OXYGEN TO SILICON BABY...

      I had an idea last night and it has me excited for the first time in a while. It was one of those Dr. House moment-of-insight type moments. While at work, and slowly being overcome by my proximity to Digby, I found myself talking to another cashier who, whether serious or not, has suggested hooking me up with a girl he knows. He said though he might consider making an exception this time, that there are two girls at work whom he would consider dating though he is generally against that idea (something that I am not by the way). Turns out (and this does not surprise me) that one of those girls is Digby. I quickly mentioned that we have a mutual interest. Now I don't know if this is a "bros before hos" thing or if he was being serious, but he did boastfully say that he could bring her around and asked if I would like him to talk to her on my behalf to which I said, "Of course" and that I would owe him a favor (and that's coming from someone who despises being obligated to others) if he could manage to pull it off. This created some volatile hope within me which pulled my mood back up from falling to teetering, but it was enough.

      Then I remembered while at a barbecue last evening with friends, there was a book about the Vietnam Conflict on the table and I connected the two dots: Vietnam was basically the United States versus the Soviets with the Soviets using the Vietnamese as proxies since our two countries could not engage each other directly without serious and credible threats of nuclear war. And it occurred to me that while I enlisted the moral support of my workplace friends in my efforts with Digby, I demanded that they take no direct role as this was my job ultimately (although I think RedMom took it further, though secretly, than I would have preferred at the time). However, on the chess board of life, Digby made me a king and what sucks about that is the king may not move in such a way so as to put himself in danger. I'm not allowed to engage her directly anymore, but what if, through proxies, I could get her to put herself in a position where I would have to make a move as it would be the only option?

      In retrospect, I wonder why I didn't think of this idea before (or did I dismiss the option so soon after my infatuation blossomed that I had forgotten about it)? It's so obvious...

      Anyways, so this is where I'm at and I have already enlisted more reliable proxies than this cashier will likely turn out to be. RedMom is the primary (as she has been rooting for this along with me since the beginning) and there are several others who have a friendship with her that I can use to my advantage. RedMom has continued (much to my chagrin at the time of my fall three months ago) to talk to Digby and get to know her so I spent my time catching up on this knowledge and working out ways to exploit it. I am invigorated. I have learned that she does feel (at least a little) bad about everything and that she's actually nervous to be around me as a result (I have really been down and unresponsive to both her and pretty much everyone for a significant portion of the past 88 days) which suggests to both her and me that she must feel something for me otherwise why would it concern her at all? I harbor a lot of guilt from many (sometimes stupid) things/events over my long years but when it comes to two of the four girls who've come on to me, I do not regret the way I treated them even though I know my behavior hurt the first one was atrocious both in retrospect and at the time. So if even a modicum of guilt might be exploited to my benefit, I'm in. She also has a stressful, possibly turbulent, relationship with her father and based on descriptions from RedMom, show that I could very well be a desirable oasis if presented properly.

      So the goal now is to use my proxies to get her to both reinitiate contact with me and to take it to the next level I so far failed to accomplish for the past 3½ years (she's gonna have to ask me out this time). While RedMom et al. will be in contact with me behind the scenes, I have no intention of treating her any differently until it is time. I just hope I can pull off what I've been doing practically instinctually for the past three months since now I have some hope to prop me up.

      No surrender, no retreat! (although this time I really have no idea what I could try to do should this effort fail) I look forward to the coming days for the first time since February. I hope you guys can pull it off. As much as I hate saying it, I'm counting on you...

      And by the way, I know that this can't possibly work and that I'm pathetic but I have to try. I would not be able to forgive myself if I did not.

CATERING TO FOOLS...

      Since I'm moving, I've been busy gathering those companies I do business with and changing my addresses with them. Reasonable, no? I want the address change to take effect on June 1st. I sent in the form with post office but I have had trouble in the past with forwarding.

