Tuesday, June 22, 2010

It's apparently writing time at Conquista Keep

My father has chosen to write about homo chileno (which, if he bothered to know anything about the hated farce of taxonomy, is actually Homo sapiens chilensis); I'm, uh, here.  I don't know who's coming out ahead.

If you must know, Homo sapiens chilensis is a particularly proud subspecies, with a vestigial irony node.

In any case, I just ate shit on my bike an hour ago, which resulted in the realization that I totally have a job now.  Like, three times.  First, I have health insurance (although I'm fine).  Second, I have money to repair my bike tire (don't bike over grates, moron).  Third, my hands were riddled with scratches and fresh scars which still look worse than my crash damage.  This means I am working, because I am for some reason super bad about not fucking up my hands.  There's the key I took to the dorsal thenar space, the two times my bike tore a small hole in my thumb, the mystery scratch from fuck if I know, and, of course, the time J's parents' door took a bite out of the skin on my index finger.

I needed that skin, you know.  For things.  I'm not sure if they're remodeling or booby-trapping.

Oh man, I'm going to totally regret riding over that grate tomorrow.  More than I do now, I mean.  The superficial damage is pathetic but the bruises are going to be somewhat more of a problem.

Joker on Jack?

I am nothing if not accommodating.  Well, lazy maybe.  Also, possessing of an addiction to out-of-context lyric quoting, especially when I don't know what the song's about.

There's been a request to change the appearance of my descent into madness.  It's as easy as clicking a different appearance: however, each template comes in a set array of colors and I don't feel like adding the extra click to view different templates.

Sadly, the blogger template I'm using doesn't come in blue text on a black background.  So close.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Radish moment isn't tasty enough

I finished reading a book not too long ago.  The main concept is that my dad's friend wants to have extramarital sex.  With ladies.

Let me back up.

So His Lordship of the Undead (and, coincidentally, my father) has discovered that paranoia leads to losing friends and alienating people (well, more people.  The people who were cool with the undead thing).  This has lead him to latch on to the few remaining friends he has.  There's Serge A, who's in the closet to Chileans (and my dad) but not to our (my?) delicate Bay Area sensibilities, and Serge B, whose wife MOMY is also a friend, thanks mostly to her patience.  Oh, there's also Petey Whales, who's so in the mob, but he's a topic for another time.  Serge B is a dear friend, so when I was late to his house for dinner on account of getting lost and having to leave an actual social get-together with people under 50 (procrastination comes in small doses as well), he decided to give me a book for my birthday.

Philip Roth is apparently one of the Great American Writers of Our Day.  Or something.  Anyway, Everyman is about how Philip Roth believes it's ok to cheat on your wives (plural but in series) if life gives you a bum rap, and that everyone should understand like your unfailingly loving daughter does even though she's a victim of society.  I'm sure it's also deep and touching and shit.  Whatever.

Three years later, I actually read the book.  On account of shame, I read it a few hours before the social event I had to attend before I had to go for another dinner at MOMY's hands (which have an excellent way with food).  Characteristically late, I arrived with one question on the mind.

What the fuck?

Friday, June 18, 2010

It should be available over-the-counter

Self-control is an expendable resource.

Don't take my pseudoscience word for it: this was discovered.  Scientifically.  By some people.  Basically, they took some "subjects" (victims) and plunked them before chocolate chip cookies (and ginger for some reason (I think), but I don't remember the experiment very well).  The victims were split into two groups: those tortured with not being allowed to eat fresh, delicious baked goods, and those visited with the boon of sweet cookie-consumption freedom (I guess ginger people were the control?  I dunno).  Then, they were given an impossible problem and told to, you know, have at it.  Two amazing things resulted from this experiment; A) no one cheated, and B) people who had to restrain themselves from eating cookies gave up on the problem way faster.  In half the time, on average.  Ergo, self-control: expendable.

So I totally lost my shit at my dad today, because he took two thirds of the salad.  Let me explain.  He took two thirds of the salad: I lost my shit.

Wait, let's try that again.

Ok, so my dad took two-thirds of the salad, because he just takes the treats he likes all the time without regard for other people's shares.  It's like it never registers that others might want some tomatoes, avocado, chocolate, or salad.  Anyway, I am apartment-hunting, which somewhat poetically makes me impossible to live with, so I asked him if he took two portions of salad, because I learned passive aggression from some of the best in the business.  Well, actually, he can't be that good because he didn't notice the trap and ran right into it: "uh, yeah, twice."  I shot him my mom's dirty look (hooray submissive gesture tendencies) which he countered with some drunken bluster about how I should take all of the salad. I lost my shit.

