sound and fury (signifying nothing)

Someday, when I’m phenomenally wealthy, or when I’m omnipotent possibly as a result of being dead, I’m going to do some really fun shit. Such as:

- invest, obviously. I’m sick of reading about people who win Powerball or make millions in Hollywood going broke because they spent all their money on stupid shit and didn’t save any. Dumbasses.

- go to a place like Trader Joe’s or Earth Fare and buy a whole cartload of the kind of stuff that gives hipsters orgasms.

- hire someone to make lists for me. It’ll stimulate the economy plus I’ll be able to pick someone who’s really good at it, unlike myself.

- eye lift, for fuck’s sake. And some of that really expensive cream that shrinks the shit out of your pores. Boob reduction/lift. Lipo/tummy tuck. I’m only human. (This obviously won’t apply if I’m dead. Well, maybe it will. I’m nearly 30 and my time to live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse has passed.)

- some sort of device or implant that would give me the ability to talk in a high, squeaky little-girl voice. Just for comedy. And just temporarily, because that would drive me absolutely bonkers.

- buy a copy of “Steal This Book”. Just for irony.

… she looks happy.

I just wanted to record this moment, because who knows when it’ll happen again?

Every once in a while I’ll remember that this isn’t just an echo chamber, that other people are in fact consuming my drivel. And, understandably, I’ll wonder why, and from where they came.

I love the Search Terms feature on WordPress. I don’t know how it works, nor especially do I care, but I find it fascinating the phrases that people plug into Google, and somehow wind up stumbling over my silly self-indulgent nonsense.

This one is especially amusing because, well, if this is what you’re plugging into a search engine, you’re obviously not looking for anything I have to offer, or at least not anything I’m offering to the Internet:

This is hilarious. How do you set out looking for porn, and wind up with me?

I do this exercise in my brain in an effort to increase its longevity. It may or may not work out in the long run, but I have this crazy theory that if I build these bridges now, when I’m senile I will have a head full of deteriorating bridges rather than a head full of, well, nothing.

Whenever I have what seems like a random thought, I remind myself that it had to come from somewhere. I used to do this all the time when I worked nights at St. Francis – I’d be reading a Wikipedia article and wind up in a completely different dimension from wherever I started. From Gregor Mendel  to Swedish Fish or something. I try to follow these chains back to their origin.

Well, rather than tell the entire story again, I can just sum it up visually, courtesy of Facebook insanity that no one will read or understand anyway.

I need help.

Music: Lifehouse – Wash

This post is part PSA, part bookmark.

Doesn’t this look great?

It’s a rainbow cake. Perfect for a celebration of fabulousness or really just any get-together. The drab color of the frosting really makes the interior colors pop.

I’m fascinated by this concept, even though it’s as simple as food coloring in white cake. I love color like Bob Ross loved happy little trees.

Credit goes to Aleta at Omnomicon, Goons With Spoons at SomethingAwful, and of course, my friend and pal, StumbleUpon, the greatest Firefox add-on ever. (The hell with Adblock, I can ignore flash pictures perfectly well on my own, thank you.)

Cancer sucks.

I’m kind of a cynical old bird. Well, I like to think I am, because if I didn’t wear such a veneer, I’d be raw and exposed to the harsh elements of life on a constant basis. And then, I suppose, I would become tough and cynical. Or I’d retreat into a world of my own creation and refuse to acknowledge reality. Or I’d die.

Reality is something I’ll doff my cap to. And the reality of the situation is this: life isn’t fair, but the fair only comes to town once a year. However, it’s all kinds of fucked up when a kid gets cancer.

I have enough problems in my life. In fact, these days I’m prone to crying at the slightest provocation. But I have a job. I have my health. I have a place to live and food to eat. I’m not being persecuted and I have the freedom to rail against injustices like the one I see before me, handle toward my hand.

And I’m trying not to politicize it, believe me. I’m trying to be impartial. But I can’t, see, because I have this thing called a soul. I have a sense of empathy, and I’m really starting to think that basic human compassion and American politics are mutually exclusive. I said it before, I’ll say it again: I know that this is America©, and that we have to let the Free Market© work things out, and we can’t let a Socialist Nanny State© coddle everyone from cradle to grave. But have we no decency? 

