Irony is a wonderful word and lovely story prompt, unless something ironic is actually happening to you.. Then irony tends to suck. I’m stuck in a rather odd sort of Bermuda Triangle where I’m madly crushing on two guys and can’t help but flirt with the third.
The first one is really quiet, he’s sweet, and his manners are impeccable to the extreme. I haven’t known him as long, but I know that he’s a really good guy and we have very little problems when it comes to actually talking. He’s really gorgeous and I can’t help it but absolutely love the kid, I mean what’s not to love? We even have a similar interest in writing and the odd and unusual. Spending time with him is like eating chocolate without the headache, a burst of happiness and comfort delicately entertwined with a soft thrill. I really find my softer, lighter, much more polite side… not because I’m trying to impress him, but really because I want to nice and kind of gush about him.
The second… is really sort of a no-man’s land type of situation. I’ve known him longer, and we’ve gotten really close. I spend pretty much every day with him and I can talk to him about anything! He’s sweet, sensitive, and defiantly caring. Every moment with him is like a breath of fresh air, realistic, yet surprisingly uplifting at the same time. He knows exactly how to make me feel like the one true special person in his life and just brighten my day completely.
The last, is not really someone I would take home because I know that my mother would flip. He’s socially inept, he’s very out there, doesn’t know that speaking your mind all the time can be rather upsetting. He’s brutally honest about everything, including attraction levels, and if a rather out there come on line suits what he’s feeling, he’ll say it. He’s funny, caring in his own way, and very protective over me. Where as the other two are like teddy bears, he’s the rough and tough, rumble tumble kind of panther.
As if I wasn’t completely confused enough over everything, I’m sitting in sociology and suddenly my teacher says "You should marry your best friend." Boy number two is definitely my male best friend, but would I sincerely consider that sort of long-term relationship? I have issues with commitment, but really I don’t think it’s fair on any of them to force them to cope with my hectic schedule. Horribly confused over the three of them, and desperately pining for at least two of them. Don’t you just hate hormones sometimes? I really wish that I could throw them all out the window and look at this from a strictly logical point, but every time I try… I keep thinking about all the cute things that they do and how much I just love being near them. I sound like a confused thirty-year-old on Lifetime. LOL.

what the heck is generation renovation?

i was sick so i had to stay in bed and just veg ...

when you're sick you can't really read (nothing makes any sense) ... and you can only sleep so much before you get bored with sleeping LOL

so have you ever turned on the telly and watched some of these programs? you have to kind of wonder how many people actually watch these things by choice.

there's this whole channel devoted to renovating. all these programs -- from spend thousands of dollars to completely change your place and we're coming back in a month to make sure you didn't screw up our fabulous design, to let somebody come in and destroy your weekend making you sort through and throw away all your sentimental stuff and aren't all these designated storage areas just wonderful, to just buy a couple gallons of paint and let the bitchy lady tell you how her taste is sooooo better than yours, to trust a college student to transform it and pray they won't screw up your house, to just rearrange everything in the house and sorry i didn't know that was your favorite shirt but isn't it a cute throw pillow.

okay, maybe it seemed weird because i was sick and taking dayquil and the dog wouldn't stop trying to snuggle me in weird places

... but i kind of watched this channel and kept making comments to my dog (who incidentally agreed with most of it).

like, that lady with the fakey sounding accent and buckets of really LOUD and RUDE colours of paint. does she realize how mean she is to the GUYS on her show? does she realize how bitchy she sounds? does she purposely just ride roughshod over the people she's destroying houses on? she clearly doesn't care what they think ... she even tells them to shut up and stuff. it's all about her and her wonderful ideas, and damn anyone who says i don't like how that looks, you know?

i felt so sorry for that newlywed couple, but then i thought ... hey, you gotta be some kind of STUPID ... i would NEVER ask a complete stranger to redo my bedroom on the air, and i sure wouldn't let someone make public insinuations about lagging sex lives!! you get what you pay for, huh? or maybe, as mum says, you can't always get what you want, so be careful what you ask for.

or how about that show where they focus on three people who do weird craft things and try to look really cool doing it. like that lady who was trying to look cool jumping up and down on her trampoline. or the lady who thought it would be really cool to make these weird facial contortions as she went step by step making her stuff ... and i'm sorry, but three days being sick at home, and three different features on making soap ... yeah, i was so thrilled.

