It's been a while .....

So, these past two weeks have been as close to insanity as I could possibly get. And most of it didn't even really have to do much with me. I've been bombarded with insensitivity, frustration, happiness, frivolity, fear, anger, douchebaggery ... you name it. If there's an emotion, I've either felt it or have been around someone with it. I'll just give you a basic rundown, because there's honestly enough crap going on that I could write an entire novel and still keep you interested... maybe.

First of all, if I haven't mentioned it before, one of my oldest friend's is getting married in about a week or so. I'm not in the wedding (thank God - no offense, friend, to you ... you've been the least bridezilla-y person on the face of the planet and I couldn't be happier for you), but it's literally around the corner and I have yet to buy a present. To be fair, this is my fault, but damn it, I'm poor. And then, a few days ago, another friend of mine announced to the world via Facebook that she's engaged (and getting hitched in about two months) to a guy she's known for, I don't know, six months. And everyone else in my life seems to be poised for proposal or actual vows. Ugh.

Secondly, and kind of humorously juxtaposed with the previous paragraph, many relationships have ended, either extremely well (as with me) or very poorly. For me, it took me exactly two seconds to move on. (Okay, explanation here. This wasn't really a relationship, per se, but a possible one. Then I found out via a slip on his part that, whilst discussing, with a fair amount of detail, I might add, a thing with me, he was still dating his girlfriend of three years or whatever. This constitutes as cheating, folks. I don't care if there was nothing actually done; the thought is what counts.) It was like, "Aw, I kind of liked him. Oh, well." For others, it was devastating. I've been there, so naturally, it's in my blood to console. There's only so much I can do, so I provided a care package: tissues, jewelry, chocolate and a puzzle book.

Then there's work. Oh, holy Jesus, why must it be so hard to deal with morons? Not everyone in my training class is bad. On the contrary, I like most of the people in there. But there's two (well, actually, just one now, although number two, who I've called Douche Turd in the past - we'll stick with that, only he's more Douche Turd Lite now - and I basically got over our differences) that continue to grate on my nerves. Not only are we stuck going over the same shit that we've gone over a million times, but we're not advancing onto the next phase: Medicaid. We'll be here damned near Christmas if we don't pick up on the learning. If I'm still in training by then, there may actually be fist-to-face action. Watch out, Snobby Sue. Watch out.

I'm also behind on my writing and artwork. If you read my writing blog (http://amillionmoretogo.blogspot.com), I had promised I would have part one to my first story up. Well, I didn't do it for reasons I'll explain in that blog, which has just added all sorts of frustration. It's like a whole other freaking job.

And in the same vein, I feel 100%, totally inadequate when it comes to my stuff. I've been reading up on people with similar styles and looking at professional artists, and they present their work with such pizazz, such finesse, that I just want to put down my pen/pencil with a resounding, "Fuck it." I know they've had years of experience, but for the love of God, will I ever be able to make it in such a challenging and competitive field? It's the exact reason I've been so hesitant to publish any of my stuff. Comparatively, I suck. Big time suckie.

Enough of the whining, though. I'm refocusing. I'm gonna watch my Fresh Ink podcast, get a little inspiration and probably go to bed. Actually, probably not. I have a rewrite to do.

And with that completely nonsensical entry, my friends, I bid you, adieu.

My Life, According to a Paparrazo

Juniper Trela was most recently seen at the recycling drop off approximately 2 miles from her home, dressed like she always is in jeans, a tank top and a pair of well-worn, outdated flip flops. Apparently, she's taking the recycling thing a little too far!

A source very close to Juniper says, "Jun Jun's involvement with recycling things is really just a way to keep her mind off the fact that she's single. She really wants a boyfriend!"

As most of her fans know, her break up last year with an as-'til-then anonymous chef, Luke Meinert, was a public spectacle. Everyone was waiting for her to go on suicide watch, as she was frequently in the same outfit two days in a row and had taken to eating nearly an entire bag of Tostitos with salsa in one sitting.

