Ranting

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Snark

Is it possible for people to admire someone for work they have done without being obsequious about it? Especially someone who has done work that is more famous than is common? It’s as if in an attempt to show respect, they become groveling fools.

I watched a video put out by an author/speaker whose work I admire. He is doing a series of them. I really enjoyed the video. It made me think about some heavy concepts in a new way. Good stuff, I thought. I thought to perhaps write a comment and express my gratitude to the author/speaker in the video. Then I read the other comments at the top of the thread and couldn’t do it. They were all so belly-baring submissive and unctuous, I couldn’t add my words to the list; I could not be so ingratiating and servile. Ick.

Another in the long line of perfect videos, FIRST NAME OF AUTHOR/SPEAKER! You just can’t say anything wrong! Your words are truly powerful! It’s too bad more people don’t agree with you and spread the word! The world would be a better place if everyone did! This is just awesome! Here’s a little anecdote from my own life to show how similar we are. Oh, and I hope you had a wonderful birthday back on December 8 (See? I know your birthday!). What would we do without you?

Find another victim?

The other part of these is the use of the first name of the author/speaker, as if the person is part of a first name relationship with them, and also to add a little story of their own to try and find such a connection. There is also the punctuating of every! single! sentence! with an EXCLAMATION POINT!! Because we are so EXCITED TOO!! A bouncing servility! That’s it.

I went back to the video that led to this diatribe and read through some of the comments for examples. I felt bad for the people writing them. For whatever reason they need to be this way. Who I am to rain on their parade? I realized I’m being snarky. I am. I’ll stop.

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Dear Mr. Outside Magazine Editor

Dear Mr. Outside Editor,

Here’s a concept: Don’t put some teaser on the front of your magazine and then Oops! forget to put a table of contents into your magazine so the person reading the front of the magazine can’t find the article. Even going page by page, which was annoying and made me not want to read your magazine because it was so controlling, I still could not find the article teased on the front cover. Since the issue in question was an “Encyclopedia” I thought perhaps that I missed the point and that I was supposed to go to the “Encyclopedia” to find the article (this in spite of the fact that the article in question could not really have been about gear). Nope. Not there. The teaser in question was “Why Aren’t Millenials Buying Trail Mix.” Trail mix is not in the index to the encyclopedia. Millenials? Nope. (I suppose Millenials really aren’t gear, now are they? (Although I am pretty sure I could make the case that they are or that some of them could be.)) in any case, I still haven’t found it. Still annoyed.

As a reader, it is annoying to:

1. Read a magazine where the table of contents is 30 pages into the magazine, thereby requiring we page through 30 pages of ads and nonsense to get to the content;
2. Read a magazine that hides page numbers when they do bother to publish tables of contents so that again, we have to page through stupid ads to get to the content in the table of contents;
3. Read a teaser on the front of the magazine that is either a) not really there (which appears to be the case in this issue), or b) isn’t really what the teaser led us to believe it was (really annoying).

Since I am ranting about this and rather on a roll, I thought I would include all of these annoyances for you to consider when being a big shot editor. When these annoyances occur, I throw the magazine away (well, recycle it). I am not wasting my time paging through ads that thwart my effort to get to the content for which I bought the magazine. I will not let the advertisers win in this manner. You might have gotten me to purchase the magazine, but since the primary driver of budgets at magazines is ad content, and since advertisers choose magazines because those ads cause the readers to go buy their stuff, it follows that if I don’t read the ads and I don’t buy the stuff that eventually it will all trickle down and you won’t get any ad revenue when I throw my magazine away. SO…may I kindly suggest you make your magazine palatable to readers who actually like to READ your magazine (I happen to be one of those people who reads nearly every single article in a magazine when I am not so irritated by getting to the article that I can’t access it) and stop making your magazine mostly palatable to advertisers? Hmm? Do you think you can do this?

I’m going to give this issue one more chance. I’ll thumb through it one more time in search of the elusive article on why Millenials do not eat trail mix, and if I am not able to find it on this perusal I shall dump this issue in the trash (recycling). Too bad for me, I won’t get to find out what gear you got paid the most to say is the greatest…er, what gear you think I should go buy.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Lara Gardner

Post Script: After sending this letter to Outside Magazine, I received a response back from the editors asking if they could use a line or two from my letter in their online letters. (I gave them permission, but I have no control over whether they will make me look like an ass in their choice of words from my letter.)

In any case, I asked where in the magazine I could find why Millenials don’t buy trail mix, because I had not been able to find it. The editor responded that it was in the encyclopedia under “Y – Youth: The Young and the Tentless” (Outside Magazine, Aug 2015, p. 92). As a commenter to this blog post noted, “the entry explains that very few people under 35 are participating in outdoor sports, beyond a day hike or pitching a tent in the backyard. There is, however, no mention of trail mix whatsoever, nor is there mention of food of any type in the entry.”

Yep. The teaser on the front of the magazine is just that, a teaser, and it is therefore even more annoying.

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Toilet Needs a New Home

I posted this ad on Craigslist a few years ago. A friend of mine asked me to repost it on the blog, so here it is:

It is time that Toilet parted ways with our family. It has been in this house for longer than we’ve been here. When we arrived, the home inspector informed us that this toilet was “top of the line” in Europe and ordered by all the best home designers in the US. “Pozzi Gnorri,” he said. “Go look them up on the internet. They’re one of the best companies in the world for bathroom fixtures.” So I did and was duly impressed. However, I had to wonder what a toilet of this caliber was doing in my little bungalow in Portland. But hey, some of us get riches to rags instead of the other way around, so who was I to question things or to remind Toilet of its brilliant beginnings? I could make Toilet sad thinking that way.

Toilet was lovely; a deep, thoughtful blue, with a white lid. And the flusher was in its top! My 8 year old loved that. Look Mom, you pull this button on top rather than pushing down on a handle! Fancy! Toilet matched the deep blue sink base.

To keep reading, click HERE.

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This Punitive Society

I want to be on the stand and say to them: What did she do? What did she do wrong? She chose the wrong men, and for this you want to punish her, as our society punishes women who let men abuse them, as if it was a choice. We forgive the wrongdoer and attack the victim, because we hate victims, even as we are victims. You should have known better! You should have made a better choice! Your choice was wrong, and we as judges, juries, and executioners know this! You should not have made these mistakes and for this, we judge you. For this, we sentence you and punish you for your sins, for your flaws. You were a good mother, but that is not good enough because you never would have been a mother if you had not chosen men who would abuse you. Of course, this line of reasoning falls apart because she could very well have been a mother if she had not chosen these men. But of course she would not have these children. These children will be harmed because of her choices. These children will be harmed too because of their abusive fathers, but we don’t hold the fathers accountable, only the mothers. These abusive men didn’t know any better, but she did. She knew and she chose wrong and for this, she shall pay with their loss. Their pains are her pains. She will suffer for her sins and so will they.

This society is so fucking fucked and fucked up. I can hardly bear it. We are so punitive, so judgmental, so holier-than-thou, such critics.  Critics. We all sit and judge. Our whole culture. We love to annihilate victims for having been victims. In doing so we can ignore the victims in ourselves. We get to be the rescuer in our judiciousness. I will save you from your victimhood, you fool.

It all just makes me want to scream.

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The only time I will use staples will be in a stapler.

I have been very busy lately. I have to use a PC for work because the software I use in my job is only windows-based. As is the case with PCs, the damn thing started running really sluggy and slow. I knew it needed a cleanup and defrag and all that crap, but I just didn’t have time to sit around and stare at it while it wound its way through all that stuff.

One day while in Staples purchasing my latest round of toner and paper, I saw a circular advertising PC tuneup services for $9.99. Ah, I thought. Good deal. I’ll let them stare at the stupid thing for two hours. It would be worth it not to have to. I called and was told that if I dropped it off on Wednesday I could pick it up on Thursday morning. Even better. Wednesday after work I headed on over to leave my non-trusty-computer at the store.

It should have been clue one to me that there would be problems when, contrary to the information I had been given over the phone, I was informed nearly immediately that it would be three days to get the computer back. Oh no, that won’t work, I told them. If it was going to take three days, I was going to have to do this another time.  The salesman hemmed for a moment then said it could be done the next day.

Clue one, Lara.  Clue one.  You weren’t paying attention…

I then said I had to get going because I had an appointment.

Clue two, Lara. Clue two.  Mr. Computer Fixit guy kind of sauntered over to look at something else another Computer Fixit guy was doing, then went behind the counter and got a little widget to insert into my computer. He inserted it and stood there talking to me, telling me how my computer was the nicest he had seen come through the tune-up station in a while. He looked like Napoleon Dynamite, only without glasses. He kind of sounded like him too. In the end I spent a half an hour in there, in spite of my constant assertions that I needed to get going.

I explained that my computer had been running slowly. I explained that on vacation, my colleague had used the computer and claimed it had been infected with malware, but our office computer guy and she had removed this malware with some program from the web.  I explained that in spite of this, the thing seemed to be running slowly.

Do you use Norton?  No, I don’t like Norton. I have BitDefender. Bit Defender? Never heard of it.  Well, it was top-rated on PC Magazine’s choice for virus protection, and I bought it based on that review, and I haven’t had any problems with it. (Incidentally, since all this went down, I perused the web and saw that PC Magazine had again rated it in their top three.)

Well, I have never heard of it.  Okay, so that makes you a superstar.  Can you just take my computer and let me go now?

They told me they would call me when my computer was done and sent me on my way.  I wasn’t kidding that I needed the thing the next day for work.  It is all I have for work and all my work is on it.  Without it, I can’t do 99% of my job.  Well, more like 85%, but you get the idea.

The next day, Staples had not called me by 7:30 p.m.  I was beginning to worry, because I had a big response due on a file in less than five days and could not afford to be without my computer.

I called Staples and was patched to the computer center. The guy on the phone informed me that he hadn’t been able to get it to update. He had tried two times and it failed at the end each time. Okay, yeah well, I need my computer. I don’t care about the updates. I’ll get to them later. I need my machine. He said I could come pick it up.  It was late and baby was going to bed, so I said it would likely be in the morning. Okay, fine.

