Sunday, January 31, 2010

More Mental Meanderings...

So this Saturday I drove down to LA to see Eddie Izzard at the Nokia Theater. Eddie was his usual funny and philosophical self, and the Nokia Theater, located at LA Live next to the Staples Center (where the Lakers play their home games), was a very impressive and glitzy venue (if a tad bit 'artificial'...but hey, it's LA). But it wasn't the show that made the biggest impression on me. It was LA itself. Let me explain....

As I walked around LA Live (which looks like the Vegas strip was teleported into downtown LA), something didn't seem quite right. It was just a vibe...but I didn't immediately know what it was. Then it hit me: the women were sooooooo skinny...and everybody was WHITE. Now yes, I'm a white guy myself, but I live in a pretty ethnically diverse community, and generally, wherever you go, it's a pretty good cultural and ethnic mix. But the snowstorm around me was WEIRD. And the women were emaciated. I mean, they were scary skinny. And the women were tall as well. I mean...TALL. I'm a fairly slender guy, and taller than average at 6-1. But there were women (no, they weren't trannies...no Adams apples visible) who, heels aside, were taller than me. And more than one. They were EVERYWHERE. And SKINNY. Did I mention that? Like, their calves and thighs were no bigger around than their ankles. Oddly enough, for the most part, the men were pretty average of build and height. It was strange. Like I had arrived in the land of the anorexic Amazons and their shorter, wealthy providers. And everybody was dressed very expensively, and the parking garage was filled with Mercedes, BMW's, Jaguars, Cadillacs, Lexus', Infinitis, Acuras, and a few exotic Italian marques. All of this is of course a weird illusion because a mere three blocks away is a whole DIFFERENT UNIVERSE that exists in the same city.

The only food options at LA Live is a bunch of foo-foo sit down restaurants with 90 minute waiting lists (not that the people were eating, certainly not the bulimic Valkyries, but they were pounding down the cocktails), and I was looking for a quick bite before the show. I walked three blocks down Olympic Boulevard looking for something, and found a Mexican fast food chicken place and had a pretty good grilled chicken burrito and a side of roasted plantains (not bad and only 8 bucks with chips and a drink...about what a bottled water would cost back down the street). The clientele of the chicken place (which was PACKED shoulder to shoulder and filled with small children) was also ethnically uniform: all Latin, and judging by their language, all recent immigrants (and giving me surprised looks as I was the only gringo in the restaurant). They also appeared to be considerably less affluent than the other LA inhabitants just down the street. Furthermore, on the street a little ways down from the restaurant was a homeless individual sleeping in a blanket under a freeway overpass...and the juxtaposition was jarring, and telling. That such wealth, mono-ethnicity, and superficiality coexisted in such close proximity to another mono-ethnicity that was poorer and by empirical observation considerably more reproductive, I think this was a microcosm of modern America. The have and have nots, and the freeway overpass that separated them was the Rubicon. And it's pretty obvious who is who. The clueless and disconnected upper class is oblivious to the brewing shit-storm just down the street and what that may mean to their little, self absorbed world. It's like nobody has read a history book or is familiar with the French Revolution. "Let them eat cake!!!" Or, in this case, roasted plantains.

Anyways, LA is a strange place in that its striated class system and otherworldly body image obsession really let's you know YOU ARE NOT FROM THERE. Which is probably just as well...because I like my Mexican food and my women with a bit of a shape...and generally prefer my Chucks to a pair of Guccis.

