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ER
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #120 on: January 28, 2018, 12:14:12 PM »

.....I think I just saw Kuchisake-onna.....
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Alex
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« Reply #121 on: January 28, 2018, 12:15:49 PM »

Just tell her you are not sure, and does she think you are pretty.
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ER
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #122 on: February 02, 2018, 01:20:03 PM »

I'm sorry I been shirking in my part of the long post department, Dark Alex, but here, I'll match you minute-for-minute in telling about my day.

I went into work today on not a lot of sleep, having been taking care of two sick little girls through half the week, wondering as I got ready if I should upend a bottle of bleach onto myself lest I be a walking petri dish of flu germ-covered grossness, but what the hey, thought I, those interns won't terrorize themselves, and my hand misses the feel of that cat o' nine tails I keep coiled in my desk drawer.

Besides, I like puzzling them with my Cthulhu jokes, like, "Why did the Elder God cross the road? To devour your mother, yrzh-prog-hkroz-lpulah!"

I enjoy their blank stares and polite smiles, and love all the extra space when they push their chairs away from me in the break room while pretending to pick up something they've just dropped.


Got into work early this morning and finally asked my boss, who happens to be this guy who twice married my mother----but I swear he's sane---if it's my imagination or have I been annoying him for a while now, based on how he treats me. He told me some things and I was left thinking, "Hmm...."

And I get half my DNA from this person?

I asked him why he thought this, and he somewhat told me but with a species of elusive vagueness to it that was worse than if he'd tactfully lied about the whole issue of why the fact I associate with someone peeves the heck out of him. What does freak me out is this is coming from the most intelligent human being I have ever known, who notices and knows everything and does have my best interests at heart, so now I'm left unsettled that he could have a point.

Sat down feeling psychically assaulted, as a deep conversation with him tends to leave me, and did some work, listened to a really funny German named Heidrin (I may not be spelling that right) tell me from Berlin (where it was already almost quitting time) about her daughter's school dance, then left for lunch after a morning of vigorous intern-bullying wherein I made them staple papers and only offered them cake donuts instead of buying them the jelly ones.

Outdoors I noticed it was far colder than the powder blue sky and sunshine suggested, but I took ten minutes to walk through my 19th century cemetery hangout anyway to think about what my father said today, and left a flower I got in route on the grave of this girl who died at age eleven long, long ago when all here was wilderness, and Abraham Lincoln but a back-country lawyer.

Had lunch, was told I seemed distant, returned, got a tellingly blank look from my boss, which made some regressive impulse to stick my tongue out at him almost irresistible, and thus far haven't done much since except type this and add a joke to another thread that for some mysterious reason I found utterly hysterical...

Oh, yeah, it's 'cuz my son told it to me and I've missed him this week since he's been with his grandparents in an effort to keep him from catching his sisters' flu. I know not whether loving a child with all your soul is a conscious choice or instinct bypassing free will and conscripting your emotions, but it is impossible to love anyone more than I love my children, and life will only feel right again when we're all together.

I'll close with an anecdote that's been heavily on my mind since I was told about it.

My cousin, who is the reigning flavor of the month in the local gay communities, (which terrifies me) was telling me that just about the last bastion of closeted homosexuality around here occurs among men who are involved in churches, since coming out would lead to them having to face the potential loss of participation in church.

He said he doesn't respect men who have families and carry on behind their spouses' back, because cheating is wrong and endangering others is too, but he was carrying on with this slightly older young man, around twenty-four, who worked as a Methodist "youth life coach" and loved what he did, was good at it, the kids loved him, he was a great guy, and he'd lament to my cousin how hard this was, how it tore him up to think of having to face eventual exposure as what he is, he wanted to live as a gay man, openly, while doing his best to help the kids in his groups at the church.

So long story short, what made my cousin stop what he had going on with this guy was the man admitting to him he was engaged to be married to a young woman from his church, whom he loved, who knew nothing about his double life and thought he, like she, was living celibate before marriage.

So my cousin said that's rough, I know it must be terrible, I wish you were allowed to be yourself, but I can't do this, your fiancee needs to know what's she's getting into and I can't be part of this behind her back.

I told him I was proud of him for that.

The rest though is messed up. It seems like a church does not have to endorse homosexuality just because it employs a homosexual any more than employment implies an endorsement of a political viewpoint. I feel bad for that man and others like him, but my main sympathy went out to this apparently clueless woman he plans on marrying. To do that her, in 2018, no less, is majorly twisted.