It’s actually sort of hypocritical, when you think about it. I’m talking about a kid who has cancer. He will die if he isn’t able to raise enough money for treatment. Yet it’s the same people who scream “think of the children!” for every conceivable offense, the same people who claim that they believe in a “culture of life*” who would say that the government shouldn’t interfere in this child’s case. 

What would these people say should be done about Brett? That Brett’s family should pull themselves up by their bootstraps? That his parents should have had money in savings to cover the costs? That the community should step up and contribute to help the family out?

That last I can agree with, even though I think it’s a damn shame that in our country we value money more than human life.

See, Brett is a kid with cancer. And I can’t think of anything that makes me hurt more than a kid with cancer. 

He has a rare form of cancer, what is basically equivalent to a melanoma on the tissue covering his brain. It breaks my heart that anyone would have to go through this, but a nine-year-old? For what purpose?

Anyway, the only reason I know about any of this is because Brett’s dad, Joe, is a Farker. I spend way too much time on that site, given that it’s a haven of trolls, flamewars, and pictures of cats with words on them. But you know what? As big a bunch of random weirdos as we are, we can make things happen when we make a collaborative effort. As is said whenever a small-town paper’s server buckles under our weight, as is said when we manage to make a child-star in a clown sweater a fashion icon, “behold the power of Fark”.

Members of this silly little community have sent, at present, over $15,000 to help pay for Brett’s treatment. The total money brought in by posting on different web forums amounts to over $30,000. Some Farkers have sent appeals to their local media to cover the story; this comes from MidnightSkulker:

Editor,

We hear too often of the cruel, inhumane, and unfair acts of people against their fellow man. Daily, we read about hate, murder, theft, exploitation, and cruelty. It is easy to forget that, as people, we are capable of far greater acts of decency than horror.

For four years, I have been a member of a sardonic, rude, crude, snarky group of people known as Farkers. We are the members of Fark.com, a user-submitted news collection site that usually takes a cynical view of the goings on of the world. There are verbal flamewars on religion, politics, and beer on a regular basis. But today, I am proud to be a member of this website, because it is a family.

I urge Islanders to visit www.carepages.com/carepages/brettjackson and consider donating to help Brett, or at least pass it on to those you know may help. Many of us here on PEI don’t have a whole lot of extra, but we will never have to see our children die because we can’t pay for medical treatment. Humanity is capable of great things. I have seen it and been a part of it, and now ask those of you who are capable to help as well. 

Still others, like Testiclaw, have contacted such influential and generous folks as Oprah Winfrey:

Dear Oprah,

I’m not that good at writing letters, and it’s tough to try to put into words the pain I feel for a family I hardly know.

Joe Jackson has a son, 9 year-old Brett, who is suffering from brain cancer. The good news is that he qualified to receive experimental drugs to treat his cancer. Unfortunately, Joe cannot afford the $100,000 bill that comes along with the drugs and hospital care.

I thank you for your time, and for your consideration. Just one kid, in one family, trying to live the rest of his life. Let’s get behind this 9 year-old and give his cancer something to worry about.

Bravo to them, to everyone who has dug into their wallets and given up their lunches and gone without their TotalFark subscriptions. While it’s incredibly sad that it has to be done in the first place, it makes me proud to be a Farkette.

*Yes, I know that’s just a catchphrase to rally the idiots who go to the polls only to vote based on the issue of abortion.

I don’t know much about police procedure, thankfully. I really don’t even watch a whole lot of cop shows on television, but when I do, I know there’s usually one final piece of evidence that convinces them they have probable cause to arrest the bad guy (or the good guy, depending on the direction of the scenario). The music crescendoes, the shot zooms in, and some walking mass of cliché says “book ‘im”.

I’m so at home here. It’s been unexpectedly seamless, so much so that, as hackneyed as it sounds, I’m really just wondering when I’m going to wake up. That seems to be my nature: waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe I need to change that. Maybe I’ve come far enough, or just accrued enough karma, that this is going to work out.

