The cold sting of resentment; or, I have a pencil that’s no good to me

Today, I went to the insurance place for work; and on my way out, they gave me a free pencil. I like a free pencil. With a nice, new, sharpened pencil there are several things I can do that I like to do:

a. Part my hair
b. Color in the sections of the cross-stitch pattern that I’ve already finished stitching
c. Write down appointments in my appointment book that I intend to cancel later
d. Jab holes in the covers of paperback books – oh, wait, I’m not Anna at nine.

Unfortunately I can’t do any of these things because MY FAMILY BROKE MY PENCIL SHARPENER.

Yes, I said my pencil sharpener. That really excellent electronic pencil sharpener that we had in the kitchen for years and years, next to the basket with the Q-tips, that pencil sharpener that eventually broke because too many people were using it? That was mine. I got it for Christmas one year and I loved it.

When the pencil sharpener broke, everyone was like, Oh no! Now the family doesn’t have a pencil sharpener! This is terrible! and I tried to explain that this was a personal tragedy for me because it was my personal pencil sharpener, and nobody listened to me. Everyone just kept saying how sad it was that the family pencil sharpener was broken. Which was really mine all along. Just like that stapler of Robyn’s that she finally reclaimed (I think she did anyway) after over a decade of everyone pretending it was a family stapler.

My family is a stealer. And a murderer. I bet that pencil sharpener would still be alive and kicking today if I had not out of the GOODNESS AND GENEROSITY OF MY HEART consented to allow the family to use it, rather than keeping it all to myself.

P.S. This week my mom got me a flu shot and gave me cookies as a prize for allowing her to buy me a flu shot. So I guess, on balance, I am not still mad about my pencil sharpener. It’s just, I could really use it right now. Am I supposed to part my hair with a comb?

Sad

The library hates me and breaks my heart. They are constructing some new system to catalogue the books and keep track of what patrons have what books out which THEY SAY is going to be much better and everyone will rejoice in it once they have finished setting it up TWO WEEKS FROM NOW. But I have my doubts because the last several new things that they have come up with have made me unhappy, to wit:

1. Completely getting rid of the computers where you didn't have to log in, you could just check really quickly to see if a book was in the library. Now you have to log in to the computers and get on the internet and use the online catalogue. It takes ages and I hate it. And the computers are constantly breaking which they hardly ever used to do. Or, well, maybe they did, but I liked them a lot better and have chosen to forget any negative qualities they may have possessed.

2. Bringing out these new soulless white cards. My card is blue, and I have had it for eight years, and I am not prepared to part with it for some allegedly stronger but definitely not as good white card.. Because when I first got a grown-up blue card, I kept losing it, and finally I got this one, and I was like, OKAY. THIS IS IT. I like this number and I am not ever ever ever going to lose this card, and I never did.

3. The new evil system whereby little children can only check out children's books on their card, so if they want an adult book or even a YA book, their parents have to check it out for them. This is hateful evilness and makes people's lives more trying. I can only imagine how furious I would have been if this rule had been in effect when I was small.

So I am not confident that the new library system will be better. Meanwhile I have no idea when my books are due. I check books out all the time, and I keep track of their due dates by looking online. You can't renew books using just your library card. You have to actually know which books are due when, and have them with you when you try to renew them. This sucks because my goal is to accrue less than $15 of fines on this go-round of my library card; I just renewed the card, and that lasts for three years, so I am trying to get very few fines in three years. And I know this is going to mess everything up. TOTALLY UNCOOL.

You know what would make me feel better? Football! How many more days is it until Saturday? I am nervous for the Florida game, but I am taking it as a good omen that it's happening on Ada Leverson's birthday. I shall pray that she intercedes for us - I mean what are the odds that there are any Florida fans who like her as much as I do?

Revisiting the slaughter policy

When I was a child I thought as a child and my slaughter policy was as follows:

1. Don't kill anything cute.
2. Kill other noncute things whenever you are brave enough to do so.
3. Don't kill any spiders.

