Turn Signal

Why can't you use a turn signal? ANY OF YOU? Mad scientists built a lever into your wheeled robot house, on purpose, just so you could alert other robot drivers that you are moving laterally. And just to keep it simple, this lever lives next to where your fucking hands go.

Your assumption that you can just weave in and out of traffic all willy-nilly with little regard for your fellow travelers is fucking egregious. EGREGIOUS.

As with all things in life, when you make a decision, please take a second to reflect on how your decision is going to effect the people around you, and in the world. Even Ashton Kutcher knows that small actions make a difference, and he's a fucking dumbass. Then he made a shitty movie about it and made things worse. Don't see it. It's terrible and it doesn't make any sense. In a bad way, not in a good way. Ashton Kutcher did not consider the butterfly effect of his own movie back in 2004 that makes me feel angry today. The fucking nerve.

Thor 2 didn't make any sense either, but that movie goddamn ruled. Do you know why? Because the filmmakers didn't try to logic something that they didn't really understand, they were just like, "um, bibbity bobbity bifrost SCIENCE = MAGIC BLOODSMOKE" and then everything was fine.

Ashton Kutcher, on the other hand, tried to explain something that he didn't understand to serve his own agenda, like when Christians appropriate "science" for their religimagic, which is backwards. Technically not Ashton, but the guys who made that movie. You can't say "magic because of science." That defeats the purpose of fucking magic. Science will negate the magic. BUT! Undiscovered science? That is magic. Do you see? Idiots. EGREGIOUS.

Don't try to make sense of something you cannot fathom in the first place. Or...no, that's wrong. Always try to make sense of things. But do not flaunt your blatant misunderstanding of a concept on film. Talk to someone who knows what the what before you act like an idiot.

Then again, I got my shit on here, and I have absolutely no fucking idea what I'm talking about.

I didn't get in a car accident or anything. I just really don't like cab drivers. They're slippery bastards.

AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT? I don't think cab drivers really like NPR! I think I just get into a cab and they switch the radio to NPR because I have glasses and I dress like a hungover junior high school teacher. Well, your deduction is inaccurate, cabbies, because I like my ignorant pop music from time to time, and I'm only wearing these pants because finding pants I enjoy is very difficult, and I'm not as cultured as you think I am. BOOM!!!! Suck it.

GRYFFINDOR

A Love Letter to Having a Day

Dear Having a Day,

Jesus fuck I love having a day.

Requirements for having a day include:

1) totally unplanned
2) probably hungover
3) two or more persons, at least one of which is displaced from their normal residence by at least 500 ft
4) hilarity

It's not necessarily that you are hilarious (although I'm always hilarious, natch) when you're having a day, it's more that, like, when you're having a day, everything is hilarious. Having a day is something we invented. A term we assigned? No, something we Named.

When we have a day we tend to speak in primitive basics: "We are people and we are having a day."

It's never "Hey, can we have a day tomorrow?" It's always "Come play! We are having a day." Sometimes we try to plan it, but whenever we plan we fail.

Sometimes we can see having a day up ahead like a silhouette at sunset, our terrible, inevitable future: "Uh oh, Rassles. We're going to have a day tomorrow aren't we?"

"Yes, Schmee. I'm afraid we might."

Bloomingdale Trail. I found this on the google, I have no idea who took it. Rad though, yeah?

Sometimes having a day is just wandering around petting strangers' dogs, or an impromptu bar crawl in rain, or deciding to get drunk but instead we just sit around watching Back to the Future MST3K-style. Sometimes we go to Chinatown. Sometimes we walk down the street and collect high-fives. Sometimes we accidentally end up at the Circus Museum in Baraboo. Sometimes we hike the Bloomingdale trail, but not anymore because they're turning it into a sensible, three-mile elevated park. Chicago loses its wilderness foot by foot, day by day.

Sometimes we go see a psychic who tells us that throughout our childhood our usually-absent father, with whom we do not get along, had a secret family in Georgia, and because of his sins we are cursed to never find love unless we pay the psychic $45 a week so she can light giant candles and meditate and cleanse us of our misfortune and woe. Sometimes that psychic describes, in detail, our damaging miscarriage (????????WHUUUT??????). She says we have good business sense, we love our job cuz its what we do best, we do not enjoy reading and are not terribly creative. Sometimes that psychic also says that no man will love us because we are too ugly and intimidating (it was 6pm and I smelled like PBR and my soft pants had schnauzers on them) so we might want to consider settling with a woman just so we aren't so lonely anymore. Sometimes psychics are stupid fucking cunts that try ruin our day, but they fail, and do you know why? Because we are having a fucking DAY, that's why.

Nothing can ruin a day. Spending $25 on a shitty tarot card reading is worth it, and plus? Awesome. She did not list a single accurate or recognizable trait of mine. It was like the exact opposite of a psychic, treading water in the toilet of lies. Seriously, did this witch divine vibes from a stranger on the sidewalk? Who was this stranger? Can I meet her? Would we be friends? I doubt it, we have nothing in common, and half of my apartment is books. Also, absent father? You kidding me? My dad worked from home. I saw him every day. Too ugly to be in a relationship with a man? Foolish, fuckeyed, gypsy harpy, your mystic science is stuh-rate up slander.

But none of that matters, because Sara and I were having a day.

Sometimes when we're having a day we buy all of the champagne at CVS and drink on the porch and yell at people on the street so they'll join us in our day. Sometimes we stay in and turn off all the lights and drink bloody marys and watch Buffy. Shooting the shit, being an idiot within the safe confines of your friends.

It occurs to me that the majority of them when I'm having a day, Schmee is there. Well done, Schmee. We are people and we are good at things.

Love,

Rassles


...

This Love Letters series is for true. Click here for the list so far.

If You're Sure.

The last day in Vegas I did something I can honestly say I've never done before, and never thought I would ever, ever do, and hope I never ever ever ever ever ever have to do again.

We were eating at Hash House A Go Go.  The one in San Diego is a goddamn phenom, so I expected...well, that.

But in Las Vegas the HHaGG is in the Imperial Palace, The Asshole of the Vegas Strip.  We stayed there on purpose since IP has that cheap-seventies-charmingly-racist feel about it, which we were sure was soon to be murdered by some Big Hotel Chain so we felt obliged to take advantage of it for purposes of history and retro nostalgia. It is not that charming.  In reality, the IP looks like a 10 cent Chinese hooker threw up on Florida, and the suicide balconies look out over a widgetty-fidgetty discombobbersome construction site with a thin spray of squatty buildings and troll-sized Tinker Toys.

They're revamping the IP into some douchehole called the Quad, and I can't decide if that's going to be better or worse. 

The last two times we were in Vegas we stayed at the 7lamingo (I refuse to call a hotel whose name blatantly begins with the number seven anything but that) and the Sahara (RIP), and loved both. But we wanted to try somewhere new.  Because we are stupid. New things are bad.  I know that now.  Resist change!  Fight progress!  Don't tread on me!

I'm guessing the Hash House - much like its host, the Imperial Palace - gets repeat customers about once in fucking never, which means the servers do not have to pay attention to their tables.  This isn't a local diner-type joint.  No one gives a shit about you.  You are not even a person - you are a tip.  We had terrible luck in Strip eateries all weekend.  The second we stepped away from the strip service amplified by infinity, which isn't really a surprise, but it's frustrating. 

