Plastic Christmas Candy-Cane Sheath

This motherfucking SHIT-to-remove plastic sheathing wrapped with devilish "care" around my sweet stick of striped peppermint sweetness that I am so desperate to unwrap and suck on in my headache-riddled PMS state of post-Christmas come-down.

Got a box of these fuckers on sale the day after Christmas (yesterday) for a dollar and sixty-four cents (even the price is depressing, like nobody is even going to try to make this shit sound attractive or compelling, these frigid old-lady leftovers untouched during the jolly season which is now OVER, and it is just THE SHIT-PIT OF WINTER when conservative responsible retirees immediately take down their light displays so as not to alleviate any of the gloom of January and February for people whose electrical bills are NOT padded with social security or retirement funds.

They will horde all their white-haired light for themselves, letting them be a lesson to us that we should rise and retire early to get cracking on our menial low-paying jobs if we want to enjoy the spirit of giving brightness and joy beyond the cut-off date for anyone giving a token fuck about hardships or humanitarian helping hand-outs. The free turkey dinners are OVER, and the faceless fairy-lit angels are going back into storage in their two-car garages on carefully-organized shelves of boomer propriety. At lunchtime they will walk their stupid little stunted-legged lap dogs by our broken-down cars we can't afford to keep running and cast their condescending cataract-riddled eyes towards those of us bringing their property values down with our squalor even though only one of them will live long enough to need that extra dough for their twilight years in assisted senior living, let alone be conscious enough to enjoy. And the assistants will string the lights up on a two-story artificial tree in the drafty dining room and play nostalgic music from entirely the wrong generations while the drool dribbles drearily from the mouths of their near-death fellow residents.

Fuck this fucking candy-cane wrapper.

TINS that are HARD TO OPEN

OMFG trying to open this fucking tin of fancy candy:

It says "HARD CANDY" but really it should say "Hard-To-Open" Candy.

It is comical, to get some queenly bon-bons for sucking on in luxurious repose, only to have them result in the most inelegant and unrelaxed display of incompetence, scrabbling against smooth metal for purchase, trying to wiggle the lid up enough to get it off, and then finally having it fly across the room and spill the candies all over the floor.

If you're going to get this kind of bon-bon, you really should have a servant at your elbow to pop them in your mouth while they do all of the dirty work and you sigh at their slowness. Or demonstrate Jeeves-like proficiency in the handling of such peevish matters. WWJD, indeed: what would JEEVES do? Jeeves would have it down to a science, or implement some graceful back door by which he retrieves the carefully-wrapped and preserved candies while also maintaining the *illusion* they came from inside the tin, even performing enough with the container to get the magic-metal sounds to slick out as though the package presented no trouble at all, but actually retrieving the candy from a silent container secreted under a sidetable or something.

This is actually the second tin this year to give me trouble. The other is a tin of CBD-infused salve (coincidentally also scented with a cinnamon aroma, like these pear-and-cinnamon candies, but more medicinal). It sucks because I want to be able to use the stuff when I'm feeling ghastly with head- and muscle-aches in bed, but being forced to leave the tin open means it is drying out. I worry it is losing its potency, or at least some of the pleasure of dipping my fingers into its grease. I'm afraid the salve now looks and feels like a container of ear wax.

When tins are hard to open it's quite disappointing; I *love* the old-fashioned vibe of tins, like they came from antique-y snake-oil-salesman times where shit was totally unregulated and you could get coke and opiates and exotic tranquil poisons in all kinds of over-the-counter seemingly-innocuous syrups and compounds. Those things came in TINS and bottles, right? Folded into little papers, and produced to impress with their qualities remedying a diverse range of ailments.

Which reminds me: I had a vivid dream last night about being surprised with a gift of cocaine.

Kind of ruins the fantasy when you can't even open the stuff. Like a nightmare-dream where all of the good stuff is RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, but you can only struggle to figure out how to move it from right-there-in-front-of-you onto or into your body or mouth.

Can You NOT?!?

 I'm sorry but I just fucking hate people talking on their phones in grocery shores. Fucking HATE IT.

And I'm not even lying about being sorry. I try -- I *keep* on trying -- to remind myself sometimes people have good reasons to do this DISTRACTING SELF-IMPORTANT SELF-CENTERED "multitasking", completely inconsiderate of everyone around them and unable to detect how much they are in other people's way, blasting their hot stupid breath and voices and ring tones all over. And any morsel of empathy, understanding or tolerance I can summon is overshadowed by just FUCKING HATING IT.

It's one of those things we have to resign ourselves to, apparently. An unaddressed much more distressing aspect of "the new normal" than the new normal things that never fully took off as normal and preceded this phase and I just think a lot of it is a performance. It is an advertisement of not giving a shit about others. A show of being soooo important soooooo busy sooooo consumed with sooooo many socials and/or dramas and/or demands placed on you and requests for your supervision. A visual and auditory demonstration of being tuned into something soooooo much more entertaining and on-your-level than this boring mundane process of grocery shopping. Unless it's that thing where you and your mate are SO BUSY *all* THE TIME that you can only synchronize your shopping lists while you're actually doing the shopping at the last minute and it's imperative you consult with one-another while you're doing it and you accept ALL of your calls in the frozen foods aisle as this is your second office, your home office, and everyone else can just accept it -- that you are very important, and this is your time for personal home office work, not when you're in your car or standing in front of the milk in your own refrigerator in your own kitchen because you'll be TOO BUSY in your kitchen or to take the necessary moments in your car because you are so busybusybusy and not a moment to waste you're sooooo important and EVERYTHING in your life and on your phone is SOOOO IMPORTANT and if you aren't important enough to talk on the phone in the grocery store than you must be so lucky and completely ignorant of the extraordinary amount of skill and multitasking an important person like you has to do.

Fuck you and your super-important life where everything is of equal importance except for what you are doing RIGHT NOW, and the people around you who have to passively participate in your bullshit life.

I am trying to think about how to apply the metta meditation stuff to this. I'm able to do it with traffic. I should be able to do it with this phone-talking grocery-shopping thing. But I may have further to go towards actually feeling the same kind of human-animal as these phone-talking people. Maybe it's because grocery shopping (any shopping, really) is often really hard for me and I can't conceive of how talking on the phone at the same time would make it easier.

I also just don't understand people's lack of self-consciousness in general with conversing in public, not caring how many people are overhearing your personal business or the privacy of the people you're gossiping about deserve. I have to be at least a little drunk-ish or in a super-psycho place to get that way. Not unheard of, but definitely not in line with my values or how I want to be. Which is one of many reasons I have not had any alcohol this entire year.

Honestly though? I think it is less shameful to do your grocery shopping drunk than talking on your phone.

Okay ... maybe another thing, I just realized, is probably RESENTMENT. I resent that it is acceptable to broadcast your inane phone calls in the grocery store, but viewed as psycho to DANCE IN THE AISLES OF THE GROCERY STORE WHEN A GOOD SONG COMES ON. I still do it sometimes, but man ... I wish I could do it more. I wish we ALL could dance in the aisles of the grocery store more. It's the only off-topic thing I believe in there, I think. And it's not even off-topic! They're PLAYING MUSIC!!!

Everything is so fucked up. See ... it is not bitchiness that makes me hate the phone talkers. It is my desire for all of us to dance more. To dance whenever we hear a song that makes us want to. And I don't understand not wanting to dance, but wanting to talk on the phone. Why should I be embarrassed of dancing in the aisles of the grocery store, but you're not embarrassed of making everyone listen to your stupid fucking irrelevant ridiculous phone conversation with someone who is not even HERE? 

I am not a bitch. I am someone who wants us to be here together where we are, aware of one another.  Caring about what we're doing. Hearing the music. Dancing.

I guess it comes back to recognizing those phone talkers are not happy. They are suffering. More than I am listening to them, and I should just feel sorry for them and pray for them and shit.

NOT the OCEAN!!!!

 It drives me fucking CRAZY when people refer to the Puget Sound as "the ocean". You did not just swim in "the ocean". You did not sail on "the ocean". You are not watching the sunset over "the ocean".

There's a big difference between THE OCEAN and lesser bodies of salty water. Yes, there may be tides, but that does not make a sound or a strait THE or an OCEAN. Yes, it may be *connected* to the actual ocean, but it is not itself THE ocean.

Listen ... you can count the number of actual oceans using the fingers on your HANDS. There aren't that many of them. Four to seven, according to wikipedia. And you are not in any fucking one of them when you're bobbing around on a kayak commuting-distance to Seattle.

