safefamiliarchaos
I have very strong desires to organize things, but very weak organizational skills. Much the same as I wish very strongly to be a physically active human, but lack the will, drive, motivation, etc. required to manifest this physical activity in my day-to-day life.
My most recent organizational foible came as a magnetic album. I bought it at JoAnn’s fabrics probably a month ago with the idea in mind that I would use it to organize all the ticket stubs laying around our house. Ticket stubs in our house live like nomads. The ones that survive their purpose of getting us into a show move from shoe box to glass bowl, and from room to room. I just feel like these memories deserve more respect. I wanted to give them some solid Earth beneath their feet, so scrapbook-type thing it is.
PJ had been harboring his most valued ticket stubs in a box in a closet I didn’t even know about. Not because he didn’t want them to live among the rest of our tickets stubs, just because he has had them since before we met, and despite how long we’ve been dating, apparently real live human events happened before we knew each other. Sidenote, he literally stores some of his most prized possessions in a chiquita banana box.
So anyway, he wanted in on the action and the second he brings out his antique ticket stubs, this goes from a project it’s okay to fail at to me being responsible for the only tangible part of someone’s cherished childhood memory.
I don’t think that it should be any surprise at this point that I messed this up. Along with his 15th century ticket stubs, he also gave me some newspaper clippings. Newspaper clippings that I assume he laboriously cut out himself at the ripe old age of 12. His mom might have done it for him, I’m not sure. He’s at school right now and I can’t ask him.
I messed it up by not bothering to actually read the newspaper clippings because I’m a lazy bastard. I figured it was three separate clippings and read just enough to determine both of these pieces were about Nine Inch Nails.
This wouldn’t have been that big a deal, but apparently magnetic photo albums are only magnetic when it comes to actual photos, hence the name. When it comes to newspaper clippings and paper ticket stubs, magnetic apparently means glue of a thousand glue towns.
I tried to gently peel them up, but it was pretty immediately clear this was a permanent error. It’s a real special fear to realize you’re about to rip in half something someone else is emotionally attached to. I don’t recommend it. And so consequently, I just don’t recommend trying to be organized. Stick with your safe, familiar chaos.
I must admit it’s nice to have a lot of our memories in one place, though.
ermahgerd
You think you’ve read the entire Internet and then a meme comes out of nowhere and saves your life.
secretshamepolice
We all have secret shame in whatever forms. Just things we aren’t particularly proud of.
One of my secret shames is, I imagine, quite common.
I ran an errand during lunch yesterday and generally when I run an errand, I’ll get something to eat while I’m out rather than coming back and eating in the cafeteria at work. I didn’t feel much like getting out of the car, so it was going to be a drive through. And if I’m going to drive through, well, I’m going to drive through a McDonald’s. I love it. Yes, I repulse myself on the daily.
Clearly based on the line in the drive through, I’m not the only dirt bag who can’t control herself when it comes to a salty little McDonald’s cheeseburger baby. Don’t worry, I made sure to rationalize this choice in my head. “They have feeding fat Americans down to a science. This will take like 5 minutes. It will be good. You will be happy.”
You can’t really tell from the picture, but that line is a solid 10 cars deep.
I’m sure you’re like, uhh, okay, whatever, we all eat shitty fast food sometimes. This doesn’t really count as secret shame. And honestly, when I do it, I really feel fine about it. The shame sets in when I get home and have to add another one of these to the collection.
Childhood dreams in a dirty plastic pile. Mmm mmm mmm.
I haven’t eaten anything from a McDonald’s that wasn’t a Happy Meal… basically ever. I save the toys for my niece and nephew, so this is just the fraction that have made it all the way home with me in the last couple of years. Something about it just doesn’t feel quite right. I’m sure it’s something like animal rights abuse, but I can’t bring myself to google it because ignorance is bliss.
I felt compelled to write about this mostly because the girl in front of me sat in this same drive through line and she literally ordered just a strawberry smoothie. So I think that pretty much confirms they put drugs in the food, right? I mean, no strawberry smoothie is worth a 10-minute wait in a McDonald’s drive through, is it? Whatever, I’m not the secret shame police.