       The first apartment I lived in never received any forwarded mail. I guess the application got lost in the fold despite getting the confirmation letter of it. That didn't matter so much as I was leaving home so mail arriving there could be picked up at my convenience.

       When I left that apartment for the current one, again the forwarding application went through and while I did receive the occasional forwarded letter, most simply arrived at the old address. It was fortunate that my Best Friend needed to stay there an extra month or else some rather important mail would not have come my way like my IRA statements. I found out when talking to the post office (it turns out the guy I spoke to actually knew who I was through my father) that my route was staffed only by part-timers...multiple ones at that and apparently not all of them got the message to forward my mail. Mail forwarding is done at the level of the carrier who affixes that familiar yellow label on such mail. If they don't have the forwarding order, it just gets dropped off at your old address.

       So naturally, you might understand I'm a bit wary about trusting my mail to be forwarded given my past experiences so I've gotten to not only putting in the forwarding application but changing the addresses myself for those which I can think of. Now while PSE&G and Cablevision seem to grasp the concept of changing the address on the date I tell them, my credit cards don't. Each one told me that the address had been changed immediately to my chagrin. For two of them, this won't matter as my next statements will be sent after June 1st but for one of them, I had to change it right back. How aggravating.

        So much for being responsible and doing things ahead of time to assure a smooth and orderly transition. I blame all those assholes out there for doing things at the last minute or even after that point for this. I also blame capitalism for creating the kind of environment that causes businesses in their need for ever broader customer bases to accept this kind of behavior in the first place. Thanks for making the last minute the only one in which I can get things done...

ADDENDUM: After reconciling my books for the month of May, I realized that I never received my bills from Verizon and PSE&G. Last night, my cousin gave me a letter that got sent back to him with two orders on it. The first order said the Change of Address had not gone through yet and to deliver it to the old (that is, my current) address. An overlaid sticker said it was "NOT DELIVERABLE AS ADDRESSED" even though the address was correct with the additional line "UNABLE TO FORWARD". It wasn't supposed to be forwarded yet you fuckers! Now I wonder if those other two bills were returned to their respective senders. Thank goodness for online bill payments or else I'd've missed two payments so far. Three for three USPS. Three for three. At least the reasons for fucking up my mail delivery have been unique each time. Novel frustrations are considerably less boring than repeated ones.

AND THEN THERE WAS ME...

      My roommate has been sick for the past few days now. So far I have managed to not get even a sniffle yet I hear him coughing constantly in the living room while I keep myself sequestered in my bedroom because I can...because all my stuff is in here...and because it's something I'm used to doing and that is, living out of a single room. You would think, being sick and all, that he would be sleeping (or at least resting) more to help speed the recovery or, at the very least, spend his sick time in his fucking room. But no, he's out in the living room spreading his viruses about while typing away on his computer...something he is perfectly capable of doing in his own bedroom since it's a laptop and he has a desk in there...oh, but that's right, he still has a desktop computer that he NEVER uses but insists on keeping as his "porn computer". Alias TBD told me he is not using that computer for that purpose and is instead, using the laptop which means he has a desktop computer on ALL THE TIME (seriously, it's on 24/7), on his desk, in his bedroom, unused and taking up space that could be used instead for a laptop.

      My roommate has definitely got me thinking about something though... In two weeks time, I'll be living on my own for the first time in my entire life. I'll actually be able to live in more than one room. I have no idea what I am going to do with myself. I'm still awaiting keys for the apartment so I haven't been able to take accurate measurements but once I have, I will actually be planning out furniture arrangement for MORE than one room. It's unreal. My bedroom, for the first time in my life, may actually become a place that I use primarily for sleeping and my living room...a living room, seriously...this is difficult to wrap my mind around. The closest I have ever come to this was when I was living with my Best Friend and while we did fight a lot, she was much bigger on sharing living space (though not closet space) so I did move considerably more freely around that apartment than I do here.

