brightsideblog.com

Blah blah blah, 2010, etc,… etc,… all I really want to point out at this very moment, as I watch my DVR’d Golden Globes from last Sunday night, is how ridiculous deep tans look.  Extra-specially if you’re someone who doesn’t have much melanin in your skin to begin with.

Like me, frinstanz.  I’d look frickin’ ridiculous with a lot of color in my skin.  When I was in Italy last June I did a real number on my face by wearing a face lotion sans SPF and ferrying myself all over Lake Como on the sunniest day of my trip.  The sun damage still shows, but thanks to my friend Lissa - a sun-worshiper, but I love her anyway, hee hee - who recommended a product that diminished those ugly freckles.  Thank you, Lissa!

But I digress.  It was Jeremy Piven who sparked this tan outburst from me.  They panned to him in the audience at the GGs and my mouth fell open.  Not only does his dark skin look unnatural and gross, but gauche.  Oh sure, let’s advertise to everyone how much money you have and how you can vacation in expensive places closer to the equator than the rest of us average people.

Am I being too harsh?  Is Chris right that I’m a bad drunk and have maybe just had too much wine tonight as I sit here alone (ok, not ALONE, Lucy is curled up next to me) watching my DVR’d programs from the previous week?  Hrmph.

Ok, that was a teensy itty-bitty mini rant.  Done.  Now I’m almost weeping because I just watched Meryl “T-Bone” Streep give her acceptance speech for Julie & Julia.  Meryl is the shit.

I love Snickers candy bars.   Yes, I love many a chocolate bar, ’tis true.  I go through phases where different ones are my favorite; sometimes it’s Twix, then $100,000 Bar (please note I refuse to call it “100 Grand” as it has no ring to it - “hundred thousand dollar bar” is perfect), then maybe M’n'M’s or Mounds, but Snickers is a consistent fave, a go-to chocolate bar that really is the bomb and definitely satisfies.  The new Snickers billboard ad campaign, without mincing words, sucks.

These advertisements, billboards mostly, consist of bewildering, puzzling, made-up words supposed to indicate that Snickers bars hit the spot and, well, satisfy.  These inscrutable words are showcased in the same font and frame as “SNICKERS” is on the bar itself - how clever.  ?!?   I find myself consistently puzzled and read the “word” aloud hoping to enunciate out some meaning.  Nine times out of ten it remains a mystery and the one time I do understand it, I’m disappointed.

Who came up with this awful ad idea?  I can’t help but think that brainiac should be fired immediately and fired hard.    Frankly, aren’t Snickers so delicious and so woven into the fabric of American consumer society as to be omnipresent that they need no advertising at all?  Maybe it’s just me.

I already ranted about this, but what is wrong with people up here in New England? (I say this will all due respect as I feel, having lived here 20+ years that I am a New Englander now, albeit a Southern one….) The forecast today said to expect it no warmer than 45 degrees, TOPS, and possibly showers later in the afternoon.

When I left for work it was 36 degrees. Why did I see so many businessmen walk by hugging themselves as they leaned into the wind - again - and were clearly cold. Just because it’s April doesn’t make 36 degrees any warmer. It’s still just above freezing, my fellow worker bees. You can’t will the temp to go up by defying the forecast and underdressing.

Maybe they already packed up their winter clothing and they don’t want to dig it out and stink of mothballs. First of all, this is New England. Don’t pack up your winter togs till May. Secondly, do people still use mothballs? yeeeech, so nasty.

Here’s one for you - you wanna piss me off?  Tell me to smile.

Say you see me at the coffee shop, the pub, a club, at my desk, or wherever we happen to be.  I don’t care what my face is doing, do not say “smile.”  You mean well, sure you do, but shut it.  Seriously.

If you know me, you know I’m overall a happy person.  Look at the name of my blog for crying out loud!  So I don’t happen to be smiling.  So what?!  You don’t know what’s up.  I could be deep in thought.  Something awful could have just happened.  Some bad news might have come my way.  Maybe I’m thinking of an answer to a trivia question.  You can’t know from just looking.

I’m more aware of the expression on my face than most people probably are.  I make a concerted effort not to give people on the street dirty looks or even looks that could be interpreted as dirty.  I would like my face reflect my open mind.

And by the way, lack of SMILE doesn’t equal frown.  You wanna see me frown?  Tell me to smile, I dare you.

March 20.  The first day of Spring.  Crocuses, daffodils and tulips poking their noses out of the ground testing the air, checking if the time is right.  They’ll come on out no matter what, of course, they have no choice.  Their blooming must stick to a pre-determined schedule, snow on the ground be damned.

