Spring has finally arrived! I'm not a huge fan of spring in general, but I will acknowledge it's much superior position over winter. I know, nothing's more annoying than someone bitching about winter. Especially when you live in a snowy region. It happens every year, get over it! Right? But I seriously hate winter. I also seriously hate extreme heat, so, no I will not move to a southern state. I will deal with the Iowa winter, and just bitch about it like everyone else.
I don't know if we had an especially long winter this year, but it felt like it. Which means I am just so fucking thrilled it's not snowing and ball shrinkingly cold, that I will accept whatever other weather the year throws at me. Just not more snow. Minimal wind until the peak of summer would also be nice. Weather Gods.
Anyway, I'm in a bit of a summer mindset right now. I cannot stop thinking about swimming, sunbathing, concerts, walking, and biking. And my bank account is soon to hate me for all the summer things I want to buy: Short pants, bright shirts, light nail polishes, suntan lotion. Also a bike. I have been obsessing over this idea. It burns in me. I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike...but I need one first. And I'm looking at them all and I just can't decide between a cruiser and a mountain bike. I mean, the mountain bike would be more practical...but the cruiser is so cute...and it has a basket. A basket!
So, as with all tough decisions, I'll probably just eenie-meenie-minie-moe that shit.
Currently it is raining and grey outside, but that's okay. I like the rain. I just have to remember not to wear my Chucks and I'm good. Just know that I'm dreaming of the summer...
These are my favorite creatures and why I find them so fascinating.
1. Jellyfish
I've always found these creatures so fascinating because of what they look like, obviously. They are gorgeous and weird and alien to me. They float hither thither, gelatinous umbrellas with long electric kite strings instead of handles. Wikipedia tells me they are the "oldest multi-organ animal" having been around for "possibly 700 million years or more," which is just a little creepy and awesome.
This is a beautiful bird that I've always admired for it's fragility. They drink nectar because they love sugar for energy, but also eat insects for nutrients. Most interesting to me is the way they fly, their figure 8 pattern. This is an egocentric fascination because 8 is a recurring and defining number in my life. They are also the only bird that can "hover" and fly backwards.
3. Octopuses
Equally cool and terrifying to me. They have 3 hearts, 8 arms, and are fairly smart for an invertebrate. Other neat attributes of the octopus include the ink sack, which can be used as a decoy or as a sensory inhibitor, and their camouflaging color/texture changing abilities. They can also employ arm autonomy as a distraction. Should an octopus ever get it's tentacles on you, it would also taste you via it's suction cups' chemoreceptors. What a perv.
Anyway, I'm afraid of the ocean, and the octopus is a big part of that. Or maybe it's just Disney's fault for basically making Ursula one.
Fucking Disney.
4. Cats
Revered in Egypt long ago, not much has really changed with their status. No matter how many people claim to hate them, the internet still clearly worships at their furry altar.
I don't really need to tell you about them, everyone knows the pros and cons of cats. I will say I am a cat devotee, ever more so than to dogs in my adoration. Though they have been "domestic" creatures for about 10,000 years, they still manage to be less irritatingly needy than their canine adversary. This is what mostly endears me, their stand-offish "fuck you" attitude, which may actually say a lot more about my own nature than theirs. Because when a cat does confer it's attention to you, you feel important and special.
Cats are why I like assholes. Sorry "nice guys."
Too bad I am allergic to cats. It is the greatest of my #firstworldproblems.
5. Bees
The majority of my childhood summers were spent in fear of these incredible creatures. Mostly due to being traumatized by the movie My Girl.
I have still not experienced a bee sting, and I still dread the possibility of it happening. However, I am also more respectful of the occurrence. The bee's social structure is perhaps the most notable thing about their behavior and it has always interested me. Also, the honey factor. Then, of course, there is the school-born love derived from a music class where we rocked out to "The Flight of the Bumblebee" on a variety of instruments. Welcome to my nerdy childhood.
The declining number of Bumblebees is of great mystery and concern to our generation. It is most likely due to humans being dicks, like most other ecological concerns. As the Einstein quote (that may or may not have been from Einstein) implies, the loss of these fabulous little insects would be devastating. I love honey, is what I'm trying to say here.
To honor St. Patrick's Day...obviously, a bunch of drinking songs. I'll probably hear "Red Solo Cup" eight million times at the bar tonight, but I'd rather hear these...
