Red clearly means go

For the record, I fucking hate cyclists.

I understand that hating an entire group of people (without personally knowing everyone in that group) is... um... fuck. I feel like there's a word for just general prejudice that applies to a specific group.....

We're just going to go with "nonracist racism". Because I don't really give a damn what color their skin is, or where they're from, or who their parents are. If they're on a bicycle, wearing spandex jumpsuits and helmets designed to make them look cool (but really only make them look even more douchey), then I hate them.

There's a reason for this, too, beyond my impatience when stuck behind one of them. Let me tell you a story.

Yesterday I was driving home from work. In front of me was, you guessed it, a cyclist. Because I work 9-10 hour days, and was in no mood to drive 15 miles an hour all the way through my neighborhood, and there were no cars in the oncoming lane, I sped up and went around that self-righteous asshole. I ended up just missing the light I was trying to make about a half mile away. So I sat there, waiting for my light to turn green. As the opposing light turned yellow and I slipped Honda into first gear, preparing for my green light (because you should STOP at red lights, and GO at green lights, according to the RULES OF THE ROAD) that son of a bitch peeled around my car, and jumped in front of me. He made it to the other end of the intersection as my light turned green.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am totally down with sharing the road and all that jazz. But I am NOT down with people on bicycles pretending that they're cars, and holding up traffic, and being all pompous and spandexy, if they're just going to ignore the rules when it suits them.

They aren't called The Rules of Driving a Car. They're The Rules of the FUCKING ROAD. You know, that thing that they're riding their wheely, leg-powered, banana-seated nonsense on? Yeah, that's right, cyclists. YOU'RE ON A ROAD. ACT LIKE IT.

I mean, Jesus, they could at least have the decency to stop at a fucking red light (unless a Marta bus is nearby and decides to teach them a lesson... but that would be the last red light they sped through).

You know what? If the cyclists REALLY just insist on never stopping for red lights, that's fine. I can learn to live with that. All I ask is that they ride on the sidewalk, where things that don't have to stop for red lights (like pedestrians, or joggers, or stray dogs) tend to hang out.

The most frustrating thing is that I can't just give the assholes a friendly bumper tap to prove my point.

Jerks. 

If we all could just admit that we are racist a little bit, even though we all know that it's wrong, maybe it would help us get along.

I went to the birthday party of a friend Wednesday night, and found myself involved in a discussion about racism. Apparently, the guy I was talking to takes things WAY too seriously. It didn't help that he was a complete and total hipster. He even had the Captain Hook mustache, and the cheap, tacky, fur-lined earmuff cap. Poor sad, cookie-cutter hipster kid.


This whole conversation started with a rather hysterical (and quite racist) joke that I found far more amusing than he considered to be in good taste. As we sat down outside and the conversation inevitably turned toward the awful, serious racism that can be found in the world, all I could think was that it was a shame that I couldn't just break into the song from Avenue Q, and follow him around for the remainder of the evening, yelling singing it at him.


Now, I understand that racism still exists in this far from perfect world. I understand that people have to deal with all kinds of judgments and assumptions that are imposed upon them by others. I understand that that isn't exactly considered fun, or right, or good. I mean, shit. I'm a white girl that grew up in Atlanta. Just like everyone on the planet, I know what it feels like to be ostracized.


(I think Jane Elliot showed the effects of racism best. She's amazing. Watch this if you haven't seen it. Hell, watch it if you have.)

Haha, the dude in the foreground even has the same curly mustache!

Thing is, I also know that things are only worth the value you assign to them. It's like art. Or politics. (Upon comparing racism to art or politics, the kid that was arguing with me went off. "WHAT?! You think that racism, art, and politics are all the same thing?! What's WRONG with you?!" Dude, the only thing wrong with me is that I lack the freeze ray from Despicable Me, because that's CLEARLY the only way I will get you to LISTEN.) If people feel a piece of art is worth $X, they'll spend $X on it. If not, the piece becomes worth whatever the next person that comes along is willing to pay for it. In politics, a politician is only worth the people standing behind him/her. Without the people that support you as a political figure, you're not going to be elected.


That being said, I feel like racism is something that ought to be seen as so ridiculous and archaic that all you can do is write it off or laugh about it. It shouldn't be treated with solemnity, or slight, inward gasps, or eyes darting back and forth, or whispers. That gives racism power. It allows the serious, offensive racists to feel they have sway, and are correct in their judgments. That's bullshit. Instead, people ought to stop taking shit so seriously. Life isn't about covering our ears and wearing blinders when things make us uncomfortable. It's about fleshing it out and learning WHY they make us uncomfortable, and then dealing with them. So either meet racism with a laugh and not a second thought, or (if it's serious/violent/out of hand) meet it with a firm "No, this isn't how the world works anymore," and change that situation.


