Category Archives: WTF?

Mother Tongue

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Daily, Good Stuff, Muse, Random Shit, The Almighty TV, The Weather, Totally normal, WTF?

I forgot to put up my post about the Golden Globes. Well, that implies that I wrote a post about the Golden Globes and that’s a blatant lie, so there you go. I’ve had far more important things to do. First of all, I worked like, almost a full week last week, y’all. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I was so done with my work people by Friday that I looked at my boss at one point and said, “Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Just shut up.” Oh yeah. True story.

Anyway, this weekend I was all I’m gonna organize! I’m gonna get shit done! I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna! and now it’s Sunday night and I haven’t even finished that one load of laundry. HOWEVER. I’ve yet to find a person out there who hasn’t read Stieg Larsson’s Millienium trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc.) and I’ve been anxious to watch the movie. A quick search of the on-demand movie channel revealed that the first two books are now movies in Swedish with English subtitles. Let this not deter you, Internet! These movies are OUTSTANDING.

If you’ve read them, you know how graphic they are and the movies do the nasty parts some serious justice. They are entertaining and stick with the story pretty closely, but by far the most fun for me was learning Swedish words. For instance, did you know that “okay” in English and “okay” in Swedish are the same? ME EITHER. And “holy shit” and “what the fuck” sound exactly the same, except with extra syllables. I always thought Spanish was fun, but Swedish? Well. I haven’t asked anyone about this officially, but I’m pretty sure Swedish is a combo of German, French and English, and maybe some other languages, and they use all those fun letters with the dots and slashes through them, like the No Smoking signs. SO FUN, RIGHT?!

Now this is interesting: I just looked on Wikipedia and it turns out that Swedish is the official language of Finland, too. Which totally confuses me, because I would think that Finnish would be Finland’s language, but does that mean that Finnish isn’t a language? Or do people in Finland not like their own language? Or is it like Canada, where people speak English but probably don’t want to, and feel like Americans just shoved English down their throats and so they rebel by saying “oot the door” and other weird stuff?

These are the questions that keep me up…in the afternoon. I didn’t even nap today thinking about this stuff. I blame Stieg Larsson.

In other news, everyone in these movies drives a Volvo. Or, if they’re executives at their jobs, they drive Audis or Mercedes. Can you imagine living somewhere where there isn’t a tacky 12 year-old domestic death trap parked on every street corner? Me either. And all the houses in Stockholm looked really quaint but modern and Ikea-y and the rural towns have names like Uppsala and Hedestad. I said on Facebook today that I wanted to plan a trip to Sweden soon and one of my friends sent me the current weather in Stockholm, which was 22 degrees, and I said that I didn’t mind because hello? It’s colder than that in Pittsburgh today. (I only know that because I’m watching the Steelers play the Jets, and that’s only because my friend Kristen showed me Heinz Field when I was there a few months ago and now I feel beholden to Pennsylvania.)

Tomorrow I’m going to see the lu-lu doctor, which is not the vagina doctor. Apparently this is confusing to some people. I’m going to ask her what I’m supposed to do about taking my crazy meds when I’m sick with a stomach virus, and also about Ambien amnesia, which is happening more and more. Maybe I’ll come out of there with some new prescriptions, and if that’s the case, I’ll be sure to let you know what’s good and new on the crazytrain market.

Until then…

Var är toaletten? (I’m asking you where the toilet is, please, when I’m in Sweden. Or Finland.)

The one where January bites back

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Anxiety, Daily, Lamenting, Muse, Random Shit, The Almighty TV, Totally normal, WTF?

If writing is an exercise, I’m about as lazy and out of shape as one can be. I’ve been practicing a little with logging my dreams (see recent posts) but writing about my life is, well, a bit overwhelming. Many of you reading have blogs yourselves, and most of you have regular schedules of posting. There are Monday these and Wednesday those, and sections and lists that your readers count on. I used to do that here, and then life got in the way.

I vow to try really hard to remember to use my muscles a little more often.

