All My Little Words

Just because I love adding to my air of unpopularity, let me just say that I am sick of hearing about the damn bike accident involving the kid riding the stupid fixed gear bike.

Everyone knows perfectly well that it is really bad to hit pedestrians. Yet, every once in a while, a pedestrian does something dumb, like suddenly run out into traffic for no apparent reason whatsoever,  and unless there is some sort of evidence to the contrary, we believe the driver when he cries with remorse while choking out the words “I don’t know where he came from, I never saw him, all of a sudden he was just in front of my car and I couldn’t stop”. So why do all these cyclists have such a hard fucking time believing that something similar happened here? It’s a fucking dump truck. It occurred to me almost immediately that at the time the driver was attempting to make his turn, the bike was in a blind spot. Bike got dragged along for a bit? I’m pretty sure that if I were driving a great big truck, and a little bike was under it, I’d probably be scratching my head, thinking, “Huh, what’s that funny noise?” especially since I’m sure I wouldn’t have been expecting to smash into a bike coming down a hill at 30 mph.

I wasn’t there, so I have no idea who was at fault. All I’m saying is that maybe it wasn’t totally his fault.

I honestly cannot understand why so many people are still paying so much attention to this, when there are other stories about foster moms sticking NEEDLES into foster kid’s eyes and blinding them. Oh wait, I know why – the people who are still paying attention are cyclists who think that they could possibly get run over by a dump truck, and they know that they would never get needles stuck in their eyes by a foster mom. And the poor foster kids out there probably aren’t allowed access to the internet so that they can express their concerns about the abuses in foster care. And Bob knows that getting hit by a dump truck is far more horrendous than getting needles stuck in your eyes over and over again for years on end.
Okay, maybe not, but can everyone please get the point that there are lots of bad things that happen in the world, but at least some of them weren’t malicious acts, and maybe we should spend a little more time trying to prevent ones that are?

I guess what I’m trying to say this time is: bikers make a choice to bike to wherever. I’m not saying it’s a bad choice, but it’s a conscious one. I’m also not saying that they should get killed for that choice.
But foster kids never choose to be in foster care and they certainly do not deserved to be tortured for being foster kids.
Maybe instead of going on and on about how we need to take away people’s driver’s licenses when they unintentionally have non-malicious accidents, maybe we could take even a few minutes to discuss the possibility that people who very intentionally commit horribly malicious crimes to children should be put into prison, tortured, or at least killed immediately? Or even less controversially, we could just talk about how the licensing system for foster caretakers should be more stringent, and that someone really should be checking on these kids more diligently?

Anyone? Anyone?

Yesterday, my I’m-so-cute-it-fucking-hurts boyfriend decided that it was not a good day to go to work. While I totally understand, when he asked me if I would hate him if he called in sick, I said yes.

Probably the hardest thing about my job is that I can never call in sick. And I have to be literally dying to even leave early.

The Catch 22 is with the possibility of an impending recession, I kind of have to appreciate my job and the fact that I have one and I won’t lose it because of a recession. It smacked me in the face reading about this possibility this morning, that I have one of the best jobs around to go through a recession with.

It is sad and weird to say, but I would actually look forward to a recession. Everything I have been reading about the housing market and whatnot leads me to believe that if one is caused by all the sub-prime lending and people are defaulting on their mortgages, maybe we actually could buy a house. I really like where we live now, but maybe we could buy a house here in the neighborhood.

I hope it doesn’t affect Mr. Cute’s job at all.

I was driving to a little errand this morning, and observed this woman driving pretty badly. As I returned home, I observed her car parked. With the lights on.

Yes!

I know, that’s mean, but she was so not paying attention and I’ll bet that’s why she left her lights on. Maybe she should be a little more focused while driving?

It’s coming. I swear.
I don’t know where it started today, but I do know that it has included instances of mislaid blame, making excuses for being FAT and both topless Britney Spears AND defending her “honor”.

So for lack of a better system, I’ll just go in the order that these topics just now came to mind.