The next day I got busy with a bunch of other things and since I didn’t have the computer, I waited to pick it up until after picking Milla up for school. When I went in, I was told it had three viruses, and that if I wanted them removed, I would have to pay $200.  I asked what the viruses were and was told that they didn’t know, but it would cost $200 to have them fixed. The guy told me that the Staples tuneup hadn’t even detected BitDefender (See?  It’s such a horrible program!) He said I should have gotten the Norton antivirus software, and was told that Norton had picked up the three viruses on my computer.

At this point I began to believe this was all a scam to get me to pay Staples 200 more dollars. Whatever, I said to the guy.  I needed my computer yesterday so can I have it now? It was frozen in update land because, in spite of the fact I told them the night before that I was going to come and get it and to forget about the updates, apparently they had tried again multiple times anyway.
That evening I sat down to work. The computer had seemingly passed through its updates, although this proved false. Later when I had to shut down because of the other issues that arose, it turned out the thing still wanted to keep updating. I finally had to go in and manually choose updates, leaving off the last one. It’s still screwed up and every time the thing shuts down, it tries to install the last update and fails, freezing and requiring a hard reboot.
The machine ran slower than it ever had before I took it to Staples. Frustrated and worried I wasn’t going to be able to finish my work, I did something I should have done this in the first place, and called Costco support. Remember though, I was up against a deadline and out of time, so it did not occur to me to call them sooner. In this, please cut me slack for my lack of foresight.
After 45 minutes on the phone, the computer was running speedily again. However, there was one problem that the tech could not figure out.  I now have to log into my wireless by going through the control panel, going into network preferences, and re-entering my security key every single time I log on. I used to be able to right click on the now disabled icon on my taskbar, click my network, and voila!  Logged on. Not any more.

The worst thing though, did not appear until I sat down to finish drafting the response due in five days. My Adobe Acrobat did not work. Every time I opened it I received an error message letting me know the registration had been corrupted and I needed to uninstall and reinstall. I ran an uninstall repair, but this did not fix the problem.

Frantic, I called my office to see if they had a serial number.  The only serial number they had for me was one for Adobe Standard. I had Pro and needed Pro. The Standard would not work. I kept trying to do my job around the error, but it wouldn’t work. I optimize scanned text. I insert and delete pages. I enter in text boxes and rectangles. I used Acrobat. A lot. No more. Finally today, up against the deadline and sobbing in frustration, I uninstalled and reinstalled a trial version. Unfortunately it doesn’t allow the user to do any of the functions I use. In tears, I called my friend Debbie. She took my documents, made them into PDFs, stuck in the Exhibit words, and bundled them all together, then emailed it back to me to file.  I wasted so much time on this problem, the response wasn’t nearly as tight and good as it could have been, and I filed it near 4 in the afternoon.

During this, I called Staples. I have a salesperson online who helps me with purchases. I had written him an email on Sunday after wasting two hours slogging through computer problems. He called me Monday. We played phone tag until today. He said the store had told him I said the computer had viruses. No, I never said that. He wanted to three-way call with the store to get this straightened out, so we made an appointment for tomorrow, after the big monster response was turned in.

Today, during my frustration, I called the store and asked to speak to the manager. He knew my case. He said the techs told him I said the computer had a virus. I never said that. He said my computer was “riddled with viruses.” That’s funny, because that’s not what they said and if their “tune-up” was supposed to clean viruses, why didn’t they do it? Why did they say it would be $200 to do that or give me any information at all? He said the “tune-up” had failed. That’s interesting, because my receipt says it worked just fine, that only one update failed. Well, your computer is riddled with viruses. So you’re telling me that my computer, which worked just fine and dandy until the day I got my computer back from Staples, magically developed viruses that only affected Adobe after I got it back from you? No answer? And are the viruses the reason the internet hookup icon on my taskbar is disabled and that no amount of tech support with Costco will bring it back? Yes, it must be. No apology, only an offer to bring the computer back and let the trolls get their hands on it again. Not on your life. Kick me once, shame on you. Kick me twice, shame on me. I’m not G.W.

What a load of horse pucky. Seriously. These yahoos want me to believe that my computer was riddled with viruses and that these viruses worked their magic only after my computer was left in their store. That, my friends, is a pile of steaming poo, a lie, a foulness, a thing most unclean.

I decided then and there to tell my story. My hope is that even one other person will read my words and decide that staples are for staplers, not a place to shop in. Take your business elsewhere. I’m going to. Office Depot is right across the parking lot.

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Rick Santelli is an Idiot…Still

I posted this a while back.  See it here.  I was responding to this moron the first time he opened his idiot face and let venom spew.   Of course, since he’s still slithering around out there, the post continues to garner hits, over two years later.  I reread what I wrote, and I can’t really improve on it.  All I said is still true.  So I’m posting it again.

Rick Santelli is an Idiot

I can’t believe this guy.  I heard him spouting off about how Americans shouldn’t pay for their neighbor to have one more bathroom.  I wanted to reach into the screen and slap his ugly head.  What an idiot.

Here’s a clue, Mr. Smarty Pants:  People who are in foreclosure are in foreclosure because the system is a mess, not because they are “deadbeats” and want a free ride from the government or their neighbors.  Want to point fingers, idiot?  Point them at the banks that overvalued properties in the first place to get people into questionable loans so brokers could collect bigger fees.  Point those fingers at the lenders for telling consumers that their ARM loan wouldn’t be a problem because they would be able to refinance in three years when the rates change (and hey, rates have been going down forever, so  why shouldn’t this continue? Your payment will be lower!) while simultaneously neglecting to point out there would be no way in hell any traditional lender would refinance property that is mortgaged for more than it is worth.  And oh, be sure to keep it a secret from the borrower that refinancing will not be an option if you lose your job.  How about pointing the fingers at lenders who convinced people to take out that second mortgage or a HELOC to “consolidate their debt” without pointing out that trading unsecured debt for secured debt would make bankruptcy pointless should the need arise?  How about pointing fingers at the pathetic and useless Bush administration who drove us into an economic crisis and higher unemployment than we have seen in decades?  Let’s just blame the victim for losing their job.  They should have known to move to China or India ten years ago so they would be there when their jobs were shipped overseas.

I heard the jerk in an interview claim that buyers should have hired lawyers.  Guess what?  Lawyers aren’t free.  And assuming someone could afford $225 an hour to hire one, a lawyer wouldn’t hire an appraiser to know that the bank overvalued the property.  Plus hiring an attorney when you buy a house is theoretically unnecessary anyway.  Mortgage brokers and lenders have a fiduciary duty of care to their clients.  This means they are held to a higher standard of care in dealing with the public.  They are expected to act EXTRA honest because it is expected that they have greater knowledge about the mortgage industry than consumers.  How does this work, Mr. Santelli?  Are the consumers supposed to suddenly educate themselves so they can catch dishonest bankers and brokers?  Would you hold a patient to the same duty before going to a doctor?  Am I supposed to go get an MBA before I go to a financial expert to ensure they are upholding their fiduciary duty?  Should I get an MD before going to the doctor?

I can’t stand the mentality that we are not obligated to help one another.  Guess what?  We are all in this together.  We can sit in our foreclosed bunkers with our guns aimed at our neighbors and barbed wire wrapped around our hearts to protect us from the enemy, ensuring we keep that property because, hell, it belongs to us, right?  We don’t need to share.  Or we can grow up and realize that society at its heart means social.  It means taking responsibility for one another.  It means what we do for each other we do for ourselves. It means we care for and protect one another and when someone is down, we offer them a hand up.  Taking care of one another is the stuff life is made of.  The alternate choice is to live like Rick Santelli, cold and alone with his gun pointed at everyone, dragging his loot into the afterlife.  Good luck with that, Buddy.

P.S. Being a stock-broker might be a high risk financially, but it is not hard work.

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Oh for Cryin’ Out Loud

I’m a bankruptcy attorney so I am often in contact with collection agencies and whatnot.  I have been doing it long enough that I have also seen a bunch of financial institutions come and go.  It is amazing how many bottom-feeder, rotten-ass lenders turn around and change their name because they are such scum, even people with the worst credit ratings won’t touch them.

One of these is GMAC.  They are now Ally!  They announce it with an exclamation point on their envelopes and return addresses.  Guess what?  We changed our name so now you can pretend we aren’t the same law-breaking, loan sharks we have always been!  Sorry GMAC, or Ally, or whatever.  You still suck.

Another is American General Finance.  Total loan sharks.  Total bottom-feeder scumbags.  Now they are Springleaf!  Ah, how fresh!  How springlike!  How green and new!  No.  The only thing green about them is their diarrhea color. When I saw that they had become Springleaf, I actually exclaimed, “Oh, for cryin’ out loud!”  Hence the name of this post.

People out there in America, if you happen to read this, don’t borrow money.  If you do borrow money, only do it for a home loan.  If you do that, don’t borrow it from a bottom-feeder loan shark. If you are borrowing from a bottom-feeder loan shark, you can’t afford what you are getting the loan for.   Leave them all alone.  They’re horrible and they don’t deserve your business.

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Groupon Does Business with Pure Med Spa

After several commenters noted that Groupon in Dallas is giving out a Groupon on Pure Med Spa (aka Beauty Med Spa–same name, no difference), I sent them an email saying that they really ought to reconsider promoting a company that has done so much harm.  Here was Groupon’s response:

Hi Lara,

Thanks for your feedback and sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.
We do our best to feature businesses that see Groupon as an opportunity to gain loyal customers as well as advertise their services.

We stand by all of the businesses we feature and the deals we offer, but if you ever feel let down in any way when using your Groupon, we’ll be more than happy to work with you towards satisfaction! Also, thanks for the information! I will be passing this on to the right people.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Regards,

Sarah M.

support@groupon.com

I told them that I am not going to be let down, but others will be.  Who wants to be a loyal customer to a business that has stolen thousands of dollars from customers, burned people with lasers, caused one woman to require surgery because they damaged her legs, and on and on. They are being investigated by several state attorneys general and have been profiled on many television news programs for the harm they have caused.

It’s a shame that this is Groupon’s response considering the negative publicity associated with this company.  Groupon is promoting thieves and hucksters.  Send Groupon a letter letting them know if you have been harmed and what happened.  Maybe if enough people contact them, they will change their policy.