      When I moved in with my current roommate, knowing I was getting the big bedroom, I ceded space in the living room for him to store his stuff. Unfortunately it seems he took that cession with gusto and decided to occupy the living room as a de facto bedroom much to my chagrin. I look forward to the end of this arrangement.

       A major regret I have with this arrangement is that I never got to enjoy doing only 50% of the domestic work. I went from less than 5% when living at home, to like 75% when living with my Best Friend, to 95% with my current situation. While I'm glad to know I can handle 100% of the labor, it bugs the shit out of me not to have had a proper work-sharing arrangement...ever.

       Certain things concern me living on my own. One is that I am used to being alone already (or at least being left alone) so I am selfish. Not necessarily maliciously selfish but I have become used to doing things a certain way and avoiding accepting help from others as I despise bearing feelings of obligation. At least having someone around, even if they are lazy, almost good-for-nothings, keeps me aware of the existence of others. I worry about my behaviors and tendencies becoming calcified when no one is around to make me consider otherwise. I also worry that I will quickly get used to the arrangement and though I am lonely, become even less interested in doing something about it simply because I have become comfortable with no one telling me how (or causing me to consider alternate ways) to live my life.

        But we'll see. For a short while anyway, I think I will enjoy the honeymoon of freedom that will come with my new apartment.

THE FIRST MAJOR HURDLE CLEARED?

      This Monday marked eighty-four days since Digby formally rejected me. I think I've spent between 70-80% of those days in a state of sadness. Even now, I am not so much "better" as I am neutral. But I think twelve weeks spent in a near constant state of downness have finally taken their toll and I am building at least somewhat of an immunity to her from simple exposure alone.

      I still feel upon sight, an immediate drain of will as well as a perceived loss of body heat which I associate as a sign of a coming sadness. Sadnesses are periods of low-energy and a feeling of a loss of body heat would suggest that I am slowing down. It doesn't make me cold, it just feels like the gears of my thoughts are grinding to a halt and releasing heat while doing so. However, I'm guessing this effect is weakening.

      Generally, our schedules overlap for two hours maximum so my exposure times during our shared workdays have been for that duration and when we are working, I generally see her within thirty seconds of entering the store. If my body were the White Star, she is the Walker ship of Σ957. And that would mark the start of a very down night and next few days regardless of whether she would be there the following day to refertilize the mood. She's been a corrosive acid or radioactive poison all these weeks leaving me weak, unwilling, with tunnel-vision, strongly left-eye dominant, and on auto-pilot. I can still do what I have to do, but considerably more slowly and with greater deliberateness to my actions suggesting a machine-like movement. It's like she strips the desire for me to be human from me.

       However, with the coming Memorial Day, our store is busier. I entered work on Sunday night and did not see her. This has happened before, she may have been outside on break. But I did not see her upon clocking in nor did she seem to be there at all. For a full hour...nothing. I actually let down my guard thinking I had been granted another night free from her, but it wasn't so. She would turn up suddenly to clock out for break. Turns out she had been on the floor this whole time on random tasks but it did serve as a testing opportunity.

      The mood decline began immediately like normal but the resultant mood is never immediate. It requires a build-up of toxins first. Had she been leaving for the night, I would have easily recovered in less than an hour without ever slipping into a depressed state, just the wavering state that precedes it before climbing out of it. But she came back...and was finished with the floor work, so she'd remain up front leaving me to endure her withering presence for that last hour. I started slipping...it feels like being buffeted by a strong, chilling wind leaving you with a desire to give up...I felt certain I would enter a fully depressed state, but I ultimately avoided it. After that hour, she left to go home. My exposure was half-normal. I was on my way to a depressed state, but was able to climb out of it this time. It may have been anomalous: I don't know yet. But it is, nevertheless, a good sign that I may only have another few months of this before I will be able to resist her sufficiently to scar over the wound to my heart.

