Dead Girls Don’t Dance

I am SO sick of these adverts for prescription medications on TV, and a lot of them are for imaginary diseases, anyway. There seems to be a horrible, potentially death-dealing drug for every possible minor inconvenience, lately. For example:

Restless legs syndrome:
also known as “My body is telling me to get up and move around but I don’t want to because I’m a lazy pig” disease

Oh, boo fricking hoo. You sit at a desk at work all day, then you sit in front of the TV at home all night, and then you freak because your legs feel funny at bedtime? Hello, the symptoms listed for “Restless Legs Syndrome” all sound EXACTLY like my ass going to sleep if I don’t move around. Listen to your body, people. It’s telling you to heave your bloated carcass off the couch and go for a walk after dinner.

There’s an ad for a drug for this so-called ailment, but if you’re paying attention, the side effects sound WAY worse than the problem the medication is supposed to treat:

• Feeling faint or dizzy when you stand up (Not good.)
• Feeling drowsy or falling asleep during daily activities such as driving (Potentially fatal.)
• Hallucinations (Oh, HELL no. What if you have a hallucination WHILE DRIVING, just before falling asleep at the wheel?)
• Compulsive gambling (This medication is so expensive, you can’t afford to lose. And what happens if you hallucinate while gambling?)
• Compulsive eating (Just what you need when you’re taking a drug that makes you not want to move.)
• Increased sex drive (Okay, so that might not be all bad, but what if you fall asleep while having sex? While driving a car? And hallucinating?)
• Nausea and Headache (If I have to explain why these are bad, you needn’t worry about “restless legs syndrome”, because you already have “I’m A Blithering Dumbass Syndrome.”)

Acid Reflux
“I eat huge piles of fatty rubbish and can’t understand why I always have heartburn” disease

Please. If you constantly get heartburn, just FUCKING STOP EATING THINGS THAT GIVE YOU HEARTBURN! You will not DIE if you pass up pizza, fried chicken, or any of the other greasy nasty shit that tends to trigger indigestion. Hell, you might even lose some weight.

Side effects of most acid reflux medications include headache, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. No surprises there… but I actually looked this shit up. You know what was surprising? The main ingredient in most “acid reflux” medications is sodium bicarbonate, also known as BAKING SODA, which can be purchased (retail) for less than 80 cents per POUND. It was only mildly surprising, though. Why the hell not add a patented ingredient that does nothing but increase the risk of bad side effects to baking soda and charge 3000 times as much for something you can buy at the grocery store? I wish I had thought of that, because I’d be filthy rich. Even after all the wrongful death lawsuits.

Overactive Bladder
“I pee a lot and I’m afraid somebody might notice and make fun of me” disease.

Oh. My. God. There’s a TV ad out there that actually tries to make women feel ashamed of going pee. What THE FUCK? We constantly hear that you’re supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day. That’s two quarts, ladies. If you drink all that water like a good little girl, you’re gonna pee a lot, unless there’s something VERY wrong with you. Like, maybe you’re actually a man with an enlarged prostate. All that liquid has to go SOMEWHERE, and there’s basically three options: piss it out, sweat it out, or retain it and bloat up until you look like the Michelin Man. I’d rather pee.

The most common side effects of this stupid pill include dry mouth, headache, abdominal pain, and constipation. Uh, once again, I think I’d rather just pee a lot.

And right this minute, I’d like to pee sour beer all over the people who come up with these horrible commercials.

Tags: semi-daily by Miss J
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Now I’ve done it. I’ve gone and taken up making jewelry, as if we NEED any more craft, hobby, and art supplies taking up space in this tiny little bungalow. Here’s my first attempt at my newest non-kid friendly hobby:

I decided to keep it simple, for the first piece. It has a certain understated elegance, I believe. You can’t really tell in the picture, but the beads are aren’t black, they’re dark metallic grey, aside from the little silver spacers. And yes, that’s my very own big fat neck.
(edit) Not a clavicle in sight. I always HATED having those bones poking out when I was a scrawny teenager with no boobs, and now it’s stylish? Fuckers. But I digress.

