Burnin' Fish

On my way to my religious/ethnic studies discussion last week, I realized that the sixteen ounces of Pepsi I had at lunch were ready to leave me, and so I ducked into the restroom. As I hung my backpack up on the peg in the stall, I spotted a sign which advertised English lessons from someone with a BA in English. Someone else had come in with a pen and corrected the mistakes in spelling and grammar, and then had written ,”F-- see me.”

Then when I left the stall and was washing my hands a girl came in and bent over to examine her rear-end in the mirror, to make sure the seam of her pants was straight down the center of her bum.

I touched the heating element on the top of the oven (while the oven was heated to 450 degrees) with the back of my hand on Saturday morning. The blisters popped, and now the burn looks like those pictures of the wounds before they put the maggots on them, only tiny.

I got a new bra this weekend which has goldfish on it, and I’m very excited about it.

Working retail has made me doubt my communication skills. This weekend, a lady came in and asked for, “Those things you put on the bottom of furniture legs?” So I took her to those dots (felt, cork or plastic) which protect hard floors.

She said, “No, I need the whole thing.” and made a motion with her hand implying an entire leg. So I took her to the wood aisle.

She said, “No, I need the things, the felt, that goes under, on the bottom, for the floor?” So I took her back to the felt dots.

She dithered for a while, and then asked, “How will this protect the floor, thought?”

I said, “Well, um, the felt, or the cork, or plastic, those are softer than the wood is, and they’re smooth, so they won’t… scratch the floor?”

She asked how. I said they go on the bottom of the leg, between the leg and the floor.

She said, “This isn’t what I need,” and left the store. I still can’t figure out what she was talking about.

I need to figure out a better sleep schedule. Well, actually, I need to figure out a way to motivate myself to get into bed at bedtime reliably. I’m tired of being exhausted in the morning.

I’m hungry for feta.

Dreadful!

Legally, I’m an adult now. As such, I find myself a little unbelievable at times. Today, for example, I had a biology lab. The tables you sit at for this lab have power outlets on them for microscopes and stuff. As I sat there, I had to talk myself out of sticking my pen into the light socket just to see what would happen. I should be mature enough not to even think to myself that I want to stick something in the light socket.

Because I’m lazy, I had to make fourteen copies of a six page story for my creative fiction class today. Even though I put my own staples into the stapler on the desk next to the copier, I felt like people were watching me and judging me for using so many staples.

Last night I dreamed that I was the Joker and I shot Batman through the chest with a grappling gun. Like all the way through. He pulled it out with this wonderful wet ‘shchloorp’ sound and came after me.

I’m tired of my lower back hurting.

I’m also tired of my sister’s stupid cat eating ribbon. He threw up for fifteen feet the other day, and I had to clean it up. I don’t know how an animal that only weighs eight pounds can vomit so far, but he did it.

I can’t be the only person who hates it when people cough and wretch and make phlegm sounds around her.

My grandmother used to say dreadful a lot, and I think we should bring that word back. Like Randle in Clerks II, only mine’s less offensive and no one will care.

Catchin' Walleye

Sometimes when a new class begins, they have everyone announce something interesting about themselves to everyone else. There are variations of this game--it could be a “fun fact” or something no one else in the class is likely to say about themselves, or perhaps we tell our something to someone else and they introduce us. Regardless of petty differences, it’s the same game, and I don’t like it. There is a part of me deep inside which rebels at the idea that all there is interesting about me can be summed up in a sentence.

Now, I know that they aren’t asking for everything which is interesting about us, but that’s what it feels like. It’s also hard to come up with something on the spot like that. There’s an instant reaction of, “There’s nothing interesting about me!” Then there’s the panic, “That’s not good enough!”

For me, this means that I end up saying something funny to get a laugh.

I am seeking a conditioner that will actually condition. I want my hair to be full of shine and bounce.

I used to have a toe ring, and I enjoyed that. I think I want to get another one. Not the adjustable kind, but the kind that’s actually a ring.

Every night for almost a week I’ve been torturing myself with nightmares, and last night, it got worse. That Kid Rock song about Sweet Home Alabama played in my head all night long.

And I suffered.

Candy Guns

Every night for the last four or five nights, I’ve had nightmares. Last night my dream was horrible. In it, I was riding in this truck through this town which was built on a smaller scale than the real world is. I think I was in Europe. Anyway, I got off the truck to go into a building, and there were zombies everywhere. I was in a small building with a counter that might once have been a store. It had huge glass windows, so it was some sort of business, anyway. I jumped up on top of a shelving unit, and this man started to walk towards me. Now, in this dream, there was another man who was still alive who was with us in the truck, and he’d come into the building with me and my mom. Anyway, he took a pair of nail clippers and clipped the air passage of the zombie which goes from the nose to the eye (note: I don’t think this really exists). The zombie looked a little surprised, and made that air-escaping-a-balloon sound, and then frowned at me, and pointed at my feet.

He only wanted my candy-bar.

I burned myself with a glue gun at work the other day. Someone dropped something loudly right behind me, and I jumped, jamming the metal tip against the back of my index finger. When I pulled the gun away, there was glue on my finger, which I peeled up. Frowning at the spot, I tried to pull up the rest of the glue.

Then I realized that was my skin.

The low heat glue guns are not actually low in heat.

Peas and Literature

I used to think that there was this big joke being played against me and that every grown up person was in on it. This joke was, of course, called literature. Before I could read, I was convinced that There were secrets being kept from me in books and magazines, and I was obsessed with finding out what they were. So, I learned to read fairly early, and without much prompting by parents or teachers. It very rarely happens that something is actually as good as it is anticipated to be, at least for me. I am often let down (by pastries, films, clothing, coffee) and so I have developed a slightly cynical view of the world.

Literature didn’t do that.

As a young child, I realized that books were even better than I thought they were--there was more in them than I had ever imagined. Eventually I realized that there was no conspiracy against me, but that didn’t matter because of the wonder that was reading.

In lecture this morning, I felt like I needed to buckle myself in to my seat.

Despite my nightmares last night, I woke up feeling really good. My shower only took a few minutes, which is strange, because in the early morning it usually ends up taking a lot longer.

Yesterday I planted my little pea plants.

That’s not the beginning of the story though. A few weeks ago, in my biology lab, we had to boil little baby corn plants to death to show that they stop breathing once they’re dead. This made me feel guilty, so the next day I went to the hardware store and bought the little paper cups and seeds and soil to plant a vegetable garden. I planted peas and peppers and basil and so on.

Unfortunately, it was very windy between then and now, and something happened to most of the little baby plants (who’s leaves had not yet come up). The pea plants, though, did not get destroyed. So, yesterday, I planted them, finally. I hope they do well.

I love shoes.