Invisibility has its drawbacks

Three seemingly-unrelated things happened this week:

• The pastor of my parents’ church found out (from my parents) I’m leaving in June. When I ran into him this week, he said “Come by my office before you leave [Name of Church] for Ghana.”
• I got a bill from Auburn University. For $0.00.
• I got an email from my old work supervisor - a generic “timesheets are due” reminder.

I haven’t worked that job for almost three months. I graduated from Auburn in December. I haven’t attended my parents’ church in over three years. What the heck, people.

People are nice

I had text messages at 7am Friday — before I was even awake to shower before the surgery. Since then, I’ve had lots of people send warm fuzzies, happy thoughts, and healing prayers on my behalf. So… thanks, people. I appreciate it a lot.

In return, I offer this really sweet picture. Not Safe For Lunch; there’s even some blood in it — but I find it incredibly awesome, because even though I Hate Hospitals©, I find the magic of medical science very cool. When I joked around telling people “they cut my thumb off and pinned it back on” — I wasn’t exaggerating THAT much!
(I’ll be nice and not inline the image; click to view.)
The stylish turquoise bead is screwed onto the end of a pin which extends about 3″ through the joint. The nurse who changed my cast just looked at me weird when I asked if they came in other colors. Oh well.

Practiced at the art of deception

An infinite number of conundrums continue their approach, the good and the bad coming in together.

On the good hand is the fact that unimportant mountains made of insignificant molehills have begun to lose size. Problems that never truly were make their return towards slightly more managable proportions. The bastard child of hindsight and retrospect laughs in your face.

And on the bad hand is the hurt, the pain, the bleeding that no one sees. I don’t want to hear your daggers, to know your words. I don’t want to fall into the nothingness of existence that shoves itself forward to guard against your intrusion. I don’t want to be called names and given labels, to hear the ones I love doing the same to others I love. If I can’t talk then they use needles to bleed the words out, but what they can’t see is that the words aren’t there to begin with. Their lights are too bright to see through the darkness and their words are too sharp to love.

I want to buy an island to avoid the world, to live life without interacting with it. I want to run forever while never moving again. I want to tell you everything and not utter a sound.

But what I want is rarely what I am told I need.

Existence != right to procreation: Discuss.

[The following paragraphs were incredibly cathartic at this moment. Likewise, feel free to pay absolutely no attention.]

Essentially, fekking idjits should be barred from loosing their mentally defective DNA upon this planet. The end.

By the way, if you haven’t read here long - or haven’t noticed the few dozen related facebook status updates over time - or need a reminder: I have a huge problem with idiots. Of the ones I’ve been priviledged enough to encounter this week: I have a problem with the outsourced ones who ineptly man “customer service” lines. With the skeezy ones who blatantly lie to generate sales. With the apathetic ones who refuse to learn basic driving skills. With the myriad ones on campus, both sitting in classrooms and standing at whiteboards. And most certainly with the ignorant ones who can’t even make a decent cup of coffee… and then charge you $4 it.

Oh my good holy mother of pearl. I am by no means among the smartest, and have more blonde moments than many - but I generally tender a healthy sense of At-Least-I-Am-Not-An-Idiot self-righteousness. Honestly, people: how difficult is it to at least make some effort towards coherency, logic, and general cognitive ability?

I am so proud.

Those of you that pray… it has been, and will be, appreciated.

The Idiocy of Clocks

I hereby swear that linear time has warped, because otherwise my weeks vs. weekends ratio would be properly proportioned. As it is, I think I’m getting about 3 and a half days’-worth out of the weekends, and 2 really long days out of the weeks… “really long” because, regardless of the fact that they are passing too quickly, they’re overfull of regular work-to-do shite. The weekends have been nice, but the weeks don’t give enough time to get anything done.

As far as this past weekend, though: You all are utterly, completely, awesome. I was happy to see those I did, and almost-but-not-quite-as-happy to talk to the rest.

Shameless plug for something completely unrelated: horror.fest - any local folk out there who plan on going? Yeah, ok, I know, but I had to ask.

Stalkerbook, rehashed

Ok, here we go: I freely admit, I spend more than a passing few minutes per day on Facebook. I joined the network for South the week it opened; since multi-networking was allowed I have both USA and Auburn, along with an international network thrown in. So yeah, I’m probably biased, or at the very least well along the road to happy-go-lucky indoctrination. I don’t care. It’s useful, it can be damned convenient locally, it’s an intriguing social-experiment-in-progress, and yes - it’s kind of fun too.

…but anyhow. I logged in this morning around 7:20 (no hardcore sign of addiction, incidently: I was early to an 8am class and had nothing better to do), and discovered: Stalkerbook 1.0, brand shiny new.

Or at least, that’s what everyone seems to be calling it (well, that, along with more colourful variations thereupon - you get the idea). I eavesdropped (shamelessly) upon not one, not three, but four conversations in hallways today — all related to “ohmigod, did you see what happened? It’s totally stalker now. I’m never getting on again!” Apparently, Facebook and the game this past weekend constitute the entirety of this campus’s conversational material.

