Friday, June 19, 2009

Deja Vu All Over Again

Reunion.com is starting to bug the snot out of me. I'm not even really sure why I have a profile there. I think all the people who knew me in high school know where to find me. All 10 of them. But just on the off chance, that someone needed to find me (to what, borrow my notes from Mr. Howell's class?), I keep it active.

But then they started sending me notices when somebody looked at my profile. Then searched for my name. Obviously, they desperately seeking, because they didn't contact me. So, why do I care? Now they add in when I get GOOGLED! Ugh. Not something I need to know. And frankly, I'm not egocentric enough to think that every time my name gets plugged in (none too frequently I might add), that they are actually looking for me. My name isn't all that weird.

So basically, either they are trying to spur my paranoia (no help needed, thank, I've got that covered) or they are trying to help me re-live my high school days - hey, I think that guy is looking at you. Bluh. I was very happy to leave high school, thank you very much. Flashbacks are neither required nor appreciated. What's next e-mails that say "Do you remember me? Check yes or no!"?

Thursday, June 18, 2009

To Quote Shaggy: Wasn't me

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090618/ap_on_re_us/us_healthsouth_scrushy

I've followed the whole HealthSouth stock fraud case off and on. It's better than a very special cross-over episode of Dallas meets Law & Order. Really, God bless America as a place where a kid named Scrushy can grow up to be the CEO of a successful company and make millions of dollars. Or lie about how successful his company is and steal millions of dollars. This guy is crookeder than a dog's hind leg. And I can't tell if he doesn't realize what a slimeball he is, or is actually proud of it. Sometimes it sounds like he thinks committing securities fraud is part of his patriotic duty.

According to him, he's innnocent though. Basically, it's his contention that he did not know that his top 16 executives were cooking the books to inflate stock price. To me that means one of 2 things. Either you lie like an egg-sucking dog, or you are a really, really bad CEO. In spite of it all, he did get off on the SEC chages. They never found enough direct evidence to link him to the crime, so what he's actually in the pokey for is bribery of health agency officials. Which, hey, could happen to anybody.

So, now he's got a judgment against him for nearly $3 billion in civil court. That lower standard of proof can bite you in the ass even if you thought you got away with it (ask OJ). But, again, Scrushy's a jailbird right now. I'm not sure where he's going to come up with 3 Bs. It's kind of hard to scrounge enough cigarettes and pruno to make that kind of money.

Doesn't Bug Me

Watching the footage of the Pres swat a fly in the middle of an interview brought to mind one of the great ironies of life - those who are not wigged out by bugs are the ones who have the easiest time getting rid of them. Like BHO, I'm not bothered at all by the creepy crawlies (slithery slimies, totally different story). So, I have not issues with whacking them with my bare hands, or even picking them up and tossing them out a door or down the toilet. Flies, crickets, cockroaches, whatevah. Doesn't phase me.

Which leads my friends, the majority of them who are waaaaayy bug phobic, to call me to come obliterate the giant hair spider or pick up the dead roach that's laying in the middle of the kitchen. And, more irony, they give me that reluctant "thank you but you are totally grossing me out" look as I pick up the buggy and head to the nearest trashcan. Nice expression for the person who's saving your ass. Much like Kwai Chang Caine. It is the plight of the warrior to be misunderstood.

If you've got a slug in your house, you are on your own. Yee-uh. I may be a warrior, but those things are disgusting.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Wedding Ring, Red Herring

There’s a columnist out in Los Angeles, Sandra Tsing Loh, who has recently come out with a piece, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/divorce), in the Atlantic that’s basically the case against marriage. She sites a lot of cultural, societal and psychological forces that make marriage an archaic institution of questionable value at best, and a really stupid thing to do at worst. [I may be stating the obvious here, but she’s currently going through a divorce.] She sums it all up with: “In any case, here’s my final piece of advice: avoid marriage—or you too may suffer the emotional pain, the humiliation, and the logistical difficulty, not to mention the expense, of breaking up a long-term union at midlife for something as demonstrably fleeting as love.” Wow. Yee-ouch.