This last bit is completely Roald Dahl's fault for having James say this:

Should her looks sometimes alarm you
Then I don't think it would harm you
To repeat at least a hundred times a day:
I must never kill a spider
I must only help and guide her
[and invite her in the nursery to play]

So, okay, that's fair (apart from the last line which I have bracketed off as obvious lunacy). Spiders do helpful things, and I like helpful things. I am not necessarily afraid of spiders. I mean I do not want disgusting spider babies running all over my apartment LIKE SOME PEOPLE, but I don't see a spider and start crying and hyperventilating or anything. That's why the third item on my policy was there.

And then I became an adolescent, and grew to understand nuances of good and evil, and I revised my policy thus.

1. Don't kill anything cute.
1a. If something cute is going to die anyway you may run it over with your car as I learned when my mother had to do this to a little bird my cat was playing with.

2. Kill other noncute things only if they are in your territory. I.e., if you encounter a wasp inside, it is a villainous invader of your personal space and you can kill it because it's icky. If you encounter it outside, like an ant on a picnic, you are in its space and it legitimately has the right to crawl on you or whatever.
2a. COCKROACHES KILLED BOOKS BELONGING TO YOUR GREAT-GRANDFATHER AND EVERY ONE OF THEM MUST THEREFORE ALWAYS DIE.

3. Don't kill any spiders.
3a. However, you don't have to have them in your house. If you find one, mercifully scoop it up on a Kleenex and put it outside.

Now I am a grown-up and I have had to make changes again. Things are more complicated when you are an adult. They are. Viz:

1. Don't kill anything cute.
1a. If something cute is going to die anyway you may still run it over with your car.
1b. If you do kill something cute by accident, immediately call your Hindu friends and let them make you feel better by assuring you it's going to get reincarnated as something better.

2. Kill noncute things if they are in your territory.
2a. Or if they bite you.
2b. Or get on you.
2c. Or if you just can't stand the sight of them (this includes all cockroaches everywhere).

3. Take spiders on a case-by-case basis.
3a. Don't put them outside. If they are inside they are probably house spiders, so the house is their territory too, and putting them outside will probably kill them.
3b. So if you're inside and they're inside, and you try to ignore them and they don't take the hint and keep hopping back onto your desk and ending up on your post-it notes and finally GETTING IN YOUR HAIR AND IF A SPIDER CAN DO IT THEN SO MIGHT A COCKROACH, you can feel free to kill them.
3c. And then if you slam a pack of post-its down on them really hard and they still walk away from it, feel free to scream obscenities at them. And at Roald Dahl too because it's all his fault. And then write a stroppy blog post about it.

Dear friends and family,

This blog post is a call for help. I CANNOT STOP SWEET HEAVENLY GOD.

You may have heard

about the fact that Amazon.com has a quote unquote "glitch" (yes, I said "quote unquote" and then used quotation marks - this is redundant but I do it to indicate my skepticism that "glitch" accurately describes what's going on there) which causes books with content relating to GLBT issues to suddenly not be ranked on the Amazon ranking system anymore! Which causes them to slide way, way down the page, so when I do a search for Fingersmith, which I just finished rereading and thoroughly enjoyed, Amazon is like, What book is that? Do you by any chance mean all these other books and films that are not Fingersmith at all?

I know it's Easter Monday, and Amazon is doing its best, and it can't solve everything right away. I know this. I still feel angry anyway. What is your problem, Amazon? Sarah Waters, really? Really? You need to protect the public from the adult content in the books of a woman who has been nominated for the Booker prize twice? Really? And Jeanette Winterson? I don't know what to say to you, Amazon. You have done so much for me over the years, sending me Christmas gifts for my loved ones, and books for me to gloat over, and the first series of Doctor Who, and I have loved all of these things greatly. But STRAIGHTEN THE HELL UP.

(Ha, ha, straighten up. See how I made a funny? How I can make a funny in the midst of being really irritated?)

Yeah, Amazon, straighten up and fly right. I don't want to hear about any more of your shenanigans.

Things that are not cute

I don't really have a list. Just a critical remark to make about myself. So #8 (an arbitrarily chosen number) on the nonexistent list of things that are not cute is Being Clumsy. It is not cute to Be Clumsy. It is unpleasant.