Would you call the Columbia fucking river an ocean? No? Then Puget Sound is not the ocean. Seriously ... a lot of rivers are more boss than Puget Sound (if you discount giant octopi in the Tacoma narrows or the deadliness of the currents at Deception Pass or okay even the currents on the ferry between PT & Whidbey Island).

It sucks, because you cannot correct people on this matter without sounding like a total bitch or an annoying Cliff Claven. Like ... people are so excited about dipping their toes in "the ocean" that you're just a complete fucking asshole buzzkill meanie if you try to say, "well actually technically speaking, dumbass, the OCEAN is a different kind of fucking thrill than this easy-access inland snapshot of saltiness you're dabbling in."

But it's so different. I mean ... YES ... we've escalated our tsunami warning systems to include a bunch of us living on bodies of water like Puget Sound, but IT'S NOT THE SAME. Like, in the event of an actual tsunami I hope you're all smart enough to know the risk is much much lower here on a sound or a strait than ON THE BEACH OF THE ACTUAL FUCKING PACIFIC OCEAN.

Fall: The Season of Reduced Bitching?

Strange: I haven't felt the need to bitch and rant as much recently

Reason? Cooling weather, perhaps. Things have felt much quieter ... more sedate. Not having windows and doors open means it's quieter inside, plus the days are shorter and darker and people aren't outside as much making noise. Our neighbor lady who hires the assfuck with the leafblower seems to be on vacation / out of town, too, so that helps. I haven't noticed as much leafblowing this autumn. An unusual small stroke of grace I'm very thankful for.

Another possible reason I've been less bitchy: I had an adventure with making a cat-friend from 9/11 through just-a-few-days-ago, when her owners moved out of the neighborhood.

Spending time with the cat -- looking forward to her visits, being overjoyed with each arrival, hanging out with her, petting her, and eventually sleeping with her for a few nights really relieved a lot of anxiety, I think, and made me feel more loving. And then grieving over her abscence the past week has kept me emotionally very preoccupied and sort of detached from other things.

Worse Than Bitching About Menopause

You want to know what is even worse than listening to someone bitching about menopause? SOMEONE BITCHING ABOUT WOMEN BITCHING ABOUT MENOPAUSE.

Allow me to demonstrate:

Here I am, fifty years old, sitting down on the toilet. Dripping blood from my period, opening my phone to enjoy some reading material via Blinkist.

I wonder what the free Blink of the day will be? An interesting biography? Something about money? Science? An overview of some historically-relevant event?

No. None of those things. Instead it is a synopsis of a book about MENOPAUSE:

The Menopause Reset: Get Rid of Your Symptoms and Feel Like Your Younger Self Again

:(

Honestly it is nice to see something featured on Blinkist that strays out of the typical dudebro content category; I would appreciate it a lot if not for the fact that I've become quite weary of hearing and reading so many women bitching and moaning about menopause and speaking about it like everybody assigned this sex at birth or who has a uterus MUST be suffering just the greatest TOTALLY IGNORED AND UNDERACKNOWLEDGE HORRORS for AT LEAST like a DECADE or more of midlife. Certainly I must be able to relate to this AGONY!

From the way they're talking about it, you'd expect "perimenopause" to be a major focus at my age and having been born with a vag. But it's just NOT. So instead what I have is a big reminder that "WOMEN" are not automatically my people. Women do not automatically represent me and my experience -- physically, hormonally, or sexually -- to the extent we're led to believe our cohorts should.

One factor in my lack of appreciation for all of the conversation and literature about these topics is that I was, fortunately, better prepared by my mom than a lot of people were, apparently. This shit was never as big of a mystery as it seems to be to other people the way that they are framing it. On top of that, I was not prepared for it to only be shitty. It was called "the change (of life)". A normal shift to be expected that could come with some dramatic symptoms (hot flashes, for example), and also, potentially, something that could lead a mentally-ill or struggling person to ... yeah; have things get worse and potentially kill themselves (as it is rumored one of my ancestors did). Okay, so that IS pretty shitty, and ignorance about women's bodies and healthcare and sexism in general and stigma around talking about it for sure made those trials worse when they needn't have been. So maybe I am just lucky I had a pretty good idea of the range of experiences that could be had. But I also got the idea that "the change" was only ONE factor in this person's life and that the tragedy wasn't just that she didn't get appropriate help at that stage of life that brought her problems to a head, but that she was suffering throughout her life, and that a lot of that suffering probably came from or was exacerbated by hormonal issues.

A large part of my irritation is probably resentment. Resentment over how many decades of shittiness I experienced from irregular "periods", horrible PMS, and debilitating cramps. I only started to understand in the past ten years as my periods became regular that I had been living SO STRESSED OUT my whole life that I wasn't ovulating -- your body suppresses all of that shit when it is in fight or flight mode. It has only been as I've entered the past decade of my life (when they tell me I'm supposed to be having a terribly unpredictable and dramatic time because of "perimenopause") that my body started functioning more like the clockwork fertility machine the books and ladies tell you is normal. I started having that 27-29 day cycle I was promised, and like ONE day of PMS per month, and rarely any cramps worth writing home about.

Overall I feel grateful about a lot of the circumstances this specific gripe is seated in, but personally just annoyed thinking about all of the ways throughout life women are supposed to all feel the same and look the same and be in pain the same and want to talk the same, and at a lot of the most crucial moments where we're called to be in solidarity with each other, I have not been described or acknowledged or comforted by them. While I am loving how many people are now addressing these bodily functions and experiences in specific ways that zero in on the actual functions and anatomy, rather than the gender of someone experiencing it so that we can recognize our experiences if the shoe fits and not think there is something wrong with us if it does not, and not make us all present the same, I still feel like I always have in so many big conversations about sexual health and wellness for people with vaginas: my uterus doesn't look like that. My thighs don't look like that. My desires don't look like that. My pain doesn't come from that. My problems are not addressed by this, and I *do* have problems. That may or may not be at least vaguely related to some of this ish, but wow -- none of all of these words are even coming close to what I've experienced.

I don't think most of the people I see writing these books or having these conversations or creating content addressing peri/menopause is intentionally trying to exclude people like me, but I have seen next-to-nothing about the shit that has plagued me and how my cycle and adjacent symptoms could have been a clue that something was seriously wrong with how I was forced to live as a minor, and tried to conform to living as an adult. If I had known, I would have had so much more hope and confidence to find and try healthy solutions beyond hormonal birth control (which has been GREAT or at least instructive for me when I availed myself to it). I could have been living my best life as a hermit, detached from The Tyranny of The Social, instead of constantly feeling internally like my life was in danger to the point where my digestive and reproductive systems were chronically on pause because of the amount of stress I was under, trying to be "normal" and of course failing (other people and myself) dismally.

Ask me how reading Bukowski is part of how I figured this shit out in the past few years, and why, I suspect, perimenopause hasn't been something I'm enduring even at this ripe golden age of fifty.

As far my reproductive functions go, I do not want to be "like my younger self again". As far as my ovaries and uterus go, I am now functioning like my younger self SHOULD HAVE BEEN FUNCTIONING. And none of these bitches are addressing my experiences or answering my questions.

I'm happy you all have each other, but yeah ... I'm rolling my eyes at so many of you. The ones complaining about their big "womanly" thighs and asses that I never had the privilege of enjoying, or their unpredictable and never-ending harrowing hormone rollercoasters THEY HEVER HAD UNTIL NOW but I was on from fucking eleven or twelve years old until forty (with only one small reprieve in my twenties when I was running  multiple times a week AND living alone with a reliable job and income AND frequently fucking strangers for the first time in my life).

Perimenopause? It's not my fucking problem. And that right there is what I need to focus on when I feel these niggling sourpuss resentments and left-out bitchiness; THESE BOOKS AND CONVERSATIONS ARE NOT FOR ME. That doesn't mean they're not for a whole lot of people: clearly they ARE. Everything doesn't need to be for me. Everybody with a pussy does not need to speak for everyone else with a pussy. I don't need to be represented by everybody else talking about not-everybody's bodies. I don't need to be annoyed that these conversations about peri/menopause are going on; I don't need to feel an opinion or object to their existence. Just shrug and be grateful to move on to all of the bazillions of other interesting things that ARE for me, and that I can be helped by and/or positively contribute to.

Ask me how Ryan Holiday / The Daily Stoic is helping me apply this wisdom -- "maybe it's not FOR YOU!" -- to everything I make and present to others, and see presented and available to me.

Eventually I am going to go through "The Change". And I'm going to be glad it's not a completely taboo mystery, and that I am not the only one. I am glad I've been experiencing this time of my life differently than the majority of people seem to.

