Monday Rant

It’s barely past 9am and I already feel like somebody took a blowtorch to my nerve endings and feel as if I’ve been dealing with walking a tightrope for 10 hours already. So far on the way to work today, I was ran off the road by a semi while trying to merge from a ramp onto I-5 --fyi there was no shoulder to the road, so I had to slam on the breaks and hope he didn’t smash me into the retainer wall. Then the driver flipped me off to seal the deal. Ten minutes and one highway later, somebody else decided to try to switch lanes while I was right in their blind spot without them turning to check or use a turn signal. This does not give me a lot of confidence in the rest of the day.

I’m also trying to apply for a new job via a company’s website (they shall remain nameless). They request that applicants set up a profile – which I had in the past from applying for different positions and I don’t remember my password. So I entered my “User name” which I do remember (I swear IT People, I really do remember it.) The website asked me what email address I have tied to their system and then the system has a pop-up that says that they don’t recognize my user name.

“Well alrighty, maybe I was somehow mistaken and didn’t create a profile??? I’ll just re-enter the info I guess.” I thought to myself.

I go through the process and then it tells me I have all the info already in the system, right down to being a registered user under that name. But they won’t send me a fucking email to reset my password and get back into my profile. Once I thought about it, this wasn’t the FIRST TIME that this had happened with this website either! After spending 1+ hour last night and another 20 mintues this morning fighting the website to prove my existence outside of a catch 22 cycle, I called *****’s website IT and spoke to somebody, who then transfers me to a voicemail after hearing the situation. THANKS BRO!

But here’s the thing: there are only a few companies in my field here in Oregon. The last time a position like this one opened up at *****, it was posted and filled in 6 days. Today is now day 3. I simply do not have time to fuck around. – I drove 100+ miles yesterday (Easter) to get home early and handle my shit in anticipation of the position closing quickly. Now I am being thwarted by outside circumstances. It’s true that something else could show up but I hate missed opportunities – I’ve lived with A LOT of them in my life and do not want to toss another onto the pile.

Ok, I know we have all been here before. I know that my problem is not unique but it still does not make the situation any more enjoyable or “collectively reassuring”. I drove home early AND FAST. I got my shit together for this and I’m ready to make this a reality and whomever is on the other end is blocking the glorious light of my employment vision.

Get.the.hell.out.of.the.way.

P.S. While fighting with the website on Easter night, I put Netflix on in the background for some noise. Out of all the movies on all the days, I chose to watch the James Bond film “You Only Live Twice” on Easter. WIN.

Dreamcatcher: The Movie Review

At my request, my Mom tried watching the movie based off of the Stephan King story Dreamcatcher and did not find it funny at all. She remembers it as being a dark and serious movie.....I gotta let you know, subtle humor is lost on my Mom in a variety of contexts, this is usually most obvious when watching movies together. There are so many ways in which we are similarly crazy but for whatever reason, the genetic trait does not translate over to celluloid.

In response, I spent an hour or so writing an email detailing the conversation the boyfriend and me had concerning this film. In no way is this a full synopsis of the film, but these were a few of the many reasons why this movie is so hilarious, for the sake of debate (and limited attention span), here are a few of my favorites:

1. The premise as to why this group of friend has psychic powers is amazing: 4 kids save a “mentally deficient” kid from eating a dog turd. He bestows psychic powers upon them. I mean, it sounds like a perfectly logical set of circumstances. There had to be some sort of explanation as to why they had these powers and this is the best the writers* could come up with?

* Footnote: To my amazement, a couple days after I wrote this email to my mom, Tom and I were discussing the movie and he looked up the movie info and informed me that the script and plot ran almost 100% true to Stephen King’s story line. Take from that what you will---there was a very long pause on my end due to shock when I heard this. The kind of long pause where when something that started off as a prank ended with dog poop all over you…..that’s right, you can take that anyway you want as well.

2. The “worm” itself…. ( -aka- Stephen King’s alien) We started to refer to it (endearingly) as the shitweasel, which is now my new favorite word du jour. The monster had so much potential to be amazingly cool a la “Aliens” style and burst through peoples’ chests, like a brilliant phoenix and scare the hell out of everyone. Instead, it sneaks its way out through the backdoor like a BM gone terribly, terribly wrong and it looks like an overgrown nightcrawler with teeth!! Instead of being terrified, the host human dies in terrible embarrassment thinking he has pooped his pants in a big way. Hens, the Shitweasel. I have to thank Aaron and Chris for seeing this movie as well and coining that term.

