green monster

So you can stream along in life and having no issue when all of a sudden ZAPWHAMBOO you are bitch slapped by that green monster - jealousy. What a pitiful waste of energy emotion. You can't move along, you feel like you've been punched in the stomach, all for an emotion that never does anything but harm. I guess it might be an early warning sign at some times, or it can be a motivator to change something, but overall it is useless.

For me, when I feel jealousy it has a disasterous after effect. Whatever the object of my jealous was, I tend to have a "screw you!" feeling towards the object after the jealousy has passed. I'm thinking it is sort of a emotional protection system. My eps. I tend to have many EPS's. You know how that goes. Something I don't want to accept or face up to, I go into EPS. That is usually ignore, get flippy and just distance myself from the situation. I like that. I'm like that. But for jealousy my EPS is "SCREW YOU!!". And the screw you eps lasts longer than the actually jealousy did. But let me look at jealousy. I think sometimes people are clueless or so not in tune with people that they invite you and cultivate you to be jealous. Look at all the pretentious people who buy houses in that certain area, or certain cars cause that is what the "in" people do, the people who have stuff do. Then they go on and on about these things and invite you to be jealous. Normally I decline the invitation. And to be fair, maybe these folks don't know they do it...they have little else to offer you than the fact that they have stuff. Heere I am thinking that I am suffering from jealousy do to self esteem, when these are probably the least self esteemers. To offer up only that you have possessions as opposed to having something inside your personalty to offer. Wow, profoundly sad. Whew....now I feel better after getting all that out. If anyone reads this they are most likely very confused. but then if you were talking to me one to one you would have been confused anyhow!

What a day

Okay, as far as gloomy bad days, this seems to be one of them. Yes, I know in the grand scheme of things this rates as nothing , but I still feel like life is giving me the good ole raspberry.

Woke up at 1:30 in the morning with a killer headache. Was too lazy to get out of bed and grab aspirin. So I tossed and turned until about 4:30 at which time I fell asleep. Deeply. Then had to wake up at 6:00. Still have the headache but popped some aspirin and hit the shower - felt better. Bonus was that my hair finally looked the way I've been trying to get it to look since it has been cut. Okay... For reasons sort of beyond my control I had to drive to the cumberland el station and take the blue line in. The blue line wasn't too bad (even tho the train took forever and a day to get in) and there was only a "little" smell of urine. Hardly noticeable. Things are looking up!!! Get off the blue line, (and am on the underground part) and immerge upstairs into the rain. Pouring rain. I root around in my backpack to discover my umbrella is not there. ....oh yes........I took it out the other day to make room for something else. ARGGGH.. So I walk 15 minutes in the rain and get to work, hair drenched (so much for the good hair day) jeans soaking and am shivering as it is cold in this office. Things are going okay, little things are happening but oh well, trying to keep a perspective on them........until lunch.......Yesterday I ordered the bruschetta salad with no chicken. I run down (starving as I forgot my breakfast stuff at home - sigh) and grab my salad and am about to take abig bite when I notice....duh duh daaaaaa.....EGGS!!! I am allergeic to eggs! ARGH!!!!!! I spend about 15 minutes digging through the lettuce taking the egg out of the salad. Start to eat the salad and am wondering what I'm eating ...... .is it tofu??? is it egg that tastes sort of salty??? NO!! ITS CHICKEN!! THE CHICKEN I DIDNT WANT AND THEY CUT UP LITTLE TEEEEENY TIIIINY PIECES AND THROW IT IN MY SALAD ALONG WITH THE CRIMINAL EGG!! ARGGH!!!!

Well I've just given up. I'm going to sit at my desk and try to get the day to pass by. I'm going to sneak out of here promptly at 5:00 sit in a bar, drink a shot and see what else is going to happen........Life is if nothing else, an adventure.

TMI

So here is my very very personal kvetch. I think it positively sucks the big one that my little brother (or as I used to call him, my little bother) is dead. Okay there you have it. He died 12/8/02. Today would have been his 41st birthday. If he were alive, I would have sent him a couple of pounds of italian beef (with the hot gardiniere), so I guess I saved myself about 60 bucks. If he were alive today I would be making fun of him and asking him if his real parents sent him a card today (my sister and I used to tell him he was adopted). If he were alive today I would most likely be bitching about him calling me and boring me mindlessly over some facinating thing he saw on the discovery channel, fighting with him over his ultra conservative leanings, telling him he was full of crap when we got into a fight over some bit of minutia in which he felt he was right and I KNEW I was right. He'd have me pulling my hair out, he would be costing me money, I'd spend hours telling him that life would get better and tell him to make a list and do one thing a day, I'd laugh when he had his sudden spark of side splitting wit. I'd get a hug from him and remember the little towheaded boy who followed me around incessitantly and who I protected from the world as best I could. The little boy that I stood up for and even sort of beat up a teach for.

