Groovy

Yep, I'm up at 3 in the morning and I'm talkin' about music that randomly found me. I don't try to find music, it just tickles my ears every once in a while and I sift through a bit at a time.

Well, so far, the only good thing I can say about the show "Damages" is the music. Whoever they have behind the editing board cutting that tape and fitting music ... has fantastic taste in tune-age.

The first episode had a great piece by Phontaine entitled "Feels Like Home" that sent me on a search for more by Phontaine. I've found a few more I like quite a bit and I'm hoping to pick up the album sometime soon.

Tonight's viewing sent me on a search for Shawn Lee and his Ping Pong Orchestra. I heard "Kiss the Sky" and fell in lurve. Right now, I'm listening to his album and thinking about my childhood filled with Peter Sellers "Pink Panther" movies, alliterations to Austin Powers, watching re-runs of "Hawaii Five-O" while making myself sick on cookie dough with my sister and hearing all about the silliness of the '60s and '70s from my mother.

His album from 2007 called "Voices and Choices" is pretty funky, kids. You've got to be in a mood to experience something akin to what your first acid trip must feel like -- very out of your element, a little scared and too curious not to keep going deeper into the wild. (No, I've never tried drugs, but I figure that's sort of what the first hallucination is like.)

A few tracks reminded me of Dave Brubeck. If you haven't heard "Take Five" then I can only assume that you live under a rock. Christ! Educate yourself now!

The track "Changing Times" rips off the Mission: Impossible theme, but has a little fun doing it. Rambling "dum dum dum" singing makes me think of an imaginative neighbor (a la Peter Sellers) rather than a real agent.

If anything, I'll keep watching "Damages" just to expand my music repertoire. Really, it has no plot. No lawyer, no matter how cutthroat, will ever dirty double-cross themselves just to get a favorable verdict. For one, it'd require omniscience. For two, lawyers aren't necessarily the most patient bunch no matter how cold and calculating.

Glenn Close can keep her "Fatal Attraction"-era intense stare to herself. I'll take the tunes.

They're groovy, baby.

Raining bitches and douchebags

It's raining like hell today. Roads are flooding and accidents are keeping people locked in traffic. Against my better judgment, I head over to the local mall to look for some things for my apartment. I have yet to find curtains I like and I'm still searching for nice pillows for my couch.

I go to Pottery Barn and don't find what I set out for but find something worthwhile all the same. After finally getting the attention of a store rep while the rest remain firmly entrenched in setting up the new Halloween offerings (jeez, people, it's still August), I buy my selection.

My debit card has an image of the college I attended.

Clerk: "Did you graduate from that school?"
Me: "Yes, I did."
(one point awarded for observation skills not entirely lacking)
Clerk: "And you didn't stay there?"
Me: *eyebrow raise* "No, I decided to branch out a little."

What the hell? Stay there? Uh, yeah ... whatever.

Scratching my head, I make my way over to Macy's to look at curtains. As I wander through the housewares, I manage to make my way into the most tomblike and somber area of the store. There's furniture and home furnishings all around but nary a soul to be seen.

I pass a service desk where two women are posted. For the sake of brevity, I'll call them Bitch 1 and Bitch 2.

Bitch 1: "May I help you?"
Me: "Yes, I'm looking for curtains." I point over to where I think there are some curtains hanging.
Bitch 1: "We don't have curtains."
Macy's. No curtains? Is she kidding? Even if the online selection is wider than the store, they have curtains. Maybe they're not in this area, but somewhere they have curtains.
Me: "Really? OK, thanks."
Bitch 2: "Have you tried J C Penney? They have some nice curtains."
Me: "Been there." Forgive me, O great ones, for trespassing on thine hallowed ground of outdated and cheap veneer furniture.
Bitch 2: "What about Pottery Barn? They have some nice curtains there, too."
Me: *holding up Pottery Barn bag* "I looked there, too."

