Things I dream about

The beach in South Beach where my sister was married, only with Venice Beach-like stalls lining the street. Sunny, bright, warm, with leagues of shoreline begging to be combed and shells to be collected. I sit in a chaise just feet away from the ocean and type away on my laptop under the shade of a giant umbrella, amazed that I can get wifi so I fire up World of Warcraft.

I dream of the club that I worked at in college. I immediately fall back into the rhythm and bustle and shmoozing. It is so nice to see John, the manager. It's even reassuring to see Steve, his owner/boyfriend and the meanest meth head former marine that ever owned a nightclub, who died of lymphoma in the mid 90s.

What reality is: Late afternoon. 47 degrees with a chance of rain. A small dog tapdancing on my head announcing his need to go out. A raging case of impetigo on my left nostril. Figuring out how I'm going to juggle and pay for grad school when I'm working part time, on thirds, in this God-foresaken economy. And an iPod shaped indentation on my lower back.

I am the disposable girl.

No one calls. A few rarely email.

No one outside of my immediate family cares how I am doing, how I feel, or what I need.

I could be dead on the floor with my face eaten away by the dog and no one would notice for weeks - until I didn't show up for work for a few days, then maybe they'd send the police to do a welfare check.

"Online" friends are a joke. I'm just another number on a facebook page or another name on myspace. Stroke the ego. Watch the numbers go up. Fuck that, and fuck you.

I can count the number of people who care for me on one hand. Literally.

The only thing keeping me from ending it all is my parents and my sisters. I love them too much to destroy their lives, which is what my death, accidental or not, would do.

I used to be the girl that GAVE the parties. Now I don't even get invitations to parties.

Everyone has their own life, and I'm not a part of it.

So I'm moving on with mine.

Alone.

I hate you. I hate you to the extent that punching you in the face with impunity would not make me feel better.

I want to curbstomp you. Twice. Maybe a third time, for good luck.

Then, I want to pick you up by your ankles and swing your body like a bat against a telephone pole until your head separates from your neck.

I will then ship your head to a country where they still practice cannibalism.

Then, I want to jump up and down on your body until your bones crumble and turn to powder, forming into a sludge when mixing with your blood.

I will then hang you by the ankles and collect the runoff into a bucket, take it to an aquarium, and dump it in a shark tank.

Then, I will patch up any holes (natural or otherwise made) with a durable yet flexible resin.

I will then inflate the husk made by your skin with helium, tie it off at the neck, and marvel at the amazingly lifelike balloon I've created.

Then, I will let the balloon go, and giggle with abandon as it sails upwards, past the buildings, over the trees, into the clouds and out of sight.

I will then keep an eye on my watch, and know that about 20 minutes into your ascent, the pressure inside the husk will be greater than the pressure outside the husk, and the husk will expand and explode.

Then, I will sit back and smile, knowing that whatever is left of you is now hurtling towards the Earth, burning on the friction of re-entry.

I will smile when I hear reports of a large and unexpected meteor shower of unknown origin, and how breathtaking it was.

I hate you that much.

I am a bad person

A friend of mine since middle school grew up to get married and become a doctor. Unfortunately, her husband had a genetic illness which cut his life short. Now she's a widow and not even 40 yet.

Today was the 2nd anniversary of his death, and she stated, "I don't know how I'm going to get through the next 50 years without him."

Well, fuck me. I've made it through 38 years without anyone, and I'll probably have another 38 more of this same shit different day existence. Wake up alone, go to bed alone. If it's not a workday, speak to maybe a family member on the phone or a mumbled pleasantry to the cashier at the end of the grocery line.

I don't know how I'm going to do it either. I just do it. And I'm angry and resentful and I cry a lot sometimes and I've become really, really good at WoW PvP and I now know more about that stupid game and it's development and lore than the hardiest lore nerds/fanboys.

I really wanted to tell her, "Be glad you had someone to call yours and yours alone, even if it was for a few short years. It's better than a lifetime of feeling you were never good enough*, that something about you was fundamentally broken or flawed and no one will tell you what it is." But that would make me an insensitive jerk and bad friend.

So I keep moving forward, until that option is taken away from me. I just hope I don't have to wait another 38 years.

(*never good enough includes being being passed over for a woman 15 years my senior with 2 kids, and a woman who wound up dying from a drug problem. What on EARTH is wrong with me that either of those options seemed more appealing to the guys I was interested in at the time? Fuck.)

Back to not caring

Sigh.

Thoughts on coming home to toilet paper in my trees

1. D for effort. You did get some nice height in the silver maple, but totally skipped the apple tree. Minimal effort expended on the oak.

2. Thanks for the free material to pick up dog poop with, I guess.

3. The wrapping came from a dollar store. If your household products are obtained by making a special trip to the dollar store, it's probably not in your best fiduciary interest to be dispersing said household products willy-nilly throughout the neighborhood.

4. The wrapper was for a 12 pack. Where are the other 10 rolls? A mystery for the ages....

5. The duct tape you strung to cross the street between the telephone pole on the opposite corner to my corner? Thank you for using the stop sign instead of my fence to anchor it. I do not condone this, however, as this is a misuse of duct tape. Duct tape is a versatile and valuable commodity. You are disrespecting it by using it as a TP substitute.

6. The candy-stripe effect you tried on one fence rail out of over 2 dozen fell short. B+ for idea, D- for execution and effort.

7. It's not Halloween yet.

8. Welp, at least it's not spray paint or the remnants of a car crashing through it.










9. Or the boards yanked off, and the finials unscrewed. A bit of Gorilla Glue is keeping *that* from ever happening again, isn't it, you little bastards. It was suggested to me by more than one person that applying paint laced with ground glass shards to the finials would be "overreacting". You call it "overreacting", I call it, "teaching a valuable and memorable life lesson to not touch things that don't belong to you, especially if you are doing it with the intent to fuck around."

10. I am fortunate to live in a neighborhood where the worst thing that happens to my property is once in a blue moon, some TP winds up in the trees.

Dear people who stumble across this blog,

I would like your opinion.

Have you ever had a horrible job that you were reluctant to/slow to leave?

I'm talking about the kind of work situation that thinking about it made you feel physically ill.

You dreaded going to it and hated being at it because your coworkers were hostile morons that acted unprofessionally, management was only slightly more competent than a cageful of monkeys having a poo-flinging contest, your job and/or professional licensure was at threat of being put on the line every time you stepped foot in the door, yet you hung on to this job anyway and kept putting off job hunting because... well, you just didn't know why, at the time.

Why were you reluctant to leave? What kept you there?

How did you arrive at the decision to leave?

If you are one of those people that don't let "little" things like what I've described above bother you, and can work under ANY circumstance, despite how psychologically taxing it is, what are your tricks?

This was a situation I've dealt with myself in the recent past, a friend is going through it now, and I'd like more insight into this matter. Thank you for your time.