So universe/god/fate/whomever, you all suck and your ancestors suck and your progeny suck.

Very unkvetchy

Well since this is my blog I can change the rules whenever I want. Right?? Today I have no kvetching (well I have alot I can kvetch about but am in sunny mood. damn...) . Homecoming. I love some uniquely american traditions.....such as the stuff related to the high schools. Homecoming is one of those great traditions. Everyone goes to the football game (where we lose, a tradition within itself...) then parents go out for a beverage or go help the kids decorate the gym (guess which camp I fall into....). Saturday morning its all about last minute running to the mall for earrings, stockings, necklaces. Saturday afternoon its hair, makeup, moms and daughters sneaking in a soda at the a&w, parents calling to make dinner reservations. Then its picture time. You meet at someone's house, then off to the local gazebo, pretty park, lakeside. The parents mill around laughing, joking, catching up on the news of the older kids. Some of the alumni are there and you marvel at how lucky you are to watch these young men and women from wee small to what they are now. Its one of those perfect small moments. All is right for the world in those seconds. The boys are so cute in their slightly too big shirts, the girls with too much make-up, too much hairspray and way too much sophistication. If you are lucky, like I was, you realize how perfect it all is in that moment. The glance that your daughter gives you and the smile, telling you how much she enjoyed this bit of bonding with you. The last minute hug before they get in the car to go to the dance. Sigh.........How could life be anything but wonderful?

Marionettes

I suppose this is not really a kvetch but more a bit of anger for myself over an irrational fear.....Marionettes....I hate em. Can't stand the creepy eyes, they always have big noses and the way their arms are out in front of them and the lopy way they walk. They freak me out big time. When I was a kid, once a year someone would come to the grade school to bring us a marionette show. I sat in the back, as far away as I could just hoping that a a fire would start burning up the little wooden things so that I wouldn't have to watch their creepy eyes, as they shifted on to me. Yes, they did. One year, as a special treat, a relative ACTUALLY GOT ME A MARIONETTE FOR MY BIRTHDAY!!!! I struggled to be polite, desperate to get away from the box and the creepazoid that was contained within it. Of course we had to take the offensive pile of wood and string out of the box and many in the room joyously played with the alien. I couldn't bare the thought of the monster in my house let alone my room. Suddenly a solution came to my mind.........I went into the garage and carefully arranged the possessed doll right behind the wheel of my dad's car. Sure enough, my dad ran it over the next morning as he pulled the car out of the garage. I'm sure he caught hell from my mom over this. I can imagine her yelling and my dad feeling horrible and them wondering how to break the news to me. Luckily, this was the 70s and the parenting mode was "less said sooner mended". No one said a word. I'm sure their guilt lasted for years, but my delight continues to this day.

While in Austria, we went up to a local castle (how cool to say that, local castle...almost as good as daily Kock, but that is for another blog - jeez, this may turn into less a kvetch and more a tale!). We had a beer before we decided to explore. We were happy with beer smiles on our faces and awed eyes as the castle was amazing....until........(DU DU DU DA!!!!!!!!!!! (suspense music))......a marionette museum.........ARGHHH!!!!!! I went in bravely (I had some high hopes as I thought we would need to pay to get in and one of our party is fond of saying "I'm not paying" but I was foiled as it was gratis).........and had to leave quickly when I found out they actually had a marionette that you could play with. Luckily we either stayed too drunk, or too tired for the rest of the travelers to come up with a good marionette prank. If they had, my lovely and delicious memories of austria could have been tainted. So, Austris is perfect -1.

Nongivers

So here is my kvetch (and I was in Austria and drank too much and laughed too much so I didn't produce a european version......can't kvetch in such awesome places).

Do you have this person in your life. The allaboutme-er? The person that just can't nurture and just can't see more than a 2 foot radius around themselves. The person that sends you this message "I need to hear your voice". "I need to see you". "I need to have you make me laugh". "I need my Tos fix". Okay, nice sentiments you say, and indeed they are. However these are all about them. All about liking the way YOU make them feel. The allaboutme-er's lack the ability to be there for anyone. Or to think of what the other persons needs are. Especially if the other person is over effusive in their nurturing of them. Relationships seem to work best when you have a combination of I need you and I think you need me, let me be there for you. Unfortunately, some people lack that ability. Maybe the allaboutme-ers should get together with the Motus.

Well I guess its not daily

So sue me. Well don't cause I don't have much but what I have I always like to keep. Like my sequins and felt (story for another day).

