What's This?

They've been speculating about it for a while, but in recent weeks I think the speculation has become much more serious, turning into possibility aiming for probability.

Friends may be moving from where they currently live to somewhere else. Somewhere not close to where they are now.

My first thought when I realized that they may be moving far away wasn't "Good for them." or "I'm going to miss them." or "I wonder what the job possibility is?" or anything like that.

No. My first thought was to wonder how I could turn it to my advantage and I started to crunch numbers in my head. And, I'm going to admit, the advantage and number crunching had nothing to do with the potential places they may move and the possibility of getting to visit a new location and see it with people I enjoy spending time with.

I won't go so far to actually write down the specifics of what I my thought was. I don't want to be thought of as more of a jerk than what just being selfish makes me, you know?

What's worse is that a large part of me would like for my selfish dream to come true. I don't think it will. I doubt it can. But still...

In Honor of a Film, Released Today

When new movie version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was released on DVD I pissed off a friend by asking her who the Pevensie kids were going to marry and have kids with since they're all related. I mean they don't want to go the whole incest route and have flipper babies, do they?

She told me that there are other humans.

Not in Narnia, I said.

She said that other humans lived in the other lands.

I asked her how they can be humans. How can they be humans if they're not Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve?

I could tell she wanted to throttle me, but I went on to say that if the other people aren't Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, wouldn't it be like having sex with a shaved chimp that had plastic surgery to look more human? Would the God of Adam and Eve be okay with that? Or would it be more like Kirk having sex with an Orion Slave Girl? She's a big Star Trek fan.

She insisted that there are other humans in Narnia.

I asked her to show me the proof. Just because something looks human doesn't mean it is. Didn't we learn anything from the first Terminator movie?

Shut the fuck up, she told me.

They're going to have flipper babies, I said, under my breath, flapping there way through life. No wonder there are no kings and queens in Narnia when Caspian’s ancestors take over.

I Feel Like A Dick, Again

Kalinara of Pretty Fizzy Paradise fame decided the other day to start a flame war on her blog.

I read through the first set and thought it was pretty funny. So, I left one of my own, attacking one of the commenters (or should it be commentators here?). I felt like such a jerk after that.

This morning there were more, and two aimed directly at me! I thought it was even more funny having people insult me in the flame war. I left another comment trying to burn the two who went after me and then a general insult to the whole board. And I felt like an even bigger schmuck.

The main reason I think I feel like such an asshole is because, for a moment, it felt so damned good to say horrible things to decent people.

I feel like a dick.*

*You have to read the comments.

In Response To...

For some reason, I can't bring myself to post this as a comment on her blog, but after seeing her latest post I couldn't help but wonder:

Anyone else want some milk?

Verus Verum

So, that last post I wrote, it was a lie. All of it. I've never been to Washington DC. I stopped believing in reincarnation in the ninth grade. And, although I've lived in flat places, I've never lived in a flat place that got really frosty and cold for long stretches in the winter.

The story that I wrote started while I was training to start working at 'Bucks in 2002.

See, when you're in your early to mid twenties and you work at a place like 'Bucks, everyone wants to know how old you are. Especially all the just-got-out-of-high-school girls. During my first week of training, which was at a store that was 45 minutes to an hour drive from where I lived at the time, I was asked by everyone who worked at that store, and the three who were training for my store how old I was. I was tired of the questing the third time it was asked.

I know when most people are young, age is very important (even though I keep getting bulletins on MySpace that say it isn't. When you're young, almost everything is defined by an age. At four is when you go to pre-school. Five is Kindergarten. Six you stay at school until two PM. Nine you're there until three. If you live in a town with a middle school (which I didn't) you go there when you're eleven. At fourteen or fifteen, you start high school. At sixteen you can, hopefully, drive a car. At eighteen, you get to decide if you want to be done with school, forever. And at twenty-one, you can buy yourself, and your underage friends, booze. Nearly everything is defined by age.

So, I understood that it was important to them, but that didn't mean I had to really answer the question.

My second week of training, more people who were going to be working at my store started showing up to be trained, and they started to ask me how old I was. I said I was 61. Every time someone asked me my age, I said 61. If they asked me to tell them my real age, I'd say 61. If they got upset, I'd tell them it's not how old you are, it's how old you feel. Eventually, they got smart and started asking my brother how old I was because he'd tell them, after he did some counting on his fingers. (That's not a slam on him; I have to use my fingers to figure out his age, too.)

Time moved on and we all moved into our real store and new people were hired, we were understaffed when we opened. They started asking me how old I was. I told them 61. Then, one day, I was tripped up. When I told someone I was 61, I was asked what year I was born in, and I stumbled. I couldn't just throw the year out without a thought like I can my actual birth year. So, I went about remember that I was born in 1941.

That's when more started coming to me:

• How could I explain why I was so young now, even though I insisted I was 61? Reincarnation!
• Where did I live? Somewhere very flat that got cold in the winter.
• Who were my parents? I can't remember their full names. I think my father's name was Jack or John, or something like that.
• Why can't you remember? I died before I was two.
• How? Whooping cough.

After I came up with the story, I started to recite it to people who would ask anything more than how old I was. Most people would walk away after I brought up reincarnation. Talking about how whooping cough felt got most of the others. If I had to go farther, I'd talk about how my past self's father died at Tarwa. Most people have no idea where Tarwa is, let alone about the battle that was fought there. They didn't want to hear about the bloody marine assault on the beaches or other nasty details.

Anyway, the story, no matter how deep I got into the details, was a good way to keep certain types of people away from me for a while. About a week. Good times.

In other news, I have an interview in Cowtown tomorrow. I'm not asking for luck, this time, because it hasn't helped in the past. Just thought people should know why there's no Friday post, even though there hasn't been a post in the last seven days and I don't plan on explaining that.