We sit down for breakfast and our server rushes up to us immediately - she was nice.  She was very nice.  This one time? She took our order.

And then she disappears.

Someone else refills my coffee.  Another staff member drops off our food.  I ask both of them for a glass of water.  Then I realized I don't have any syrup for my pancake, which is roughly the size of Caesar's Palace and in desperate need of a little goodness. My cousin doesn't have silverware, so I give her mine since I don't have syrup anyway.

I try to flag down our server doing the usual thing: make eye contact, smile.  Last resort is a friendly wave.  When I can't do that, I focus on trying to get the attention of another employee.  Eye contact.  Smile.  Catch their eye - nope, nope.  Not happening.  Hopes high, I start to stare down another.  And another.  And another.

There's this thing servers do - and as a server for years, I know all about it - called Lookin' Busy.  When servers don't want to get slammed with requests from guests, they just plow past tables and Look Busy.  Eyes straight ahead, avoid customers at all costs.

Someone does a drive-by to see if we needed anything but doesn't pause long enough for us to answer.  

The thing about Lookin' Busy is it's basically just moving real fast. Usually you aren't doing anything.  This is evident by the lack of things in servers hands, the speed with which they're walking. A server with four tables - when the restaurant has fucking expeditors running out food and coffee people doing nothing but filling coffee - sorry, but there is no reason she should not have done a routine check two minutes after we got our food to make sure we didn't need anything like syrup. 

I try again to get the attention of someone - anyone, for chrissake - and continue to get ignored. I have a high tolerance for poor service, but after getting it five days in a fucking row and then once again it happens here?  When I can gauge exactly how busy you actually are?  FUCK YOU. 

I raise my hand.

I sit there in the middle of the restaurant with my hand raised and count as three, four, five...ELEVEN employees sweep by, either avoiding me on purpose or in serious Look Busy mode. Finally my server comes out to greet another table.

She sees me.  She stops. Stares.  Squints a bit, as if she doesn't believe this is real. She takes a hesitant step forward.

"Yes?"

"Hi!" I say, with as much fake cheerfulness as possible.  "Can I get some coffee, a glass of water, some butter, some syrup, and a set of silverware?  Please."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you needed water--"

"It was the first thing I asked for when I sat down and I asked the last three employees who came over here."

"I'm...um, I'm sorry?  I didn't realize."

"Obviously."

"I will...um.  I will get that for you right away."

"Thank you." She turned back to help the other table and went on her way.  Good for her, doing two things at once. Is it policy there to help only one table at a time or something?  That's a terrible fucking policy.

My sisters were mortified. "You are being such a bitch right now."

"The service here is fucking terrible.  We were blatantly ignored for ten minutes, and my pancake is fucking cold.  It's ridiculous."

"You know when you get mad at Dad for being rude to servers?  You were way worse."

"Good.  I meant to be."

"Yeah, this is a total Dad move.  I'm embarrassed to be sitting with you."

"No, because Dad would pretend everything was fine as long as someone paid attention to him, and he'd be passive aggressive about it."

"I cannot believe you just did that, it's so rude." 

"It was supposed to be fucking rude!  I want her to complain to her co-workers about the bitch at table 23 and how she had the audacity to raise her hand, and then I want her to be pissed at her coworkers for doing shit-all when they saw me."

"Well, that worked."

"Good."

The server came back with drinks for the other table, and the trimmings for us.  "Here you go," she says, and sets things down.  "How is everything else?"

"I'll try it and find out.  And I'm sorry about being a total jackass.  I was really pissed off about getting ignored by everyone."

"No, it's fine. I'll get you guys whatever you need."

"Thank you." 

And then she charged us for food we didn't order.

...

The Bird Tree

A woman lives in the building next door to me.  She's an adorable old hag with a calico cat and a little white dog.  There's a rocking chair on her porch, and she'll sit there for hours in her old lady floral dressing robe while the dog sniffs around the trees on a twenty foot leash. 

Her cat never leaves the window.  He's there right now, I'm sure of it, watching the birds.

She sprinkles birdseed all over the sidewalk beneath the tree in front of her place so its leaves are constantly flickering with twitters and wings.  Like the real kind of twitters, not the annoying kind.  Her cat loves it. 

No one in the hood parks under that tree.  People will park two blocks away before they leave their car under the bird tree.  But sometimes you're in a hurry, or it's cold outside so you assume there won't be that many birds, or you just moved in to the neighborhood and you haven't learned yet.  About the bird tree. 

This week it was cold.

On Monday it was below thirty degrees, which means scarves and fuck yeah weather and soup.  I've been thinking soup-related thoughts all damn week, and mostly about a giant bowl of steaming ramen filled with bamboo shoots and eggs and shit while David Cassidy belts out awesome things in the background about a love there is no cure for. 

I was on my lunch break on the hunt for soup, fantasizing and romanticizing ramen like it's my job (it's not, unfortunately) when paused at a corner was a bent old man wearing the same scarf as me.

I turned and looked at him.  "Nice scarf."

He nodded and smiled.  "Yours is nice as well.  It matches your eyes." He spoke with a thick Irish accent.

"It also matches your accent.  Are you from Ireland?"

"Yes, miss.  But you are not.  I believe your scarf is."

"Yeah, I got it a few summers ago in the Ring of Kerry."

"Which is where I was born.  I'twas lovely to make your acquaintance."

"And you.  Stay warm."

"Stew for lunch!" He smiled.

(You now, stew is also a very delicious kind of soup.) 

My car was parked under the bird tree all day on Monday, where I assumed it would be safe.  The hag never spreads birdseed in the cold.  But the bitch did.  She scattered seeds all over the ground beneath the tree and the sidewalk so her cat could enjoy the birds all day, and the birds ate the seeds (which is not nearly as fulfilling as soup/ramen/stew in this kid of weather) and then the birds SHAT ALL OVER MY CAR.

I haven't had time to clean it until today, so I spent no less than thirty-five minutes scrubbing it this afternoon.

There must be a way to bill the old lady for all the quarters I blew at the car wash. 

...

in which I take bites of things

Thirty-one, I think, is going to be copacetic.  Even though it might not seem this way from the last post, birthdays are my very very super favorite thing other than costume parties, puppies, and John McClane, but I decided to keep shit low-key and hyphenated this year:  Bingo at the neighborhood church on Friday, live band karaoke on Saturday, Wu-Tang on Sunday. Hot damn I am awesome, even in my wrinkled old age.