We are none of us bitches for wanting to talk about the changes we go through and have our experiences acknowledged and seek help with our challenges. I am going to stop negatively reacting to other people going through different changes at different times than I am, and focus on what IS relevant to me.

Finding Everything

 "Finding everything you NEEeed??"

She throws it at me sideways in one of those annoying unpleasant pinched-girl nasal voices in passing. Like *I* am the one in her way, and she's trying to move me along or acknowledge the apparent neediness of my presence as I just wait for her to cross between me & the chocolate aisle I was heading towards before she bisected my path with a box in her arms.

No, bitch. There's absolutely nothing in this store that anybody fucking NEEDS. It is filled with pricey unnecessary delights one would like to LOOK at. Can I just fucking LOOK?

Irritating unhelpful self-important ugly-voiced intrusion.

I did not respond.

Conflicted: Part 1

 I'm conflicted about that video clip going around featuring a Ron-Livingston-character being a total ugly cunty-ass bitch to a coffee shop girl with speech affectations. And the way other people respond to it without any such conflicted feelings or balance.

Rainy Reprieve

I can't even feel bitchy right now with the grey weather and rain beating evenly down all around and on our metal roof. Alone at home while my wife is halfway across the country, I just finished eating a slice of special hometown pizza (Canadian bacon, pesto and mushroom) and gave up on getting the taxes done and mailed "on time".

The shift in weather to fall means outside noise is softened now by closed windows, reducing a lot of my overstimulated rubbed-raw and trespassed-upon bitch-triggers.

I've also been thinking a lot about the difference between guilt and shame, and putting a lot of things that normally make me feel inordinately bad about myself into a healthier less-catastrophic less-odious perspective.

Helping that was watching episode one of The Great Courses "Psychology" course where the instructor described flipping someone off who, unbeknownst to her, had just paid for her family's entire meal after they almost crashed cars into each other. Her point was that we often assign incorrect meanings and motivations to events when there is not enough evidence to actually know for sure what someone else is thinking and why they behaved a certain way. We ascribe ill will and take things personally that have nothing to do with us or were even motivated by kindness rather than shittiness.

This anecdote helped remind me to do less judging and to be less defensive and less self-centered, but also it just helps sometimes to hear someone admit to really being a bitch and remember people are doing bitch-ass things all over the place all the time. They are not bad people or actually "bitches" ... it's just what most of us do at one time or another and we all need help and reminders and forgiveness to reduce the suffering we cause and experience. It doesn't help to feel ashamed or to assign exaggerated disproportionate guiltiness to every little lost temper and misunderstanding. It is just human to misunderstand and be misunderstood.

It DOES help to listen to the rain, though. And to rewatch Moonstruck when you're supposed to be doing the taxes. 

Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and *die*. The storybooks are *bullshit*. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and *get* in my bed!

When Rose says, "Old man, you give those dogs another piece of my food and I'm gonna kick you 'til you're dead!" you have to forgive yourself for some of the shitty-ass things you've said. Because you understand why, and those are just the kind of words that so often come between ti amo. We're none of us monsters for that: just imperfect humans, wolves and animals.

Shitty-Ass Drivers

1. People who don't know how to merge
2. people who don't perform head checks, or can't, or don't know how to, or why
3. shitfucks who pass on the right
4. shitfucks who pass on the right when highway or freeway traffic is thick with slowdowns and people merging, and then SLAM ON THEIR BRAKES AND TAILGATE instead of maintaining a space cushion
5. okay yes also shitfucks who absolutely DO just coast needlessly slowly in the fast lane when they should be in the slower lanes
6. people who don't fucking know what a space cushion is
7. people who don't RESPECT a space cushion
8. people who are so fucking shortsighted they can't see that the space cushion is not a product of someone going to slowly in the fast lane in traffic, but a product of modulating speed and sighting ahead to what's going on instead of fucking flying up onto someone's ass at 70 then BRAKING, then accelerating quickly then BRAKING .... what the fuck is wrong with you that you think this herky jerky shit-for-brains brake-reliant driving is getting you somewhere faster? Are you not fucking embarrassed when we get to the same place at the same time after twenty-five fucking miles of your shitty-ass tailgating speed-up-slow-down driving? Do you not appreciate a smooth ride, or respect your brake pads?
9. people who don't understand and respect big trucks' blind spots
10. just every fucking stupid ass motherfucker on the road
11. people who do all this shit without understanding SLICK ROADS make all of this SO MUCH WORSE
12. people who tailgate in their totally fucking useless gigantic pickup trucks so you can't see that traffic is slowed down in front of them because THEY'RE BLOCKING YOUR VIEW and they wait until the last possible second to SLAM ON THEIR BRAKES like moronic shit-for-brains dumb fuck motherfuckers

These people are the baboon-hyena personalities of the roads.

I'm so glad my dad and grandpa and stepdad taught me not to be one of these dumb motherfuckers.

I DISMISS Thee, Auto-Play (& I Still Want Paper Statements)

Fucking Amazon music. 

And Amazon Kindle, while we're at it.

When the album Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan ends, DO NOT FUCKING TAKE IT UPON YOUR ALGORHYTHMIC BULLSHIT SELF TO IMMEDIATELY START PLAYING MOTHERFUCKING JAMES TAYLOR. I didn't ask for that shit. EVER.

I know there are some good rants and coverage of this trend of streaming music (and video) services to automatically play music and videos "you might like based on ..." but I'm too lazy at the moment to refind them. All I mean to say is that I'm absolutely not the only person to really hate this.

Yes, you can (now) change the settings so it doesn't happen. But you have to do it on every device, and I swear to god it does NOT remember your selection. Kind of like the bank won't let me do any banking until I once again insist I want to continue getting PAPER statements, and yes this is very timely as I'm preparing to prepare 2022 taxes that need to be mailed by Monday, October 16th but actually I need to finish them by Wednesday the 11th MY POINT IS I require paper trails and documentation of everything that I've paid for, etc. so I can piece together an entire long-gone year of expenses and income, and I do not want to have to print them out after they're no longer online and the internet is down and the printer is broken. Chase bank has become particularly PESKY *every fucking time* I open the app or log in via browser, making me reconfirm this, multiple times a week. It's fucking insane.

But back to Steely Dan.

I used to HATE Steely Dan. But bitches get older, and now I am some kind of a middle-aged asshole stereotype. Who ... loves Steely Dan. And I hate that the whole neighborhood who has wondered who this cunt is who FREAKS OUT when other people construction fuckers play loud music, forcing everyone to hear their SHIT, like what kind of music does this cunt like? Does this cunt not like ANY music? And now, with the windows open, the answer is STEELY DAN. Of course this insufferable intolerant misanthropic asshole does like "music", if you consider Steely Dan "music", which a lot of people do not.

The point is that back in the days of VINYL when albums were a whole carefully crafted book from beginning to end, and the end meant THE END, unless the needle picked up and went back to the beginning of that exact album, or you loaded five records on at a time to drop on one after another, but man Amazon music you are not my old record player and YOU ARE RUINING THE EXPERIENCE OF LISTENING TO AN ALBUM, just automatically putting some bullshit on at the end of the ONE album I selected. ONE. I will make and play a playlist if I want it to keep going. Or I'll tell you to suggest some of your shitty shit predictions for me that are always wrong.

The same thing goes for when I finish a book. ALLOW ME TO LINGER ON THOSE LAST WORDS WHILE I CRY instead of IMMEDIATELY POPPING UP SOME ADVERTISEMENT AND ASKING ME "WHAT'S NEXT???" Jesus FUCKING CHRIST can a person enjoy the moment? When the book or the movie finishes?

We need a kind of white space in our timeline of experiences. Space ... silence ... focus on the last lines of the book we've committed so much time and concentration on ... before immediately being PUSHED OUT THE DOOR AND INTO THE UGLY CHAOS OF YOUR NOISY UGLY WORDY PREDICTIVE WRONGNESS.

Real NICE

A beautiful morning, started right: up early and dancing to good music way before any normal people have their bass cranked up like I did.

Then driving my wife to the bus stop ... the mountains glowing with early autumn sunrise-light.

Then on the way home a fucking Sprinter van veered over the center line coming straight at me. Without even thinking, within the peace of my (mom's) car, I shouted "NICE DRIVING, BUTTFUCKER!!!"

Why?!?! Why can't I seem to stop with these useless angry outbursts that do nobody any good? Why do I appear to be completely out of control?

I want to change. I think. Maybe. Anyway. But can I? Am I even capable?

Lucky Break For My Unborn Children

Housework makes me homicidal.

