Category Archives: asshattery

Parting of ways

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Net­flix, it may be time for a divorce. Your new release disc avail­abil­ity has always been a thorn in my side. You made life hell for Block­buster until they col­lapsed, but you won’t pres­sure me into bank­ruptcy. I shouldn’t have had to wait weeks to see The Hang­over. When I say weeks I mean 2 months.

Soon you’ll take funds from my account. For what? Notice that the newly released film that I want has “a very long wait” and you’ll send me the next selec­tion on my list which ends up being choice #5 which I com­pletely for­got was on my list and is now, prob­a­bly for a lim­ited time, avail­able for stream­ing. That will piss me off even more. Oh sure, I could keep a con­stant watch over my queue and rearrange things, but wouldn’t it be eas­ier if you had greater num­bers of new releases avail­able to the pay­ing public?And quite frankly, I have other things that take prece­dence over being OCD with Net­flix. Enough with the game playing.

The other thing that cranks my gears is that you’re a tease. One week a movie that I like is avail­able for stream­ing. How­ever, I’m unable to watch it and fig­ure that the fol­low­ing week on my day off will pro­vide prime view­ing time. But guess what? A week later it is no longer there! It’s only avail­able for disc view­ing. Well, a big EFF YOU to you.

You use to be the really cool kid on the block.  But what you are is a bully and a mean girl.
 

    Passion. Wisdom. Aging

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    As I write this it is less than 24 hours from my 46th year of mov­ing about on this planet. There are days when I am more like the walk­ing dead. Going from point A to point B sim­ply because mak­ing a buck demands it. Work. I have been told that if work was intended to be fun it would be called some­thing else. Poppycock!

    Per­haps I am cur­rently enveloped in a greater range of depth in think­ing due to expe­ri­ences a grand spec­trum of emo­tions in the course of a day short of a week.

    Last Fri­day my one and only son turned 17. That’s not so tough other than to real­ize it was NOT only yes­ter­day that he was tod­dling around in a diaper.

    On Sat­ur­day, my sis­ter (Happy Birth­day today!) was wed to her beloved. To see her live out a fairy tale was awe inspir­ing. it’s not that I am envi­ous of what she has, but I do dream of it for myself one day.

    A reminder of my “not-even-close-to-a-fairy-tale-but-gave-me-the-best-kid-in-the-world-so-for-that-I-cannot-entirely-despise-him” arrived unan­nounced on Sun­day. That would be my son’s father who hasn’t been in con­tact with him since Christ­mas of 2010. His com­mu­ni­ca­tions have always been few and far between but this is the longest. He bab­bled on about try­ing to call on Mancub’s birth­day “But your phone says it is dis­con­nected…” We had our land­line removed in MARCH!!! Thanks for notic­ing. He was vis­it­ing due to the unfor­tu­nate event that his father passed away. We gave our con­do­lences. How­ever, the ‘grand­fa­ther’ spent all of 5 hours with Man­cub in his 17 years and never once sent a birth­day card or acknowl­edg­ment of any sort. Leav­ing it up to my young man to make a deci­sion about attend­ing the wake and funeral, he had a face to face con­fronta­tion with his dad. It wasn’t easy and I had to keep in the back­ground with­out adding my two cents. Actu­ally, I have about a mil­lion dol­lars worth of cents (sense). Mancub’s dad took it in stride and didn’t argue.

    It was emo­tional to have a heart to heart con­ver­sa­tion with Man­cub as he’d been hold­ing in a lot of dis­ap­point­ment, dis­il­lu­sion­ment, anger and lack of feel­ing loved by his father. As much as I try to pre­pare him for life, I couldn’t pre­pare for this cave in. We’re stronger now as a result. 

    Mov­ing along.

    I’ve been off work since August 4. My final day of vaca­tion hap­pens to be my birth­day. Did I men­tion that I will be 46? Offi­cially, I am closer to 50 than 40 and for some goofy-ass rea­son it is affect­ing me. I think part of that is due to being sin­gle since ’99 and hav­ing not one shred of a rela­tion­ship to even rem­i­nisce upon fondly. There comes a time in a woman’s life (this woman) when they won­der if hope is lost. Could I pos­si­ble be beyond my shelf life? Do I start plan­ning to hop on a bus to Bran­son, MO and be con­tent that the Statler Broth­ers or Osmonds are singing directly to me? Maybe I’d have bet­ter luck with Yakov Smirnoff.