NOT.

there's sometimes a person on there who does something kind of neat. like that lady who does the polymer clay figurines of her family. (they didn't really look like the people, but it was still really kind of cool). or the lady who did the felting demonstration (even if i personally wouldn't get off on felting big bowls because who needs big bowls? i like boxes.)

but most of them ... geeeeeeeeeeez ... sorry, lady, but that cigar box purse looked weird and it isn't a secret compartment when you put it right on the front with a big latch thingie! you almost want to shake them and say GET A LIFE!!!! or maybe ... (ohhh the horror) ... maybe that IS their life ...

i mean, give me a break!!! neat craft ideas? oh, sure ... we allllll have thousands of dollars to blow on a craft whim like my very own kiln or glassblowing equipment, or hey ... i really love that everyone they feature has like HUGE entire rooms and all kinds of really expensive equipment dedicated to a type of craft. right. this is realistic. this is do-able. NOT.

seriously ... i kind of watched that channel because the shows kept repeating so i didn't really have to pay close attention (i couldn't anyway. dayquil is scary) ... and i got some interesting ideas powered by dayquil i think.

heh

okay so ... what if i redo my room? i hate the sandpaper texture on the walls. it really screws up anything that comes into contact with it. i could get a few gallons of plaster stuff to retexture the walls. and then i hate that they're so bland. off white. ew. so i could get a couple gallons of paint. how about ... midnight blue for the ceiling with twinkly shiny mica bits? yeah, and maybe a warm pinkish sand for the walls. i kind of thought it was interesting when one of those design student shows painted a band of contrasting color from floor to ceiling around the windows. yeah. that might be cool. a desert sand maybe. with lots of mica. heh.

and spiffy new window treatments. (dang, and i thought they were called curtains and drapes LOL) okay and the show that did the headboard as a shelving unit thing. yeah.

no, wait. when i feel boxed in, i like to move stuff around. so, how about captains beds. you know, the ones with the storage underneath.

hang on. i'm short. that won't work. i'd need a step stool to get in and out of bed. LOL

okay how about the whole wall turned into shelves. hey, on the show it was easy ... they just went out and bought the wood and sawed it all to pieces and it all fit perfectly. yeah.

in my dreams.

maybe i'll just clean my room.

nightmares

nightmares can be so weird sometimes.

sure, there are the predictable ones, like the teacher or coach from hell nightmare, or the mutating attack pet, and things like that ... i call those MIGHTmares because as stephen king's icon status as an author shows, these kinds of scares and horrors are scary and horrific because they MIGHT happen, yanno? cujo was based on what might happen if the town dog got rabies. christine was a scary what if a nerd somehow melded with a car thing.

MIGHTmares are usually based on awkward, upsetting or just downright rude moments in real life. so they're kind of just extensions -- your brain saying yeah, that was pretty horrible but what if ... and something really insane, crazy, or just downright terrifying happens, and you wake up!

but then there are those other kinds of nightmares ... the ones that start off like a normal dream but then somehow transmogrify, and you can’t seem to wake up. the kind that follow you around all day. the onese that randomly pop up in your thoughts for a long time afterwards. the onese that literally seem to make your blood run cold.

yesterday, it was sort of foggy outside. sometimes it gets like that ... its sort of comforting because it reminds me of where we used to live. just patches of fog that drift in and blanket the area in quiet. it doesn’t usually last very long, but while its foggy it’s sort of nice.

but in this dream gone nightmare, i wake up to a light fog outside that gets thicker and thicker. not bad so far, right? fog happens.

I grab a cup of coffee (whoa …) and I sit on the couch in the livingroom sipping my coffee (whoa) and look out the big window… its getting visibly thicker. looks almost like vichyssoise or however that's spelled. ever notice that fog doesn't necessarily make it dark outside? it isn't getting darker, because fog is like that -- it gets thicker, but it somehow has a light of its own. it isn’t a distinct glow, just

… a glow.

i walk outside with my coffee cup and listen ... you can't hear anything out there. no wandering dogs. no cars inching along. no train clanking along the tracks. just .... fog.

as i turn to go back into the house i realize its gotten really thick as i stood there ... i know my way back to the front door, but its a good thing i do, because i can't see it. i close the door behind me and call out to everyone to wake them up. come look at this! this is really cool!

no answer.

okay, this must be a dream, so i'll just go with the flow. i walk from room to room, looking around. no one is here. not even a lethargic cat or annoying dog. i decide i'm going to go online to see if any of my friends are on. no internet. i check the phone. no dialtone. i grab the cell phone. plenty of bars, but that's out, too.
hmmmm.if everyone's gone then i can do what i want, right? but what do i want to do, right now?

i feel a slight sense of panic. what i really want to do is find someone. during the day, i always have these moments of needing space ... wanting people to leave me alone. but this? this is not what i wanted.

i push through the fog (yes, it's starting to feel almost solid), going from house to house. no one answers my knocking and then pounding on their doors. i go into the houses and no one is there. whoa. this dream is weird because until this point i didn't realize i knew that this guy was such a slob. look at his room, LOL! even my room isn’t this messy.