Anyway, I also figure that maybe if I write it down, my embarrassing Pavlovian response to passing a McDonald’s will somehow vanish. I know it won’t. I actually hate this post, but oh well.
conductorswithliars
There are a lot of things I’m irrationally afraid of, for example:
- The moon (only if I can see its curvature).
- Getting to a multiway stop at approximately the same time as anyone else.
- Accidentally knocking someone else into an elevator shaft (not actually afraid of falling in myself).
And trust me that’s a very small sampling of the absurd things that make my chest tighten up every now and again. After this weekend I can add to that list “picking the wrong seat on the train.”
In fact, after this weekend’s train trip, let’s just add Amtrak or trains in general to that list. I’ve had mostly decent experiences on the Amtrak between Austin and Fort Worth. I’ve ridden it 5 or so times and while I certainly wouldn’t call it wonderful, it wasn’t dirty or dysfunctional or any of the other dreadful things it gave me this time.
The ride up there, I chalked up to having a hangover. I figure things wouldn’t have been so horrifying if I hadn’t over imbibed the night before, right? It went something like this:
- Lady drinking out of a 2-liter of Dr. Pepper.
- Seat mate clearly had weed in her bag.
- She asked me a lot of questions about the train even though I began our relationship by explaining to her how little I knew about the train.
- She asked me to watch her bag (offered to buy me a snack in exchange).
- I turned down the snack because she’s a (really nice) stranger, but now I have to stay awake so no one steals her bag.
- Her toenails were painted a weird nineties color and it made me uncomfortable.
- After 2-liter lady got off the train, she was replaced by a lady named Angel who was laying the gospel on thick to anyone who would listen.
- Angel spent part of the train ride showing her World War II veteran seat mate pictures of Prince William and Duchess Kate on her cell phone.
- She disappeared for a while and when she returned, she had a scrapbook containing full-color 8×10 pictures of Queen Elizabeth.
- The weirdest part was that she didn’t even seem that crazy.
- Beyond the people I shared the train with, there were multiple delays that the conductors called “trouble with signals.”
- I know this meant it was a problem they didn’t feel like explaining to us.
- It also meant we had to go 20 mph for what seemed like forever, but they claimed was only 6 miles total.
- We were about an hour late.
Finally make it to Ft. Worth and have a nice weekend with the family and spend a little time meeting up with friends for 10-year high school reunion planning . Old ass lady in the house, I know.
Well, nice weekend minus when my dad tried to make me, my mom, and my sister help him hoist a 12-foot tall structure built to hold like 2,000 lb off the ground and 90 degrees into the air. Like this structure was going to magically slide into the holes he had dug for it. Needless to say, the second I realized that the thing was coming down, I darted the hell out from under it. Everyone else held on until it was ripped out of their hands by the sheer force of its weight and they had the injuries to show for it. Let it down easy, my ass. Of course it looked like I abandoned ship instead of looking like the one who made the logical decision. Story of my life.
Also, on the way to the train station, my dad claimed he didn’t hear me warning him about an upcoming traffic snarl because I didn’t say it “alert-y enough.” Those were his exact words. I don’t claim to be a rational person, see beginning of this post, but I’m just saying, I was born this way.
Anyway, I didn’t think the train trip back could be much weirder. And it wasn’t really weirder, but it was much worse. Well, it was kind of weird. It went like this:
- Awkwardly walk around the car for a couple of minutes before resigning myself to the fact that I’m not getting a window seat and I’m also not getting an area to myself.
- Realize a couple of minutes later when my heretofore unknown seat mate returns that I’ve made a very poor choice indeed.
- Seat mate smells like he’s been on a 5-day bender and decided the only way to cleanse himself of his sins was to wear his own lower intestine on the outside of his body (that’s the best way I can think of to describe the smell without using all my favorite curse words).
- I stay in my seat for around 5 minutes because even though this guy is a complete scourge, I’m still scared to hurt his feelings.
