“It Costs Nothing To Be Kind”

I am so fucking sick of seeing this shit “it costs nothing to be kind.” “It costs nothing to be nice.” “It costs nothing to be a decent human being.”

I wouldn’t trust a dumb fuck with a dollar who says some dumb shit like that. You think being nice is FREE? You think there is an abundance of effortless zero-cost kindness TIME and energy just there for the taking? You wouldn’t know what to do with a calculator and you have no idea how to add and subtract debts. Do not give this person a line of personal credit because they’ll be overlimit in no time. DUMB AS FUCK.

You know the worst thing about these stupid dumb shit sayings making it sound like kindness is effortless and done without any kind of costly energetic expenditure? IT FUCKING DIMINISHES THE GIFTS OF PEOPLE WHO *ARE* KIND. IT MAKES IT SOUND LIKE ANYBODY COULD DO THE KINDNESSES OTHER PEOPLE HAVE DONE WHEN THEY ABSOLUTELY COULD *NOT*.

Most recently seen on a post about the recently departed and absolutely mythological Kris Kristofferson when he stood up for Sinead O’connor: “The time Kris Kristofferson consoled Sinead O'Connor after she was booed mercilessly for telling the truth on SNL in 1992. It costs nothing to be a decent human being. “

LMAO YOU DUMB SHIT MOTHERFUCKER(s).

This ranks right up there with “you got this!” in my book of barfworthy WRONG-ASS inspo bullshit sayings.

Stop devaluing acts of kindness.

Stop making the love and hard-won decision-making-abilities of people in extraordinary and challenging circumstances with extremely checkered and difficult pasts and brain wiring sound easy, because they rarely are or we’d live in a much kinder world.

Love and kindness AREN’T actually free. They are quite often costly, effortful, time-sucking, and/or noteworthy for their exceptionality.

If we had all this sweetness in overstock, your counterproductive inspo posts featuring acts of kindness  (while simultaneously diminishing their worth) wouldn't be so valuable (and people wouldn't be running around STAGING the shit, as social media influencers all-too-often do). It is only because genuine kindness and being nice is the exception and not the rule that it is worth mentioning to your followers.

It's like masking; when folks run around saying "putting on a mass is the least you can do" and "it it's easy", I want to SCREAM because it is NOT easy, and it is NOT the least one can do. It is actually quite difficult, to the point of being a handicap, to many many many of us, or at least takes some practice and adaptation to get to the point where it feels easIER. My point is that you are not going to encourage somebody to do something that is actually a challenge or hard or time-consuming or unpleasant or costly or does not come naturally or that they have a resistance to, for whatever reason, BY SAYING IT IS EASY &/OR COSTS NOTHING. When those of us who are neurodivergent, for example, ABSOLUTELY KNOW THIS IS NOT TRUE AND YOU HAVE JUST UNDERMINED YOURSELF COMPLETELY AND DEMONSTRATED YOU ARE STUPID AND/OR NOT TO BE TRUSTED.

Seriously. I am ALL FOR KINDNESS (and very pro-masking, too), but you're dead fucking wrong about either of them being free and easy. It makes people feel badly, angry, AND/or DISEMPOWERED, INCAPABLE AND INCOMPETENT when you say stupid-ass shit like this.

If you think that the reason people are not kinder is because they can't afford another debit appearing in their checking account, you are being willfully ignorant and insulting.

Neurodivergence & Bitches: Post on Hold

 I just started writing a post about neurodivergence in women being mistaken for being a bitch (and/or maladaptive workaround attempts and burnout etc manifesting as bitchy behavior). 

So I started listing just a few reasons why I know I am a diagnosable weirdo, following a few up with cursory google searches to verify the connections between the behaviors/traits/experiences/symptoms/comorbidities and autism … and I started crying.

Anyhoo … I couldn’t quite wrap up the original post due to being faced with another gentle reminder that maybe it actually *would* be helpful to have a diagnosis.

EAT (comma) SHIT and DIE

Every so often — TOO often — I find my mouth forming this curse: EAT SHIT AND DIE, motherfucker(s).

And just as often I find myself wanting to take it back. To reel it in just a bit, even though nobody heard me say it. In fact, the people I usually aim that curse at are, most of the time, not even aware I exist, let alone listening to me or even within hearing range. So why do I feel guilty about it?

Even in my bitchiest moods and full of most-righteous fury, I’m aware that “eat shit and die” is pretty fucking harsh. Like, you could write off the “EAT SHIT” part as a colorful figure of speech not meant to be taken literally, but “DIE” is so explicit. Succinct. Final. And, almost all of the time, I do not actually wish death upon the people I hurl this curse at in my head.

