Confessions of a One-Track Mind

This has been a weird week, and yeah, I know it's not over yet.

Spent a day at J's dog-sitting---she was over in Orlando and the neighbor who usual acts as doggie-butler has her own drama going on and was unavailable. I got to sleep in a/c, which was sweet. Came out to a dead battery and had to wait for J's return and a jump-start---my own fault: The door didn't latch properly, the light stayed on, which wasn't noticable when I got there in broad daylight.

My lights got turned off for non-payment. I have the money, but because I've been nervous about how fast it's shrinking, I delayed paying, which led to me sitting in the heat for several hours after I made the payment, which cost me an additional service charge. *facepalm* Yes, I know it was stupid of me, please let's not rub my nose in it.

I heard about Ray Bradbury's death and was startled, as I *thought* he'd already passed. I may have confused him with Kurt Vonnegut, both of whom I considered somewhat subversive in high school. IDK. Anyway, good-bye, Mr. Bradbury. You were a great American writer.

Speaking of writing, I'm really pissed with ff.net, which is on my last frackin nerve. It doesn't want to load---it takes multiple attempts every time. I hate their new log-in. I hate that they no longer give you the option to block ads. And I'm livid about their "reiteration" of their ratings policy. I'm about ready to jump ship for AO3, which annoys me mightily; I've been over their for about eight years now. I have a shitload of stuff posted there, including some major multi-chapter works, which it'll be a four-star pain-in-the-ass to crosspost, because AO3 does NOT make it easy. Grrrr.

My sleep schedule is back to being buggered up; I'm never quite sure of what day it is unless I check my phone. I hate it, but sleeping during the day is more bearable than being awake for it. Lots of cold showers either way.

Watched Rosalind Russell in "Sister Kenny" the other day. I figured Roz as a nun dealing with an epidemic would be a triple-play as far as my kinks go...alas, no nuns, but it was still okay. Saw "Walking Tall" (the Rock remake), which I'd seen when it was in the theater...prime case of "I didn't know he/she was in that!"...in this case, the love interest was Aisha in Dark Angel and Emily in Jericho. One of the minor villains was also in Dark Angel (Joshua), and the factor that sucked me in as I was flipping channels, Neal McDonough as the uber-villain. Justified just won't be the same without him next season!

Apologies to jdsgirlbev and gwyilliondream, both of whom had birthdays earlier this week. Hope they were awesome like you!

Hope it gets better from here on out. I cracked my neck a little while ago...sounded like my head was about to fall off, which wouldn't surprise me.

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Sons of Anarchy, you tore my heart out and stomped that sucker flat. ( Spoilers under the cut. )

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Knock wood, Hurricane Irene is going to slide by offshore and miss us. Meanwhile, it's raining fish at the moment. The TV has lost the cable signal (In mid-F-Word, thanks so much) and there's booming and banging going on. My folks used to refer to it as "giants bowling", which I could easily imagine as my dad was a terrific bowler. He was also an excellent golfer.

You see, he'd been scouted by a major league baseball team while still under-age. However, his father, a staunch Lutheran minister, refused to sign for him because horror of horrors, it would've meant he'd be playing ball on Sundays. Small wonder that one of Dad's oft-repeated messages to his children was, "Nobody ever made a living doing what they like."

Me, I'd just like to make a living. My dad worked for the same company (Gulf Oil) for 35 years. He got service pins, a watch when he retired and all that. In those days, that was normal. These days, companies have no loyalty whatever to their employees, and working at one place for one's entire career is a complete pipe dream.

You've worked for us for five years? Too bad, so sad---we're shipping your job offshore---to India! To Guatemala! To wherever we can gouge the most profit out of our workforce!

It makes me furious, it really does. Things like, the medical billing office I used to work for has been outsourced---which makes me very uncomfortable when I think about the protected information like birthdates and SSNs those accounts contain. Gee, you think that stuff like that might help terrorists and other unsavory individuals create fake identities? Me too! So why the fuck are we allowing it to leave the US?!

Grrr. I wasn't planning to go off on this tangent, but rant happens.

