PInk Grapefruit

When I have the tremendous privilege and pleasure of enjoying breakfast in a diner I like to order multiple beverages: both coffee AND juice. If it's an extra-special steak and eggs treat, I'll get a third beverage: ROOT BEER or some other sweet fizzy soda pop.

My juice of choice? GRAPEFRUIT. But first I have to ask, "is your grapefruit juice pink or ???"

All too often these days, they proudly and confidently reply, "PINK!" Like, of course that's the only reason a person would ask. Because they cannot stomach REAL grapefruit juice and need that pansy-ass barbie-pussy pink sweet watered-down tasting bullshit. And almost everyone these days defaults to this blasphemous half-assed fake fruit concoction.

But when *I* hear them say "PINK!" I'm like, JUST FORGET IT. I guess I'll just have orange juice. And even then, you're going to get some pulpless, no-meat, thin, watery shit, but at least it still tastes of some acid.

It really pisses me off, how difficult it is to even find REAL YELLOW-Y STRONG-ASS GRAPEFRUIT JUICE in stores. Instead it's all this flaccid pink-in-plastic sissy-ass shit.

I WANT MY MOUTH TO PUCKER, FUCKERS! GET IT RIGHT!

WHY EVEN PUT THAT PINK SHIT ON A MENU?!?

DON'T ORDER GRAPEFRUIT JUICE IF YOU DON'T LIKE GRAPEFRUIT JUICE!

Give these fuckers who want pink grapefruit juice fucking HI-C or kool-aid or some other watered-down pastel-colored crap.

*****

There should be diners for people who like real food. Hard-boiled egg types of fuckers who want actual blood pudding, dill pickles, and pulpy sour-ass JUICE.

I'm so sick of people mocking folks who don't want to eat stuff with wheat fillers or who are lactose intolerant and don't want milk or butter added to EVERY MOTHERFUCKING THING AUTOMATICALLY, but these same bullies making fun of people who understand most adults don't produce enzymes to digest milk BECAUSE WE'RE NO LONGER FUCKING BABIES are the same immature crybabies who want their food SO FUCKING BLAND as to be nutritionally void user-friendly ultra-familiar CRAP. Oh, you want your steak WELL-DONE and your grapefruit juice PINK; I get it. You have no palate and you can't be trusted with resources - you will just ruin all of the best things, like actual FRUIT JUICE and BLOODY ANIMAL FLESH. Do you want mommy to cut your crust off for you too, you fucking picky brats?

That also brings me to the subject of "home fries". Why would I go to a diner to get potato wedges? NO. I want SHREDDED HASH-BROWNS. FRIED.

If you can't make hash browns, don't even bother offering breakfast in your restaurant. You can't be trusted to fry an egg or fry a burger or fry ANYTHING. I don't want your shit if you don't have SHREDDED GOLDEN HASHBROWNS. And not like an oblong McDonald's potato puck (though AT MCDONALD'S, I am okay with those). Shred the fucking potatoes and fry the fucking potatoes in SHORTNING (not butter) and you should be able to get them crispy WITHOUT DREDGING THEM IN WHEAT FLOUR, you cheating lazy-ass dumb fucks.

Here's the deal: when I order steak and eggs I want the whole experience. The yolks running all over my crispy-on-the-outside shredded hashbrowns, dragging bits of medium-rare or actually-rare meat through all of it. Washing it down with coffee, grapefruit juice and root beer: all kinds of potent contrasting flavors and textures. YUM YUM YUM YUM.

If you can't appreciate that, stick with cans of spaghetti-o's or whatever soft "food" you're into AT HOME.

One Asshole A Day vs YOU

 

“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.”
    -Raylan Givens - created by Elmore Leonard

Good point.

Something to think about.

I haven't read the books or watched the shows, so my take away is based purely on this quote, knowing nothing about the context.

Here's what I get out of it:

It's not that the world isn't overpopulated with assholes.

It's not that it's unlikely you'll encounter more than one asshole throughout the day.

It's that if you're going through your day and it's just one asshole after another, and that's your entire perception of everyone you encounter, then the problem you're having is with yourself. You're the one making your entire day miserable, and it's likely that someone who does that to themselves is exuding major asshole vibes themselves.

A little bit law of attraction-ish. Not that I believe in that exactly, but maybe you get what you give.

 

Sick In Public

After all the bitching about people exposing others to their contagions, now I am one of them. And I don't even feel that bad about it.

Maybe I'm too sick to invest energy in shame.

Sleeping With the Enemy

This week I've been sleeping with the enemy: NOISE.

But it's not making me feel bitchy, mad, or resentful. Sleep-deprived? Yeah. But fine with it.

I guess because I'm on an adventure? Or because none of the noise I've been hearing comes from neighbors at home.  Instead it adds color to my journey.

Tonight is particular loud. Loud music, cars, and movies on the street below. But I'm going to sleep pretty great tonight. With the sounds pr9viding an extra layer of adventurous comfort and companionship, reminding me where I am.

Can They Hear Me Swearing?

There's been some neighborhood quiet lately. And beautiful spring rain.

I'm starting to worry that *I'm* the noisy one.

Like when I get frustrated and explode out loud, "ARE YOU FUCKING *KIDDING* ME?!?!" when something doesn't go my way.

I'm not actually asking anyone. I'm home/at work alone. I'm just inquiring of "the universe", I guess you could call it.

Should I even care? Like ... maybe it's good if everyone in the neighborhood knows there's an asshole with an explosive temper  in residence.