Another source who has been friends with Juniper since before she became a household name says, "That was a really hard time for her. Even her super successful career couldn't keep her happy. It's like she just stopped having a reason to live, but luckily, she received a lot of help for that and all of us were there for her."

But there might be good news on the horizon for our favorite sci-fi/fantasy writer. Last week, she was spotted chatting it up with an unidentified man in a Nashville convenience store. The two seemed very friendly and might have possibly exchanged numbers. Now, if we can only get her out of that outfit!

Ugh.

I recently overheard a conversation about boob size. Well, by overheard, I mean read, and by conversation, I mean Facebook status plus its comments.

It basically went like this:

Girl 1: Women get their confidence from their boob size.
Girl 2: I completely agree!!! :)!!!!!
Girl 3: It's because of the men. All men like big breasts.

Um ....... okay.

I, for one, get my confidence from my intelligence and snappy wit. And if I were to rest my opinion of myself on various parts of my body, this would just be sad. I have tiny boobs. My legs are long but nothing to write home about, and my ass is not something I like to flaunt too much. I have nowhere near washboard abs, and my arms have little if any tone to them. The only features I can really be "proud" of are my lips and my eyes; I will not have to worry about Botox later in life, and I have blue cat-like eyes. And yet, I manage to leave my house every day without feeling like I have to boost these physical areas. Sure, I work out and I love running; but it isn't my main focus.

As I've said before, I loathe generalizations. Why? Because more often than not, it doesn't apply in such a grand scale. "All men like big breasts." Ha. If I took a poll of my guy friends, I can almost guarantee you that this will not be the consensus. In fact, most of them would say, "More than a handful (or depending on the couth-ness rating, a "mouthful" might apply here instead) is just a waste." Now, this is not to say that there aren't men out there who get turned on by big breasts. The porn industry would not be where it is today if this were not so. It's like saying that all men want a woman who looks like Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie (*gasp* They are in the same sentence!!! Certainly there will be a brawl!). Sure, both are beautiful women, and most men will attest to this. But I know of some guys that are kind of meh towards both.

It's starting to look like all the phobias women have with their bodies are perpetuated by themselves. This isn't a novel idea, of course, but it's becoming very apparent to me, as of late. We have all of this media coverage, various beauty products, the latest styles, fad diets, etc., that just manage to keep us thinking that we're somewhere below par. That is the main reason I changed my major from marketing. The more I studied the concepts, the more I disagreed with basically convincing people that their lives weren't what they could be without such-and-such product. Blech. And while they don't just focus on women, it does seem that many companies do target them.

But then it gets this idea in our heads that we need to get the newest look from the runways (which, to me, always look horrendous - if you can muster the strength, just look at an Elle magazine fashion spread. Can I just say, "YUCK.") or try the anti-aging cream at age 28.

And from what I have heard, which is not to say it's entirely representative, many guys just sit there, scratching their heads. "You looked fine before this. What did you do this for? Me? I liked you the way you were." It's why I hate those commercials about the woman using this cream that shed 10 years off or whatever, and her husband said that he was more attracted to her now. Thanks, advertising assholes.

So here's an idea. How about getting your confidence from something other than your boobs? Your eyes? Your hair? If you died, do you want somebody to say, "She had really amazingly large breasts" or "She had an amazingly large heart?"

I'll take the latter, thanks.

"My accent is ALWAYS on value."

Genesis Diamonds commercials seem to come up every time there's a run of ads, at least when you're listening to the radio (see my previous post on this). They aren't nearly as annoying as the Shane Company ones that basically make it sound like the purchase of jewelry is the most important thing EVAR. But they do paint themselves as the mavericks of the jewelry business.

For those of you who don't live in Nashville, Genesis Diamonds prides itself on being the official jewelry store of the Tennessee Titans. Now, I'm not sure exactly how this came to be, as the Titans are a football team, but maybe all the players buy little sparkly gifts for their wives after they have an affair or get drunk and do something stupid. Or maybe they make rings for them. I honestly haven't wasted too much brain power on this because, well, I don't care.

