the sloppy copy

I’m off work today, which means I slept in. And even after I woke up, I did that thing where you just sort of lay around your bed and check stuff on your phone that really doesn’t need to be checked until finally you sit upright and think I guess I should get up now, but only because you’ve got to pee real bad.

So I got up and did my biznass and changed out of my pajamas immediately because a) if I kept them on I would have crawled back into bed and b) I dress for bed like it’s 110 degrees under the covers [because I swear to you, it is] and turns out the rest of the un-bed world was a bit chilly.

On account of the snow and all.

Ah, yes. Snow. Beautiful, glorious flakes of white falling from the sky. Silently floating through the air, simply magnificent it is. Goddamn glorious.

Did i mention I don’t have to work today?

Normally I’d see the snow and feel dread. I’d give it a few minutes, then start grudgingly getting ready to go into work early, all the while wanting nothing more than to curl up with a cup of coffee and a blankie by the window while watching it fall. Work has (almost) ruined snow for me, which is really one of the few things I genuinely dislike about my current occupation (people and policies and all that standard work-vitriol aside).

I admit, there is part of me that enjoys riding in there early and being assigned a particular problem that needs cleaning up (“Yay! I fixed this one tiny thing out of 8,000,000 things, but I did it all by myself! PRAISE ME, DAMNIT.”), or even coming in at my scheduled time and just diving head-first into the mess and not coming up for air until 3 or 4 hours later (“Uh, my first break was two hours ago…”).

But curling up with a good book and a cup of tea feels pretty fucking good, too.

Now if you need me for the next five hours or so, I’ll be here (bad pic, pretend like you can see the pretty snow falling)…

Edit: I was just trying to decide what I wanted to read when I realized it doesn’t matter because I HAVE A KINDLE AND I CAN READ WHATEVER I WANT. I CAN READ ALL THE BOOKS. ALL THE BOOKS ARE BELONG TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Whew. Sorry about that.

This morning I stumbled on an article called “12 Things I thought About Babies…Before I Had One.”

This oughta be good, I thought. And away I clicked.

As I read, though, I became confused. Who the hell wrote this? Under what giant-ass rock had she taken up residence? Did she not know any other people with children?

The list includes things like It’ll be easy to get out with the baby. Seriously? Had this woman never watched someone try to shop for groceries when 99% of their shopping cart is taken up by an infant seat? Or seen someone wrestle a stroller onto public transportation? And it’s not just struggling with the baby-carrying receptacle. Don’t forget the 20-lb diaper bag. And your own stuff. I’ve taken cross-country flights and packed less baggage than it takes to transport one small human from home to the Walgreens.

My personal favorite? I’ll be naturally good at being a mom. FOR REAL: Does anyone actually think that? Sure, if I ever have kids I’m sure I’ll instinctually want to, like, protect them and shit. But naturally being able to just fucking BE a parent? This woman is downright delusional, unless her idea of parenting is just to leave the kid alone and occasionally check on them to make sure they’re conscious. I hear people say stuff like “Oh, so-and-so would be a good Dad / Mom,” after watching that person make silly faces at someone else’s kid for 0.7 seconds. No. Uh-uh. That ain’t how it works. I’m sure there are some excellent silly face-makers on your local sex offender registry.

Does that qualify them to raise children?

I admit that my perceptions of parenthood and children are skewed. Kids scare the hell out of me and the idea of raising one makes me exhausted and cranky and anxious just thinking about it. Yeah, yeah: they say it’s rewarding as hell in the end and there are fun moments and I also hear they eventually stop pooping on you and learn to tie their own damn shoes. I’ve just got myself mentally prepared for the absolute worst, and it kind of boggles my mind that this attitude isn’t damn-near universal.

This isn’t to say that if I ever find myself faced with such a curse blessing, I won’t be happy or excited. I’d just like to think that, thanks to my friends who’ve forged this path before me, I have a much more realistic idea of the whole thing.

They’ve quasi-recently opened a gargantuan Menard’s store not too far from here. To this point, I’d only been peripherally aware of this chain’s existence. I’m pretty sure they were a thing in Indiana when I lived there light years ago, but I don’t ever remember visiting one in the five years I spent as an adopted Hoosier.

I honestly had no idea what sort of goods or services this place offered until recently, when I started perusing their Sunday circular novella. No, for serious. The Menard’s ad that comes in the paper each week is absolutely enormous. 85 pages of every-damn-thing you can imagine, Now On Sale! Do you need a reciprocating saw? Go to Menard’s! 4 tons of decorative landscaping gravel? Go to Menard’s! How about some Cheerios? Or beef jerky? Or tomato soup? Go to Menard’s! Long underwear? Women’s hair accessories? A swing set? Granite countertops? GET THEE TO A FUCKING MENARD’S.