“What’s so non-kid friendly about stringing beads?” you might ask. “Don’t kids do that in crafts in kindergarten?” I’ll tell you. It’s dangerous because I’m doing it. It’s enjoyable, but far too easy. Playing with shiny pretty things until you like the arrangement, and then putting them on a string is fun, but I need more of a challenge. One little necklace, and I’m already contemplating making my own beads, and that will almost certainly involve toxic chemicals, hot things, and sharp things. Had I only thought of it at the time, I would have added hobbies as a reason to not have kids.

This house is full of potentially dangerous stuff; crazy people, paint, glue, solvents, varnish, heat guns, hot glue guns, staple guns, nail guns, and a crucible for melting soft metal. There are shiny colorful things small enough for a rugrat to swallow, and sewing pins, knitting needles, and other sharp implements of every description. Did I mention crazy people?

It’s all I can do to keep my kitties away from hazardous items, but fortunately they generally have enough sense to leave the shit alone.

Well, not always Renfield, the Amazing Retard-O-Matic. He occasionally eats a scrap of yarn, for some incomprehensible retarded cat reason, and later horrifies me by waddling around with a bit of poop-covered string dangling from his asshole. I have more than once been forced to put on a rubber glove and pull a foreign object out of his butt, and trust me, it’s not pleasant for either of us. Just be grateful I don’t have a photo.

Anyway, I have yet another new hobby besides pulling poopy yarn out of my stupid cat’s ass, and I can make a wider variety of nice but inexpensive (and non-poop-coated) gifts for my friends and loved ones… if I can keep any friends after I accidentally poison their kids while they’re visiting.

Tags: craftiness, semi-daily by Miss J
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Goddamn flu. Why the HELL am I spending so much money on vitamins, anyway?? Stupid vitamins. What I need is a HEPA mask, and a gallon jug of hand sanitizer strapped to my chest.

I wash my hands a lot. I take vitamins. I eat vegetables. I don’t kiss random strangers with runny noses. So why am I sick? Not fair, dammit!

Thursday, one of the night guys called work (sounding like he was hacking up a lung) to say he couldn’t come in. One of the day shift guys was pale, baggy-eyed, and obviously unwell. He left early, and didn’t show up at all Friday. I felt fine.

Fast forward to yesterday morning… breakfast and a quickie. I was sweaty and shaking, which is normal… but then I ran away and threw up, which rather insulted The Light of My Existence.

It later turned out I had a temperature of 102. I still do, and I feel cold, even though the house is nice and warm. I hurt all over, my eyes feel like boiled eggs, and it feels like an invisible sadist sandblasted my sinuses while I was sleeping.

I ended up calling in sick to work today, myself. Coughing and sneezing all over a restaurant just didn’t seem like a good idea. It’s just as well I stayed home, because I got the Hershey squirts right around the what would be the middle of the lunch rush. Yecchhh. I slept most of the day, today (highly unusual) and I hope I’m not still contagious if I feel better tomorrow. I’m going back to bed, now. AGAIN. Well, not bed, really. I’m sleeping on the couch… I can’t breathe lying down. Great, I’m turning into the Elephant Man.

Tags: semi-daily by Miss J
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Valentine’s Day is pretty much a wash around here. That’s partly because my beloved and I just aren’t sweet, mushy people, but mostly because Valentine’s Day is a steaming heap of over-commercialized crap. (Just like Christmas, only with most of the pressure on men.)

It’s just plain WRONG to make people feel that they don’t deserve to be loved unless they spend boatloads of money on useless rubbish, particularly when you consider the multitude of perfectly valid OTHER reasons for not loving them. If you are unloved because you’re a stupid jerk, you’re doing yourself a disservice by thinking it must be because you didn’t buy somebody that diamond tennis bracelet.

Despite all of this, and the sheer annoyance of being visually assaulted by cutesy pink fuzzy-wuzzy things every time I walked into the grocery store, drug store, or damn near any other store for the last two weeks, I didn’t see any reason not to try to squeeze a little fun out of this bullshit Hallmark holiday.

