondering.

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Finally, I miss – like, in my bones and my heart and my soul – my co-workers, specifically my shiny light, C. This new job is fantastic, wears me out, makes me feel challenged and yadda yadda but I don’t see her every day anymore. I actually don’t see her at all and our phone conversations are short and somewhat stilted. I love her more than life and I miss her deeply. Don’t let people fool you: your co-workers are closer to your heart than you think, whether you love them or hate them. When you leave them or vice versa, you will miss them. Mark my words.

I’m going to bed, y’all. I’m going to sleep well because the windows are open and it’s 40 something degrees out – YES, BITCHES, THE HEAT IS GONE! I AM NOT SWEATING! HALLEFLAPPINGLUJAH! – but I will dream about this blog and wonder if you’re still out there reading.

I sincerely hope you are.

They could be drag queens for all I know.

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Anxiety, Daily, Lamenting, Listing, Muse, The Almighty TV

So lemme run this down for you, real list-like. The last few days since I got home from New Orleans have sucked in a special way, and because I was all Pollyanna this weekend with my “Hey! Let’s help people!” rant, I feel entitled to bitch now.

1. I have something. It’s some kind of snotty, nasty, energy-sucking thing that’s also causing panic attacks. I wish I were kidding.

2. I have to teach a class at 5:00 today. It’s technically the 3rd week of class but I’ve only laid eyes on these people once, and I swear to you, for all I know they are Joan Rivers look-a-likes. Yes, people. I am THAT good at education.

3. I have fallen out of favor with the socialites, and I wish I could say that I didn’t care, but I also wish I could say that I did. In reality, most of my frenemies need AA. Just a little message. (Did you like my Danielle Staub reference there? What? You don’t know who she is? Get thee to a television NOW.)

4. My hair is dirty and it’s possible that I also smell, showers notwithstanding. I think when you’re sick AND you’re in a bad mood, stink just seeps out of your pores.

5. I just lost 5 readers and 1 Twitter follower for that graphic and vaguely disgusting imagery.

6. The heat, y’all. The goddamned heat. If Hurricane Earl comes this way, and it’s kind of looking like it, there better be rain and at least 5-degree cooler temperatures. OR ELSE I’M MOVING TO MAINE. Consider yourself warned, Maine.

7. On a good note, the friends loyal and true to me are ones who warm the cockles of my heart. I have this one lovely friend who flew to NC this weekend just so she could host some friends for dinner at her mother’s house. She had me print up menu cards and she cooked a three-course meal, in the grand tradition of Southern hostesses. I swear, Yankees, I’m just not sure you know what you’re missing.

8. Hey, did you watch the Emmys? The dresses were ridiculously ridiculous this year. Actually I’m just talking about January Jones. The rest of them were kind of boring. Woo, but do you know who’s NOT boring? Tom and Lorenzo. The love I have for those boys is just ginormous and I think I need to up the gay quotient in my life. I really think that’s what might be missing, y’all.

January Jones, looking ridiculous at the 2010 Emmys in Atelier Versace.

9. I’m all done with the listing for today, mostly because the Diet Coke has kicked in and I’m a twirling, nervous wreck. What is it about illness that brings on the panic attacks? I’ll never know.

Have a great Tuesday, dolls. In the words of the ever-profound New Jersey housewives, I am not garbage.

You know what it is? I forgot to pray and love.

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Anxiety, Lamenting, Listing, Lucille & Charles, Muse, Random Shit, Totally normal, WTF?

Right now:

There is a Julia Roberts marathon on USA.

I’m reading the BlogHer ’10 tweets and wondering about these girls.

A pile of bank papers on my coffee table is staring at me.

My cat is desperately trying to meld her body with mine.

I can’t organize my thoughts well enough to write more than a list.

But I’m trying.

Last summer I wrote a post about Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, a book that has stuck with me ever since. The eating part I’ve got down pat; it’s the other stuff I – and undoubtedly every other woman who’s read that book – am working on. I forget though. Do you ever find yourself starting those good habits like exercising and eating right and calling your mother every Sunday and then find that two weeks have passed and you missed that one day and then that other day and then all good intentions are no more? You’re not alone. Or maybe I’m the only one. Who gives a shit, really…the important thing is that the praying and the loving are far more essential to getting down to the root of what ails me.