It is comforting to know that some things never change, including that if it in fact doesn’t, there will be a buzzard section waiting to tear apart the carcass. These aren’t even people I’ve wronged. I haven’t shoved my happiness in anyone’s face, and no, I don’t think warbling about it on my unseen little corner of the ‘tubes constitutes a face-shoving.

I have this marvelous ability to leave people in my dust. I’m a forgiver, but more so a forgetter, and after this, I’m going to take full advantage of that fact. I suppose it speaks volumes about my ability to delude myself, because how else could I just delete four years out of my life? That’s about as much as I can say without stepping over the line and bad-mouthing anyone. I’m not going to give anyone the satisfaction.

That said, I don’t appreciate people talking shit about those I care about. That’s probably what has me most aggravated. I don’t care what anyone says about me; the historic record will show that my worst criticism comes from myself. I do find it childish and petty for someone to say “she’s only with you because she hated where she was so much.” As though I was just using him to get out of Arkansas.

I’ll say it this way: I wanted to get out of Arkansas since about six months after I got there. I actively made plans to do so when I had the means, the motive, and a place to go other than my mother’s basement.

No one’s getting used. I was lulled out of a state of inertia, for which I can’t express my gratitude enough. But using someone to get away from a place where I was miserable and to get to a place where I was reasonably assured I’d be happy (I’ve loved NC and wanted to live here for years), would probably entail more, you know, actual using. I wouldn’t have spent over a grand of my own money and driven my pitiful crap out there in my pitiful car. I was never looking for some sort of handout. All I needed was a place to land. Happening upon love was the draw, though. Without that, I’d still be stuck in Van Buren.

I don’t mind taking risks. I have a pretty well-developed sense of adventure. And I refuse to feel bad because this makes me look foolish to people whose idea of living on the edge is taking a job fifty-five miles away from the womb.

Music: Brad Paisley – Waiting on a Woman

I received a fresh shipment of pith this morning, and I’ve been busy all day stocking my shelves.

This doesn’t actually mean I’m going to be any funnier or any more imaginative or really even more interesting than I usually am. I’m just trying to prove my mettle on the world’s saddest second-rate game show, “Fit All Your Worldly Possessions Into a Neon”.

Part of this process is paring all my useless junk into manageable proportions, and part of that task is getting rid of piles of useless paper I don’t need. Not that these papers are that bulky or take up that much space, but they were all sitting on top of my scanner, and I want to pack that and decide if it’s worth the bother of selling or small enough to take along.

So here are a few notes from my Repository of Malnourished Ideas. May they live long and prosper or die quietly and with little digital fanfare.

[I am] just a regular old sinner

Very true. Not sure why I felt compelled to write that down.

against my wind/the trees don’t sway/they merely bend/and stay that way

I think I came up with that one myself. I like it, despite the fact that it’s rhyming, it’s poetry, and I vigorously defend my position as a prose-only type of girl.

The moral of the story, I suppose, is that those elements of my life that aren’t lightly dusted with fail are actually coated in fail batter and deep fried

This is some fantastic[ally retarted] memery and the tail end of some random incoherent scribbling about my job. I cut out the bitchery about the job because I do it enough anyway, and because I’m trying to get away from that, man, just let it go.

You’re retarded. Would you like a to-go box for that?

One of those ever-occurring lines that never occur at the right moment.

Uglier than a dog’s ass but smarter than the average bear…

I actually used that phrase to describe myself. Not precisely how I’m feeling at the moment, but useful nonetheless.

Hovis, HIPAA and Hillary… sometimes you’re in a bad set of circumstances. If you’re rich, you buy a lawyer; if not, you are screwed, ’cause when it comes to sucking parasitically to make $, some lawyers will take cases on a contingency basis, but when it comes to defending a man’s freedom or life, guess who gets the shit end of the stick?

I honestly don’t have any idea what the hell I was talking about. I know not all lawyers are evil (there are about 7% who make it through school with their humanity intact), and I know that Hovis and I probably agree on Hillary. Ye gods.