Most of the time in recent years, I catch myself when I venomously mutter “EAT SHIT AND DIE”. I catch myself in full awareness that even if someone could stand to be, like, reprimanded or issued some kind of citation, the punishment of eating shit and dying is going WAY overboard and pretty much uncalled for.

The thing I’m usually really mad and frustrated about is that there is unlikely to be any reasonable consequence or learning or positive change that will take place. A huge portion of my ire and extreme cursing are at the state of affairs that will allow some person’s shitty behavior to continue unchecked or even acknowledged. It’s that frustration and hopelessness that leads, I think, to just wanting to completely eradicate the source of the behavior after illustrating in the most cruel and obscene way how filthy their actions are. It’s a defense mechanism that goes further than merely blocking an arrow, but driving a whole entire homemade tank over the perceived shooter.

The more I listen to the Daily Stoic, the more I’ve found myself halting before the entire “eat shit and die” curse gets out of my mouth. In fact, I started modifying the curse into a “mememto mori”-inspired reminder to myself. A reminder that I am in charge of one person, and my job in life is to stay right-sized and in control of mySELF. I did this by adding adding a comma to the curse, and turning it back around on myself:

Eat, shit, and die.

These are my priorities. These are what I should be concerned with.

I need to concern myself with eating, shitting, and being aware that I am dying. We all are.

It is not my job to mete out punishment, especially for what are usually extremely petty crimes relative to how many people are struggling to eat (or to restrain ourselves from eating too much / the wrong things). How many people do not have access to food, running water, a place to shower or a place to even shit and wash their hands afterwards. How many of our bodies are so busy with bullshit and/or pampered with not enough physical movement and too much food that’s bad for us that we cannot shit right ourselves, even with our own private bathrooms and access to healthy food, clean water, and opportunities to unbind ourselves.

How many times have I been angry at people for something that doesn’t tangibly interfere with my ability to eat or shit? Too many times. So I’m bringing myself back to these basic human-animal needs. Bringing myself back to check on how well or how poorly I am taking care of myself to insure AND RECOGNIZING THAT THIS PERSON I’M MAD AT IS NOT MY PROBLEM. This person I am mad at hasn’t done a single fucking thing to stop me from eating or shitting, while I myself continue to lack the discipline, clarity and control to be healthy in my body even with all of the advantages and privileges and good fortune I have. And that my intense emotion directed at strangers and people who are not doing measurable or intentional harm to me is totally upside-down relative to the gratitude I should be feeling EVERY FUCKING DAY for my good fortune. My indoor plumbing and privacy. My ability to procure food almost whenever I want it from a mind-boggling array of luxurious tasty choices inconceivable to the vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast majority of human beings who’ve lived on planet earth at one time or another. HOW CAN A BITCH BE SO FUCKING MAD WITH ALL OF THIS GOOD FORTUNE?!?!?

How can I justify wasting a morsel of energy cursing people to “eat shit and die” — wishing ANY harm to anyone, no matter how fleeting, unintended, or ineffectual — when I have a cornucopia of resources available to make not only my own life so much happier and healthier and GOOD, but other people’s too? How can I pretend I’m making anything better by inflicting MORE SUFFERING (primarily on myself) in the uncomfortable and ignoble moment of making this curse?

Instead I should take each of these opportunities when I habitually wish for someone to “eat shit and die” to look at myself and what I am or am not doing to live life fully, present to alllllllllllllllllllllllllll of the amazing lucky awesomeness I’ve been given, and am cushioned and fed by. Look inward and what I can possibly do with my bounty and aliveness to be fruitful and multiply happiness and peace and sensitivity to all of the amazing sweet things that are going RIGHT all around me, all of the time.

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” -Marcus Aurelius

I want to remember that I am going to fucking die, and it’s likely to be before I’m ready. Before I’m finished sucking the marrow out of life. Do I want to waste even a breath of life wishing suffering, disease and death on strangers? Do I want to quit the jobs that are actually mine to do in order to serve as 24/7 self-appointed judge and executioner in my own imaginary small claims court of trivial offenses? NO.

So I am practicing reminding myself to just eat, shit, and die. And once I’ve mastered those tasks (if that’s even possible), to make better choices with my time, energy and spirit than cursing my fellows.

Some Noises I *LOVE*

 I complain about noisy people a lot: people’s noisy machines, people’s noisy dogs,  people’s noisy fucking phone calls, and people’s useless fucking alarms. I fucking HATE that shit. It’s distressing, distracting, rude, self-centered and tyrannical.