I have been really tired lately, and also a bit stressed because of this thing I volunteered for at work and then became frantically worried I wasn't competent enough to handle (but it went fine), and I guess because of that I've been more clumsy than usual. I tripped and fell a while ago, and my phone fell out of my purse and broke. The other night I got out of bed to switch off my alarm, and when I got back into bed I injured my ankle (it hurt a lot but no bruise). And then last night I was walking into the kitchen to get my dinner and I tripped, and I fell into my wood chair and wood table. I hit my stomach, left hip, right calf, and left ankle on various pieces of wood.

There was SO MUCH PAIN. I could not breathe, and when I could finally breathe again, I thought I was going to throw up because it hurt so much. Sometimes I forget about Pain Thresholds and Being Stoic and all I can do is wail helplessly until the pain subsides slightly. And although it really sucked, I thought: Well, at least I will have some truly epic bruises tomorrow, and I can show them off, and everyone will be stunned by the size and colors of my bruises.

However, this did not transpire. My blood vessels are made of steel. It's bullshit. The only good bruise I have is on the top part of my leg, so I can't show it to anyone because I am too much of a lady to take off my trousers. I have the puniest little bruise on my calf that you ever saw. Like if maybe I was injured by THE FEATHER OF A HUMMINGBIRD.

Anyway, I've sort of strayed from the point. The point is, it is not cute and endearing to be clumsy. It is aggravating, dangerous to anything you are carrying, and ultimately painful. And aggravating. And every time I injure myself due to clumsiness now, I think about Stephenie Dreadful Meyer and how she gave her heroine the trait of clumsy in order to make her more real - which didn't work, but because it irritated me so much, it sticks in my brain. I fall over and hurt myself, and all I can think of is, If only I had a strong manly vampire with well-developed chest muscles to save me from my own silly self.

Something that I wish guys would consider

I hate it when you are out walking and you walk past a group of guys and they are all laughing, and one or more of them makes a comment at you. I absolutely hate it when that happens. When I was much smaller and I would walk past a group of people I thought might be dangerous, I used to think that they would kidnap and kill me unless I sang exactly the right song. I had to figure out what it was, very fast before I walked past them, and sing it loudly, so that they would not kill me.

Although I have long since grown out of believing this to be true, I still start flipping frantically through songs in my head when I am scared of people. I also start inventing scenarios in my head about what I would do if they attacked me, even though I know they aren’t going to attack me. I have to make a specific effort to keep my head up and not walk faster, so they won’t think I’m afraid. While I am doing this, and trying to stop myself from feeling shaky, I am also feeling really, really furious because I am a nice and clever person with integrity and many good skills like playing guitar and reading Tarot cards, and setting boundaries and not putting up with people’s crap. But when this happens I am suddenly not really me anymore but instead some pathetic little rabbity person that I sort of despise, just because a bunch of guys are laughing and one of them has said, “Hey, baby, how you doing, come over here."

I always want to go over to them and say, “I don’t know if you are intending to be flattering, or insulting, or you just want to look suave in front of your friends. To me, however, it is scary. And ordinarily when someone says something to me that I don't like, I say something rude back to them; but I am afraid to do that now because you are bigger and stronger than me and I can’t control what you do. And I have been the victim of a crime before, and when you say these things I remember it, and I feel frightened when I remember it. So, please stop.”

I never do it, though.

LOOK.

This is an open letter to film and television producers everywhere.

I have no gripe with you giving your characters asthma. Lots of people have asthma. But seriously, if you're going to give them a condition that causes them to puff on their inhalers every five seconds, do some research. Or if you really cannot be bothered to find an asthmatic person and ask how to use an inhaler, then pause for a second and think about it. They're inhaling, right? Which means that they are taking in the medicine by inhalation? So what the hell sense does it make for them to breathe out again straightaway after inhaling it? MY GOD.

As a point of comparison, you will not recover swiftly from strep throat if you spit out your antibiotics before swallowing them.

And yes, the timing of this complaint has everything to do with Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse; but YOU ARE ALL GUILTY OF IT. And, you know, most of you do not make shows as good as Dollhouse. So.

Exactly why I don't get my oil changed

BECAUSE WHEN YOU GET YOUR OIL CHANGED THE PEOPLE TRY TO TERRIFY YOU.