LINE OF THE DAY, part XIV

      Gawker posted another article which made me mad this morning which is probably a good thing given the sheer amount of days I've been down these past ten weeks.  It was yet another instance of someone getting unfairly punished over a comment made on her own time on Facebook and who was narced on by another student's parent. The student, who was 13 (I mention that as it may be a mitigating factor), made a clearly hyperbolic statement wishing that Osama bin Laden had killed her math teacher.

       This is another instance of four things that piss me off. First of all, she made this statement on her own time, not school time, so I don't see how this is the school's business. If anything, perhaps it's time to construe these types of internet violations as something akin to illegally recording a phone call. The LoTD comment ultimately makes mention of a "reasonable expectation of privacy" and that ought to be codified in law thus making it a crime to report something seen on the internet that was not intended to be seen by you the equivalent of a warrantless search. Oh wait, that is a Federal law. It's the Fourth Amendment. What needs to be done then is to extend Fourth Amendment rights to instances like this as well. Secondly, the parent who reported this to the school violated a basic social compact by not going to that child's parents. That parent failed to respect the social chain-of-command and should be publicly shamed for doing so. Thirdly, the principal of this school failed to use discretion in this case. Suspending a student for five days over this is beyond ridiculous. The principal should have understood this to be an instance of hyperbole (because no one's ever said, "Oh God! I wish I were dead!" ever before and actually wanted it to happen. No one's ever wished death upon someone over a perceived injustice and actually wanted that to happen. Assholes...) and used it as a teachable moment for online postings that this girl be more careful in the future as it should now be plain to her that there are people out there with agendas and that you could very easily become a victim of one if you are not careful. And fourthly, can we get a fucking comedy version of the Miranda Warning please already?!

      Seriously, it is well past time that we have an actual honest-to-God Federal regulation declaring that all seemingly controversial statements must be considered acts of hyperbole, sarcasm, and/or satire until, and only unless, it can be demonstrated to be otherwise. I am fucking tired of these overreactionary shitheads (which I guess I am now one of albeit from the opposing side). The comments section in the linked article is a joy and frustration to read. There are many worthy comments to post, but I shall focus on this one by lancehubner:

She said she wished Osama "had killed" her teacher, not that he would kill her teacher from beyond the grave. She said it in private (or what she thought was private) and it's not worded as a threat--obviously a hyperbolic joke from a frustrated kid, not to mention being in the past tense.

This vice principal needs to get his head out of his ass. And the parent who reported this is a hysterical dong. 

to which iphone_myphone responded:

If its on fb, its not really private anymore. If she mentioned the teachers name, it becomes a threat.

to which lancehubner responded (and this would be the LoTD):

No, it doesn't. To be a threat you have to threaten someone.

If I write "I wish Osama had killed iphone_myphone" on a piece of paper and put it in a drawer, I didn't threaten you because I didn't say it TO YOU. If I whisper it to a friend it's still not a threat, for the same reason.

She had privacy settings on. She reasonably expected nobody to read it outside her circle of friends, and certainly not the teacher she hates. Ergo, not a threat.

Also not a threat because it doesn't say: I am going to kill you! It says: I wish a person who is now dead had already killed this guy I don't like. How is that a threat? If I say, "I wish Donald Trump had died in a hairspray accident 10 years ago," am I threatening to kill him? Ridiculous!

Just a minor point with the above comment. "Had killed" in the use described would actually be the past tense in the subjunctive mood.

IF...

If I were a month, I’d be July [life has shown me to have a strange affinity for the month]

If I were a day of the week, I’d be Saturday

If I were a time of day, I'd be twilight

If I were a planet, I’d be Mercury

If I were a sea animal, I’d be a clam

If I were a direction, I’d be left

If I were a piece of furniture, I'd be a desk

If I were a liquid, I’d be a solvent

If I were a gemstone, I’d be a ruby (total art by accident btw)

If I were a tree, I’d be a sweetgum [Google it!]