What? I have to do actual work at work? Fine. Gotta go.....
« Last Edit: February 02, 2018, 01:23:02 PM by ER » Logged

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Alex
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« Reply #123 on: February 02, 2018, 04:39:13 PM »

I think I need to see the other peoples points in arguements less. I've been told it is infuriating when I can always do that, when someone just want's me to listen to their story and give them sympathy.

Gah, people are never satisfied. Whenever you think you have them figured out they go and be all changey. Then they change back, before leaping to an entirely different personality.

Maybe I should keep a nail gun handy and when ever anyone switches to a personality I like, I should nail their feet to the floor to prevent them moving and changing?

I blame brussel sprouts. They are the most evil vegetables in existance. And before you disagree with me, just how many people do you know who have survived an attack from a brussel sprout? See, deadly little buggers. Also intelligent enough not to leave any witnesses alive. Plus they taste awful.

I am also in trouble for saying "Actually there is no such thing as man logic. It is really just common sense." This may in some vague and ill defined way related to other stuff in this post.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2018, 04:41:28 PM by Dark Alex » Logged

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ER
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #124 on: February 04, 2018, 03:56:24 PM »

Some various first weeks of February from my life.


Sunday February 1, 2015 Flip the calendar day! Trinnie’s fell off the wall and she pitched a fit, so Daisy helped her get it back up. Thanks, Dizz!

Got in a three-set match while the kids went to church. Lost but very close and little shame in losing to a good player just out of college.

Particularly winsome Puppy Bowl on tonight. (Puppy Bowl XI, I’ll note.) Kids and I liked it and it was a good time. Didn’t get the snow we were possibly supposed to, and so far it’s been a snowless winter.

I hope this plot works to get the book sent here.



Tuesday February 2, 1999

Today I went with Julie to her audition. Voice majors are supposed to be out in the field, gaining experience, which is something she wants to do anyway, not to mention it’s a job that pays money. So she went to a dinner theater that operates in Kennebunkport (or KBP as they say here) during prime vacation season, and I went with her. She was really nervous. The club/theater was all closed this time of year and sits in an old portside building, dimly lighted. Oozes haunted house, but it was all good.

So anyway, I sat in the audience part, alone in the cold building, while she cold auditioned on this cold day. She did really great and I hope she has the job. They’ll let her know by April. (Long way off, gotta be rough.) But this dude who co-managed the theater and restaurant came over and started talking to me and big-time hitting on me, even before Julie was done. Reminded me of a ‘70s cokehead promoter type, not my kind of guy at all, even if I considered myself on the market, which I don’t.

He was like, “Ya got a boyfriend? Or maybe the question is does a boyfriend have you?”

But he broke off and took a phone call and when Julie was done I handed her coat to her and we took off, drove back up here. Odd life going on auditions all the time. After every audition you tell everyone thank you in your most grateful voice, she said, even if you bombed and they hate you.

Nice little trip, and I hope she gets the job. (And if she gets the job, I hope the guy who approached me leaves off her.)



Fri Feb. 3, 1989

We had an ice storm. It was barely cold enough and it was almost rain but it was ice. Mom was spooked to drive it so she barely drove fast. Her hands held the steering wheel like really tight. She was going 10 or so on streets that are 35. She said she didn’t want to die at 28 Ellie. Well I don’t much want to die when I’m 10 either but you can drive faster and be OK. On the news cars slid sideways all over the area. I don’t know if people got hurt much.



Monday February 4, 1991

On my own scrubbed out the frige. Big plane crash in California but not terrorism they said. Also Martina lost in Japan. Monday did it to Garfield again. Thinking some more about being a vegetarian. I don’t even like meat. They may start giving demerits if your clothes are wrinkly. Told Mom who said that’s a good excuse for me to learn to iron. Great. Dreamed a dog got hit and all day to school and home I was worried one would.



Thursday February 5, 2015 Good Big Bang Theory on tonight, with Stephen Hawking making an appearance as an anonymous critic of Sheldon and Leonard’s work. Such an inviting friend of a show; I will miss it when it finally does make its exit.

After Daisy’s lessons today, all four of us went to Chucky Cheese’s and played for two hours. Daisy and I talked as we drove home; the younger two slept the sleep of angels. Daisy helped me fantasy-plan Trinnie’s not too distant third birthday.