All this time, Bitch 1 has been staring at me as though I'm going to try to sneak a dining table into my bag and run off.

Good Lord! I know I look a sight having come in out of the rain, but I don't look like trouble. Fine, Macy's, if you don't want my money I'm not going to make an effort.

I'm a little bugged about that brush-off, so I make my way to Victoria's Secret. What can I say? A chance to regain a little sauciness helps.

I look around, disappointed I hit the store in between seasons when there's very little selection. While I'm perusing some undies, three guys walk up to a store employee nearby.

Dude: "Where can I get an application?"

Alright, dude, I know from how you're dressed you're not looking for a stockroom job. I also know you brought your buddies with you to prove you have the balls to ask for the application. My best guess is he likes the thought of an employee discount to keep his womens in lacy drawz. Good luck, douchebag.

Whatever is falling from the sky is making people weird.

Jerks

There's nothing like seeing a dead dog in the middle of the road when I drive home to fuel my misanthropy.

It was a German Shepherd and most likely a puppy judging by its size.

*sigh*

Like bunnies?

There are too effing many of these around my apartment complex. They're nasty little jerks, too. I bet they're mostly male. Ha!

These geese stick around through all kinds of weather. I would have thought they'd migrate based on the seasons, but this mass seems content right here through the whole damn year. There are at least 2 dozen more that didn't fit into the frame.

Hmm, I've never tried foie gras ... *picks up meat cleaver*

A giving mood

Today, after several urgings from a good friend, I donated blood. It was the first time I had ever done so, and I was pretty scared.

But there was no reason not to do it. This is the best my health has ever been and I have no medical issues that would make my donation unusable. Still, for years I couldn't bring myself to sit down, be stuck with a large needle and give some fluids that would potentially save someone's life.

What finally tipped the balance was reflecting on what would happen if ever I was seriously injured or in need of surgery. I'd have to be given blood. I couldn't expect someone to do for me the same thing I wouldn't do in return.

So there I sat with my feet propped up in a special chair and a thick needle in my arm opening the path for me to give up a fraction of something I take for granted.

I hate needles. They're so small and invasive. In the blink of an eye, they slide right through every layer of skin. But since we're technologically more advanced than medicine's bloodletting days, the only way this would happen was with a needle stick.

It ended up as no big deal thanks in part to the marvelous skill of Karen the phlebotomist in finding and penetrating the vein. She was masterfully quick with an almost imperceptible touch.

The buildup was a little frightening with Karen telling me the needle is larger than what is used to take blood samples as she placed a towel across my shirt. "Sometimes there's a little spray." When she told me I should expect to feel "a bit of a prick," I looked away expecting something much more gruesome than the pinch and drop of blood on my arm.

Stress ball in hand, I squeezed every 5 seconds to keep blood flowing through the long tube and down into the bag. For whatever reason, it took a little longer and the machine collecting my fluids complained when the flow slowed.

Maybe I was a little dehydrated, Karen said. It could also be that my vein is about the same size as the tube leading from the needle to the collection bag.

Feeling inadequate, I squeezed the ball a little harder and wriggled my toes inside my shoes. It must have helped because the bag was filled not long after that. Then Karen sprang back into action, filling a few vials to test for any unknown nasties floating around in my system.

The needle shifted ever so slightly and I clenched my jaw, reminding myself not to be such a sissy.

My feet no longer propped up, I had to take a minute to drink some water and make the room stop spinning. I have never fainted and I didn't want to start now. Not long from that point, I was back in the car with a bright pink merit badge wrapped around my arm and a free t-shirt in my hand.

They say I can donate again at the end of August.

Thanks, Lifeblood.

Subcutaneous

I give myself nerdgasms for remembering biology terms. It's the little things ...

Anyway, it should be apparent right now that plenty of things get under my skin in a hot hurry. That skin is far thinner than it should be. I know. I'm working on it. But I don't think I'm very aware of just how thin other people's skins might be.