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Pure Med Spa, Brite Smile, Crooks All

I finally started the article I have been planning to write for over a year.  Every two or three days another comment comes in on the company detailing further bad acts.  Over and over people tell stories of failed treatments, closed doors, lost money, and injuries.  I have been called by Jeff Nourse.  I have spoken to employees and customers.  An attorney general called me to ask what I knew about the company’s practices.  A local Portland television station profiled a victim of Pure Med Spa and called to get my input.  A financier in New York called because the CEO and CFO had contacted him to borrow money.  Basic research led him to this site and to me.  Along the way Pure Med changed to Brite Smile, and the stories continued.  More money lost.  More people harmed.

It is time to get the word out that this company is a public health hazard.  When another story popped into my inbox tonight, I stopped reading my book, pulled out the computer, and started working on the story.  The words are flowing.  I am going to write about this disaster of a company who steals its customers’ money, disfigures and scars their bodies, and runs rampant over its employees.  Then I am going to submit the story to every major woman’s magazine in this country.  Hopefully one of them will realize that this story is a big one, and that in order to protect consumers, the story needs to be told so that no one gives them another penny and nobody else gets hurt.

Some people have asked me Why aren’t these people in jail?  They are crooks!  They hurt me!  They stole my money! Why indeed.  Something needs to happen to stop them before someone else gets hurt.  If we can’t jail them, at least I can try and stop them with my words.

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I Just Can’t Stand It

I’m so frustrated with this country.  I wish I had never heard the results of the Massachusetts election.  I can’t stand the stupid, short-sightedness in this country.  If anyone thinks Republicans are going to do anything to fix anything, they are fucking crazy.  This country would not be in this mess if it weren’t for decades of conservative thinking.  It never works.  People think the middle of the road Democrats need to fix things immediately or they will just vote in the bastards who created the mess in the first place, and things only get worse.  Problems take years to accumulate and they want changes to happen in minutes.

Conservative thinking has made a concerted effort to make Americans believe government is the problem, then they set out to gut government in order to back up their goals, getting people to believe that laissez-faire, market-driven capitalism is in their interests.  After their jobs have been sent overseas, their homes taken from them, no healthcare, no food, gutted schools, and no social programs to speak of, Americans blame government for the problem, rather than blaming the tiny elite who manipulated them in the first place using issues like abortion and same-sex marriage to get people to vote against their economic interests.  It’s terrifying.  In reality, governments work well in many countries, countries that let governments run effectively and don’t let big money run loose to do as it pleases.

I find it ironic that the same people who lament the giant banks and their big bonuses and corrupt business practices vote in the same people who ensure these policies stay in place and their actions will become even more blatant.  It makes me crazy.  People listen to uneducated fools like Sarah Palin, think she’s “like them,” in spite of the fact her bank account is nothing like theirs and she makes our nation look like a country of fools.  They get caught up in the hateful ire of Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, without considering the motivations of these very wealthy, very hateful men.  They blame Obama for the bailouts, and he wasn’t even president when it happened!  I’m so sick of the ignorance, I can barely manage to follow politics in this country anymore.

I know the people I admire urge me to continue to try and make the world a better place, that in giving up hope, those hateful bastards win.  But seriously, how is one supposed to cope knowing things are only going to get worse and knowing I have two children for whom I want the world to be a better place, and for whom I want a planet for them to live on and prosper?  It almost makes me ashamed for having brought them into this place.  I love them more than life itself.  I only hope there is a planet for them to live on that isn’t as bleak and horrible as it seems doomed to be.

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Mini Healthcare Rant

Any republican, talk show idiot, or anyone else for that matter, who suggests that public health care will result in euthanasia should be ashamed.  Abominable, sickening, horrible fools.  People DIE DAILY in this country because we do not have health care and they have the nerve to try and scare people off with this shit?  So some scumbag insurance company can make more money?  Fuck I am sick of this stupid country and everything that is wrong with it.  Someone should just take these lying assholes out and shove them off a cliff.

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Word

Microsoft Word is the stupidest, most non-intuitive, poorly designed, piece of crap, word-processing program ever designed.  The morons who created it should all be taken out and whacked in the knees with bats and have needles poked into their nipples.

Here’s a concept, WORDPERFECT.  Want a well-designed document, WordPerfect can do the job.  Want a fucked up disaster mess of a document?  Use Word.

Piece of shit.  I hate it.

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Letters to Annoying People

Dear Hairdresser,
Here is a clue: Just because you think my hair might look “cool” with that fancy cut you propose does not mean that I want you to cut it that way. You are not me. You do not live with me and you are not someone I spend a lot of time with. This means that if you suggest a fab new do and I turn you down, you don’t cut it anyway. It also means you don’t cut it like you want to without saying anything at all. It means you do what I want, whether you like it or not.

Dear Person Who Leaves Dog Shit on the Sidewalk,
The reasons you should pick up your dog’s shit are so inherent and numerous, it honestly blows my mind that you don’t know any better. Perhaps you are simply stupid. If this is the case, you are really too stupid to own a dog. If it isn’t that you are stupid, but rather that you are careless or insensitive, then you are too careless and insensitive to own a dog. You would likely accidentally kill it or starve it to death or something. Whatever the reason, if you leave your dog’s shit on the sidewalk, find the dog a better home and go rub some dog shit on your face.

Dear Woman Who Won’t Step Aside on the Sidewalk,
Yes, you know who you are. You are the bitch who has to prove to everyone she encounters just how ALPHA she is, and in doing so, refuses to step even slightly to the side when encountering others. If someone is approaching you and there is a building or some other obstruction on the sidewalk on their side, and things are open on yours, common courtesy dictates that you step slightly to the side to allow the other person passage. You don’t prove your superiority when you refuse; rather you prove your insecurity, your pettiness, and just how pathetic you truly are. And watch out…one morning when I’ve gone without just enough sleep and my hormones are all over the map, I might actually turn around and whack you in the head with my purse. Hag.

Dear Man from blog Watt’s Up With That?,
You are a fucking moron. I realize from your consistent position near the top of the WordPress Dashboard that you must have a lot of readers. I can only hope these readers actually disagree with you, they just have a stronger stomach than I do. I can’t read your drivel or your claims that the planet’s climate isn’t changing. It doesn’t take a geoscientist to walk outside and figure out that things are drastically different. You can try to claim these are “natural” trends, in spite of the fact that nothing natural on the massive scale we are experiencing occurs in under a decade. You can try to turn people off to buying an environmental car because it’s ugly. You can do all your damage. Just know this: Any success you have in convincing people of your stupidity will only harm your children. There will be no frogs for them to play with, or polar bears or bats or numerous other creatures for them to share the planet with (although maybe that is what you want). Your offspring will fry in the sun and drown in the ocean, and just think, you did it to them! Kudos, asshole.

Dear Rush Limbaugh,
You know, I can’t say it any better than Al Franken. You are a big, fat idiot.

Dear Building Managers Everywhere,
It is not necessary to turn air conditioning up so high that buildings inside are 30 degrees in the summer just because it is 90 degrees outside. Buildings need only maintain a consistent temperature all year round, regardless of what the temperature is outside. And actually, your logic in turning the AC up in the summer is flawed. If you are going to adjust the temp inside according to the temp outside, buildings should be colder in the winter and warmer in the summer because people are wearing more clothes in the winter and fewer in the summer. Maybe if you actually turned the AC down your brains would thaw and this would be obvious.

Dear New York City,
Here’s a concept: Recycling. In a city this size, the fact that recycling isn’t required of buildings and is basically non-existent everywhere else is a deadly sin. You are a ginormous city, the biggest in the US. You have an obligation to the rest of the country and the rest of the world to recycle as much as possible. Do you do it? Not enough. You should be ashamed and get with the goddamned program already. Too much of your shit can be recycled and too much of your shit isn’t. Fix it.

Here’s another concept: Not every damn thing needs to be wrapped in plastic. Guess what? Zucchinis last longer outside of plastic and styrofoam. So do bananas. And guess what else? When a customer at a store doesn’t bring a bag, you don’t have to double-bag in plastic, one is more than enough. Or when a customer buys something like a pop or something else obviously intended to be consumed immediately, you don’t need to bag it at all. Plastic is nasty stuff. There are limited circumstances when it should be used, such as in the medical profession. Otherwise it is a non-biodegradable, environmental disaster and your overuse of the stuff, especially considering your enormous size, constitutes a criminal act. Fix it.

Dear Constant Facebook Posters,
Guess what? I don’t give a shit if you’re off to take a run or a shower or grab a cup of coffee. That isn’t the kind of information I think anyone cares about unless you are a celebrity (And people who care what celebrities do are idiots, so why would you want to please them?). It is nice to have a place where you can find that long lost high school friend and see how they are doing and what is going on in their lives. It is annoying to have to hear how so-and-so had to clean up their kid’s vomit last night or every trivial piece of crap they do every minute of every day. Oh, and guess what else? Pieces of flair are stupid. Throwing virtual water balloons proves you have no life and should consider getting one. Ditto with virtual hugs, “L’il Blue Cove” and all the other crap Facebook flunkies dream up to fuck with you. I have an idea, instead of wasting time on Facebook, how about taking all that extra time you have to waste and heading down to the library or the bookstore and getting a book and reading it. Try it, you might learn something.

Dear Self,
Time to stop bitching and pretend to work. Enough said.

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Violence, Murder, and Hatred of Homosexuals

Homophobia needs a new name, a good and ugly name to describe what is really going on when someone hates a gay person.  Homophobia is too sanitized.  It’s just a phobia, like arachnophobia (fear of spiders) and claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces).  No.  Hatred of gays needs to speak for what it really is–hate, intolerance, cruelty, VIOLENCE.  It needs a word that encompasses the fear, but also everything gays have suffered because of who they are.

Too many people think homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, like a person would volunteer for exclusion, violence, and pain, as if they could become heterosexual if they really wanted to.  Such “reasoning” is taken a step further to conclude that if a person chose their “lifestyle,” everyone’s hating them for it is okay.  What a load of crap.  Even if it were true that a homosexual made this “choice,” why does that make it okay to beat, kill, exclude, or otherwise bring them harm?  It doesn’t.  No matter how you cut it, homophobia is simple hatred.

