SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part VI

"Betty Lou's Got a New Pair of Shoes" by Bobby Freeman

eNOUGH! aBOUT! the SHOES!!!

LINE OF THE DAY, part XXII

From a caption on a picture in this article on Cracked's website:

A few years later, as she was trying to sell it during a garage sale, a passing art teacher walked by and told her that it looked like a Jackson Pollock, to which Horton politely responded, "Who the fuck is Jackson Pollock?"

I the fuck am Jackson Pollock

FAMILY MATTERS...

      I don't like going to see my Mom anymore. This actually isn't a new sentiment...I've felt it for several years now. I don't hate my Mom nor my stepfather nor my brother and his fiancée. I just don't feel like I belong with them anymore.

      It probably doesn't help that Mom has been living for like the past seven years now in a house I've never lived in so going home isn't going home at all. There are trinkets from our time together in places I would have called home, but it's not the same. I can't get comfortable in that house ever. I feel like I'm visiting some relative's house where you're not allowed to touch anything or the food available is stuff you never eat (in the bad way). I'm also so out of the loop in this household that I'm clearly the square peg being stuck into a round hole. I'm not like them at all. It's so much more stifling. The stuff they find funny doesn't really do it for me anymore. It's not that it isn't amusing, but it's like the difference between Louis CK (who is brutal and swears a lot) and Brian Regan (who is family friendly). They're both very good comics, but if you're of the Louis CK type, it's gonna be an uncomfortable experience and believe me, every time I do pipe in...if there is a wrong thing for me to say, I said it. Or to put it another way, imagine being the one Democrat in a house full of Republicans (or vice-versa). What's the point of offering an opinion if it is either going to be ignored or "wrong"? And then you get shit for not talking...no way to win.

      Even my cats are mostly gone. Only one remains of the three we got when I was in high school. There are two new ones now...more unfamiliarity, but they're not my cats, they're Mom and stepfather's cats. Sometime's I feel like the only reason I go to see my Mom at all is to see that cat and she's already seventeen so how much longer will that anchor remain?

       Mom already wants a Christmas list and I really don't want to provide one. I just don't want to bother anymore. I'm tired of it all. I'm tired of the chore it is to go visit. I want to just drift away from that side of the family. I'm better with my Dad's side or at least I feel more welcomed so it's not like I want to shun everyone. Mom's side is like walking on eggshells and Dad's side, if I say something stupid, I will be called out on it then and there rather than "taken aside" hours later and quietly scolded. On Mom's side, I feel like I am allowed to have my opinions provided they are the right ones. I feel like I should not speak at all when around them because offense is internalized on that side and held like a grudge. If I avoid a subject at a gathering on my Dad's side, it is out of respect because I know where everyone stands on issues and we all want to have a good time. On Mom's side, offenses are strewn about like landmines so I avoid subjects out of fear. Visiting my Mom is stressful. If I could leave her home in the same mood in which I had arrived, it would be a miracle.

      It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if I am cowardly by nature or if my upbringing is more to blame. It's probably no coincidence that my discomfort with my Mom began not too many years after moving in with my Dad. I do not hold myself blameless in these confrontations but I refuse to accept that I am totally the asshole. I do not feel comfortable around my Mom, my stepfather, and my brother and haven't for a long time. Nowhere else do I feel this. My Best Friend's grandparents made me feel more at home and theirs truly was the house where you couldn't touch anything. I am just out-of-place with them. I don't want to deal with it anymore...

IT WOULDN'T HURT IF THIS MADE SENSE...

      I got a negative shock this Thanksgiving morning before going to bed. My friend, Bronx, unceremoniously deleted me as her Facebook friend. I was hurt and still am hurt because it doesn't make any sense. We've been friends for three years. I've wanted to see her more often than the one time we actually did but always had to defer because she was always crying poverty. She had to keep putting off hanging out/visiting because she had no money. The fact that she's been unemployed for as long as I've known her and who knows how long prior (except for maybe an occasional babysitting per diem) factored heavily into this and not my reluctance to take a bus into Manhattan to meet up. Hell, I've even offered to pay for her to come down and visit me but she would always refuse to accept my money. The point of me mentioning this is because the only reason I got for her tossing me to the curb was, and I quote, "We never see each other so I thought that maaybe [sic] we should stop talking. I have been looking for work and want to make friends and not have penpals."

     I don't get it. I really don't. We used to have long phone calls together and I delighted in receiving the occasional holiday card (and me, sending her some as well). She's honestly one of my favorite people and a source of joy. I don't understand this sudden change of ideology in her. There was no warning. It's not like we fought constantly or I would sabotage her happiness or simply make excuses not to hang out. The last time I talked to her was around my birthday. My Mom and stepfather were taking me to the Bronx Zoo and I invited her to come along (a cost my mother would have borne as Bronx would have been my guest) but she declined so this isn't for want of effort on my part. It took two years to finally convince her to hang out one time in Manhattan together and here I get the impression that she feels like I've been the one to keep us from being "friends" rather than "penpals".

