Queen Size THIS, motherfuckers!

One of the biggest petty banes of lower-middle-classdom has got to be ill-fitting "fitted" sheets.

Dear Target & JC Penney: we're sick of being woken up at night by the "thwunk" of elastic as the corner of the sheet by our heads comes loose off of the mattress and bounces into our faces. Pulling and tugging TO NO AVAIL because YOUR FUCKING SHEETS ARE TOO SMALL.

I can live with sleeping on cheap sheets that feel like burlap sacks -- we aren't asking for softness when we buy low-price sheets -- but DON'T FUCKING CALL THEM QUEEN SIZE IF THEY'RE NOT. Do not skimp on the AMOUNT of fabric.

Man, I hate your fucking guts motherfuckers. Pulling and tugging OVER and OVER. I wish every time we tried to pull the corners back over the mattress that whoever is responsible for this cheapness would feel the same tugging on his or her tongue and/or balls and/or hemorrhoids.

Enjoy nature AND GET OFF YOUR FUCKING PHONE!!

Taking a walk on a woodland path -- no power lines, no electricity, supposedly peace and quiet -- some fucking bitch is YAPPING ON HER FUCKING CELL PHONE. Why the fuck don't you stay home and get on a treadmill? The sight and sound of you disgusts me. I know that's a hideous thing to say and even worse to truly feel, so I'm working on it and trying to be kinder.

Then we encounter a cunt who is not only talking on her phone, SHE HAS IT ON SPEAKERPHONE!! So *EVERYBODY* gets to hear some damned fool yapping in that electro-microwaved amplified lo-fi way. YOU INTRUSIVE INCONSIDERATE CUNT!!!

I hate people and I hate their out-of-touch device addictions. Get in touch with your surroundings and the people present in your physical space and GET OFF THE FUCKING PHONE, shitholes!!

Out of Sale Items

GodDAMN it!! I hate it when I go to the store for ONE THING that's on sale -- only going to the store to stock up on that one thing BECAUSE it's on sale -- and they're fucking low on it or out of it so I invested time and gas in the journey for nothing!!!

STOCK UP ON YOUR FUCKING LUNA BARS, ASSHOLES!!!!

Same goes for motherfucking emergen-c!!!!

I won't even go into detail about the tragedy of a month-long sale that suddenly DISAPPEARED mid-month and I waited around to talk to a manager to found out why. Her answer gave me no satisfaction, let me tell you.

And rainchecks seem to be a thing of the past that only annoying old ladies ask for, apparently.

The 5th of July???

Who celebrates the fucking FIFTH of July? Cinco de Julio? What the FUCK? Never heard of it.

But the post office is taking that day off. Give me a fucking break. The holiday is on Sunday, not Monday. SUCK IT. Do you think credit card companies are going to call it a holiday? No, they'll just say our payments are late.

I guess I should have planned for this in advance, but seeing how it makes NO COMMON SENSE, I thought the mail would be delivered as on any non-holiday on Monday the 5th of July.

I was wrong.

More Bitching about Neighbors

I even feel bitchy about our mostly-GOOD neighbors. Because the truth is that I do not want to have visible neighbors at all.

I don't want to see my neighbors, I don't want to hear my neighbors, and I don't want them to see or hear me.

I don't want to see their dog, or see/smell/step in their dog's shit, especially in our own fucking yard. I don't want to live close enough to a neighbor's yard that wherever they throw their dog's shit or direct their dog to squat that the smell of it drifts over to my life in my yard. Especially if they have a black lab or large dog with soft, wet, giant shits.

I don't want to HEAR my neighbors' dog(s), and especially do not want to hear that low, persistent woofing for sometimes hours without ever once hearing my neighbor say "shuttup" to the pesky motherfucker. I also don't want to hear any neighbors' tiny dogs and their chirpy, anxious yip-yip-yipping.

I do not want to hear my neighbors at all. Not his daughter's boyfriend parked in the driveway talking on his cell phone like a little bitch, not his worker bees, not his friends, not his cunt of a lazy ex who honks when she pulls up instead of hauling her fat ass out of the car.

I do not want to hear my neighbors' power tools or hammers or engines starting up or car doors slamming or VOICES. I don't want to hear any of that EVER.