Mislaid blame.
Some kid (and by “kid” I mean young man) riding a bike at high speed got himself killed by a delivery truck while very probably flying through an intersection on a fixed gear bike that was equipped with only a single brake in front.

As Seattle is overly bike-friendly, the cult of the biker wants to blame the driver of the truck. He must be to blame, right? He is a big, bad driver? Never mind the fact that he was driving that truck for his job, not the usual evil of being a single person commuter or just someone who happens to own a car and happens to drive it sometimes. Or the fact that people who drive for their job are more likely to be more careful because losing your job for running someone over is a pretty gigantic and super sucky bonus for simply running someone over.

Don’t get me wrong. I am the first to agree that most drivers, here and EVERYWHERE, suck obese ass. I like to drive. By which I mean, I like the feeling of accelerating in my vehicle, handling turns at high (but still safe) speeds, etc. That’s not something you can really do when you are driving in the midst of roughly 80 billion other drivers in this overcrowded motherfucker I live in. So generally speaking, I say that I like to drive – when there’s no one else around. And that includes bikers. You wanna know why? They are the BIGGEST FUCKING ROAD HAZARD OUT THERE.

Obviously, when you are driving a vehicle and about to turn right, you would not expect there to be a speeding vehicle in your path to your right, because you only turn right from the far right lane. The far right, except for (that is), the bike lane. You would however, still be looking out carefully for, say… pedestrians. However, pedestrians do not travel at speeds of about 30 mph. Therefore, if you check carefully before turning right, and see no pedestrians, chances are you won’t hit one with your vehicle. But no matter how carefully you check, or how slowly you turn, there is an excellent chance that you will hit a bike. Or even that one will hit you, as it comes flying past so fast that you wouldn’t be able to see it’s tidy sleekness under any circumstances. But where I live, even if some guy on a bike hits you going way too fast, it’s probably still gonna be your fault if you are driving a car.

So in the case I’m talking about, no one is really sure who is at fault. The truck driver is probably going to get blamed no matter what. I think bicyclists revel in the fact that shit like this makes people not wanna drive. And as you may have gathered from what I wrote above about drivers, I wouldn’t be complaining if there were less drivers out there.
I just can’t wait until some jackass on a bike hits me while I’m walking.

Moving right along….

Here we are again, blaming WHERE YOU LIVE for how fat you are. I’ve had this argument before. Low income people tend to live in neighborhoods where they do not have good access to healthy foods, yadda yadda yadda. I’ve also gotten totally yelled at for arguing that this isn’t a good fucking excuse.

I’ve been low income. It’s not like I’m exactly “high income” now. When my income was a lot lower though, I still shopped in a fucking grocery store, and purchased and consumed foods very similar to the ones I purchase and consume now. And guess what? I bought them at a grocery store NOT in my neighborhood, and I carried them home ON THE FUCKING BUS. (Oh, and for the record, I am neither obese, nor even fat. In fact, chubby would be a big stretch. Most people say I’m “skinny”, even though I know that there is fat in a few spots where I’d rather it not be.)
It is argued that lower income people also purchase lower priced foods with higher caloric density. Presumably so that they can purchase MORE food, with LESS money. Does anyone else see the math equation here, or do I have some super special radar that allows me to understand that if these people chose to spend more money on slightly less, higher quality, healthier food then YES! they’d have less food, and HALLEFUCKLUJAH! they might be less fat because not only would they be eating healthier food, they’d be eating less food period. How does this not add up to anyone but me?

The real irony here is that in times past, plumpness or even fatness, or even out-and-out obesity were signs of wealth and well-being. Because only people with lots of money could afford to eat a lot and didn’t have to do hard labor because they had serfs to do it for them.

I’ll add one little factoid in here that people would really, really hate me for. The article that brought this particular beef to my attention mentioned people who are less than able-bodied, such as diabetics, people with canes, etc. and how not only do they have a harder time walking in their ‘hoods and getting exercise because of their conditions, but that their conditions often cause them to be lower income, hence the reason that they are living in lower income neighborhoods with shitty sidewalks and whatnot.