- I finally give in and hightail it to the sightseeing car.
- I stay there for an hour or so.
- I eventually decide to go back because the sightseeing car is so loud and it’s hard to read.
- His smell has dissipated a little.
- I sit there for maybe 20 or 30 minutes (he snores and rustles about during part of this, unforgivable).
- We get to a stop that’s a smoke break and he gets up to go have a smoke. I know this is going to reignite his former odor in all its glory, so I remember my snacks this time and head back to the sightseeing car for the rest of the trip.
- The sightseeing car is where all the weirdos seem to go.
- A man getting yelled at by a conductor that he has been a train conductor for 21 years and he doesn’t like his attitude.
- An awkward adolescent boy playing solitaire, but also staring at me.
- A drunk German (?) Dutchy (?) sort of couple who are probably fine but strange if for no other reason than being the only non-Americans in the vicinity.
- A grizzled conspiracy theorist taking pictures of stuff out the windows of the train and showing it to other people in the car to seek reassurance in a way that I can really only describe as Dale Gribble like.
- National Parks volunteers giving a sort of terribly boring historical tour of Central Texas (mostly just contributing to the loudness of the car).
- They do point out the house where Texas Chainsaw Massacre was filmed and not three minutes later we’re sitting on a bridge and the train is completely dead (WTF?). The train eventually is restarted but the conductor comes on to say that we’ll be sitting here on this bridge for about 40 minutes due to residual delays from a derailment that happened the day before.
- I’ve started to equate train conductors with liars in my head.
- Over an hour later, we start to move.
- Make it back to Austin without any other strange happenings other than the girl with the mullet who picked my life-alteringly smelly seat mate up from the train station.
Amtrak, you were so rude.
In Taylor, Texas, around which all the weirdest parts of the train ride seemed to congregate.
roilingbroilingnightmare
I love technology so much, but it’s also made available images that elicit very strong, fear-based reactions from me. Look at this roiling, broiling nightmare we call the sun. Is it not clearly just waiting for the right moment to destroy us all? I call this technological terrification. Technological terrorism? No, that sounds too much like bio warfare. I think it’s just pee-your-pants realism.
hilloflife
You might remember that I sometimes get very overwhelmed by regret as a result of having not seized any parts of the day. So to make up for a recent surplus of that feeling, I went hiking.
I started planning it essentially the moment I posted about those feelings. So most days last week I said to PJ something along the lines of, “aren’t you so excited to go on our very own big hiking adventure this weekend?”
He would say something kind of like, “outdoor things are nice.” Not actually indicating he thought I was having any sort of good idea. Which I obviously don’t blame him for. He knows better than anyone that the best laid plans of mice and me… usually go extraordinarily awry. I stayed pretty positive throughout the week, though. I bought a really worthless artist’s rendering “map” of the greenbelt at the corner store. Then when I ran into some friends outside of the store, I showed them the map and told them my plan. I told coworkers of my plan, too. All this ‘telling’ is my personal brand of insurance. I would obviously feel like a complete slug if I told all of these people and then I didn’t actually go on my hike. Yes I know there is a ‘live for yourself, not for others’ platitude I should be employing here… but they’re called platitudes for a reason.
Okay, onto the hike. Obviously, I did it. My original plan was to hike from the Scottish Woods entrance to Zilker Park. This plan changed the night before when my sister said she was going to be hanging out near the Scottish Woods entrance around noon. So, I decided I would just reverse my hike and go from Zilker to Scottish Woods instead. That way we could meet up with her and just hang around in the water for awhile at the end of our hike. I then further modified my original hike plan and decided to start at Campbell’s Hole instead of Zilker so I could get to the cool embrace of beer and water that much sooner.
This plan actually went incredibly well up until the last half hour of the hike. We were out of the house by 8 am. Stopped at HEB to pick up some sunscreen and sandwiches. I was already well stocked with water and energy bars. Parked my car at Scottish Woods (cooler filled with sandwiches and beer for later in the day) and then drove PJ’s car over to Campbell’s Hole and were on the trail at a little before 9 am.