In fact, I’ve found it’s easier to list things that are not available for purchase at your local Menard’s (you’re welcome):

Coffins
Children
Marital aids
Ferrets
Ferret-like marital aids
Dictionaries
Opera glasses
Coffee filters

Menard’s, if you’re reading this, the coffee filter thing really puzzles me. Clue me in here, please. Also: maybe consider the ferret idea. You’d certainly have that market locked down.

You can’t tell me you don’t think this guy is at least open to the ferret thing…

“People usually don’t have bad days. It’s not the entire day that’s bad. If they think back on it, it’s just pieces of the day, and all the extra time they spend focusing on that piece – that’s the bad part.”

I heard that yesterday. I’m paraphrasing here, but I hope you get the point. Actually, I hope that you are as blown away by that statement as I was. I mean, sure – some rational/logical part of my brain was already aware of this. But when I’ve already convinced myself that I’m having a “bad day,” that rational/logical part of my brain is conveniently ignored entirely. So it was nice to get a reminder, y’know?

I’ve got an acquaintance who has a tendency to be super-negative. Like, all the freaking time. Now I know that I’m not necessarily shooting rays of sunshine out of my own ass 24-7, but hearing this person just dwell dwell dwell on the negative day in and day out is downright exhausting. One day, after hearing her make yet another negative comment, I snapped.

“From now on, for every negative thing that comes out of your mouth, I want to hear you say two positive things.” I desperately wanted to continue: To tell her that she was bringing me down and making me angry and I wanted absolutely nothing more than to smack her in her pouty, pessimistic face. But I held back.

She was upset by what I said, and I guess I can’t blame her. No one likes being called out on their own shenanigans. And my outburst didn’t really end up changing her outlook on life. But that doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned the idea altogether. In fact, this is a challenge I’ve since issued to several others: For every negative thought you have, think two positive ones.

It’s hard, man! I’ve tried it myself. But it works, if you let it, to remove little Fun-sized pieces of Bad from the Snack-sized pieces of Bad from your Full-sized day, which really wasn’t all bad to begin with.

That metaphor was terrible, and hurt my brain a little.

…but speaking of candy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YVnzmm7xOE

My recent Facebook status:

I was surprised by the number of “Likes” for this particular post. Seems I’m hardly the only one concerned with the endemic Elsa-itis going around.

I’m racking my brain and trying to recall Halloweens from my past: what costumes did I choose? What costumes did my friends choose? I’m having a REALLY hard time here. Did we dress as characters from the current popular movies and cartoons? I honestly don’t know. Actually, I can only really recall two costumes I ever had:

In second grade, I was a “punk rocker:” one of those costumes-in-a-bag from Kmart. I don’t know what, exactly, made it “punk,” per se, but the costume consisted of a pink foil wig, pink lamé skirt, pink star-shaped sunglasses (PIMP!), and some sort of top with a bunch of glittery stars and shit on it. Oh, and a cardboard microphone that rained glitter down upon everything in a 10′ radius (actually, the entire costume rained glitter down upon everything in a 10′ radius. I’m sure my mother was super pleased with this phenomenon).

Side note: I genuinely wish I still had this outfit, but in my current adult size.

My point is that this getup wasn’t some sort of Licensed Character (though maybe it could have been considered a cheap JEM knock-off? Who knows). It was just a generic costume. I wasn’t trying to pretend I was part of Siouxsie and the fucking Banshees or anything. I was just a “rocker” – woo! – and that’s all I needed.

The following year, I was a monster. Again, this was a costume-in-a-(terribly smelly plastic)-bag (complete with that plastic-hanger-snap-top that ALWAYS broke IMMEDIATELY). It was just a neon green rayon (incredibly smelly) sack that I put over my head (I think it might have had sleeves?). The face was gigantic, and featured a big red tongue hanging out of the monster’s mouth. I freakin’ loved that one, people, but for some reason I felt the need to tell everyone that I was Slimer from Ghostbusters, because just saying I was a “monster” wasn’t good enough.

I guess my parents are lucky that it took me nine years to jump on that pop culture Halloween bandwagon. If only the parents of all these 4 year old Elsas had it so good.

Second side note: This year I briefly entertained the idea of going as Penny from Inspector Gadget, but I don’t think ANYTHING can beat this chick:

The temperature inside my apartment was a glorious 65 degrees Fahrenheit when I awoke this morning. After I was able to extricate myself from a cocoon of quilts and blankies, I shut my open windows and curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee and the morning paper. It was divine, this coolness. My favorite kind of morning.

And yet, as I sat there on the sofa reading about Ebola, I heard a peculiar noise. It was almost as if…
No. It couldn’t be.
But… wait…

It was!

It was the sound of a running air conditioning unit. My neighbors were – are – running their air conditioning.