I tried explaining this, but I think my logic made the hipster-brains in Captain Tightpants Jr.'s head melt a little. He started spouting off random words that had nothing to do with what I was talking about. Maybe he was hoping to confuse me long enough to change the subject. The last intelligible word that he used incorrectly was "existentialist", as in: he was an existentialist and therefore felt as though racism was to be treated as something that either doesn't exist or is far too horrific to joke about. Unfortunately, choosing to argue where lines ought to be drawn, with a perfect stranger, no less, is not existential in the least.

ex·is·ten·tial·ism [eg-zi-sten-shuh-liz-uhm]
–noun; a philosophical attitude associated esp. with Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel, and Sartre, and opposed to rationalism and empiricism, that stresses the individual's unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for the authenticity of his or her choices.


So, you see, his disagreeable and judgmental words (and general attitude) go entirely against his so-called "existential way of life". If you believe that everyone, as unique creatures, has the right to think whatever they want, how can you possibly argue something that's so ridiculous to such an extent?


Fucking doucher (I'm so eloquent when people piss me off).

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So, anyway, apologies for the lack of humor in this post. I just hate it when people perpetuate and give strength to anything negative, and then argue about how their doing that is supposed to help the situation. Why can't we just accept that everyone is a person, and that that's all that matters? Why does everything always have to be SO FUCKING difficult??? Ugh.

Well, tomorrow is my birthday. Tonight I'm being kidnapped by my darling TeriWife and SnarkMinion and taken to The Clermont in honor of said birthday. I'm hoping the rest of the weekend is just as full of crass, dirty, drunken shenanigans (at least until dinner with my parents and grandparents on Sunday).

Love to all. Best wishes and all that. And remember, Depeche Mode said it best. xoxo

Baseball games have a way of putting things into perspective, while boring you to death.

On Friday I did something I never thought I would do (at least, not since I had friends of a legal drinking age turned 21).  I attended a baseball game, and was sober for its entirety.

In all honesty, I never thought I would last through an entire baseball game.  I love sports, but by "sports" I mean football, soccer, hockey, poker.... You know, games that take some serious skill. But baseball? They're scared of the rain, they keep their grass pristine, they wear pants tighter than that chick that played Peter Pan on Broadway (which is okay in football, because they're all muscle-y and actually endanger their health when playing the game), and then they think they can make up for these blights against their masculinity by kicking dust and spitting a lot.

However, the tickets were courtesy of Turner, and my family invited me, so I figured it would be nice to go spend some time with them.

Let me just say that the best part of the ENTIRE game was the end. On Friday nights, Turner Stadium does an awesome fireworks show. Seriously. It beat anything you'd see at Nascar (they have fireworks, right? I've never spent more than 3 minutes actively watching a Narcar race. Spoiler alert: They turn left) or the Stone Mountain Laser Show. My favorite fireworks are the ones that look like someone just threw firework confetti into the air. And I like the spinny, screaming ones that reminded me of Dementors (though I had to ask my little sister what those hooded, evil things from Harry Potter that shotgun out your soul are called.... She may have been a bit sketchy on my description, but she still figured it out).

The best fireworks. Because you needed to know.

So yeah, the fireworks were the redeeming factor. As I was sitting behind first base during the game, though, I couldn't help but notice how many freaking moths there were. And those bastards were having a fucking BLAST. They were swooping and dive-bombing the field, and I could almost hear their child-like, mothy laughter. I spent the remainder of the game watching the moths. At one point, I leaned over to Daddy and remarked on how much fun the moths were having, and his response was, "Just wait until the bats get here." The expression on my face was wildly similar to the one Mar would have later, when they were advertising the fireworks show on the jumbo-tron (is that what it's called?) and I told her that the whole show would be on the jumbo-tron, too, just like the advert. She made the same face, but hers quickly turned into a death-glare that may have actually killed me (in which case, death is almost exactly like life, except for the fact that you can't be killed twice by your sister's evil death glare about television fireworks at a baseball game).

As we piled into the car, Daddy told me what went down when I wandered over to sit behind first base with some friends of his that were filming the game for work. Apparently the children (who are 11, 11, and 7) were whining about when I was getting back so they could go get food. The toothless, hillbilly woman sitting behind them (who was also responsible for cackling like a freak and then yelling at her husband, "DIDJA HEAR?! DIDJA HEAR?! They made a chicken noise!! Ahahahaha! Yah, a chicken noise! They said it was because of a FOUL BALL!" halfway through the game) saw Daddy looking around for me and she decided to ask, "Sir, didja lose your wife?"