Yesterday at church, I don't remember how we got onto the subject, but I told someone that I really hate being bombarded with the question, "Why?". As in, "Why is your house such a mess?" "Why don't you lose some weight?" Whywhywhywhywhy---? (GK, who is very analytical, does this all the time.)

She agreed with me. The person who asks may have the best intentions in the world, but somehow, it always seems to come off as critical. It's like being poked with a stick. Either I get defensive, or my self-esteem takes another hit.

Sometimes the defensiveness is because the answer doesn't reflect well on me, or it's flat-out embarassing. Why does your house smell? Because I put off taking out the trash, the bag was only half full. Why didn't you go out for that job I told you about? Because I can't physically do it, I can't stand for long periods. Why do you whine so much? Because mama never told me there'd be days like this: She never said I'd wake up at fifty alone, broke and living in the hood.

*sigh*

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I powered up my laptop and was glancing through the "news" stories on my default homepage, AOL, and I ran across this, with the title of "My Birthday Wish: A Kitchen Makeover" (One writer explains why all she wants for her 50th birthday is an updated kitchen, even if her friends think she's a bore.).

Okay, I thought. Here's a gal who's my age, with one of the very same problems I've got, a crappy, outdated kitchen.

Then I clicked on the article and got a look at the kitchen she's bitching about and began to *headdesk*. Her cabinets are at least 20 years newer than mine, she has easily twice the counter space I've got, her fridge is probably from this century and her ceramic cooktop definitely is. Oh, and she has those cute little display nooks above her cabinets.

My circa-1960 kitchen has brown mock-walnut laminate cabinets, a white countertop that was originally glitter-flecked but is now just speckled and grungy, the appliances are 20+ years old and semi-functional (I have burners that don't work and the fridge is tempramental.), about three feet of functional counter space and there's not a goddamned thing cute about it.

Our little domestic diva does on to say, oh no, she doesn't want diamond jewelery or a fantastic trip for her 50th, not even a face-lift or "body work", no, *just* the remodel.

Lady, can I just slap you? Your sense of entitlement really ticks me off.

At this rate, I'm going to dent my desk.
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Dear Boyd,

I need your help. My quiet, elderly neighbors have departed for the final destination of the elderly, and recently, their house has been occupied by less desirable folks. Not elderly and not quiet: They have several screaming kids---I haven't taken a headcount, but at least two, plus a baby. They have two dogs that bark for an hour if a squirrel farts on the next block. Their cars are rolling boomboxes and they come and go at all hours. I suspect the worst about that.

Please don't say, "Love they neighbor." --- although if you did, I probably couldn't hear it over the thumping bass from their damn rap songs. I'd love these individuals a whole lot more if they were someone else's naighbors, preferably someone in another state. Like Alaska.

I want my nice, quiet neighborhood back. To that end, won't you please come to Florida and bring your rocket launcher? Blow the damn house to Kingdom Come and I'd be eternally grateful. (The dogs are always out in the yard, I can call Animal Control for them.)

I look forward to hearing back from you, and even more to hearing "Fire in the Hole!".

Praise the Lord --- and pass the ammunition,

Vanillafluffy



PS --- On second thought. I'll let you know when I'll be gone for movie night at church, so you can blow up MY house. I'll collect the insurance and go live on a farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. That works.
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The houses on either side of me have been empty for quite a while. The house to the east of me just got occupied---rather like Germany occupying France. They have kids: Noisy little fuckers. (There haven't been any kids on the block in ages, and I haven't bloody missed them.) They also have a yappy dog. What a treat this is going to be! Why, oh why, couldn't the Asshat's house have been the one to be rented? That's on the far side of my living quarters. This tribe is right next to my bedroom window.

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(No, I *won't* apologize for the metaphor, I'm tired of being politically correct, of being civilized when what I really want to do is slaughter all the barbarians that are lowering the tone. And numerous people who should know better.)


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It began with this poll about whether we are living in the future sci-fi predicted for us.

( And I commented at length. ) Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the subject is sticking with me.