alone is not cool when you have no choice. and this is beginning to feel as though i have no choice, because i can't find ANYONE!

i go back to our house and grab the keys. jump into the car and ... you know, its pretty stupid to drive in fog but then this is a dream, so there's no one else on the road, right? and there isn't. not a single other car on the road.

the local grocery store is brightly lit. the fixtures hum ... did you know that? you wouldn't know that unless you walk in when no one is there.

all the local gathering spots ... the coffeehouse ... the fastfood places ... the mall ... all lit up and deserted. at the local ice cream place, there's a scoop stuck in a tub and a bowl on the counter, as if someone was scooping ice cream and just disappeared. i reach over the counter and close the sliding window on the case.

there are movies running in the theater (i can hear it because they always have the volume up so high) but when i go in to look around there isn’t anyone there. one of the cash registers is open with a twenty on top of the drawer. i reach over and push the twenty with a finger until it falls into a slot and push the drawer closed. I don’t know why, but the open drawer bothers me, like the open ice cream case.

I wander from store to store. no one. and outside, the fog gets thicker and thicker.
i drive slowly home because even if no one is there, i’d rather be home than somewhere else in this weirdness.

this isn't fun anymore. it isn't amusing, it isn't even slightly odd.

in dreams, sense of time is distorted. this dream seems to just go on and on. seriously. it feels like days …

weeks …

months …

at some point, the water fails, so thank god for bottled water.

... and there's still no one out there.

huggles are kewl

today this itty bitty kid came running up and gave me a huggle. i don't really know why. it's not as though i even know the little kid. but still .... it was kind of kewl, you know?

but huggles -- especially the unexpected, non-sexually motivated, just thought you could use one -- huggles; those are totally kewl, and absolutely appreciated!

wouldn't it be awesome if we could set aside the hormones and the social paranoia, and just hug people simply because huggles are kewl? why don't we ever do that?


oh. that's right. we're in south dakota. if you didn't grow up here and live your whole life in the same place, you're weird.


yeah. i'm weird. must be some kind of retro hippie thing, eh

geek love, or omg it wurx!

it was geek love from the start.

almost 10 years ago, we got this huge, huge printer ... an hp laserjet 6p. it was a total workhorse! it survived printing out all the revisions of several manuscripts, tonnes of journal articles we wrote, several books that we were writing at the time. i LOVED that printer!


... and then, right around the whole y2k scare,


.............................. it died.


right at the same time six of my favourite code bits blew out. (wouldn't you just figure i'd burn out the 5.25 drive at the same time so i couldn't reload the bits???) and right at the same time that i lost a couple software packages to y2k.

i couldn't figure out how to get the workhorse working again, and the techie that examined it sighed and said it couldn't be resurrected ... that it would cost tooooooo much to replace the dead part. (about $300 more than it would cost to just get a new printer.)

i got mad and retired it.

so it got shuffled off into the closet of puter parts that i dunno what to do with, and it sat there. patiently. i kind of felt as though it was glaring reproachfully at me every time i had to dig through the puter closet for schtuff

anyway, about a week ago, i was digging through the closet for some old 5.25 disks (we were playing around with this external 5.25 / 3.5 dual drive bit a friend dropped off for me) ... and there it was. the workhorse. poor baby. still out to pasture.

or was it

i went surfing around online, and spent a couple hours digging through this MOUNTAIN of software and installation cds ... yeah, i keep all those too ... and decided what the heck ... why not? what have i got to lose?

okay, so it works. in fact, the resolution is amazing for toner that i thought would have fused solid by now, yanno? its going to need a new part though. the fuser assembly is kind of dead (yeah it's my fault ... it sort of went into meltdown when i was rushing out camera ready copies of this 8,000 page manuscript).

heyyyyyy ... the fuser assembly is $150 (parts and labour). and i still even have a brand new so cherry it's never been unsealed toner cartridge for the workhorse, too.

so, its off to the puter doc for an overhaul, i think. yeah, i know i could fixxor it myself but i would rather send it off for a complete physical, yanno?

besides ... i love my new konica minolta 2400W colour laser

heh

words and meanings

MONKU MONKU MONKU ... grandma used to mutter that when i'd be sitting there going on and on and on about schtuff. MONKU MONKU MONKU ... ever sit there and think about words and what they mean? i mean really think about what words mean ... not just the literal meanings, but all the connotations that people impose on words.

for example, i found this cool toy at WalMart (yeah, i even admit to WalMart LMAO!) ... it's a ball ... it doesn't bounce, or change color, or anything like that -- it's not that kind of ball. it's about 3 inches across, but its surface has all these long, dangly bits to it. and it's squooshy, you know? i think its supposed to be some kind of stress ball or something.

anyway, so there we are, a bunch of us, in this classroom just killing time by playing with this ball ... it stretches, it squooshes, it's basically one of those things that for some reason BLAM! it's a cool toy to play with even if you're just wayyyy to mature to play with kid toys, you know?