    What has come as a result of this long awaited time off from work — it has been ages since I took any extended time off — is that while I am abun­dantly grate­ful to be employed, there is enor­mous dread fill­ing me as I con­tem­plate the return to said work­place. Hate is a mighty strong word yet it keeps pop­ping in my head. Mostly, and likely due to how many other Ris­sues have been sim­mer­ing in the kettle.

    Need­less to say, you can guess why I’m feel­ing … blurgh. I’d love to just dash off and party with my bevvy of boda­cious girl­friends in Vegas or some­thing. Oh yeah, I don’t live in a movie. Back to life. Back to reality.

     

    IMAG0527 125x300 Passion. Wisdom. Aging

      Teach Me How To Dougie

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      “Teach me how to Dougie” was first heard, by me, via Bruno Mars’ “Lazy Song.” I had no idea what he was talk­ing about. The song tick­les me pink because he men­tions doing P90X. I’d never pro­claim that I’m ultra cool and up with the lingo or lat­est dances. I’m still be-boppin’ like Molly Ring­wald in The Break­fast Club, for cry­ing out loud.

      So, what the hell is a Dougie?

      First came a rec­ol­lec­tion of Justin Bieber on “Regis and Kelly.” I vaguely remem­ber those two look­ing entirely fool­ish danc­ing with the floopy haired pop sen­sa­tion. The vol­ume was low so I didn’t real­ize what he was teach­ing them was, indeed, the Dougie

      Then came my Google search. A video from MTV for the actual song (Who knew!?) by Cali Swag Dis­trict called, “Teach Me How To Dougie.” You can search for it on Youtube. Warn­ing: NSFW or sen­si­tive ears. Vul­gar­ity and slang abound!

      My perusal of the Dougie videos per­sisted until I found a tuto­r­ial. A FREAKIN’ HOW-TO!! Again, this has the orig­i­nal song ver­sion that may be offen­sive to some.

      I know! Right?

      Did you get up and try it?

      This sum­mer will bring THREE wed­dings in my fam­ily. Wed­dings fol­lowed by recep­tions. How impressed will my nieces be when their 45 year old aunt can throw down doing the Dougie when the rest of the world is still danc­ing like a chicken or falling over doing the Macarena?

        The Wayback Machine

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        The last few days have taken me down mem­ory lane. I’ve been re-reading a lot of my old posts writ­ten when it seemed my blog still had heart. At least that’s how I per­ceived it. The writ­ing tells a story rather than just reports on how my fit­ness level is increas­ing while my weight drops. At the risk of seem­ing ego­tis­ti­cal, they were quite good. Some have been edited and re-posted. 

        What climb­ing in the Way­back Machine has done is remind me that I was once trans­par­ent and fear­less about shar­ing who I am (was). At what point did I become so guarded? Is that why my style changed over the course of a year? Or is it because I lost my muse? Could it be that I began lis­ten­ing to out­side sources rather than lis­ten­ing to my heart?

        With­out inten­tion I began writ­ing to please a spe­cific demo­graphic rather than writ­ing about what suited me. Too much focus on try­ing to draw in more read­ers may have pos­si­bly turned off many who enjoyed my ‘heart on my sleeve’ style.

        One of the rea­sons it’s been dif­fi­cult for me to have reg­u­larly fea­tured items as many blog­gers do: Word­less Wednes­day, Meme Mon­day etc is because I’m lead by my soul more so than req­ui­site of sched­ule. While I am a crea­ture of habit, I am also some­one who writes off the cuff and speaks from the hip.  Can I add more cliché?

        Fear of offend­ing even one per­son: I can apol­o­gize, but hon­estly, if you don’t like it, don’t read it. I’ve spo­ken can­didly about my per­sonal life and sex­ual encoun­ters (past not present but tak­ing appli­ca­tions). If you think it’s tawdry and ill man­nered, again, you have the choice to exit this page. Wor­ry­ing about what every­body else might think has sti­fled me and it’s a loath­some state of mind.

        This is all not to say I won’t report on my sta­tus of weight loss and health. I’m not an expert. Exer­cise and eat­ing health­ier (not per­fectly) is a part of my life. If you’re turned off by that, then don’t read this blog on that day. Again, it’s about me not you.

        Maris­sol­ogy, by my cre­ation and def­i­n­i­tion, is about my out­look and phi­los­o­phy on the world. There isn’t a way for me to crawl inside another per­sons head and write based on what I think they’d like to read. Egads! Peo­ple pleasers quickly become as annoy­ing as the tod­dler who kicks the back of your seat on an airplane.