-I am in love with two, and tonight I had a threesome. With my Dyson and my Swiffer Wet Jet that is. These things are AWESOME. Tonight I cleaned my house top to bottom, and the pleasure I get from using the Dyson and watching all the crap that thing sucks up is indescribable (to my friends in the UK, if you ever run into Mr. Dyson, tell him THANK YOU for bringing such pleasure into my life). I really thought nothing could touch the Dyson. But tonight, I tried the Swiffer Wet Jet for the first time...and wow. Takes half the time to mop, and my tile floors are sooooo clean. I walked around barefoot on them just for the VISCERAL THRILL of my bare feet walking across such freshly scrubbed cleanliness. I think I started to tingle....just a little. Perhaps it's a sad indictment that I get such immense pleasure from a freshly cleaned home (scrubbed my shower too and now it has the sweet perfume of Tilex in it...heaven), but I really have no plans for the next few days other than just EXISTING in my clean house and reveling in its...cleanliness. As you can see, my needs are simple. My only fear is that the Dyson and Swiffer start getting jealous of the attention I pay the other...and a love triangle develops. Nobody needs that kind of cleaning product drama.

-it's amazing what inspires you when you scour your refrigerator for things. Tonight I made a BLT with cream cheese, wax peppers, avocado, fresh basil, and a drizzle of balsamic. Oh my god...can you still call that a BLT? Or should you call it the BEST BLT EVER? I'm fully convinced avocado and wax peppers can improve any dish...hell, it would probably even fly as a topping for a sundae.

-whats with the new, slick, nylon running shoelaces? What are we trying to achieve here? "Look! They don't accidentally get tied in knots!" Exactly. Know what else they don't do? Stay fucking tied. Went for a run tonight and stopped three times to retie my shoes...which is a buzz kill when you're running. Hey, here's an idea. Why don't we just Teflon coat the frigging things and just never bother tying them at all....that way we can run around and have our shoes go flying off after the first three strides, but say how great it was that we didn't have to worry about our laces getting accidentally knotted. Sure, we got hepatitis from running barefoot through a gutter and stepping on some broken glass and an old bloody band aid, but hey, whats a degenerative liver disease compared to knot free laces? A small fucking price to pay I'd say! Right? Wrong. Attention running shoe manufacturers of the world: if I was so desperate about the shoelace knot situation, I'd pray for something that had the magical, voodoo, space age wizardry, only exists in the dreams of small children, fucking Gandolf and Dumbledore dreamed up after a night of heavy drinking together, mind bending capacity to keep a shoe on without laces altogether...oh wait, we already have it. It's called FUCKING VELCRO. Just leave my laces alone, ok? Cotton or a poly cotton blend is fine. Let's not reinvent the wheel amigo.

OK, that was it. Social revolutions, shoelaces, cleaning product threesomes, skinny Amazons, and BLT's. I think that about covered it.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Need to get this off of my chest...

OK, I'll say it...The Hangover wasn't as funny as everybody claims it to be. It was mildly amusing at best, and tried too hard to be "quirky". You want "quirky" funny, check out The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona and Dr. Strangelove. Anyways, I don't understand all the kudos it's garnering...which I suppose is an indictment of the current state of cinematic comedy. Amazing what a marketing campaign can achieve. In fact, I'd say these days it's becoming more and more apparent that it's all about marketing and much less so about actual content. Sad, sad, sad...

Other movies that are actually funny (by no means all inclusive and of course there's more):
-Stripes
-Caddyshack
-Animal House
-There's Something About Mary
-Old School
-Sixteen Candles
-The Pink Panther/A Shot in the Dark/The Return of the Pink Panther/The Pink Panther Strikes Again (love Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom)
-Ghostbusters (the first one)
-Blazing Saddles
-Young Frankenstein
-and of course, lots more...


Truth of the matter is a good comedy is far rarer than a good action, drama, romance, or thriller...and should be appreciated when you're lucky enough to experience one.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Random things bouncing around my head...