Here’s about how it went (use this map if you are unfamiliar with the Barton Creek Greenbelt. It won’t save you in the wilderness, but it is helpful from an Internet perspective):
9:00-9:30 am– Clouds haven’t yet burned off, lots of healthy people running and biking, they hardly seem to register the suspicious contrast between my walking stick and pale skin. I’m so happy.
Oh gosh, hiking is so pleasant.
9:30-10:00 am – Weather is still pretty nice, creek starts to have some water in it, see Greenbelt Guardians removing nonnative invasives (thanks guys!), stop to watch some people taking rock climbing lessons at the seismic wall. I’m still really happy.
10:00-10:30 am – Reach loop 360. Realize we’ve been on the wrong side of the creek for a while now. Looks like we need to cross the creek. Get my first wet tennis shoe of the day. Gosh, the back of my right leg is starting to hurt. Only a little, though.
10:30-11:00 am – Hiking hiking hiking. Happy happy happy.
11:00-11:30 am – Miss a turn somewhere. End up way out in the Gaines Greenbelt. Phone GPS makes it look suspiciously like we’ve hiked practically back to Sunset Valley where we live. PJ starts to walk really fast, there is an aggressiveness in his gait. I start to suspect he blames me for navigation failures even though he says ‘nope he does not.’ End up in backyard of giant house with Jurassic Park style fence. More fast walking.
You can’t see that he has mild hate in his heart right here.
11:30-12:00 pm – Finally get back on track and reach Twin Falls. Help a stranger catch her rambunctious boxer puppy. I try to find a good spot to put my feet in the water and to rest for a few minutes. My feet are literally on fire. My feet might be dead and in hell. I’m not sure.
We’re about halfway between both cars right now. There’s no turning back and no hope in sight. But this water feels like sweet Jesus breath for the faithful on my feet. I can carry on.
12:00-12:30 pm – Hike on and stop only long enough to take a picture at Sculpture Falls. Eat an energy bar. Pass a man explaining to his very pregnant wife that it’s because of physics that her hands feel funny because she’s been walking and swinging them and so blood has naturally gone there. I am reminded of when I was 6 years old and I was spinning in circles with my arms flung out at the gas station my PawPaw was working at. I convinced myself that the weird feeling in my fingernails was a result of the glitter nail polish my mom had painted on my fingernails. I start to wonder if my 6-year-old self and my now self are merging? Am I on a spirit quest? No, I’m just exhausted and low on oxygen, but very certainly not willing to admit that.
I’m holding on to that walking stick with both hands because my legs are just shells of their former selves. They have no idea what waits a half mile from here.
12:30-1:00 pm – We are really close to the end of the hike now. I am so excited to get to our car. We will get our sandwiches and our beers and we will relax so hard. Alas, it was not to be. It turns out we parked the car at the top of something called the Hill of Life. I think you can guess that I consider this a misnomer. A half mile hike with an elevation change of 300 feet. All I could think was dear sweet death, please come take me. And then take my boyfriend, who didn’t even break a sweat, and kill him with fire.
1:00-1:15 pm – Sit in Wanda the Honda with the air conditioner on full blast and try to rationalize why being alive is even a good thing at all.
thegreatbeyond
I hiked the shit out of the Barton Creek Greenbelt yesterday… and of course by hiked the shit out of it, I obviously mean I can barely move today.
abruptandunrepentant
Well, I already failed at my mini challenge. But let’s be honest, I wasn’t holding out a lot of hope. You don’t set challenges for yourself on holidays. You’re living in a time warp on those days. There is nothing like the cold bitch slap of a Tuesday morning after a holiday weekend to remind you that you’re not capable of anything.
Work has been a challenge this week, which I think partially accounts for my failure and somber tone. It’s just a combination of needing to get five days worth of work done in four and that perfect storm that happens quarterly where everything is due at once. This is helping me get by.