They call you up and they're all, hey, I'm done with your oil, but oh, your tires are cracked and worn. And I'm all, oh, well, that's cool; and they're all, oh, yeah, AND THERE IS DRY ROT.

The word "rot" is not a word you want to hear when - well, ever, actually, but particularly in application to the tires on your car. When people start saying "rot" about your tires, what should have been a quick, cheap, easy procedure of oil changing suddenly becomes a big expensive undertaking in which you have to replace your damn tires completely.

Moral: Never ever ever get your oil changed. Ever.

*sobs*

Wagamama - my favorite restaurant in all the world - is opening a third US location. And do you know where that location is, DO YOU KNOW?

IN BOSTON FOR GOD'S SAKE.

THERE ARE ALREADY TWO WAGAMAMAS IN BOSTON.

Wagamama executives, there are people down here in the South who yearn for you tragically! Do you not understand that I would travel to Texas, to Mississippi, even to Alabama, to eat your food, if only you would open a location here. Furthermore I would tell everyone I knew that your food was worth driving to another state for. Please, Wagamama. Massachusetts is not the only state in the union that could benefit by your delicious ramen noodles and chicken katsu curry.

Please, Wagamama. I beg you. Please come to Louisiana. Please. Boston already has two. They don't need a third. And if you are dead set on giving them a third, please try to remember that they don't need a fourth. Louisiana needs one. We know how to appreciate good food here, I promise you. Please.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

When you get impulses to do things that aren't really important because you have a small window of time for doing things in and you think they aren't going to take very long, JUST DO NOT DO THEM. JUST GO TO BED AND DO THEM ANOTHER TIME.

Last night around ten, I had just finished a project for work, and I had just finished an episode of Doctor Who, and I felt very sleepy, so I went upstairs to my room. Once I was up there, I couldn't decide whether I wanted to watch an episode of Torchwood or just read for a bit and then go to sleep. I thought about it for a while, and finally decided that it wasn't really important for me to watch Torchwood and make myself tired for tomorrow. Of course, being me, I felt like I should do one more thing before I went to bed, in order to make sure the day had been suitably productive, and I decided that a really good thing to do would be to find out whether the light switch in the hall (whose function I have never been able to ascertain) controlled the attic light. I thought that would be good because it wouldn't take long, and it would give me very valuable information to have for later on.

Yeah.

So I went into the hall and pulled the rope/string thing for the attic ladder to come down. Turns out that thing is not as easy to pull down as the cable guy made it look. Damn ladder is damn heavy. Needs two hands. And caution. And going slow. Pulling it very quickly with one hand proves to be a recipe for rope burn. Like, really bad rope burn. The kind that ceases to qualify as a rope burn because it has cut so extremely deep. But the pain signals took a while to reach my brain, and while they were still making their way through my nervous system from my index finger, I carried on pulling the attic ladder down, thereby exacerbating what was already the worst rope burn of all time.

My finger bled right through two Band-Aids. I thought of going to the shop to get a butterfly bandage, but then I remembered that butterfly bandages are useful for holding a gash together, which is to say, pulling two sides of an open wound close enough that they can think about hooking up again. They are not for assisting in the process of regenerating nineteen layers of skin. Leading me to the conclusion that bleeding all over my - in the order it would happen - coat, house key, steering wheel, and credit card in order to acquire a butterfly bandage from the shop would not be an effective use of my time. Fortunately the third Band-Aid did the trick, and quite rightly considering I put it on so tight that my fingernail had turned completely white by this morning. When I took the Band-Aid off this morning and washed it with soap, the damn thing started bleeding again. It really hurts.

I am never ever ever ever pulling down the attic ladder again.

Also, the light switch does not control the attic light at all. Unless the attic light bulb is bust, in which case it is just out of luck on account of how I am never ever ever ever pulling down the attic ladder again, ever.

Sure, this marriage is going to last

No, well, maybe it will. I'm just being mean because this makes me throw up.

Not all men were so disenchanted, though [with the film of Twilight]. At a midnight screening in Texarkana, Texas, last Thursday, a gentleman dropped to his knee with a ring as the credits rolled. To the delight of the screaming crowd, he asked his girlfriend if theirs might be as enduring and unconditional a love as the one shared by Edward and Bella.