In some respects, I think we thought too small---or maybe I should say, not small enough, when you consider that today's average cell phone is about a third the size of a Star TrekTOS communicator. Or that the computers that got us to the moon are dumber than the calculator the average tenth-grader carries to math class. I remember taking computer classes back around 1980, where the first thing they talked about were bits and bytes and our programming assignments consisted of stacks of punchcards, which I never could get to work properly. I remember TRS80 computers, plugged into an old TV with a cassette player as the memory drive. I remember floppy disks giving way to diskettes. I remember when a Commodore 64 was the height of technology, being excited to get a 14400k modem and a couple years later, having Megs of memory, which was a Big Thing. Gigs? Srsly? Now that's old news and we're talking terabytes. Or have I fallen behind and it's something bigger now?

In light of the predicted smart homes, robot butlers and jet-packs it's tempting to say that the technology has failed us. We don't have flying cars, we're not vacationing on Mars, or even the moon. Our society has more problems, not fewer, than we did forty years ago. Unfortunately, it's true that those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. Today it's the Middle East, forty years ago, it was Southeast Asia. Rising gas prices and a move to dump gas-hog vehicles? 1973, folks.

Technology hasn't failed us, we've failed technology, because we've been too busy bickering among ourselves about our own petty agendas. We may have mandated equality in education and employment, but not in healthcare. A wealthy hypochondric can have test after test run to soothe their fears, whereas a genuinely sick person of low income will go to great lengths to avoid expensive medical treatment, perhaps to the point that it's too late to cure them. We didn't have diagnositc MRIs 40 years ago, but if 6 out of 10 people can't afford to access them, is that really progress?

The 70s saw the first proponants of alternate energy sources trying to catch the attention of the masses---I remember a book I checked out from the library numerous times about building energy efficient homes (this was when I was dreaming of a career in architecture), advocating solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal energy. These things were possible, if somewhat costly then. They're still somewhat costly because we haven't troubled ourselves to make the technology more affordable---but the question we should ask ourselves now is, can we afford NOT to?!

We have a lot of nifty technological bells and whistles these days. While we're playing with all these funky new toys, though, let's not get so distracted that we lose sight of the global picture. Microwave dinners won't cure world hunger, a Wii won't save your ass in a war zone (and if I'm wrong, please explain this one to me), and for that matter, cancer, AIDS and H1N1 aren't going to be impressed by your paper-thin computer, your Smartphone or your iPod. People are still killing each other over religious differences, and we don't have an app for that.

The future? Today is the tomorrow we were worried about yesterday.

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Speaking of tomorrow...edited 1/8/10 to add (because it must be zeigeist):

An article from Slate about the future as predicted by Omni magazine
and a vid from YouTube about Fiskars luxury hybrid, the Karma (which ain't cheap, but it sure is sweet).
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Ever time I see a news article where they say, "Calls to Whoever were not immediately returned", I always imagine some reporter sitting next to the phone with a stopwatch, going, "Hey, it's been two minutes! They haven't immediately returned my call, I'm gonna write it like they're guilty! Woohoo!" They post their story 90 seconds later, and within five minutes, Whoever is on the phone with the facts.

Ooops, your bad---you should have called immediately---we don't care if you were taking a leak, stuck in traffic, donating a kidney to your twin. The news waits for no one!

To the driver of the dark green Camry I encountered yesterday:

How do I loathe thee, let me count the ways: First there was the fact that you were doing fifty in the lefthand lane of US1. Next time, get your ass into the slow lane where you belong. Second, what the FUCK were you thinking when you got to Barnes Blvd? I was able to stop for the light when it turned red; you were BEHIND me. You certainly could have stopped, but no, YOU sped up and blew through the RED light like you finally learned to tell the difference between your asshole and the accelerator. I thought that would be the end of it, but NO, you must've stopped for a couple of the other lights between there and Suntree because I was part of the pile-up you almost caused because clearly you haven't grasped the concept of a turn lane (and possibly turn signals---I couldn't tell if yours were on because I was too busy trying not to goose the minivan in front of me). You were in a great big hurry to make it to the Pineda BP station---what, you were speeding because you were afraid you might run out of gas? I think you're a moron, you have no business behind the wheel, and I hope that I get to drive by and snicker when the cop your kharma deserves pulls your ass over.

I just pray that your idiocy doesn't take anyone else with you.