I don't want to hear my neighbors' engines revving or cars warming up. And I don't fucking EVER want to hear the sound of a large vehicle's back-up warning system, those brain dead beeps you can hear from blocks away. I am glad that I learned this because now I know never to ever live within a mile of any place any sort of dump truck, loader, pick-up & delivery vehicle, or garbage truck visits regularly. No carpet store, no nursery with landscaping materials like bark, no city facility with large mounds of gravel.

I don't want to see my neighbors' friends. I don't want to know who they are, and I certainly don't want them thinking they can cut through my fucking yard to get to his.

I don't want to see or hear my neighbors' kids or even know they have any, whether they be screaming infants or sullen teenagers. I don't want to wonder whether or not I should call them cops when they have a party or a fight. I don't want to fucking KNOW if they're having a party or a fight. I want no auditory or visual or olfactory evidence of those things to penetrate my peace and quiet in the center of my property.

I don't want my neighbors animal shit or dead-car fluids or septic tank seepage or lawn and garden chemicals to sully any of my own groundwater or picturesque streams.

And if a cougar ventures into my yard I want to be able to kill it. With a gun. I guess that's a little off topic.

I don't want my neighbors to know whether or not our lawn is mowed or whether or not we even HAVE a lawn. I don't want them to know whether or not there's moss on our roof or if I'm standing paralyzed in the morning dew feeling wet grass tickle my ankles. I don't want them to know what I'm wearing or not wearing when I'm inside or outside. I don't want them to gawk when my girlfriend absent-mindedly sticks her hand in her bra and fondles her breast while standing at the kitchen window.

I want to be able to shoot anybody who trespasses, and for it to be obvious what is mine and how you should fucking keep out. I don't want any fucking public trails inviting strangers to mosey on by or through, way too fucking close for comfort. I probably wouldn't ever shoot someone, but I at least want to be able to look at them with extreme hostility and tell them they're not welcome, not now and for their own safety, not ever again.

I need a buffer. A deep, wide, green, dark buffer no one can see through. I want to make believe that I am untouchable by people surrounded by a thick denseness of forbidding nature. I want to have chickens, but I don't know about roosters because they are loud, and they are loud in the morning, which is the worst.

I understand how mean and unsociable it is to not want to get to know your neighbors. To pretend they don't exist and avoid making eye contact with them. I do think that is missing out on something good. But I feel in my bones that I'm missing out on more by not having quiet wet growing places all around me to explore and get to know intimately, like I and my closest family are the only ones to smell and touch and investigate and hear them in all the decades that I live there.

I'm sad that the possibility of having this kind of freedom from others and privacy is nearing impossible. IS impossible if even a small percentage of the people in the world demanded it. That this place is just overrun with people and their sounds and their dog shit and their own shit.

I feel sort of petrified by the fear and likelihood that I'll never have this. That there will always be neighbors in my peripheral vision. That I'll never be able to melt into green invisibility.

Even if you're able to afford a few acres out in the woods or country, sound carries farther where it's quiet so you just need more. And you have to be constantly vigilant everywhere now for where they'll put the next landfill or development or resort or border patrol station. People are everywhere and most of them show no regard for maintaining a big space cushion between each other. They show no shame over their sounds and growling oversized useless pickups and stupid fucking mobile phone conversations. I SHOULDN'T KNOW THIS MUCH ABOUT YOUR STUPID LIFE!! Not without using stealth, anyway. Or reading your stupid blog (like this one).

I don't want to see the headlights of the cars pulling into my neighbors'. I don't want them to be able to penetrate the gloom that should surround me.

Unplayable BRAND NEW DVD's!!

I only buy brand new DVDs of things I've already seen and know that I love and will want to watch again and again. BUT NOT RIGHT AWAY!

The problem is then I only find out MONTHS after purchasing them that they are defective. Happened to us with Firefly that we got them brand new and at least one of the discs is totally fucked (the one where Kaylee gets her pink froofroo dress!!) with a huge rub-out scratch area.

Then it happened to me AGAIN!! Only the third tv show dvd pack I bought, and on the FINAL EPISODE of Twin Peaks, there is some kind of defect where there are no scratches or visible flaws on the disc, but it keeps skipping, getting green chunks of pixels, and crapping out entirely so you lose your place. Seriously, TWO OUT OF THREE dvd television show collections with defects?

Blarrrrrr! I'm angry!!! It sucks so hard to be watching shows that are like SACRED RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES/RITUALS and have them RUINED like this!!

To Paint a Fucking Toenail, First . . .

I don't know what the fuck is wrong with women who love painting their fucking toenails themselves. It's a BORING FUCKING TORTURE JOB that's impossible to get right.