But I don’t actually hate *people* in general or even all of the noises we people make. Even though I might say I do, that’s usually an exaggeration made in defensive frustration.

FOR INSTANCE:

I love the sound of church bells - any time of day or night.

I love the sound of a clocktower bonging on the hour. 

I love the sound of people fucking.

I love our town’s weekly tsunami “siren” test that sounds like a Close Encounters of the Third Kind alien communique.

And (this may come as a big surprise, but) I actually love the sound of children at play.

FOR INSTANCE:

We live near a daycare. Run by an old-fashioned woman who DOES NOT ALLOW THE KIDS TO SCREAM. They make a lot of jolly noise, but none of those piercing emergent injury or stranger danger types of blood-curdling bullshit contemporary breeders seem to encourage and/or ignore while they’re busy on instagram and texting their polyam prospects.

So the other day as the garbage truck was making its rounds through the neighborhood, I heard it down at the end of the block HONKING … followed by the daycare kids CHEERING and LAUGHING. BEST SOUNDS EVER!

I could picture exactly what was going on: the kids waving maniacally at the garbage man, begging him to honk the horn … and the garbage man waving back and making the merry foghorn blasts they requested, and them being so delighted to be acknowledged and honored by the neat-o garbage truck man.

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE  LOVE 

Small Dog Yapping

Our other new neighbor must have just moved in for real. His lights are on at night for pretty much the first time.

It is Labor Day weekend. The Sunday night before the actual holiday. about 9:30 pm.

The whole neighborhood, for once, is actually very peaceful. Except for one thing:

HIS FUCKING LITTLE YIPPING LAP DOG. It just. Won't. Stop.

I don't know if it's a situation where the dog is not used to the new neighborhood or if the people are just not home and left the dog outside with the lights on inside. Or if it's a situation where people just don't fucking care about anybody around them OR their dog.

It's the end of the summer and quite warm, so we need to have windows open to keep air circulating, not get overheated, and be able to sleep. HOW LONG IS THIS PIERCING YIPPING GOING TO CONTINUE? It's fucking INSANE.

I hate people.

Fuck The SUN

:: the beginning of August, 2024 - western Washington state ::

Fuck this fucking SUN. Give it a fucking rest, already! Can we have some fucking clouds??? Some motherfucking clouds that release RAIN?

Oh yeah ... we *have* had some nice foggy, overcast mornings. Today, for instance. So much like yesterday. Where you wake up and think, "finally some PEACE ... some light diffusion ... some softness." But by the time you spend the best of your energy doing chores and dealing with fucking BULLSHIT, that beautiful grey layer of safety is YANKED AWAY and that cuntface fire fuck is blasting daggers of sizzling bright cook-your-eyeballs energy right at your poor aching migraine head, and making it too hot to lay down and take a nap.

I want to fucking puke. I want to tell everybody to stop saying it's a nice day. It's not a nice day. It's a shit day of too much motherfucking sunshine. Stick the sun up your fucking stupid summer-vacation asses, buttcunts.

This light is KILLING ME.

Royal Pain in the Match

Why I won’t ever play the popular free game “Royal Match”.

WARNING: this gets a bit dark and deeply unpleasant, and may be triggering.

Save the king in Royal Match puzzle game before he DROWNS!

I hate that sniveling grotesque quaking king in the game ads. The sound of his quivering warbling fear disgusts me.

Other people apparently have fun saving him, but I just want the fucker to hurry up and die. Drown, get eaten by the snake, burn yourself up … I fucking hate him. I hate seeing him, I hate hearing him, and nothing about him makes me want to play that game.

I don't think I realized how much the Royal Match King in the ads upsets me until I was making temporary friends with someone on a cross-country train ride. We were talking about apps and games we enjoy, and she brought up Royal Match. I could see the look of horror on her face as I suddenly morphed into a raging spitting bitch, declaring how much I hate The King. I know my entire visage melted into monstrous ugliness as I expressed my vehement disgust with this cartoon character guy that apparently other people think is cute?

This guy is not worth saving, let alone hurrying to help him.

I say this as someone who loves a lot of match3 games (obviously, if I’ve seen so many Royal Match ads that I’m this annoyed by the king in peril - I’ve got to be seeing these ads for the game somewhere).

Writing this post made me google a bit about the Royal Match game. I quickly found out via this post at OldCynic.com that the king-in-peril isn’t actually featured all that much in the game at all! He says,

… the Royal Match app is just like the ads; in that you can rescue the King! But, it’s rare. It’s only on Special levels called the King’s Nightmare.