3. The story jumps around---A LOT. I watched half the movie on my own before Tom came home from work and joined me for the second half of the feature. While trying to explain the story line, I realized that I sounded like an 8 year old with sever ADHD and a problem with compulsive lying. Here was the following conversation that Tom and I shared while I tried to catch him up to speed:

Me: “So there are 4 friends and they are psychic and going to spend a weekend out at a remote cabin in the woods. One of the friends was driving out to the cabin and found a lost hunter roaming through the snow and picked him up and met up with another of the psychic friends out at the cabin.

The hunter had some abnormal swelling going on in his stomach and chest and was farting and feverish like he had some super nasty food poisoning. The hunter locked himself in the bathroom for a long time and 2 of the psychic friends broke down the door and found the bathroom covered in nasty-nasty and the corpse still having watery BMs.

The “weasel” monster was in the toilet and they tried to trap it there by having the character that was played by actor Jason Lee sit on top of the closed toilet lid (who is portrayed as being exceptionally neurotic and requiring toothpicks to quell his anxiety) while his friend (Damian Lewis) runs out to the tool shed to fetch duct tape for the purpose of containing the monster in the toilet bowl. (Spoiler alert: this is funny given further development towards the end of the film).

Damian takes his sweet-ass time and Jason gets so anxious he NEEDS to pick up one of his toothpicks that he had dropped into a shmear of doo-doo. This shifts his weight off the toilet lid and releases the Shitweasel from the toilet, resulting in the weasel violently kills him. Then the “weasel” morphs into a different type of alien-monster and takes bodily control of the character played by Damian’s --- he can see what’s happening but can’t control the monster.”

Tom: “What? Why would he want to pick up a toothpick out of poop to put in his mouth?”

Me: “I know, right?? He had to die somehow in that bathroom and that is the plot story they chose to follow. “

Tom: “????” (Look of severe confusion) “Why do they have psychic powers?”

Me: “When they were kids they saved the mentally deficient kid from being force-fed a dog turd by bullies and he bestowed psychic powers upon them.”

Tom: “What?”

Me: “I know.”

Tom: Stared very skeptically at me and then at the TV. His confusion was mounting and I could tell that the story was confusing the hell out of him and that confusion was causing frustration. I wasn’t leaving much of anything out—the story line was just that stupid. In turn, I was also getting frustrated—the movie was just that poorly written and I was having a hard time conveying that to Tom. It wasn’t his comprehension, nor my explanation. It was HOLLYWOOD’S FAULT.

“ What is going on now? Why are there military men?”

Me: “The military knows that there are aliens in that remote forest region and they quarantined the area. They want to carpet bomb the Sh*tweasel.”

Tom: “Why are the helicopter pilots hearing childrens’ voices? Is that Morgan Freeman? What is he doing there?”

Me: “The aliens are psychic too. They are trying to use mind control to keep the pilots from bombing them. Morgan Freeman is apparently a general or something like that. He’s in charge of quarantining the alien situation.”

Tom: “Ok…..so why are the 4 guys psychic? And why does the guy who has the alien inhabiting him have a bad British accent?”

Me: “I don’t know. But Damian’s character apparently can keep the alien from controlling him psychically, just not physically and that’s why he can see what’s happening and the alien manipulating his body but can’t control it.”

The movie continues to progress. I watch it snickering from time to time. Tom pulls out his computer and ignores the film, looking up when we are about 10 minutes away from the end and asks me:

“Why is Morgan Freeman in the helicopter trying to gun down the other military guy on the ground? Is it revenge for something? I thought they were on the same side.”

Me: “Yeah, they were on the same side…the other dude was his right-hand-man and defected from the Army. I really don’t know, I figured Morgan Freeman was on his way to help the situation because that was his right-hand-man, not gun him down with a 50 caliber machine gun out of a vendetta…..oh, now it looks like the army guy on the ground shot the helicopter down and they are both dead.” (Explosion on TV screen)

Tom: “???”

Me: “I don’t know, it doesn’t make any sense, I guess this is the writers’ way of tying up the loose ends of the story.“ (Footnote: and a presentation of Morgan Freeman’s raw power unleashed. If Morgan Freeman can’t have his sidekick, EVERYONE DIES by gunfire. He went after that dude like a pimp goes after one of his hoes that tries to leave him. STRAIGHT UP)

Tom: “Is that guy supposed to be the adult version of the retarded kid that was supposed to eat the dog turd?”

