Stoicstella

I have been waiting ever so patiently. It is Supposed to air tonight on BBC One, so I hear. It is not supposed to be released until December 19th in America. All eyes on the interwebZ.

{ETA}
it is slowly showing up on youtube piece by piece. hee!

-Stuff

I am on schedule! By the end of the weekend, I should have hit the half-way point!

I just remembered I wrote this, thought I would repost it for everyone's NanoWriMo delight.

( Quoth the Bunny, )

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22 more days
I don't want to talk about how many more words.
-stuff

I decided this year to give up on the planning angle and to completely wing it. so...I don't really have an answer when people say: "So what is your novel about?" But I am enjoying myself, fiddling around with my writing and doing things I don't usually do stylistically (some of which for good reasons). I am writing in the first person. I am writing in various tenses. I am throwing in tons of characters. I am forcing them to be extremely dysfunctional. I'm having a good time.

( Small excerpt )
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Happy writing,
-Stuff

I attended a rally in the park today. What I think of when I hear the word rally is anger. I think of people so moved by emotion they have no choice but to respond loudly. What I saw was people so hopeless and resigned that they barely had a voice. I saw tears, I saw real fear and anxiety, but no ideas, no plans, and no hope.

I think the real possibility that I may not have a job in a few months is starting to sink in.

-Stuff

When I read comments on some talented, charismatic gay man's video or song that say: "pity he's gay." I know it's meant as a compliment, the same way: "She's hot, it's a shame she's married!" is meant to be. But personally I think both are awful things to say.

Might as well say: "pity he's famous and successful. I'd have a much better chance at him if he were that smelly alcoholic guy from down the block."

Anyway girls, I'm sure his sexual orientation is the only thing stopping you from having... whomever. Really.

And for the record; the thought: "It's a pity he's gay," never crosses my mind. If I find out an actor or singer is gay, I think, "Fantastic, he's gay," or "Brilliant, he's gay!"

In fact that was probably why I was looking him up in the first place. heh.

-Stuff
In other words,fangirls: You can seriously stop wishing heterosexuality on John Barrowman, it's just rude. LOL

The Gunslinger born came in the mail on Friday. It is fantastic.
that is all.

-Stuff

I brought my acoustic guitar out of storage with the thought that I could tune it and remember the basic chords that the strangely drag-queen-ish music teacher once showed me way back in my junior high days.

The first thing I remembered is that I am completely tone deaf, or as a different music teacher once described it "tone retarded," and I had never been able to tune my guitar by ear. I own a device that can assist me, but it would need batteries and of course it is the wee hours of the morning at this point... because all the best ideas come in the wee hours of the morning.

The next thing I remembered was how difficult I always found it to play the guitar in the first place. Even before that wonderful game "Guitar Hero" came out and I realized my carpal tunnel had progressed to a point that it was painful to hold my hands in that position for even a few moments, I had these stubby little fingers, clumsy and far too fat at the tips for proper fret work. I remember playing twinkle, twinkle little star, and imagining sweat pooling on my brow with just the pressure and exertion of stretching fingers to the proper position and of holding them there.

The guitar is foreign to me. Completely so.

I have never really made music with any instrument, never really made music at all. I think that is a shame.

Mayhap it is something I will find the energy or the will to change. But probably not. In my experience the desire to do things new or differently gets smaller as you grow older not the other way around. Or perhaps I am just being fatalistic.

Either way I don't much like looking at this guitar anymore and I think I will tuck it into the back of the closet again for the time being, and try not to think about the fact that needing a wrist brace to count change or write with a pen at 24 can't mean anything good for the future of my dexterity...

Put some ice on my aches and go to bed.
-Stuff

Arrow Chemical Products Inc. produces a fantastical cleaner/disinfectant called SuperCide.

Straight from the horse's Mouth:

SuperCide
Cleaner, disinfectant, detergent,
deodorizer, virucide and fungicide.
SuperCide is a phosphate & fragrance
free formulation designed to provide
effective cleaning, disinfection and
deodorizing specifically for hospitals,
nursing homes, schools, food processing
plants, food service establishments,
lodging facilities, etc. It’s effective
against many organisms including:
pseudomonas, salmonella, streptococcus
and viruses such as influenza, hepatitis
B and C, HIV, and much more. Efficacy
tests have demonstrated that SuperCide
is an effective bactericide, fungicide, and
virucide, and meets all requirements
for hospital use. EPA Registered.
Dilution – 64:1.
#444

It actually says KILLS HIV AND HERPES in big letters on the bottle. I know this, because we clean with it at work. I was reading their Material Safety Data sheet (found in it's entirety Here) and finding some fun facts about our cleaner.

