Nerd Alert

Sitting here going through the April Wizard (geek alert, non-geeks flee while you can), and ....

Well, let's be honest. I'm considering a stealth attack on wherever my ex-husband currently lives. With my luck, though, he's already ditched everything. Grr.

See, Wizard is running lots of "Top #" lists in this issue. Like the Top 100 Comic covers of all time. Picture Pooka with little squinty annoyed eyes getting squintier by the moment as she realizes just how many of these comics she actually owned -- at one time, before the troglodyte gave me the infamous 30 to pack.

I managed to hang onto most of my Moon Knight comics. Teen Titans, New Mutants and X-Men were all lost, as was (gasp sigh hissy fit) my stash of Detective and Batman comics. And Cerebus. And Alpha Flight, Wolverine, and X-Factor. And Cloak and Dagger. Hellblazer. And ... Man, I just can't go on.

Grr. Growly grrr.

The thought of all the #1s alone ... Grr.

Of course, since it's the April issue, I'm not sure how much of the rest is accurate, but: Coldsmoke, BB: RoTJ to be released UNCUT on DVD on April 23. Ditto for Justice League. LOTS of animated titles, including some Batman that I've been screaming about them not having on DVD to hit the shelves in April. We'll see how accurate that is. (Jon? Frisco? Any serious news there?)

(And Pssst ... either of you guys have a spare or access to a spare of the 10c Adventures Batman?)

Non-geeks can come back now. If I go on my liver will implode or something.

Big hint -- when faced with a divorce, give up trying to "be nice" to make it easier. You're gonna get SO totally screwed.

TGIM

I never thought I would say this: Thank God it's Monday.

Started this post an hour ago. This is as far as I've gotten. Not a great sign.

Another Monday, another week without PT. I'm thinking that's a sign, too, but I'll refrain from actually voicing what I think that sign points to. I'm sure it would just start another fight that I'll back down from and end up feeling worse than ever.

I may look brave to some of you, but the reality is that I honestly and absolutely loathe confrontation. It's part of why I get such lousy medical treatment, because I just sigh and resign myself instead of questioning or arguing. I don't have any support to fight back, and I just can't do it alone unless I am totally fed up and angry over it.

More and more I find myself hoping that they'll finally tell me that I have something terminal, just to get one specific person to act like it matters. It's a pipe dream on that level because I'm honestly not sure that even that news would make it through.

Guess I'm a little blue. I'm sure someone will cheerfully tell me to see a shrink and that I need to up the dosage. If they do, I'll just send them the RSD latter stage photos that I posted semi-privately the other day and ask them if THEY would be Shiny Happy Stupid if they knew they might end up looking like that for the short amount of time they survived.

Yay, RSD increases your risk of sudden fatal heart attacks. This one might kill me after all. And the peasants rejoiced.

I need more caffiene. DG forgot to start a pot this morning. I'm not physically capable of handling fragile glass at the moment, so I guess I'm stuck with soda. Yay. Not.

And as if this weekend hadn't been crappy enough ... My monster will be here next weekend!

DG told me, and I started stuttering again almost immediately. I wonder if I can get out of the visit by pointing out the multiple underlines and heavy blank ink of "***AVOID STRESS!!!!!!!***" that Captain Ed left on my PT paperwork. Not that I've gotten to visit Ed for over a week.

I think I may lock this entry. I'm just too tired to deal with some of the bullshit if I left it open for everybody to read.

Ever been too tired to qualify as tired? Yeah, me too. This is soul-deep. I know it will go away, it always does. It just takes time. Last week was really hard on me both physically and mentally, and now I get to pay the tab for all that "Fun."

I'm trying to get over the urge to entertain in my journal instead of using it to help work through all the things going through my head. It would be easier if I hadn't had so many bad experiences trying to do just that.

It's not that misery loves company, I think that's somewhat incorrect. What misery really wants is for someone to say, "Aw, poor baby, everything is going to be all right." I know that I have definite comfort issues, somewhat pertaining to not getting sympathy, support, or even a reaction to my failing health. Comfort was not something I got as a child, and especially not while I was a teenager when I really needed it the most. I was never told that it was going to be all right. I was told that it was probably my fault. I wasn't told that it was going to get better. I was told that I had screwed this up and was probably going to keep screwing up because I couldn't do anything right. When I knew what I wanted from life, I was told that I was wrong, that *I* could certainly never do that and why should I even bother trying. Comfort and support withdrawn, thank you for playing.

A little voice tells me that I could have gone on ahead and done what I really wanted to do. That little voice has no logic to it, it's just the stubborn little me that won't die. Thank God. Instead, logic pointed out that if I tried to do what I really wanted to do that I would fail spectacularly because it honestly couldn't be done without support, particularly the monetary kind. I ended up shuffled to a college that cost maybe 1500 a semester, TOPS. My baby sister's school was over 18,000 a year. Do the emotional math on that one.