Everyone won Bingo except for me, which sounds about right. I am completely addicted.  At LBK I had to call an ambulance after some twenty-one-year-old cretins beat the shit out of a hapless smoker on the sidewalk in front of the bar.  He looked at them sideways, and they threw him into a parked car and stomped all over him, and then all these people on the street started yelling, "Go back to Wrigleyville!" and they ran away, which is relevant for the following thirty-one reasons:

1. fist-fights don't happen there EVER
2. even the bouncer attested to that
3. therefore: Wrigleyville = accurate assumption
4. frat-tastic chads are officially moving in on the bars I frequent
5. I go to certain bars specifically to avoid those guys
6. since hipster fashion is now the preppy norm, there is no way to distinguish elitists from pricks, and previously I engaged both sets differently
7. I'm fairly mediocre-looking, so even when I'm just waiting for a beer and in light conversation, once it becomes evident that I am much more clever than the hipster/chad, it behooves me to determine in advance whether he is going to accuse me of being an uptight bitch (hipsters) or a lesbian (chads), so I can scoff him appropriately.  
8. those are the only "insults" they know
9. (men rarely insult beautiful women to their faces)
10. but this happens to me whenever I say something as simple as "no thanks" or as complex as "no I will not go down on you in the alley behind the dumpster because I am not your roadwhore"
11. when insecure guys come face-to-face with a less-than-beautiful girl who doesn't fawn and giggle over their superior manliness, they get angry because they are obviously doing me a favor by speaking to me in the first place 
12. (50% of guys are very pleasant and not at all douchey)
13. I tend to start a conversation with whoever is next to me as long as they aren't engaged in a conversation themselves just because I like talking to people until they start sucking
14. and it's like, if you all stopped being fucking sexist manbaby-coddlebunnies, maybe you could have a conversation instead of getting angry at me for not buying your bullshit
15. But no, women who don't stroke your ego are controlling bitches.
16. I am sure that ego-stroking has something to do with penises 
17. I will stroke your ego if you deserve it. 
18. (Penis)
19. Mad Libs?
20. So this guy at trivia night (I know, I know, I went to a trivia night last week as well. Who the fuck am I and what have we done with the real Rassles and what's with all the digression [you love it and you find me coy]) who is a friend of a friend was angry that I "took over" trivia night.  
21. His only reasoning for this was the fact that I am awesome at trivia. 
22. Now, if I didn't know the answer to a question, I left it to the table and threw in ideas when no one else knew either. But if I knew the answer then he was all "but HOW do you KNOW that?" even when he didn't know the answer, and I was like, "Why you bitchin, handsome? The Decameron is the Ten Commandments. THAT IS WHAT IT IS. This isn't fucking rocket surgery. No, I don't need to think about it.  I haven't been wrong yet.  No reason to get all testy-twisted.  I accept your answers when you're sure of them. If I was a man, this wouldn't be an issue. We would have fist-bumped, and you probably would have been all, we need to team up all the time bro, no homo."  
23. This is why I don't play trivia with strangers.
24. He proved to be the type of guy that would put his arm around his adorable little blonde girlfriend and say, "Yeah, my brains are rubbing off on her.  She gets cooler every day." I know he's the type because he actually did that.  He actually did that with complete sincerity and without any sense of deprecation or irony, and his girlfriend actually looked proud.   
25. His girlfriend actually answered way more questions than he did, but she did it by consulting him first for his approval. If he didn't like her answer, she wouldn't tell the rest of the team what it was.
26. Then he started ragging on the announcer because he sounded like a 'gay theater guy. it's cool if he's gay, I mean, you know, but do you have to be so obvious?' 
27. DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO OBVIOUSLY STRAIGHT?
28. So then I did that thing where my heart grows a swampland because I don't care how handsome you are anymore.  I don't care that your pouting was kind of adorable.
29. You are now my property, and you will live in the gator-infested swampland of my heart and you will hate it there because you're a pig, and gators eat the fuck out of swine.  I can still feel them inside.  Chomping away.  
30. I need something to fight, I think.
31. whatever, it was my birthday week, I did what I want

So anyway, the LBK band asked that I take a tip jar around the bar for them, and I made Schmee come with me because she's gorgeous and people are always more likely give money to beautiful women (for the record, she is also smart and funny, but Emi is the smart one and I am the funny one and Schmee is the pretty one and that's the way it is, Schmee, so stop complaining). And these guys were mean to Schmee when she was all pretty and approachable-looking, so you know they were assholes.  One of them goes, "I don't have any money, I'm twenty-one.  Plus I give like $90 a month to charity."  And then Schmee said, "so how did you afford that round of shots? Why are you at a bar that charges $5 a beer if you can't cough a dollar up for the band you came to see?"

He could have just said "no" and we would have thanked him and walked away, like we did with the other people in the bar that didn't spend all their time acting like an infected foot.

And then like twenty minutes later they beat the shit out of a guy and I called the cops and an ambulance.  Victim guy was okay.  Oh! and Schmee gave the cops the evidence they needed to catch the gutless bastards that ran away.  Well done, Schmee.

In other news, Wu-Tang is the old-ass Led Zeppelin of hip-hop.  The only one who's got any energy left is Method Man and the rest of them just politely towel each others' foreheads and shout, "Make monay monay, make monay monay monay!" and I'm all, "Dude.  You're like forty" which is what I think about everyone older than I am between the ages of thirty-six and seventy. 

Also, I've started reading US state maps in the bathroom.  I've been collecting them for years (MoLinder and I wallpapered a room once, but they've since been taken down, refolded, and stashed in the bathroom) and since I have no road trips planned, I'm just memorizing them so when I DO go on a road trip I can be all "BOOYAH.  Suck it, GPS."

...

Raping the Women and Wasting the Men

I am interrupting my memetic programing to tell you this:  the song categories for this meme were created by assholes.  

Because of this, the original days 16 and 17, "a song that you used to love but now hate" and "a song that you hear often on the radio" will be eliminated and new categories created.


So I bring you days 16 and 17, Two Songs I Dominate While Driving. 

Why would I want to show people music that sucks?  And I don't listen to the radio.  Too many commercials.  And I don't have an iPod, so there better not be any iPod categories in the near future. 



I am not a big fan of Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst's other band, which you prolly already knew but I'm saying it anyway because I had no idea who Oberst was when I first heard this song because Bright Eyes sucks) and the Desaparecidos had this brilliantly horrible hollerin' garage-feedback shitty anthem rock thing going on, like Black Flag covering Springsteen.  

Once someone made me a CD with this song on it - Muffy, of course, because I get all of my music from Muffy, Xtine, and my dad - and it makes me wish I'd just gotten away with robbing a bank.

And this next song, well.



Don't even pretend you don't like it.  DON'T EVEN.

When I was a very mediocre keys player/back up singer for a band that really, really could have been big had the members stuck with music instead of taking a "hiatus" to get an "MBA" or go to "law school" so they could get "real jobs" and stop working at "restaurants" and "UPS," we did a cover of this for a battle of the bands and we goddamn killed it.  We practiced constantly.  Fucking constantly.  We were determined to play it in under 3:30 while keeping faithful - which is like running the Kentucky Derby, by the way - and BY FUCKY WE DID.  Thank god.  Every day we'd practice, get hammered, and close with a sweaty, screamy sloppy Iron Maiden cover, and eventually we decided to just do it for real, and we tightened it and cranked it up.  I'm going to see if I can find a recording of it, because we were awesome.

We were competing against all these heavy metal bands that hated us since we sounded like a cross between Queen and Os Mutantes and a marching band, because Xtine is a hipster who plays the theremin listens to things like 1960's Brazilian psychedelic rock, plus we had about nine people on stage.  And a violin.  So these guys, over the course of several nights, all Danzig-ed out and heckling and jerking themselves into a Faygo frenzy had to shut their yaps when we speed-metaled the hell out of them. Their shitty bands couldn't do that. I wanted to cover "Ace of Spades" too, just so we could show those fuckers what's what (and because I would have gotten to sing that, not Xtine) but no one else was on board.