Thursday February 6, 1997

Went in for a dental checkup, and for a record-breaking eighteenth year, all is fine! Celebrated with a butterscotch shake from UDF, and brought Dad home a peanut butter one. After studying he and I played darts, which I won big time.

I said, “I think, sir, we should play for ten dollars a point.”

He said, “I think, miss, we should transfer that wager to chess and basketball instead.” Ha!



Tuesday February 7, 2006
(whenever)

They wanted me to come downtown and I told them no. I said I will next week. I will hear about this later. Actually now that the momentary rush of resistance has faded it feels like it’s hanging over me. There may be fallout.

Later—Pressure got to me and I went and still got glared at.

“We cautioned you against becoming too settled in your life.”

I think I’ll fake pregnancy to get out of it. Sigh, they’d test me, what am I thinking of? Unlikely they’ll select me but I do have to go in for aptitude testing shortly.

Dismal day that showed me how not into them I am, how I want them to be in my past.

Later—Really down, so I reached out to Hugh, who shut me right up and said, “Stop, I cannot hear this. I have to go.”

And he did. Boom, hung up.

Then he emailed me and said he was p**sed at me for putting him in the position of having to tell me to stop myself from disclosing. I wrote that everyone discloses to someone, and he said well find someone else, I can’t have any conflicts right now where I am, being up maybe as early as this summer.

I told him I know he is right, but inside I still hated him at that moment for humiliating me like that, and I wanted to tell him what a pure motherf**ker he can be, but he’s always, always, always got the fact I did worse to him two years ago to fall back on.

I miss Clare and see her a third as often as did before she got married, despite our promise to be together more.


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ER
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #125 on: February 05, 2018, 03:51:40 PM »

It'd be a better world if people would learn to laugh about stuff. So often people seem to love their sense of outrage to the point they are most comfortable with it, always angry about something, or prepared to be at a moment's notice. Laugh! Life's short and anger shortens it even more.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2018, 03:54:23 PM by ER » Logged

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Alex
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« Reply #126 on: February 05, 2018, 03:58:22 PM »

People do seem to like to get all butthurt over nothing. The joys of first world problems. I try not to waste my time with them, or give them any more attention than in necessary.
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ER
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #127 on: February 08, 2018, 04:53:42 PM »

When I was in high school my cousin Dana had a baby she named McKenna, and it was like all the karma in the universe came back on my cousin for her own wild times and gave her a daughter that was hard to raise. Dana had met her match. McKenna as an infant would stay up all night, she'd refuse to eat, she'd cry, she was a handful in every way, and one afternoon my cousin, who hadn't slept in a day, was on the phone with me lamenting all this and I said well maybe McKenna is colicky, and she said in this defeated voice, "No, I think she's just a mean person."

Sorry, I know you guys aren't in on but she said it so sincerely it still cracks me up.  BounceGiggle
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ER
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #128 on: February 11, 2018, 08:14:36 PM »

It's been an interesting weekend in the Ellieverse as I settle into the long dark tea time of the soul known as Sunday evening. (Even-ing.)

The weekend held surprises and did not progress as I expected, which is good and bad. Bad because we had a lot planned that did not come to pass---thus my post yesterday about see everyone tonight, have a good weekend---but good because other things did, like those card games with my daughter and (first) cousin (once removed).

Then I had this simply unreal Saturday night in the district of Purgatory that deals with excess rage, because of my boss from Hell. Not my father, another boss. The devil? Yes, the devil.

I got so mad at him I absolutely melted down, first in darkest trembling rage, then in this weird helpless zone that is terrible to feel since I tend to be high energy, and one of the things I hate most in life is inactivity. (This boss has done this to me twice in three weeks now, a dreadfully  incompetent man who steals credit and ladles out blame, and does NOT know what he's doing.) I am a doer, I want to take on a problem and resolve it, and in this case he was giving me no leeway to do so, I had to suck it up and deal with it or things would have gotten worse, so I did, I finally found calm and went to sleep, and this morning it didn't matter so much that this person over me, who was born about the time I got my driver's license, was making my life a mess. Yesterday's thoughts of dipping him in buffalo-ranch and feeding him to cannibals was totally gone.

(However if you got an email from me last night, know I was in a miserable state of soul and please take anything I said with a grain of salt.)