1. Beer Is Good - PsychoStick (so good)
2. Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced - Dropkick Murphys (So kiss me, I'm shitfaced, I'm soaked, I'm soiled and brown)
3. Beer - Reel Big Fish
4. Drink - They Might Be Giants (let's drink! drink! This town is so great!)
5. Streams of Whiskey - The Pogues
6. Alcohol - Barenaked Ladies
7. Another Irish Drinking Song - Da Vinci's Notebook
8. Too Drunk To Fuck - Dead Kennedys
9. Fuck You, I'm Drunk - Bondo (and I'm going to be drunk 'til the next time I'm drunk!)
10. Beer, Beer, Beer - Flogging Molly
11. Who Spilt My Beer? - The Adicts
12. Beercan - Beck
13. Tubthumping - Chumbawumba (pissing the night away...)
14. Hooray For Beer - Bowling For Soup
15. Cigarettes & Alcohol - Oasis
16. Pretty Fucked Up - Faster Pussycat (she used to be pretty, but now she's just pretty fucked up)
17. Have A Drink On Me - AC/DC
18. Wasted - Black Flag
19. Alcohol - Gogol Bordello (a love ballad...to alcohol)
Last night was...interesting. Okay, not really, but it did deviate slightly from the norm. By that I mean my car is stuck on some snow/ice. I spent 20 or so minutes trying to shovel my way out, only to find that the snow I needed to get rid of was underneath my car. I was not moving. Luckily a co-worker hadn't gone to sleep yet, so she took me to work.
Cooler truck comes on Thursdays, so I spent the majority of my shift organizing that pile of crap. Because it was a disaster. To be perfectly honest, I actively discourage everyone else from organizing in there because they all suck at it. I like everything to be where I like it. Also it just makes everything 1000 times more consistently in the same place. New people come in and think they can just throw shit wherever, but then it's harder to find and therefore stupid. Sorry, just my organizational OCD (anal retentive self-superiority) kicking in. I know nobody really cares about this, but I have a system and it is awesome. Don't fuck with my system.
Anyway, so I spend the night dealing with that shit-fest, and then get the breakfast items ready, deal with customers, do some of the books. My boss comes in miffy that I didn't get all of the books done. I did half of them, but apparently that is not good enough. All I can feel is indignation. Last time I checked, I am not a manager of any sort. I don't need to do the books, I do them so I can get out of work on time. Otherwise she makes me stay for however goddamned long it takes her to do them. So, it's not like I expect her to thank me when I do them, I would just like to not get bitched at for not doing something I don't have to do in the first place. Would that be too much to ask? Apparently.
So I guess the moral of this story is, don't do things. Not even if you're paid for them. Because then you are the target of expectations. Also, don't get your car stuck on a snowbank that turns to ice, it's a pain in the ass.
I am not a technologically advanced person. That's not to say I'm totally perplexed by it all, I'm just not that great at it. For example, all the social platforms (facebook, twitter, g+, tumblr) sort of exhaust me. I don't know if anyone else my age feels this way, but in this computer heavy era I feel obligated to bone up on the social mediums. I feel like this might come in handy later in life when I have something to use them all for, but right now it's just a bit pointless and tiring. I feel it's my duty in some way to read all my feeds, to update, to be informed...and it's making me hate everything.
Everything.
The burden of the information era is knowing so little of consequence. It all has to be known. Why? Why do I need to know? I don't particularly care, so what's the point of it all? Currently it's just acting as a filler. I mean, I don't really do anything like go to school or talk to people, so I suppose it inhabits that space. That space that isn't all about me. The "me" space is my blogs...of which I have far too many(much?). But I can't really help that, I've always been far too introspective and I don't necessarily mind that.
I'm just having a spot of trouble juggling all of this technology. I feel like the internet is the Borg, processing and organizing, analyzing but never really feeling. I am a part of this vast network of collected peoples and resistance is futile. Negotiation is irrelevant, I will be assimilated. I already am.
I am so tired. Like, emotionally more than physically...but my emotions don't really respond to caffeine quite the same way my body does. So there's that. I've just finished working a bunch of days in a row. I hate working more than 3 days in a row. I know that sounds pathetic to all you people with normal jobs, but I've been a part-timer for basically my whole working life. So working everyday is just not what I do. Add to the frustration the fact that half those shifts were not my own, but rather due to cowhorekers being sickly, flaky, or pussies, and I'm just ready to burn the place down.
Luckily, I now have 3 days off. I was thinking about doing productive things, but I'll probably just lie about watching Netflix so I don't have to deal with the world. Maybe draw something, if an idea of what to draw ever enters my head. I haven't really told many people this (mostly b/c I attempt this every other year and it never goes anywhere) but I'm trying (once again) to get a comic going. I mean, the end goal is to make it into a web-comic and be generally awesome like that. The reality is...4 pages of drawings and I'm hitting a wall. This is usually when I switch my focus to another artistic endeavor that goes nowhere, and etc...until eventually I forget where the comic even is.
But this time, I feel like it could go somewhere. Possibly, maybe. And I want to see where that somewhere is. Over the rainbow? Probably not, but the thought gives me this tiny flutter in my chest that I dimly recall hope and excitement feeling like. Or indigestion? Whatever. I'm going to keep chugging on with this one. It's just that being creative is so hard! I mean it's awesome and deeply rewarding to create, but it's also a truly harrowing process of waiting for inspiration and hoping that when it does come, you have the time to follow where it leads.
At least that's my process. Which, as we've discussed, doesn't really work very well. So...I'll just shut-up now.