We humans have the intellect and tools to determine the temperature, wind-chill, precipitation amount, etc,…  Ergo we can choose our outfits according to the weather.  People don’t go out in jeans and a t-shirt without a jacket if there’s snow in the forecast, right?  Or do they?

Yes, it’s the first day of Spring, but come ON.  As I left the T at State Street station I was greeted by a bitterly cold wind.  Looking around I saw relatively scantily-clad ladies and gentlemen whip by me in the blowing air wearing nary a scarf or coat and looking none-too-happy.  This is not to say that no one I saw was dressed properly for the cold, but my eyes were drawn to the ones who weren’t, and there were plenty.  My mothering side was aghast and in my head I admonished them all with a “what were you thinking?!” and “put on a hat, fella, you’re gonna catch your death!” and “don’t you watch/listen/read the weather forecast?”

That last one there reverberated inside me as I realized not only do people not pay attention to the forecast, but even if they had, this is New England and if you want any confidence in the forecast you can only pay attention to the last one before you open the door because they change as fast as you can turn around and say “abracadabra.”  Not to mention the fact it seems as though every radio station, tv station and newspaper has a different idea of what the day’s weather holds in store.

But there’s more to it than that, and in my opinion a large percentage of people dress for the weather they think it should be instead of what it is.   First day of Spring is ideally sunny and warm, sure, but this is Boston.   That’s just not gonna happen.  In truth it cracks me up to see dudes in their capri shorts and flip flops and girls in their sundresses when it’s no more than 38 degrees out.  The word March or April in the date must = beach day! to them.  It’s as though they think they’ll collectively will the weather to warm up and do their bidding if they just break out their summer gear.

I’m learning to fight my motherly instincts now as I observe these poorly-attired, sadly-optimistic souls shivering and shaking at their bus stops and hugging themselves tight as they lean into the wind.  Frankly, I feel much the way I do when faced with someone’s undying belief in an almighty god.  I just laugh.  HA!  You can’t win.  None of us is going to win.  And I can’t help you, so I’ll watch you from my cozy hat, coat and boots-wearing perspective and let you go off on your merry way.

Here’s the thing: I’ll write out a To Do List and get excited by the idea of accomplishing tons of stuff. In no time, subtly and without warning, To Dos become tasks instead of things I merely wrote down to remember I wanted to do. These things hang over my head and if the list isn’t completely crossed off in a certain amount of time I beat myself up (you’ve seen the bruises… ha!).

This kind of self-imposed expectation can be quite the personal hurtle. And it doesn’t just affect me. If you know me you know there are times it takes me forever to write back to you; extra-specially if you’ve sent me a long email/letter. To my mind, I must respond in kind, meaning if you wrote me a long note, you deserve a long one back. But you don’t care about that, do you? That’s the way my walnut wobbles. But so even though I love writing and look forward to it, I subconsciously (slightly consciously, obviously, since I’m aware of it) sabotage myself by turning it into a “work-job,” as my mom called our weekly chores. The result is you don’t hear from me for a while.

Clearly this is affecting my blog as well. I’ve made it a chore, which it definitely is NOT. I’m constantly and consistently struggling with what I believe comes down to poor time management and procrastination. I feel as though when I write long entries here I’ve set a dangerous precedent, but I am beginning to realize it’s all in my head. My wee little noggin.

Here’s the plan: Write more often, whether it’s a five-sentence or a five-paragraph entry. Habit must be re-established or else I’ll languish and lose what slight hold I have on vocabulary and grammar. Zut alors!!

Certainly I am among the many who don’t quite understand spam.  What is the point?  Are we supposed to get this email from someone we don’t know and click on an inserted link that will automatically download a virus that will eat our computer from the inside out?  And if so, what’s the point?  Why would anyone want to randomly destroy other people’s computers, just to say they were able to do so?

I suppose in a specific way I’m asking the broad question, why does evil exist?, so I will back off of that one.

I may be a real layman about IT, but as an end-user I’m not stupid enough to open any link that comes my way, especially if it’s coming from a stranger.  But let’s go on the assumption that people doing this spamming are just jerks who want to screw with the world.  I get boatloads of spam comments on my blog here.  Most of them are filled with links to porn sites and other sites, but so many have a “sentence” before the link that makes no sense.  They have this string of nonsensical words and then a link of some kind.  Here are some of my favorite recent examples:

• unpapered pantisocratic maximate perdu papaprelatical heteroecism monoclinous unmighty
• datively squirelet sixpennyworth coletit pigdom northumber amomis ecotype
• masora inserter buckwasher perihelial unaccordance thamnophilinae rhinoceroslike teutonophobia
• I can find the prayer I want. I thank God for this website.
• yo…     disagree…
• encephaloscope hesperid vediovis yapping halcyonine kusan retromaxillary birkremite
• Magnificent collection of prayers - and I haven\’t begun to explore the rest of the website!u
• The site\’\’s very professional! Keep up the good work! Oh yes, one extra comment - maybe you could add more pictures too! So, good luck to your team!
• Interesting web page is, i\’ll see you later one more timeo

These kill me.   I’ll see you later one more time?  Rhinoceroslike?  Unpapered?  I bolded my favorite words amongst these.   I always delete these messages, but they’re just so funny and baffling I had to paste them in here.  Collection of prayers?  Curious that the spammers have determined my blog is in any way religious.