For various reasons, I had to drive in to work today. Its a commute that without traffic should take 30 minutes, but I'm not sure when "without traffic" is. I've traveled this tollway at all hours and never found it "without traffic". I had another kvetch in my head (about the electronic signs that tell you how much time it will take you to get to your destination - is this if you are going warp speed? Are they talking about another city? Or, as someone suggested to me this morning, maybe I'm just not driving fast enough...) but I figured this is a long time kvetch and maybe some education for folks.....

People people people........TAKE YOUR FOOT OFF THE BRAKE!!! For hecks sake.... When in traffic, there is no need to speed up, brake, speed up, brake....or brake.......brake.....brake..... I don't know if I should really brake as there is something stopping in front of you, or if you are just in a panic cause you think you might have to stop. Here is a novel idea for you.....decrease your speed and when you see that traffic is starting to slow.....TAKE YOUR FOOT OFF THE GAS!!! Yes, you can do it!! Instead of singing "put one foot in front of the other" try singing "take one foot right off and the other". It works....really.. You can make it a game as well. Being of simple mind (you know, simple pleasures simple mind?) I play a game in traffic seeing how long I can go without braking. Its fun....its educational.....its a laugh a minute (not really but it beats screaming swears out of the window while beating my steering wheels with my hands...maybe not as amusing tho). Now, go back to work and put a dang smile on your face.

Maybe not a kvetch

But who knows, could turn out that way. I'm on my way to europe this week. I carefully planned the coloring of my roots for this saturday. I made the appointment 7 weeks ago, which is incredibly not like me. I am usually calling the day before I want the appointment to beg my way in. However, this time I wanted to make sure that I had everything set for first thing in the morning. The stylist I go to has been coloring my hair for 5 years now. I met her as a teen when she dated a friend of my nephew. I've been in and out of this particular salon for 4 years at this point. So, here I am expecting my haircut and color (she usually throws in the haircut for free so this is HUGE to me as I'm getting this all on the cheap) when I walk into the salon. I arrive, state my name and who I am there for and the young girl (who was just adorable) looks at me in panic and says "JUST A MINUTE!!!". 10 minutes later the manager of the salon comes out and in one sentence says "UNFORTUNATELYKELLYISNOLONGERWITHUSTHISJUSTHAPPENEDLASTNIGHTANDWETRIEDT TOCALLYOUTHISMORNINGBUTDIDN'THAVEYOURCELLONLYYOURHOMEI'MSOSORRY". I'm now in a mini state of panic as I am down to the wire and I've of course not done anything for my trip, or any of the other million things one does on a saturday. How can I present myself in Europe with an inch of roots complete with more grey than I care to remember? The cut?? The color??? As I panic and am in total "all about me mode" the manager then says "we do have another stylist coming in to do your color and to blow dry your hair". Whew. So I get the color done, don't get the haircut cause I don't want to shell out the extra 45 bucks, get a decent blowdry (almost substituted the word job for dry.....whew....) and then the owner of the salon (who I've known since I am a long time client) sits next to me and says "I hated to do it but we just had to ask her to leave. I hated to do it but what else could I do?" I said "you could have done it at the end of today instead of yesterday!".

So I'm in all about me mode right now, saying stupid things like "oh what bad luck, or I have bad luck" and that leads me on to another kvetch which isn't really a kvetch. A member of my family always says when something bad happens "if we wouldn't have bad luck, we would have no luck at all" and also "Oh its our family luck", implying that we have nothing but bad luck. To be sure, we have had our share of miseries and heartaches but whenever she says that I always wonder why she doesn't recognize the good luck we have as good luck. Like how wonderful the children are, or the good luck we had in our dad, or even the fact that we all have a roof over our head, food in our bellies and some measure of happiness.

Switcharooo

When I was on the train this morning I had a completely different kvetch that I was going to write. The beauty of this is that wonderful kvetchy things happen and luckily you can change your focus. Before I go into this, it was brought to my attention, by my superaffengeil friend that by writing this I get all the negative energy out of me and store it here. Its stored in case I need to use it for some reason. Maybe if I have enough negative energy stored I can create a super power with it. Maybe I can channel and throw it at the Motus waking them out of their comatose state that they appear to be in. Alright, nuff said. On to today's kvetch...