If I were a tool, I’d be a level

If I were a flower, I’d be a marigold

If I were a kind of weather, I would be a stationary front

If I were a musical instrument, I’d be a piano

If I were a color, I’d be cerulean blue

If I were an emotion, I’d be invidiousness

If I were a fruit, I’d be a clementine

If I were a sound, I’d be a whisper

If I were an element, I’d be iodine

If I were a car, I’d be a utilitarian one

If I were a food, I’d be chicken Rice-A-Roni

If I were a place, I’d be some :-P

If I were a material, I’d be a catalyst

If I were a taste, I’d be bittersweet

If I were a scent, I’d be duplicating fluid

If I were an object, I’d be a piggy bank

If I were a body part, I'd be a kneecap

If I were a facial expression, I’d be rumination

If I were a song, I’d be "Get It Right the First Time" by Billy Joel

If I were a pair of shoes, I would be sneakers

(originally posted to That Other Journal on May 17, 2011)

I ACTUALLY LIKE THIS SHIT, part XXX

"The Golden Age" by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour

This song seems like a good enough one to end this list on. I'm not retiring the IALTS theme forever, but I'm not gonna do it every week anymore as it's getting difficult to find songs now. I don't want to reach the point where I'm just phoning it in. If I encounter a new song worthy of this list, I will add it when it comes to me rather than because it's Saturday.

I leave y'all with this strange ditty. It certainly fits the criteria.

THE SECRET LIFE OF MY FACEBOOK ACCOUNT...

      Like far too many people on this planet, I have a Facebook account and like other social networking sites, an option for a status update exists. Nowadays, I try to only post updates that are unique compositions (as far as I know anyways) while avoiding overly personal content, updates giving away my current location, and pointless updates (such as what I am about to do or eat - unless I'm being sarcastic of course!). I still occasionally post quotes but will acknowledge sources where available and have moved on from posting song lyrics. However, that doesn't mean there are updates which have been passed over for one reason or another; fallen to the wayside; ones which have lost their context; ones which I couldn't quite work out; or simply were, upon further consideration, inadvisable to post (be they passive-aggressive to obvious parties or really, really depressing).

        However, that does not mean I would not like to share them as well as any reason why I passed them over (if I can recall it of course). So without further ado, here are some examples:

MOTHERS' DAY

       I don't celebrate either Mother's or Father's Day and that's not because I don't believe in the holiday or that I'm opposed to it on quasi-religious grounds or because I stand in solidarity with the holiday's creator Anna Jarvis's opposition to the holiday's commercialization or even because I am holding the holidays hostage until I am able to secure a girlfriend who can successfully guilt me into doing something about after all these years [though I will admit that would likely be a most powerful motivator]. No, it's because, quite simply, I am an asshole. I won't make excuses for it. This however, has not stopped me from thinking about how the holiday might be better (or at least more reasonably) done.

      My proposal may or may not be related to what other cultures may or may not already be doing. I don't know, I'm not researching. My proposal would also not fly commercially as it has no set nationally recognized day to give greeting card, flower, and restaurant companies a dependable single-day boost in revenue. Just as your birthday is celebrated more or less personally on the day you were actually born, a woman becomes a mother on the day her (first) child is born, thus your birthday is also a mother's day. Now what I would be proposing is more of a passing-the-torch type celebration. I figure since we legally become adults at eighteen in this country, that eighteen would also be the last year your birthday would be celebrated as your birthday. Now that you are an adult, you would, for the rest of her life, honor your mother on your birthday, her mother's day, instead. Just as children grow out of Santa Claus, so to would you outgrow your parents' recognition of your birthday. The day could be celebrated more-or-less as it is now or more preferably, customized to her situation ultimately reflecting gratitude for the life you have both received and have had nurtured throughout childhood.