Here's the enigmatic punchline for all but one: I don't care if you agree with me or not. It's your life anyway and I'm certainly no one to tell you I know better. However, I know I was the conductor of my own little emotion-filled philharmonic who used all the same tactics to get back where I thought I wanted to be. So, at least in my case, finality was a must.

I hate to be the situational jerk since I do think there are absolutes in life, but we all want to think we've got the answer. I'm right and you're wrong. It's not that simple when you're talking about society and I tend to forget that a lot.

I want there to be something absolute to stick to because I get tired of the same things happening over and over. I get tired of people being how we all know people can be while forgetting that I haven't changed a bit. And maybe that's the crux of the problem. I'm frustrated that I can't figure out how to fix these interpersonal clusterfucks, but maybe I'm just frustrated I can't even figure out my own problems most of the time.

We don't need fixing. Ultimately, we need the bitch who won't realize she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. We need the doormat. We need the sniveling little prick who stabs us in the back. We need the insecure, quiet one with the nervous laugh and we need the swaggering asshole who doesn't even realize how condescending he sounds.

To be frank, I hate when I feel like a problem is all about striking a balance. It's that nasty little running theme to my life that bores me to tears. Why couldn't it be something exciting like learning how to tap my inner strength or learning how to express compassion? Instead, it's got to be how to figure out how the hell not to go off the deep end all the damn time. It's far more interesting to launch myself toward one end of the spectrum and watch the fireworks than try to figure out where to stand so I can keep the least amount of sparks from flying.

I'm fascinated by the Pucks who wreak havoc, turn the tables and upset everything in their path. I would much rather be the fire than the salve and I hate not getting to.

Steady, girl ...

Talking gibberish and twitching

I find myself at a loss, again, to figure out what the hell is going on. Most of the time, I feel like I'm either talking to a wall or that I'm a stranger in a strange land who doesn't speak the language.

Half the time, I try to express what's bothering me and it ends up going off the deep end into something I never intended. I attempt to vent some frustration, maybe gain a little clarity through that, but it's always misunderstood. It ends up the receiving end is offended and hurt, destined to take what I said as a very loud "I hate you."

Then there's the other half of the time where what I say has absolutely no effect. I'm not taken seriously at all and people make jokes at my displayed level of irritation. There's the refusal to acknowledge that there's any weight to my arguments or observations.

And I don't get why. Am I prone to too much hyperbole to the point people think I must really hate them if I use such lively words? Is my point lost because I can't offer a solution that's immediately recognizable as a better method?

I'm either on mute or the amp is set to 11.

Someone help me get off this thing because I don't know how. You try to be calm and flexible, able to make changes and go with the flow for the good of the group. Then it ends up coming back to bite you on the ass because everybody wants a chance to stretch the rubber band the direction they want it to go. I snap because they found the breaking point, and the reaction is always the same. I somehow strike a nerve that leaves them feeling hurt and me feeling like a jerk for hitting it.

The conclusion to that being: they're just human and I shouldn't react so strongly to them doing what they think is the right course of action. And I always feel like my "just human" tendencies are shunned. I'm not allowed that argument.

Then you know you reach that point where you're going to blow unless someone gives you a padded cell in which to scream and beat the walls. But venting only gets you so far. No one cares. The more I remind myself of that the more I wish someone did.

In my mind, I keep coming to the phrase "I can understand to some extent that ..." ending in something more or less akin to the philosophy that people are people and they will never be anything but their own self-absorbed, limited selves barely able to comprehend past their own noses. This misanthropic hypocrisy stares back at me in the mirror, I'm well aware.

But I'm so sick of acting like everything should be shoved down and ignored because "people are people are people." If you don't say anything, no one will know, right?

So I say something ... half the time to a wall. The wall neither comprehends nor feels any compunction toward empathy. Conversations with walls end with phrases stating sympathy but not showing it. And there's always that "but" at the end that makes my blood boil. "I know, but what do you want me to do?" "I know it's irritating, but I can't do anything about it." The invalidating "but" that makes any show of understanding before it into nothing more than a defensive tactic to keep the situation from escalating.