Fact Number One:
{it is} CORROSIVE. Causes irreversible eye damage and skin burns. Do not get in eyes, on skin or on clothing. Wear goggles or face shield, rubber gloves, and protective clothing.

Fact Number Two:
{We should} not reuse empty container. Triple rinse empty container with water. Plastic containers may be disposed of in a sanitary landfill

Fact Number Three:
This pesticide is toxic to fish. Do not discharge effluent containing this product to sewer systems without previously notifying the local sewage treatment plant authority.

---

I think what I like best is that the catalog recommends it for cleaning your toilet bowl than in a second statement issues a warning about emptying the product into the sewers. I think that is dandy. I swear you can't make this shit up.

It didn't do anything for me at first but it has really grown on me. I wouldn't cry if they didn't make a second season or anything, but this last episode had some pretty entertaining moments.


And not just because I ♥ Alan Tudyk (which I sorta do).

-Stuff

I just took my first exam for psychology, and even though 95% is technically an A, I still feel like an absolute failure any time I get any question wrong. It’s because I agonize over it before I ever submit the results, think every single angle out, over think the question and trick myself into believing it’s a trick question and then when I have re-read every note I have taken and half the text and convinced myself that there is no way the answer is anything but that and I miss the one below it that I didn’t even think twice about…. Well it puts me in a sour mood.

Speaking of sour moods, do you know what I hate? I hate Parents who are irresponsible, self-involved and incapable of respecting other people. There is this woman, whom I’ve nicknamed Voldemort, since she’s most often referred to as You-Know-Who. Nobody else does these things. You don’t have to guess who
*came in at 12:30 with her one year old who just woke up and has not had anything to eat yet. (our nap starts at 12:15 and our lunch is officially over at 11:30)
* Blithely hands over a package of Ramen and says “here’s her lunch.”
* hands you her kid (who is still wearing her coat) and just walks away.

Every other parent comes at the proper drop off and pick up times, takes off the child’s coat and places the child’s things in the appropriate place. They put the lunch (if it is prior to 11:00 o’clock) in the refrigerator in the kitchen, or if it does not require refrigeration into the child’s cubby with her coat and other things (diaper-bag, hat, etc.)

It’s not that I am above taking off the child’s coat, or putting away the child’s lunch or even bending the schedule occasionally for special circumstances. But there are no special circumstances! She just does not respect me, my colleagues or our schedule enough to bother.

So I guess if it had been any other parent who had called at 5:30 and told me her car had broken down and that she may be a bit late to pick up her children I might not have been upset, but I am inclined to believe that this particular “mother” (and I use that term loosely) just had something “better” to do than be on time. Call me a cynic, but she hasn’t shown much of a pattern of respect for my time-table in the past.

Our center closes at 6 0’clock. What time do you think Voldemort strolled in? Well she called at 6:10 and said they were going to be done working on her car in ten minutes and then she would leave to pick up the girls. So she got there at 6:35.

She had 30 minutes from the time she originally called until we were closed for business. She had thirty minutes to arrange alternate transportation for her children. The bus stops outside the building every hour, this city is not that big. Even if she was getting her car fixed, even if we suspend cynicism and believe that, she could have easily been to the center on time and dealt with her car issue on her own time.

Parents lately = suck.
-Stuff

I take a seemingly innocuous problem, attempt to fix it and in doing so make it ten times worse. I like do this professionally. I am like a trained fuck-up.

Shit,

-Stuff

I don’t want to go to work anymore, or to be an adult. It chafes and rubs raw parts of a person to have to be in the same place everyday because they are paying you for it. When I was a child I thought that it was the hardest time I would ever have to face and I longed for it to pass. When I was a teenager I thought all things were likely to be the end of the world and that if I survived being a teenager by becoming an adult that my life would work itself out and be good or at least not as shitty. It seems every stage of life though, is at least equally hard as the time before it, maybe it just gets harder as you start collecting regrets.

And can I ever collect regrets? I collect regrets as a hobby. I regret almost on instinct… with passion and precision and self-deprecating rage.

I don’t want to go to work any longer, or to be an adult. It has become ridiculously predictable and practical. I know what I will be doing at 9, 10:30, 12:15, on every Mon, wed, Thurs, and Friday. I do not have to stop and give it thought… don’t let me check my date-book and get back to you. It is boring and safe to the point of nausea.