I’m always wary of people who make blanket statements based on their own anecdotal evidence. Witness my own assertion that no one really likes vegetables (turns out some of you really do like those bitter/nasty things – freaks). I inferred from my own experience, and was wrong. And, admittedly under a lot of stress, she’s making a big leap to throw the marriage baby out with the bathwater.

I’m not married. I don’t think I would be a very good married person. That’s my personal evaluation of the situation. But I don’t think that marriage is a bad thing. Done right, it’s pretty damn beautiful. The divorce rate would argue that a lot of people are not currently doing it right though.

And here’s my spinster analysis of the situation: It’s not that marriage is outdated in a post-agrarian society, or that our culture no offers more choices for relationships, or even that our personalities wire us to make long-term pair bonding impossible in an era where we live past 30. Here’s what I think it is – not enough people know who they are before they get married, and haven’t dealt with their sh** prior to pledging till death doeth us part. And if you haven’t quite dealt with all of your sh** (which is a lot to ask), you should have at least identified all your sh**, and made a cogent plan for dealing with said sh** and disclosed the location and proportions of your sh** to your beloved, prior to dragging somebody else into the cesspit with you. Your boo having a willingness to help you out with the sh** shoveling (and vice versa) is a big help too. That’s it. Identification and disclosure. Here are your keys to a happy marriage. Drive safely.

Okay, it’s easy to talk when I haven’t ever committed entered into holy deadlock. But as far as I’ve observed in all my years of watching people get married and divorce, it’s not outside forces that pull a marriage apart. It’s the people inside it that blow it up. My advice wouldn’t be to avoid marriage. My advice would be to not avoid your own sh**.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Cursed

I am living with some serious bad juju. Like Drag Me to Hell/I crossed a gypsy/there’s a wax doll somewhere that looks a lot like me bad juju.

Saturday my sister drops off Mitzi the cat to stay with me while her family is on vacation. Happy to do it. Better than her being in a kennel. Guess what. I think I’m allergic to cats. Last year while Mitz was with me for the first half of the year, I thought I was having an unusually bad allergy season. But within hours of Mitzi being in my home, I went from the light sniffles of cottonwood season to a full on case of sinusitis with accompanying itchy eyes, sneezing and rampant phlegm. I leave the house, and withing a half hour, things are better. Great thing to find out at 40. Allergic to cats. Who knew?

So, if I’m in the house, I don’t have the energy to clean the house, which is what I planned to do. But if I leave the house, I have yet to really perfect the telekinesis enough to remotely run the vacuum cleaner and load the dishwasher. Kind of a catch 22.

So, by the time I have to go back to my rat hole of a messy house, I’m laying on the couch with the cat suffering, when I realize I’m suffering and also sweating. And why hasn’t my air conditioner shut off in the last hour? Oh, because it’s churning out warm humid air. That’s all. God bless America. Luckily my condo has 2 units. So I was able to decamp to the upstairs. But still. I can’t get the air conditioner fixed until I get rid of the cat. Repairmen and cats, not such a good thing. And I wonder how much this one’s going to cost me.

Then on Sunday, I run over to the Kroger to get corn tortillas for T because she’s making shrimp enchiladas for the Sunday get together dinner. And if there are shrimp enchiladas, I’m willing to go the extra mile for the good tortillas. I come out laden with Big K club soda and tortillas, and my car won’t start. At all. Went from no signs of trouble to deader than dead, just like that. Son of a biscuit. I got a friend to give me a lift to the Wally World for a new battery. Now the lights go on, but no spark to the engine. Yada yada yada, Monday morning, wait 3 hours to get towed, yada yada, get to work late, yada yada, $500 plus the tow.

Then at work, huge print job to go out, the color printer goes on the fritz half way through. My mistake. I touched it. And I’m CURSED.

72 hours of pure pain in my ass.

So at this point, I have to acknowledge that something’s blocking my chi, or there’s a spot on my aura, or the loa are pissed at me. Something. I’m about to where I’m going to get a bale of sage and smudge my entire house, and get a chicken to sacrifice. This is not hyperbole talking. Something is way wrong, and I’ve got to get it before I get turned into a Baby Doc zombie.

So if anyone has any surefire methods for shaking off the bad gris-gris, I’m all ears. Dead serious, people.

TIME: Quotes of the Day