If I'd had the balls and the knowledge of just how unhappy with my life I'd end up, I'd have said "Yeah, Fuck You, lady" a whole lot sooner and ended up on Parris Island with a real chance to reach my own goals.

But, I was short on brass and long on an abusive boyfriend and had had it hammered into my head for so many years that I was supposed to do what THEY wanted me to do and to hell with my own ideas that I was totally incapable of taking the steps to take control of my own life.

Um.

This wasn't how this post was supposed to go. Yay me, and pass the detergent cause I'm airing the dirty laundry.

Knew I shouldn't have mentioned the monster coming up here. "Hi there, I'm your adopted mother and I'm going to totally fuck up your head for the next week and I'm not even there yet!"

Yeah, fuck you, lady.

Save. Me. Please.

Thing 1: "Heather's got a boyfriend, Heather's got a boyfriend."

Me: "Oh? Is he the same one she was calling an 'asshole' yesterday?"

Thing 1: "Marshall? Yeah. Heather's got a boyfriend, Heather's got a ...."

Thing 2: "You shut up, jackass!"



Dear God, give me strength.

Pooka's Test Kitchen

Yet Another Notice from the Pooka Testing Kitchens:

Gummy SweeTarts Rabbits are indescribably Ucky.

::chew chew chew chew:: Mastication does absolutely nothing to change them from their lapin form to something even remotely edible.

::chew chew chew:: I fear that they go into the stomach in the same toxic shape as they entered the mouth. I think they're supposed to be in traditional SweeTarts flavours, but I wouldn't put any money on how close they come to acheiving it.

"Tangy," sez the bag. The bag lies.

"Candy" sez the bag. I consider this a lie as well. Goodyear might produce something like this, were they to tint their tires pastel colours.

"Try our funny, yummy, gummy varieties," the bag sez. Let's inspect each part of this sentence in turn.

"Funny." Yes, calling it candy or a food product is most amusing.

"Yummy." On what fucking planet does this actually apply to the crap I'm chewing?

"Gummy." Yes. Yes. Here we have some semblence of accuracy. Gummy. Yes, yes they are, in the way that an infant's teething ring could be considered gummy. Nowhere does this honestly indicate edibility, so I'll let this stand.

"Varieties." So far, I've found ... nasty gummy, foul gummy, and what the fuck did I just put in my mouth gummy. I guess we have to let this one slide as well.

A very very frightened part of my mind is babbling in horror over where the 3 g of Protein in the gummies might come from. And they're even Kosher!

There are just some questions that one should never ask.

Not only shall I avoid purchasing such a thing ever again in the future, I feel the uncontrollable urge to walk into the bedroom and beat DG with the remnants of the bag for bringing them home in the first place.

::chew chew chew:: Anyone want one?

If I leave here tomorrow...

"If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me?"

A question for the masses: If something were to happen to you, does any member of your family/immediate close-by circle of friends know to tell the friends you've made online?

Does your family even know about your circle of friends online? Your significant other? If you were in an accident, would we ever find out?

Missing persons, missing faces.

Do you have a "Just In Case" security net set up?

Now that the question has been posed, think on it a bit.

Despite the emotional attachment we have to friends we have made online, how much do we really know about them? A first name, maybe a last? A phone number? Maybe?

Could you, if asked, name both the first and last name of twenty of your online friends? Ten? Five?

If a story aired on the news, would you recognize the name? Their location? Or even a face?

Do you even know what most of your online friends look like?

The unfortunate reality is that there is still a line drawn between flesh and electronic. The media blasts us with the potential horrors of online stalkers and psychopaths while failing to acknowledge that the psychos would be there if you were offline as well.

One world only reflects the other. You're just as likely to be knifed in a dark alley by someone you meet in a nightclub as by someone you talk to online. You're just as likely to be raped by someone you've met in a bookstore as you are by someone you met online.

So why the fear? Why the line at all? What makes it so different if someone online asks for your phone number as opposed to someone in the flesh? Is it the immediacy of the judgement, seeing that person right there before you that you can judge worthy or not? Does the lack of a face and a voice make that great of a difference?

Or is it something simpler, that friendships made online are more disposable? You don't have to clean up after them if they come over, you don't have to throw them out if they stay too late or close the door in their faces at four a.m. You can just sign off. You don't have to get dressed up for them or wear makeup. You don't have to be dressed at all.

That convenience is a drawback when Need arises. You isolate yourself too far, and when you realize that you really need someone there, right then, there's no one but the illusion of friendships you've created because you've kept them too far away.

For you, how much "personal" information about yourself is too much?

How much personal information FROM someone is too much?

Should there be a "minimum requirement" of knowledge before you take a step to meet someone face to face?