First of all, do you realize you need to vacuum every square inch of your house first? Because if you don't, you'll get a fluff of pet fur or one stray hair or god knows what stuck in your polish unless you have someone to wait on you hand and foot for the hours it takes for the sticky shit to FULLY dry.

I'm also guessing bitches who love doing it aren't actually whores like I am who plan to take pictures of the painted toenails or have people actually suck them so maybe perfection isn't vital to them.

But perfection is vital TO ME, and I cannot fucking paint them perfectly myself. AGONIZING, bending over with my fat fucking belly in the way and trying to see. On top of that I have extremely tiny little toes and nails so the brush splayed out is way bigger than all but the nails on my big toes so it's really hard to stay on just the nail.

And you're just fucking dumb if you think you only need one layer of polish. NO. You need basecoat, two layers of color AND a topcoat if you want that shit to look yummy.

And of course you need to actually pamper your feet in between polishings so they are soft and moist without nasty peeling white flaky gross cracks and flakes and bubbles of skin. You need to scrub and saw at the soles of your feet with abrasive stones, brushes, sponges and more. And you have to clip and file and shape the nails and push back and trim your cuticles like you're a motherfucking sculptor of dead tissue and do a good job so they all look uniform. And shave your legs and tan and be perfect in every other way because what's the point of having beautiful feet if your hair is a greasy blob of dirty blonde?

My point is, decorating yourself in a "feminine" way is a shitload of work connected to OTHER work, all stacked up on top of each other and consuming more fucking time and requiring more patience and skill than is popularly acknowledged. You get the impression from societal attitudes and pop culture that painting your toenails is the same as lying around eating bon bons but LET ME TELL YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!! IT IS NOT!!!!!!

******NOTE: I have really really bad PMS right now and seem incapable of getting anything done because NOTHING IS EASY!!! Even the shit you're led to believe is "fun" and "simple" . . . even a stupid GIRL can do it!! That shit is a fucking lie that degrades the beautiful art of self-decoration that so many women practice and master all for the reward of being dismissed as superficial. I feel like stomping on people's heads right now.

Mini Water Heater

We have this stupid mini water heater; it's not even half the size of a regular one. It fits under the kitchen counter.

I'm not big on personal cleanliness like most overzealous Americans, but I *do* like to take a hot shower after spending hours housecleaning. This is, however, impossible since all of the hot water has been used up on cleaning.

Tonight, because I have PMS, this makes me feel like crying. I *hate* when my body smells like I'm a fucking maid. I hate my hands being all destroyed from hot water and bleach and stuff (and I can't WORK with gloves on my little hands . . . I need to feel what I'm doing in order to do it right).

After I clean up dirty stuff I want to get it all off of me, especially before I go to sleep at night.

PMS

I had almost zero desire to blog here while I was on the pill (hormonal birth control).

Now that I'm taking a break from it? BOOM!! I can't stop thinking about stuff to bitch about. I feel just incredibly irritable, paranoid, cranky and unable to cope.

Cleaning GARBAGE

Okay, I pretty much hate housecleaning in general, but the absolute worst kind of housework is cleaning GARBAGE. You know, like prepping the recyclables by washing tin cans, plastic containers, etc.

There is no worse use of my time than WASHING something before I THROW IT AWAY. Fucking HELL!!!!!!

Of course, what I really hate I suppose is how much disposable shit is in our lives and the accompanying guilt. It's a weird and horrible conflict, the desire for convenience and supposedly less work (or less of the boring, soul-sucking HOUSEwork) versus the desire for, you know, a beautiful world. I wonder at the end of the day whether or not any of the conveniences DO result in less work at all. Sometimes I feel like I'm just drowning in garbage-shit.

In a way I wish I'd have grown up learning/being forced to cook, can, garden, etc. so that those things were second-nature to me as an adult. My grandma did can and stuff but I never LEARNED any of it and I'm not someone who figured out how to cook just by watching women do it. Still, I really don't think that's what I was put on the earth to do (cook, clean, and just try to sustain myself).

Mostly when I feel this way my outlook is bleak; the only alternative seems to consume next-to-nothing otherwise I don't know how to lead a sustainable life without losing every morsel of freedom to do the things I find most pleasurable and creative. No, I could never be fulfilled leaving behind a legacy of "had an okay garden some years, eventually mastered salsa-making and cooked soups reasonably well once she hit her sixties".