I don’t want to pay my bills or purchase groceries or make plans for the future.
Except for when I do.
I don’t want to be thinking about being ten when I’m in my twenties and thinking about my twenties when I’m in my nineties and wondering if I was ever alive when I’m on my death-bed.

Of course…
I’m not looking forward to being on my death bed too much either.

So I guess I’ll go on living.
I’ll go to work, and I’ll be an adult as long as I have the privilege, because this boredom and this yearning means I’m living.

Because this is being alive.
-stuff

What am I supposed to do with a lack of perfection?

What do I even do with that?

I can’t handle less than 100%; I never could.

And I don’t trust anyone. Even people I like… especially people I like. I don’t trust that they mean what they say or that the feel how they act. Everyone is my enemy. How can I keep on living like that?

I need to change but I don’t know how.

I don’t know how to accept a B+ without going to pieces.

I don’t know how to take a compliment without offering an insult to go along with it. I can’t keep trudging through my life thinking about all my faults and believe someone when they tell me something good. I want to know your motive; I want to know your game.

I shouldn’t drink but Whiskey still feels warm. It is possibly the hardest sensation to explain

I’m not having a breakdown or an epiphany. It’s just another Thursday. We have them every week.

-Stuff

I was cleaning and I found an old notebook, scrawled on the back cover along with various other doodles were two phrases that made me laugh out loud. It's a good thing I am self entertaining.



===
"Do not look directly at a black helicopter. it is considered asserting dominance and you will be shot!"
--


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"Turning yourself inside out is almost always a cry for help!"
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I’ve been tired all day, just dreaming about the going home and going to sleep. Maru pulled me down the icy steps last night and I bruised my bottom. I’ve been sitting in tiny plastic chairs or on thinly carpeted concrete floors thinking how nice it would be to settle down on the mattress on the floor of my bedroom, but when I get right down to it, now that I am at home and able, I’m fooling around on the internet instead.

I guess I know that I am just avoiding facing the darkness of my bedroom, because I can’t cope. You know I’m at a Prime fucking age to have a schizophrenic break. Hallucinations? Now that’s a scary word. And here come mine all over again, those half Asleep - half Awake hallucinations, those hypnagogic/hypnopompic events that are all medical talk and no insight into the real ache and fear that goes along with them.

I know if I fall asleep thirty thousand spiders are not going to fall from the ceiling and attack me. I’m a rational person. I understand, even immediately afterward, that thirty-thousand spiders, floating scarves or flags, or even appearing and dissolving menacing male figures do not actually exist in my bedroom. That they are a waking dream, a phantom, a misfire of my brain that haunts my newly awakened mind, or whatever the fuck we are using to excuse them, but you can’t rationalize away fear in the moment that you are afraid. Especially not when you are just waking and are basically completely out of touch with your rational mind.

And when the irrational fear finally fades the rational fear wakes up. I start thinking. Shit! What the fuck is wrong with me? Why am I such a fucking slave to the chemical imbalances of my brain? I’m just feeling sorry for myself, but seriously how much of a fucking mess am I, that I can’t even accomplish the fairly basic task of sleeping due to neurosis?

-Cracker-Jack

Hooray for ever so subtle Pushing Daisies/Wonderfalls crossover, and the larger than life Marianne Marie Beetle, whose Muffins may in-fact cause gastrointestinal problems, cramps, and/or fecal urgency.

♥ Stuff

sometimes I wonder if the anxiety triggers the pointless diarrhea of the mind or if my sick thoughts cause the anxiety. They have a symbiotic relationship.

and once again I was not on it. Or to put it more acutely I had been on it only to find myself with a plastic bag about my face and tossed overboard like lonely tourist Charlotte Charles. Alas and Alack with only 25672 I could say it was only really a half-assed effort this time around. No worries. I did (after all) have doubts early on that I was writing the great American novel… though perhaps that was my problem all along. I’ve got to remember to lie to myself more convincingly.

So it has been ages since I have last updated. My wee sister has been poking me a bit to see if I will come out from beneath the rock I live under and update. Goodness knows why. What on earth could I say here that she doesn’t already know? But let us recap for those of you in the cheap seats.

Life in Vila de Stella:

I’ve decided to get a long-distance degree in Early Childhood Education:
( Read more... )

Work is pretty good.
( Read more... )

I‘ve been dealing with my mental health one gesture and task at a time.
( Read more... )

So in other words… I’m good.
How are you?
-Stuff