...

I'm about to ruin Sucker Punch for EVERYONE and I don't even care because I sympathized with the dragons

Days 11 and 12, a song from your favorite band and a song from a band you hate and I'm sorry for reviewing a movie but I'm very angry because this movie was horrible

You know, whenever I want to escape my horrible real life where John Hamm is hammering an icepick into my heavily lined-eye, I like to escape to a magical Sailor Moony realm in my head where I'm a whore in a whorehouse where the whores aren't even proper whores with sexual providence and snappy comebacks and drug addictions, they're all weepy angelic ballet dancers who are blondely baffled that one keeps knives in kitchens (they are women, and whores at that, so illogical stupidity is forgivable), because kitchens are mysterious and vile just like potatoes and fat people. Apparently no one keeps knives in drawers or in wooden countertop knife holsters but everyone has shimmery tactical shotguns and thigh-highs and soldiers bleed steam (PUNK!) and it's totally okay to go around slitting the throats of adorable baby dragons napping on beds of bones hidden in the bowels of Mordor, and then the whores all kill terminators with their samurai swords on the train that's going to contaminate all of the water in Gotham and throw Molotov cocktail tantrums elbow-first like sex pansydolls with ginormous blinky-eyes. And then Don Draper is all, "I'm starting to think lobotomies are old hat, this is my last one I swear, and then I'm going into advertising" and all the rapey people simultaneously arrive at the enlightening realization that rape is wrong, and hey guys, I don't think this is a good idea because she has the golden sacrificial face of an ANGEL and that urinal hasn't been cleaned since the first time we raped someone in here back in the good ole days o' rapin' but lately they bitches been gettin' stabby.

So there were pretty okay fight scenes sometimes, although I never got the impression that these girls were kicking ass so much as they had really easy targets (you trained your men to fight in 300, do us a favor and make your women do the same, asshole), and I'm glad Zack Snyder at least tried, embarrassingly so, but you know what Snyder? Shut the fuck up. The best part of your movie was when you started killing whores because you couldn't think of anything else to do with them. It was hilarious.

Back to the meme.

So I couldn't decide if I should post the hand-painted original video, which is awesome, but a little too ADD and seizury for me right now after a night of Sucker Punch.



And I'm not going to post a video from a band I hate, because right now the thing I hate most is the soundtrack of Sucker Punch and its literal lyrical narration with grrrrl power covers of songs that were perfect to begin with.  So I'm going to post a Beastie Boys video because they make me happy.

...

Apparently it's Emily Browning singing the covers, and she's the main actress. That makes things a little bit okay-er since she utters two sentences in total. You should have just made it a battle musical escapist world and nixed the whorehouse. Poorly done, Snyder. Call me next time and I will Tim Gunn things for you.

...

Catch the Spit

Day 2: your least favorite song

I have a very low tolerance for shrillness, for nasal voices, for...unpleasant sounds. I react violently, shaking in irritation and angry at whatever fuckhead is assaulting my ears.



Rush sucks. Geddy Lee makes me wish I carried a team of knives to stab my ear canal in case I hear this song and cant turn it off. I don't even know why I posted the video. I suppose it's because those are the "rules."

You know what? Fuck you, rules.

Lee can play the shit out of a bass (not in this song, though, because in this song he's basically all synth and when he switches to bass I just get angry and shout "MAKE UP YOUR MIND, GEDDY, YOU HONKY HOSER"), I'll give you that, but they couldn't find anyone else to sing lead vocals?

I hate the contrivance of the John Teshy synthesizer (yeah, I know, Rush is pre-John Tesh, but not in Rassles years because I knew about John Tesh before I knew about Rush), I hate how Lee's voice compliments absolutely no tangible instruments ever played by man except for maybe a theremin, which is just wagging your hand in radio waves anyway. I hate how their version of a modern-day rebel sounds like an annoying asshole that I don't want to be around. I hate how their idea of a rebel is Tom Sawyer, who I've never seen as a rebel and more of a mischievous kid trying to start some shit because he's a dick.

Now, I understand that some people believe the song is a critique on the modern day rebel, and to those people I say: Shut the hell up. Let me go on hatin.

Plus, I was always more of a Huck Finn girl, myself. Huck Finn owns.

...

We've Had it With Your Discipline

1. Saturday night I got drunk. Like meathead drunk. I was sloppy and slurry, and at the end of the night I felt very awkward when Apples definitely pulled me in for a long hug, smelled my hair and whispered, "I love you so much" while his girlfriend stared at us.

2. But Apples is an awkward guy, and making people feel awkward is pretty much his job. I've never met anyone better at making people feel awkward than Apples. Regardless, in my drunken stupor it affected me deeply and irrationally, and I wondered what he meant by it other than the usual and freaked out.

3. So I met up with M.E.'s girlfriend at a shitty Puerto Rican thug bar called Lockdown and complained for awhile about how "skulls are so mainstream" and "ironic t-shirts are for pussies" and overreacting with worry regarding Apples, because I was fucking hammered. It lasted an hour, maybe, before I crawled home at 3:30 and started making mahfuckin' stroganoff, what what.

4. My buzzer rang twenty minutes later because Al the Landlord forgot his keys and saw that our lights were on, so he came over and we cracked some more beers and woke up CrazyLiz around four, who grabbed a beer and cheers-ed in because she's a fucking rock star. Al was pretty shit-faced himself and he didn't want to wake up his girlfriend (who was asleep in his place upstairs) and we talked about toilets.

5. After much laughter and camaraderie, AltL grunted, "Check this out," slammed his foot on the coffee table and dragged up his pantleg Dreyfuss-style, and all I could think was, "YES! battle-scars!" but instead he slid a handgun out of his ankle holster and laid it moderately delicately on the coffee table. So there was a gun in my apartment.

"And there's my gun," he laughed, like it was nothing.

"Fyou think we're playing Russian roulette," I slurred, "then you got a 'nother think. Sthera rule bout cops n guns? Can you even do this?" AltL is also a cop.

"Ha! I know, I know. S'not loaded." He pressed a button or something to prove it to me.

I stretched out my hand and grabbed at the air. "Gimme, please."

AltL held the handle out towards me and I grabbed the gun like a light in the dark, but my motor skills were all scrambled and boozy.

"Cock it," he said.

I turned the gun over in my hand, gripped barrel and looked at him. "Is this the barrel? Do handguns have barrels? Or is that just shotguns?" He answered, but I did not pay any attention since I was holding a fucking handgun. I'd never held a gun before. I shot my first BB gun in like December, shit I think I saw my first handgun like a year earlier. One time I shouldered an antique rifle.

My mom is the Queen of the anti-weapon-people. We weren't even allowed to have water guns. I don't think I even used a sharp knife until I was eighteen (this is probably because I am an idiot, and not really the work of my mom). Which is stupid, I think, because it does not lead to careful respect for firearms, it leads to wonder and complete irresponsibility. At least for me.