So for those of you not ‘facebooked’, or otherwise out of the loop: read. Essentially, the Powers That Be have started implementing the inevitable, and they’re calling it all “News Feeds”. If your ex goes from being “in a relationship” to “single”, you now find out immediately — no more checking her profile whilst clinging vainly to hope five times a day. The next time your classmate updates something, you get more than a “Yo Mama has Updated In the Last Hour” message — it actually says, [gasp]: “Yo Mama has Updated her Class Schedule in the Last Hour”.

According to the voices I hear and the words I read today, the majority of folks seem to think this is a BAD BAD THING. Because first of all, it “enables stalking”. Um, so sorry. This information is already there, just slightly buried. If you don’t want your girlfriend to notice you posted 5 times to her best friend’s wall last night — methinks you have a slightly bigger problem. Second, albeit bringing up a distant rear: people are upset that feed details coming from “friends I’m not really friends with” will eclipse the more-important feeds. So, um, explain to me why you have those friends-but-not-really padding out your pseudo-myspace-buddy list in the first place? Ok, we know, it just looks so bloody cool to have xxx many friends. News: Prince William you ain’t.

Essentially, after the API was released, and all the controls for (much of) this data was released in the first place — it was only a matter of time before something like this was jury-rigged. This way, stalkers enquiring minds like myself are happy, and The Powers That Be control the “feeds”, and not some freelancing third party.

And dudes. You’re worried about stalking? You signed up for a social networking website. You willingly input information. If this is still a problem: try logging the hell off.

Preoccupation

Many a distraction on the brain of late: not the least of which is that shiny new heroin addiction (not to be confused with the decrepit, ancient, crack addiction…) — thanks again to Shanon. Or no thanks to him, I’m not sure which: it’s one of those love-hate things. In either case, most of my recent non-working moments have been consumed thusly.

Speaking of work: long afternoons with no customers does not a sane mind make, apparently. Small snippets overheard become the funniest lines evar. Two stereotypical frat boys came in the other day, and were discussing their female acquaintances:
“See man, girls are like music albums. See, Amy is like the new Death Cab for Cutie album: you wanna listen to it all the freakin’ time, and you have a copy in your car, and everything’s cool — until the next album. Natalie, though, she’s like classic Zeppelin. You keep it around because — I mean, who wouldn’t?! And sure, you might have it in your car, and listen to it once in a while, but not every time you drive. But you don’t just throw it away. That’s just wrong.”
I swear. I wiped down the adjacent tables many a time just to hear the end of it… I mean come on. That was great. It’s like Collegiate Zen of Disposable Relationships.

Oh, and on the list of Fun Things Overheard/Seen at Work: the TV in the corner is perpetually tuned to either ESPN or Fox News: hooray for Sara. Blargh. This week has been a high-ranking news week, apparently, or else a low-ranking sports week — in either case, I actually know what’s going on in the world (relatively). However… even the newsfolk get bored in the afternoons. A full 20 minutes the other day was devoted to the following headline — in bold, capital letters:
Does Hollywood Treat Albinos Worse Than Conservatives?
Ok. What. The. Fuck. Ye Olde Coworker and I had a serious Twilight Zone moment when we saw that: we gawped for a full minute or two going “are you seeing this?… yes, it really says that.” It wasn’t merely a scrolling headline in passing either; oh no, they had multiple interviews, expert commentary, and video clips. It was a full piece. My question: is it asking whether Hollywood treats the folk in question worse than it treats Conservatives, or else whether Hollywood treats albinos worse than Conservatives do? Because the latter is totally the more entertaining of the two. Score points for EVAL CONSERVATIVE VENDETTAS against the pigmentally challenged.

Anyhow. In other news: Auburn Spring Break is good news for those of us who work in campus-oriented shops: I get most of the week off, because the damn place is actually closing for break. W00t.

So, obviously, I’m headed South. Happily. Yes, I fully realize most of the past few entries have basically documented these quasi-bimonthly trips. See this face?
>_>
It doesn’t care.

But it is content: and for that, grateful.

[home]

Hey, yo: Nifty things happen when you leave off checking the usual websites for a couple days. Like, um, new combo tour dates are announced by various rock gods, and so on. In B’ham and ATL, no less.
YE GODS OMGWTFBBQ (etc etc).

Item the first: I totally need my beloved CDs to pack up their decrepit belongings, sign over their keys to the shed, and move the hell back to my car. It’s very lonely in there without them. Blargh.

Item the second: “Spring Break”, such as it was, was nice. I slept way too much. Among other things. Also took a smattering of pseudoannoying photos to flickrize sometime…eventually. Also: Sushi was involved. I think. And horrifically awesome movies. And Best Buy (dur).

Item the third: Ah, so. Item the Third. Whad’ya know, Jack? Life is damn good.

Vacation

I typed something rambling out; it wasn’t worth posting.

Suffice to say:

…On: I love my Guys. I had a wonderful vacation. Pancakes and Best Buy and People: oh my. Also, random nappage and new shinies and spoony bards. YAY.

…Off: It took slightly less than 23 minutes to be forced back behind the door-locked, headphone-wearing, kleenex-weilding, disgustingly drooly-eyed shell of attempted ignorance.

At least I have new crack House to keep me company.

Druuuuugs.