Right now, they have this manager whose name fails me narrating the commercials. He makes a point that he used to manage a chain jewelry store but he felt guilty trying to convince people to buy stuff. And he says that Genesis Diamonds is, like, totally awesome because they sell totally high-quality pieces at totally low prices! "The other stores price this blah-blah-blah-E2-clarity-blah-blah diamond ring at $5200, but we have it listed for $3000!" Whatever, it's still more than free, which is what I'm all about.

I guess the kicker is when the owner of Genesis Diamonds, Boaz Ramone, says the title of this post. "My accent is always on value." Don't you see, guys? He's playing on the fact that he's foreign! And that no one understands him because of his crazy, foreign person accent! But don't focus on that! Focus on the pricing! And the value! Blech.

I'm sure the economy has caused jewelry stores quite a downturn. But I just don't have much sympathy for them. They're just pandering to the people who think buying shinies for their significant others will completely take out the need to actually say, "I love you," or do anything that requires thought. Hell, if you're going to buy me a freaking tennis bracelet, costing about $1000, just give me the cash and I'll do something better with it ... like paying of my student loan. Nothing says I love you like no debt.

Anyway, I'll leave you with this from last year's Christmas season because Sarah Haskins is composed of pure awesome:

They Shoot Overly-Critical Grammarians, Don't They?

Anyone who knows me even in a moderate sense knows that I am a grammar Nazi. Some of my professors at college would actually have me read papers to catch any mistakes they might have missed. I hate it when someone says, "Where're you at?" because prepositions don't go at the end of sentences. (I can be guilty of this, but I usually catch and correct myself.)

But my tyrant-like behavior in this respect doesn't just apply to the construction of sentences. Oh, no. It carries over into pretty much every part of language.

First, there is a way to pronounce things. It's spelled a certain way. I mean, sure, if you want to say toh-mah-toh instead of toh-may-toh, that's fine.

There are the tried and true "nuclear" (not nucular) and larynx (not larnyx). Those get me every time. Then there's "ask." I'm not going to axe one, because a question isn't a log or a job position. No r's exist in wash or question, and "r" is pronounced "are," not "arrah."

I know, I know. It's cultural. My trainer at work is from West Tennessee, where Memphis is called "Meh-phis," and she frequently asked querstions. I overlooked that because she was awesome (and actually found her mispronunciation of basic words rather endearing), but if anyone else had spoken that way, I would have wanted to commit some grammatically-induced homicide. Luckily for Douche Turd (from a previous post), he speaks correctly ... well, at least when he's not mumble-rambling.

Another irritation for me is when someone uses a phrase like "desert island." Now, I understand that this person is talking about a location that is isolated and uninhabited, so I suppose the actual communication isn't disrupted. But it's a deserted island. Because there's nobody else on it, unless you're a cast member of "Lost." And then you're just screwed, at least as far as I know because I've never actually watched the show.

This kind of thing gets me in trouble because, one, most people don't like to be corrected, and two, it distracts me from concentrating on the conversation because I'm focusing on the infraction. It's like Dane Cook's disgust with girls who exaggerate too much.

"... When you tell me a story, I really listen. I listen, and I don't just listen, I listen ... See, my brain is so fantastical that when you start to exaggerate, I don't follow the story. I follow the exaggeration. And it gets me frustrated, because she would be like ... 'I got off from here, I took a hundred hour nap.' No, you did not. You'd be very sick if you were taking hundred hour naps. That's a coma."

And that's basically how I am, only with grammar and pronunciation. I wouldn't say my brain is fantastical or anything because that would be rather pretentious. And we have enough of that already, and I think the majority of them live in the Hillsboro Village area of Nashville.

Crappiness and stupidity killed the radio stars.

When you drive to and from work for nearly two hours a day, you can only talk to yourself for so long before you start questioning your sanity. For those lucky people out there with iPod inputs, readily available CDs or commercial-free radio, congrats, but I don't have any of those. (PS I hate being poor.) I'm fairly sure it's illegal to wear headphones blasting in your ears while driving, and it would be an epic event to even try to locate my CDs since most of my stuff is still in storage and hour and a half away. And where they are? Yeah, I have no idea. I also don't make enough to afford satellite radio, so I'm at the mercy of the public radio gods.