Since Christmas, the house has been quiet but tumultuous, if that’s possible. I had a three week break from school over the holidays, which I really enjoyed but which threw my circadian rhythm off so much so that I worried for days about oversleeping on my first day back. The first week back was a blur of training, registration, lesson planning, putting out fires and getting back into a regular sleep schedule. The second week back was about as awful as I would expect in January. We discovered mistakes we’d made with advising this past semester and had to rectify those quickly, until it snowed and I got the stomach flu and we had extended drop/add and my co-workers were short staffed and OH GOD THE STOMACH FLU.

From what I know, it’s spread like wildfire around this town. From what I’ve heard, it’s all over everywhere. I think I’d rather be shot in the toes than have that again. Not even kidding.

So I guess the point of my story is that my mind has been elsewhere and I’ve suffered because of it. There are so many things that I think Oh! I need to remember to blog about that! and then a day goes by and I forget, or it’s not relevant anymore. I watched some serious TV over both the holiday and The Illness of January, and I’m happy to report that “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is my new discovery. It’s just…genius. I can’t believe I hadn’t found it before, but I owe that show a debt of gratitude for helping me climb out of a panic attack the other day. The thing about a stomach bug is that if I can’t keep anything inside me (I know this is gross, but most of y’all are moms and your gross-o-meter should be tolerating higher stuff than this) I can’t keep my medication regulated. So it stands to reason that without the good drugs, I am a pure-T nutcase. I’m telling you, this week was not pretty.

Catching up on Google Reader was a treat this week, as I’m woefully behind on my reading and have so much more to go. A lot of your posts have given me good ideas and some have even helped me come up with things to talk about in my class this semester. Y’all are so smart. I feel so…inferior.

In other news, things that have been rocky are slowly rocking themselves back right again. I wish so much that I could talk about this here, but the important thing is that you know I am and will always be a shiny, sparkling, extra wonderful, fantastical rock star. I just don’t see how you could argue otherwise. I didn’t make new year’s resolutions because frankly, who keeps them? (not me), and most of them cost money (gym, diet crap, buy a fancy planner, buy organization shit that will sit in a bag for a year) so I just scrapped that plan. Instead I am resolving NOTHING. I promise you absolutely nothing, I don’t guarantee a single thought, idea or gesture, and I surely am not planning to live up to anyone’s expectations.

See what I did here? I lowered your opinion of me so when I do good shit, you’ll be all surprised and impressed. I said it already: I’m a genius.

Finally, this exercise of the writing here has sparked some ideas so I’ll be back in the next few days to write specifically and, perhaps, intelligently. I ask that you stick with me, and I ask that you do this one huge thing for me that would make me happier than all the Doritos on the planet: send your love, your happy thoughts, your prayers for good and your healing powers to my friend. She is an even brighter and shinier star than I, and she needs a few peanuts in her gallery.

Thanks bunches.

Three card Marley

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Anxiety, Muse, Random Shit, Totally normal, True That?, WTF?

Out of my head tonight and I am drawing pictures of clouds and the threshold of heaven.

Keith Richards is on my mind, seriously on my mind all the time these days, as is his guitar.

I’m thinking about you, wanting to get on this kind of manic high with you because I know you’d love it. I really just wanna get fucked up with you, see what that’s like. Mostly I wish we’d drink beer and talk about things that need talking about.

Tapping keys along to the keyboard and bass, but I lose the guitar, the most important set of strings…well, ever.

The problem with this mania is that the high doesn’t last long. You either get really lost in it until you fall asleep or you stay awake, get confused and finally find yourself doing something productive. Which beats the point in being a little hyper.

I call her and say I need to get out. She says sure, come over and let’s hang, all three of us. Didn’t want it to be all three of us. So I say I’m going, but I cancel on her. I head instead to the bar where I know I’ll find him. He’s there, but he’s there with the girl he told me he’d broken up with. She’s had a crisis. She says it’s nice to meet me, that she’s heard so much about me. I tell her I hope it was good, and say that yes, he’s mentioned her name a time or two as well.