When the Thingy Just Comes Off In Your Hand

So tired. So so so fucking tired. Just trying to get through one. More. Thing and eventually get to bed and get to sleep for a minute before being woken up again by involuntary vomit filling your mouth and waking you up to the burning lava before you drown.

You reach to close the slats of the blinds against the night and the neighbors' eyes. And the stupid twisty pole-stick thingy just comes right out into your hands. Just quietly detaches to add to the futility and you just let it drop. Just let that useless-ass stick that gave up functionality just drop the same way you drop your tired puffy aching stupid fat head and slap your whole face down into your too-small hands that just can't even begin to carry all of the weight you've accumulated and saddled yourself with.

One bill at a time. One fork at a time. Another fucking night at a time.

Is it true that some people really wake up ready and well-rested for their day? How does one get that to occur?

All I know is this fucking stick-wand-thingy is still going to be here tomorrow, on the fucking floor on a bed of soft decaying piles of my shed head hair, right under the window where everyone can see in and knows I am an old bitch-ass sloppy-as-fuck sack of shit.

Annoying Ways to Refer to Interstates in Washington: I-5 vs "The" 5

Laughed wryly at this video of a man's furious extra-dramatic rant depicting "Washington natives when a transplant says 'The 5' instead of I-5" (via @rjromain who says "t’s like dragging your nails across a chalkboard for the born and raised lol #seattle #seattlewa #seattlewashington #pnw #tacoma #washingtonstate #pyuallup"):

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rasheed Romain (@rjromain)

As a 4th+ generation Washingtonian who grew up near the crotch  of I-90 and I-5, this doesn't annoy me as much as people calling Puget Sound "the ocean", but ... yeah. I do mentally assign demerits to people who say "the" instead of "eye".

Modest proposal: you must pay five-times pricier tabs if you give directions like this or refer to interstates in Washington this way, or say "THE 520" or "THE 405" instead of just fucking 520 or 405. 

You just TAKE 405, not take "take THE 405". Like ... we don't need that extra pretentious California verbage cluttering up our shit for NO GOOD REASON. And I don't need to insert a fancy i as in verbiage for you to know exactly what I'm talking about.

GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT.

And if you don't like "Seattle" or the way people have been doing shit here for decades or more, WHY DID YOU FUCKING MOVE HERE? You didn't fucking know we lived here and had ways of doing things before you fucking tailgating, California-stopping, road-raging assholes inserted yourselves and brought all that smog with you? And don't even get me started on crazy cult-mindset motherfuckers from Idaho, Utah, Arizona, etc. infiltrating like that stupid selfish shithole cunt who moved to Redmond and things he's going to be the new and improved Tim Fucking Eyman.

A Peaceful Rantless Moment

How happy it made me, sitting on a plastic stool on our front stoop on a fully-formed spring day during a moment of neighborhood quiet, seeing someone walking a dog. Quietly ambling together. No phone in her hand. Just her and the dog. Walking. Together.

Back When We Only Had Scanners

I miss the days before facebook when you had to get a scanner if you wanted to eavesdrop on local tragedy porn and gossip.

Now every motherfucker is on facebook and "nextdoor" and whatever the fuck putting on grotesque shows pretending their interest in the most macabre accidents and crimes is prompted by genuine concern for their fellow men and neighbors.

That shit belongs in your grandpa's garage, not publicly displayed on the internet.

OH GOSH I HOPE EVERYONE'S ALRIGHT THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS DO YOU KNOW WHO IT WAS WHAT WAS THE VEHICLE CAN YOU DESCRIBE EXACTLY WHERE IT HAPPENED OH THAT POOR BABY DOES ANYONE KNOW IF ITS MOTHER WAS AN ADDICT IS IT POSSIBLE I CAN  VERBALLY TONGUEFUCK A FIREMAN'S SMOKEY FURBALL ANUS FOR HIS HEROIC BRAVERY AND RESCUE ATTEMPTS PLEASE NOTICE ME HOW MUCH I CARE I AM NOT MERELY CURIOUS BUT ENTITLED TO THE MOST INTIMATE HORRIFIC DETAILS BECAUSE I CARE SO EXTREMELY MUCH I'M CRYING CAN YOU SEE MY EMOJIREACTS WITH THE TEARS CASCADING DOWN MY FACE WHILE I MASTURBATE MY EMOTIONAL VISCERA OVER TOTAL STRANGERS WHOSE LIVES I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING BUSINESS KNOWING THIS MUCH ABOUT

I get the macabre curiosity. I get the desire to gossip. I really do. What I don't get it is the entitlement and the barfy-weird-ass advertisement and hours invested in checking and posting and desperately waiting for NOTIFICATIONS of some potential new gory tidbit of calamity.

What a fucking shitshow of grody shameless "social" parading and poking, and on top of it squatting on it when they can to piggyback their stupid fucking irrelevant selfish-ass political agendas and willfully ignorant opinions.

The Most Abhorrent Thing About Being Miserable

One of the most abhorrent things about feeling horrible is not wanting to feel better -- actively RESISTING feeling better -- because you think everything will get worse if you feel okay (or, God forbid, GOOD), and you believe feeling horrible is the only way to solve problems and avert disaster.

On top of that you think you're doing damage control by letting people see how shitty you feel about yourself, hoping they will have mercy upon you and not make things worse or try to point out your sisns that you already openly cop to.

Is it some kind of an Irish Catholic DNA problem? Or just a general miserable-bitch malaise?

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.