That's right. "Your wife." Dad laughed it off, and said, "Well, you either just insulted my daughter or complimented me," and the woman, in all her Southern hospitality, responded with, "Oh NO [in a whisper]. I sure didn't mean tuh insult anyone." Daddy continued to be friendly and chuckle, and the woman was mortified until another foul ball, complete with chicken sound effects, stole her happy mind away from the subject at hand.

Guys, my point is this. Fireworks are awesome. Baseball is lame. Rednecks can make anything hilarious. And the best way to get a girl to cut back on the drinking, and perhaps start getting a little more sleep, is by asking her father if he's missing his wife.

Thank god football season is here.

GSU has aced Pain in the Ass 1001

I was so, so, so very excited about finally going back to school.  I'm still excited, sure, but I'm also starting to realize that there's just no winning when it comes to the quality and competency of institutions for higher education.

Don't get me wrong.  My professors are fabulous.  The classes are going to be entertaining, at the very least.  But good Christ, I have never seen more slack-jawed, clearly dumbfounded people in my entire life.  Walking through the courtyard is like getting a backstage pass to a Neanderthal convention.

When did 18-22 year olds turn into such blathering idiots?  You know, I ask because my biggest concern is that I'll discover that I was JUST LIKE THEM, and I fear the only option I would have left would be to turn to Seppuku as a means of salvaging my honor. 

Other than the completely oblivious student body (for the record, I'm generalizing. You know, like saying "the general public is a mass of greedy, bovine-esque bastards," despite the fact that I know quite a few people that are the opposite), my GSU experience, 2nd edition, is just like the last. There are the same, completely insane hobos wandering around downtown Atlanta. There are the same horrendously-dressed "business women" that don't know how to apply lipstick but can down four Philly Cheesesteaks in 14.6 minutes. There are the same drivers, in newer cars, still trying to pretend they're NYC motorists, honking and yelling and all that, but lacking the guts to actually commit to the role by running someone over. The heat and humidity, the odd-smelling train to and from campus, the cops pretending to look busy despite the traffic light above their heads CLEARLY doing all the work. All the things that you'd have to spend considerable time downtown on a regular basis to notice... well... they're still there. Atlanta hasn't changed.  And while I love Atlanta, because it is my home, I still can't wait to (one day) find myself living in NYC.

At least the motorists there have some balls.

Glass hates me more than the printer at my office does.

I came home last week to find a HUGE, fuck-off branch in the bush in front of my house. On the ground, there were some lovely shards of glass from the top right corner of the picture window I have (I'm calling it a "picture window" because it sounds fancy, and the duplex I live in is anything but fancy, but I don't want to call it the "super cheap, but still made of glass instead of plastic even though the glass is 100 years old" window).

It had been storming worse than normal that day, and I guess the branch was first chewed to a breaking point by evil squirrels, in preparation for some upcoming battle, and then aimed poorly and launched into the window. Picture window, I mean. So I did what any responsible tenant would do. I called my creepy, potentially a serial killer of a landlord.

He had all kinds of questions (a lot of them I had to answer with the phrase, "I wasn't home when it happened, so I'm not sure,"). And then the questions became somewhat rude. "Well, did the branch of the tree just, um, fall directly into the window?" What the hell do you say to that? "No, actually the neighbors put up a trampoline, and a complicated system of pulleys and levers, and the branch fell into the bush, which was strangely coated with springs that must have bounced it into the pulleys and levers that pulled some mouse-trap type shit and caused the branch to land on the trampoline, where it was catapulted into the window. Clearly. Why would you even ask me that? You're the one who leased the front yard to the guys from Spy vs. Spy." Jerk.

He told me that he and his maintenance man, Willy, would come look at the window the next day and decide what to do about it (by the way, with my landlord being as old and bizarre as he is, I wouldn't be surprised if Willy was a cliche, darling old black man that calls the landlord Guv'nah and does his bidding. Like a mix between the stereotypical oppressed slave and a chimney sweep from old school London). Well, the note I was left after Landlord and Willy's initial inspection basically said, "Fuck you, you're full of shit, you clearly broke this window and don't want to pay the $35 for two single panes of glass and a caulk gun to fix it, you're a liar and I'll take an extra $50 added to your rent check this month, thank you."

Um, excuse me? Because I CLEARLY went outside with a ladder, bashed in the window (because according to the glass and where it fell, it wasn't broken from the inside), went looking for a giant dead branch, placed said branch in the bushes, and then decided to CALL YOU instead of fixing it myself, because I thought it would be funny?

You know what? That's totally what happened. Fucking asshole.