        My life is not per­fect and putting on a show that every­thing is always hunky dory and pos­i­tive is rob­bing those who need a like voice on those days when every­thing has gone to shit. I do not have the answers, but I am surely capa­ble of say­ing, “Oh, man! Me, too!” Let’s dish about the sep­tic tank aspects, as well as, the rosy gar­den. At some point we can have a laugh and move on.

        So, here’s to a return to myself and hop­ing that the alien pod in which I was liv­ing has shriv­eled up and become one with envi­ron­ment. I hear it makes great compost.

        Now, who’s down for some P90X?Bodysnatcher 300x200 The Wayback Machine

          The Game of Life Comes With No Rule Book

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          This post was orig­i­nally writ­ten in Feb­ru­ary of 2009. It’s all part of my ret­ro­spec­tive skip to see if I’ve evolved even a lit­tle. Plus, I kind of enjoy read­ing where my heart and head were not so long ago.

          The Game of Life Comes With No Rule Book

          It’s not that I hate men. I’m far from ready to don some Birken­stocks and join the Indigo Girl car­a­van. I still dig doin’ the deed with dudes.

          I spent the day lament­ing over what my Valentine’s Day post would be about.I con­sid­ered rehash­ing what could pos­si­bly be wrong with me or the men I date or , this or that. I wasn’t going to throw a pity party. Nope. Valentine’s Day is a most cer­tainly a reminder of my sin­gle­hood. But it’s not what I wanted this to be about. I see the guys scram­bling around the mall find­ing gifts to appease the lovely lady in their lives. I can see the beads of sweat build­ing on their fur­rowed brows as they sign the finance papers at the jew­elry store across the hall. Yikes!

           
          Per­haps we should begin at the beginning.

          Believe me when I say I seem to make friends more read­ily with the male of the species than I do with females. Maybe it’s because, while still a very young girl (age 4ish), my clos­est friends were boys (and one girl who would give Pep­per­mint Patty a run for her money.) I had no issues climb­ing trees and rac­ing against them on my Big Wheel. Shut.Up! Those things rocked at 7:30 a.m. on a summer’s day. I had female friends, too. How­ever, in my for­ma­tive years, boys were always preva­lent buddies.

          I know I look totally girly and frilly on the out­side. I am vain. I do my hair and put on make-up. I love the color pink and wear it often. How­ever, under­neath the smell good stuff, body lotion and pearl­ized lip gloss beats the heart of a tomboy; a girl who likes to hang with the boys and cut-up like a boy. I’m per­verse and vul­gar. I’m crass and swear like a trucker.

          By the same token, I shoot from the hip. I pre­fer not to mince words because being diplo­matic all the time is exhaust­ing. It’s pre­ferred, by yours truly, to be up front with who I am. I can’t play the cat and mouse games. Upon numer­ous occa­sions I have read and been told that men love the thrill of the chase. Ok, groovy, but once you’re caught doesn’t that mean the thrill is gone? Like I said, let’s cut through that mess and just get to the being caught. Trust me, the thrill ride begins there. Since I’ve not been given a rule book, I refuse to play the game. Sorry! I am one of the lunatics who reads instructions.

          Is it pre­sumed that all peo­ple in the begin­ning of courtship — for lack of a bet­ter term — is when they are guarded and on their best behav­ior? And if it is assumed that the real me (from the begin­ning) is actu­ally the good behav­ior Riss that the men I date won­der when the other shoe might drop and some alien psy­cho beast will emerge from the pod?

          I just gave you a lot to chew on. You might want to take a bath­room break or get a drink. A stiff drink.

          Sev­eral years ago a friend, mar­ried and male, told me that it’d take a mighty spe­cial dude to match me in per­son­al­ity. He said his wife was very much like me in that she cut through the bull­shit and pre­sented him with a full course of her­self. He found it refresh­ing. He also admit­ted that it took him off guard, but it didn’t chase him away. I often turn to that assess­ment for reassurance.

          So, I got that goin’ for me. Which is nice.

            Wonder Woman needs a break

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            A friend once told me that to him I’ve always been Won­der Woman. The life size, liv­ing breath­ing ver­sion.  All that’s miss­ing is the bul­let reflect­ing breast plate and kick ass boots.  For the longest time I assumed he meant that I kind of, sort of look like Linda Carter.  He’d even­tu­ally tell me that it’s because I seemed to be able to con­quer anything. 