Three beers and several badly-sung pop tunes later, they are flirting in a corner, it’s very obvious my friends are coming much later (if at all) and for now I am the third wheel. I pay my tab and walk down the steps. I spin wheels on the gravel because I am jealous and hurt. Two emotions I was almost certain I didn’t have towards him or anything related to him. I drive carefully home, steady between the lines.

I am wrong, because I have every one of those emotions. I feel stupid, a little hurt, mostly stupid and perhaps also a little embarrassed. I’m introduced flatly, impersonally. He grasps her shoulders and spins her toward me, telling her to just turn around and meet me. I heard the whole thing. She knows I did. She looks me up and down and realizes she doesn’t need to feel self-conscious. She is triumphant, but not in a condescending way.

We make it a game to make fun of him, like two insta-pals giving the boyfriend a hard time. He looks uncomfortable and doesn’t know where to give his attention. Here? There? He can’t be in two places at once! What will he do!

We make it easy. We dance and sing along to the songs and hear the call for last call. Gratefully, I sign my bill and fly down the steps out to my car.

Live and learn, right?

Right.

Gettin’ Slizzered

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Anxiety, Daily, Muse, Random Shit, The Almighty TV, Totally normal, WTF?

Some people in the morning, after they are caffeinated, are all buzzy and chipper and energetic and some kind of shit like that. In the morning, I have a moderate amount of caffeine in my Diet Coke Pepsi, go on about my day and that’s that.

It’s at the nighttime, the glorious nighttime!, when my wild buzzy chipper side awakes and my smart, practical Ambien is supposed to take me back down to lala land. I’ve discovered though that when the Ambien is having a half-ass workday, my productivity goes WAY up. Case in point: tonight I take the Ambien a little before 9. I get in bed, watch the end of a football and basketball game, and decide to check Twitter one last time. But see The Bloggess has this gravy pony thing for arthritis going on, and then someone talks about how many DMs they get and I’m jealous, and then I get the idea to throw a last minute New Year’s Day supper and OOH! the recipes I can find on Food Network right now!, and it’s fucking almost midnight again for the 17th time in a week (yes, I did the math), and I’m sort of feeling great. My mind is racing but in a hyper-productive way, not in an panicky one. Let me step from behind my keyboard, though, and then I’m all swimmy, I can run and hop and skip through the house eating whipped peanut butter and honey, and being none the wiser until the morning. Because somewhere in all that I have finally crashed.

There are the other kinds of nights in between the zonked out immediately and the night I’m having tonight. Those in betweens are shitty because I don’t get the mania and I don’t get the sleepy and so instead I have insomnia and I’m annoyed at TV and I’m hungry for…what does Taco Bell call it? Fourth Meal?…yeah, I’m hungry for Fourth Meal.

Mmm…Fourth Meal. Happy Meal. Full Meal from Waffle House. Waffles with bacon. Fried hot dog wrapped in bacon from Food Network. Ooh, Food Network at this hour.

This is my brain, and it’s on Ambien.

Other than my self-diagnosed addiction to refined carbohydrates, I have never been addicted to anything other than cigarettes. Alcohol is a for-fun thing for me that I don’t really miss when it’s not there. But I can see – just a little, tiny, eensy little bit – how people can be dependent on a drug. I believe that if I had an addictive personality, this would be the easiest drug to abuse. You take one or two, don’t fall asleep and HELLO! the fun begins.

Full disclosure: If I got behind the wheel of a car right now, I would arrest myself faster than I could buckle my seatbelt. If I tried to text right now, my text would read as a 13 y.0.’s and if I were to carry on a conversation, I would plan grand things and tell you tall tales of my childhood.All of this is why I am restricted to the computer – Twitter, email and the blog – when it’s bedtime, on the off chance I stay up and do some accidental damage.

Getting slizzered, for me, is mainly harmless because I try to limit potential dangers. Some days it works, others it doesn’t, but I am never anywhere but inside my bed when I ingest that pill. So, to sum it all up, henceforth I am campaigning for Internet breathalyzers, or otherdrugalyzers that can measure your level of inhibition and stop you immediately from shitty blog posts, dumbass emails to people, and posting pictures on your Facebook page that will inevitably ruin your political career 30 years from now.

Trust me on this, Internet.

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.