I didn't make that up. I couldn't ever have made that up because it's way too awful.

Jenny wearily begins making a "Save Dollhouse" T-shirt

Damn network execs put Dollhouse on Friday nights from 9-10 PM.

A regrettable quality to possess

is the inability to photograph well. I just take terrible photographs. Even my senior portraits look weird and unlike me. I think that in the history of time, there are maybe two pictures of myself I really like.

This is very unfortunate on days like today, when I looked really cute. I had on a white button-down shirt and a high-waisted black-and white skirt, and a black-and-white headband, and my hair was a little bit straightened but not completely, so my hair isn't frizzy but it doesn't look lank, and I was wearing some adorable black-and-white shoes that I got on sale at White House Black Market, and my purse was black, and I just looked really good.

But I can't prove it! If you don't see me today, you will never know how cute I look, because even if I took a photograph to document it, you would not be able to tell that I look pretty. I would look weird - my chin would look strange, and my smile would be all weird, and my cheeks would look like they were eating my eyes. It's like when I had my birthday hat, my piratey Ascotty hat, and I bought an outfit to go with it so that I could wear it back home on the plane (because I couldn't pack it so I had to wear it), and I bought all the pieces separately but nevertheless it all coordinated really well. And I looked pretty, and everyone was extremely helpful as I traveled, and they carried my bags for me, and they showed me where the secret lifts were, and they called me "Madam" - but still, when I took a picture, I still looked weird. It's extremely frustrating. Pray for photogenic children. For their sakes.

What my mother said to me yesterday

She said: "This book (Jodi Picoult's Vanishing Acts) was very absorbing. I stayed up all night reading it."

And I, knowing that my mother doesn't stay up past eight, said: "Really?"

And my mother said: "Yes. Till ten-thirty!"

In other news, I watched a really depressing football game today. I went straight home before it was over and I read that bit of the sixth Harry Potter book where Ron succeeds in turning the Gryffindor Quidditch season around, to cheer myself up (it didn't work). CBS had the meanest commentators ever and they loathed LSU obviously, and I now completely decline to ever watch CBS again. I mean, my God, CBS, WE GET IT ALREADY. YOU ARE FELLATING THE ENTIRE FLORIDA TEAM ON THE SIDE. QUIT REPLAYING THAT AWFUL PLAY.

However, my aunt and uncle, with whom I watched the football game until we all got too depressed to continue, learned that I had purchased a record player, and they gave me all their old records. Now, this includes some Barry Manilow ones, giving me the opportunity to mock my aunt for her previous musical tastes by singing "Copacabana" at every commercial break (now it's stuck in my head, so that'll teach me to make fun of the music people used to like before they wised up), but it also includes the Jesus Christ Superstar album that she got when she was twelve, the Jesus Christ Superstar album that I love like my life, the version of Jesus Christ Superstar that is my desert island record. Also Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, Diana Ross, Grease, and many other things.

You know what's MORE annoying than having an earworm that you don't recognize?

I WILL TELL YOU. Forgetting to look up the song on the internet when you finally get back near a computer after hours on your feet, then remembering again while you are in the middle of cooking a rather messy dinner, then forgetting again after everyone goes home, then the next day at work remembering that there was a song stuck in your head yesterday for six hours and you wanted to find out what it was but being unable to remember how the damn song went.

Grrrrr.

So McCain suspended his campaign

I mean, in the first place, I didn't know you could do that. I thought that once you got the campaign for President rolling, you pretty much couldn't stop it until early November when the results come in and you eat your victory cake with bitterness or pride.

But okay, let's say you can do that. Let's say the campaignin' train makes special stops when requested. Why would you ever want to do that? I think McCain is ridiculous.

And since I'm talking about presidential candidates, I wish that Sarah Palin would quit dragging around her medically fragile infant so that she can show off what a great person she is for not aborting the kid with disabilities.

I killed a lovebug today, only because it was in my room.

People aren't meant to be without electricity.

It does things to you.