A few days ago, I spotted big bags of steamed lobster claws in the seafood department at the neighborhood grocery. They NEVER have lobster at this stupid store except around Valentine’s Day, because this part of town is not exactly a high-end market where people just simply decide to have lobster for dinner for no special reason.

So I said to my dear darling, “Hey, how about we get some of those and have a romantic dinner on Valentine’s Day?”

“Valentine’s Day is stupid. But lobster DOES sound good. Let’s get the other stuff and come back if we’ve got enough money.”

“You’re about as romantic as a plantar wart, you know that?”

We didn’t get the lobster then, but I decided yesterday to grab some if they still had any. And they did. So I bought it, and also blew two bucks on a card with a mildly dirty joke in it, and another dollar for a pair of novelty dice.

Bonehead didn’t come home, though. I signed the card and left it on the computer keyboard to make sure he’d find it, and started tucking into the lobster claws without him. In front of the TV.

When he finally showed up, I was curled up, almost purring, on the couch. He tossed a heart-shaped box of chocolates into my lap and headed for the computer without kissing me, because I had butter all over my face.

“Whumpph oo bmmphh?” I called out, spraying the box with garlic bread crumbs. (We are not only unromantic, we’re also getting disgracefully rude.)

“WHAT?!?” he shouted from another room.

“I said, where’ve you been?”

“Over at Stevie’s,” he called back. Stevie is one of his friends.

“How did Pam feel about that? It IS Valentine’s Day, you know.” Pam is Stevie’s live-in girlfriend.

“She didn’t care. I think they already did something.” Pam and Stevie are about as mushy and sentimental as we are.

“Want some lobster claws?” Please say no…

“I’m not hungry, maybe later.” SCORE! I continued to stuff my face, and then a few moments later I heard him laugh.

“Find your card?”

“Yeah. Cute.” Here’s what the card said: (Outside) “I don’t need a special holiday to tell you how much I love you.” (Inside) “But, if it leads to having SEX… Happy Valentine’s Day! Merry Christmas! Happy Halloween! Happy Thanksgiving! Happy St. Patty’s Day! Happy July 4th! Happy Memorial Day!”

That pretty much sums the whole thing up, don’t you think?

Tags: semi-daily by Miss J
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Love isn’t just for Valentine’s Day. I pass by this every day on my way to work.

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I actually got a blogging award. It’s my first internet award in over ten years. (I got a couple of awards for a web site I did for a newspaper I worked at in New Mexico, but it doesn’t matter, that site has long been revamped since I moved back to my home state.) But I’m a bit new at this whole blogging thing, so I’m fairly amazed.

Apparently, the illustrious Cookiebitch thinks I could get good at this, but I’m not certain I actually deserve an AWARD. As I said to Cookie in an email, I’m not sure if I should be pleased with myself, or go outside and step on the rake so it will fly up and whack this silly smile off my face.

At any rate, since I have been given an award, I will try harder to deserve it. This may involve saving up for a laptop; I have a hard time getting to the (only) computer since That Man That I Don’t Kill For Clogging The Bathroom Sink With Ponytail Holders Because He Has A Really Great Ass has become addicted to an MMORPG.

I’m also going to have to change the theme on the site again… as much as I like the current one, it’s not really what I want. Darkly pretty is nice, but it just doesn’t suit my writing style. I have thought of a delightful way to visually imply sarcastic melodrama and general silliness, but I have to design it and do all the artwork myself, because I’m fucking poor.

Give me some time. I’ll get it done. Really. I’m a certifi(able?)ed genius, and besides, I got an AWARD!

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Until I got off the bus on the way home and was greeted by this poor bastard:

I had an annoying day. I’m a prep cook and dessert chef at a restaurant, so when food gets delivered late, or not at all, it kinda messes my day up. But that guy in the gorilla suit gave me some perspective. He works for a sub shop. It happens to be my personal favorite place to go for a big, decadent sandwich, but standing by the roadside in a cheap gorilla suit waving at commuters seems a lot worse than running out of zucchini.