Especially cleaning up after other people. Even loved ones. I almost always fucking hate it. It is bad enough trying to clean up after myself and manage my own shit.

This is the moment where women look at me with horror and say, "good thing you don't have kids!" And today, while sweating and cleaning and barely making a dent in the squalor, I'd secretly agree with them while also wanting to punch them in the face.

I totally understand why women lose their shit when some insensate family member sweeps in like a tornado, dropping shit everywhere and smearing goo and grubby fingers on everything immediately after cleaning up the kitchen or vaccuuming the living room floor or putting all the clutter away. I understand why someone would get up early to do the housework so they could enjoy the peaceful orderly cleanness of their self-made sanctuary while everyone else is at school and/or work.

I do *not* understand, however, women who do all of this AND MORE while working outside of the home full time who do NOT feel homicidal, or at least insist on hiring help to do the housekeeping. HOUSEWORK IS REAL WORK HOUSEWORK IS REAL WORK HOUSEWORK IS REAL WORK IT IS HARD WORK IT IS ***VALUABLE***. 

Bad Lay Bitch Boys Guarantee

If you are someone who pays to go to shows where music is performed and you spend the whole time talking and complaining and gossipping and bonding with your bros, effectively ruining the evenings of those around you who have paid to experience MUSIC, here are two things I know about you:

1. You do not know how to play a musical instrument

and

2. You are a BAD LAY -- absolutely lousy at fucking

Doubly true if one of your complaints is how people dancing to the music are "hard to look at".

Though I have to agree, as a bitch, that people attending concerts wearing matching ten gallon hats ARE rather "hard to look at". Or at least very inconsiderate.  Though not as much as talking loudly throughout a performance that is primarily auditory in nature.

When 26% = ZERO Power

There are so many reasons to bitch about apple products.

SO. FUCKING. MANY.

But the one on my mind today is how fucking annoying it is when you look at your iphone in the morning and it says you have over twenty percent battery charge but in the LONG MOMENTS (like twenty seconds) your phone is grappling with the apparently EXHAUSTING task of being taken out of airplane mode … IT JUST FUCKING SHUTS DOWN. Like … iPhone has NO JUICE left after that.

You had a few seconds, and you demanded entirely too much of it in that time doing absolutely nothing, and it is DONE.

Power OFF.

NOTHING LEFT.

Charge of a full ONE-FOURTH CAPACITY completely depleted just by your touch and gaze alone.

Dark Thoughts

Being around family so much these past months has evoked some Very Dark Thoughts.

Bitch, indeed.

I don't even know if I should or can share them.

Learned Your Lesson, B?

When your mom bitches you out any time you try to help her and finally winds up falling backwards off her front steps onto her sidewalk and breaks her fucking back ... well, B ... see why we tried to be at your elbow before? See why we tell you to take your hands out your fuckimg pockets? See why we try to take stuff you're carrying out your hands? JFC. 

Luckily she didn't crack her damn head open and it's only a compression fracture. 

Bitch <-----> Pollyanna

You've heard of the whole Madonna / Whore dichotomy, or "complex", right? Where men (but women definitely do it too) sort women into this binary of pure saintly virgin mommies or stretched-out man-eating money-hungry slutzzzzzzz, and it totally ruins their relationships, but more importantly, their boners. Men's boners are not really most important, but that premise is what this psychological idea of a complex is built around: the man-child's almighty erection or lack thereof.

Lately I've been more concerned with the whole super-sexist / gendered / misogynist BITCH vs Pollyanna binary: these two extreme femme archetypes that are hated on all the more for their sexlessness.

Madonnas and whores are super-sexualized; they are defined by their relationships to (straight) men. Bitches and Pollyannas, on the other hand, are defined by their un-sexiness, and in a way that is very different from the Madonna archetype; bitches and Pollyannas are not (perceived by men as being) capable of (nor do they behave as if they are interested in) being fuckable OR breedable, making them all the more worthless and not worth putting up with their irritatingly powerful missions and influences. Bitches and Pollyannas, mean old crones and little girls with loud ideas.

Is there already a bunch of writing about this? If so, I'm sorry I don't know about it or have forgotten, and just recently thinking about it a lot after hearing Robert Greene worry that he sounds like a pollyanna for finding gratitude around suffering and surviving and learning from his stroke. It reminded me how much it's always bothered me that people find a way to hate on this child-character who plays "the glad game" to get through life's losses and challenges. Like ... what is your fucking problem that you hate the idea of her and this practice of looking on the bright side and finding things to be grateful for? How is that something to be ashamed or embarrassed of?

Somehow I think it all boils down to women still being second-class citizens made from Adam's rib (not really, but this is part of our mythology), brought to life purely to serve as companions to men; bitches and pollyannas exist FOR THEMSELVES. They have values and priorities completely independent of being in relationship to men or baby-making. They have strong belief systems that do not center sex or gender and they are VOCAL about these firmly-held beliefs, making them repellant. They demand attention and respect outside of dominant social structures and systems, with no obvious chance of a payoff in the form of mothering or pleasure. Gross. Annoying. Waste of time. Makes me self-conscious. Competes with me for the floor. Makes me question my own role and value. Has high standards I've never considered living up to.

I may be a bitch, but at heart I am (also?) a Pollyanna. And I'm glad.

*****

I've only seen the movie and not read the book (wait ... maybe I did read it, but was a child myself in like 4th grade ... maybe that is why I am so attached to her?), so I appreciated this post I just read on a sweet-looking blog called Independently Happy with a summary of the book's character (the OG Pollyanna): WHY IS POLLYANNA DEFINED SO HARSHLY?

The way this character has been wrongly turned into an insane extremely unbalanced optimistic forcing her blind irrational positivity on everything and everyone is a sexist perversion reflecting not the character's flaws, but people's contempt for women and children. It is a way to take the focus off of the helpfulness of shifting your perspective to gratitude and working to BE truly helpful ON TOP OF IT -- to see what you have the power to positively change when things are really shitty -- and turn that virtue and practice into something loathsome and retarded: the silly painted on smile of a fake-ass little bitch and her annoying little happy-voice.

No Fun

 How do you know someone is a bitch? One tip-off is if they hate FUN: the sound of it, stupid fucking questions about what we do for it, and just the word itself.

The only thing people hate worse than a bitch who hates fun is someone who hates Christmas. They have a name for that, too: GRINCH.

I am a summer grinch who hates the sound of neighbors’ barbecued laughter coming in through the open windows. To me, "fun" is the litter and auditory spraypaint of inconsiderate loud-mouth social vandals.

Tyranny of the LOUD & ENTITLED

I fucking hate people who make allllllllll the people STUCK near them listen to their music or talk radio or whatever the fuck.

I'm stuck in the ferry line right now for HOURS ... a holding tank of parked cars and their inhabitants. And motherfucker is playing loud music in front of me. Next to the guy in a semi. Trying to sleep.

I've already provoked some road rage today (going exactly 60 in a 70 zone on the freeway in your gutless civic when there's plenty of room at that pace that's wide open to your right? YES, you stupid fuck I'm flashing my lights on your ass ... GET THE FUCK OVER already, there's no excuse for it, and you look like a fucking weak ass cunt rolling your window down to flip me off when you finally take the hint) so I guess I'm trying not to mix up another cocktail of confrontation but ooooh my fucking lord.

Once I did escalate a more serious raging incident when someone was playing even louder music ON the ferry. Country music, of course, and dude about lost his mind when I walked up and confronted him ... like, violently threatening me to stay away from his (you guessed it) pickup truck. The angry vibe spread like a virus, starting stereo wars, and spilling over even AFTER we got off the ferry, with dudes chasing each other down into the closest McDonald's parking lot. It was bad enough that I called 911 at that point. But ... I kept on driving / did not follow them to see what violence ensued.

Right now I'm fantasizing about baseball bats. You want to hear percussion asshole? Let me rhythmically play along with your loud bullshit on your windshield your lights your doors your whole entire car body. The most peaceful alternative I can hope for is that their battery will die before we get on and they suffer the humiliation of being stuck here and laughed at.

Some part of me must love the creative energy of envisioning ways to address the elephant in the room/space we're all sharing..

I also find myself hating every pussy-ass fucker who is afraid to say or do anything or even give this fucker a scathing look. This is why I know "community" doesn't work. Because people are cowardly fucks who will let ONE asshole destroy the peace of dozens of people surrounding him and pretend like they don't even notice. So here I am, the only person who bothered to do anything to signal to this Idaho fuck that he should develop some awareness and consideration of the people around him by stepping out of my car and GLARING AT HIS TONTED WINDOWS and mouthing curses at him. And later when it paused then restarted, SCREAMING "FUCKING COCKSUCKER!!" which probably accomplished nothing except getting my spittle all over the steering wheel and making me look like a raving loonie.

