Binge and Purge

Quit being such a morose cocksucker.
--Random, and bossy, voice inside my head

Okay.

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I think it was New Year's Eve and The Bracelet and I were on the girlie chat device gossiping about fashion, the latest on Simpson-Lachey and basically how boys are, like, SO stupid. Anyway, as he was getting ready to wade off into the hard drinking cesspool of Amateur Night, I mentioned that he should tell all the besotted Michigan ladies that I said, "Hi."

Which is funny. Or would be if he actually went up to random people and said, "Joe Speaker says 'hi.'" And they'd look at him like all, "Who's Joe Speaker?" and he could explain, "He's that guy...you know him...can't stand to hear 'Against All Odds' by Phil Collins because it was the first song he saw on MTV when he got home that day that Kristin Waters broke his heart in 11th grade even though after that painful episode he still lent her his Scorpions 'Love at First Sting' album so she could tape it and he really has no problem listening to 'Rock You Like a Hurricane.'"

Hey, it's a unique conversation starter. I encourage everyone to try it and report back to me the results.

Speaking of openers, I was at this party in Portland, OR one time and the hosts had the greatest book in their bathroom. It was full of pick-up lines translated into many foreign languages. Not just pick-up lines, either, but sexual suggestions as well. My buddies and I pored over it for quite some time, laughing hysterically. You haven't lived until you've mastered "You fuck her, while I suck her tits" in Farsi.

ANYWAY, there was one line in the book that I adopted as my favorite pick-up line and it worked splendidly. Not so much quantity, but quality. The line is "Would you like to come live in my country?" Of the tens of thousands of women I tried it on, two (maybe three) laughed or returned anything other than a blank stare. The point is, that those two (maybe three) turned out to be highly compatible mates (for a brief time) and the rest, well, they're just stupid and it wouldn't have worked in a "It's not me, it's you" way.

From the Irony Department, no, I didn't use it on the dear and patient wife and yes, she DID come to live in my country.

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The funniest response I've read to the news that horse-faced Hillary Swank and sad sack Chad Lowe were separating was, "I guess she's moving onto greener pastures."

That's gold, Jerry. Gold!

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I was (have been; am) regarded as "nice." Mothers love me. I was brought up to be polite and deferential to elders. I've been known to lend out my record albums to girls who jilted me.

The fact of the matter is, I'm not that nice. Every single fucking day, I get perturbed by someone. I have no patience for ineptitude and even less for obliviousness. But I don't write about it much, because, frankly, that's Bob's terrain and he rules at it.

But April has a recent post about much the same thing, about how in an effort to remain "nice" or civil, she bottles up all that frustration which eventually boils over. I'm the same way, but the caging of my frequent disgruntlement is less a desire to be outwardly cordial than it is a personal disdain for confrontation, and really, where am I going to get by haranguing the cashier who puzzles for two minutes over somebody handing her a Kennedy Half-Dollar?

But that rabid avoidance of confrontation works against me a lot of the time, like when I REALLY need to address an issue or a someone.

There are a few people in my life right now who are going through some problems, problems not uncommon to the population at large, fixable problems with a change in attitude or behavior and my help is neither wanted nor solicited. Regardless, I should be sticking my nose right in the fucking middle of it because I love these people and I can help them and I can do so without judgment. Life is fucking hard and it'll be fucking hard even if you run away from everything, which I concede is a romantic notion, just chucking off the chains of responsibility and running free for a time, but, in the end, it won't fucking help. You'll wake up one day to the same problems. Only you'll be alone. Life is not puppy dogs and Quads Beetches! It's boring and trying and infuriating and we are all unhappy from time to time, which is exactly when we should turn to our friends and family for support instead of shutting them out and spending all that time in our own heads distorting everything until there's nothing but bleak landscape where all that is good in life can't shine.

And I think that's all I'm gonna say about that.