Hope your June is better than your May.

And Then She Responds

And she says that she's been having an internal struggle (although she used the word debate) over telling him ever since their dating thing became more. And there were moments that could have been used. And time has passed. And there's some rationalizing in there. And some fear, too.

And I don't know what to say. I still think she should tell him, but I know all the what ifs. I've gone over them in my head from her point of view and from his. I can't know how he would react because I don't know him at all. I don't even know how I'd react.

I only know what I'd like to know if I were him.

I think I know what I'll say, now.

And I think I've gotten myself into something I shouldn't have.

I Feel Like A Jackass

I don't do the whole internet community thing like, well, nearly everyone else out there. I don't join in. I don't hop into conversations on blogs that I like to read. I don't try to rile things up in the comments at news sites. And I rarely read anything at message boards and never post on them.

Which brings me to an hour or so ago.

There's this blog that I've been reading for a long time. (It used to be listed off to the right, but when the blogger started updating only once or twice a month, I decided to take it off because people very few people read archives to learn if each blog post is worth it, they are, but I digress.) Last year, the author of the blog started dating a guy and she decided not to tell him about her blog because she didn't want to freak him out/she wanted them to get to know each other together rather than over the 'net. In January, one of her other readers asked her how he feels about her writing about him on her blog. She said that she hadn't told him about her blog. (And she really hasn't written a lot about him. Just a bit about their first date and something about going for coffee and him helping when she was sick and how much she likes him. That's all that I can remember.) And she wrote that she wasn't going to tell him about her blog.

At the time, I freaked out a little bit. I wrote a long reply about how she should trust him and tell him about her blog and ask him not to look at it because a silly little thing like an online journal can turn into a stupid-assed big thing if it's kept a secret for a long time and then is discovered by the person who never heard about it. After I finished writing it, I refreshed the comments and read that most of them were telling her to keep keeping it a secret. So, I deleted my comment and didn't write anything at all. She doesn't know me. (Although she did drop by at least once and comment, but that was nearly a year ago now and I'm pretty sure that I'm not on her daily, weekly, or monthly web-crawl.) I only know her through the little bits she's put online. Why would she want to read a dissenting comment on her blog from someone she doesn't know when there are people who she knows commenting and telling her to stay the course? I wouldn't listen to me.

This morning, she posted something new and once again said something about how her boyfriend doesn't know about her blog (If he does know, apparently he hasn't mentioned it to her.) and I wrote another comment about why I think she should at least tell him about it. And I actually posted it.

And now I feel like an asshole for doing it. I keep thinking I should go back and delete the comment before anyone out there reads it. But I also keep thinking that I'm right. I hardly ever feel like I'm right about anything. I feel bad about posting it. If I delete it, I'll feel bad about that. I think I'd rather feel bad while thinking I did the right thing, though.

Damn, the rules of internet courtesy just get harder and harder every day.

NEWS FLASH!

Even though I never met her and actually think she was disgusting, I am the father of Anna Nicole's baby, Dani Lynn.

I am the one who is entitled to raise the baby in the comfort that her probable billions will provide. It'll only be the best for the baby.

I promise I won't take advantage of the situation.

I promise, really.

Unhelpful Idea

If the fucking doughnut shop that's on my walk back to my apartment was open, I'd eat until I started vomiting.

Since that's not going to happen, I'm going to the movies and buy popcorn coated with fake butter substitute.

A Mood

Maybe it's because tomorrow's a holiday, maybe it's because The Supervisor is a lazy bitch, maybe it's because I stayed up late (for me) and wrote far too little, but I'm in a bad mood right now.

It's the kind of mood where I want to kick a dog that's being walked by its owner. It's the kind of mood where I want to walk up to an insecure person and tell him or her that he or she is fat. It's the kind of mood where I want to be a big asshole to everyone around me.

I'm never really an asshole, though. Occasionally, I'll do something that I consider asshole-esque, other people don't think it's asshole-esque or they just don't call me on it. And when I do those asshole-ish things on purpose, I want to be called on it.

Those moments are very few and very far between.

Still, I really want to kick a dog or make some poor woman burst into tears right now.

Dear Brother

I want my DVDs back. I loaned them to you a while ago and I still don't think that you've watched them. If you had, I'd have hoped for some communication. You know an e-mail or a MySpace message saying, "Holy monkey nuts those really sucked. Why'd you lend them to me? What made you think I'd enjoy them? You suck for even liking these. How can we even be related? What's wrong with you?" Or maybe something saying the opposite.

I'm pretty sure you'd like them if you just sat down and gave them a chance, but you haven't in the past months and I don't expect you to anytime soon. It's too bad you haven't, though, they're really good. Just ask the other brother. Oh, wait, during the drive to Easter he did tell you how good they were and suggested you watch them. Huh, who else could convince you? The parents? They enjoyed them, too. So did the last roommate I had and a good friend who now lives down south and all the other people who own them and have watched them more than once.

I want them back. I may not watch them right away, I may not watch them ever again, but they're mine. I just want them back.

When's the next time I'll see you? The end of July? Maybe? I doubt it though. When after that? Thanksgiving? Not if there's a repeat of last year, so I not going to hold my breath for that. Maybe at your birthday? That's five months away. I don't want to wait that long.

Since I know that you're not going to come up here, mail them to me. Once I get them, if you so desire, I'll mail you a check for the postage.

Thanks.

7

There's a glow to the world, just waiting to be embraced.

6

Could life get any better?

5

It was a mah-voe-lus day.

4

Today is full of more amazing possibilty.

3

It's simply splendid out there.

2

What a woooooonderful day.

1

Today was faaaaantastic.

HA

Maybe I'm an idiot, but it's fun fucking with a few of you.