I don't know about you all but after I spend adrenaline in droves I am weary and so I wanted to sleep in, but no, my young Papist came in dark and early, "Mom, you're going to oversleep to take us to Mass."

"Grrr, bluvfur zek hol." <----"Why can't you become a night-worshiper who sleeps in, but OK, I'll drive us."

Got to Mass, where, remember, one out of four of those we meet there hates me worse than Texans hate red cedar season, but if she'd shown her dislike today it would have reflected on her, marking her as not being over when she got so mad at me last month for supposedly slandering her dead son, who, for the record I knew loads better than she did, and who, also apparently, kvetched his head off to her about me a lot more often than I realized her did. (I swear, destroy some men's lives when you're engaged and they never let it go.)

Still, nice time, good service, last Sunday before Lent, and everyone was all merrily telling what they're gong to give up after Ash Wednesday, and I thought, "Wonder if I can say 'going to dawn Mass'?"

Out to eat after, and sometimes it's awkward since I have this....incredibly....deep history with these people, this family we go with, you guys can't imagine (well, one of you can but not most of you) and for the record, this comes two days after it was revealed to me by one of them that I apparently have had a massive lapse in memory from 1998, just huge, and for someone with my psychological condition, parahyperthymesia, that was a bigger deal than it might seem, and so it wasn't brought up but it felt like I had done something heinous in forgetting this thing, or actually two things, two meetings, and I do think the explanation lies in some drugs I was given then by a doctor, drugs I've mentioned before, that aided recall but had a side effect of possible memory loss, and since these two matters coincide with the era of this drug therapy, I am thinking, yes, it did punch a hole in my memory, cookie cutter style, in late 1998.

Disturbing.

But we came home, my daughter was in such a fine mood she sang some old Irish hymns my mother, another family singer, taught her, I stopped by here, BMDO, saw the reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated, as the no-sex-in-heaven Mr. Twain sort of said, then the children went off with my husband to the wonderland of his parents, I stayed and had a long three-way phone conference with my employers about my boss and his going postal on me for yesterday, and I will have to attend a hearing over my on-job performance and be out of town and could get into trouble, but most likely it'll be a write-up because I am doing the job well, though I did have a serious lapse in procedure: never good.

Walked in the woods a while, though it was thirty-eight degrees, rainy, misty, perfect weather to recite Beowulf in---which yes, I can do to an extent, in the original, too---and I thought a while about forgiving people and recognizing pain in others that drives them to hurt, and I felt better and resolved to do the duty I and all other Christians have to forgive and go on, even if there are jerks like my boss sharing this planet. (Life was much easier as an agnostic. Christianity is not for wimps.)

Met up with the family and had so much joy there all negativity vanished and if you have children you know what I mean, and if you don't, well, maybe you have other experiences, but by the time we came home I was simply happy in a world that may have its problems, but what does that matter when I love and am loved?

May you one and all find joy and peace at heart.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2018, 08:21:25 PM by ER » Logged

What does not kill me makes me stranger.
ER
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #129 on: February 13, 2018, 12:56:26 PM »

The older I get the more I am open to the idea that slips in time, maybe even full-on slides between parallel dimensions, may just happen, and aren't confined to science fiction and tin foil yarmulke sorts who make flat earth videos on YouTube. Honestly, last year, as I wrote in here, I was stunned to see the dog I had a teenager, Charlotte Sometimes, had no white spot on the end of her tail, when I used to hold her tail there, playfully, all the time, even hold it while she walked ahead of me, a little game between us, and I knew she had a spot therein the same way I knew anything else held certain in memory. And then Friday I was told I'd met someone several years earlier than I KNOW I did. Yet not only did another person who was there tell me in precise detail about these occasions but they were confirmed by what was written down in my diary in December 1998. Very depressing stuff, but I've found a way to feel better that maintains I didn't forget, I'm now in some other dimension!!!! Grrrrr.
« Last Edit: February 13, 2018, 12:58:45 PM by ER » Logged

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ER
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #130 on: February 16, 2018, 11:07:38 AM »

My dad was mostly easy-going when I was growing up but he had some strange rules. For instance, he wouldn’t let me drink Kool-Aid, EVER, and it became a sort of forbidden pleasure, like alcohol is to many kids, and I'd seek it out at friend's houses and hide behind sheds sipping cherry Kool-Aid in summers, and then I’d have to hide my tongue when I came home in case it was still red.