Again.

In the few years I’ve lived in this particular unit, I’ve noticed that there is only a very brief time – Late December to early January, perhaps? – that these neighbors do not have the AC running. Through my powers of deduction and reasoning, I’ve come to a conclusion:

They must be penguins.

You laugh, but for serious: Do you know where penguins come from? Have you ever been inside of a penguin exhibit at the zoo? It’s cold, man.

And also: I cannot tell with 100% certainty which apartment is running their air, and there are a handful of folks in this particular building I’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting. Who knows who (or what?) is living in, say, apartment B?

Penguins. They’ve got to be fucking penguins.

Of course, other possibilities crossed my mind:
Their windows are painted shut.
They have terrible breathing difficulties and must use the AC.
They’re allergic to the outside.
They can’t figure out how to turn off the air.
They use the spare bedroom as a sauna / reptile room / greenhouse and must aggressively cool the other rooms due to the residual heat.
The apartment is otherwise kept warm by the piles of money they burn (because, seriously, their electric bill must be ASTRONOMICAL).
They like to hang meat in the living room.
The place is being used as an amateur morgue.

Of all these hypothetical scenarios, I keep coming back to my original thought: They’re motherfucking penguins. They live in a happy little ice castle one apartment below. Their furniture is carved from ice, and the place is filled with gratuitous ice-slides, because duh: penguins sliding around all over the place is THE CUTEST THING EVER. Oh, did I mention these are cute penguins? No creepy DC-villain penguins here. Also: no overwhelming fish smell a la The Penguin & Puffin Coast at the Saint Louis Zoo (day-um, Gina: that place reek). Instead, I think they like to order take-out. Maybe pizza’s their thing. The Domino’s guy shows up with their delivery, and they open the door, and he peeks in and sees this magical penguin playground. Best delivery gig ever. Only maybe they tip him in ice-money. Worse yet: maybe they have to pay in ice-money. Have you ever tried to run a Diner’s Club card carved from ice? It don’t work. But it’s okay. Because they’re penguins, man.

Motherfucking penguins.

No, no, no, no, no: Not these penguins. Terrifying. 

Side note: Do you know The Penguin’s real name? Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot. Can you think of a more perfect name? Nope, me neither.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes: Much better.

Welp, here goes nothing.

Except…

I got nothin’.

No wise sayings. No witty quips. No random anecdotes. People ask what I’ve been up to these days, and my answer reeks of blah: “Eh. Working. Hanging out.”

Except my life has been anything but blah. A lot of things have happened, particularly over the last three months. And yet: I’ve had little-to-no inspiration to write about any of it.

At least, to “publish” (as it were) what I’ve written (privately) about any of it. To say that life is just flipping fantastic right now would be a flat-out lie. But to say that things are just utter and complete shit would also be a gross exaggeration.

This leaves me torn, and not in a Natalie imbruglia, laying-naked-on-the-floor kind of way. Do I go into detail about the not-so-fun things that have happened lately? Do I use this space to just rant and bitch about the things that are making me angry? I’d rather this whole thing I’ve got going to be something folks read for pleasure, not for an update on What’s Pissing Julie Off Today.

Though I guess that could also be entertaining, eh?

Okay, now I’m re-reading what I’ve written and cringing, because I’ve just become that person I absolutely DESPISE: the one who alludes to things but never explains them. You ABSOLUTELY know the type: that one dumb bitch who goes around sighing REALLY FUCKING LOUDLY until someone asks her what’s wrong and she’s all like “Oh… *sigh*… nothing…” and then some equally dumb bitch is all like “No, really? Are you sure? Are you okay?” until Dumb Bitch 1 bravely pours out her fucking heart about how her cousin’s in jail and his baby mama can’t make rent and this is COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY HER PROBLEM NOW because, like, sometimes she’s gotta watch his baby and, like, LIFE IS FUCKING HARD.

I’ve actually got several posts written and saved. Very much pouring-my-heart-out kind of stuff. I might eventually post them, once I’ve got things far enough in my rearview mirror to think about them objectively.

Until then, I do apologize for the lack of posts. I’ll try to come up with something soon.

Oh! But here’s this. It made me laugh:

Yesterday wasn’t great. All our computer systems at work decided to go night-night…right around the busy part of the afternoon. No big deal, computers. It’s not as if we rely on your for everything.

Before this happened, I’d been working on the Headache To End All Headaches – the kind where you legitimately feel like something is going to explode inside of your skull. Let’s just say the computer thing didn’t help.