Some various, and ultimately, pointless, things have been occupying my mind lately for reasons that probably aren't completely healthy. Fact is, I'd be better off devoting my cranial wattage towards things like a cure for cancer, an even higher definition television, or perhaps new and improved scrubbing bubbles for getting that toilet surgical ward sterile. But no, I devoted my thoughts to the following:

-what the fuck is with the little clock timer on the Ticketmaster ticket purchasing site? Life is stressful and anxiety laden enough, ok? Do I need a fucking clock telling me I have EXACTLY two minutes and thirty three seconds left to complete my purchase before my tickets, MY FUCKING TICKETS!, are released to the next (scumbag) purchaser? Are you kidding me? Why don't you just have some 300 pound goombah come over to my place, put a gun to my head, and have me crack some encrypted code at the same time as well? Of course, since I hadn't been on Ticketmaster in forever, I had to change my credit card info. This required multiple screens and security questions from the Visa corp....and the entire time the clock is ticking, ticking, ticking. One minute...fifty five seconds...gotta hurry...SHIT!!!!!! I spelled my name wrong and I have to re-do the entire billing info!!!!!! Fuck fuck fuck!!!!!! Thirty seven seconds...twenty nine seconds....SOME OTHER ASSHOLE CANNOT HAVE MY EDDIE IZZARD TICKETS!!!!!! GAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! OK, done......wha.....? Type in the word in the box to complete the purchase?????? I can't fucking read it!!!!!!! Is that a lower case "g" or "q"???? I'll go with "g".....shiiiiiiit!!!!!!! It was a fucking "Q"!!!!!!! Got to retype some OTHER unintelligible word now! Fifteen seconds....eleven seconds....nine seconds....am I sure I wish to complete this purchase? Are you kidding me? And let some other fucktard have my ticket???? You're goddamn right I want to complete my purchase!!!!!! Three seconds....Thank you for your purchase! Sigh...I was spent....exhausted....I needed a drink and a Xanax...all for a ticket to a comedy concert. It seemed overkill. I don't think government code crackers work under that kind of stress....as you can tell, I was scarred by the experience (but I get to see Eddie Izzard in LA! Woot!).

-So I have these various mouthwashes (pre-brush rinse, post brush fluoride, etc) that I try and use on a daily basis, hygienic good boy that I am. Know what they all have in common? A child proof twist off cap that the Incredible Hulk after a pot of black coffee, three rails of crank, and a B12 shot couldn't open on a dare. If you cut off a Kurgen's head, and absorbed his soul energy (There can only be one Highlander!!!!!) you may have a shot of getting these things off. A blow torch, a tactical nuke, and a motivated safe cracker may have a shot at it....I dunno. The point I'm trying to get across here is that the caps are less than easy to remove. So, what are they saying here? The very shit were selling you to swish around IN YOUR MOUTH is so fucking DEADLY, we had to make sure nobody, NOBODY, but a highly motivated adult with the grip strength of an enraged orangutan, could possibly open the cap and get to the highly toxic liquid death inside. I mean, if you need that kind of security to prevent ACCIDENTAL INGESTION of a MOUTH WASH, perhaps we should change the formula? You know...just a wee bit? Or maybe just relabel it 'radiator coolant' or 'transmission fluid' or just plain old 'rat poison'? Just a suggestion...but it does give me pause. But boy, does it make your mouth TINGLE!!!!

-I have determined a cotton swab is worse than heroin, crack, alcohol, and Peanut Butter Cups combined for its addictive qualities. If you ever take a shower and feel the desire to dry out your ears with a Q-tip, just DON'T DO IT. Once you start, there's no going back. Once your on the Q-tip fix, just try, TRY, to take a shower and NOT use one to dry your ears after. You can't. And if you do, it will be HELL. The other day I ran out of swabs, and I didn't realize this until after my shower. I was standing there, naked, and in a near panic. I then thought "Dude, it's just a Q-tip, calm down...and go about your business." So I did. It was awful. All day long it felt like my ear was the Okeechobee Swamp....and I was jonesing for a Q-tip...BAD. I rolled up a Kleenex and tried to get my fix...no good. I think this must be what the DT's feel like. PURE-TORTURE. Anyway, through a Herculean effort of pure willpower, I got through the day by picking at the imaginary spiders crawling all over my skin. Funny thing though...if you go for a swim, no need for Q-tips. It doesn't activate THE NEED. THE HUNGER. But the shower? Another thing all together. "Hi, my name is John, and I'm a cotton swabber.......and today is the first day of the rest of my life" "Welcome John!" What do you think? Surely there must be a 12 step group somewhere for this...