The C's live in a very nice neighborhood. Unfortunately, this well-manicured prettiness is achieved with the aid of lawn services, one of which started before 8 this morning. I have said before and will say again that anyone who undertakes yard work with power tools before 9 AM (at the absolute earliest!) should be flayed with their own week whacker.

Did the misery end there?

Oh no, my darlings, it did not. At 8:30, just as I was getting settled down from the invasion of the chlorophyl avengers, somebody opened the front door with a key and came in.

The C's have a cleaning lady. She wasn't scheduled to come while they were on their cruise last year, so I didn't expect her this week---much less in the middle of the night. (8:30 IS the middle of the night in Fluffy World.) Their house is what I'd consider immaculate---granted, I am easy to please---and IMO not in need of three hours worth of servicing.

I escaped to Schnauzerland by way of Publix---they are all much too fucking cheerful at Publix at 9 AM, btw---and am going to try to catch a couple more hours of sleep before I have to jet to work.

STFU, world!

(Not youse guys, of course, because you're nice and civilized and wait in my inbox until I'm ready to face you/the day.)

They make me crazy: These people who have been members for a year or two, have posted maybe three stories totalling 4000 words or less---but they've got a profile containing quotes from every movie they've ever seen and some knee-jerk meme (If you love baby kittens, post this. If someone has ever made you cry, post this. If you have ever stood naked in the middle of a graveyard at midnight, post this.*) and when you compress the profile, there's nothing left but those lonely little stories, one of which probably says something like, "I suck at summeries" or "I don't want to give my excellent plot away but please read it".

Aaaaarrgh!

Okay, first of all, move the fucking endless profile over to Facebook. Now SHUT UP AND WRITE FICTION. There should be a rule that your profile can't be longer than your writing credits.

While we're at it, maybe they could make the background a different color for people who actually post stories, as opposed to the people who just favorite every goddamn thing they've ever read. Kinda like on eBay, where your star changes color the more good feedback you get.

And summaries? Geez Louise, and Thelma too---it's a sentence, or two or three. An catchy quote, a "To be or not to be?" question, a clue---just give us a clue! Is it past, present or future? What character(s) does it feature? Does it fill in a gap in canon, or is it AU? If you've really come up with a genius idea, surely you can come up with a couple lines that won't spoil us!

Next Wednesday will be the 5th anniversary of my first post over there. I have a total of 126 posted fics, thank you very much. Which isn't everything I've posted HERE, since there are a few things that are way too *ahem* intense for that venue. (Knowledge is Power would probably get me banned.)

Their loss....

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* Okay, I made that one up. I wasn't naked.

I swear, some day, somebody is going to wake me up with their lawn mower, and I'm gonna stomp out there and FEED THEM TO IT.

Ditto, powertools.

It's been a while since I've cleaned up after a major holiday weekend, and I had forgotten just how much stupidity ensues. That said, if profanity makes you go blind, I strongly suggest you shield your eyes, because Tuesday was fairly hideous, enough that I came home and went straight to the Captain Morgan's, and I am a cheap drunk. 2 drink maximum and I am LOOSE.

Come on, how often do I hit the bottle? 2, maybe 3 times a year? If that? But today, nothing else was going to unknot that tension, at least nothing *I* have access to. There's no convenient SigOther to rub my back and call for pizza and cater to my every whim (in a loincloth plaid flannel shirt and jeans). I can't afford a weekend getaway or a day at the spa. This is it, me and the rum and diet Coke with Lime trying to release the homicidal fantasies I'm having about certain callers I encountered today.

Like the dunderhead from Nevada who called in on Brand X jeans, very indignant because we had the temerity to send them by way of the US Postal Service, who doesn't usually deliver to his residence; he has a PO Box. Most of the time when that happens, the USPS sends the package back to our warehouse as undeliverable. In this case, they forwarded it to his PO Box, and he was pissed that he'd had to shell out $6.05 out of his own pocket for postage due. There was more---a LOT more that I won't inflict upon you, my friends---but if I ever get my hands on that prick, I'm going to rip his tongue out and use it to wipe my ass. Screw you, asshole---I hope you get eaten by bears. Next time, if you want to get it at the house, get expedited shipping. Cheap fucker.