Frankly, I’m just overwhelmed with disbelief at the sheer volume of spam comments I get and I’d like know what’s up with this colossal waste/waster of time that is spam.

I am so fucking pissed.

I’ve lived in the same apartment for 4 and a half years and in that time the only thievery I experienced was my stone cat. Yeah, I had this cool stone kitty cat I got, wow, I think back in 1991 or 1992, and I sat him outside on the steps. Figures eventually someone stole him, especially considering this is collegetown, USA. I was hoping to maybe get polaroids of my kitty taken in different locations all over the Boston area mailed to me ala Amelie, but no such luck.

Anyway, even when UPS and FEDEX left packages on the porch there was no problem. They’d always be there when I got home. I began to feel a real sense of trust despite living in such an urban neighborhood.

No more. To wit:

December 2007 - A friend at work asks, “Hey, did you ever get a box from Sephora? I ordered it a few weeks ago.” “Awww… you sent me a gift from Sephora? Thanks! But, uh, no I haven’t received anything.” She tracks the package online and finds they left it on the porch. I never saw it. Fortunately Sephora re-shipped with no problem.

January 2008 - I ordered a second pair of snow pants from REI. I liked them at the store, but they didn’t have my size, so I ordered them online. Time passes and I don’t see them, so I track the package and find, as with the Sephora one, it was left on my porch, no signature required. Goddamn it. REI finds another pair and sends it to me without any hassle. Love REI.

Today was the last fucking straw. I created a calendar on iPhoto of Zack and Lucy photos just for me. I miss Zachary cat so terribly no words can possibly convey how much. Sometimes it’s physically painful, an ache I can’t soothe. I’d been meaning to make myself a calendar for a while, so I finally did it and got it ordered. Crossed that off my list. And though it was fun, it was hours of work. HOURS. I have lots of mini pics on actual dates and added in lots of my friend’s birthdays. Used a font I downloaded that looks like Edward Gorey writing. It’s awesome! But, again, took me a few hours to put together and was hard work.

The calendar was scheduled for delivery today, which was perfect timing as I created it to start in March. I came straight home after work, skipping Bosu, to be home for its arrival. Got home and waited and waited… and waited. Once again I go online to track the shipment only to find there was no signature required, so FEDEX left the package on the front porch at 1pm this afternoon. Just now I ran downstairs to find a box from Apple torn open and empty. (!!!!)

It’s a rare thing, truly, but you do not want to see me in a rage. Those who read this and know me, really know me, have seen it and brother it ain’t pretty. I go batshit motherfucking crazy. I haven’t looked in the mirror when I’m this pissed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d turned green like the Hulk. My clothes have never ripped into perfectly torn up shorts and shredded shirt, though, so at least I don’t ruin clothes, too.

What’s especially odd is that as a general rule I’m remarkably gentle. I do not slam doors, I pull them to. In class when we’re told to drop our Bosu or our weights, I do NOT drop them, I place them carefully on the studio floor. When I drop something I even startle myself - I loathe making loud surprising noises. With the marked exception of laughter, which can be explosive. My apologies for when I startle people with that. I have a habit of walking on the balls of my feet so I’m not heard downstairs. I’m almost too considerate.

But when I’m as enraged as I was fifteen minutes ago, you’d better get out of the way if you know what’s good for you. I slam, I throw, I throw, I slam, I yell many, many obscenities loudly. I am a kettle boiling over and I can’t think logically.   I am a runaway train and I need time to slow down or I’ll jump out the window. I think I literally become insane for a bit, even though I’m aware of it.

I think I have a right to be pissed. I didn’t tell Apple or FEDEX to leave the package without a signature, they didn’t give me an option. And you tell me, who the FUCK would do something like that? Rip open a box on someone’s porch and steal what was obviously a homemade calendar? WHY the fuck would someone want someone else’s calendar?!?!!! Jesus H. Christmas! I know that Zack’s cute, one of the cutest cats ever in existence, but come on!!!!

So, to the heartless, dickless, puke eating, raisin brained fuckstick who stole my calendar, whoever you are, you suck. I hope you’re claustrophobic and that you die after a week of being locked in an overrun, overturned port-a-potty.