Sleepless

Sometimes I hate my brain. Now is one of those times. I have an odd tendency to fixate on things...things that were, things that are and things that have not yet come to pass. Most of the time, the subject of my fixation is something completely out of my control. And yet I fixate and subsequently lose sleep because my brain won't shut up for the five minutes I need to get to dream land. I've been told I'm a very complicated woman (and yes, I did take it as an insult).

The Perils of Baby Talk and Other Public Service Announcements

Over the past few weeks, I've noticed some things in my normal, everyday dealings that have left me either annoyed as all hell or scratching my head in bewilderment. Here are just a few examples of the nonsense I see on a daily basis:

1) Parents, please for the love of the god I don't believe in, STOP SPEAKING TO YOUR KIDS IN BABY TALK AFTER AGE 6 MONTHS!!!!!! If you don't, you'll end up having a kid with a completely avoidable speech impediment because you thought it was just so cutesy-wootsey to talky-walky like thissy-wissy. Here's a thought: If your kid is 8 years old, he shouldn't sound like he's 3.

2) There is no such thing as a size 24W skinny-fit jean, no matter what the tag might say. Embrace your curves, big girls, wear clothing that fits properly and dress to IMPRESS!!!

3) On a similar note: There is a very specific body type that looks good in a very high-waisted pant and that body type typically isn't over a size 4.

4) Ladies, please stop hovering over the toilet in public restrooms, especially if you have absolutely no intention of cleaning up the mess you will inevitably leave because women simply weren't built to pee while standing. The seat liners are there for a reason...USE THEM!

5) Seasonal business owners, if your business is not open until July 21, please either remove the sign displaying your business hours (implying the business is indeed open) or add a sign indicating when those business hours take effect. With gas prices as high as they are, help people save themselves the extra trip.

6) Another one to parents: If you want little Johnny to end up getting scraped off the grill of some gas-guzzling SUV, by all means, continue to let him play on his bike in the middle of the street. On the other hand, if you'd like him to see his 10th birthday and eventually reach adulthood, tell him that rush hour traffic is NOT the place for him to pretend he's a BMX star.

And finally:

7) If you're not friends with someone on a personal, non-business level, DO NOT ASK HIM OR HER PERSONAL QUESTIONS YOU HAVE NO RIGHT OR BUSINESS ASKING. Crossing boundaries is NOT cool.

This concludes today's PSA presentation. Thanks so much for reading.

Not Even the Birds Are Awake

It is officially the butt-crack of dawn. I am up exceptionally early today (by my standards, anyway) in order to be at work exceptionally early so I can go with 7 other people on a road trip to help out another store. Thankfully I'm not driving so I can take my Dramamine and fall asleep for the couple of hours it takes to get there. Yay for sleep!

A Letter...

Dear Idiot Drivers Who Pissed Me Off Today,

I know that rush hour traffic can be tiresome and a total bother.* I know that we all just want to get to our respective homes, eat dinner and relax. However, that doesn't excuse your total lack of respect for other drivers. In particular, Ms. Ford Explorer, you needn't have tailgated me from Horseheads all the way to the Elmira exit when I was already going nearly 80 MPH. Seriously, do you really need to go any faster than that on the highway? It's not as if I was lane-clogging, and you could have gotten around me with great ease had you applied yourself. But no, you waited for me to shift lanes and then buzzed on by. Why you couldn't use your signal and press your foot more firmly on the accelerator is beyond me, but perhaps you could keep that in mind for next time.

This brings us to Mr. Ford Explorer (Eddie Bauer edition).** I was totally prepared to chastise you for your lack of awareness of the green arrow lighting up. Then I realized that the light had turned red and you legitimately thought you had to wait, not knowing that the Traffic Gods would smile upon the intersection and give us left-turning people a wonderful green arrow. So I'll forgive you for making the line of traffic wait a few extra seconds while you were doing whatever it was you were doing while thinking you had to wait. I will, however, yell at the jackass who waited all of 3 seconds before he decided to lay on his horn to alert everyone that we were waiting. Dude, you were, like, 5 cars behind me...you wouldn't have had the arrow even if Mr. Ford Explorer (Eddie Bauer edition) had hit the gas the second the arrow lit up. Relax man, relax.

But seriously, kids, have some freakin' patience. It's only driving.

Thanks,
Minxy

*In all honesty, the "rush hour traffic" of which I speak is not very heavy at all. I mean, it's Rt 17...it only gets really bad at Christmas and even that's nothing compared to your basic, everyday traffic in a big city.