He was the piece de resistance, but there were more, too many to count, and I'm not going to try...breathe in, breathe out...had one cancelled order for White Trash Queen, ESL broad called in 4 minutes before my lunch about a 100+ item order that was cancelled because it was placed from outside the country. I explained this to her, repeatedly, and ended up 8 minutes late for lunch, which they monitor incessantly.

And the day started out so well! I had a shortish fic* that I sat down and pounded out in good time, would probably have posted it if I'd had another hour, but that's okay, tomorrow is soon enough, because I'm a wee bit too tipsy right now. I've been on a roll this month, writing-wise, and that's shiny, because I haven't felt that way in a while. But then I had to go to work. And was late getting out the door, because I had a reminder that my adventures in banking still needed to be dealt with. (Thank you, gracias, merci beaucoup, danke schoen and all that jazz, you know who you are!)

Zoomed down the road, running about 20 minutes late by my standards, was highly irritated by the fuckmook in the Ford Fucus** who was weaving in and out of traffic. (Car du jour was a Ford Fairlane circa 1963, not in prime condition, but neither am I at a similar age.) Then! As if I wasn't already grumbling, I got stuck behind a school bus! That stopped traffic behind it THREE times! ON US1, for fuck's sake!

It turned onto Post Rd, then, entering Melbourne, a miracle occurred: I had sequential green lights at Aurora Rd, Eau Gallie Blvd and Ixora. Holy wow. This has NEVER happened in the whole time I've been commuting. Not ever. Otherwise, it would've been cutting it way too close and being late when holiday pay is up for grabs is a Very Bad Thing.

If I'm not careful, I will go into a rabid rant about other Very Bad Things, like in-store only gift cards, syrupy hold-muzak versions of Every Breath You Take, Uber-Boss, some of the idjits who put our websites together, that sappy damned Pediasure commercial, the Gosselins---and all the rest of those fruitcakes on TLC with enough kids to populate a Third World country. Apparently it no longer takes a village---it takes a network! Enough already!

Good night!

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* Because I was going through stuff I TiVo'ed the other night. And rewatched Torchwood --- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which was the first ep I ever saw, and could appreciate it so much better now, and Captain John said something about he was laughing at Jack, and I just had this moment of epiphany: What if the Comedian was a Time Lord? It kind of morphed a bit in execution, but I've definitely got a yummy little crossover in the oven! (Working title: Putting the 'Fun' Back in Funeral.)

** W00t! Best drunken Freudian slip EVAR!

I'm on my way out the door, but wanted to share this---in an email to a friend, I wrote:

"It seems to me that once you go to a doctor, they will *find* something wrong to keep you coming back. Pretty soon, you have a condition---or two or three---and you're having tests and more tests and all kinds of drug interactions and you go from being a little achy from your original complaint to hurting from some procedure or other. Maybe it's fatalistic of me, but dying quietly at home sounds a helluva lot better to me than winding up on tubes in a hospital somewhere while being ravaged by drug-resistant strep that I picked up while I was in there getting poked for something that wasn't bothering me until some doctor decided it was a big fat hairy freakin' deal. (/rant)"

To which she responded, "Tell me how you REALLY feel!"

I know, there are a lot of conditions that don't manifest outward symptoms until a late stage. And the older you get, the liklier they become. But geez Louise, I've seen the constant-tests-and-a-boatload-of-meds scenario, and I don't want to go down THAT road, either.

OR the road to Melbourne, but I gotta....

So, I had my shower and I'm sitting here reading the news and my mind just boggled. I was following the story about the gunman in NY because one of the practices my previous employer billed for was based in Binghampton. And I just read this headline:

NY gunman angry over poor English skills, job loss

My first thought was of the numerous callers I get whose sole English consists of four words: "Need someone speak Spanish".* And then I actually read the article and now I'm outraged. According to the gunman's sister, he's been in the US for twenty-eight years.

Twenty-eight years. Gee, I know English is considered a difficult language, but it's not THAT damned difficult. I could see having some problems for the first few years, sure, but if it's that much of an issue after that length of time, then you're doing something wrong. Like maybe going home at night and speaking only your native language, living in a neighborhood surrounded by fellow immigrants and speaking only your native language there, and in general acting like America owes it to you to confirm to your cultural expectations.

