A True Rant!

I have some people to add to the “Boot to the Head” list.

People who do ANYTHING in the theatre to distract me from the !@#$ EIGHT DOLLARS worth of film I am attempting to see. Talking, explaining the !@#$ movie to one’s idiot neighbor, crying babies or loud kids (ESPECIALLY in the evening shows of adult films. Raar!) !@#$ CELL PHONES, heckling*, etc. And yes, I want to see and hear the trailers, too.

…and speaking of cell phones, people in restaurants ought to be allowed to throw food (well, rolls at least) at people who sit there and talk on their damned phones.

People who come into public service facilities (eateries, convenience stores, department stores, federal buildings, LIBRARIES, etc.) and use the fact that you are FORCED to be polite and help them to exercise their inferiority issues. It is just NOT a good idea to treat those whom you rely on for assistance, clean potties, speedy checkout, or sanitary food like peons, people! You have been warned.

People who leave wads of gum ANYWHERE OTHER THAN THE TRASH!!!

People who let their kids run wild and loud in places where other people need/want quiet.
I won’t go to Chuckie Cheese and insist on a nice, quiet meal, YOU keep your little rowdy heathens outta my favorite bookshop.
Lets add certain adults to that list, too.

Gum and food smackers. OMG. I honestly want to believe in hell when I am around these people. And sadly enough, kid are not the worse transgressors. The kids who are guilty of this have an excuse. They're kids, they haven't learned yet. You can't say SQUAT to the adults who commit this heinous annoyance.

People who are purposefully obnoxious on the roads. This includes – yes, the whole cell phone issue, throwing out trash, impolite passing or just not getting the hell out of the way when someone else wants to pass.

Peeing on the seat... ladies do this, too. Just wipe it off, people! It's YOUR pee!

Boys who compare real women unfavorably to anorexic, collagen and silicone implanted, freak-of-nature celebrities. When you guys GET these girls, THEN you can talk smack. Until then, shut up and consider yourself lucky that real women will have anything to do with you.

Hugging people without being sure that it's ok, or touching ANY bits** without permission. The most obvious transgressors are old men. I wish I had a taser SUIT.

Those missing link people – yes, there are still some around - who think that if you are not a Caucasian Anglo-Saxon Heterosexual (Male) Christian who cannot suppress his or her emotions and opinions that you are not worthy to share the planets’ available food or oxygen.

People who have the unmitigated gall to tell ANY woman – but especially young girls – that their butts, or ANY part of their body are too large, too small, too ANYTHING that is their natural, unique and beautiful shape. If you are truly concerned about their health, then say so, kindly. Otherwise, shut the bleep up.

That’s it for now, but I expect that this list will grow as time goes by. Feel free to write with any suggestions that you might have to add to my list.

Thanks, and by the way, your butt looks GREAT – and I’m not gonna call you on your cell phone during a movie to tell you that!

Rant on, folks!
xo
-s


*this does not count if the movie is “Dungeons and Dragons” or any other REALLY bad movie, or a movie at the Brew&View. Heckling in these cases is expected and is actually an
intrinsic part of the viewing experience. Or in the case of "D&D", the only way anyone might get any entertainment for their $.

*my jewelry is fondled more than you would ever believe. yes. my jewelry.

back in the day, before the expensive & intensive therapy*, the fat chunks of anti-venin-like misery that life handed me in the 2 or 3 years before i moved here, before i just pulled up my proverbial socks and grew up a little, i used to have pretty severe panic attacks. they were related to some odd triggers - old sheds, orange electric cords**, music by 'the eagles'***...
i know. it all sounds pretty odd, even to me. but believe me, there was a good concrete reason for all of it. nonetheless, i am happy to say that i don't have panic attacks any more. even on the plane flying out of !@#$ o'hare in the !@#$ thunderstorm, i just made myself relax and i coped. ok, i also took a sedative and prayed really hard, but still, i did not panic.
however, on the way to work this morning, driving up 176, curving up and through the lush, almost tropical scenery, broken only by the giant orange diamond signs:
"WARNING! MEN DIPPING AND LEANING ON SHOVELS!"; "DANGER! ROAD FALLING OFF THE SIDE OF THE DAMNED MOUNTAIN!", etc. i honestly think i started getting a little... 'trepid' just seeing the signs, all the big ncdot equipment and the 'rud wuhkuhs'****, but when i saw how much of the road is now just GONE, and a man on a bulldozer that was hanging off the lip, i remembered that feeling, the beginning of panic. the lurch in the stomach (my vertigo has gotten worse over the years here, to the point that thinking about a steep drop makes me queasy), the wooziness and the start of hyperventilation. i got a grip on it (that would be a very bad place to have my first attack in years) but what really galvanized me was the sight, as i rounded the curve again, of a boulder the size of Concrete at the edge of MY lane. the SAFE lane. !@#$!!! instead of panic, i felt MAD, partially because this is just ridiculous, and partly because it looks as if i'll be driving in trucker hell, sucking up burning brake fumes to and fro, now.
yes, people, it's a LOVELY view. enjoy it before something falls on you or you fall on something.
oh yeah, and be sure to visit the Big Bradley Falls****** while you're here.