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My trip home from work this evening was just delightful. Some crazy old guy tried to pick me up at the bus stop. He hobbled up to me and told me he had $300, and he wanted to get a room and a bottle of vodka, and that I was beautiful and he would be really nice to me if I would join him. I just stood there aghast for a moment, partly because I was so surprised that he looked clean and wasn’t smelly.

I suppose he could have gotten the wrong idea from the fact that I was lounging against a wall on a street corner in an area of town that long ago was notorious for the availability of streetwalking prostitutes, but HONESTLY. The hookers relocated something like a decade ago, I believe. I just got off work from a restaurant kitchen, and was dressed accordingly.

(I think it’s a sad commentary on the state of the oldest profession in this town if a woman wearing food-stained jeans and t-shirt can be mistaken for a hooker, even in a run-down neighborhood, but that’s a topic for another day.)

I gave the old man a dirty look and told him I was just waiting for a bus, then pointedly looked away. He didn’t take the hint. The crazies never do. He apparently felt the need to explain himself.

“My name is Bob. I’m 65 years old. You know about any apartments for rent? I just got throwed out ’cause my girlfriend went to jail. She was my girlfriend, you know, I don’t buy women. I give ‘em money and treat ‘em nice, though, because women like that.” (This is correct. So he’s a loony, but he’s not entirely stupid. You don’t have to be a hooker to like money. The world would be a better place if more men understood that. Preferably men who are NOT toothless 65-year-old homeless crazies.) “See this ring? It’s gold. I got a lot of gold. I got $300, too, and I need a place to sleep tonight. You’re really beautiful.”

I slowly sidled away. Bob kept talking, gradually increasing in volume, but started drifting toward somebody else, thank goodness.

“Hey! I need to talk to you, man! You know about any apartments for rent around here?”

The man he was addressing scurried around the corner, because by now Bob was shouting. Not in a hostile way, just amazingly loud for someone who appeared to be rather decrepit. Everyone at the bus stop was trying to ignore him, but it was hard, because he kept saying weird funny things, and people were snickering.

“I need a room tonight. It’s gonna get cold, but that’s okay, I survived the Ice Age. I’m like a roach. I AM a roach. I WILL survive! That’s a song. That’s a song by Gloria Gaynor.”

Bob pointed at me and started singing “I Will Survive” in a cracked voice. Oh GOD DAMMIT WHERE IS MY FUCKING BUS?!?

To make things worse, I was really tempted to take video or at least a picture of this poor old nut. It would have been interesting. He looked like a perfectly normal old guy from a distance; he was clean shaven, and his clothes, although faded and a bit shabby, were clean and fairly tidy… but at close range, it was obvious that he was quite mad. Insane. Crackers. He was smiling as pleasantly as he could manage, keeping his lips closed over his toothless gums, but when I looked at his eyes I could almost see the wasps eating his brain. It was repulsive, yet fascinating. (My hand started rummaging in my bag for my digital camera, without my permission.)

It was a bad idea to photograph this man. I wasn’t sure how he would react, and the high probability that he would interpret it as a sign of attraction and interest was unacceptable in light of the fact that I had NO IDEA how much longer I would have to put up with his nonsense before I was rescued by a bus. (Stop rummaging, dammit!)

Meanwhile, Bob forgot the words to “I Will Survive”, faltered for a moment, then launched into another song, after announcing that it was by Hank Williams, Sr., while wandering aimlessly around in the street, in rush hour traffic. Lucky for him it was moving at a crawl.

I then had another horrible thought… what if I took his picture, and he ALSO boarded my bus and started following me? He didn’t seem dangerous, but I can’t begin to calculate how embarrassing and how much more tedious than usual my bus ride would have been. What if he tried to follow me HOME? (The disobedient camera-seeking hand withdrew from the bag of its own accord.)

The poor old bugger somehow made it safely to the other side of the street, where he started annoying some other people who were waiting for a bus heading the other direction, and then MY BUS ARRIVED.

Hallefrickinglujah. I have officially survived yet another day of being a loony magnet.

Tags: semi-daily by Miss J
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