So drunken Rassles held a handgun and tried to cock it like a pro. But I forgot how hammered I was, and my hand slipped off the barrelgrip and I jammed my finger and pinched my thumb in some snappy invisible crevasse, dropped the gun, and then snatched it midair like a slippery little fish because I have wicked good catching skills but sloppy, fidgetty fingers.

CrazyLiz gasped and carefully wrestled the gun away from my cold, drunk hands.

"Snot loaded, Liz," I scoffed at her. "Give it. I'm fine."

"I don't give a shit," she explained. CrazyLiz, the guffawed voice of reason. "You aimed it at me, and now you lose your gun privileges."

"Horseshit. I did not aim atchoo."

"Yeah, you kinda did," AltL laughs like an oafish donkey putz. I like AltL.

"I like you, Al," I say, and my head lolls. "Sors. I don't not know...I know I don't...I don't, um. I know not what I fucking do, man." My head collapsed on the arm of the couch because my neck stopped working, and I looked at AltL with heavy eyes. "Sors."

"It's cool."

I closed my eyes slowly. "Liz. LIZ!"

"What? I'm right here."

"I am sors for pointing guns."

"It's okay, sweetie."

"You don't call me sweetie. You are being...pphhhh something."

There was a series of serious of lock-n-load clicks and snicker-snacks, and I glazed over at CrazyLiz, who mobilized the gun like a soldier and passed it back to AltL with discerned respect. "You should put that away before she hurts herself." I wanted to grab it out of her hands and just cuddle it like a teddy bear.

Al reaches for his gun, and nods, smiling. "That's prolly a good idea."

"Fuck you guys and yer guns."

AltL looks at CrazyLiz, I think. My eyes were closed. "So she's never held a gun before."

"No, she hasn't."

"But you definitely have."

"I learned how to shoot when I was in elementary school," CrazyLiz did her CrazyGiggle. "My dad is kind of a fanatic."

"My parents are accountants," I interjected. Loudly. "They do Lord of the Rings puzzles and taxes." I realized how lame that sounded, so I had to add something badass and huntery. "But I can gut n' skin a rabbit in a minute."

"What'd she say?" AltL asked Liz.

"To feed the tigers," I slurred. "We put 'em in pumpkins."

"What? Tigers?"

"She worked at a zoo," Liz translates, "like eight years ago. She thinks she's an expert."

"Oh."

"Tiger blood. Hehe. What? If tigers eat rabbits do they have rabbit blood? AltheLandlord! you should take the test. I bet you'd be a eagle. What? Stop talking. Shhhh." I opened my eyes and looked up. "Can I see the gun again?"

...

Oh, and BITCHES. New header. Give me compliments. Jeeze.

...

A Sunday at the Empress, Deux, Harlot

Earlier that Sunday that I wrote about awhile ago and never finished writing about out of laziness:

Me, Leeska, and her silent boyfriend (when boyfriends are silent, I don't know if it's because they truly do not speak often, or it's because I never shut up) arrived at the river casino an hour later than everyone else since we have to drive from Chicago instead of the suburbs. Also because we are just plain late.

As we stroll over to the tables (slots are for sallies) looking haughty as fuck, we see Yell and David doing shots out of mini snifters at the bar.

"You, madame," David declares, clinking and swilling his snifter, "are the source of all that is good in the world."

"Yes I am," Yell proudly agrees, "I am the best shooter this town's ever seen."

"Shots?" I snort, grinning. "It's fucking Sunday afternoon. Grampa's here, for crissake."

"Your sister just made me $300 at the craps table."

"What the fuck? In the past like half hour?" I punch her lightly in the shoulder and she feigns chuckled pain. "You couldn't wait for us? I got bills, you know. Shylocks and goons. You need to spread that love to yer effing sister."

"I can't help being awesome, okay?" Yell yells, and smacks her hand on the bartop. "BARKEEP. Gimme a water. Double."

"Water and--"

She winks, pointing a long white finger at him. "ICE." She swivels on her barstool to face us, opening and closing her fist with a cracking finger arpeggio. "I need to keep my mind clear and my reflexes speedy for the next round. And look!" She jams her fist into her pocket and retrieves a stack of chips. "There are so many black ones. Look at all the black ones! LOOK AT THEM."

"What's up with the black ones?" Leeska walks into it.

"Those are the hundreds."

"Holy fucking hell."

"Seriously?"

"I am awesome at everything!"

After greeting the rest of the family and properly expressing our jealousy at Yell's gambling prowess, we prowl.

Prowling drive-bys are the best way to feel the energy of a table. Integral to amateur gambling. Prowling jazzes and sponges up luck and energy, it gives you that confidence required to go and lay your car payments on the line, because you're a hunter and the chips are your prey. We watch some ruddy red man yell at a dealer about the Sox game while a woman waves her nails and cackles, "shuddup, Frank!" in his face.

We exchange silent nods and David slides onto a stool at the Blackjack table neighboring Angry Frank, followed by Leeska, her boyfriend, and me. Yell leaves to get herself a giant pretzel or something.

I'm awful at Blackjack because I believe in luck, but most importantly I believe I don't have it. Still, I got me a system: I play until I lose once. It's never, "Okay, one more time," because you can't beat that shit, and next thing you know you're out $400 and you're struggling down the strip clutching a forty of Old English at four in the afternoon, which happened to me before and that shit's rent. After two hands I tap out to whole mess of heckling from the gambling peers.

But I'm not that stupid.

I rejoin Yell, who is still prowling and clicking her chips in her pocket. "I'm ready."

She narrows her eyes and puts on her game face. "Let's do this."

People over at Angry Frank's table are cheering now, so we decide to slip in. The cackling woman welcomes Yell back into the game.

"Good shooter, good shooter," she approves, clapping Yell on the shoulder.

"Hi again."

"You back for more?"

"Of course."

I put five on the Pass Line just as Yell lays down twenty. As much shit as I talk about how I'm all awesome at craps and gambling, I can be a real wuss. Then again, she's playing with eight times as much money as me and I kick ass at math and percentages, so who's the fucking sally now?

It's a pleasant run, money's flowing back and forth. Angry Frank swells up in a rage about the Sox game and there's some good-natured mockery. Some dude at the table has his chips all bonky, haphazardly plopped in the groves of the table instead of neat, horizontal stacks like sliced cucumbers. Plus, they're all $1 chips. Who the hell only collects $1 chips, and chooses to prepare them so cluttery?

"I'm trying to decide how I feel about that guy's chips," I whisper to Leeska, who squeezes in between me and Yell.

"Oh, I don't trust that," she says. "No way."

"Dude, how much would that inflame Katsisch'seses OCD?" Snicker.

"His chips are in disarray! Cease your hasty lack of organization! I will react shrilly and violently in displeasure!" Yell does a perfect imitation of our missing sister.

"Why must you corrupt my vision with such asymmetry?" I add.

"What?" (This is the only word Leeska's boyfriend says all day.)

"Our sister talks like a villian," Yell explains.

"All the time."

"Plus she uses our parents' basement as an evil lair."

"That bitch crazy."

Boyfriend turns to Leeska for justification, who nods. "They aren't joking."

"THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY FUCKING LIFE." Seriously, someone shouts that shit from across the felt. Angry Frank. "Just turn it on! Your TV is fucking off! Turn it on."

"I'm sorry Frank, but I have no control over--"

"Just put the fucking Sox game on, God Almighty, this casino is full of retards."

"Frank, cap it or you're gone."

This continues for a while and the man with haphazard chippery excuses himself to go to the bathroom, asking a dealer to watch his winnings. The dealer pulls out a pale blue cloth and covers the freakshow arrangement just before David rolls up and Yell slides her chips to make room for him at the table, grazing the blue cloth.

It's Yell's turn to shoot, and Angry Frank's attention targets her dice. "Don't you let me down, little lady," he says. "I'm having the worst fucking day of my life."

"If this is the worst day of your life because you aren't watching that game, I'd say you're the one with the luck. Don't let me down. I want a free buffet." Yell laughs and tosses the dice down the tablestretch of felt.

...

A Sunday at the Empress, Part the First

"Sure," I hear my sister answer a muffled question, and she calls up the escalator, "I'll catch up in a minute."

"What?" I am totally distracted and counting a wad of cash.

"She'll catch up in a minute," my cousin answers on behalf of Yellavitch.

"Whatever." I lost track of the bills on purpose and smiled as I started counting again, tripping off the escalator with my cousins in tow. David and Leeska. Not real names. We're standing there in the lobby of the Empress Casino, and I am awesome at craps again.

My Uncle Dave is in town from Vegas. He's a Pit Boss at the Stratosphere. Logically, when he comes to Chicago the whole clan goes to the casino as if he doesn't spend enough time at the tables already. Although I don't think he knows how to do anything but gamble. And watch people gamble. He can probably shoot things too, since he's some level of sergeant, which covers a broad spectrum of enlisted ranks, I understand, but I can never remember his official rank. He's a runner, very slim, soft-spoken, patient, gay. His house has only white walls and metal shelves housing four different sets of encyclopedias, with no other ornaments except a family photo above his desk and fridgeful of postcards. I would say he's the black sheep since he's quiet and blends into backgrounds, but I kind of feel like that side of my family consists of only black sheep.

So we're waiting in the lobby.

"Fuck is taking so long?" I glance down the escalator after a minute or two of waiting. Yellavich is speaking, folded arms, combative and sure, while the head of casino security scribbles on a yellow notebook.

"No idea," David says. "I'm having a cigarette. Be right back."

He ambles off and Leeska crosses her arms, sighing. "How long do you think this is going to take?"

"Don't know. Do they think she's not twenty-one or something?" Yellavitch, as I've mentioned before, looks like a pretty little fourteen-year old boy.

"Probably," she answers. "No, no fucking way, they scanned our IDs like seventeen times. They know she's legal."

"Hope so." I shift my weight and stretch, rubbing my stomach. I am hungry. "I'm getting hungry."

"Me too. Fucking hurry up, Yell."

"Screw it. I'm going down there." I pound my way down the stairs and stroll up to my sister and the security lady, who is very round.

I smile up at her. "Hi," I interrupt, and stick out my hand. The security guards stares at it for a second before gripping it, and I hold on. "I'm Rassles. Yell is my younger sister. Is there a problem or anything I can help you with?"

"We're just investigating something."

"What are you investigating? We actually have somewhere to be."

"It'll be just a minute," she nods, a little condescending, and yanks her hand away. Bitch. I'm braver around my siblings compared to the company of everyone else; more confrontational and self-assured, with a greater capacity to threaten.

"Are you afraid she's underage?" I duck my chin and crack my jaw, narrowing my eyes on the woman's face. "Because I'll verify everything in her damn wallet."

"I really can't say."

"Well, if I can help, let me know."

"I will, thanks. Yell, could you come with me please?"

"Sure," the Yellavitch sneers, arms crossed like a coat of bloody daggers, and the waddling Head of Security escorts my little sister through those key-coded doors that lead into the stark hallways behind the glittery casino floor.

...

Now It's Just Bathos.

There are two kinds of laughter in the world, and both are responses to honesty.

There's the joy that we feel when reality is beautiful, which is the ideal expression of laughter. Opposed is a liar's discomfort at being confronted with truth.

The story of the bike is tragic because it does not end well. It ends with me draped in saggy humility and doing that thing where I try to make the story sound as amazing and hilarious as possible so I won't feel so goddamn embarrassed at the exhaustive bathos of my daily life.

Let us begin.

Scheming with fake identities and a script, I sharpied code the length of my forearm like a Holocaust survivor cheating on a history test. We chugged a few beers and strolled lazily through the preliminary reconnaissance. We had contingency plans. We had fucking contingency plans for our contingency plans. I sweet-talked the doorwomen into letting me explore the basement and bike room of the high rise before we called the Craigslist sellers and asked to see the second bike.

Because that's the thing, you see. These "bike thieves" were selling two bikes, in case you'd forgotten considering the time chasm between posts (I got shit to do) and after I sent them an email from "Phil M. Johnson" (imminently played by Phil Not Johnson) they responded within a minute. Maybe two minutes. Fucking promptly. But that is what led me to believe the other bike was my Atticus.

I mean come on. They don't respond to my email (that I sent about an hour after they posted the advertisement), pull the women's bike Craigslist, and then speedily reply to my fake email all excited about selling.

We agreed to meet up the next day. Phil pretended he was all into that men's bike. I pretended I was all into using their bathroom (so I could get into their apartment and see if my bike was hiding there) but I was thwarted by the Chicago architects who had the fucking unmitigated temerity to design a lobby with a restroom.

Yes, we tried to pry things out of them (using statements including but not limited to musing, "so, I heard you were selling two bikes" and perky queries like, "so, did you get many offers on these?" and "so...WHERE WERE THE OTHER DRUGS GOING?" and they were all, "I don't know, I swear to god" and I was all, "SWEAR TO ME" and I dropped their asses down a zipwire in the rain and pulled them back up for more growly accusations just inches before they hit the ground because my depth perception from great heights is nonpareil, which I believe is Portuguese for "awesome.")

Whatever, it was fruitless and boring and we didn't find my bike or catch any criminals, so we went to a bar and played UNO for an hour or two, which I believe is Portuguese for "sissy poker."

Fin.

If you're confused, let's agree that the details so boring that you'll just be angry with me for setting up an anti-climax, and understand that I don't have my bike. The entire situation was so boring and unfunny that we couldn't even make fun of ourselves properly, and it was all awkward attempts at self-derision that ended in half-puffs of forced chuckles. I mean, it took me two weeks to even work my way up to the hilarious discomfort of a liar.

(Oh, and if one of you is all, "you should have done this" I will fucking scalp you, because you're not giving advice. You're saying, "I am smarter than you because my way would have worked and you'd have your bike back, idiotface" to which I say, "Hey jerkoid, it's easier brainstorming workable ideas after having eliminated one already and why don't you shut the fuck up when grown folks is talkin.")

...

Addendum: They claimed to have sold the bike and then fake smiled their way into talking about themselves. It was two preppy yuppies, early twenties, engaged right after graduating from college. They probably belong to a gym and have all matching furniture and after they buy a house in an up-and-coming suburb with a good school district, they'll have a baby and get a labrador or a shih tzu and a car with good ratings in Consumer Reports. And their conversations will always be focused on those things: going to the gym, taking care of their house, babies, and articles from Consumer Reports.