.................................

and then someone just HAS to go an make a pretty disgusting comment about the ball. (did i mention that it is blue? yeah. so you can just guess what the comment is, right?) ...

i grabbed the packaging so i could argue back and

... OMGGGGGG according to the packaging, this product is labelled (this is a quote) ... "WILD BLUE HAIRY BALL" ... just imagine how totally stupid i felt that i hadn't even noticed what the stupid toy was labelled!

... so there i was, sitting there, turning just about every shade of RED while all around me, everybody is grabbing for the ball and giggling and joking around and i'm thinkin ... well.

should i have seen that coming? no pun intended either. i hate when i put my foot in my mouth!

10 reasons it suxxors to be female in SD

suxxors to be female in this state. want to know why???

#10: It's officially a law now ... a female (regardless of age or lack thereof) can only get an abortion in South Dakota if her life is in imminent danger due to the pregnancy. Rape, incest, abuse, STDs, high risk pregnancies, birth defects ... these are apparently not good enough reasons to consider an abortion.

# 9: Abstinence is the ONLY method to be included in school curricula. Sheeesh and here we thought this went out with the "keep your legs crossed" rule our parents grew up with.

# 8: In South Dakota, parents can refuse to have their precious children exposed to information about sexuality. I'm serious!!! Counselors and school districts can be sued for providing birth control information or access.

# 7: Men's sports not only get far more funding, there are also a great many more of them than women's sports in South Dakota. Women, apparently, should be content with home ec (cooking and sewing) and aerobics. Wait ... how unfair of me ... i forgot to include early childhood psychology and menu planning.

# 6: High school women who get pregnant and have the child (this number will be increasing now that we can't learn about birth control, shouldn't have access to birth control, and certainly should not be allowed abortions) must attend alternative education (usually this means evening classes) ... not so the high school men who got them pregnant. They, of course, are needed for the many MALE sports teams.

# 5: The numbers of STDs in South Dakota are low compared to the other states. Note that I said NUMBERS ... not percentage of population. Does no one out there notice that South Dakota has a smaller population base than other states? Oh, silly me for thinking that this is important. Clearly this is an example of why women in this state suxxor at math, right???

# 4: In South Dakota, high school males know it's acceptable to publically comment about women and to joke about rape. High school females quickly learn it's NOT acceptable to discuss chemical castration or abortion. After all, chemical castration is cruel and unusual punishment and abortion ... only godless heathens believe in that, right???

... going to have to come back to this ... can't post 3, 2, and 1 without substantively cleaning up the language

anonymity

i had to laugh when my sister warned me not to blog because people could read them. i really don't think anyone ever reads this blog i have. why should they? i can think of better things to do, than to surf blogs. no. this is basically just a place i type random thoughts to myself. so they're stored online. who really cares? it's not like it's going to get read and commented on LOL and its a heck of a lot easier than lugging around my notebook full of scribbles. okay i can't cartoon in here, but then, its not like anyone at school is going to get their hands on this and pass it around, either. and even if someone did ... who really cares? in the everyday world, i'm just nobody, fading into the background. online, i'm even less lmao!

this SD abortion law is anti-women's rights

normally i don't really get into this whole us v.s. them mentality but i'm really steaming about the south dakota legislature pushing through their anti-abortion law. this is just one more instance of the national right wing movement to use and abuse south dakotans.

the majority of people i know in south dakota don't think abortion is the answer, but they also don't think that it should be against the law. they all seem to believe that THE PERSON ... the WOMAN ... is responsible for making a choice. they may not agree with a choice a person makes, but they feel it shouldn't be a law forced down people's throats.

it's easy for people who've NEVER had to deal with problem pregnancies firsthand, to say that abortion is an evil thing. but laws shouldn't be imposed on everyone when they're written by people who don't have to scramble just to make ends meet. hard enough considering abortion from a moral standpoint and a health standpoint ... a woman with a problem pregnancy certainly shouldn't also have to deal with legal threats.

i'm NOT saying that abortion should ever be thought of as a method of birth control -- i'm simply saying that we need to recognize that if men have legal control over their bodies, so should women. you don't think they're equal issues? consider this ... men can get viagra without the man's partner having any input in this. men can get vasectomies without the partner's input. so how come WOMEN can't have equal control over their bodies???

you know, its not as if it's even commonplace in south dakota ANYWAY ... the ONLY place you can even get an abortion is in Sioux Falls. and now it's going to be even more impossible. how can right wingers push such an agenda????

the SD legislature is insane ... the only information they feel teens need about sexual issues is abstinence. THEY obviously were never teens, were they?