Snark in the dark: 1. disfranchisement is okay as long as it’s not of the majority 2. who doesn’t like feeling like a child, or being scolded like one? 3. positive outcomes are whatever benefits the victors 4. I do what I’m told; that’s all the information I need 5. I trust my supervisor only not to chop me into pieces with an axe 6. I receive communication sufficient to make me feel like a tard

Heh.

What’s your deal? 2/$1.99

Another one of those lines I may never get to use unless I’m writing dialogue for barely-plausible characters. No one ever asks me what my deal is. I think because I generally don’t have an attitude problem.

For the random-ass file: “You’re so good-looking, but you need to slow down when you talk”

Not work-related, actually. I talk plenty slowly at work; in fact, I’m probably one of the few people who actually interviews coherently. (I also realize that interviewing is still part of my job, because I am a unique and precious snowflake.) This was actually from a dream I had. What about, I don’t know. Who about, I’ll never tell, mua ha ha.

The power of sleuthery

Probably something I wanted to make a title for something, but I don’t really do that much sleuthery, and sleuthery isn’t even a word.

10-23-07 If I am anything in relation to God, it’s a fucked-up canvas that He, for some reason, couldn’t bear to throw away.

God, melodramatic much? Although I will give myself some credit here and say I try to keep the female hysterics to the page, which in this case was in my day planner and scribbled on my way to my first Harrison trip.

I have the OMGs

That sounds like a phrase I need to inject into my everyday vernacular. If I want to sound like an idiot.

If you could say “I saw so-and-so on the internet” like you could say “I ran into Jane at the store,” would we then be so cavalier about the places we went or the things we said online?

That’s something I wanted to explore in depth but instead wound up using as a bookmark.

I never died, I just got tired of living in Tennessee

A line from a song I heard on about the only FM radio station you can pick up in Clarksville (without a digital tuner, I suppose). I wrote it down because I meant to look it up, and apparently it’s from a song called “God Save the King” by a gentleman named Phil Pritchett. I suppose I jotted that down as a reminder to check out some of his stuff. Note to self: check out some of Phil Pritchett’s stuff.

Non-reactive pupil in a briskly-reactive world.

Life according to the GCS. Ha!

And now some quotes. I believe these speak for themselves.

You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or who says it. – Malcolm X

The west won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-westerners never do. – Samuel P. Huntington

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. - Major General Smedley Butler

President Bush was quoted as saying that our Iraq campaign “has no goal other than to return control of the nation to its people.” While they’re at it, it would be nice if the same could also be done for the United States. - Michael Bloom

A civilized society does not kill innocent people. - Bill Press

Through this world I’ve rambled/I’ve met lots of funny men/Some rob you with a six-gun/Some with a fountain pen. – Woody Guthrie

The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes. – Thomas Paine

Here’s the thing about my ideas, and I know none of these are very good ones. I have no mechanism, or no sense to get some mechanism, to record the good ones as they come to me. This kind of stuff is the cream of the salvaged crop. Which is like going to a salvage yard and finding a wheel that fits your car perfectly. Which I have done, so there’s hope yet.

Why put it online, though? Because I can’t bear to get rid of these. They’re the closest things I have to children. And I lost a child known to me only as “2003.”

Plus, I’m putting off other events in the Moving Halfway Across the Country Olympics, like calling various bureaucracies and informing them of the impending need to discontinue services. Especially Cox, because I know I’m going to have to fight with those fuckers. I know they get points for a “save” every time they dissuade a customer from canceling, but something about cable companies makes them extra ridiculous. Unless you preface your call with some kind of bitchery, then they just think you’re a bitch and “accidentally” leave your service on for another year.

Music: Better Than Ezra – Teenager

I think I do a 4 July post every year, and every year it has only the vaguest of ties to Independence Day and its meaning.

I think a running theme is my annual flat tire. Like a present from our Founding Fathers themselves, I’ve gotten a flat tire on this day at least three years out of the past five.