There is nothing wrong with any of that, that's just the kind of people they are. Very safe. Not reckless. I doubt they had my bike. Unless they're in it for the big con or they're like Russian spies or something, in which case - well met, thieves. I will hunt you down.

...

An Open Letter I Posted Around My Apartment Complex.

Hello, fellow tenants.

First of all, I want to thank you for your attention. Basically, thank you for reading this note at all. My name is Rassles, I live in Apt. 1 on the east side of the building, and recently my bike was stolen out of the back hallway. It was last officially seen, with eyes, on Sunday. My roommate noticed it was missing this morning. Her bike remains untouched.

(Note: this is not my bike. I had the OG buttoned mattress seat, and this is a later model, but you get the idea.)

It's not a very exceptional bike, just a dark copper-colored Schwinn Suburban with two flat tires that I intended to fill up this weekend. It really only has emotional value, since it belonged to my mom for thirty years. Seriously. It's name is Atticus. I know that sounds ridiculous.

I was just wondering, I mean, does anyone know about a person wandering around the back hallway and snatching things that are important to me? Did someone snatch something important to YOU? Because if they wanted to come across as an asshole, then mission accomplished.

Sincerely,

Rassles
April 7, 2010


I almost forgot: if you have any information, my cell phone is (###) ### PUSH, and my email is rassleslists@gmail.com.

...

I Totally Fight Back

As some of you know, it is my birthday, and I will accept any of the following gifts:

1. shiny six-legged horses that you can plug your hair into and steer with your mind
2. flying fluorescent dragons with chocolate stains that you can totally ride
3. hammerhead rhinoceri with feathers
4. big giant robot suits with secret knives that you can wear

From the above list, you may have guessed: I saw Avatar.

It was pretty, but really dumb. Like James Franco in everything. Or Mark Wahlberg (I am a fucking sucker for those Wahlbergs). Or me, with my super hot 3D-hindering glasses and turtle legs and sweet fighting moves.

I just made up this rule: I am awesome at segways (segue is a stupid, downright unAmerican way to spell it). You see, mentioning my skills as a fighter is a charming, slippery segway sentence into the following very important story:

So I got into a fight on New Year's Eve which involved getting accidentally felt up and assaulted by some random dude who was in a completely different fight while I was waiting in line for the bathroom. He was thrown into me from close range - pinned me against the wall, slamcracked my head into the plaster with one hand and then wrapped his arm around me. I mean, it was probably to steady himself, but dude snatched my boob right after he hurt my head real bad. So, in suitable drunken retaliation, I grabbed him by the neck and jammed my hand into his lower back. Damn near folded him in half, but come on, don't do that shit, dude.

Apparently I fight back.

I didn't know that I would actually fight back, you know? Like you always want to be able to say you would fight back if someone attacked you (yes, I know this was accidental, but it still hurt and surprised the hell out of me) and now I know. I will fight back. I probably know judo.

And then the guy at the coat check jumped over his half door yelling, "break it up, break it up!" and I let go and held up my hands while the Accidental Assaulter called me a crazy bitch, and I gently reminded him not to fucking touch me again.

I was embarrassed for the rest of the night. Still am a little, which is why I'm telling the story over and over again until I'm comfortable with my sanity.

Oh, and then some stupid bitch asked if she could cut in front of me in the bathroom line because, and I fucking quote, "I just got engaged, so it's kind of my special day." It was hilarious. Being engaged doesn't make you special, girl, unless your fiance is James Franco. Or Mark Wahlberg.

...

CAPITAL LETTERS

YOU PEOPLE NEED TO STOP WRITING BLOGS BECAUSE I'M LIKE 200 DEEP ON GOOGLE READER AND YOU'RE PISSING ME OFF. WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE ALL THIS INTERESTING SHIT TO SAY? STOP BEING INTERESTING AND CALM THE FUCK DOWN ALREADY. GOLLY. GIVE ME A WEEK OR SOMETHING.

...

It's a Good Thing I Don't Carry Around a Panic Button, But Those Are For Sallies Anway

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Bad Start.

This morning my doctor's office called to let me know that my blood test results were in, and that I should call them back as soon as possible.

So I called somewhere between four and eight hundred times, pacing around the five square feet of space in my apartment that gets a signal, resolved to stop only when someone answered.

Fifteen minutes later and I have an appointment for tomorrow morning. The doctor wanted to talk to me. Oh, now she takes my shit seriously, now that she's knows I've got fucking swine flu or ringworm or polio or something. I was right. HA.

But of course, I'm terrified right now, because I'm pretty sure I do have something horribly wrong with me, even though I'm quite convinced it's not polio.

So all of this business was fresh on my brain as I slugged out of my apartment and into the sunshine, and I remembered it's Street Cleaning Day. I didn't so much remember Street Cleaning Day as much as I keenly observed the warning signs taped to the trees that were absent the night before, but either way, my car must be moved.

Are you familiar with Street Cleaning Day, this most treacherous of customs? One day plucked from the month where you're given 24-hours notice to move your car to an undisclosed location during the hours of 9am to 3pm or suffer the irritating, quivering, loathsome fury of being gifted a bright orange $50 parking ticket, which, like celebrity deaths, often come in threes? They never clean the streets, either. The city just threatens its inhabitants that someday, somehow, the streets might be cleaned, and it might possibly might happen on this obscure day picked entirely at random. It's all guesswork.

It was 9:05. I was very late for work, but that's really nothing new. I'm always late. There's a strong possibility that I was shaking a little on my way to my car, because I was, and I still am, extraordinarily nervous to go to the doctor tomorrow. I expect the worst. My heart thrashed, my stomach was all coiled and twisty. Still is right now, really, but saying it is calming.

I slid into my car, thankful to have escaped a Street Cleaning tick--NO. FUCKING BITCH. FUCKING BULLSHIT PIECE OF UGLY FUCK, I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU VILE, SHIT-EATING BUCKET OF SPIDER LEGS AND ABORTIONS, YOU COCKSMOKING ANAL ASS WHORE, I WILL STRANGLE YOUR CAT AND INFECT YOUR CHILDREN WITH MY CRAZY, DEADLY, TUMOROUS, DISFIGURING DISEASE--

As I reached out my window and pulled the ticket into my car, punching my horn, a neon traffic vest flashed in the rear-view mirror. Of course Lovely Rita was still there, haughtily slapping out tickets. She must have thumped this on my windshield thirty seconds before I stepped out of my apartment. Fucking meter maids.

I cranked on my car and gunned it into a u-turn, slamming on the breaks beside the meter maid, fiendish Nazi that she is. I know the job market's tough, but being a city parking enforcer is like the the lowest of low, it's voluntary servitute. Fucking scabs, turning their backs on the aggregated human race.

"Five minutes? Really?" I snapped at her. She just stared at me, holding her stupid fucking little ticket-emitting machine, and I wanted to grab it out of her stupid little hands and smash it. "Do you really hate people that much? Do you delight in dispensing misery with your tickets?" She didn't say anything, just continued to stare at me, unmoving.