Unfortunately, they suck, no matter what the "Radio is awesome!" ads I hear 47 times a day say. I'll occasionally tune in to Free Beer and Hot Wings on 102.9 The Buzz in the mornnig, mainly for the "What Hot Wings Thinks" segment (he basically chooses a topic and goes on a tirade), although NPR is usually my default station, so I can stay somewhat on top of things. My main problem is with the morning/afternoon/evening shows and their little DJs. They are all horrible. It's like all the rejected (and maybe even some accepted) comedians from SNL write all the material, and since there aren't any faces associated with the broadcast, they rest easy in their one-bedroom apartments covered in Cheetos (Cheetohs? Cheetoz? I have not a clue as to the spelling.) and beer cans.

Nothing of interest was on NPR this morning because they were going on about how Ted Kennedy died, so I was forced to go to the pop channels. Free Beer and Hot Wings just wasn't appealing, so I ended up having to listen to "Gender Wars" on 107.5 The River. First of all, the contestants were dumb. Or they lived under a rock, I'm not quite sure. The guy, who I'm assuming was around my age or younger, won by default and he was awarded with ... drumroll please ... Thomas the Train tickets.

I wonder if anyone has ever declined a prize on one of those radio game shows. If not, this was probably the first one.

And then the sketches. Oh, the sketches. Following that root canal of a game, they documented a video that proved Michael Jackson faked his own death. How they managed to stretch this over five minutes should have been a feat in and of itself - "Everything on the internet is true because they check everythig. So Michael Jackson is still alive, living with Elvis and all the other famous people who died when they were at the top of their popularity. You have to believe it because it's on the internet, and everything on the internet is true because they ....." - but I guess what's sad is that Woody, Jim and the other people in the studio were acting like they thought it was just hilarious. Maybe they were just working on an Oscar nomination. Sure. We'll go with that.

Luckily, I arrived at work before they started on something else, but it got me wondering about the slow decay of radio quality. It's like newspapers and reality TV; it just keeps getting worse. I wouldn't be surprised if they brought on Andrew Clay (you know, the only comedian that has been banned by MTV, although that's not really so much of a punishment nowadays) to boost some ratings. Blech, no, thank you.

I've decided that I'm going to ride in silence from now on. Or maybe just break the law and listen to my iPod. What can I say? I like to live dangerously.

Honestly, Pure Randomness ...

I have just been klutzerrific for the past two days. I hit my head twice on one of my car doors, and one left my ears ringing for a good two hours afterward. Now, I have a nice knot on the top of my left temple. Nearly everything that has come into my hands has been dropped, including a glass which shattered in a nearly poetic manner on the black and white checkered floor of the breakroom in the Davidson county DHS office (Human Services, not Homeland Security, FYI). I tripped over my dog this morning, which to be fair, was as much her fault as it was mine ... only she didn't fall flat on her face. Not that it could get much flatter, anyway.

I blame it on hormones.

Which brings me to yet ANOTHER complaint. My body hears vacation, and it automatically thinks, "PERIOD TIME!!!" I'm not even going anywhere. But friends of mine are, and they talk about it constantly. So naturally, the premenstrual cramps start up.

And then I get cranky. And clumsy. And bloated. All around, I'm a pretty unhappy person for about a week. Stupid womanhood.

In other news, it is bad when your tire is separating and it shows the metal interior. It is doubly bad when two of your tires are in this condition. It's thrice crappy when an additional tire is bald. Even though you try ridiculously hard to explain to the mechanic/tire putter-onner that you are NOT a complete imbecile and that you do know at least enough about cars to get you by, he stares at you with this, "Ha, typical girl, I wonder if she lets her oil run dry, too" expression on his face, while he's smiling and being polite. Ass.

Also, I want to play Gears of War. Or hell, something with a little violence. At least then I can pretend I'm a man that knows about vehicles, doesn't fall down because there's a virtual barrier, doesn't have a period and can get away with being cranky.

Ugh. I want a plum. Or maybe some grape tomatoes. Yum, that sounds good.