-I experienced true, unadulterated lust for the first time in a long time today. LUST I tell you....CAR LUST. Re-connected with a long time friend of mine who hooked me up with a test drive of the new Acura TL (plus the Snow Leopard OS and MS Office....score!). OH...WOW. It is such a MANLY CAR. Not a chick car....AT ALL. Some people don't like the looks, but to me it's hot hot hot (plus it looks a hundred times better in person). Also, it's an electronic geeks wet dream. I cannot even begin to tell you all the do-dads it has. And the ride? Smooooooth. Anyways, as shallow as all this sounds, I want this car...and I will have it. Personal life a shambles? Maybe....but I know how to buy expensive shit. THAT I can do better than most....

-Finally dumped all my CD's onto my computer and listening on shuffle...its kind of like having your own radio station. Why did it take me so long to do this? (Style Council at the moment...Have You Ever Had It Blue?) However, I do need a much larger capacity iPod now to get these tunes portable....its always something ($). Also watching Casino Royale (Eva Green....YOWZA!) and writing this blog. Who said men cannot multi-task? Ffffft......

-Speaking of Apple (I know..but I needed a transition for my next rant), my ownership of a Mac Book continues to be more frustrating than an eighty year old in the fast lane. My wireless router took a dump and I had to buy a new one. Simple fix, right? Just hook it up and configure it, right? WRONG. The crux of the issue was this: the software that came with the router has this step by step process that requires you to hit "next" at the bottom of the screen like, fifty three times. You cannot accomplish this by simply hitting "enter/return". Guess what? For reasons I'm sure only Steve Fucking Jobs understands, my MacBook screen wouldn't show the bottom of the page with the buttons I need to install the GODDAMN SOFTWARE. I got rid of the dock, fucked with the screen size....NOPE! NO GO MY MAN!!! After a half an hour of profanity, you want to know what did it take to set up the router (you may or may not be asking yourselves)? I had to fire up my rickety assed, eight year old desk top PC with a CD drive that barely functions in order to run the software. And guess what? It magically showed the whole screen and I configured the router lickity split. Wow. Good thing I have this fancy schmancy Mac, isn't it? But my frustrations do not end there. Oh, no no no. I have a new all in one printer, scanner, fax. Guess how it works with my Mac I just found out? It prints (yea)...and thats it. For reasons (Mr. Jobs?) I cannot fathom, they decided to not make the drivers for the scanner and fax compatible, and refuse to write them to this day. What the fuck????? Huh?????? WHY??????? I downloaded third party programs that were supposed to fix this issue, and.....nope. Great. Now I have all that shit cluttering up my computer as well. After two hours of sweat, colorful language, and tears of rage, I went back to the Apple and HP sites just to discover that my model was one of the FEW they arbitrarily decided not to fully configure. Why? Who the fuck knows. But there you go. Thank you Apple Corp (to be fair, Snow Leopard is supposed to help this situation...we shall see). Anyways, my Mac experience continues to be less than advertised. Thank god for that magnetic power plug connection...the one feature I'm down with.

-OK, that will do for now. Went to gym and need to shower. As you can see my Friday night is shaping up to be LEGEND...perhaps I'll hit Facebook next. Whoa...somebody stop me!!!!! :)

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Surreality

You ever see something that appears to be quite real, but your mind just says "No way". Normally I have this reaction when my daughters do a household chore without being told to do so, and I'll stop and stare as they're taking out the garbage...savoring the moment because, God knows, it may never happen again. But what I saw today whilst accessing the freeway was something else altogether.