So let’s make a new word, one that encompasses what is really going on.  Homo-abhorrence, homo-detestation, homo-disgust, homo-hatred, homo-malevolence, homo-repulsion, homo-revulsion, homo-animus, or homo-repugnance all come to mind.  I’m sure there are others.   Maybe if people who don’t give the issue much thought would consider what is really going on if we called a spade a spade and stopped using an easy, sanitized word like homophobia.  Maybe they would realize it means violence and hatred.  Maybe then they would understand why it has to end.
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Imagine

Imagine a world where health care reform meant doing away with insurance companies entirely.  Why have the middle-man?  Or, if we needed some sort of payer investment system, imagine it as a non-profit.  I don’t think we should use tax dollars to line the pockets of insurance companies.  I would rather that money go to health care providers.

But who is listening to me anyway.  It seems those driving healthcare policy are completely unwilling to think outside the insurance system box.  It’s a shame.

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No Wonder People Go Postal on the Post Office

And I don’t even care if I sound like a lunatic.  A more incompetent bunch of losers never occupied the earth (oh wait, there was the last US administration).  Useless useless useless.  You might think I would be sympathetic since my mom works there.  I’m not.  They steal every second the possibly can from her.  She is a rural carrier.  This means they do “mail counts” to determine how long a route should take and pay accordingly.  Every year during this count, all the bulk mail magically disappears!  Isn’t that amazing?!  During most mail days, she has between eight and twelve feet of bulk mail.  During count it is only one foot tall or less!  Unbelievable.  The net result is they claim her route should take seven hours when it takes over ten, and she is fast.  She’s been doing it for twenty years.  It’s been this way the last several years; every count the amount paid for each route goes down.  Now they are making those with the most seniority work six days a week.  Ever wonder why workers go postal?  This may contain the clue.

As for me personally?  I think someone somewhere is just fucking stupid.  I sent three packages parcel post from Honolulu, Hawaii, on 10/28/2008.  I have a receipt for these three packages.  Two of the packages arrived a week and a half ago.  One did not arrive.  I went in and asked about it and was told it could not be tracked because it was parcel post, even with the receipt.

Today, DECEMBER 1, I receive a postage due, FINAL notice that if I do not come pick up the package by DECEMBER 1, the package will be returned.  I received this notice AFTER the post office closed December 1.  This is the ONLY notice I have received, EVER.  I called the post office to attempt to ascertain what was going on.  I was informed after an extended hold that the package was still there and they would hold it (good thing because the wrath they would have incurred had they sent it back would have been that of the devil).

And the cherry on this little sugar cake?  I was informed the package had NO POSTAGE on it and I would have to pay AGAIN to get my package even with the receipt.  I paid over forty-five dollars to send this package.

I have had so many problems with the post office, and now it wants to STEAL forty-five more dollars from me.  It is the WORST organization ever created (next to Enron and Walmart).  No wonder people go postal–the morons who can’t figure out how to deliver a package or affix postage really ought to be removed from “service.”

Assholes.

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Possessive S’s

Improper use of the apostrophe for plurals bugs the hell out of me.  Except in narrow circumstances, one places an apostrophe before an s to denote possession.  If one is discussing more than one of something, the apostrophe goes after the s.  One does not place an apostrophe before the s to simply denote plurals.

No apostrophe is used in the following possessive pronouns and adjectives: yours, his, hers, ours, its, theirs, and whose. (Many people wrongly use it’s for the possessive of it, but authorities are unanimous that it’s can only be a contraction of it is or it has.)  Except for one’s, no possessive determiner has an apostrophe.  A number of them, like its, are homophonous with pronoun-auxiliary contractions.  As was previously noted, the pronoun its is very commonly misspelled; not only is there the homophone it’s (it is or it has), but ‘s is a genitive clitic.

For cryin’ out loud people, get it right.

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Let’s Eliminate Pure Med Spa

See my post on the Pure Med Spa bankruptcy here.

I am writing an article on Pure Med Spa.  For info, please click here.

Because I have received so many messages in response to this post, and since it seems not many of these commentators have read my later piece on the Pure Med Spa bankruptcy filing, I have included this paragraph to inform any readers of that filing.  Effectively, if you received your treatment or they stole money from you BEFORE they filed their bankruptcy case in 2009, this means you may NOT file a lawsuit against Pure Med Spa, except through the bankruptcy court, and there only for certain causes of action.  You may NOT contact the company in any way about the money they owe you.  You may NOT call the CEO and harass him.  In short, you may not do anything to them.  That is the point of the bankruptcy stay, to protect the company from creditors, and I absolutely support this, even when the filer is as abominable as Pure Med Spa.  The same laws that protect Pure Med Spa protect you if you ever had to file, and speaking from experience as a bankruptcy attorney, that relief means a lot to people who are being harassed night and day by creditors.  Don’t think this means you don’t have options, just follow the rules to ensure you don’t violate federal law.

Original Post Let’s Eliminate Pure Med Spa:

I admit it, I do make my title statement without actual and personal knowledge of how well they perform their spa services. I have only my customer-no-service experience with them stealing my money to go on (I am planning to sue here in a couple of weeks once I get the paperwork together). However, Pure Med Spa needs to be run out of town on a rail.

In spite of my lack of spa services, I can glean from the feedback I get here that Pure Med Spa has a lot of people really upset. See my previous post on them here. By far, I get more hits on my blog because of Pure Med Spa than any other. WordPress has a feature where we can see the searches people use to find us. Every single day, without fail, someone connects to my post on Pure Med Spa because they searched for it with some derogatory descriptor like Pure Med Spa complaints or Pure Med Spa sucks or Pure Med Spa steals money or Pure Med Spa ripoff. These are all actual searches and the list is by no means complete. I received a comment from a woman asking me to contact her about her horrible experience. I received others describing their horrible experiences.

Here is a quote:

I paid Pure Med Spa thousands of dollars, in return received cancelled appointments, broken equipment, refusal to honor the packages I purchased, and overbooking, in addition to extreme difficulty and delay in even getting an appointment due to overselling and short staffing…. hat really bothers me is the company’s indifference and arrogance. It seems to just be an effort to take money from clientele without accountablity to perform the services people pay for. Michelle

Here is another:

I’ll kick Pure Med Spa’s ass too. They are liers (sic). They sold me a treatment which they had known that the machine will burn my skin because of my skin type. But they still talked me into buying it. Then later, they told me the machine would burn my skin, and they are trying to give me some other more expensive treatment which I do not need at all. They have a stupid ‘no-refund’ policy, they would not give my money back, that is for sure. Lucy

Considering the number of people who are searching for Pure Med Spa because of problems with the place, I would suspect there may be enough people out there who could file a class action lawsuit against them. That said, even though I’m an attorney, I know very little about class actions, especially since the feds made them harder to file. I do think though, that someone ought to look into it. That place needs to have its ass kicked straight out of business.

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Ignorance Remains Sublime

As a response to the profound and distributed ignorance in this country on the basic definitions of forms of government and common economic systems, as well as the widespread interchangeable use of terms describing aspects of each, I have decided to post a mini civics lesson.  I am so fed up with the way words are tossed around by politicians, pundits, and citizens, with no respect for their actual meaning.  Frankly, I’m sick to death of it.  Apparently in America, ignorance remains sublime.

Forms of government describe the ways societies govern themselves. Economic systems describe the ways societies produce, distribute, and consume goods and services. Of course, it would be too simplistic to say that these two are not intimately intertwined, but they are different things.

Herein lies the problem.  Because political leaders and pundits use the terms interchangeably, most citizens haven’t a clue that the two are not the same.  For instance, the US claims it wants to “bring democracy” to a certain country.  However, the US has helped to topple democratically elected governments that were not capitalist.  The truth wasn’t that the US wanted democracy, but that the US wanted capitalism.  Two different things, but to most people, democracy equals capitalism, and that is okay.

Another word that is bandied about with little regard for what it really means is socialism.  This is the bad buzzword today, along with terrorist.  People use this word with no knowledge whatsoever of its meaning.  This one particularly irritates me, along with the misuse of communist.  Socialist and communist are used pretty interchangeably by people who don’t know what they are talking about.  They just heard on television that socialism and communism are bad things, so they go along with it.

I wonder if any of these people who think socialism is so bad realize that public education is a form of socialism.  Public roads?  Socialism.  Want the government to help you with health care?  Socialism.  All socialism means is that we, as society and through our government, pay for certain things so that all of us benefit.  Each society gets to decide which of the things it pays for.  In the US we have decided to let the government manage road systems and public education.  We haven’t yet figured out it might be better to get profit out of health care, but that is because everyone is so afraid they might have to pay taxes, and the capitalists in our country do their damndest to make sure citizens stay afraid so they can continue to profit.  The irony is that people will scream and yell and have a fit about spending .25c of each dollar on taxes, yet these same people fork over .65c of the same dollar to a private company who skims .40c off the top before applying the other .25c to the actual cost of the good or service received.  It’s inane.

Do you hate it that your HMO makes a profit off your heart attack?  Does it bug you that insurance companies make a profit off your illnesses, or that children go without basic health care because their parents can’t afford it?  Can you stand it that energy companies, phone companies, airlines, and banks can all mostly govern themselves and profit off of you, regardless how fundamental some of their services are to your survival?  Well, you can thank capitalism, the economic system based on supply and demand, for all that profit.  Capitalism is not democracy.  It is not a form of government.  It is an economic system, as is socialism.  It describes the exchange of goods and services.  It is not the way a government runs (although a government may partake in a capitalist system).  Governments are intrinsically linked to economic systems, but the two are not synonymous.

Forms of government are the institutions societies, as states, use to govern themselves.  Democracies and dictatorships are forms of government.  A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government where the leader enjoys absolute rule, free of laws or other political factors within the state.  Democracies are forms of government in which citizens govern themselves.  There is no hard and fast definition of the term, but democracies invariably include two principles.  First, all members of the society have equal access to power.  Second, all members enjoy universally recognized freedoms and liberties.

It would be nice if Americans were educated as to the real meanings behind all these words they so carelessly spew, democracy, socialism, communism, et al.  Sound bites are easy; they can make you sound like you have a clue when you really don’t know what you are talking about.  Dictatorships (a form of government, not an economic system) are easy too.  The dictator tells you what to do and you do it.  No thought required.