It was as if Dad thought Kool-Aid offended truth, justice, and the American way.

He also wouldn’t let me watch Twin Peaks, or get my ears pierced until I was thirteen. He gave me nearly total license to almost anything later, including insane things to the point I wondered if he needed his head examined, but little things would always trip him up.

One time he was driving by on his way home after work and he saw me playing this game on our sidewalk where I’d walk along with my eyes closed to see if I remembered our street well enough to make it to the end where this big field was, so he stopped his car and asked what I was doing, and I told him, and he got out and put me in the passenger seat and drove home lecturing about how dangerous that was and maybe I should stay in the rest of the evening and think about it.

You’d think I’d been running with scissors.

Years in the future, after college and a lot of other stuff, I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be around the area and didn’t want my own place, so I was staying with my dad for a few days/years, and he was going out with this darn hot woman named Gillie, she gave me bad vibes and I never liked her to start with, but one afternoon I came back and she was in our house alone, and that in itself irked me, her being there to flit around in medicine cabinets and underwear drawers, but on top of that she said some things I didn’t appreciate, so 118-pound tennis player me put 128-pound glamour girl her in an arm lock and shoved her out the front door, then threw her purse out at her a minute later and said, “Quit b***hing, I could have broken your arm if I wanted to”---for some reason she failed to appreciate my show of mercy---and later that evening my dad was peeved about that since it wrecked date night, but he also was a little bit amused.

Later Gillie, you know, may have tried to poison him and was probably an East German with a post-unification grudge, but whatever. (Be sure to write up that I said that, James. Just trying to keep you happy.)

So my point is Dad had put up with strangely big things I’d done, but he’d get on my case for these quirky, seemingly harmless activities, like when at sixteen I had a meltdown and screamed all these obscenities at his sister in her church in front of some important people, and Dad barely said anything about it since I was under a lot of stress (though he did bring it up later that spring to explain why he was locking me up in the house for a few weeks) but honestly, to show how mixed-up his priorities were, once around that time I left a tube of cherry Chap-Stick in his car when he drove me to school, and it was cause for leaving me a message with the office secretary telling me about it. He even left the Chap-Stick in the car and told me to go get it that evening after he got home from work.

Don’t you think that’s strange?

But the thing about my dad is, normal rules of life don’t completely apply to him because he is this genius, like…really, so smart it’s beyond cool or scary and into absurd, so I think the minds of people like that aren’t the same as those of we lesser mortals.

So anyway, to make a short story long, today I walk into work, he’s there, and I say good morning, and its: “G’morning, honey, how’s life, how’re the kids, how was the drive in, did you know when you left Monday you left your calendar lying out on your desk instead of locking it in your drawer?”

“No, uh, did I, Dad?”

“Yeah, it looks unprofessional leaving it on a desk like that.”

“Do tell. Okay, I’ll put it in my desk it next time.”

“Good, because leaving it on the desk doesn’t look right. Someone may have seen it there and it looked sloppy.”

"It looked sloppy but you left it there the next three days?"

"Well, you should be the one to put it away. It's your responsibility."

"Responsibility? What am I, Dad, ten?"

"Isn't leaving  a calendar out like that something a ten-year-old would do?"

Speaking of ten, that's what I counted to at that moment.

Sloppy, okay. Got it. A desk calendar with nothing secret written in it should not be left on a desk. Check.

I guess the tradition continues, my father has weird hang-ups.
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316zombie
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« Reply #131 on: February 17, 2018, 07:38:26 PM »

okay, i hope this isn't offensive,ER. but your dad reminds me a great deal of our friend fred. the man was simply brilliant.he created and ran the mainframe for USD 259 for some 30 year, until the day he died at work.
   he was an incredibly wonderful person, but too smart for the intelligence level displayed by most humans right now.as much a i loved him, i'm grateful that he chose not to procreate. his child would have been completely bonkers before the age of five, imho... i really did love him a lot, but he was my biggest puzzle in life for many years. in a sense,he still is....
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indianasmith
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« Reply #132 on: February 17, 2018, 07:46:53 PM »

Sigh . . . there is nothing more frustrating than pouring your heart and soul into a book, KNOWING that quality-wise, it's as good as anything in that genre by better known writers - and then seeing it sit on Amazon, week after week, with your sales rank down in the millions.