Finally I attempted to do something "productive" or ... take another tack, anyway, by trying to connect my phone to my mom's modern car that I'm privileged to be driving right now, so I could play SCREAMINGLY LOUD MUSIC. But alas, just as I got it close to working, motherfucker finally silenced his shit. And then I couldn't actually get it to work anyway (you know I kept trying, though, well past the point of competitive usefulness).

Headphones

Manual

Wait

Follow

It's not personal

The Alpha and Omega(?) Bitch

Trite but true: for many of us it all starts with our MOTHERS or FATHERS. The first bitch we knew who taught us everything we know about How To Be not just a Bitch but THE Bitch. Head Bitch in Charge, you know?

Many of us grew up with ONE person -- a parent or grandparent -- who occupied that super mega bitch role. My mom, of course, was the PRIME bitch in our family. My paternal grandmother (the one I wrote about taking after) was in many ways a bigger bitch than my mom, as was my step-grandma / my stepdad's mom: NIGHTMARE, but neither of these bitches lived in close proximity to us so there really wasn't any competition for my mom. She was IT. The beginning and end in bitches.

NONE of our friends had moms who were bigger bitches than Mommy. I mean ... my friends' moms couldn't hold a fucking candle. I might have felt a little self-conscious about this, but in other ways ... nah. Those other sweet moms? They were married to assholes and/or cheaters and/or men of the cloth. I wouldn't have traded my mom for theirs in a million fucking years, or their parents in general. Partly because it doesn't work that way, partly because I did not see their parents or families as "better" overall (duh -- it doesn't work that way!), and mostly because ... I love my parents. INCLUDING my bitch mom.

I'm thinking about this stuff right now as I've been spending more time with my mom this year as she went through chemo and now is recovering from an intense surgery for pancreatic cancer. It is impossible to spend this time around her without being immersed in some intense bitchiness, assholery, and dysfunction. It does bring up some memories, but more relevant it holds up a mirror to me. A mirror that reminds me of two things: one that reassures me I did not come out of the womb a bitch; I *learned* bitchy behaviors FROM HER, and many of my other immature suboptimal patterns of behavior arose as coping tools and also because I was *assigned* the role of next-generation bitch in our family. The other reminder inspires me to change. To *not* be like this. Because OH MY FUCKING GOD IT IS PAINFUL TO BE AROUND AND SERVES ALMOST ZERO PURPOSE. Or is VERY FUCKING COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE.

I do not want to be her age and acting like such a baby-ass bitch-hole. It's not constant, but it is ... A LOT.

The question is ... can I break the cycle? Or is it too late for me?

Radical Self-Acceptance?

What does radical self-acceptance look like for bitches? I mean ... how do you do it? What does it feel like?

I guess it's the same as for everybody else.

Chaotic NO

Pretty dorky rule-of-thumb to adopt at the age of 50, but I've decided to stay far away from anything but purely cursory interactions with anyone whose moral alignment is or seems to be chaotic neutral or chaotic evil or (maybe) even chaotic good. 

I don't want to deal with people who don't have (or aren't working towards having) a solid good-hearted system for calibrating their instruments for going through life, making decisions, coping & relating to others.

Accept & appreciate & be able to laugh at the chaos inherent in life, sure. ACT chaotic? Intentionally? NO. Especially if you're the kind of asshole who *actually* switches to LAWFUL EVIL when you have a narcissistic resentment or sense of entitlement. 

Like if you go around maniacally cackling with glee at all the chaos until something happens that inconveniences YOU or threatens YOUR ego and suddenly you've got a watertight step-by-step game plan for revenge that you throw all your energy into ... you're a by-the-book shithole.

Deleted the above from Twitter and moved over here for more careful thought and development / less potential for misinterpretation or thoughtless harm.

The Obstacle Is The Way

Today is a big deal for me.

I wanted to celebrate it: the 365th day in a row I did _____________. Practicing the thing that I am (not a bitch, but something better).

Instead of celebrating it and preparing with full-focus for the upcoming year of CONTINUING to do this thing daily, I’m leaving home / work for another journey: spending some more time with my mom and seeing her off before her gnarly surgery to eradicate pancreatic cancer, and staying to take care of her cat that got her through pandemic and I cannot bear to see left alone during my mom’s recovery and absence … or whatever else might happen.

It’s kind of been like this since I started this daily practice / accomplishment last Lunar New Year / 2022: the most emergent health challenges in my immediate family cropping up along with other unfortunate, highly-stressful, and time-consuming problems.

My resolve has definitely been tested since I began this; because of that I am clearer about what doing this every day for the rest of my life requires. I actually have *more* to celebrate: it has not been easy. This thing that will sound easy to other people has been harder than it looks like on paper.

If it were not for the obstacles, I would not know the importance of what I’m doing, and doing it better and MORE in this second year.

If it were not for the obstacles, I may not be so sure of my way.

Ended on Less of a Bitch Note

I may have started my trip by calling someone an asshole, but I wrapped it up by being downright sociable.

The human connections were so overwhelming, I cried. Into the wind, standing alone. As quietly as possible. Hot summer tears.

Morning Bitch on the Beach

Please God make me a morning person so I can start my day with some kind of less-peopled peace.

Taken the other day when I made myself go for a walk on the beach relatively-early in the morning.

Great Timing On The Home/Office Front

I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT HOW OUR LANDLORD IS COMING TO STAY IN OUR BACKYARD & DRIVEWAY THIS WEEK GREAT TIMING REALLY JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WITH ANY LUCK SHE'LL ALSO RAISE OUR RENT BY 80% AGAIN WHILE WE GOT 50% OF OUR FAMILY WITH HEART ATTACKS AND CANCER SURGERIES REALLY SO FUCKING AWESOME ALSO LOVING THE SCREAMING CHILDREN OUT OF SCHOOL SO BLESSED!!!!!!!

Returning Unread Books

Very overwhelming & difficult times lately.

Depressed at having to give up and finally take these very overdue books back to the library without having had time to read them.

This is not my beautiful life.

But I am hopeful all of this bullshit working and  suffering and shame and disappointment is fueling clarity for building better times ahead. Giving me a more "powerful why". I mean I knew a long time ago important books and time and space to read (just one example) are important to me, but I did not understand HOW important.

And I'm very grateful this actually IS my beautiful, fortunate life. Maybe some things suck right now - a lot - but every one of my days is still full of so much luck. And beauty. And I'm working hard to make things suck less; so much of what is sucking, I have power to make suck less. That is very lucky.

Transforming DARK ENERGY

I've never heard anyone call Kobe Bryant a bitch, but let's imagine we can apply this hope of transforming anger and competitiveness and "dark energy" into some kind of positive superstar power >>>>>> Robert Greene on Kobe Bryant's Power (youtube short / less than a minute long)

HORRIBLE VIBES

 From one of my fave tweeters, Vinny Thomas @vinn_ayy

preventing ppl from sitting next to me at a stadium event by emanating HORRIBLE vibes

— Vinny Thomas (@vinn_ayy) May 10, 2023

*****

Screamed out the window at construction crew next door and their shit radio and their pack of HALF A DOZEN RELENTLESSLY BARKING DOGS today.

Those dogs were LOVING it.

The crew was positively STUMPED -- frozen, looking around -- by the shrieks of a burning angel seeming to come from behind a canopy of spring-leafing wild cherry trees.

*****

Sometimes it works. Probably because sometimes people truly are clueless about how terribly loud they are, and not actually intentionally inconsiderate.

*****

I don't expect the other neighbors impacted to thank me, but I sort of fantasize that somehow they do.

Unkindness & the Secondary Emotion

Today my psychotherapist informed me that out of all their clients, I am not very kind to myself.

I came in saying anger / my temper are big problems lately. But according to my psychotherapist, "anger is what we call a 'secondary emotion.'"

Usually there's some deeper emotion underneath it. What emotion do you think is underneath your anger?

Fear?

Sadness.

Come "Party"????

 Just saw a series of social media posts for a fundraiser, all issuing the invitation to

COME PARTY WITH US!

Every. Single. Word is a red flag to an introvert bitch.

