Angst In My Pants

Perhaps I don't have quite as much angst in my pants as I once did, but I spend a lot less time musing than I used to. Which, for you, is probably a mixed blessing. On the one hand, you probably pass by my page as often as you once did but, instead of finding 1000 words to read while you're avoiding – what was it, Susan? 18th C literature? – you end up with a whole lot of nothing or some vague one-liner about Christmas lights and how much I hate it when the flash. (Seriously, I do.) Nevertheless, this morning I woke up with a nagging feeling that today was not going to be one of those days. It wasn't.

Over the years I've been accused of a lot of things – not the least of which is that I'm a bit of a complete bitch. Look up "bitch" in the dictionary and you get a great big picture of me and a link to my website. I can go from the simply unfeeling to deliberately cruel in fifteen seconds flat and I can do it without batting an eyelash. There has been more than one casualty, laying limp on the side of the road of my life. I've deflated more egos than I've boosted and I've done most of it relatively unintentionally and even more unapologetically. While there are, of course, some people exempted from this rule, I tend to treat the people who I would call my friends, or at least my round about acquaintances a lot like I treat my so called enemies.

I can't say that I've ever spent a good amount of time wondering why it is that I'm so hard on people. I know that I can be nothing if not verbally abusive and it's never been a mystery why there are some who deal with the business end of that sword almost every time they come into contact with me – and sometimes simply when the memory of them collides with a bad day. What I never really considered was why people like King, Nate, Aaron, or even Mike, who, for the moment at least, I had made peace with, often felt certain – or should have, at least – that I had it in my mind to be horrible to them on a given day.

I woke up at 5:30 this morning. Actually, I woke up at 11:30 last night, and 12:30, and 1:30, and 2:30, and 3:30 and 4:30…but at 5:30, I decided "fuck it" – and emphatically. Well, maybe not emphatically, but I don't really do anything emphatically at 5:30 in the morning. My point, anyway, was that between 5:30 and 6:30 I had solved a problem that has plagued the people in my life for years. Gotta love it when I day starts off like that – huh?

Okay, so maybe "solved' is a strong word. I haven't actually solved the problem, but it's less bad than it used to be. You see, there are very few people in my life that I'm not horrible to – and then I realized that there are very few people in my life who I don't hate a little, on some level and it all clicked into place.

The problem, not that you cared, is thus; if I'm treating you poorly and I haven't disclaimed my behavior with "I'm crabby today," the truth of the matter is that I probably hate you a little.

Were King alive, I'd still hate him a little. Actually, I kind of hated him a lot. A lot, a lot. Less than I did at one point, but more than was probably good for either of us. I think I probably hated him the most out of anyone I was at all nice to. Aaron…well, yup, kind of hate him a little. Not at lot…mostly because I wasn't really a big fan of him already by the time he elected to start doing things that annoy me. Hell, even Mike, I kind of hate a little…and he still lets me sleep in his bed.

While I'd love to say that the moral of the story is "don't poke the bear," I have to recognize that none of my considerable loathing, for these people at least, comes from an action I can't "get" – I may feel, quite certainly, that I never would have done any of the things that they did, but I've always, at least, been able to understand why they make the decisions that they do. So, in that vein, I guess I have to consider the moral of the story a change that has to happen on my end, rather than the other way around and, from that perspective, the moral of the story seems to be "let it go." Granted, knowing the moral doesn't mean I'm going to do anything with it, for no one has trust and betrayal issues like me. Actually, I think there are some East German Jews and a few Native Americans with small pox who might win the rodeo for that title, but no one does it with the kind of flair I do. ;)

In the end, now that I've publicly defamed a dead guy, my significant other and poor unsuspecting Aaron (told you I was a bitch) I don't really have a lot to say other than "hey, the trust and forgiveness thing was already on the to-do list."

43!

Okay, so I admit it, I'm a little disappointed with the Journal article but I did get some cute fishnet gloves yesterday and Mike found some of those little popping toy things that everyone has to love so much. Plus, they have pumpkins :)

What's This Button Do?