Me: “Yes, but with terminal cancer.”

Tom: …. (look of WTF all over his face)

Me: “I don’t know Tom, he’s just there.”

So here is where the movie loops back on itself and the movie could have ended 20 minutes in. Remember when I was talking about the weasel being in the toilet? Well, the alien had made sure that there was a dog that was infected by the weasel and had baby shitweasel eggs gestating inside. He took the dog to a water reservoir where the eggs were going to be released into the water supply and make it back to civilization. Ok…..wait a second……why couldn’t the weasel just lay the eggs in the toilet at the beginning of the movie???? This race of aliens is mad-inefficient. Its genetically predisposed to host itself INSIDE OF HUMANS and to BURST THROUGH THEIR BUTTS. Are you telling me that these aliens are such idiots that (a) he couldn’t have just laid some eggs inside that toilet and it would have been flushed by other humans trying to get rid of the smell? (b) these aliens can manage space travel and psychic control but they couldn’t figure out how to use a human for a host that was on a city-sewer system?? Ay dios mio!!

Just for further tie-in, right on the outskirt of this reservoir was where Morgan Freeman did Battle-Royale his defected right-hand-man and both died.

Then the mentally deficient, terminally ill, psychic gift-bestower who was dragged out to this remote region turns into a different type of alien and battles with the leader of the Sh*tweasels and saves planet earth.

~~~~ FIN ~~~~

That is the way I watched and interpreted the movie.

**BIG SIDE NOTE: I wrote the following before I was told that this movie followed Stephen King’s story line very closely.

Basically, the storyline followed THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE via the writers – it was both hilarious and frightening to see that this calamity had enough of a budget to feature Jason Lee, Morgan Freeman and Damian Lewis. Whenever a character is no longer needed in the story, he is just killed in the most convenient (and coincidentally, most unbelievable way possible). I have no idea who signed off on this and wrote the check but its really reinforcing my belief that the less accountable you are for the outcome of anything; the more people buy into it. The moral of the story: Where’s my check?!

Like I said in the beginning, I felt like what started as a practical joke ended with being smattered in dog turd.

Kicking Ass Into The New Year

First thing I did today was get online and I had a video link from a customer of mine. She put together a really fun acrobatic yoga video and was wearing some black and blue striped pants I had made for her. I do acrobatic classes for fun, so this makes the video awesome to the power of infinity for me.

This was a super WIN way to start the day.

I heart hand turkeys

So….on the bright side of life, almost everyday of thanksgiving week was spent in a semi-drunk state, making this last week the official “let your liver dry out and stop the night sweats week”. There is a ribbon to commemorate overcoming these adversities in life and it’s the same color as a liver with severe cirrhosis. Although this was ridiculously enjoyable, I had not planned on this occurring....and this posting is a little late, but better than neverm

I had to work the first few days of the week, but due to 2 inches of snow on the ground Tuesday, I went in late that day to avoid black ice and freeway mayhem that was bound to ensue. On Wednesday, I “worked” less than 5 hours before I was sent home because 90% of all salaried employees had already bailed for an “extended-extended weekend” and there wasn’t a whole lot for me to do besides stare at the wall. Although it sounds neat to get paid just to sit there (and god knows I need the money), it’s really not as fantastic as one might assume.

Side Note:

I realize that anyone from the Midwest is laughing their asses off right now and I’m sure that if I got 3-4 feet of snow every winter, I would be laughing as well--- but I’m totally serious about the snow. Every time it snows 6+ inches, the city basically shuts down—schools, shops, EVERYONE takes a snow day. I swear I’m not making this up. The reason behind this is that we don’t have snow every year and when we do have it, it might be for a week at the very most. Portland OR is not equipped in the SLIGHTEST to handle snow on the ground and not nearly enough people own a set of snow tires or chains to get to work safely. I’ve lived here almost 5 years now and each time it snows, I see people sliding all over the road and backsliding on hills (my favorite) and looking surprised even though they don’t have the proper equipment on a front wheel drive vehicle to be out there driving to begin with. I have chains and studded tires for my car but I’m also unaccustomed to driving in snow, so when it does hit that 6+ inches, I just call a spade a spade and spend a day at my neighborhood bars instead.