As I accessed the Shields Avenue on-ramp to northbound SR-41 today around 1:30 pm, I saw two gentlemen hitchhiking with their thumbs out. Full grown, adult men. This in and of itself is not terribly odd I suppose. But here's the kicker: they were dressed as Puritans. You know, those people in the black and white clothing with the buckles on their shoes and the wide brimmed hats that just scream "missionary position only please"? The people from all those Thanksgiving projects you did in elementary school as you glued macaroni to construction paper and ate paste (oh, come on, you at least tasted it on a dare)? Yeah...those people. As I drove buy I gave them a good look thinking "OK, clearly there is a hidden camera here somewhere, and all of this is going to end up on some lame assed reality show, or I am just really, really wasted because somebody slipped a roofie into my venti Starbucks." But they seemed quite earnest in their desire for a ride, I saw no evidence of a camera crew, my Starbucks seemed to be un-tainted, and they had some very non-Puritan looking luggage (when I think Puritan, I usually don't also think "Samsonite") with them that seemed to suggest it was all legit. Thoughts began to circle in my head: are they REALLY, REALLY LATE for a Thanksgiving costume party somewhere? Are they in a hurry and need a ride to oppress some American Indians, steal their land and give them smallpox? Did they just steal a turkey and they're making a break for it? (I saw no signs of any fowl in the area...but still...) Was there a rave in the neighborhood I wasn't invited to??? None of this quite rang true and I was perplexed as to what these two gents were doing on the side of the road. I was almost curious enough to offer them a ride just to hear their story, but then thought the odds of me winding up dead and buried in a shallow grave in an orchard (no doubt with a side of mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and stuffing) were probably about 50/50, and I didn't like those odds. But still, what the fuck, right?

Actually, it was a little unsettling. You know how some people are creeped out by clowns? I think I have something similar in relation to Puritans. I don't know if its the oppressive religious connotations that surrounded their culture, their lust for roasted turkey, their limited clothing color scheme, or their penchant for burning people at the stake, but they kind of give me the heebie jeebies.

Anyway, it was one of those things you just really can't make up, and your brain just can't accept what you're seeing...and yet, there they were...hitchhiking Puritans.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Quick Thoughts

-If you've never gone to the grocery store late at night, you really should. Every freak and nutjob is there aimlessly wandering around eyeballing the egg cartons and frozen cookie dough. It's like a scene from a zombie movie, except the people with the blank stares opening up all the egg cartons (true story) are more disturbing than anything Hollywood can conjure up.

-I want a new car. I don't want to PAY for a new car. It is slowly becoming apparent nobody is just going to give me one for free. Therefore, I will have to part with some cash in order to acquire a new car. This is highly disappointing.

-Now that I'm back home for good, it has dawned on me I should try an establish something resembling a social life. This, however, sounds like a lot of work. Besides, giving somebody a shitty look from behind my sunglasses due to their incompetence behind the wheel while driving down the freeway counts as socializing, right? RIGHT?

-People really are as crazy/dysfunctional/stupid/narcissistic as you think they are. They will generally show you this the first time you meet them. Don't give them the chance to show you a second time (I am ashamed to admit I got that last sentence from....Oprah. Gag. I was channel surfing and she uncorked that little nugget...which I have to give her props for).

-Sometime, when I wasn't paying attention (I was probably slowly suffering in the hell of my former marriage at the time), women turned into men. The women I meet now (I'm talking socially) drink more, sleep around more, lie more, chase younger ass more, and cheat more than the men I know (and way more than me). I'm not sure what to make of this, other than it can't be good...and is kind of sad. Ah, equality. You've come a long way sister.

-I went for a jog tonight at about 1030 pm. Working nights, my biorhythms are quite a bit different, and this is not unusual for me to do, no matter how cold, late, etc. However, judging by the looks I received from a few folks from their second story windows, I think the rest of the neighborhood thinks I'm either wildly caffeinated, high on methamphetamine, or have gone off my meds.