In this case, the gunman was Vietnamese; it's the same principle: immersion, damn it. If you want the American Dream badly enough to come here in the first place, bear one thing in mind: it's the American Dream. A hundred years ago, immigrants came here and they wanted to be Americans. I'm thinking of my grandparents and my friends' grandparents, whose accents may have betrayed European origins, but who nevertheless spoke English at home, read English-language newspapers, and encouraged their children to be Origin-hyphenated-Americans, not just Origins who happen to be living here and working the American system for what it could give them.

That clinging to one's Origins with such fervent tenacity leads to things like this asshole shooting a bunch of people because he's dissatisfied with how life has mistreated him. Twenty-eight years and he doesn't have his piece of the American Dream---because he doesn't want to get go of his Origin enough to embrace it. It's like that fable by Aesop: the dog has a bone; he looks into a well and sees the reflection of a dog with a bone. He tries to snatch the other dog's bone and loses his own.

This isn't the American Dream, it's the American Nightmare.

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* Have I ever claimed I was free of politically incorrect attitudes? I hear this on a daily basis---it's never, "I need someone who speaks Croatian." Or Korean. Or Swahili. Or French. It's always bloody Spanish. And at least half the time, we manage to muddle through in English. Imagine that.

It started with a can run. I've been putting off hauling a load to recycling, but since I was going to be running around and had nothing but loose change in my wallet, it was time. I had 18 pounds of cans, and earned $8.10. Woohoo, big bucks!

Got home and while waiting for GK, discovered that my package with the fabulous 44-cent fragrance had arrived. (Retail cost, $48. I had a coupon for 50% off plus free shipping, thereby reducing the price to $24. Sales tax was $1.44. I had a $25 gift card. Cost to me: 44 cents. Go, me!) I smell fantastic!

Okay, so GK shows up, she's rented a Chevy HHR---I've been admiring those, and it was a really sweet ride---and we head over to the New Century Buffet for lunch with Red. It was great. We talked even more than we ate, and we all ate a lot! Sadly, they didn't have duck OR salmon on the lunch buffet, but there was gingerbread on the dessert bar, which helped make up for it.

We then proceded to the A+ Thrift Store, where the three of us perused. I exercised great restraint. I saw a vintage tablecloth I coveted, but talked myself out of it. Ended up with two books and a small picture frame.

From there, we headed down to the Melbourne Goodwill, by way of 7-11. That went well. GK picked up the tab for several articles that flattered me: 2 tops, 2 skirts, 2 dresses, a pair of shoes and a TV. (I was very excited because it's a 12" flat screen, however, I got it home and it doesn't freaking work. Grrr!) Red also made a number of fun finds, and she and I were warbling along to the oldies background music. Cupid, draw back your bow, and let your arrow go, stright to my lover's heart, for me, nobody but me---!

Red departed for home after that, and GK and I headed back to Cocoa. One of the projects she's working on during her stay is to replace the fluorescent bulbs that have burned out in her mom's kitchen---she bypassed Home Depot in favor of the thrift store, but I suggested that WalMart might have them, AND it would give me a chance to pick up some bathroom tissue. So we did WalMart.

She dropped me off with the spoils of our campaign, AND a top that she'd acquired for me at the MI Goodwill yesterday AND my Christmas present. Yes, she *is* preternaturally organized. In case I forget in the next six weeks, it's on top of the entertainment unit in the living room.

That's RIGHT, readers. A scant six weeks until the mercilessly commercialized holiday of quasi-religious significance. If you need to order anything online DO IT NOW.

Anyway, I tested the "new" set, which doesn't work and will be traveling back to Goodwill with me on Tuesday. The old set is plugged back in, and I just got through watching CSI: Miami and Blood Ties and reading one of my new acquisitions, The Final Confession of Mabel Stark, which so far is excellent.

I hurt all over, but it's been a pretty good day. And I have a lunch date to look forward to tomorrow as well!

I just saw a headline, "McCain Casts Himself as Middle-class Guardian"---to which I can only say, wtf?! I heard his rhetoric the other night, and since WHEN is $250K a year "middle-class"?! I make LESS than a tenth of that, what does that make me, white trash?

Not that I was planning to vote for him, but DAMN.