The outcome of the 2 inches of snow: there was a wreck on the highway I take to get to work but not because of the snow. Instead, SOMEHOW somebody’s land rover managed to catch on fire…um, YEAH. Again, I’m glad I waited to go into work 2 hours late that day and slept in. GO ME! FAIL CARFIRE!

I got to play hedonist for an entire week. Monday night it started snowing, so after work I grabbed beer and a pizza (survival supplies) and headed to my boo’s house for the night. (That’s right, it’s the boo. What of it?) I figured if I’m going to get snowed in anywhere, I’d prefer it to be where there are people to hang out with, a fireplace and cute puppies to play with and easy access to booze and video games. (That’s my idea of survival.) Tuesday night was a bit of the same, it was still up in the air as to what was happening with the weather so I decided to keep drinking. On Wednesday I got cut loose from work 3 hours early so I went to Ilsa’s (aka She-Wolf) house where I helped her make pies and drink hot cider with spiced rum and listened to her and her roommate bicker for 5 hours.

Thursday required almost 250 miles of roundtrip driving to see 15 family members, so you had better believe there was alcohol involved (I drove on the way down, was the designated drinker and had the boo drive on the way back up). I understand that everyone has memories of family events and holidays that still give us night sweats when we remember what they are. Being in my later 20s, I think I’ve been a veteran to some “you ruined Christmas!!!” moments in my lifetime, some my fault, some not. But let me tell you this…..NOTHING quite prepares you for when the man of your life drops the TENTACLE PORN BOMB on your older cousin without a second thought and watching her try to mask the abject horror crawling up from the pit of her stomach to covering her terror stricken face.

I was so caught off guard, that I tried to smooth it over but hadn’t put together a logical, calculated method to do so. In the end, ‘T’ looked at me and said: “Don’t try to class it up! It was tentacle porn that was playing in that restaurant! During afterhours!”

I can’t wait to see what happens with Christmas…….

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGADPw2vDsenVHwiGgw79DSdRY3Fj6fwn0C9mmznu9xtQqb-ePyzYVtTu7Z2_l6kfxvD0CF_psEQ9MvCV8NDwPw0FxqE3zhV1yepIiEpvRCk0-nmtVHvFt9kxiSKjGy97qexeYiY3Pd5E/s1600/HandTurkey_small.jpg

An child cut from the cloth of my own heart....sigh....

Friday was an impromptu house party with out of town friends where the night ended in competitive bubble bobble (OH SNAP KIDS!!) and one person (NOT IT!!) who ended up stumbling drunk and getting a ride home with a bucket on their lap. Crime doesn’t pay and neither does doing 14 shots in a row of tequila, several shots of bourbon and chugging down a large glass of absinth and soda.

Saturday

Things got interesting on Saturday night. Very interesting…..we still had out of town friends hanging out with us, and we collectively decided “I know! We haven’t been to strip club in ages!” Lets get this party started!!! There was a strip club called The Landing Strip that we went back and forth on checking out. Pros: T and I found it while driving up near the airport (coincidentally in the outer ring of industrial Portland). It caught our attention at once and both us started bouncing in the car seats with glee from imagining the skeezy possibilites. Cons: Out near the airport (Landing Strip, get it? Heh heh heh) and hard to find.

We ended up choosing to strip club hop to 2 different places and kicked off the festivities at Magic Gardens. Trust me when I say that this (and Mary’s Club) is a place where strippers go to die. Its like a sleezy Stargate: as soon as your feet cross the threshold, you are transported through a wormhole back in time to 1980 to a stripper truck stop in the middle of methtown nowhere in logging country Oregon. Much like the movie Stargate, you are in awe of your surroundings and the culture. The stripper “stage” is more like an elevated fountain pool drained of water with a rack and chairs around its outside, mirrors at the back, a LOW CEILING and NO POLE. It wasn’t just the stage. The décor was outdated by an entire generation and there was an old lady working as the bartender…I’m talking in her 70s at least, it was wicked. Portland is the strip club capital of the world (most clubs per capita baby!!) and this was a first for me. I have never seen a strip club sans pole that only midgets could dance on without hitting their heads. The whole scene was absolutely fucking weird.