nostalgic for hurricanes,
-s

*worth EVERY penny.
**people here call them "drop cords". damned yankees.
***sadly, this is not a joke. i have had to leave more restaurants on the first notes of "take it easy" than you would believe and don't even get me started on !@#$ "best of my love" or... *shudder* "hotel california"... strangely enough, though, i love 'desperado'.
****a lot of them are inmates, and honey, they make carnies look like the frickin' chippendales.
*****i tried to find articles about all the people who have fallen from here and died or were permanently injured (there have been at least one a year since i moved here, last year there were three.) but strangely enough the polk county tourism bureau isn't publishing that stuff. hm.

its been another one of those "matrix-ey" days... i've had a lot of those lately. not bad, just extremely odd. even more coincidences than usual (and for me that is a LOT). every time i look at a clock it's 11:11, 1:11, 3:33... things LOOK odd... when i got out of my truck this a.m., there was a couple unloading two beautiful golden retriever pups for a stroll. i asked their names, and they were "rebel" and "dixie". i said "i'm from mississippi, i like those names!" and they looked shocked and said "really? where?" three or four sentences later, it turns out that the man's (clay odom) dad was the superintendent of the school that several of us went to and a couple of us taught at*. most people don't even know what "new augusta ms." is, but i run into people from there on my way to work, a thousand miles and light years of memory away.
the weather's wonderful. very hot and nicely humid. maybe it's set on that in my pod, to lull me. :) it knows i'm "homesick", so i run into folks from home. why can't it realize that vin diesel (or maybe johnny depp**) needs a vacation home in polk county?

i got a VERY sweet letter from ellie... i am going juking on saturday night. going to see 7Moore at the Orange Peel, by invitation from the band, no less... yay,me! jen called, Dragoncon and birthday plans are under way, and baby and mum&dad seem to be doing well... i got a nice call with lovely, lovely reading included from aunt sue last night, so no, definitely not bad matrix-ey... but still. there is a surreality to all of it that just makes me wonder. could my life really be like this? could i really feel and think this way all the time? i could definitely be responsible for the creation of vin diesel in a program like this...
GOD MADE ORC BOYS! :D
ok. i'll shut up. i have no right to complain - though i'm not complaining. just... wondering...
anyone else having these kinds of days?**** write me. ken won't admit it, but every time i mention it, he gives me a funny look. MAYYYYbe it's just a "damn, sam, smoke ANOTHER one!" look, but maybe he knows EXACTLY what i'm talking about.
ok. i'll really shut up this time...
FOR NOW!
waiting for the red pill (or was it the blue?),
-sam


* but also a place where i did not learn to end a sentence with a preposition. good thing i taught art, eh?
**sorry vin. i'm sure it's a passing thing.***
***ok, maybe not. *sigh* :D
****i've had them all of my life, but this damned movie has really made me wonder what in the hell is UP! ok, i'll admit it, it's just rerouted my normal hogwarts express of thought, but still! what in the hell is UP! (it's far more amusing to blame the movie, or even The Matrix than to blame "god" or "fate" or "pheromones" or what-the-hell-ever. :)

sorry folks, i have SO much catching up to do here, but time and tide and colonel klink conspire against me. i did want to pop in briefly to catch y'all up on the symbolic occurence that has recently, er, occurred.
the road that i drive to work everyday (highway 176, steepest grade on the eastern coast, narrow two lane, curvy-@ss, steep-@$$ road) is beautiful. i pass at least a dozen waterfalls every day, there are steep cliffs and hills up on one side, with the falls plashing onto the road after big rains, and a very deep gorge leading down to the river on the other. it's extremely pretty, but it's also terrifying - especially in the winter - and my fear and dislike of it increases daily. after the rain, i pass and find big mudslides across the road, with giant boulders slid to a stop at the end of the muddy streak. NOT pleasant.
the latest, though, just takes the !@#$ cake. i came back from my trip and on my first day back to work find the road full of cones and flags. i wasn't sure what it meant until i headed home that evening and found that the right lane (heading down the mountain, the lane on the deep river-gorge side) IS SLIDING OFF OF THE !@#$ MOUNTAIN!!!
a good-sized chunk of that lane of the highway, is in several places, just GONE. what makes it REALLY scary is that it is in an especially treacherous part of the road, in a steep curve where visibility is nil and if someone else is coming you have no choice but to hug the guardrail. this is just sickening to even THINK about - especially if you are a vertiginous flatlander who drives a big-@$$ pick-up truck.
so, now i have to drive home down the interstate part of the steepest grade on the east coast, 4-6 lanes of downhill queasiness crammed with 18 wheelers and loony end-of-the-day traffic.
no one could ever call me a fraidy-cat*, but bugger all THIS for a lark! i just can't cuss enough anymore. i just crave flat land and open sky more than anybody could ever imagine.
and on top of all of this, i finally know what it is that's really missing in my life.
it's gonna be a long five years. IF I DON'T DRIVE OFF A !@#$ CLIFF FIRST!
raar!

a raar-free week might have been one of the worst things that could have happened to me right now, but at least i think i see a hole in the fence.

!@#$ %^&* !@$#@!!,
-s

*at least they damned well BETTER not...