This year, I’m really living it up. Today’s itinerary includes such activities as:

• giving my apartment a much-needed cleaning
• cranking it up to eleven and dancing around while I do aforementioned cleaning
• getting together boxes (I’ve graduated from “piles”) of stuff to get the hell out of here: one of trash, one for Goodwill
• attempting to pare down some other extraneous shit in my life, including all these notes on top of my scanner (otherwise known as the Repository of Malnourished Ideas), either developing them into something to write about or setting them on fire. Perhaps setting them on fire then writing about it
• massaging my scalp in a weak effort to make my hair grow faster
• updating my blog in the weak and grasping assumption that anyone but me gives a shit

Music: Magnetic Fields – All My Little Words

My Wikipedia addiction started when I worked at St. Francis. Overnights tend to be pretty boring, even in the ICU, and just about every site you could think of was blocked. By the time things started picking up again and it was time for AM labs, I would have seven or eight pages open.

It’s never really gone away. Any time I’m curious about something, I go here:

It’s one of the multitudes of reasons Firefox is awesome. (I swear, I’m not on their payroll.)

Anyway, to trace this itch back to its source, I was flipping through channels the other night and paused on Olbermann. He was doing a commentary on Hillary Clinton’s remark about Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, and although I rarely give much of a rip about politics, I was kind of intrigued. And I like Olbermann’s comments. It might betray me as a damned dirty lib’ral, but it’s not often I see anyone that eloquent get really fired up about things I mostly agree with.

And he was really fired up. It surprised me a little, because I could have sworn he was very much on Clinton’s side. (I’m not sure why, I haven’t watched Countdown much of late.) Of course, I didn’t know a whole lot about RFK, so I decided to read a little bit about it.

Now I understand the fury. Forty years after the rest of America, I am struck with a sense of incredible loss that such promise was extinguished. For someone who enjoys history, I haven’t ever felt so personally involved or upset at an historical fact I already knew (admittedly little) about.

Anyway, what I wanted to do was put these words, his words, somewhere they could be easily found, where I could look at them when my faith on humanity is running particularly low. From his memorial at Arlington National Cemetery:

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

- From his Day of Affirmation speech in Cape Town, South Africa 6 June 1966

“Aeschylus wrote: In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop on the heart and in our despair, against our will comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. What we need in the United States is not division, what we  need in the United States is not hatred, what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black. Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that and say a prayer for our country and our people.”

-From his 4 April 1968 speech in Indianapolis, Indiana in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Another moment in history that is so unbelievably devastating I can’t imagine how anyone could have lived through it unchanged.  I am different now than I was yesterday, and all I’ve done is merely read the pages of history.

Because one of the bots that hit this thing may in actuality turn out to be a human, and because that human may be unsure of the status of their voter registration, and because that human may not know how or what to Google (I know we’re talking about infinitesimal odds here), I offer my humble assistance in the form of Can I Vote?.

I thought my registration had transferred to Arkansas when I got my license here, but it apparently didn’t. I probably ought to change my affiliation while I’m at it, but I’m not sure if Libertarians Without Delusions is an actual party. At least Republicans have a mascot.

I know that for all my curmudgeonly griping about the media coverage of the primaries, I will probably go out and vote this November (even if I do wind up just voting for Nader* for the third genelection in a row). Even though I’ll probably be nothing more than one single cancel-out vote amongst a million. That’s a highball, by the way, because what’s the population of this state? Three mil, maybe? Oh, 2.6. Well, although that does give my ballot proportionately more weight in this state, it’s not gonna matter a whit, and I might as well not do it, and yabba-dabba-doo.

Still and all, I would love for Arkansas to redeem itself and be the only state Huckabee carries. I could dig this place again somewhat.

Music: Mott the Hoople – All the Young Dudes

*Apparently we were born in the same state as well as on the same day**. Look for a Nader/Nadir ticket sometime in 2020.

**Yes, I am unnaturally obsessed with my own birthday, as well as every other detail about myself. Aren’t I awesome?***

***Yes. And I have a nice smile. I got that one from a guy who had to have been eighty. I’m telling you, Ralph and I would have the Young White Idealistic Chick and Vision-Impaired Old Guy votes in this country sewn the hell up.

I’m in the process of making some.