The old cynic goes on to say that you can even SKIP the save-the-king levels. Phew!

So having read that, do I now want to install and play Royal Match to fuel my match 3 game addiction knowing I do not actually have to see or hear the inept King moron?

NOPE.

Because I don’t just hate the king. In fact, I think the whole entire game is UGLY.

Yup ... even a droopy-brained dog is better at chess than the nose-picking king.

The colors are ugly. The shapes are ugly. The whole look of the Royal Match game is gross and depressing. Compared to other popular match3 puzzle games like Candy Crush, Bejeweled Blitz, and Empires and Puzzles, the design and the sounds are just fucking ugly. Nothing about it is cute or dazzlingly-illuminated or joyful.

I think one of the main problems I have with the game that is not about aesthetics is the message to “HURRY UP”. Hurry up and save this incompetent man with a lazy face who clearly doesn’t even possess a sense of urgency to suck up his own drool in time before it falls and drips down his royal vestments. Have empathy for this king who doesn’t deserve his throne and is going to get the whole kingdom in trouble. I don’t want to be told in ugly bubble letter words to hurry when I’m relaxing, and I don’t want to think about a story where I’m supposed to empathize with anyone, let alone this swollen-lipped stooge. That is not a fun escape (for me, anyway).

Telling me to HURRY UP to save this dumb shit motherfucker doesn't sound relaxing.
Just drown already and let me play a game that is actually pleasurable.

It’s possible that the ads are the problem, not the game itself, and they’re just pitching it to people who are not at all like I am. But of course I wouldn’t know, because the ads are so extremely off-putting to me I will never ever try this game even though it’s possible I might actually enjoy it. I am a person who cannot even bear to have photos of people I love on my desk or hanging on my walls because it’s so stressful and distracting and confrontational, seeing faces and smiles and eye contact. Even when it’s just a flat static image and not an actual human. Like what do you want from me now?!? Oh my god you’ve got feelings on your faces and I’ve got to do something about your feelings and respond to them and I am sure to fail can I not just concentrate on my work for a while? Please leave me the fuck alone with my naturally-flat facial affect!! Who the fuck let you in here?!?

Seriously, the king is almost like my fucked-up stepdad and I’m being told how bad I make him feel by not being more loving towards him. “Help me! Help me!” It’s gross and terrible. I don’t want to save him or be more loving, I just want him to fucking disappear and never open the bathroom door on me again when I’m on the toilet or naked on the precipice of showering.

Royal Match doesn’t look or sound like a charming addictive pleasurable escape into a rainbow bright grid of sweet electric magic with music and sound effects carrying you along on a rewarding easy magic carpet ride. Instead it looks like a second-hand dungeon of seventies furniture. It’s so ugly you can almost smell the mustard and brown plaid couches with the king leaking stale fried chicken and gravy out of his royal ass in a nightmare that takes place at the sadly-run-down Excalibur hotel and casino in Las Vegas.

Royal Match seems like a free buffet in a dingy basement with diarrhea dripping down the walls mixed with the smell of watery overheated green beans all mushing around out of a can, where every metal tub of food reeks of e coli and salmonella and is served by greasy-haired minions wearing unruly sticky comb-overs and filthy aprons with shit under their fingernails.

In the nightmare that is Royal Match’s buffet of kingly peril, you’re invited to load up your plates trying not to slip and crack your head open on cheap steaming moist tiles grouted together with black mold and feces before you try to choke down this absolutely diseased blended-squash-and-rotten-liquified-meat-and-green-peas mush, on the verge of vomiting but being forced to try to swallow it as fast as you can in an act of fealty to this worthless thumb-sucking motherfucker the king.

All the while the king is stuffing his face at the head table making the most pathetic obscene noises as his gastrointestinal distress increases and threatens to explode in a b-movie’s special effects version of a burst colon. What, is he about to cry now? Snot dripping down into his smelly-ass thick facial hair where it will congeal and broadcast an aroma of rotten teeth and stale man-breath?

It’s deeply unpleasant how writing this made me realize how much the king in this stupid game’s ads triggers a morass of extremely yucky feelings about my stepdad. I never made the connection before, but I can see now that it stirs up so many conflicted distressing messages and feelings I received as a child and teen, and memories of actually empathizing WAY TOO MUCH with people like my stepdad who were big gross self-serving unhinged babies and not to be trusted or forced to live with.

I just want to put this nasty bug-eyed fucker out of his misery. The king is beyond saving. I’ll play almost any match 3 game but not this one. I don’t care if it doesn’t have ads. You’d have to pay ME to put up with grotesque nightmare of unfun.