There, vaguely less crazy.

Part of what's happening here is that I am constantly out of self control.  Another part is that I was taught lessons through shame by the people who are not living up to those lessons.  But mostly it's that I want some avocado too, dammit.

[EDIT] It's radishes, not ginger.  Thanks go to J for reminding me and for the link:
http://www.fastcompany.com/video/why-change-is-so-hard-self-control-is-exhaustible

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Now what do I do with all this Challenge?

I'm somewhat of a serial mooch.

I would analogize to the trade of murdering several people for kicks, but a funny man once said that if you have to explain how two things differ, then they cannot be said to be like each other.  I have a problem in that I keep thinking sitcoms offer good advice instead of just my kind of humor (cheap, easy, yourmom-esque).

I have decided that maybe my friends resent my inability to remember to bring snacks, money, or drinks and will start hating me secretly, inside.  So I'm making cookies.  Because who could possibly be allergic to salt, sugar, gluten, or "natural flavors"?

Of course, I kept on procrastinating going shopping until the very last day, and I didn't give myself enough time to run errands, so the places with good butter closed and I am left with Challenge brand butter, the butter of my youth (before my mother discovered that Supermarkets Are Bad).  I seem to remember bad times the last time I tried using Challenge, but that shit is already in the oven.  I get to try them in like 25 minutes, and then decide if the endeavor is worth continuing or if I should just swing by the bakery and get real shortbread from competent people.

Plan B is so you remember to feel ashamed about your failings under plan A. But it's also so no one knows how big your fail is, since by all accounts, you succeeded.  Gotta keep your fires under control.

I fought the payroll system, and I won

No six-guns were involved.

So I came into work late because I had gone to bed late finishing up something for work.  Fortunately, work is hourly and totally ok with this nonsense.  Anyway, today is "did you get your hours in yesterday dammit" day, and I was uncharacteristically prepared, which of course meant that the system had some sort of issue with me.

The gist of it (gist is not slang but in fact a real word from old french or some shit) is that I didn't work on Memorial Day.  Work told me I should count my hours weekly: the payroll system actually counts weeks as starting on the first of the month (and the eighth (eight-ththththth), sixteenth, and 23rd.  Notice the extra floating days on the end of every other week there).  Thus, when I didn't work on Memorial Day (not just any day in May) and instead made that shit up on Saturday, June 5th, the system lost its shit.  "You w0rked t00 many h0urs.  They sh0uld be 0vertime.  Why are y0u w0rking 0vertime? Y0u sh0uld w0rk 40 h0urs a week.  Dude." Then I tried to explain it to people.

Apparently people believing that the system is right and that I worked overtime (I didn't) even though I didn't (goddammit) makes me lose my shit.  After losing my shit at payroll cruncher A, fellow non-exempt person B, and payroll head C, I decided it was time to call calming fiancée J.  J got me to speak like a rational human being again, and C fixed everything by just letting me lie and say I worked overtime and then overriding that shit like a badass.

So yeah, me 1: payroll system 0.  Take that, time tracker.

Monday, June 14, 2010

In space, no one can read you scream

I've discovered that sanity is not, in fact, an expendable renewable resource.  Instead, it's like land cards in the game Magic: The Gathering; you keep having to tap it to survive and some jackass next to you can steal or destroy it for, like, nothing.

The older I get, the harder it is for me to sleep.  This is partially because I suffer from that apnea you get when allergies clog your goddamn nose, and partially because I care more about the things I'm not doing as the years go by (whoo stress yeah).  In the past 6 months of living at home, my sleep cycle, allergies, and amount of free time have all worsened, inasmuch as each of those can have a "worse" setting.  Meanwhile, my dad is sleeping better, sneezing less, and watching 5 hours of TV a day on top of his copious internet news consumption.

Today, the Conquistador Lord threw a hissy fit because my mother and I did not arrive in time to sate his lordship's hunger with our meager meal offerings.  We have steady, paying jobs.  He burns his savings on Trappist Beer while awaiting the outcome of his minions' latest failed venture and the world cup matches of the day.

I need to fucking move out al-goddamn-ready.