WordPress changed its layout. So I suppose it’s high time I changed my e-pants, too.

Music: Elliott Smith – Between the Bars

This is, regrettably, the only thing I remember of a scathing Tolstoy of a message-board post from a guy known as “Artless”. He turned out to be an undersized fourteen-year-old boy, so I picked him up and carried him around upside-down a while, letting people belittle him. While his choice of words was a tidge immature, what I should have done was thank him for having the stones to say what no one else has. For telling me exactly how pathetic I am and have been for doing everything I’ve done that has led up to where I am now.

“It’s the hallmark of someone who was never loved as a teenager. It’s like a bad Canadian soap opera.” First of all, why denigrate Canadians like that? They’re hardworking, intelligent, resourceful people. They seem to have down this “treat the least among us” thing down much better than us “I got mine, go fuck yourself” Americans. I didn’t think they even had soap operas. I would think Canada would have better things to do than waste time on that kind of thing.

Secondly, I was loved as a teenager. I think. My mistake in that department was having failed to invite it in for tea and find it a comfortable chair. Even then, I had so little faith in myself that I’d rather have my eyelids sanded off than admit to a boy that I liked him. Hindsight: now I think not only “what’s the harm?” but “you could have used the practice.” It might have helped me become a little more discerning.

I wish I remembered more.

Of course, it being my dream, I realize that it’s merely a reflection of how I really see myself. That’s okay. I’ve always been more honest with myself than other people are willing to be. I’ve never been sure if it’s because they see me as particularly fragile or particularly volatile, but it’s how, for example, instead of a string of “good technique”s, I’ve wound up with the following assessments of my ability to do my job:

“donor said stick good but blew it to hell”

“adjust – huge vein, WTF?”

“blew to shit. leaked everywhere. huge vein”

“totally missed ’cause YOU SUCK”

“went next to. WTF”

“YOU. FREAKING. SUCK. QUIT THIS BS”

“adjust @ insert” forty or so times.

and my favorite, “good, huge vein though”. Like I should only get partial credit for a good stick because Helen Keller could have gotten it. But it’s true: where’s the skill? Isn’t that ostensibly what this is supposed to require?

Anyway, “Artless”, feel free to come back for a visit anytime. How do you take your tea?

Can’t sleep, tornadoes will eat me. Let’s waste some time and pixels.

A bright spot in an otherwise dark day:

Hey, it ain’t my childrens that’s supposed to be learnin’.

In big slobbery dog news, there was this nice surprise waiting for me when I got out of the store:

Most people’s lives are a series of dogs. Mine’s a scrapbook of dogs I can’t have.

And here’s a shot from the casino last week:

Ashtrays and sharps boxes in the crapper. Not the healthiest bunch of people.

I don’t know why I did this, but I dig the way the flash makes me look possessed:

I used some of my fat movie check to buy something I’ve been needing:

I’m sure Mom’d be all kinds of proud.

Music: Billy Bragg & Wilco – She Came Along to Me

New words in my vocabulary: upperdecker and cretinographer.

An upperdecker, is, well, one of those gross things boys would do. Hilarious, though.

The second is one I made up. Cretinographers: mappers of the moron world.

I finally got a bookcase yesterday. They were going to throw it away, so I saw it and said, “garbage! That’s for me!”

It really is nothing more than a cheap WalMart particleboard piece of furniture, and it took a week’s worth of finagling and pestering before I decided just to halfway jam it in the back of my own car and haul it home myself. I’m astonished to say that the car made it up the hill very well. I’m not at all surprised that it started to pour rain halfway home.

At some point I moved my books to the kitchen just to get them off the floor. But I have to say, I kind of like the ambiance.

I’m almost inclined to just leave them there, except then what the hell am I going to do with an empty, cheap bookshelf?

I’ve been a fan of Ralph Nader’s for a while. Well, “fan” isn’t the right word, but it’s the closest political approximation. Now I’m starting to wonder if he’s also a fan of mine, seeing as just a couple days after I wrote about considering to vote for him again this year, he announces that he might run again.

I hope he does. That’d be a really awesome present for our mutual birthday.