Democracy, on the other hand, is a bit more difficult.  It requires citizens educate themselves on things in order to make wise choices.  The problem is that many Americans don’t actually partake in the education process, they partake in the sound-bite process.  They hear a word and react to it without any idea what the hell it is they are talking about.  Because of this, I fear we are headed for disaster.

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You be Sorry You Mess with Me Pure Med Spa!

See my post on the Pure Med Spa bankruptcy here.

I am writing an article on Pure Med Spa.  For info, please click here.

Because I have received so many messages in response to this and my other Pure Med Spa post, and since it seems not many of these commentators have read my later piece on the Pure Med Spa bankruptcy filing, I have included this paragraph to inform any readers of that filing.  Effectively, if you received your treatment or they took your money BEFORE they filed for bankruptcy in 2009, this means you may NOT file a lawsuit against Pure Med Spa, except through the bankruptcy court, and there only for certain causes of action (which include fraud).  You may NOT contact the company in any way about the money they owe you.  You may NOT call the CEO and harass him.  In short, you may not do anything to them.  That is the point of the bankruptcy stay, to protect the company from creditors, and I absolutely support this, even when the filer is as abominable as Pure Med Spa.  The same laws that protect Pure Med Spa protect you if you ever had to file, and speaking from experience as a bankruptcy attorney, that relief means a lot to people who are being harassed night and day by creditors.  Don’t think this means you don’t have options, just follow the rules to ensure you don’t violate federal law.

Original Post You be Sorry You Mess with Me Pure Med Spa:

I kick your ass little med spa stupid place.

I have lots of lawyer girlfriends.  Because I am a lawyer, of course I have lots of lawyer friends.  It goes with the territory, you know?  What I find amusing is how often my lawyer girlfriends have to pull out the lawyer card as part of their ass-kicking when some stupid company fucks them over.  My lawyer boyfriends do not seem to have this problem, and I mean friends who are boys, not actual boyfriends.  I only have one boyfriend and he is not a lawyer, thank GOD…anyway, I digress.  I think sometimes us girls get hassled by companies who would not hassle boys just because they think us girls are pushovers.  Small problem.  We are not all pushovers, especially lawyer girls.  Lawyer girls in my experience have a little extra something that likes to kick asses, if you know what I mean.  Something of that ass-kicking mentality pushes us to do things like go to law school and become lawyers.  I am sure there are other professions like this as well, but as a group, my lawyer girlfriends are ass kickers.

ANYWAY.  So my friend Kathleen has had many instances where she has had to kick company ass.  It’s fun to listen to her because you can tell by her story that she is always right and the company is always wrong and I am not being facetious here, she really is.  Like the time the bank told her she could have her deposit in 7 business days so she deposited a rather large sum based on that assertion, then the receipt the bank gave her after the deposit said she could not have that money for like two or three weeks or something.  Um.  NO.   Bank wrong.  Kathleen kick ass.  Or another time, I don’t remember the details, but she was bidding at a furniture auction and bid on a piece of furniture and the auction people gave the furniture to someone else who bid earlier.  Kathleen kick ass again.  I think she lost on that one but the company was sorry they had crossed her and her husband looked sheepish.  The company was wrong, no doubt in my mind. Fuckers.  I would have kicked ass too.  Kind of like when the bank in Hawaii thought I was a terrorist and would not give me an account even with a very large sum of money, a valid driver’s license, a social security card, and a passport.  Very large ass kicking there. I ended up at another bank.  Upset Lara.  Oh, and then there was the time the air filter company tried to mess with my lawyer friend Sara.  Their ad said Free In Home Estimates.  So they came and did their estimate and it was too high so of course Sara used another company.  Then they tried to charge Sara.  Um.  No.  Sara pointed out the various laws their attempts to collect violated.  Needless to say, they didn’t get the money they did not deserve.  Jerks.

ANYWAY.  So the point of this rambling diatribe is that I gave this med spa fifty bucks to hold my appointment back in July.  They said We need a fifty dollar deposit to hold your appointment.  If you don’t show or cancel within 24 hours of the appointment, we keep the fifty bucks. Okay.  I can deal with that.  Well, I called to cancel the same day I made the appointment.

Oh, we don’t do refunds.  This isn’t a refund.  I didn’t get anything.  It is outside the 24 hour period, I want my money.  Well we won’t give it to you.  Okay then.  Have you heard of the Oregon Health Spa Act, ORS 646A.030?  It allows the right of rescission of any spa service within 72 hours of requesting or paying for service.  Um, let me get my manager. Yeah, you do that.  So the next several conversations were not pleasant.  I described all the things I would do to them, including writing about their spa on my blog (doing that now), calling the Oregon Attorney General’s office, and telling Clackamas Town Center, the mall where they are located.  During all this, I also promptly sent off the written notice requesting the rescission, as required by statute.  Finally the manager spoke to someone who would allow a refund.  She told me the money would be in my account by the end of the day.  Nope, not there.  I called again.  Within three days.  Nope, not there.  It is now three and a half months later and still, no refund.

So I’m going postal on their asses.  I filed my complaint with the Oregon AG.  I am going to call the mall where they are located.  And I’m writing about them here.  I did some research and discovered MANY forums lamenting the many problems with Pure Med Spa.  They are a terrible company.  They have huge problems giving refunds or returning deposits.  They also use technicians who are not properly licensed and forget to follow health regulations when performing spa services (this information comes from the forums, not my personal experience).  Too bad I did not know this when I walked by them in the mall.  They are counting on people not knowing this when they walk by in the mall.  This is part of why I’m going to tell the mall.  I don’t know if the mall will care, but there should be some public service message to let patrons know the company they might deal with is a giant crook who will steal their money and could possibly perform some atrocious health violation on them or something.

The problem with stupid companies assuming customers are stupid is that their assumptions are often WRONG.  Guess what? I know where to look for the statutes about stupid asses like you.  I am happy to let others know there are statutes out there to protect consumers from shitty companies.  Oregon and many other states have rights of rescission statutes in many areas (though not in car sales, as is often believed).  Anyway, in Oregon anyway, there are statutes to allow you to change your mind about gym contracts, time share contracts, things sold door to door, certain home sale contracts, and other consumer contracts.  Usually you just have to send them a letter.  It’s not difficult, people just don’t know this is their right.  It would be better if the statutes required these jackasses to post something prominently stating as much, but for now, at least the laws are there so if some crappy company like Pure Med Spa tries to rip you off, you can fight them if necessary.  Fees to sue them and damages for causing you the trouble are often included in the remedies, so all you are out is your time.  The next time a company gives you trouble, go look through your state’s consumer statutes, you might find you have certain rights.  It is so empowering when some ginormous company who couldn’t give a shit about you tries to steal from you and you kick them in the ass.

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Hypocrisy and Audacity: Welcome to the USA

Am I an American?  Is our country for real? I am appalled at our audacity.  Condoleeza stands up and tells the Russians that it is not 1968, that countries do not invade other countries, take over their capitals, and overthrow their governments?  I heard a recording of these words coming out of this woman’s mouth.  Does the word HYPOCRISY mean anything to anyone anymore?  The radio reported this like it’s just news.  No one gasped in shock at the irony.  No one commented.  On what planet do we all live on that her statement makes the news but not the meaning behind her words?

The radio announcer went on to say the US is dismayed at reported human rights abuses.  Again, are we joking?  The USA, the progenitor of modern torture techniques, is dismayed the Russia may be perpetrating human rights abuses?  The USA, who has done NOTHING in Darfur and other places where masses of human rights abuses are committed on a daily basis, is dismayed?  Are we joking?

The arrogance of our government is astounding.  I am utterly appalled.  Why do we continue to put up with this? Why is the mass of our population so blinded to the realities of this administration?  When will we stop putting up with the lies, the hypocrisy, the violence, all of it?  I can see it now:  it is a few years hence.  We all have chips implanted into our necks.  We are all being herded hither and thither among various shopping centers.  We can’t buy what we want because we don’t have jobs or money or homes.  The government, angered that we aren’t buying, turns off our chips, making it impossible to go anywhere or do anything because the chips are required to operate a car, ride a bus, fly on a plane, do anything.  Then we start to cry we cannot believe this is happening to us.

Welcome to the future people.  It’s happening now.  You can believe it and try to change things or poke your head back into your bible, blind yourself in front of the advertising machine, or numb your brain with substances.  We are responsible for the state we are in.  This is supposedly a democracy (though I think valid arguments could be made against this assumption).  If it is a democracy, then we are responsible for the people running the show.  We decide whether we will allow this to continue, indeed that it has happened at all.  Americans are responsible for what we have become.  Ultimately, Americans are responsible for where we end up.  Do we want to be arrogant monsters who are hypocritical in everything they say or do?  Because that is where we are.  The question is whether we are going to stand up, grow up, and take responsibility to change things before we destroy ourselves and our planet.

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You Know It

Okay, gag and gross. The nasty sores on my elbow and chin/lip are staph infections. How disgusting is that? What is really weird is that one of the elbows began spontaneously healing. The other one turned gooey like the chin/lip. Yuck. I’m a mess. I got some more antibiotics though, different from the ones for my bladder, so we’ll knock out these bacteria too, and all the good bacteria in my colon, and then I’ll get another yeast infection and that will cause another bladder infection and on and on ad nauseum until time immemorial. I love it.

On a separate note, McCain calls himself an agent of change. I laughed out loud when I saw the headline. An agent of change? Yep, back to 1943, or hell, even 1929. We don’t need no dang new deal! We’ll all pretend we’re in the roaring twenties. Women will still be in the home making dozens of babies (high falutin hussies). Black people will still be in their place and segregated as God meant things to be. Mexicans will hopefully be in Mexico. Poor people will be out of sight where they belong. White men will rule. Corporations will be allowed the unfettered ability to polute as they see fit. It will be AWESOME! You go, McCain; change things back! We love ya!