COME = leave your cozy safe-haven and GO somewhere else

PARTY = omfg barf terrible yuck NO

WITH = so ... leave home to go somewhere that involves synchronized togetherness?!?!? yikes what next oh god 

US = a group of already-gathered people who identify as one unit like giddy coked-up hysterical borg all saying different things that mean the SAME thing but I can't clearly hear through the "party" music that I am supposed to be magnetized to and find more appealing than solitude

****

I think you know you are not and will never be one of the "US" when they are not expecting you to RSVP and do not need or want to know your "I will not be attending ... " RSVP. You only need RSVP to say you're coming, because otherwise they will not be prepared to welcome you specifically because you are not one of "us".

****

I get it. It's a fundraiser. It's not directed at me. It's advertising to a specific group of people, and in part is set up this way because the "US" actually is an exclusive group "you" should not have access to without prior consent and a willingness to contribute some funds.

I truly hope they are successful. I just felt inspired to say how much such words make the entire thing seem like HELL to someone like me.

And I am not the only one who is like me.

I hate having to be considerate

Working at home ... being AT WORK the whole entire time you are home ... IS A BITCH.

Pedestal STINKS

You cannot be trusted with resources if you put in a pedestal sink in a bathroom where there's room for something functional.

A million dollar house for sale with photos advertising the people who custom built & finished it have no business being allowed to throw that kind of money around and profit on making someone else suffer for their weird mistakes.

No built-in storage, no place to set a fucking hair dryer, why you so fuck8ng dumb, rich people ... this sink is pretty but other than that 🤷‍♀️ 

Unless it's just a guest WC in a multi-bath mansion, you are stupid & your judgment is for SHIT.

"Serves You Right" Smile

 

Bitch On a Leash

Apparently I’m less of a bitch when I’m walking a sweet dog.

When I arrived at my mom’s to spend some chemo time with her while my sister and her family were across the country, I was SURPRISED to be greeted by … their dog. I had not anticipated being there. With her fur that I’m allergic to all over the bed and pillowcase.

And you know my mental impulse is to be a complete bitch about that, but my whole-body-and-heart reaction was just joy and love, because SHE IS SUCH A SWEET LOVER and I cannot resist reciprocating her irrepressible ecstatic enthusiasm for bitchy old me walking through the door.

So the first thing I did was take her for a walk/run.

And then the next best thing I did was take her for a LONGER walk later.

And here’s the weirdness: I found myself SMILING. At PEOPLE. Effortlessly. Just … feeling love and openness. Blithely walking around without defensiveness or fear. And I tend to walk around with A LOT of defensiveness and fear.

Part of it was the softly-gloomy spring-in-the-Pacific-Northwest weather embracing us in gentleness. Part of it was being able to walk long stretches without coming into close proximity with people. And part of it was walking THIS dog (as opposed to our husky who passed away over ten years ago; she *loved* picking fights with any and all dogs we might encounter along the way): this sweet little black lab pittie mix with her adorable thoughtfulness, the way she checks in with me even while we’re on a roll, looking back at me with her brown eyes in the most sensitive, probing way … like she’s taking the temperature of everything we’re doing together and that I might be feeling, palpating my whole aura for every sign and symptom related to my well-being and our progress along this journey of togetherness, making sure I still think she’s SUCH A GOOD GIRL SUCH A PRETTY GIRL JUST THE BEST GIRL IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD YES YOU ARE LOOK AT YOU YOU PERFECT SWEETHEART WHAT A GOOD GIRL YOU ARE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BABY GIRL YES I DO.

Walking with her through the neighborhoods and downtowns of that city I thought I hated somehow made the whole place a beautiful magical welcoming wonderful story-book land I wanted to traipse through endlessly.

I absolutely wore her ass out with all the walking. In the drizzle. And the experience made me soft all over, inside and out. Her poop on my hand through the black bag just the perfect heat and consistency to let me know I was performing a service while rewarding me with the warm grip of a soft life. And she’s such a good girl she didn’t pull at all while I picked it up.

SMILE, Ye Stoic Bitches

I get a lot out of that Daily Stoic Ryan Holiday guy and his mentor, Robert Greene but OMG ... have you ever seen more humorless fucks than these? Do they EVER laugh?

I'm glad they're not the only philosophical bitches around -- so depressing if binge-watching.

I wish they'd be given even 10% of the doses of "SMILE!!!!" that female bitches receive as commands when just walking down the street, though, let alone as "influencers".

Bitch Pills

 

Not tonight, honey.

I HAVE A HEADACHE!!!!!

What kinds of medications do you associate with "bitches"?

Maybe All RENTERS Are Bastards

Okay, I get it with all of the resource-hoarding and stuff. A lot, if not most, landlords ARE exploitative bastards.

But at a certain point I get sick of reading that stuff when a lot, if not MOST renters are ALSO "bastards". Do you know how people treat rental cars? Okay, that's how a lot of renters treat rental homes.

I might feel especially sensitive about it right now when my mom has cancer, and she did, for a time, rent out her house while she was taking care of my sick and dying dad / living with him (her EX husband). She rented out her house that she put so much love and work into, and GUESS WHAT? She was WAY too nice to her renters, who constantly skipped out on rent AND did shitty things to her house (the house I grew up in).

She wasn't trying to rip them off or make a profit, she was just trying to be able to make her refi mortgage payment while she helped out my dad. Instead she wound up really taking care of her renters ... all while they shat on her home. They took advantage of her, and ultimately cost more than they were worth.

People have so many excellent reasons to bitch about landlords, to push for regulations and laws that that protect tenants, etc. But I'm not listening to anyone anymore who calls all of them bastards and paints every renter like some fucking angelic victim of landlords and capitalism and whatever the fuck. Because a lot of renters are really fucking trash, and it's heartbreaking how many regular people who are NOT rich take a chance on strangers living in their homes only to have them do tons of damage to their property and not even pay their fucking rent.

If you can't acknowledge that a lot of renters are bastards, then go fuck yourself. You're undermining any helpful progress you could make by being so ridiculously one-sided.

Maybe JUST MAYBE part of why it is SO HARD to get approved to rent a place is partly because so many renters have track records as a group of being unreliable destructive untrustworthy shitholes. If you have no empathy for people who in some cases entrust their life savings -- the only thing they have of value (my mom had no savings no retirement NONE OF THAT) -- to some lazy-ass cocksuckers, you are biased beyond rational usefulness.

FIFTY

I'm turning fifty years old tomorrow. And the only thing I'm clear on is that I don't want to be (such) a bitch.

I guess that is not as clear as it should be.

They say indecisiveness is a sign of insecurity. I think that is true. And I think being a bitch is a sign of insecurity, too.

I'm attached to being a bitch, and afraid to let it go. It is protection. Fortification. A shield to keep people away.

I'm reluctant (afraid) to clearly commit to not wanting to be a bitch anymore.

So. I'll turn fifty years old tomorrow chronologically, but I still have a lot of maturing to do. And clarifying what I really want. Isn't that the very definition of a bitch? Complaining and complaining and complaining and never having anything positive to say or hope for or want or steer towards.

The first part of the solution is figuring out what I want: what I want more than bitchery.

Furnished Rentals

Affordable housing is in short supply where we live. There are only a few home rentals listed at any given time, and almost never any apartments. The few homes for rent are often really expensive, and often are only for the coldest parts of the year (fairly short-term, like three to six months). Or there is an eccentric retired landlord who lives on site and wants to communally garden and be up your ass invading your privacy constantly.

But what I'm here to bitch about now is how many of these very few rentals are only offered FURNISHED. So you can pay to live there, but your furniture cannot. Instead, you have to live with whatever ugly decor some old snowbirds cherish and want you to pay extra to "enjoy" while they're wintering in Arizona or New Mexico or whatever. Ugly couches. Ugly art. Ugly ugly ugly. Or even not really ugly, but very much one kind of person's aesthetic but another kind of person's yuck.

I can see how the furnished & "artfully decorated" home rentals might be nice for someone who just wants to live here part time while they look for a new house to buy and leave all their furnishings behind in their own home, or someone who just wants to go on a one or two season adventure, but it really sucks for people who really want to live (and often work) in their own home, with their own big huge functional desk, their own comfortable bed, etc.

Judge NOT (lest ye also be judged, dumbass)

I just got off the phone with my mom. And got into a bit of a confrontational argument with her about who much time she spends criticizing other people when we could easily spend that time more productively by criticizing ourselves. You know? Like, I don't want us to be judging other people like they're so fucked up and ohhhhh, I know the solution IT'S SO EASY for their character defects or whatever. When we have got plenty of shit that we need to work on. Plenty of places where we are nowhere near fucking perfect.