In an abrupt and unrepentant change of subject… I uploaded my first Instagram photo today. I put Instagram on my phone when they made it available for Android a couple of months ago, but I just don’t take that many photos with my phone because I think the camera is worthless. Plus, I always forget that Instagram is a social network and not just a photo editor, so when I go to use it, I get generalized anxiety.
Of course my first photo is of my favorite thing in the whole entire world. Yes, I play favorites with my dogs. He’s the middle child, what do you want me to do?
Maybe around two years ago, Cowboy decided he liked hanging out on the coffee table. Even if it would make more sense for him to walk under it to get where he’s going, he still hops up on to it and walks over it. He also likes just hanging out on it. I think it’s a place he feels like Kitty Biscuit won’t bother him. And yeah, that’s a floss stick laying beside him, but clearly I’m letting my dog lay on my table, so pristine isn’t a thing that happens in our house. I think my cleanliness motto is something more like where my germs at?
neurosisstayedstrong
Bob Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom today (link). I guess I started to love Bob Dylan when I was like 14 or 15 years old. It was definitely because “Like a Rolling Stone” was in The 60s miniseries and I was dead seriously set on having been a hippie in a past life. It was not easy to appease your hippie spirit in a small Texas town in the 90s, let me tell you, so you took all the Bob Dylan you could get.
My Bob Dylan neurosis stayed strong most of the way through college. I’m talking literally 1.) my livejournal identity was mainly based on Bob Dylan 2.) every time I left my dorm room, Bob Dylan lyrics all up on my AIM away message 3.) I had decided I would break up with PJ about a month after we started dating, but then he bought me Bob Dylan tickets, so I postponed it for a month until after the concert and the rest is history.
Mr. Obama also praised Mr. Dylan’s voice for its “weight” and “unique gravelly power” that redefined “not just what music sounded like but the message it carried and how it made people feel.”
Yeah, that’s about right. If you’ve never read this, stop being an asshead and get it right now. It may not be as transcendent as I recall it being when I was a desperate 20 year old, but maybe I’ll read it again to check.
horriblemundanethings
I’m giving myself a mini challenge to write something every day this week. My new year’s resolution to write more is going okay, I guess. I am certainly writing more than I did in 2011.
I didn’t set a specific goal because I knew I would fail the shit out of it if I did, but in my mind’s eye it was something like at least once a week. So, I’m going to try to write something every day this week to catch up. I know that to accomplish this, I’m going to have to write about some seriously horrible, mundane things. For instance, right now I’m surfing the Internet and watching a mockumentary about a conspiracy theory on the existence of mermaids.
It’s actually pretty well done. Since I’ve only been paying attention to it with a little bitty portion of my lizard brain, I just had to ask PJ if it was a real documentary. Good job Animal Planet, thanks for reminding me that I’m an idiot.
I’m not really looking forward to writing about my day-to-day. Here’s how this exotic Monday has gone so far.
- Woke up at 10:00 am (#GodGivenRightAsAnAmerican #ThanksTroops)
- Ate 5 energy balls
- Drank coffee/surfed the Internet (2 hours?)
- Put a load of laundry in the machine
- Took the kitchen trashcan out into the backyard to power wash it (cleanse it of its sins)
- Tried to drown Kitty Biscuit (she hates the water hose and she bit me on my foot, so I sprayed her in the face a lot)
- Ate lunch that PJ made (spaghetti and chicken parmesan)
- Surfed more Internet
- Did 5 dishes
- Worked out (third day in a row, somebody alert the media)
- Showered
- Folded laundry
…..and now I’m sitting here drinking wine that is probably going to kill me because it sat in my car all weekend with temps in the 90s. PJ said that means it’s probably gone bad, but I think he’s thinking about people who have something to say about the way wine tastes and not about people who will drink motor oil if they think it will help them beat those gotta go back to work after a long weekend blues. Anyway, Tuesday gave it to me as a present for taking her to the airport in the middle of the black, dark night on Friday, so of course I forgot about it. If I haven’t had enough sleep, forget it, I’m barely a human, and certainly not a human that remembers things.
Okay, look forward to seven more riveting days of that.
GetMoreAwful 