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I is Pore an Dum

Hi, I is Lara. I is kina dum. Why? I is pore. If you is pore, you is dum. I went to the docter today. That there docter gamme sum paper for them pills people. Them pills people woonent gimme them pills cuz I is on that Oregun Helth Plan. Itsa plan for people tah pay fer them pills and stuff. So I went to the pills place and gavem my paper frum the docter tellin me I cud get sum pills. So they sed no. They sed my paper can get changed, and cuz I is pore, I’m gonna messen with the paper so theys gonna ax the docter if I rally gotta have pills cuz they thank I made up the pills paper. Kin you balave that? So they woonent gimme any pills for my bladder. Dang me. An the Oregun Helth Plan also wants to no why tis I want eleven dollar pills. They gotta call the docter and ax why I gotta get antibodies. Why I take antibodies? Cuz, I is pore and I muss be a druggie who makes up the pill paper. Itsa shame fer me cuz the docter was close up wen the pills people callem up.  Them pills people coonent ax the docter if I made up the paper and coonent ax the docter if I is a druggie tryin tah get sum antibodies.  Sheesh.

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I’m Here, Aren’t I?

Showing up. Showing up. Showing up. As a writer, it is necessary for me to show up. I don’t have any desire whatsoever to work on the important things tonight. I have no desire whatsoever to work on unimportant things tonight. I have nothing spectacular or funny to say. I am boring. I recognize this. I also know why. I have not slept well recently. Over time, the lack of sleep draining causes sustained retardation in my brain. About the only thing I am capable of doing well (and well is the key word here) is watching South Park videos. Small problem. South Park Zone won’t let me watch South Park videos. I tried reading a book. I realized I had read a page with zero comprehension of the words in front of me. This means I have reached a state of brainlessness rarely achieved, even for me.

So here I sit, starting paragraphs with the word so. This is not a good thing. Oh, guess what I saw today? The back of a street sign had a foot tall green penis and balls drawn on it. There were little squirties coming out the top. Isn’t that original? I thought it was. Particularly the choice of green as a color for the penis. Perhaps that helped to make the penis stand out.

One of my bank accounts is a big, old mess. I have this account I use for Milla’s money. Well, I thought there was a deposit made that wasn’t, so a bunch of crap went overdraft. Here’s the thing, the crap that went overdraft was from point of sale purchases. What does this mean? It means that I used a debit card. I asked the bank to explain to me why they would approve the point of sale charge if there was no money in the account. Why not simply say no, this card is useless? Well, they could not answer this. Instead, they charged me $25 for the first two $7.75 purchases, then $28 for additional purchases, one for about $37, another for about $60, and a third for $20. There were a couple of others. Here’s the other thing. I had one big charge for $200, this was the one that caused the problem. It put the account overdrawn, then all these piddly ones came after. So I said to the bank, if that hadn’t gone through, none of the other stuff would have gone overdrawn. The bank person told me they put through the big charges first. At this point I noticed that indeed, the charges began with the largest and proceeded down in denominations. What does this mean? It means a big purchase makes you overdraw, then all the little nickel and dimey crap comes through and runs up BIG money for the bank. Isn’t that a great money-making scheme? The guy on the phone said it was because big purchases were more important. Oh really, you think so? I think it’s a scheme for your bank to make more money. Add to that the fact you allowed point of sale purchases to go through when there was no money in the account. He said my pointing that out was being abusive. Since I was speaking in a calm, normally volumed, well modulated tone of voice, I found this confusing. Abusive? I asked. How in the world is my pointing out that your bank is ripping me off abusive? I would say that your bank is abusive. He then asked if there was anything further he could do for me. I told him he could go and take a hike. Yes, perhaps that last line was abusive. I’m a bad person. I admit it. I guess paying $156 in fees for purchases totaling less than that makes me this way. Yes, I know there are those out there who would get all judgmental on my ass for not knowing about the deposit in the first place, but there are extenuating circumstances. Another person puts money in that account and I thought he did it. The judgmental people can now be original and say see what you get for doing your own thinking? Yes, I do. I get abusive, that’s what I get.

Well imagine that. I managed to eke out more than one paragraph. Wonders never cease. I didn’t even think while I did it. I suppose it is not necessary for me to point that out, my not thinking. It’s probably quite evident from what I’ve written. I know this. In my altered, brain dead state, I am able to fathom that my writing is pitiful. But I’m showing up, that’s what I’m doing. I’m having impure thoughts too. Isn’t that nice to know? You don’t know what they are. I could be thinking about sewage in the Willamette River. That would be an impure thought. You probably thought I meant sex, especially since I mentioned seeing the giant green penis drawing. But there are other things out there I could be thinking about that are impure. I’ll never tell.

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Toilet Needs a New Home

I posted this ad on Craigslist last fall. A friend of mine asked me to repost it here, so here it is:
It is time that Toilet parted ways with our family. It has been in this house for longer than we’ve been here. When we arrived, the home inspector informed us that this toilet was “top of the line” in Europe and ordered by all the best home designers in the US. “Pozzi Gnorri,” he said. “Go look them up on the internet. They’re one of the best companies in the world for bathroom fixtures.” So I did and was duly impressed. However, I had to wonder what a toilet of this caliber was doing in my little 1920 bungalow in Milwaukie. But hey, some of us get riches to rags instead of the other way around, so who was I to question things or to remind Toilet of its brilliant beginnings?
To keep reading, click HERE.
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So Unbelievable

 

My daughter likes box elder bugs. They are these harmless beetle things that only live for about a week. They have red stripes on their back and they fly, their wings little red capes whirring behind them in flight, kind of like little insectian super heroes.  They enjoy warmth, so they hang out in windows and places with heat. They do not bite. They do not sting. The do not emit smelly odors. They do not eat houseplants. They do not do anything whatsoever that harms humans or their dwellings. The biggest complaint about box elder bugs is that they like to come in the house where it is warm, and who can blame them? box-elder.jpg

I did a google search on box elder bugs for my daughter. She loves the things. They are fairly prolific around here in the fall and spring while it’s still warm but not terribly hot. She fills her pockets with them. I told her I was writing about her and box elder bugs and she said, “Oh, I haven’t played with them in a while, cute little things.” That should give you some idea of Milla’s persuasion towards box elder bugs.

Imagine my surprise then to learn that most sites about box elder bugs deal with how to kill them. They are called pests for wanting to come inside. One site listed some nasty poisons a person can use for box elder elimination, including bifenthrin (possible human carcinogen), cyfluthrin (moderate acute toxicity and suspected endocrine disruptor), deltamethrin (a neurotoxin that attacks the nervous system), lambda cyhalothrin (moderate acute toxicity and suspected endocrine disruptor), permethrin (highly toxic to fish and cats), and tralomethrin (effects include headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, excessive salivation, fatigue, and in severe cases, seizures may develop).  All of these insecticides are toxic poisons and can harm humans, sometimes even in smaller quantities. Many of them are quite harmful to the animals we share our lives with, as well as those we would rather avoid. What I find so unbelievable is that people would bring toxic chemicals into their homes, spray them, spread them, breathe them, rather than share their space with a harmless insect that does nothing except try to get warm and dies in under a week anyway.  Where is the sense in that?

When I was in law school, Milla’s father and I were still together. We wanted to buy our own house.  We took the advice of a well-meaning, but misguided friend who assisted us in making this purchase. She owned a wealthy home-building company whose clients consisted mainly of older, usually conservative people with lots of money. We did not take our lifestyle into account whatsoever when we took her advice to build our own house as far as possible from the center of town in a suburb.

What a mistake.  We ended up in this country suburb.  As is often the case in these developments, it was named for what it had been:  Big Meadow. The meadow was gone and in its place were stepford houses in limited shapes and sizes, with perfectly manicured lawns and neutral paint, as required by the unrelenting neighborhood regulations. We did not last long there. I quickly realized I was not suited for this. I needed a house to fix up, and since ours was brand new, there wasn’t a lot to do to it. I needed plants to love. We gave the house our love, built a fence and a dog run, but we simply did not fit in. The neighbors brought us proselytizing literature on a weekly basis.  Every visit to the store provided an invitation to our auto windshield to attend a local church play. We were one of only a handful of families who recycled.  Basically, we were major sore thumbs.

Our immediate next door neighbors were especially different from us. The main thing about them that I remember is that on periodic afternoons the woman of the house had her teenage sons out in the yard and driveway with square-nosed shovels to search for garter snakes to kill. She did not want them anywhere near her home. Since her house backed up to the edge of what had been the big meadow the neighborhood obliterated, garter snakes were frequently in evidence. After her sons killed a sufficient number of garter snakes, she would spread poison all over her yard to kill insects. She would kill the harmless garter snakes that would have eaten the insects and chose instead to cover her yard in toxic chemicals.  Insane.

I am constantly amazed at the irrationality of human beings. I am certain that irrational behaviors are likely part of my makeup simply because I am human. I would like to think though, that most of my ridiculousness isn’t destroying the planet.  I hope not. I can hear it now how someone just doesn’t like the legs on bugs. Spiders give them the creeps. They don’t like the “idea” of something coming into their bed. So they’ll spread toxic chemicals all over their house and lawn to rid themselves of “pests.” At least the chemicals aren’t creepy and crawly.

I find it ironic that acts of compassion and kindness are considered humane, as if placing the name of homo sapiens on such behavior distinguishes us from other creatures on earth. Yet the only thing that really distinguishes humanity is our ability to systematically annihillate ourselves and our planet because of silly things like insect legs or the possibility that another creature might come into our beds. I just don’t get it. Perhaps a better definition for humane would be anything except compassion and kindness since our race seems hell bent on destroying this place we call home. At least we can say that while we were on our way out we didn’t have to share our lives with the box elder bugs.

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The Corporate Addiction Palace Has My Number

Yep.  It’s on speed dial.  LARA!  It calls. Come on down here for a bit.  You know you want to.  Stop writing and web surfing and come on down.  We’ve got a yummy chai tea waiting right here for you.  Oh, it’s not that expensive and you know you want it.  Imagine that warm feeling running through your veins.  Imagine the clarity in your head once the drug bathes those neurons.  Imagine all the fantastic things you’ll want to do and accomplish under the influence of the drug.  Mmmm, now isn’t that nice?  Don’t you want it?  You know you do.

I can’t do big caffeine.  A diet coke sends me into shivers for hours, I’m that much of a caffeine lightweight.  But my brain has most certainly made full use of the small amount I imbibe on a daily basis, spreading it around to all parts.  It might be thin, but it covers.