It honestly makes me grateful for some bible verses a lot of us grew up with. Like,

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Matthew 7:1-2)

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." (Matthew 7:3-5)

"Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister." (Romans 14:13)

Bottom line: we should focus on correcting our own faults. And being reminded whenever we open our bitch-ass mouths how far we still have to go. That we are NOT perfect. That other people's challenges are not fewer or easier to overcome than our own. That all that steam we use bitching about other people is energy we'd be better applying to bettering our own damn selves.

I think one of the foundational reasons why I have this conflict with my mom (and within myself) when I'm talking to her (or, trying to listen to her) is that I don't "social" the way she does. Like ... I do not want to talk about our social dealings with other people. I do not want to bitch about other people. Though of course ... I *do*. I just do not want to hear her bitch about other people. Maybe partly because it is an unpleasant mirror for how I do the same things and it is so ugly and crazy and stupid. So that circles me right back to being a hypocrite. And this blog, which is not just an outlet for bitching PERIOD, but a reflective safe space to do it and then look at it and figure out WHAT NEXT? What can I do about it? How important is it? Who do I want to be? Just someone who complains?

I don't want to be a crazy dumbass bitch hypocrite who ignores the plank in my own eye while pointing out other people's specks.

Exhaust-ed

The fucker in the parking lot with his stupid fucking Jeep engine running, blowing exhaust while he sat there ... and ate. How lucky for you, that you can just BLOW MONEY like that!

I don't care if you get carbon monoxide poisoning, but do you have to inflict it on the rest of us so unnecessarily? Yes, it's winter, but here in temperate western Washington that is NOT a good excuse.

Also? The city and the people who want to regulate every fucking little aesthetic or inconsequential harmless detail, from neon lights and signage and paint colors, to adults doing sex work, to "junk" cars harmlessly parked on people's private property ... why don't you fucking do something useful, like ticket fuckers with car alarms and spewing poison fossil fuel exhaust air?

Inspirational, Bitches

Joan Rivers. And her flash cards.

ThisIsHowILook. And "slut". Your mama's a slut. This microphone is a slut.

Bitch. Slut. Whatever.

Use your tools. Memorize your talking points. Play with words. Try them on for size and dress all of God's creatures up in the same one to see how truly absurd it all is.

The 48 Laws of Bitches

So it turns out the reason _The 48 Laws of Power_ is such a dark and depressing book is because Robert Greene was at peak bitch mode in his life when he wrote it.

Maybe now that I know a little more of where he was coming from and how he has become less of a bitch since then, I will give it another try. I had audible credits when I purchased it without knowing anything much about the book except the blurb (and I knew *nothing* of the author) and just wasn't prepared for how unhappy it would make me feel, even though parts of it made me laugh out loud.

I think it will be easier to appreciate and learn from now that I have an image of the human and his frame of mind when he wrote it (and the distance he's come since then) to soften the blows in the dark. I just watched part of an interview with him (and have seen other interviews with him recently) where he says he was in a very dark place at the time of writing it, and "now" (whenever the interview was / maybe a couple years ago) that he's older and says his brain is not as sharp (as he uses his right hand to move his left hand/fingers/arm around on the arm of a chair after losing control over that side of his body due to a stroke), he is not even able to talk about the book with complete expertise / understanding of what his younger self put together and was trying to get at.

I think this is a good example of how much bitches have to contribute and how right we often are at our most bitch-ass selves, and also how unsustainable it is to stay stuck in that mode for a lifetime. How important and healthy it is to lose some of those righteous sharp edges. How differently a bitch can appear on paper versus half=paralyzed and quieted decades later. The importance of not letting bitch become your lifetime brand.

There's more to it and him and the book than that, but I just wanted to make a quick note of these things, and, as always, apply the word/label "bitch" to things and people not customarily labelled that way, but really do qualify as bitchy AF. 

The Bitch Gene(s)

Visiting my mom, reflecting on ways bitchiness was modeled for / taught to me.

Too exhausted by it to write more.

Seattle Transportation

For a city with a reputation as being for the libs, or whatever, you'd think public transportation in Seattle wouldn't be such a fucking unreliable, nonsensical shitshow.

Of course, I am not surprised because, having lived in King County or King County-adjacent for the first almost-thirty years of my life, and very close (or in and out) the rest of it) *I* know Washington state and even the Seattle metro area and King County itself is not even CLOSE to being full of whatever the rest of the country imagines it is full of. Instead it is very full of people who, just like everywhere else, resist paying taxes just to maintain aging and/or overburdened transportation infrastructure (roads, bridges, you name it), and are not even close to being majorly gung ho on public transportation and mass transit the way we should be.

Today this mess is irritating me as I plan a carless multi-county trip to see my cancer-stricken mom in order to accompany her to chemo and, you know, spend time with her. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THERE IS NO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION BETWEEN THE FERRY TERMINAL AND THE TRAIN STATION?!?

Oh. I know. Because BULLSHIT. Way more bullshit than I'll dive into tonight.

Fortunately I am able-bodied enough to do the minimum half-mile of walking (that anyone with mobility issues would have great difficulty doing, if able to at all) required to hop a bus for a portion of the trek, but I have to admit: the bad reputation Seattle is getting for being a sketchy and violent cesspool has gotten to be true enough to make me want to avoid that half-mile, and not even consider doing the whole walk on foot. It's not that I'm actually worried something violent will happen to me; normally I walk all around that area, but it is going to be a long enough trip that I don't want to start it out bright and early with piss and shit and schizophrenic screaming on Seattle's sidewalks.

So why don't I take a cab or uber or lyft? Because it's an awkward waste of money, and I would rather  take my chances speed-walking by speed-freak street-shitters or putting up with them for two minutes on the bus than pay four times as much to be in a car with a stranger and their bubble of contagion, and all of that hurky jurky stop-and-going those drivers often do.

Traveling in this era where most everyone takes for granted being able to traverse great distances within short amounts of time (and expects everyone else to conform to this bizarre costly exhausting way of constantly GOING GOING GOING without every savoring really BEING anywhere) really is a matter of choosing your poison.

Of the three buses that do not go directly from the Seattle ferry terminal to the train station but can take you partways, I am selecting the one that IS NOT EVEN A KING COUNTY / SEATTLE BUS, but is a bus that goes to fucking PUYALLUP. That is the best option. Between two major transportation hubs (a ferry terminal and train station) that are basically both downtown-ish. It's ludicrous.

Local Business Wombitch

There is a local business-woman/owner I have a long-standing resentment against. Part of it is some shit she did to my wife. Another part of it is just jealousy over her owning the resources she has, and wishing *I* had them, believing I deserve them more (I don't). Maybe part of it is even that we've paid her money for her services. Man, I hate being resentful about paying people; that is not who I want to be, especially when I, at least, did get my money's worth. But at the time I was going way overboard in my own customer service / delivery, and she was an individual who did NOT do the right thing by my wife, so I thought it not only stingy bad business (I've got my money, you signed a contract, you'll continue to pay me), but also dangerous and dehumanizing. So on top of everything I have to continue to boycott her business even though I'd kind of like to patronize it again. RESENTMENTS!!! I have them.

Anyway.

Over the years, I continue to find myself feeling a touch of gleeful self-righteousness every time I hear another story about her being (and acting) bat-shit crazy. It's that feeling of confirmation that she is "the problem", and it is not in my imagination, but also perceiving it as justice being divinely meted out to her. That she won't get away with treating people like she does. Except the stories are of her treating other people poorly / crazily / abusively (literally throwing things at people), so ... she kind of does get away with it other than the stories being passed around of what a nightmare she is. And that she often makes an ass of herself very publicly, and that no doubt isolates her and limits the health of her relationships and her self.

It's a bad sign that I am comparing myself to other people to measure my own worth. I might be a bitch sometimes, but at least I'm not as bad as THAT crazy bitch! She's WAY worse!! I'm almost a cute totally-sane sweetie-pie compared to HER! Instead of having a standard of behavior and code of ethics I hold myself to, measuring myself by my own yardstick according to what is RIGHT and excellent to me, rather than what keeps me acceptably-average based on how shitty lots of other people are.

During pandemic I saw her at the grocery store a couple of times and she was acting certifiably insane. Like, talking to herself, and defending herself and waging a weird body-language war against invisible enemies. No mask, very intentional about getting in my space and others' in frozen foods ... very incapable of seeing anyone around her as human, but more like we were just shambling zombie-bodies acting as obstacles against her progress in a video game. Just looking all kinds of set-upon by mental demons.

The ugly truth is I've come pretty close to the same level of crazy behavior she was displaying that made me feel better about myself. Because she is just that little bit uglier and older and beyond able to help herself, it seems, than I am. She is a warning: there but for the grace of God go I. And just in the nick of time because I have been nipping at her heels on the scale of crazy behavior, truth be told. Thanks for the warning / I'm glad I'm not THAT bad (yet).