       If you are an only child, you would honor Father's Day on the same day. A Parents' Day if you will. Otherwise, I would think Father's Day would be the obligation of the second child (on that child's birthday despite the fact he became a father upon the birth of the first child). I say this because I can't help but feel this holiday as naturally matriarchal much like the word "widow" is naturally feminine (in that it requires an ending to make it masculine [widower] whereas other nouns [at least in languages which reflect gender more readily] take endings to make them feminine [actor : actress // der Freund : die Freundin // le voisin : la voisine].) leaving Father's Day to be naturally secondary in importance despite the far more typical patriarchal setup with regards to the ruling classes. Subsequent children would be absolved of these duties and instead take upon these roles should their elder brethren die, are no longer capable of performing their duty, or could instead be given the more general "Parents' Day" obligation. I personally favor absolution though as large families might make multiple yearly celebrations look tacky/excessive from a neighbor's perspective though I would totally expect the tradition to be inherited as already described.

      If there are other cultures which already do anything resembling what I've already described, then great, I would then feel justified in bearing such thoughts. Otherwise this way of doing things seems more logical to me. I tend to feel it proper to keep what amounts to personal celebrations personal. I can see how the guilt in opposing this holiday can come about. It's far too easy to be accused of hating mothers making it impossible to oppose such a holiday on principle. So we're stuck with it even though I think most people would find it odd if we chose not to celebrate individual birthdays but rather celebrated everybody's birthday on an assigned day each year.

      I could go on if I were both not really hungry right now and had actually made notes before typing but I won't, opting instead to end this mild rant here...

I ACTUALLY LIKE THIS SHIT, part XXIX

"Whole New You" by Shawn Colvin

I'm starting to think it's time to upload songs to my YouTube account. I'm having trouble finding some of these now. But I'm not sure if I want to do so openly like SQUEEZE - "DR. JAZZ" or make a code out of it like COMPRESS - "DIXIELAND PHYSICIAN" though that seems like a lot of work despite the enjoyment that might come from people doing legitimate searches for such things stumbling on to my waste-of-time videos. Or I could just make part XXX the last entry of this series and move on to another one. We'll see.

LINE OF THE DAY, part XIII

      In one of another of Cracked's sad-but-true articles, we got comments like the following:

from TerroristCakes:

I turn good men into jerks. First, I lure them into my lair with stories of how I like to take it in the shower. Then I have sex with them under the condition that they take me to the zoo and hold my hand. Before they have a chance to walk away, I look at them with my sad, sad eyes. Because they think I'm frail, they stumble around for a few months pretending to love me and hating themselves, until they're filthy with lies. And when they leave me, I look right into their souls to make sure every action they perform in the future is steeped in regret. When I have shattered their morality, I masturbate alone and either laugh or cry, depending on the background music.

from SeanLuke88:

[T]he Game has only one rule.

If you're aware of the Game, you lose.

from GregNieto:

Just for the record, both men and women are "attracted" to being treated like shit. If someone's nice and accepting, we have no reason to try to gain their approval so we can kind of ignore them. Seriously, men date bitchy women pretty fuckin' often too. How many men don't have one psycho ex that they inexplicably dated for a long time?

We all try to get approval from people who treat us like shit. It's fucking stupid, but it's not exclusive to women.

to which sparta98 replied:

I think the main difference is that you'll never hear anyone say "there are no nice girls". I get a bit defensive sometimes because some girls act like all guys are horrible. All the nice guys are exactly where you left them: The friend zone.

to which GregNieto responded:

Yeah, that's the truth. I mean, I have heard this complaint from guys, but it seems like a lot more women are completely fucking retarded when it comes to thinking there's no nice guys. They should really start saying "there are no nice guys that I'm willing to date."

Nah. That sounds too self-aware. Nobody wants to KNOW that they're chasing douchebags.

from cmchristou:

Ohhh... Hot girls don't like jerks. They just don't like you (or me, evidently).

to which ajmidget replied:

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner! Congratulations to cmchristou for the correct answer.

That seems a good enough one to end on :-)