**Yeah, total coincidence that both vehicles of note were Explorers...must've been a Ford kind of day.

Dumb

As our most greedy and gluttonous of holidays creeps ever closer, only one thing seems to be running through my mind: I picked a really dumb time to quit smoking. The stress of Christmas is increasing as the day nears. All I want is a nice, tasty Camel Light. Ah, sweet nicotine, how I've missed you this past month since I left you for pinker lungs. I really should've written down the day I quit, so I can have a monthly anniversary. I think it was November 20. I miss the stress-relief smoking provided. However, I don't miss the stinky breath, the stinky hair, the random burns because I'm clumsy, or the general shitty feeling I had when I was smoking. I don't miss getting smoke up my nostrils or in my eye when lighting up, nor do I miss having the smell stay on my hands long after I put the cigarette out. What I don't miss clearly outweighs what I do miss, so I know it's been a good thing. But sometimes all I really want to do is have a smoke.

Anyhoodle, back to Christmas bullshit. I can't wait til it's all over and I can relax. I daresay, it's driving me completely mad. I must read go read other blogs that are much more amusing than this one. Of course, it won't make this post any longer than the meager few sentence it is, but it will distract me from my Yuletide issues. Goddamn, I hate Christmas.

The Manifesto

Last night, I was writing on my Myspace blog about one of my recent epiphanies (I've had a couple in the last few months). This one was about how I've decided to just be fearless when it comes to romance and love instead of being scared of everything. Yeah, right after I published it, I had a massive surge of anxiety that kept me up until 4:30 this morning. I ended up thinking about something from nearly a year ago...something that I shouldn't be so anxious about, because care was taken and such. But still, I have an empowering moment and my brain decides to fuck with me. It drives me nuts and I wish I could not be like that anymore. Anyhoo, I must be going now.

Eep!

Yeah, I'm going to be a Mary Kay lady. Yep, it's true. And it scares the hell out of me because I have to start out with some debt before I start making my money with it and we all know how uptight Minxy is about money. YIKES!!! My debut is going to be the weekend after Mother's Day and it's probably going to be like a Mary Kay open house type of deal. Megan, my unit director and the person whose team I'm on, will run the show and hopefully I'll be able to sell some of the large quantity of wholesale items I need to purchase to be able to start this out right. After reading what I just wrote, I realize it only conveys one part of what I'm feeling about this. I'm scared, yes, but I'm also really excited because I love make-up and skin care and the MK products are really good ones. I'm going to be a self-employed small business owner...how can that NOT be both scary AND exciting?

I Must Be COMPLETELY Insane

I was talking with one of our team leaders at work (she's really more of an assistant manager than a team leader) about some ideas I have about our coffee shop. We got into a bit of a discussion about many things including, but not limited to, the aforementioned ideas, some of the numbers, and the fact that no one really "owns" the coffee shop (meaning that no one really takes charge over there to promote all the stuff we offer). The shop does well on its own, but she said we could really be doing a lot more, we just need somebody who's willing to take it on and make it better. In one of my less brilliant moments, I said "Well, give it to me. I can do it as long as I get some extra training and guidance to learn all the extra, nitty-gritty things I'd need to know." And we got talking about it. Nothing has been set in stone, but I managed, in the course of an innocent sharing of ideas, to offer myself to the mercy of an entire department. The thing is, I know I can do it, and I think I have a pretty decent chance of being cultured for this type of responsibility, even though it was more of a casual conversation than anything else. Nothing has been set at all (or even mentioned to the manager), but still it terrifies me just thinking about it. It'd probably be a good thing for me...I'd learn more, have different responsibilities, and I'd probably finally feel like I'm more than just a shift worker. I'd feel kind of important. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so I'll not speak of this further. Still, it's kind of neat. Hehehe.

Full Moon Insanity

I was feeling pretty good about stuff for the last few days until yesterday. I started feeling much self-doubt and anxiety, more in the dark hours than in the daytime. I looked up at the sky last night (and tonight for that matter) and saw that the moon was waxing more to the full stage of its cycle. I pointed it out to Doc and I said, "Hey, maybe that's why I'm feeling funky and such." He agreed that I may be on to something since the moon does some weird stuff to people. And he should know, since he used to work in the loony bin and saw the crazies get even worse during the full moon. He gave the impression that one wouldn't even have to go outside to look at the sky because they'd know just by seeing how schizo the schizos got at that time. For me, things just get very anxious and I start over-analyzing more than I normally do, which leads to more anxiety and tons and tons of guilt and self-doubt and more guilt for feeling all the doubt. I lose much of my confidence and my sense of perspective. It sucks, plain and simple. I guess I should count myself lucky, though; the full moon only makes me more neurotic. It could be worse. I mean, I could've been one of those people who go totally batshit-crazy when that silvery saucer makes its way around every month. I'm thinking that I got the lesser of two evils.

Rude People = Evil!!!

(After re-reading this, I realize that some of what I say could be considered rude and mean, but I don't care. I'm pissed, dammit!)