I am failing at my business. Oh, I have customers, and I have people who buy things from me and who plan to get gifts for birthdays and graduations and so forth. But in the grand scheme of things, like THE BUDGET, I’m failing. I am not a good record-keeper, I am a terrible mathematician and I have no head for business. I love the work itself, but I hate the business and the voices in my head were right: this probably wasn’t a good idea. There’s no one to rely on – or blame – but me, and it’s far easier to give up than try to fix a mess. It makes me feel awful though, and I fear that the awfulness will get the better of me.

Additionally, that gentle, relaxed feeling I had leftover from vacation is gone and the tension of real life has crept back into my shoulders like stubborn ivy, winding its way up my neck and down my spine and choking the life out of my head. There is intense fear and anxiety about the expectations I have for myself. I did not register for school. I am terrified to teach this semester. I am ashamed that I am not a better housekeeper or wife and that I have failed at my business venture.

I have educated myself enough about my anxiety to know that there are definable triggers and that there are steps I can take to head off the avalanche that comes so easily. I can meditate, I can reduce distractions, I can focus myself and my thoughts, BLAH BLAH BLAH. Just like the business, it’s easier to give up than to fix a mess. I take my medication, most of the time, but there is work I know I should do right along with that. Is it that I’m lazy? Is it too much to tackle at once? Do I forget? I don’t have the answers.

Praying and loving are these two huge words – these touchy feely warm fuzzy words that are repulsive and comforting at the same time. Praying for some people involves a church or mosque or synagogue; for other people, it’s just a quiet moment that is private and personal. I don’t know what it is for me. I forget how to do it, mostly because I think I’m doing it wrong or that God is sitting there (up there? out there?) shaking his head at me and adding my name to that list of people who got left in the oven too long. So I just skip right over it because really, what would I pray about anyway?

Loving, for me, comes back to that whole thing about being an asshole. I know that I shouldn’t be an asshole and that I should love other people, but I don’t know that I’m aware of how to do that. I could write a whole other list of shortcomings right here that would take up 14 hours of my time, and all of it involves being self-centered and too afraid to tell people I love them because they might not say it back. How do you know you love someone or something to begin with? I don’t mean romantic love – I have BB and I put a ring on his finger and so he’s contractually required to love me until I do something to piss him off. And vice versa. I’m talking about the other kind of love – the kind that (I think) is what you reserve for friends and ideas and yourself.

I really don’t know what I’m talking about here other than to say that life has confounded me in such a way that I feel as though I’m at a 4-way stop sign with no directions. It does that to everyone, I totally know that, but what happens to you isn’t nearly as important as what happens to me. See? I’m an asshole.

Finally, before Pretty Woman ends and I strangle the fur off my cat, I should say that two weeks ago I had a conversation with one of my best friends about traveling abroad for a period of time. Neither one of us knows how we will finance it or where exactly we’ll go, or what we’ll do when we get there, but we have good intentions. If it happens, it will be a lesson in selflessness and compassion, both of which I desperately need. If you’re the praying sort, send us your good wishes so that we might focus and develop this. If you’re the loving sort, send us your love because we probably need that too.

Hell called. It wants its heat back.

Posted by Elizabeth in Anxiety, Beach, Lamenting, Listing, WTF?

Those weather people. So creative.

I’ll go ahead and warn you up front: this entire post is a long, drawn out complaint about the heat. Ready? Here goes:

1. It’s so hot that my ass sticks to everything.

2. It’s so hot that pipes can’t produce cold water.

3. It’s so hot that birds don’t have the energy to shit on my car.

4. It’s so hot that my deodorant doesn’t work anymore; I stink by 9am.

5. It’s so hot here that no one is at the pool.

6. It’s so hot that being naked won’t even cool you off.

7. It’s too hot to eat.

8. It’s too hot to sleep.

9. It’s almost too hot to type.

10. It’s so hot my cactus plants are dying.

11. It’s hot enough to melt my jewelry.

12. It’s so hot my coworker’s windshield exploded. True story.

I would write more, but frankly, it’s just too hot. And this is enough complaining for one afternoon. I wish you all a wonderful, cool weekend. I will be packing for my beach trip, going to see my shrink, having lunch with a friend, and sleeping in the freezer.