-It's amazing what you'll do for love. Intense love. For instance, I intensely love the hummus and roasted garlic aoli at the House of Kebab (I pour the aoli over everything: the chicken, the pilaf, hell, even the tabouleh). However, this roasted garlic aoli will leave me in a state of discomfort for 24 hrs. after consumption (had it Friday night, and was suffering well into Saturday). It's a helluva price to pay. Don't care. It's that good. I'm sure there's a parallel to people here somewhere, exception being the House of Kebab never disappoints.

Good night.


Sunday, January 10, 2010

Educate Me You Kool Aid Slurpers

What in the hell is the colorful spinning pinwheel of death (oh a Mac never locks up, that's why they're soooooo awesome!!!) that causes my Mac to do something VERY SIMILAR to locking up but I know that cant possibly be whats actually happening because after drinking the Jobs flavored Kool Aid one becomes incapable of recognizing a computer that is...um...locking up? I'm guessing this little psychedelic ferris wheel is just another added AWESOME MAC FEATURE that I'm just too dense and technically deficient to use/appreciate/worship and that I'm not fully grasping the over all AWESOMENESS my interactive MAC EXPERIENCE is delivering to me. Look, a locked up computer with a pretty little sparkler is still a LOCKED UP COMPUTER. Just because you put the pig into a dress, doesn't make it...uh....well, not a pig. Anyways, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe the whole thing is just one GIGANTIC stroke of MARKETING GENIUS...and a lot of fluffy hot air. OK, make that I'm not wondering at all...I KNOW.

OK, I do like the magnetic power plug though...that, admittedly, is pretty cool....



Thursday, January 7, 2010

My take on that Meatloaf song...

So, just what is "IT" that he wouldn't do for love? Looked up the lyrics, and the meaning of the song seems to me to be this: he's a hopeless romantic who pledges his undying love and devotion, and promises to never leave or betray ("but I won't do that"), despite the fact he'd "do anything for love". She, realizing he's a hopeless romantic, believes the moment he perceives he loves another (and him being a hopeless romantic, it's inevitable that he will), realizes he will leave and/or betray, due to the bitter irony he WILL in fact "do anything for love". She skewers him with his own logic, a concept he cannot grasp. Then again, maybe that's too complicated. A wise man once said "the simplest answer is often the truest." So by that theorem, maybe it is about butt sex.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Life is like a broken sprinkler

Tried answering my mobile phone today. Here's an interesting thing about my mobile phone: it takes going through about 26 prompts in order to answer a call, but you can dump a call with just one (usually accidental) push of the button. Isn't that great? If I'm on the phone, and I received another call I'd like to answer, it goes something like this: answer call? Switch to answered call? Talk to person whose call you switched to and/or answered? Are you sure? No, I mean REALLY sure? Like, you know, sure-sure? OK, here they are....ha! Not really, I'm not convinced you really want to have this conversation. You do? Honestly? OK...but I think you're making a mistake...plus, I think you borrowed his leaf blower last fall and never returned it. But go ahead if you like, but you'll be sorry. Plus the guy's kind of a dick. Oh, you'd like too anyways? Still? OK. Answer call? Switch to answered call?