            Lately, I have not felt like the world’s most famous Ama­zon­ian woman. She was an Ama­zon, right? Any­way, since being pro­moted in my day to day job and start­ing my home-based busi­ness, I have felt more like a Wac-a-mole than Won­der Woman.  At every turn it appeared I was get­ting pum­meled with self-improvement suggestions.

            Whoa! Hold the phone.  I swear ‘they’ told me I was awe­some. Won­der­ful. Admirable.  But they want me to change?

            It’s over­whelm­ing for me to be told to be myself; trust my gut; go with my instincts only later to be informed that while I’m fine just the way I am, I need to change.  Hello!? Sure, we ALL require tweak­ing and along the course of being human, our behav­iors will demand an apol­ogy.  When it seems to be com­ing from all sides,  there’s a ten­dency for me to recoil and with­drawal. Well inten­tioned loved ones, take note for future reference.

            Last week was par­tic­u­larly dif­fi­cult for me chew on. The kind sug­ges­tions seemed to be fired in rapid suc­ces­sion.  Again, whoa! It prompted me to want to scream at the top of my lungs, “GET OFF ME!!!” Do you know what I’m talk­ing about? Ever have it hap­pen to you?

            By week’s end, rather than stew in it any longer, I let peo­ple around me in on how vul­ner­a­ble I was feel­ing.  Shared were the sen­sa­tions of anx­i­ety and panic.  Once that was revealed, it seemed to release me from the emo­tional prison and I could move for­ward.  Strangely, that sim­ple action allowed me to breathe eas­ier. My pulse slowed from the pre­vi­ous quick throb­bing like that of Thumper’s foot.  Let­ting them in might have been a lit­tle sur­pris­ing.  Usu­ally, I attempt to be Miss Ball Buster USA. Being vul­ner­a­ble is not some­thing I embrace eas­ily.  But it seemed to human­ize me not only to them, but to myself, as well.

            Fear not. I’m still Won­der Woman in Tar­get clear­ance rack ensem­bles … It’s just that “some days I’m a super bitch, up to my old tricks but it won’t last for­ever. Next day I’m your super girl, out to save the world and it keeps get­tin’ better.”

             

              Punch it

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              When I dis­like some­thing I dis­like it with pas­sion.  Take, for instance, the band Bon Jovi.  Gag! When Jon sings it sounds like he’s tak­ing a dump while razor blades are extruded from his anus.  If one of their songs plays on the radio I lurch with a vengeance to change the sta­tion.  Mak­ing mat­ters worse is when a co-worker plays their “great­est hits.”  Yes, I put that in quo­ta­tions because noth­ing is great­est about that band in my less than hum­ble opin­ion.  Talk about set­ting me up for a hor­ri­ble work­day.  Then, I want to punch her in the face because she knows darn well that I hate their music. How­ever, legal restraints keep me from doing so. It would be so cool, for dra­matic effect, if I could rip the disc from the player and smash it with a ham­mer or some how man­age the sound of a nee­dle drag­ging across a record. Instead, I play nice and try to find a happy place.  With any luck, the hot UPS guy will drop his pack­age and bend over right in front of my win­dow at the mall.

              punchcoffeemug Punch itFor many years I’ve com­piled lists of movies and musi­cal artists that I’d like to punch in the face. Not long ago it hit me that the vit­riol inspired by these things branched out to other sub­jects, like paja­mas in pub­lic or style being sported by preg­nant women wear­ing reg­u­lar pants but leav­ing them unzipped and unbut­toned to make room for their baby bump. The list is end­less.  Because of that never end­ing list, I needed a place to vent my ire. Wouldn’t you know it! Some­one else had already cre­ated such a blog and fan page on Face­book.  Had this per­son heard about my lists or stum­bled across my blog when I posted about the movies I’d like to give a knuckle sand­wich or could it be pos­si­ble that great minds DO think alike?  Need­less to say, I was slow on the draw. The cre­ator, Jen­nifer Worick, claims she made the expres­sion wildly pop­u­lar.  Uh, not exactly, but I like her style. I solemnly swear on Clark’s blog that I had never heard of it until the phrase was uttered from my lips.  She’s the one with the pub­lished books. So, that pretty much gives her greater cred­i­bil­ity, I guess. And for that I want to punch her in the face. Then, have cof­fee and point out all the things we want to punch in the face in our sur­round­ing area.