This is where the meanness comes in, are ya ready for it? In times past, these problems didn’t exist because people in this condition died. Their lives were not artificially prolonged, dragging them through years of misery as fat people who could barely walk or afford to eat healthy, nutritious food. It is only in the last hundred or so years that we insist on making sure that everyone lives, at any cost, even if their lives are miserable. I’m not saying we should kill the disabled, or even just let them die, obviously that’s mean. But can’t we at least recognize that it’s just not natural for them to survive and that’s why they’ve got it rough? I don’t know how to conclude this thought, as it has no logical conclusion. I guess the only way to do so is to clarify my point, which is, that as awful as it sounds, I just don’t have any sympathy.

Oh yeah. BRITNEY!!!
I hate to say I told you so, but I was way ahead of the curve on hating Britney. Back in the days when she was everybody’s darling, cute as a button, virginal, etc, etc, ad barfinum – I fucking hated her. And I coulda told ya that her story would get to this pathetic chapter.

Poor, poor Britney with no hair, bad wigs and making poor wardrobe choices for her flop of a “comeback”. Whatevs, girlfriend. Put your shirt back on – and don’t forget your panties either – and stay home for a year or so until your hair grows back. That should give you plenty of time to practice up on your lip-synching. Oh, and maybe a bit here and there to raise your children? Hmmmm?

Things are finally starting to come together after what seems like an eternity of packing, moving, unpacking, putting away, cleaning, repairing, rearranging and re-stocking.

I have never heard of it taking 36 days for these things to happen. To anyone.
Granted, I certainly took my own time moving because I had the time to do it, whether I liked it or not. That actually began well, it kept us from overdoing it on any given day, and initially, the house here maintained a pretty liveable atmosphere. This plan also should have dictated that on the day we rented a U-Haul, we would really get the job done, as we had already moved so many things, even though most of them were small. But no. Ten hours with the truck, and there was still plenty left behind to continue ferrying by car on day-to-day trips.

Then came “The List” after the inital walk-thru. Sometimes I begin to think of all the wall repair and painting as a fiasco, but then I remind myself that it might have been far worse had I simply tried to do it myself.
The most frustrating aspect of the old house portion of all of this is that I know perfectly well that there are a number of things I should not have had to do to get my deposit back. Obviously, I should have repaired the walls, and maybe touched up the paint in those areas, but I should not have had to paste over every little pinhole, nick and scratch and paint that, as it seems as though they should have re-painted the house after my having lived there for over two years.
I should not have had to replace a light fixture that was in the house when they bought it. This is something that is over ten years old, and may have been when I moved in. It was not a built-to-last fixture to begin with and was likely at the end of it’s life span anyway. I also should not have had to replace a fabric shower curtain for the same reasons. Who has ever heard of a shower curtain (even higher quality) lasting more than two years, and it was there when I moved in? That teaches me the lesson that I should have told them to take it and used a cheap plastic liner the whole time.

But now that it’s all over, I am finally able to work on turning this house into a usable space. Most of the living areas are at least livable, but I am sure I spent about ten hours yesterday working on the office. Granted, a lot of that time was working on cleaning this damn computer, which I have no idea who infected with what. The interesting detail of that is that there is nothing seriously wrong with it, but it won’t stop popping up ad windows in internet explorer for anything. I’ve disabled pop-ups, and certain kinds of windows, and even tried to disable IE itself. It’s gotten better, yet it still does it. I am however, determined to fix it, and while I ran processes to do so, I shuffled things around in here. It’s just as crowded as before, but things are more organized. I’m sure no one else would be able to tell I’ve done anything.

I finally re-started my insurance claim for a new laptop and got a recommendation that a Dell Inspiron might be a good replacement. In addition to that, I may buy a smaller used laptop real cheap.

I could definitely use more hours in the day…not to mention more at night. I feel as if I could never get enough sleep. 1,000 hours straight would be a good nap.

Things have changed so much, and it would take hours to document it all.
But really, it’s mostly all good.