1. Being unemployed for a stretch longer than two months is something I never, ever want to go through again. Fucking
never.
The feeling's akin to how I felt when that cyborg I once trusted tried
rolling up and jamming a porno mag down my throat while the rest of the
crew was just like "La-di-da-di --- wait, Bill, did you hear
something?" Dark thoughts entered my head. Days just rolled around
into each other, collecting dust, beer cans and anxiety. I forewent
brushing my teeth all that often, and so I sat there and groaned away on the couch
with smelly breath while watching reruns and reruns and reruns of
Chopped.
You'd think it'd be cathartic to write during this long vacation from
work, but all I could really think about was how the hell was I going to
keep the car that was saddled up in the parking lot, thirsty for gas.
2. I learned that recapping TV shows is a cruel sport that the gods
imposed on us unsuspecting bloggers long ago. Since I'm about seven or
eight years late in the blogging game, I didn't bother heeding the
warning that terrifying little old man at the grocery store that smelled
of farts and carpet told me about recapping being a sordid and
maddening competition with time. I shall never recap again, never. My
disappointment in
Eastbound & Down truly unnerved me. Was
this still my beloved show? But why is Ashley Shaffer back, in this
scene and that, stealing screen time from my favorite anti-hero? So, I
stopped mid-season, abandoning all three diehard EB&D recap fans in
the dust. Recapping and I are not going to grow to love each other; all
we are is dust in the wind.
3. Haha! Speaking of competition with time, and deadlines and whatnot,
my attempt at completing a March Madness in March fell right into the
shitter. I was sitting on the can, and my cat was curling around my
legs, biting my toes, when all of a sudden a thunderous clap, clank and
plop sounded in our ears. I accidentally flushed the toilet too soon.
Me and Sofia just sat there, watching helplessly while my mojo for
finishing what I start just whirled and whirled, crying out, gurgling,
bubbling until it was all gone. It felt like an eternity. Anyways, I
bet we can all safely assume that the snake from
Anaconda totally won the movie animal competition, right? Hooray!
4. My body is not engineered for anal sex. I actually relearned this
one evening a few weeks ago, in the exact same way as I relearned this
another night about five years ago, in the exact same way I originally
learned this one late afternoon after an arts festival about seven years
ago. It always happens in the midst of my drunken, stoned stupidity,
when I grin real weird, and say, "Hey asshole, take a walk on the wide
side," to which my asshole responds time and time again, with a shrug,
"You're still doing things I gave up years ago." The next morning,
afternoon and early evening, every time I try to take a shit, I howl as
violently as that bad-kid-turned-donkey from
Pinocchio would.
Not pretty. Did I finally learn my lesson for good this time, you ask?
Will my brain take the ass bait once more? Only time will tell.
5. Posting long, sprawling Raggle Rock posts can be dissuasive to
maintaining a blog in general, and is a nice, limp way of glutting for
punishment. Sometimes, I just want to post brevitic comments like,
"Look at this...look at this picture with the fucking goat reading a
book on it, hahahahahaha!" So, you know what? Things are going to
change, baby. I'm posting whatever the hell I want, when I want,
regardless of the depth and breadth. I say who, I say when! I say who?
6. The one small thing that I enjoyed about being unemployed was that
in the midst of job-hunting on the internet followed by endless job
interviews concluding in disappointment, I got to spend a lot more time
with my boyfriend than I ever had before. I've always been a
daywatcher, he a nightwatcher, therefore our schedules have crashed into
each other like those sorry bumper cars that aren't even fun anymore
because they're too old and sticky. So, yeah, for awhile, [Redacto] and
I got to sleep in late together, lounge around the apartment together,
and drink the nights away while we talked and talked and talked. Then
one day, I went back to work. The big take away from this story should
be when returning to a schedule that only affords the bare minimum of
contact between you and your S.O.,
after being so used to the relative luxury of impoverished time spent together, fully expect your relationship to be filled with
poison.
Hopefully, when it all falls down, you'll remember to be an adult, and
have a mature discussion about your frustrations, rather than storming
off to your ex-boyfriend's house to sleepover and watch
Gremlins 2. Hopefully.
7. So, I spent some time mounted in front of the mirror for the past
few months, deliberating whether I should give stand-up comedy the old
college try (I KNOW!!! Seriously, not writing and not working make
Ashlee go something something...grand delusions of talent was all that
was. I mean, talk about being caught up in the embarrassing trappings
of "Bleeurrgh, mah buffriend duzett, wha cain't ah?"). After a long,
glowing, masturbatory dialogue with myself, I decided against it. Ciao,
laughter; I never knew you.
8. This. People that start paragraphs with the word 'this' followed by
a period need to just go and fall off a cliff already. Don't you
remember when everybody was amused by their own cleverness by using the
word 'fail' in just about every sentence on Facebook? This. is the
same thing, I'm afraid. This. may not be a lesson as much as it is a
grievance of mine, but who knows? Maybe we'll all be better off by me
caring so much.
Great to be back, guys!