Why am I thinking about this now? Because I just saw a picture of her smiling and looking like a normal healthy good business-person. And I thought, "nobody who knows you will believe that healthy smile; the whole county knows you're a fucking crazy-ass bitch." But right after that I felt sad and wanted her to be alright, and for that image of calm, stable happiness to be true.

This blog has become a tool for me to do more than rant and vent. It is a place of reflection to get past the anger, fear, and resentment that often drives my bitching, and figure out solutions and get a better idea of who I really want to be. Not this bitch. Not that bitch. Somebody better.

It is a relief to feel some kind of human love and connection to that crazy bitch. It is a relief to recognize that she is suffering, and that DOESN'T actually make me feel good or better about myself. What makes me feel better is not wanting her to suffer. What makes me feel better is wanting the best for both of / all of us. What makes me feel better is recognizing I do not actually want to see her  or her business fail; I want her to be relieved of whatever hell she goes through. Because it looks fucking painful, and I have more than a few personal insights into what it must be and feel like for her.

I've been told that when you have a resentment towards someone, the way to deal with that agonizing discomfort is to PRAY FOR THEM. Pray for them to have all of the very best.

I believe that is true. I have found it to be true, because I have done it, and it RELIEVES me. I find it easy for me to want happiness and joy and all of the best for people I've gotten stuck resenting, warring with them in my mind. So I am going to do it tonight for this lady/myself. I am praying for you, bitch. I want you to have peace, success, good health, and solutions to all of your problems. I want you to have limitless joy, and healing. I want you to be surrounded by love. I see the eager, vulnerable child in your face and I want that little lost scared person to be lifted up and hugged and protected and gently guided to all of the best things in life, and confidently go forth on a beautiful, fulfilling, awesome journey.

Until then I will still stay out of your way when you're trying to get to the Totino's, though.

Class = Emotional Restraint

I just partially watched a video explaining what CLASS is ... what characteristics and behaviors of people exemplify being CLASSY. In addition to not saying "classy" or "high clast", probably.

I agreed with the list. High quality clothes. Not being showy about money, but having and wearing things that are made of quality materials and constructed to last. And showing emotional restraint. Exercising self-discipline when it comes to shows of emotion. People with class do not have outbursts. They do not RANT. They do not idly bitch.

There are a lot of people with a lot of money who do not have any class. At least I can't be accused of that (since I do not have money).

Can you develop class? Or once you have demonstrated unclassy behavior, are you always tainted and can never rise above that? What is the difference between class and maturity?

I admire people with class, but I'm not sure it's for me. I am always going to like talking about bodily functions, for one thing, and I'm not sure I'm interested in consistently embodying class aesthetics. I like creating and consuming tawdry entertainment (sometimes).

Is class something you can demonstrate and design into your life and personality selectively, within certain boundaries and situations that call for it, and then become a filthy foul-mouthed cunt when in the privacy of your own walk-in-closet, say? Can one be known and spoken of with respect as a REAL CLASS (-ACT?) BITCH and it be accurate?

I think part of the emotional restraint of this kind of class is not having to throw your weight around. Not making shows of power or strength. Because you have so much of it, I guess, that you're next-level confident and secure in your power that you never feel the urge to fight about it or PROVE it or show it off. That is being a real ascended top-tier bitch. A bitch who never wastes time ranting. A bitch who either does something about it, or moves on to bigger and better things. That is the kind of bitch they call a cold bitch, though. So you have to warm it up with kindly social graces. It's not enough just to have soft skin, clean fingernails, erect posture and a calm demeanor untouched by daily nuisances. You also have to never flinch when someone sneaks up behind you to kiss your ass and tug the hem of your skirt pleading for your benevolent gracious attention. BARF.

"DIVA"s

I fucking hate "news" stories ripping exceptional, successful, hard-working, super-busy, extraordinary women apart for being "divas". It's always for super fucking dumb sexist resentful hateful reasons, too.

You know what kinds of people eat these stories up and drive the market for these teardowns of boss bitches? I'll tell you who they're written for; these kinds of exposés are written FOR WOMEN. They are written FOR WOMEN, who love to hate on other women. These stories are made for bonafide dark-hearted BITCHES.

These stories and the fearful misogynist hate that fuels them are designed to hold each other down, devalue women's work, and man ... I hate to say it, but protect and defend the (literally) motherfucking patriarchy.

The article I saw today that inspired this rant is 

Barbra Streisand Canceled Her Jimmy Kimmel Interview After The Host Refused To Use A Different Camera Angle

Like ... fuck off. It doesn't make you a "diva" if you don't want to look like shit on TV and wake up the next day to everyone talking about how old and ugly you look, and/or inexplicably different, spouting insane guesses at WHY you are so fucking grotesque, and list all the ways you are still a spoiled DIVA making far too many demands on the world in order to continue doing your 24/7 jobs and providing gossip rags and fan-stalkers access to you so THEY can make money destroying you.

WORDLE

WORDLE. It's a game. It's a SHORT game. Except for when it's not ...

How do I get so screechingly irritated and worked up over a little fucking word GAME?!? You've got like six fucking guesses - it's totally straightforward. So don't play it if you don't like it! Right?

Gaaaaaggghhhhh! Today was a tough one for me. It shouldn't have been. But it was (for me, but not for my wife or my two friends I bond with daily over WORDLE). And on top of PMS ... oooogh I just wanted it to be OVER! But I couldn't even think of words to get it over with!!!

Obviously games are not fun if they're consistently super easy and fast. You need days like this to keep it interesting. Keep it CHALLENGING. So you don't take your brain or the game for granted. But man ... there's been about a dozen or so times where I just wanted to give up. Just go ahead and put a big red X on today, Wordle!! I GIVE UP!!!! But it will not accept that. One cannot finalize a give-up. And without that officially-recognized loss on my record, I am unable to live with myself. Especially since I rely on my Wordle check-ins with my three people to have some kind of social consistency and accomplishment and connection within a manageable framework. And I know how disappointed I was (and continue to be!) when one of my other friends stopped playing it and checking it. And he was SO GUNG HO about it, but as soon as he broke his streak while he was vacation ... he just dropped it completely like a hot rock. He has a thing about maintaining streaks of 365 days / a whole year, so I guess when he had that setback it just completely lost its allure for him. 

Eventually I was able to come up with the solution today. AND KICK MYSELF, just like my friend said I would. But man ... in the meantime I was twisting around like a hypersensitive toddler being tortured by a tight sock with the heel on the top if their foot and the toes all in the wrong place.

I didn't want to let my wife down, though. Not that it would, but I love so much how Wordle became part of her daily routine and morning ritual. I love being around that consistency, and I feel like I'd be devaluing it or not supporting it if I just didn't finish one day, or quit being into it (when I was the one who got her hooked on it in the first place). I feel like I would not be demonstrating an appreciation of her wins and show of brains as much  if I do not play the same puzzle.

I think a lot of bitchy feelings are about perfectionism. Overinflating the importance of things. Being super scared of making mistakes or letting people down, like soooooo much is riding on whatever-it-is: some little fucking word game or whatever that is mostly inconsequential. But what of the things that we do really IS meaningful and truly big-deal consequential these days? Not a whole hell of a lot. So if I become apathetic about one thing like this, maybe THAT WILL BE IT. I'll have to question the meaning of everything and/or ALL OF IT will cease to be meaningful and I will have demonstrated that nothing is fucking important, and all of us will become very depressed in the face of this existential crisis and 

oh my god I'm tired of writing this

When You're In My Neighborhood ...

Don't come into someone else's neighborhood and park your dumb-ass car in front of the fucking fire hydrant. And/or right in a blind corner. And/or drive so fucking unnecessarily fast where people's kitty cats, squirrel friends, hound dogs, and small children are doing their energetic young-minded best, totally prone to running out into the middle of the street.

Like slow the fuck down and/or learn to walk a few fucking feet you impatient self-centered inconsiderate fartknocking life-endangering motherfuckers.

You're not the ultra-capable omnipotent omniscient fucking GOD behind the wheel you think you are. How do I know? Look at that stupid fucking phone you're holding onto (oh wait I don't need to tell you to look at it YOU ALREADY ARE). You don't know how to drive, you're a menace, and where you're going is not nearly as fucking important and urgent as you seem to think it is.

I hope when Jesus takes your wheel you don't bring any other lives down with you. I don't know a single bushy-tailed rodent whose life I don't value more than yours, you self-important cocksucker.