So i'm on Mike's PC at the moment to accomplish a few goals.

1. To keep me busy.
2. To update the halloweeny counters.
3. Did I mention I was bored?
4. To keep me from chewing off my fingernails until he gets back from lunch with Frannie so I can see my Wall Street Journal Article.

Anyway, and i'm looking at the sidebar - cuz the boy is running RC1 full time now - and I'm seeing a countdown and I can't figure out what it's for. 1 day, 23 hours, 17 minutes and 20, no 21 seconds...

Hey, is that a count-up? Now i'm very perplexed.

Oh well. Apparently you can't make sense out of them all.

iTunes 7 Will Ruin Your Life

Mike told me yesterday - was it yesterday? - not to download iTunes 7 because it would ruin my life. Well, unfortunately, i'd already upgraded and, unfortunately it will ruin your life. Just so you know.

Slow News Day

I was just watching my local news and, I thought it was worth noting that, despite an attempted car bombing of the US Embassy in Syria, the results of the primary, low gas prices - and a prediction that demand will drop over the next two years, a gang raped 11-year old, a child porn posessing child psychologist, a local cop on paid leave from the force after kicking the crap out of a guy who just got busted on DWI, they still found time to air some shots of today's big EVA.

Shut up, it's Mike's fault I notice. Anyway, I don't think I've heard the words "outer space" spoken with such enthusiasum since the 60's :P

Maybe if I click my pink furry slippers together, they'll report some really great news and I can go to bed with some shred of hope for the future.

Just Click Approve

A few days ago Mike was at Nate's and Nate bestowed this upon us.

There was much laughter.

[Snakes on a Plane: The Soundtrack]

They Demoted Pluto

When I told Mike that one of us had to blog this, I really sort of meant that he had to blog this but, as per usual, I was ignored.

Jimmy & the Keys Blog (click They Demoted Pluto)

Hard Drive Failure Is Imminent

I am an idiot.

This morning, I woke up and thought today was going to be an OK day. I logged on, took a glance at the skins I'd finished working on last night and uploaded them to my server to give them a test. They all looked just fine and I was happy. So I contacted our coder and told her they were ready to go if she was ready to pass on a few details i needed so that I could tweak them for posting and she enlightened me to the notion that I was doing it the hard way and my method could be improved upon infinately with just a little bit more knowledge than I had. And I was happy again.

And then all hell broke loose.

Dreamweaver stopped working, so I decided to reboot. Except my PC wouldn't reboot. The system simply couldn't seem to start up. So, off it went and on went the phone - to call Mike, that is, and very gently suggest that he come save me from myself. An hour of looking at it later, the sad sad piece of information is revealed that my hard drive is or is most likely toast - and not in any polite, gentle way, but in fact, with the very error message that titles this post.

On the lucky side of things, the files I was most concerned with losing are safely on the web - and I'm hoping against hope that they remain so and that Norton System Works can recover my poor sad hard drive, and if not the drive, at least the data off of it so that I can hide it elsewhere and get my system running again. Then, well, then I promise to be a better PC user and i'll stop threatening my computer - I promise!

If, however, it's not, I probably won't cry, but I'll want to.

So, after all of that, a quick dinner and giant bag of skittles and a rice krispy treat (who thinks Mike was triyng to make the catastrophic failure of my computer up to me?) I came home, turned on the cute little useless laptop who is diligently trying to provide me with some form of entertainment for the evening, and what did I find when I finished saying "hello's" to my e-friends but 15 messages in my PM box at HPFF informing me that for the third time this week, the Dark Arts was hacked. This was the point at which my brain started oozing out of my left ear because, as this PC has neither anti-virus or FTP software, I had neither the ability to look into the problem or to step in and try to make it go away. As it were, my Prince Charming came to the rescue on is big white horse yet again, found the problem, took the board offline and changed the folder name so determined but idiotic users can no longer access the corrupted little fucker, but damn today is out to kill me.