I started to laugh. "Thanks a fucking lot for the ticket," I sneered, jamming as much sarcasm as I could into the sentence. And then I drove off to park my car elsewhere.

Work is crazy busy right now, I've been doing eleven, twelve hour days for the past two weeks, I probably have cancer, and I got a fucking parking ticket. I want to do that thing where I decide things will work out for me, and then they do. I don't like dreading the days, being constantly unsettled and annoyed by everything. I mean, look at the blogs, I've been on this kick for months. It's horrible. Snap out of it, me.

...

Heartless Pharmaceutical Whore

"Stress."

"Stress?"

"Symptoms of stress. But that lymph node is infected."

"So...I got an infection because of stress?"

She just looks at me, but past me, like at a spot on the wall over my shoulder, and nods once. Starts writing stuff down. I shift uncomfortably on the exam table thing and rip that crap ass paper tablerunner/bedsheet bullshit thing in half. I feel guilty and destructive and just start talking.

"So...is it like, my immune system is down and therefore my body was more prone to infection, and then that caused like the fever and the sweats and the--"

"Most likely," she interrupts. "Are you allergic to penicillin?"

"No, ibuprofen. I get all violently ill and vomit and it's really gross."

She looks at me with her big dull cow eyes and then slowly turns to her doctory sheet, scratches out a prescription and hands it to me.

"Thanks," I say, and read that it's for amoxicillin. Suddenly I am very angry with her.

I don't know if you guys are familiar with amoxicillin, but it's what doctors prescribe to big fat hypochondriatic babies with no obvious medical problems who should probably just go home and shut the fuck up instead of wasting the time of honest, hard-working doctors, who are no doubt superior to their patients. Stupid doctor. You know, if she'd seen me last week when I was actually sick, then maybe she'd take me a little more seriously. Now this business is just a little swell and some headache, but last week there was shaking and sweating and tumors and fevers and vertigo (like Lucille Too? Yes, like Lucille Too).

I tell her so. Not the part about taking me seriously, but the part about how last week I wanted to kill myself onnaconna the cancer.

"Oh, I'm sure," she says, not even looking up from her chart, which is probably a fucking Sudoku puzzle and not a medical chart at all because she's a stupid bitch.

I look down at my feet dangling over the edge of the examination table and tap them together a couple times. I consider kicking her and wisely decide against it.

She finishes writing and slams her manilla folder shut with the false authority of a person who believes she deserves something in life. "Well that's all. Come back in two weeks."

"Aren't you going to run any tests or anything? Like a blood test or something?

"Fast overnight and then go in the morning. Upstairs. They take blood tests there." She's annoyed and nervous and will not look at my face. I fucking hate it when people don't look at me when they're talking to me.

"Tomorrow morning?"

"Before your next appointment, so I can give you results." She gives me a curt nod and exits the room.

"Bye," I call after her. What a horrible woman. I jump off the table and put on my shoes, head outside to make my next appointment. As I'm talking to the receptionist, the doctor scurries around the background like a rat or a squirrel. Oh my god, she's a fucking squirrel. I knew it.

"Thanks, doctor," I say, and smile.

She looks up at me with those blank eyes and nods once more, then just goes back to scuttling. I look at the prescription in my hand and I'm fucking angry again. I mean, sure, amoxicillin is a valid antibiotic that will get rid of the infection in my face. Chin. Neck. Jaw. Wherever. At least it's something.

You know what else will get rid of the infection? Love and fucking compassion and the tears of adorable puppies, that's what, you heartless pharmaceutical whore.

...

Doctors Have Asses For Heads

I have West Nile virus. That has to be it. Or mono. Or cancer. Or a goiter. Possibly a tumor.

Oh my god, I hate my life.

I have a swollen lymph node. I mean, that's probably it. Which leads to either cancer or West Nile. And there's a little guy living there, throbbing, pissing me off, being a big fatty lump underneath my jaw. Ideally, I should see a doctor, you know? But here's the thing: You have to make an appointment with doctors, and to make an appointment they either must (a) answer their fucking phone, or (b) return my call after I leave five hundred messages.

I've been trying to get an appointment for a week.

I. FUCKING. HATE. DOCTORS.

Are you a doctor? (I hate you.)

Doctors, you see, have never done anything good for me. Oh, I believe in modern medicine, I just don't believe in a doctor's ability to properly administer it. I also don't believe they want to help people, because if they did THEY WOULD CALL ME BACK AND I COULD GET THIS THING OFF OF MY FACE, but they don't call me back because they are assheads. They have asses for heads and their heads are asses and they probably creep into examination rooms and masturbate to my melancholy voicemails, aroused by my foolish dreams that they know will inevitably go unrequited.

Also, I don't care what any of you say, fucking Grey's Anatomy is a stupid fucking show full of stupid fucking people and it makes me want to kill myself.

Yesterday I had this raging fever and I was walking from the bus and shivering, wrapped in a sweater. Fucking seventy-five degrees outside, and I ached for a winter coat.

Why don't I just go to an urgent care facility? I'll fucking tell you why - because they don't take my fucking HMO. No, my insurance isn't good enough for immediate care. It's good enough for dying in throbbing, agonizing discomfort, it's good enough for, "Hello, my neck really, really hurts," "Well, you should see a doctor. We can't help you, but someday, someone might."

And then I call my insurance company and I say, "Please give me the names of all of the doctors I can see" and then it's all, "Oh, you already have an assigned doctor" and I say, "Yes, but he hasn't returned any of my many many phone calls and I think I have swine flu." So there.

Why can't I just walk in through the front door of the hospital and say, "Hello, my name is Rassles, and there is a giant fucking thing swelling right here" (and I will point for effect) "and can you please cut it out of me, or give me medicine so it will go away, because I'm embarrassed to even ride the bus right now and I'm five minutes away from X-acto knifing my face."

And then if they tell me that my insurance doesn't cover elephantine tumors I'm gonna bleed on them. I'm going to slice my jaw open, and I'm just going to spray blood all over their heads that look like asses. Might kill me, but at least I'll get that last spiteful "fuck you, modern medicine" message across.

And that is why I haven't been writing blogs, or reading anyone elses, really. Because I have West Nile virus, and I'm probably going to die.

I am sooooo mad.

...

Stress.

I've accidentally found a pressure point beneath my jaw, and it makes me slightly lightheaded and a little eye-crossy.

Chances are it is the opposite of a good idea to sit here at my desk applying a little pressure, but as an untrained/novice acupuncturist/martial artist/pressure-pointerist I feel it is my duty to determine just how much crush I can flood into this little guy.

I'm going to jam two fingers in there in just a New York minute, just because--

My boss just walked by. I told him I was taking my blood pressure. Yessir, I am feeling hunky dory. Would you like a Jolly Rancher?

Get right outta town -- watermelon is my favorite, too.

Finger-pistols with sound effects? Sir, you are the High Plains Drifter of the non-profit world. You go paint the town red. Ahhhhhh! Yah got me, stranger.

Tarnation, you done got this imaginary shot fixed in my neck. Feeling slightly woozy. No, no...I'll be fine.

I just...I just need to keep pressure on it.

...