I know we all are extremely important and that the phone call must be made no matter what. I'm sure the lady with the clown red frizzy hair (CAUTION....CATTY REMARK TO FOLLOW!! BLERP BLERP CAUTION.....CLAWS COMING OUT....) oh yea, thats a natural color. ANYWAY.... Here is the thing Miss Clown Hair.......when disembarking off of a train and you have your cell phone glued to your ear you need to exercise a little caution. I'm not really all that interested in what a witch samantha is, I don't even know who samantha is for hecks sake. I'm more interested that you pay attention to where you are going. Did you know that you swung your big ole "coacch" purse into the woman who was holding the childs hand? Did you realize that when you walked down the stairs off the train that you gestured into the face of the young man in the nice suit (and he was sort of dishy...) narrowly missing putting his eye out. And the best part was, due to the sounds of the engines of the train, you proceeded to screech the rest of your conversation for all to hear, making our ears bleed and I can only imagine doing what to the person on the other end. You tottered, cell phone to ear, big ole purse on your other shoulder, high heels, tight leggings walking in front of people, gesturing into their faces and generally (and we should be grateful for this I suppose) waking us all up and out of our calm reverie courtesy of a lulling train ride. I fear for your safety! I have no comments about your phone call or your right to do so, but here is a tip.......try practicing this sentence. It could save us all a bit of minor frustration and you a fall down some stairs or from walking into things.....Here we go..."Hey *****(insert name of friend here), this is a very important conversation and I want to be able to give full attention to how much we both hate samantha. However, I am about to get off the train and want to be sure that I don't maim myself or others as I descend onto the platform. Can I call you back?". Wow!! Miracle words!



You have yourself a good day Miss (BLERP BLERP CATTY ALERT ONCE AGAIN!!) Frizzy unnatural color red head!

Masters of their Universers

Here is what I am wondering. Who the heck raised these "I am the queen/king of the universe everyone make way for me as I don't even know others exist" people? What happened to common courtesy, people? Don't get me wrong there are some very lovely wonderful well mannered folk out there. I think that is why when you bump into one of these Motu's (master of their universers) it startles one. Sit back and I'll tell you a little tale of a female Motu about 23 years old....When you come off the train and head downstairs there are two lines that form to go down the stairs. It is usually a very pleasant hospitable line. There is a fair amount of merging that goes on and it is good natured in most cases. There is one line that is a sort of merging lane with people coming from another direction to merge into the line going downstairs. Normally this happens in an every other one (one person from this line, then one person from the side line type of merge). So usually no worries. However, on occasion you get a Motu. The Motu is not content to wait in a line and comes up in their own line. This is not necessarily always rude because at times it is just that the person didn't realize that they should have been in line. In this case they normally look at the person they want to merge in front of with a bit of a sheepish grin, or eyebrows raised in a question or some indication to show they want to come in. In most cases, the person good naturedly lets them in. Not so with the Motus. This Motu rammed herself right in front of me this morning cutting me off and also the person I was letting go in front of me. She didn't look left, right, front back, just walked into me and in front of me. The person I was letting in was a little startled. As we walked down the stairs, the Motu is now in front of the person who I originally and finally let in front of me. The Motu stops on a stair so that she can find a good song on her ipod causing the woman in front of me to come up short, as I did and as did the 53,000 people behind me. Now I don't know about you but when one is descending down a staircase with a large group of people behind them, normally they take care in not stopping mid stairstep. Not so with the Motu. Apparently she had a music emergency in which she just needed to find that perfect song to descent staircases to. So she stopped in the middle of the stairs. Luckily everyone was awake this morning and noone went to off kilter. Motu does not even register what is going on behind her. It is common courtesy in this drill to hold the door at the bottom stairs so that the person directly behind you can grab it too. Its a nice little relay event. So here we walk down the stairs and here is what our now beloved Motu does....she not only does not hold the door, but she cuts in front of the person in the other line to sneak thru their closing door causing the person in front of me to have a door slammed in her face and the person in the line on the side of me to have a door in her face. This once more makes the line stop short. DOUBLE BONUS MOTU!! The people around me sigh in disgust then shake it off as Motu's not only cause disturbance by their lack of seeing the world around them but they also lose out on all the wonderful things the world, especially the world of commuting has to offer. I mean if you are so caught up in yourself that you can't even acknowledge being let into a line, or apologize when you cause others to have to stop abruptly or be polite by holding the door, think of all the wonderful beautiful things you are missing.

So Miss Motu, good morning and get your head out of your butt occasionally.....Not only will the smell be better but you just might notice what a wonderful vibrant mix of people there are.

First Blog

This is my first ever blog. I wanted to find a place to go to every morning and just burn off all the little piddly irritating things that happen so that I can go on with my day. A mental offloading of that very heavy backpack you have been carrying around.

Today's is dedicated to the woman, who was answering an email on her blackberry while she was going through a revolving door. She stopped in midrevolve to type/send email/read - who knows - causing those of us in the sections behind her to bang into the door......and then turned to give us a dirty look.....

Thank you miss blackberry - have a good day!!