                I feel sketchy

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                Yes­ter­day morn­ing I woke myself by cough­ing. Not a lit­tle baby cough. It was one of those that starts at the toes and hur­tles your body into a con­vul­sion rob­bing you of all the oxy­gen in your lungs … zoinks. What the hell and where did it come from?  Need­less to say, I went back to bed.  Rinse and repeat today.  I feel OK until the urge to cough comes along. Then, I know that rel­a­tive OK-ness will be sent pack­ing and I hack and gag like the fil­ter­less Lucky Strike chain smok­ing lady with the hole in her throat. Mmmm is that a hunk of lung I see? Oof!

                In totally unre­lated news, here are two of my favorite sketches from shows no longer in production.

                  The cats are on to us

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                  I had a ter­ri­ble night’s sleep last night. Man­cub and I learned awhile ago that the key to sleep­ing soundly is lock­ing our furry com­pan­ions down­stairs. It’s not as if they are being sequestered to the dungeon-like Silence of the Lambs base­ment. They have run of the liv­ing and din­ing room, bath­room and kitchen. While they get into noc­tur­nal mis­chief, we sleep with lit­tle to no disruption.

                  But not last night.

                  Sil­ver is in heat which means she’s howl­ing loud enough to sig­nal male cats in a neigh­bor­ing coun­ties that she’s primed and ready … if they can get at her, that is. Nei­ther cat has ever been out­doors. As a result, they don’t attempt to dash out the door even when they want to get their feline groove on.

                  Our usual tac­tic of lur­ing them from my bed­room — their com­mon sleep­ing spot — did not work last night. We have cat treats that leave them Jonesing. Mo-mo has been known to knock the lit­tle bag off the shelf and attempt to gnaw her way into it. She’ll also bully Sil­ver to get her por­tion.  Yes, she’s a hog and the queen of the domain.  I’m fool­ish to believe this is my cas­tle.  Any­way, shak­ing the bag will typ­i­cally send them careen­ing down­stairs obe­di­ently *cough*.  This has been a suc­cess­ful man­ner of giv­ing us just enough time to escape to hall and close the door behind us.

                  Last night was different …

                  Mo-mo barely raised and eye­brow as she lounged in “her” chair that resides in the cor­ner of my bed­room.  Sil­ver mean­dered half way down the steps but stopped.  If I took a step in her direc­tion she’d get on her haunches ready to sprint up the steps.  Man­cub had placed two treats on the lower steps. Out of view, she crept toward the chick­eny reward, but her keen hear­ing told on us.  She’s sleek and nearly impos­si­ble to catch.

                  Queen Bee Mo-mo isn’t usu­ally loud. She’s polite about let­ting me know she needs to go down­stairs when she gets locked upstairs with me. She hops on my bed and lets out a sweet mew and stares at me until it appears that I’m awake.  Then, she cau­tiously fol­lows down the steps. She won’t go to the door until I open the door. Often, if we’ve been suc­cess­ful get­ting Sil­ver locked out, she’ll be wait­ing on the win­dow sill behind the cur­tain. Then, woosh! Before I know what’s hap­pen­ing she’s bolt­ing up the steps. ARGH!

                  Last night we weren’t suc­cess­ful.  We just hoped they’d for­get they were noc­tur­nal and sleep or find amuse­ment down­stairs.  We. Were. Wrong.

                  Deeply slum­ber­ing (and likely snor­ing) I was jolted awake by the cat­er­waul­ing of dear Sil­ver.  She was spas­ti­cally rush­ing the stairs. That for­tu­nately made it easy to get her down­stairs. She con­tin­ued with her gut­tural groan­ing as the latch clicked behind me.

                  On to sleep.  NOT!

                  At 4:30 (keep in mind I awaken between 5:30 and 6:00) Mo-mo in her ten­der man­ner … mew. mew. mew. She’s a big cat but has the sweet­est meow when she wants some­thing.  With­out hes­i­ta­tion she joined Sil­ver and I man­aged to get back to sleep quickly.

                  Man­cub came in my room and I lay there motion­less when he put his hand on my shoul­der to awaken me.  Fif­teen min­utes later I shuf­fled to greet my son.  I have lit­tle rec­ol­lec­tion of what took place between that time and the time I returned to bed … for TWO or more hours of sleeping.

                  Now I feel groggy and loopy.  These cats are smart. They are on to us.  We need a new method.

                  14 87 The cats are on to us