So I went to one of my favorite, FAVORITE blogs yesterday and I found something to comment on, so I emailed them (as comments are disabled on that site). Perfectly innocent email, with no ill will behind it. Well, I was greeted today with an incredibly rude email back from that site. It was a one-liner, but it was so nasty in tone that I was like, "what the fuck?!?" and almost shot back an equally wicked message back to them. But I didn't because I've been conditioned my whole life to believe that getting mad is a cardinal sin. I also saw no point in starting an email war with someone I don't even know outside of that blog. It's not like I'd get any real satisfaction out of it. Well, I re-read my message and I could see where someone who has little intelligence and even less sense of nuance could construe it as something mildly offensive (but not the apparent personal attack it was taken as...there's no way in HELL that it could be taken as an attack). So, being that I've been conditioned not only to not get mad, but to assume guilt that isn't mine, the autopilot in my brain told me to send an explanatory message back. I did and also said that I meant no offense or rudeness and even apologized if it seemed that way to them. I haven't heard back, since I just sent it, but I'm sure I'll get yet another rude response. After the autopilot kicked off, I found myself wondering why I should even care about what some twit across the country thinks of what I say? It's not like she was commenting on my meager blog and said something rude, she was just rude in retaliation to my rude-only-if-you-twist-it-all-to-hell comment. So why am I so irritated by this?

After pondering this for a few minutes, I realized why it is that I'm annoyed. I find it incredibly bold of someone to get so rude to a person whom they don't even know. I also find it incredibly base and without manners. But mostly, I find that it shows a profound lack of character. Honestly, what kind of person must you be to lash out at a complete stranger? What makes you so special that you have the right to be a bitch to everyone who crosses your path? Do you not realize that there is another human being on the other side of that remark?It's not just this one person who sent me the email, no. It's happening everywhere, online and off. It's become so commonplace that the bulk of the population seems to be constantly mean and rude. Have we become a society that celebrates being mean to each other and acting as if some people are better than others? Is this the norm now? It seems so, and that nice, considerate people are the freaks.

I'm at a loss. I try to be nice and at the very least civil to people I come in contact with. Most of the time I do pretty well, too. No, I'm not always in the best mood, but at least I try. And I know there are a lot of people who are very good to everyone they come across. I work with several of them, so I KNOW that nice people exist. But I fear that the balance between consideration and rudeness is surely tipping away from good side. I witness this every day at work, as I am employed in the wonderful world of retail. It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who think that because they're on the other side of the service counter, they're automatically better than I am. They then think this gives them the right to be as nasty to me as they possibly can. And since I work for a company who stresses customer service above all else (which I'm not criticizing in any way, shape or form), I've been molded to be nice no matter how badly I'm treated. I do this, most of the time, and if I can't be nice, I try to at least be neutral (unless there's a particularly belligerent customer, in which case sometimes I use the same tone...I'm not proud of this, but people don't realize how hurtful they are). So why can't other people do this? What makes it so hard to be nice?

So this is why I'm currently pissed off. I probably shouldn't be and I'll probably have people telling me not to take it personally or that I shouldn't care so much. Maybe I shouldn't. But I do care. Why? I don't know. Perhaps it's because I'm fed up with nice people being verbal punching bags. Maybe it's because I think people should treat each other with some decency, 'cause we're all in it together, people. Or maybe it's because I believe that no one should have the right to act as if they're better than others by belittling them, whether in person or online. Who knows? What I do know for certain that no one deserves to be treated like shit, whether it's in their real life or their online one. There's no excuse for that.

Yikes! Just a preview of my insanity

Dear, sweet Jesus, what have I gotten myself into with this? Who knows? Maybe it'll be good. Random? Certainly. Insane? It's a given. Sometimes I'm told that I have a lot to say (often, I'm told this with the words "shut" and "up"), so I guess I might as well do something creative with my energies. Here's to hoping anyway. [insert silly little giggle here]

At this exact moment, I'm looking through the window to an amazingly clear northern PA sky. It's perfect, and the moon is a bright and beautiful half-saucer hanging somewhat low in the midnight sky. Some people see the moon as rather inconsequential...just a shining ornament in the night. Others see it in a purely scientific manner; it's a research destination and a force that affects our own forces here on earth. Still others see more. I love the moon. It makes me think of faeries and mystics and energies and possibilities. Oddly, nothing makes me feel like I have possibilities in myself and my life quite like the moon. Not even babies (they signify hope more than anything else, for me anyway). And I'm stopping now before I get entirely too sappy.

Well, I'm certain this isn't exactly the best blog post in the world, but it's my first one on a strictly-blogs site, so yay me. It's just a stepping stone; one little bit at a time. Clicking the publish button will be the hard part. But as my favorite person in the world would say, "Baby steps, Minxy, baby steps."