Angering the Gods

My boyfriend was groped by a woman named Ellen tonight and the Kennedy's truely have angered the gods.

From MSNBC: Lightning strikes Sen. Kennedy's Plane

BOSTON - A plane carrying U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy from western Massachusetts to his home on the coast was struck by lightning Saturday and had to be diverted to New Haven, Conn., his spokeswoman said.

The eight-seat Cessna Citation 550 plane lost all electrical power, including communications, and the pilot had to fly the plane manually, according to spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner. No one was hurt.

The Democrat had just delivered the commencement address at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams and was on his way to his Cape Cod home when the plane was struck around 4 p.m., she said.

The jet landed safely at New Haven at 4:11 p.m., said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Arlene Murray. A report was filed with the agency, which will look into the incident, she said.

Kennedy planned to stay in Connecticut overnight because he was scheduled to return to western Massachusetts on Sunday to deliver a commencement address at Springfield College, Wagoner said.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Perspective In The Sunrise

One of the few perks of being an insomniac is the amount of sunrises you get to see. True, it’s not the only way – people who go to bed early get to see their fair share as well, but there is something unique about a sunrise when you haven’t slept yet. Some mornings, it’s foreboding – a sign that you’ve lost complete control over every aspect of your life, including those most id, like sleep. Some mornings, however, it’s refreshing. This morning seems to be one of those.

The air smells just a little bit like summer, even though tit’s still too cold for a walk on the lake, and the smile seems easy. In a kinder time, a 20-year old wouldn’t relish the feeling of a winter’s arthritic fingers shifting to the bursitis that settles in summer knees, and I even enjoyed feeling my spring allergies awaken in my sinus’s this morning.

Four AM is no good for me – but five…Five is different. Five makes me want to light a cigarette to smell the smoke. Five makes me crave Nutrigrain bars and wish I had a well worn cotton t-shirt that smells like Lake Michigan air. Five makes me smile fondly, breathe deep and remember all of the people that I’ve loved and lost for the good times – remember the love and the support and forget the loss and the betrayal. Five AM makes me want to discard my better judgment, call old friends and go for long walks.

This morning, I sat on my porch and thought of change as the sun crept up on me faster than I could type out my reminiscences. I remembered a time when my friends smelled like Bounce in the morning rather than leather, stale smoke and black coffee. Then, I lit a red because the stale smoke and leather were never so bad.

Sometimes, no matter all the damage, I’m stricken still by the amount of love that I’ve felt in my short life. Days like today are one of the few occasions on which I ever recall feeling truly lucky and it seems like every time I look up, the sun is a little higher in the sky and the day is a little closer to a close, but maybe that’s the way my luck always is.

I’ve had fortune of finding many – some who’ve loved and some who’ve obsessed – and most of them ended and none of them well but I can’t help but feel that It was worth it in the end.

It’s been a bad decade, but it’s going to be a good day.

Damned If You Do

I was thinking about apologies and guilt this morning. There are quite a few apologies that I am owed, and I would venture to guess that there are more than a few that I owe. I’m not talking about the little things – the bumping into someone on the sidewalk or forgetting to return a phone call from a friend – I mean the karmic destiny, major fuck-up, spend the rest of your life slightly haunted by the fact that you did this or that someone else did it to you. I’m referring to the kinds of actions that end friendships, shatter relationships and ruin lives.

The minute this train of thought pulled into the station (who says TV doesn’t make you think?) the resulting round of self-pity set in – a twinge in the back of your psyche that says ‘Look at all the ways I’ve been wronged’ but the more I thought about all of the apologies I’m owed and will, likely, never receive, I realized that, in most cases, the lack of apology is a greater sign of mercy, grace, and responsibility than the apology could hope to be. It is often been said that the average apology is not an earnest attempt to express guilt – but an attempt to escape guilt. You say you’re sorry, when you bump into someone in line at the grocery store so that, when you wander out into the parking lot, you don’t find them slamming the door of their SUV into your disposable compact car.