Sometimes life feels so very very false.

Don't fret, precious. I'm here.

Sorry to quote Maynard in an APC song, but sometimes I really want to step away from the window into my subconscious and go back to sleep. I don't want to know if there's a deeper meaning to the weird dream I just had. I'm freaked out by my own mind!

It feels like a conflict of interest sometimes to analyze dreams. On the one hand, you want to know what it means to dream of asking people to please let you have one of their Orthotricyclen pills (yes, very weird), but on the other hand, I'd really like to believe that it was simply my brain doing exercises in "how would you handle this fuck-up?" and that it has no deeper significance.

The annoying part about it is that I've started remembering more of my dreams. Most of the time, it's fragments. I don't remember enough to give context. So I end up with these vignettes that don't make any sense.

It's a short post this time, but I really can't shake this shitty dream I had last night. I'd love to pull the covers over my head and dream something else to push that one out. It wasn't a nightmare insomuch as I felt in control of myself, but I really did not like what was happening.

*sigh*

Introduction

I had a few reasons for creating this blog and several reasons for skipping the headache altogether. But here I am at 2 a.m. staring at a screen for my first post.

I'll tell you the reasons why I was against creating this blog.

For one, I'm not a fan of blogs. I don't surf the blog roll or whatever it's called when you waste hours disagreeing with someone online. Most blogs I've encountered have been some variation of catharsis, sciolism and self-aggrandizement. It is one person who is shouting into the wind in hopes someone will hear the cries of an inevitably brilliant, sharp-witted individual who just wants what's right. In short, I tend toward sarcasm far too readily.

Since I consider myself entirely uninteresting, I think no one will want to read the awkward outpourings of my angst and frustration. Hell, I've tried to talk myself out of it three times already from sheer boredom.

Finally, I know I'm going to be sporadic at best in updating this damned thing. I'm too moody.


And now, I'll tell you the reasons why this blog was created.

The face of my career is changing and I have to learn to keep up. I work as a page designer for a metro newspaper. Since more people are turning to internet news sources, I must learn to work on the web.

I tend to do this kind of thing anyway. When I was in college, I had a Word document that was really nothing more than a journal of venting. I'd add an entry whenever my passive-aggressive tendency to keep my mouth shut made my head want to explode. It was a way to scream in someone's face without reaping the consequences. So talking to anyone and no one is honestly not very disconcerting at all.

That brings me to the name for this blog. I mean it as a play on words and a frustratingly persistent fact of life. Being as random as I am, plenty of my thoughts are tangential to the rest. There is only one point of connection between each. Most of the time, I'm the only one who gets the connection ... mostly because it's so archaic or obscure it's not worth contemplating. It makes me feel like a Pavlovian experiment in triggers. I've been pre-programmed by pop culture to immediately recall a line from a movie or show at least three times in any given conversation.

At the same time, I'm still stuck on the circle. The tangent keeps going off into uncharted territory while I'm this annoying little thing caught in the cycle. I'm one point on an infinite scale. I wouldn't be missed if I wasn't there, but I can't get off. Everything about my life feels like it's going around in a circle to the point where I'm beginning to believe there really is no such thing as coincidence. And it's extraordinarily mundane.

I had a friend compare me to Woody Allen, and that seemed so insultingly true that he had to be right. An actor I have very little regard for is just as ridiculous as I. I try to be resistant to how life can be simplified to cloyingly rhythmic clichés and at the same time unable to find an explanation that contains more truth. We are what we eat. Hindsight really is 20/20. Time invariably heals all wounds. This is my hell, my Hallmark brand quip that refuses to die no matter how overused and trite it has become. Damnit!

So, since a number of writers were madder than hatters, I might as well get used to ranting and raving before the men in white coats come knocking on my door.

Enjoy.