You get the idea. But if you want (or not) to dump a call...one push of the button is all it takes and it's "SAYONARA MOTHER FUCKER! I'll talk to you in Hell!!!!!" Usually, this happens by accident, and as I'm attempting to re-dial the person whose call I just nuked, they're trying to call me back, and I have to go through the 26 prompt torture session to again try and retrieve the call. They then again get dumped and this Danse Macabre continues ad infinitum. This made me ponder just how smart these so called "smart" phones are going to get, since they seem to be able to determine just when somebody is actually worth talking to. Maybe you won't even be using them and they'll start up unexpectedly as they sit in your pocket and start talking to you. For instance you'll be at the store looking at a shirt and your phone will suddenly say "Dude, please tell me you're not considering buying that shirt...I mean, what are you going to match it with? Parachute pants?" Or you'll be at a bar, drunk out of your mind, chatting up somebody and your phone will start up with "Really? Has your life gotten so bad that a sweaty encounter with this troll seems like a good idea? Hey, while your at it, since you seem so Hell bent on demeaning yourself, why don't you go ahead and take a dump in the potted palm in the corner while singing 'Dont Cry for Me Argentina' at the top of your lungs, then walk away with your pants around your ankles and state to the bartender "Keep the change". As you can see, the phones of tomorrow will be smart, as well as sarcastic AND passive-aggressive.

Was watching TV and saw what was the two most perfect, and true to life scenes I have seen in some time. One was this guys little soliloquy about how his friend is always running late because "When you're constantly late, you never have to think. All you can keep in your mind is the aggravation of the traffic and traffic lights that you feel is making you even later for your destination. It keeps your mind occupied. When you're early and relaxed, your mind wanders, and you're forced to look in your rear view mirror and wonder who you really are..." Fuckin A. Not bad. I saw a lot of truth in that. The other scene was this 40 something guy who has this intense and philosophical encounter with his teenage daughter's ex-boyfriend. He feels like he has given this heart broke lad some important life tips, and maybe, just maybe, connected with him in a way that is going to serve the "not yet quite a man" well as he continues with his life. He then walks away and stands in his yard, pondering and savoring the experience...and has a look of a man who may, in fact, be reflecting back on his own bitter sweet youth. Then a sprinkler explodes and a geyser of water erupts into the sky. Reality sets in, and the bullshit necessities of life quickly snuff out his "win". I thought to myself "Holy shit...that was....perfect." Anyways, that was the truest slice of life I have seen on TV in quite some time. Who knows? Maybe next time the show will show somebody taking a dump in a potted palm...and I know I will have found a new show for me.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Not nearly as clever as I think I is...

So, after a somewhat trying day, I had this little nugget of realization spring into my head: "There is no reward for doing the right thing...doing the right thing IS the reward unto itself" (yes, thoughts worded like this actually do pop into my head ALL THE TIME). This, admittedly, is sometimes less than instantly gratifying, but there you go. Thinking I was now some sort of philosophical giant whose brilliance the world had yet to recognize, I wondered if this idea had been proffered before. Yep. "Virtue is its own reward. There's a pleasure in doing good which sufficiently pays itself." Sir John Vanvbrugh circa 1700. Dammit! Total buzz kill. The bastard...

Also, on an unrelated note, can you explain this to me? I spent THREE HOURS cleaning my house yesterday, and the minute (no joke. Almost instantaneously as I turned off the vacuum, the door bell rang) I finished, my mom and sister showed up with yet another in an endless series of artsy/fartsy/craftsy things to do to decorate my daughters bedroom. In no time at all it was a mountain of packing material from Pottery Barn Teen, saw dust from having to Dremmel Tool out an ill fitting wood piece on an object, and various pens and tools scattered throughout upstairs. Time I got to enjoy a clean and tidy home? 23.9 nanoseconds. Now, the thing is, my family knows that one of the few ways I can truly relax is by having a quiet, calm, CLEAN AND TIDY home. It allows me to unwind without the hum of things that need to be done buzzing within my head. So, I am at a loss as to why they would do this? They had to wait until I cleaned my home? The stuff had been sitting around for days, and they waited until NOW???? If they had chained me to the floor, pried open my eyelids, filled my eye sockets with gasoline and lit them ablaze like I was some sort of hellish Tiki torch, it would have caused me less distress. And the amazing thing is, as well as they know me, they totally DID NOT GET IT. Beginning to wonder if I'm being Gaslighted, or if perhaps when I speak to my family (all women by the way), all they hear is a series of grunts like I am some sort of ill tempered simian.

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