Okay, non-sequitur here, but human bodies have some aspects to them that are just so yucky.  I know it’s a marvel of engineering design and all that, but some things like mucous…yuck.  And farts.  What is that, Mother Nature’s sense of humor?  Something sent to remind us we aren’t busy and important?  And other things I won’t mention.  Gag.  I just had to point this out.  Yech.

One other pointless rant.  Windows.  You click on something and nothing happens and it gives you a nice message that says, Such and Such is Not Responding.  No fucking kidding?  I couldn’t fucking tell when I clicked on it 800 times and nothing happened.  The stupid message makes me want to throw the computer more than the fact the damn program froze.  Piece of crap.  Some Microsoft techie created that message just because s/he knew it would put people into fits.  They’re having fun at our expense.  I know it.

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The Idiot in the Plastic Bubble

I saw this headline on Yahoo this morning that says Bush says the US is not headed for a recession.  You just keep telling yourself that, Dude.  Go on.  Make yourself feel happy.  Keep living in your insulated bubble.  Why don’t you take a beer or some coke in there with you.  Enjoy.  We’ll stay out here paying $3.50 a gallon for gas watching our houses go into foreclosure.  You have fun there in that bubble.  Maybe we can find a way to blast you into outer space.

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Random Period Rant

Periods suck. Yeah, yeah.  I know. I’m supposed to be all proud for my gender that I can give birth and shit and blah blah blah.  But I hate that I turn into some sort of mental fucking freak show for ten days or so a month, that my boobs feel like they are in a vice grip, I bloat like some fat sodden log, and I want to eat sugar, big bowls of it, when I normally can’t stand sweets.  It’s annoying.  All so I can keep the little old estrogen flowing and looking fresh and chipper for thirty five odd years or so.  Yuck.  Annoying crap.  While I’m at it, let me complain about the other bullshit woman stuff like yeast infections and bladder infections and that it is impossible to masturbate whenever and wherever we want to like men can.  Don’t get me wrong.  I like being a woman, but sometimes the plumbing is a little annoying.  That’s just all there is to it.

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The Opossum Approach

Weird.  Apparently shitty workplaces are a popular topic.  The story has been hit over and over and over.  My readership stats have tripled, and most of them are to that post.  I have this book called the No Asshole Rule.  The guy who wrote it said it started as an article in Harvard Business Review or something, but he got so much feedback that he ended up writing a book.  Apparently, dreadful workplaces and mean people are pretty prevalent in good old America.  In fact a woman added a link to my post from her blog called www.DecontaminateToxicPeople.com.

Anyway, I think it’s sad we are all laboring, literally, in places that are horrible to work with people who treat us badly.  The thing I find amazing is that in most cases, other than the fact that we are forced to spend some amount of hours with them a week, our coworkers are generally not our friends, at least they weren’t before we went to work with them.  They are not the people we choose to hang out with because we met them and have a lot in common or whatever.  Some may become friends or lovers based on forced proximity, but for the most part, people who work together are all essentially strangers who give their time to a place to pay for their time outside a place.  Yet a large number of these people think it is okay to behave horribly to people they really don’t know.  How pathetic this is.  I guess it would be worse to treat someone you know badly, but there is a different kind of moral reprehensibility in treating a stranger in a wretched manner.

No, actually.  It’s all bad.  I sat here and attempted to separate out whether it is worse to be cruel to people you know versus people you don’t know.  Either one leaves me at the same conclusion:  it’s all bad.  I’m not much of a black and white person.  I can see the grey in many things, even in situations where many others can’t see anything but solid black or stark white.  But in this, in humans treating each other like crap, it all seems morally reprehensible.  I just can’t see where it’s justified.  Over and over I come up with situations in my mind where it might be okay, and I can’t justify any of them.  Well, I suppose it is alright to run over a little old lady who crosses the street against the light, but that’s it.  That’s the only time it is okay to be mean.

All kidding aside, this is my question…under what circumstances is it okay to treat another human being badly?  Because they treated you badly?  For revenge?  Revenge meanness is probably one of the most often employed reasons for hurting someone else.  I would argue against it because in treating someone poorly because they treated you poorly you become as they are in responding in kind.  And I just can’t think of any other reasons that aren’t patently objectionable on the surface, such as being mean because someone is black and you’re white, or not liking the look on someone’s face.  There are just no good reasons to be mean to each other.

Yet it happens. Over and over.  Apparently people don’t care if there is a good reason or not.  I suppose in most cases it has more to do with the person being a jerk than the victim.  Actually that’s probably it most of the time.  Inside the person feels worthless so they get some pitiful power out of being mean.  Or the person assumes no one likes them so they act like an ass to prove themselves right.  Or for some other psycho babble blah blah blah reason.  But these are still lousy reasons.  It says a lot about the state of mental health in most workplaces if this type of behavior is so prevalent, that there are a hell of a lot of people who feel bad about themselves and act this way to compensate.

Based on my own experience I wish I could say that the best response is to be kind and compassionate, and on some level I think that is necessary.  But from a practical standpoint, my experience was to stay the hell away from the toxic people and to avoid them at all costs.  I tried the being direct and professional approach.  They would use it to find a way to hurt me.  I tried smiling.  That seemed to make them mad and would result in some form of retaliation.  I tried being friendly and acting like there nothing was wrong, while simultaneously making damn sure my work was covered so they couldn’t sabbotage it.  That made them sneer and laugh behind my back about whatever friendly comments I had made (I caught them at this several times) .  Frankly, there was no way that I saw to behave except to stay as far away from them as possible.  Play dead.  The opossom approach.  That is the only viable method I advocate.  It might seem pathetic, but it worked.

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Random Rant of the Morning

Why the hell is it people can’t figure out basic punctuation rules when it comes to quotation marks and things like commas and periods?  Even if you’re quoting something, the punctuation mark goes INSIDE the quotation marks.  Everyone seems to want to pretend to be British these days, where they stick the punctuation outside the quotes.  But guess what?  We had a little war about oh, say, 215 years ago, give or take a few years that allowed us to secede from Great Brittain.  Do you know what this means, to secede?  It means that we became a country of our own.  We left the mother ship.  We took our baby steps and fell and grew to be a country with language usage all our own. Lots less cool and boring in most cases, but still ours.  For instance, we took the “e” out of judgment.  We add a “the” before we head to the hospital.  We go on vacation instead of on holiday.  We call our boots and condoms rubbers.  They call their erasers rubbers.  There are lots of little different things.  And one of them is putting the damn little punctuation marks inside the quotation marks.  It is so bloody distracting to see the punctuation mark outside the quotes.  See there?  I used a British swear word to show everyone how distracting it is when Americans pretend they are Brits.  Weren’t you distracted? I hear you.  You’re saying, “Here she is complaining about Americans acting like Brits and she’s acting like one herself!”  I’m with you. But see, I did that on purpose to make a point.  Those people out there using the punctuation marks outside the quotes aren’t making a point.  They are just using the marks incorrectly.

I put a rant about this very issue on Craigslist Rants and Raves.  Do you know what?  Someone flagged it for removal!  This is a site where people use the foulest of language, some posting the most horrendous photos, with arguments back and forth between people on the web basically threatening to kill each other, and my little rant about putting small punctuation marks inside the quotes got flagged!  I swear.  I suppose Portland rant and ravers want everyone to think they are from Britain or something.  Weird.

So please.  I beg you.  If you are American and you are writing, follow the rules.  Put the small punctuation marks inside the quotes, whether or not you are quoting something.  This is the rule.  If you don’t believe me, I can recommend an excellent site on grammar and punctuation.  It’s called Wilbers on Writing and it’s at www.wilbers.com.  The specific rule about small punctuation marks inside the quotes can be found at www.wilbers.com/quotes.htm.

That’s it for the random rant of the morning.  Thanks for sticking around.

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The Customer is Always Replaceable

The Customer is Always Right.  I used to see this sign in businesses.  The theory behind it is a pleasant one, although I usually only saw it invoked as a means for bullies to treat customer service representatives like crap.  But today, it seems the idea has gone completely out the window.  It’s like stores don’t give a shit anymore if we don’t patronize their businesses; 800 people will be standing in line behind us if we don’t like the service that we get.  It’s this way with stores, restaurants, customer call centers, you name it.

I don’t eat out much.  For one thing, it’s expensive as hell.  For another, I heard Portland has had an outbreak of Hepatitis A and that it is often spread by restaurants.  Since I had to get a shot in the butt in 1990 for an e-coli outbreak, and the thought of eating someone else’s poo is just more than I can manage, I avoid restaurants.

But sometimes you’re across town and starving as hell and ready to run people over your blood sugar is so low and you’re willing to eat all the things you wouldn’t normally touch from a mile away because you’re that hungry.  That was me today.  I recognized intellectually that I felt like a wretch and I didn’t care because I needed food.  So I went to Taco Hell.  Yeah, I know it’s gross.  But it’s cheap and they have this burrito with rice in it and I don’t get cheese so I went.  The service was horrendous.  The charming “customer service” representative who took my order informed me that the burrito I like “cannot be grilled.”

Huh?  I told her when I’ve patronized the Taco Hell by my house they always grill it for me.  Well, she sneered, that’s another franchise.  Uh, okay.  Small problem.  When I’m hungry, I don’t care how big a bitch I am, at least when I’m that hungry.  And I was that hungry.  But I’m working hard on living in the moment and I did not want to be the bully customer who makes a worker feel like shit.  I sat there in my car waiting to pull up to the window and thinking how irrelevant all this is and what a waste of my energy, but I was still getting angry.  So I decided to be calm, but I still wanted to know why can’t they just grill my fucking burrito?

I pulled up and asked the kind lady how come they couldn’t grill my burrito.  She said it is just a store policy.  I said that isn’t an answer, it doesn’t tell me why the policy is in place.  She said she didn’t know.  Across the way a man who was probably a higher up manager because he wasn’t wearing the fancy Taco Hell outfit but instead had on a cheap shirt and tie came over and asked the problem.  I started to say there wasn’t a problem, I just wanted to know why my burrito couldn’t be grilled.  He said they are not allowed to grill them, company policy.  I said that I get them grilled at the Taco Hell by my house.  He said they aren’t supposed to.  Then the girl helping said something to him and he turned to me and said it was a health issue.