     I sent her a polite message asking her to reconsider her position. I have not yet heard back from her. I may never hear back from her. She'll be yet another person I have built up an extensive knowledge of that I no longer have any use for. This really does wonders for my depression. It makes me wonder why I bother getting to know people and care about what they have to tell me. It all turns to ash.

     This suddenly has me thinking of an outline for a fake religion I created for an important country on a world I made up in high school. I wrote it almost ten years ago and it's eerily analogously autobiographical. The rough theme is that the Creator starts in a void that has nothing in it. For a long time, he is happy but in boredom creates the universe. He later desires to have his creations appreciated and makes three attempts to satisfy this desire, each of which fail for different reasons. The Creator, in frustration, tries to undo creation but his creations rebel. The Creator wants everything back the way it was believing he was happier before he created anything. I'd go into detail, but it's not like I thought to have it copyrighted but I really identify with that idea. It's so dangerous to want, but nevertheless ever so tempting. My life has been only rarely happy since puberty...





      I just don't get why Bronx would do this. I want to understand but I strongly feel that I never will and for once, it's not actually my fault. This just really sucks. We don't even have any mutual friends so I have no one I can talk to about this who could talk to her on my behalf. This really...I don't...I...

ADDENDUM: May as well end on something funny, but true...

http://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMS1kZmJmZjk2ZGQ4ZWJiY2Yy

THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL...

      I had an unexpected Monday off on Thanksgiving week so I decided to take advantage of it and texted these two girls who had given me their phone numbers off Plenty of Fish and with whom I have been having texting correspondence and in one of the two cases, an actual phone call with about getting together that day so we could finally meet up and see if there might be something for us to build upon (now that is a difficult sentence!).

      I got no response from the one I've actually spoken to and two days later have still not gotten a text. The other one, the one who prefers texting, told me that while she was in fact off that day, that she just wanted a day to "relax". I wasn't asking to make a day out of it, just the old classic "meet for coffee" type thing but apparently an hour or two out of her day was asking too much. I didn't press the issue in that manner...or at all really, that negative thought was just in my head. She didn't text me yesterday either even though we had been communicating daily for a while now. Yes, I know it is near Thanksgiving and people are busy but still...this lack of "excitement" is bugging me a bit. You'd think they would want to meet and feel bad if they could not. So instead of having a full social day (and being awfully tired the next as a result), I only took out my Best Friend for her birthday.

      Like the title says, this does not bode well...and like I joked at work, the way things are going, I will be back waiting for Number Twelve to break up with her boyfriend in no time...

APOLOGY NOT ACCEPTED...

      I hate when people say, "...and I apologize if I have offended anyone with my/by my/because of/etc. (blah blah blah)." The most insincere of all apologies.
   
      This article offers a fairly recent example of this kind of false contrition. The owner of a ride featured in the Broward County Fair named his rollercoaster "The Zyklon". Anyone with even a quarter of an education should be wincing uncomfortably after having read that. And while yes, "Zyklon" means "cyclone" in German and the owner of this ride was most probably trying to associate himself with more famous rollercoasters operating under the "Cyclone" banner, a simple Google search would have put the word in historical context very quickly (though surprisingly, a Norwegian death metal band called Zyklon ranked higher in the search than the more infamous "Zyklon B"). When confronted with this fact, Mr. Zaitshik offered his version of the insincere apology, "There's actually no ill will intended to anyone of the Jewish faith, and I apologize if the name has offended anybody." (full article here)

      Now, I actually believe him: I really do. I've come across enough people wholly ignorant of things that one would think would be widely known. And while I still blame him for not doing a basic Google search beforehand, I in no way believe he was deliberately intending a Holocaust reference for his fair ride. But that's not the problem...it's the "if".

      You don't make apologies unless you've not only done something wrong and are penitent about it and you certainly don't use the word "if" when doing so. Clearly you've offended people. There's no longer any "if" about it. The use of "anybody" isn't helping either now that I think about it. It's a bit clumsy, but how about this? "I did not intend a Holocaust reference when naming my rollercoaster The Zyklon. I have been informed of and have since learned about the historical context of the word and will change the name of the ride immediately. I apologize to those whom I have offended with my ignorance."

       Even just changing the word "if" to "that" in his original apology would have made all the difference.

      That being said, I still feel genuinely bad for this company. This is a real commercial and it came out shortly before AIDS made its public debut. I wonder if they renamed or simply went out of business?

SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part V

"Come See About Me" by The Supremes

This one is a personal vendetta on MUZAK's FM-1. Although in recent years, FM-1 has stopped playing lite-FM suitable tracks from the 1960s, this was not the case in the beginning of my tenure in my place of employment. I swear EVERY night this song would play. It's a good song, but years of overplay make me never want to hear it played again. Though I will admit the intensity of this animosity has lessened, it has not returned to my good graces like "Smooth" by Santana (featuring Rob Thomas) has. Back in 1996, that song came onto the scene and was immediately a staple of several radio stations to the point of irritation. I got about a ten year break from the song and now love it again.