Except doing it four times.
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ER
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #133 on: February 17, 2018, 10:57:03 PM »

Sigh . . . there is nothing more frustrating than pouring your heart and soul into a book, KNOWING that quality-wise, it's as good as anything in that genre by better known writers - and then seeing it sit on Amazon, week after week, with your sales rank down in the millions.


Except doing it four times.

Promotion!! Promote, promote, promote. Take it to the masses. Pester CBN and TBN til they let you on just to get you out of their slicked-back hair. But not to the point they get a restraining order. No!

« Last Edit: February 18, 2018, 12:40:38 AM by ER » Logged

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ER
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #134 on: February 18, 2018, 11:01:49 AM »

I miss the golden age of first-run TV syndication, and I doubt I’m alone. There were so many good shows in my youth, and so few now. Star Trek the Next Generation, Friday the 13th the Series (not that I was allowed to watch it but I heard it was good), Babylon 5, Charles in Charge, Tales from the Darkside, Highlander (well it had its moments….) etc. etc. etc. When it comes to TV programming, progress cannot be relied upon to be constant.

But enough about staying on-topic.

Ever wake up in the pre-dawn on four hours sleep and your head hurts so badly you wonder if you’re having a stroke, and then you realize it’s probably all the drinking you did the night before, then you comprehend how wussy that makes you, since “all the drinking” consisted of three small Diet Cokes splashed with rum spread out over an entire evening that began around sunset and continued to eleven, and yet to you that equates to “all the drinking” since that’s the only alcohol you’ve touched all year?

Yeah, me either. (Ahem.)

Had a weird night that involved spouting off to a Chinese diplomat. How about that?

I did not know he was a Chinese diplomat, I figured he was a producer for the dance production we’d just watched, but, yup, he was an official from the Consulate there apparently to meet ‘n greet some local CEOs at an after-show reception, and my chosen topic was foot-binding, since some of the prepubescent-looking female dancers on that stage had feet the size of Twinkies and I was thinking foot binding must be back in fashion over there after Chairman Mao got rid of it, arguably the one and only thing that monster ever did right.

What I said must’ve been considered rude because this well-dressed Chinese gentleman gave me a frigid stare and shot back in excellent English with a snippy retort that appeared to justify foot deformation among dancers by equating it with the prevailing US-custom of male infant circumcision.

From feet to non-intact penises without candy or a second date, mister? Really? I do wear a wedding ring, you know.

If I understood him he was saying one questionable cultural custom made another all right…? My first thought was to challenge that logic by asking him if he’d jump off a bridge just because a panda jumped off a bridge, so I asked him if he’d jump off a bridge just because a panda jumped off a bridge, and the room within a few yards of us went deathly still, a Fortune 50 PR type abruptly walked between him and me, escorting him away to where the CEOs waited, and this all led to me politely but firmly getting shown the door by two usher/slash security types, but the joke was on them, the presentation we’d paid $450.00 to see was done and we were in the process of leaving anyway.

It was a great world-touring production, too. Nice paper-mache dragons, day-glo-hued costumes brighter than those worn on The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, and great gravity-defying leaps a la vintage Crouching Tiger.

I thought, though, that diplomats were supposed to be, well, diplomatic?

But my question and follow-up metaphor about a hypothetical suicidal panda deeply embarrassed the two other people with whom I’d gone to the event, they didn’t talk to me on the sidewalk to the parking garage, and that did make for an awkward ride home, me, my husband, and my friend, whose vibes as she sat in our back seat wearing a real pretty Vera Wang gown (kiss-up) were, “Gee, why didn’t I drive myself tonight?”

Right in front of her my husband began a lecture to me with, “I don’t want to fight about this…”

Rarely do such conversations then wander into unicorns and puppies who live in rainbow land, so I got told to think about if maybe, just maaaaaaybe I might be manifesting some sort of stress-induced crisis that’s been going on a few weeks now, because I am really, really having trouble with this boss of mine, as some of you know based on me mentioning him in here in connection with statements like, “Wonder how frustrating it was for James to finish college without ever having had a girlfriend.” And, “Imagine getting your dream job, like James, and having to live with the fact you didn’t get it on your own merits, but just because your father was a big contributor to both Presidential campaigns and can call in favors?”