We say we’re sorry, in this culture, anyway, for absolution – for forgiveness – when, most of the time, we don’t really deserve it. With children, we send them to sit in the corner or restrict privileges until they apologize for something they’ve done wrong because we want to teach them the importance of repenting for your misdeeds, but are we really teaching them something different? Is the message they’re getting that once you apologize, you’re off the hook and if it is, how do we expect them to carry a different lesson into their adulthood? (Then, perhaps this isn’t a new phenomenon – the Catholic Church has been offering clean souls in exchange for apologies since their inception.)

I’ve often wondered how people can cheat on their spouses – how is it possible that you can come home every night and sleep knowing you’ve betrayed a person who loves you so completely? More than that, I’ve wondered how people can tell a spouse and expect forgiveness in return. How can you hurt someone – deliberately hurt them – and expect that, rather than spending a few nights on a buddies couch with the classifieds section, they will offer you forgiveness. Sure, as humans, we don’t admit to that sort of thing until we’ve come around the pass – realized we were wrong and genuinely, at the time at least, have no intention of perpetuating the relationship, but what right do we have to foist our guilt off on another and beg for them to tell us that everything is going to be OK?

Then there are situations where the damage is done – where the hurt has already been handed out and all parties involved are reeling. What then? There are apologies that I have waited years for – literally – and today it occurred to me that, rather than being angry about the apology that hasn’t come, perhaps I should be grateful that they’ve had the good sense to respect the wishes I put out there quite clearly.

In most cases of emotional wronging, I hand out a blanket ‘stay away from me’ warning and leave it at that – don’t call, don’t send me an e-mail, don’t stop by my house and, for the record, if you bump into me in a public place, walk the other way. It’s a good warning – it has served me well. With those that will listen, it has kept me from constant torment at the hands of people I can’t – or won’t – deal with. A phone call from the wrong person still has the capacity to send me diving for a bottle of Pepto Bismol with my face buried in Kleenex.

A few months ago, I got an e-mail from an old friend that left my in hysterics. Two sleeping pills, a great big hug and a very concerned boyfriend later, I had stopped wanting to hyperventilate or throw up, but I wasn’t ‘OK’ for days. True, the e-mail in question wasn’t a traditional ‘Hey, how are you doing – I haven’t seen you in ages’ outcry, though even that would have left me slightly nauseous. This e-mail was of a different kind – news that a man who tore my life apart had chosen another victim with a side note of ‘woops!’ about the hell that my then-friends put me through after it happened – anyone would have felt a little ill and I have always been able to take things like that to the physical illness extreme. At the time, I didn’t know what to think. It was too much to feel at one time – sick, simply for hearing the name – angry, because he’d attacked someone else – guilty, because I didn’t do more to stop him – and even a little bit self-satisfied because after five years of hell and dirty looks, a friend who betrayed me realized she’d done something wrong. I was so distraught when it first arrived that I actually let Mike reply to it – I had no idea what to do or say because there were just too many disparate emotions colliding with one another and all I could think for a long time was ‘I’d rather not know.’

So, this morning, as I was staring at yet another passive, unintentional and tiny reminder of a friend I don’t have anymore, I could feel the bile building. Defensive mechanism, certainly, to use anger as an anesthesia against fond memories, but most of the time, I can’t care less what my coping mechanisms are called. Twenty minutes and 864 words later, I realized that the missing apology isn’t something I should resent – it’s something I should be glad for. True, it’s always nice, when you’re quite as self-righteous as I am, to spend years doing your best to take the high road and have someone who hurt you come back and say “I’m sorry” but I realized today that the spoken condolences are an easy gesture of absolution and sometimes, doing the thing that is right for the other person involved is infinitely more difficult.

Then, maybe I’m just talking myself into something else.