Mentally beaten to a mushy pulp, I pleaded with my supervisor to let me go home early. “Even 15 minutes,” I said, my brain pounding inside of my head. I was granted my 15 minutes of freedom, but was still hesitant to return home, where I faced the prospect of an unpleasant conversation. Nothing Earth-shattering, just a discussion I’d been avoiding. It was one of those deals where I’d built, built, built it up in my head for most of the afternoon – this is going to be the worst. thing. ever. – and by the time I walked in the door, I was a ball of anxiety. With an absolutely pounding head.

But then something funny happened. The thing I’d been avoiding turned out to be a non-issue. And despite the fact that this happens every. single. time., I’d somehow forgotten. I’d just completely forgotten that nothing is ever as bad as I make it out to be in my head. My little brain works itself into an absolute frenzy thinking about all the terrible possible outcomes of every scenario it’s a wonder there’s room up there for anything else. And thinking back on it now, I honestly can’t see why I’d gotten myself so worked up in the first place.

Sigh.

🙂

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” (Gail Sheehy)

I found this quote online. I like it. I wanted to share it with all three of you.

I also wanted to expand on it in blog form, but decided to just shut my trap and let it speak for itself.

Oh, hey, do you know what a mondegreen is? No? Well what the fuck are you waiting for? Click the link, son!

Within my immediate family, I’ve got somewhat of a reputation for these sorts of oopsies. Juanita swears it’s genetic; you should hear some of the doozies that my Dad has come up with over the years. Anyway, in order to avoid future embarrassment, I often find myself looking up the lyrics to songs I enjoy (I assume this makes showertime concerts more enjoyable for my neighbors as well).

My point is this. I listen to a lot of musics, which means I read a lot of lyrics, and sometimes I can’t help but feel gut-punched right in the feelsies by them. Have you ever been hit super hard  by a line in a song? It doesn’t have to be deep, or all that clever. Just something about how a particular phrase is worded just makes you think YES. Fuck yes. This is a yes, yes. A hundred times yes!

It got me thinking about some of my favorites.

Amy Winehouse / “Me and Mr. Jones”

What kind of fuckery is this?

One of the best opening lines to a song, period. I love it. It’s bold. It’s got legs. She could stop singing right fucking there and I wouldn’t need any more. But, oh, I want more. I’m hooked, baby. Please explain to me the situation.

It’s followed immediately by You made me miss the Slick Rick gig, which sounds a little silly and filler-y, but works here as a sturdy, concrete statement following that doozy of an opener. It’s not a line inserted for the rhyme (because, duh, it doesn’t) but it is pleasantly assonant, and makes for a lovely couplet.

Ben Folds Five / “Draw a Crowd”

The refrain here is fantastic in its juvenile wordplay:
Oh- oh, if you’re feeling small
And you can’t draw a crowd
Draw dicks on a wall.

Despite the melody being catchy as hell, hearing this song relieved my worries about Mr. Folds cutting an album avec the “Five” (really three) again. No way would he be able to tap into the manic-ness of Whatever and Ever Amen or the unexpected depth of The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, right? Phew. I was wrong.

Elliott Smith / “St Ides Heaven”

Well, no shit I’d include him in this list. You want I should write you a book? Heh. Ahem. Anyway, Smith is a master at painting a very clear picture with very few words. After the initial set up (the opening few lines are fantastic, too, but I’ll let you listen for yourself), there are a few standout supporting lines. Among them:

‘Cause everyone is a fucking pro
And they all got answers from trouble they’ve known

…right?

As a side note: I’ve seen a few very beautiful tattoos that include another line from this song: the moon is a lightbulb breaking. While not my personal first choice for lyrical ink, I can respect it.

My Morning Jacket / “The Bear”

The time is near / To come forward with whatever killed your spark

This one got me again recently. Short, sweet, succinct…and beautifully worded.

The Mountain Goats / “Psalm 40:2”

Lord send me a mechanic if I’m not beyond repair 

I could also write a book about the musical genius that is John Darnielle. Every other damn line in this particular song is fantastic as well, but this one rises above the rest.

The Weakerthans / “One Great City!”

Late afternoon, another day is nearly done
A darker grey is breaking through a lighter one

Couldn’t have painted a better word picture, imo.

Delta Spirit / “Trashcan”

This world is much too small to feel like nothing

Aw, doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Ben Lee / “Ache for you”

There’s no rhyme and there’s no reason
You’re the secret in the back of my skull

“…the secret in the back of my skull.” What the hell does that even mean? No, that’s not a legitimate question, because you know what he’s talking about. You were just never able to phrase it quite so nicely.

The National / “Pink Rabbits”

I couldn’t find quiet
I went out in the rain
I was just soakin’ my head to unrattle my brain

Okay, maybe my book will feature multiple chapters, because I’d certainly be able to devote some page space to The National, too. See also: every song from Trouble Will Find Me, which I’ve listening to damn-near-obsessively for a few months now.

I’m forcing myself to stop now, but would love to hear yours… comment away, reader(s)!