We grabbed some drinks, took a seat and the 8 of us patiently awaited the delights of this pleasure garden. Well, there were 2 STRIPPERS for this fine establishment and one of them is barely 21 and looked way younger, had cut scars on her stomach and was completely out of it. I call her baby-stripper. Up at the rack, the night was made when we realized that she had meth-mouth and was covering her teeth with her lips when she spoke with patrons. She was sitting on our portion of the bar at the rack and started talking to us:

Baby stripper: “How are you doing tonight?”

(K speaking on behalf of our group): “Pretty good! You?”

Baby Stripper: “My day started off terrible, I had a toothache but its better now because I’m drinking.”

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GGGOOOODDDDD!!!!!!! Yeah, I bet she had a MOUTH full of toothaches. While meth-mouthed baby stripper was trying to give us the fuck-me-eyes, she couldn’t barely look at any of us because her eyes were shaking around like bobble heads. Fan.tas.tic.

We got out of Magic Gardens in under an hour and headed over to the Lucky Devil, where the bartender doesn’t look like your dead Grandmother. We felt at home and at ease with the “stripper universe “ once again. Immediately after we got there, a girl was having her 21st birthday party and was taken onto the stage for some fun. Her drunk friend ran up there after her and ripped off her shirt and bra, giving the entire club drunken show. Good on her for keeping her body in shape, but I gotta say, watching a stringbean skinny, overly drunk girl try to shake her shit makes her look like a convulsing noodle.

God, I LOVE LOVE LOVE amateur night.

Sunday

I hung out with Ilsa, watched a movie, did some crafting and decided not to break the week’s tradition. Same as I'm doing tonight (a week later) but tonight I have cramps tonight that are so bad that I swear that my uterus is trying to crawl out of my body.

GOODNIGHT!!!

Christmas goodies

I just posted some new items on etsy (right in time too, my sewing machine just jammed up) just in time for the holidays! "My Ring in the New Year" sale started today, go check it out! Here's an example of what I have at the store.

Thoughts?

www.ojala.etsy.com

Obi Belt

www.ojala.etsy.com

Reason #4586 why I kick ass

Armpit Glue: Just add water

The Northwest is receiving waves of arctic weather down from the north and in correlation to current meteorological events, I am freezing my ass off. I’m still freezing my ass off half of the time but this story has absolutely nothing to do with the cold weather and everything to do with my sparsely-haired armpits.

Sunday was cold to the point where no amount of layering was going to help keep me and warm and I didn’t want to keep my heater on all day because I don’t really make enough to cover all my bills as it is with my current job. (another rant for another day)


In the early evening I got up the courage to get naked for the .46 of a minute required to jump in a hot shower to warm myself up. While relishing the water (as one only does only when it is BALLS cold and outside there is a frothy mixture of big blobby snow and raining coming down together), I reached for my bar of Dove soap and started rubbing it in my armpits, as is my custom. Somewhere around rinse time, I started to realize that there was a GLUE LIKE STICKINESS on the fingertips of both of my hands and my armpits were really itchy. I reached for the bar of soap again to make sure that it wasn’t coated in glue…why it would be coated in glue? I have no idea, but my overly paranoid and hyperactive mind thought one of several things, including going through a list of all the people that would potentially dislike me enough to break into my apartment and put glue on my bar of soap and then realized that it wasn't worth the effort for anyone to do so. The only other person I know that would think this would be a great prank now lives in NYC, so I had to rule out my two primary ridiculous suspicions.

It crossed my mind that this might have something in common with the fact that my armpits have been itching a ton in the last few weeks since I switched my deodorant. And I’ve been rubbing them like Molly Shannon in the movie Superstar…and getting the occasional sniff check in afterwards (fuck you, don’t judge me). I went out the night before and more than likely still had leftover deodorant and then prematurely mixed the soap into my armpits with a minimal amount of water….thus creating a chain reaction of weird, mildly disconcerting stickiness to deal with a few minutes later. I gotta say, reaching for the soap bar is such a force of habit that I probably did it without rinsing the residue out of my pits. Basically I’ve invented a very mild and nice smelling form of adhesive….with my armpits.


Moral of the story kids: Degree Anti-persperant and dove ivory soap are not a good combo, and you can’t blame the outcome on the dillusion du jour. I will say this, that shizzz was STRAIGHT UP TACKY. I wasn’t able to get rinsed out while in that shower….and I’m still using both products as we speak because I haven’t purchased anything else yet...yeah.