Huh?  I said how in the world is it a health issue?  He said it’s like giving them a cup and asking them to fill it.  It has my germs on it.  I was VERY confused at this point.  My lack of blood sugar addled brain couldn’t quite muster what was going on.  I said how in the world can it be a health issue to grill a freaking burrito?  It’s in the restaurant, you put on all the ingredients.  I never touch it.  He just walked away.

At this point, I didn’t give a shit if my burrito was grilled or not.  I just wanted to eat.  I sat and waited until the girl handed me the bag.  I asked for my water and drove off.  I pulled to the side of the parking lot to eat it and it was grilled.  Weird.

The main thing I kept thinking about after all this was that had I threatened to take my business elsewhere, they would have said fine, go ahead.  We don’t need your two dollars.  Companies have gotten so big that the customer isn’t right anymore. Everyone puts up and shuts up about crappy customer service because there is nowhere else to go where it will be any better.  This is another byproduct of our one-size-fits-all one dimensional corporate society.  Hate waiting on the phone on hold for 20 minutes when you call the phone company?  Fine, go somewhere else.  And while you’re at it we’ll charge you $200 because you’re in a lopsided bullshit contract.  Hate the piece of crap you bought at the Dollar Store?  Too bad for you.  No refunds.  Who cares if the state law allows you to return a defective item to a store with no refunds.  You planning to sue us over a dollar?  Don’t want to wait in line at a store with no employees?  Fine, leave.  Better yet, stand in line for 10 minutes, then leave.  See if we care.  Want your burrito grilled and we won’t do it?  Go fuck yourself.  We don’t pay our workers enough to care.  We don’t hire enough workers so they’re all pissed off all the time.  Go somewhere else. Again, see if we care.

I know this is a cynical bitchy rant.  I shouldn’t complain without offering some solution.  But I don’t know what the solution is.  I go out of my way to avoid patronizing monster corporations, but sometimes it’s inevitable.  Sometimes it’s just being so damn hungry I’ll eat a rat in the gutter or Taco Hell.  Those are the times those places get my business.  I never go to Walmart or McDonald’s ever, and I mean never.  They could be the last businesses on earth and I wouldn’t go there.  Maybe there isn’t a solution unless enough people say enough, and judging by the lines in SkankDonald’s and Taco Hell or the mass of cars in the SkankMart parking lot, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.  In the meantime I guess I’ll rant on my blog.

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I Apologize in Advance for My Lack of Brevity and Wit

My daughter goes to a Waldorf school. There is a lot I love about the school. She has learned to knit and she is only 8 years old. She can do math word problems like no non-Waldorf 8 year olds I know. And she’s been learning music for years now as well.

But sometimes, if I’m honest, the “I’m liberal and New Ageyness” of some of the parents can be a little annoying. It’s like listening to the local NPR station sometimes with these people. Oh yes. Tomorrow we’re going to the farmer’s market to find grain to grind to make our own bread from scratch. It’s all organic and grown on that lot that was purchased in north Portland. Oh really? Wow. Yes, tomorrow Balfour and Aaliyah and I are going to a pottery class for 3 year olds, then we’re going to chant at the spiritual center. Both of these statements are made to one another in perfectly modulated, quiet voices, our indoor voices if you will. You know, just like NPR. And of course our children have unique foreign names to show our multiculturalism. We may be white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, but we’re diverse!

I know, I know. I’m being judgmental. I mean, after all, I am blonde, blue-eyed, white, and liberal. We eat organic and Milla knits. But I can honestly without a doubt say that sometimes our house sounds like trailer trash central. I walk in the kitchen and discover my dog vomited all over the floor and I scream, “What the FUCK is this mess? Goddamned dogs!” And last night, I admit it, we watched Dumb and Dumber without compunction. That movie is stupid and funny. And Milla watched it and laughed right along with me. Uh oh. If any of the other Waldorf parents found out, I’d be voted out. Maybe her teacher could claim the fact we’re late at least once a week is because Milla has heard the word fuck and has seen Dumb and Dumber. The fact I’m the only parent living here and have a hard enough time getting my own ass out of bed let alone my daughter’s has nothing at all to do with it. No sirree. And on the days where we’re late and I’m in the parking lot hollering at Milla to get moving because she’s the slowest thing on the planet sometimes, I swear, the holier than thou, how dare you speak to that child in that manner looks on some of the smug little faces make me want to whack them one. I don’t spank her. She’s got a good life. It isn’t going to kill her for me to tell her to get her damn ass moving already when she’s taking her own sweet time checking out some spot on the car door instead of getting into school. Jeez.

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE Milla’s school. She used to go to a different Waldorf school where it felt like being in junior high all over again. The exclusion that went on there was out of hand. I guess what bugs me about the “I’m Liberal and New Age” crowd is that it’s worn like some badge of honor and used as a way to exclude those who aren’t in the “I’m Liberal and New Age” crowd. It’s the queen bees in another context. “Oh,” the eyes say as your child walks by wearing, GASP! Something from Old Navy! “You mean you didn’t spend eight-thousand dollars on a pure cotton, hand-knitted, grown up on the remade lot in north Portland skirt and shirt combo? How DARE you! I would NEVER let a stitch of acrylic touch my perfect child’s skin. And I certainly wouldn’t let little Balfour wear something made somewhere besides my own backyard! God forbid.”

It’s frustrating when you agree with the results of someone’s choices, but the why of their choices is problematic. Does it matter? I suppose it does in the context of trying to live without judgment, just letting others live their own life. Even the fact that it bugs me that they judge me for not being “Liberal and New Agey” enough in their minds is a form of judgment on my part.

Thinking about it, I suppose it’s how or why we identify with groups. Do we do it to belong or to exclude? And in belonging is there automatically excluding? Or can you belong simply for the sake of being a part of something? And some things people belong to by an accident of birth, yet this does not stop their identification to the point of even killing someone else who had a different accident of birth. Ireland comes to mind here, or Israel and the Palestine. Why is it that we will fight to the death for something that we wouldn’t have cared about if we had been born to another family? Even a seemingly innocuous choice, like which dog breed you prefer, can be a choice for exclusion as well. It’s weird. The whole thing is tied up in a big, old mess. Humans have this need to be a part of a pack but in doing so they leave others out of the pack and it seems like every conflict centers around this tidy piece of information. It’s the nature of conflict, isn’t it? One side against the other. One view against another. Me against you against me.

Sometimes it’s funny though. I try not to laugh at the “Liberal and New Age” voices in the hall at my daughter’s school. I try not to roll my eyes in class meetings when the parents get into a disagreement that they don’t want anyone to recognize as a disagreement. We’re using soft voices and “I centered” messages so it’s not a disagreement, is it?

“But really, I just can’t have Aaliyah eating cheese pizza for lunch, and we wouldn’t want her to feel excluded if the rest of the class has cheese pizza. She is allergic to dairy, yeast, soy, sugar, brocolli, pineapple, peanut butter, white bread, wheat, and every nut on the planet after all.” (And that’s another thing. Why is it that every kid is allergic to 18 different foods? For Christ’s sake, get a grip already!)

“Well, you know, Galbraith has been so cooperative at home lately, I promised him he could have cheese pizza. I wouldn’t want him to feel like I’m not listening to his needs if I didn’t get him cheese pizza.”

“Well, perhaps it may have been a wiser choice to bring him other options for his calm behavior. Perhaps you could discuss another choice with him. I’m sure he would be awake to such changes.”

“I just think that would create a lack of trust. Galbraith is such a sensitive soul. He has to be open to understanding, but I wouldn’t want to send the wrong message.”

And on and on and on. I just want to scream, For Christ’s sake! Let’s get the fucking pizza already. If your kid doesn’t ever eat pizza, how the hell is she going to miss it when everyone else eats it? And you’re just afraid Galbraith will throw a fucking tantrum if the class doesn’t get pizza. Why are we sitting here listening to this drivel at a parent’s meeting? I thought we were going to find out what they’re working on in class, not spend a half an hour bitching about whether or not to let the class have cheese pizza.

I sit there during these meetings and look at my shoes and wonder why it is exactly that the rest of us have to sit and listen to this nonsense for a half an hour. Oh, that’s right. Because we’re giving them an opportunity to be heard. And we all need to be heard, right? What about my right not to have to sit and listen to the shit? Guess what? We can’t all have all our rights at every moment we want to have them.

Okay, that was the longest, pointless rant ever. Sometimes I wonder about the pointlessness comes out of my typing fingers. I start with one thought and end up somewhere completely different. There is another blogger I like to read.  He wrote about the fact that he writes about a bunch of nonsense sometimes and wondered why he does it. Why indeed? Why is there this need to spew forth our opinions and observations? Why is it that when I’m writing for my blog I can write and write and write but when I just did my journal it was like pulling teeth sometimes? My counselor said that artists need an audience. I just wonder how anyone could call my drivel art. It makes me chuckle. But Full Metal Gerbil is right about one thing, if I’m writing on here, I’m not wasting time elsewhere, so it’s all good. Plus it keeps me sane. I haven’t been writing nearly as much as I need to in order to keep the brain sane and last night I realized I was in a depressive funk. I just have to do it. I have to get the meaningless drivel on the page. If someone has the stamina to sit and read all of it, more power to them. I apologize for my lack of brevity and wit.

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When There is Nothing Left, Maybe We’ll Figure Out We Can’t Eat Money

I hope all the naysayers out there who want to claim climate change isn’t happening are the first ones to drown when sea levels rise.  Don’t try and tell me bees spontaneously die off en masse every few thousand centuries or that “random” changes occur up and down, and we’re just in an “up” period.  There is nothing random about what we are experiencing.  It’s just too fast.

When I was a child, the state I grew up in had predictable weather patterns, patterns that had held since the state became a state in the mid-1800’s (and probably for centuries before white man came along and took notice).  Ten years before Al Gore was trying to convince us that the world is getting warmer, I noticed the patterns changing where I live.  Again, it’s just too fast.

Go ahead, you who want to claim science is wrong.  Keep doing things the way they have been done.  You can choke on your money as you drown in the rising oceans and burn in the unprotected atmosphere.  Good luck to you.  Maybe the planet will have a small chance at survival if all of you are bones at the bottom of the sea.  Those of us who are left can work to live in harmony with what is left of the planet after you’ve finished raping and pillaging and finally drowning in it.