Defending my turf

I can't say enough unpleasant things about Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books. Damn books are damn stupid, with the bad writing and the trashiness and the dysfunction presented as True Love. But today I was reading reviews of Lonely Werewolf Girl (sometimes when I'm bored I read reviews of books I've read already so that I can make fun of/wholeheartedly agree with the reviewers), and the reviewer also mentioned Twilight and how vampires are all sexy and werewolves get sneered at while the vampires are sexy Edward-Rochester characters.

I had to read that twice because my brain was busy exploding.

Edward Cullen. Cullen. Not Rochester. Edward Rochester is half of my all-time favorite literary couple, the literary crush that realistically I wouldn't marry even if I could because I couldn't ever imagine him with anyone other than Jane Eyre. Edward Cullen is creepy stalker vampire guy.

So I did some Googling, and it turns out that Stephenie Meyer imagined Edward as a conglomeration of Mr. Rochester, Mr. Darcy, and Gilbert. Anne's Gilbert. Blythe. (Pfft, Gilbert. Barney Snaithe is better; Stephenie Meyer has no taste. If she'd included Dean Priest, that would have been more like it.) And, okay, I'm not a huge fan of two of these three guys, but when I read that Mr. Rochester business, and how she named Edward after Mr. Rochester, I got really territorial and wanted to write her a letter that said BACK OFF STEPHENIE MEYER. WE CANNOT SHARE ANY OPINIONS AND YOU DO NOT EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT IS SO GOOD ABOUT MR. ROCHESTER.

Instead of that I decided to complain to the internet.

Based Edward Cullen on Mr. Rochester indeed. I can think of some salient differences - one of them being that when Mr. Rochester tries to bully and manipulate Jane into doing what he wants, SHE GETS PISSED AND LEAVES. And then you know what happens, when she has done the appropriate boundary-setting? He is very, very sorry and displeased with himself because he knows he was wrong, and then they get married and live happily ever after. OF COURSE. Because that is what happens when you set appropriate boundaries. You live a happy and fulfilled life. Clever Jane. Clever Mr. Rochester. Clever, clever Charlotte Bronte.

Mr. Rochester is better in every way than Edward Cullen, not just because he learns from his mistakes. He moreover has an excellent sense of humor and has many jokes with Jane, and he is also interested in her opinions, though I guess in fairness Edward Cullen couldn't really be interested in Bella's opinions WHEN SHE HAS NONE. Oh, and also? Also, he shows his betterness by falling in love with a better girl. See how that works? Reflects well on him?

This post seems a little mean to Stephenie Meyer and her protagonist, but I wouldn't be so cross with her if she wouldn't write incredibly popular books that send really awful messages about relationships to thousands of impressionable teenage readers. So.

Denial is like Versailles

It isn't the easiest thing to maintain. Thus quoth Marisha Pessl.

Or, I had a bad day today.

*sniffles*

Last night we watched the fifth season finale of Buffy. It was very sad. I got extremely choked up, and I was weirdly upset on Spike’s behalf – though in my defense he did look very, very sad. This was the saddest episode ever. Much sadder than when Buffy had to send Angel to hell, and I was really sad that time that Buffy had to send Angel to hell. And the “Grr…Argh” monster that used to send me into fits of rage until I understood why he was the way he was? He didn’t say “I think I need a hug” the way he did at the end of the second season, even though I definitely needed a hug more at the end of the fifth.

Anyway the point is this: JOEL GREY BETRAYED ME AND BROKE MY HEART.

You know, I used to love Joel Grey. I loved him in Cabaret and I loved him in Wicked and I loved him a special lot when, um, he came on the Muppet Show. I think Joel Grey is as cute as he can be, and he spawned a cute offspring, and I just like him a lot. I mean, until yesterday, when he necessitated Buffy’s INCREDIBLY TRAGIC DEATH.

In addition to which, there was a shot of him before one of the commercial breaks (which obviously no commercial breaks for me because I’ve got the DVDs), where he’s standing there smiling at Dawn and there’s a big (but not stagey-big) knife that he’s holding right next to his face, and that shot may be the single scariest thing I have ever seen.

Even scarier than A Beautiful Mind which scared me more than any movie ever, and substantially scarier than that time I saw Scream in seventh grade English class.

So now, in addition to being broken-hearted and betrayed, I am now going to have terrible knife-filled nightmares.

THANKS A LOT, JOEL GREY.