Oh, haven’t I said those two in here before, James? My mistake.

So my husband continues on with these topics, how I been under a lot of stress, maybe it’s showing, and I went with the theme and offered, “So, maybe I’m having, like, a mid-life thingie?”

“Well, maybe,” he said.

“Like a mid-life crisis, you mean?” my friend in the back seat contributed. (Mind like a steel trap, that one.)

“Ohhh, those,” I allowed to her. “Well you don’t have to worry about yours yet, since we all know you’re going to live to be a hundred and twenty-five.”

Which is true, with her build and metabolism, that girl’s gonna see in the 22nd century.

Then to my husband I twisted the screw… “A mid-life crisis like you mean like you had, dear, when you went off your family’s radar screen for a month in California last year, after escorting your dead 1990s girlfriend’s casket there for her funeral? With our daughter, no less?”

“Uh,” he said, “yeah, exactly, but that was my mid-life crisis, growing a beard, taking Daisy to Disneyland, the beach, driving home the long way, buying us street tacos as a food source and seeing the St. Louis arch. A sweet daddy-daughter road trip she’ll always remember. Yours on the other hand seems to be you trying to get fired by taunting your boss online, knowing he’s transcribing all of it for your upcoming disciplinary hearing.”

“Pointing out that my boss kissed so many butts to get his job his nickname oughta be Cheeky Lips is not taunting him, it’s just being honest.”

“Wonder if those handling the hearing will find you as funny as you find you?”

Ouch!

“Well worse comes to worse I did once resolve to incorporate more orange into my wardrobe.”

“Yeah, El, but what about cavity searches?”

“Someone’s frisky tonight….”

At that I detected a major thousand-yard stare from my friend in the backseat, who was probably wondering if she could claw her way out of the car and summon an Uber from the dubious uptown neighborhood we were in by that time.

And for the record we were being facetious, of course, my boss obviously cannot have me put in jail, but that’s a truth rather like how “falling off a building doesn’t kill you, landing does” meaning it’s a technicality since getting fired would suck bad enough, and his bosses who will run my upcoming employment performance hearing are genuine badasses.

He went on to tell me I have never, ever, done anything in life in any way except uniquely my own, so why should me in crisis mode be anything but, um, original?

I agreed and promised to center myself and not post things like, “I wonder if Guinness knows my boss, James, holds the record for applying to the most fraternities at Brown without getting accepted into any of them?”

But, yes, headache city when I woke up this morning, and gee, wonder why? Clearly I am not among those God designed to drink.

Made it to my usual Sunday meeting place among rosary rattlers, First Sunday of Lent, very solemn, the priest wore more purple than they buried Prince in, and my friend was there, too, though that’s less impressive than my appearance since she probably got more sleep than I did, and it was really tense for a minute til I realized she was amused by me last night, mouthing off to a Chinese big-shot and getting taken to the woodshed by my spouse for turning my career into a train wreck just because I don’t like my supervisor. Which I should have expected from her, she’s mentally bouncy and cheerful in most cases, and has the attention span of a garden gnome.

So, yeah, okay, did Mass, and continuing a streak going back an amazing nineteen years, did not receive Communion yet again, just sat there all alone while everyone else in the whole entire church did, leaving them no doubt to meditatively wonder what mortal sins I was stubbornly harboring.

It was my turn to select our post-church breakfast locale, I deferred to my daughter, she picked a place she knew we all went to from time to time. As we waited at the table my daughter was planning out her Confirmation party with my friend’s mom who is sponsoring her, my friend was texting away on Facebook or wherever her ADD takes her, my godson was telling his grandfather how glad he was to be off school tomorrow for President’s Day, and hearing that my inner historian awoke and I said, “Hey, I know some trivia about Presidents.”

“Oh, yeah?” my godson’s grandfather/my number one fan said, “Tell us, Evelyn.”

“Did you know,” I said, “that three US Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jimmy Carter, have earned Nobel Prizes, and one additional President, Barack Obama, received one?”

Total silence. I think I heard  a cricket. Oh, yeah, Catholic white-collar Democrats. Boom. Joke bombed.

Finally my godson’s grandfather said, “That’s cute.”

Sigh.

Yep, awkward last twenty-four hours in the Ellieverse, and a full day still lies ahead for me to dig myself in deeper.




« Last Edit: February 18, 2018, 05:08:59 PM by ER » Logged

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