What quality makes you decide to share your information?

Do you have am offline Contact List in case of emergency?

Do you have one for your online friends as well? If not ... why not?

The Voice of Reason

I cannot help but wonder at what point I became the Voice Of Reason.

On the surface I suppose it seems relatively simple. I'm older than some 75% of my friends and acquaintances, have two children and a relatively stable long-term marriage, so long as DG isn't being A Guy at the moment. If there's something I haven't been through, well ...

That's where it gets more complex. Personally, I can't see how anyone could see me as anything resembling sane and stable. My body is falling apart around me, we're completely broke and struggling to make ends meet, and sometimes it's just Too Much for even me.

There's a LONG running joke. "You gonna be okay?" "Always am." I'm lousy at quitting. I'm good at falling apart, and then picking the pieces back up. In a way, letting yourself fall apart every now and then helps keep your liver from exploding due to everything you bury. I've never met a person capable of letting every single thing slide off their backs without having some problem with the internal pressure it causes.

I have my faults. There's a pretty damn long list of them. To me, they're glaring and brash and rude and unacceptable.

Voice Of Reason, my fat white Irish ass.

Yet consistently, people come to me.

I don't know if they're coming to me for answers. Sure, I've got an answer for everything, and straight answers without some twisted humour cost you a hundred bucks extra. I don't know everything. I don't pretend to know everything, and I sure as hell don't know how to solve everything, either.

I don't know if they come to me because no one else will listen. Listening, I'm good at. Listening without making comments ... now that's another matter entirely. That I can't do.

I don't know if they come to me because I'll tell them they're being silly and that's what they need to hear. I don't know if they come to me to have me validate their own responses, or to provide that extra voice telling them if they're right or wrong to help them make a final decision.

I don't know.

I've never enjoyed politics. Back in the years when I was actively involved in the SCA, I was dragged into the murk of Knowing The Game and playing politics with the big kids. I knew everyone Important and what who was doing to who and all of the behind the scenes crap that really took all of the fun out of it. It didn't stop me from being good at it. I knew how to play it, I learned from some of the best. But I loathed it.

Getting away from it and starting over elsewhere helped for a while, but eventually I found myself in the same position because I was good at it. I walked away again.

I'm the mediator. I always have been. I have problems saying No. I end up in the middle by sheer accident more times than I care to remember.

It happens online a lot. DG has a talent for pissing people off. When he does, they come to me. I don't get that. "Your husband is at it again." "So?" "Well, can't you ..."

No. I can't.

I'd like to think that I'm a somewhat sarcastic and heartless Evil Overlord ... so why the hell do they bring it to me? Because he's better at being an asshole?

I've been through this with RP partners, too. One specific character just made the head of a particular forum foam at the mouth. I mean he HATED my partner to the point of trying to find some 'legal' way to have him banned. There wasn't one, but every time we showed up, I'd spend the next three or four days dealing with the aftermath.

My partner was never once approached over it. Never.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not really complaining about the whole Voice Of Reason thing except on those levels which are just plain silly. If you have a real and serious problem with something that someone else is doing, take it to THEM, particularly if the other person you are trying to get involved has absolutely no idea what is going on.

I just don't fully understand it.

And I feel very, very old sometimes.

I'm not fishing for answers here. I'm not sure that I'd completely believe any answers handed to me anyway. I definitely still have some serious self-esteem problems.

But I'm feeling introspective lately, and this was among the little bubbles that danced around on the surface until it finally nagged me into babbling about it. For those that read my journal for the questionable humour, I should probably apologize. There hasn't been much of that at all lately, and I'm not sure when there will be again.

It's a phase, you know, and I think I'm getting too old to grow out of them quickly.

In the end, though, it's still Just Me, Pretending To Be.

T.G.I.Forget it

Have any of you had even a remotely decent experience at a TGIFriday's?

We went to our local one for the first time around 3 years ago. To say it was a disaster is putting it mildly. The food was cold, incorrectly cooked, service took forever, and the food tasted flat out bad, even after numerous attempts to get it fixed.

Fast forward 3 years, and a little back in time from today since I'm only now bright enough to remember to complain and ask.

What the hell, we'll try it again.

In three years, it not only had not improved, it had gotten substantially worse. Keep in mind that the place is in a highly strategic position on the highway in a long strip of other restaraunts. They definitely aren't out of the way or difficult to access.

The place was mostly empty, maybe 10 others in the entire restaraunt.

At least two of the napkins on our table had been drawn on by previous customers. Two of the plates in the stack had debris and food particles on them, including a broken toothpick -- not just residue from the washer, but things flat out left in place by the bus staff.

It took forever to get seated. In an empty store. Trying to find an empty table among all of them was more than the hostess could handle.

Thing 2 had a larger serving of food in her kids meal than I did in an adult dinner.

And of course the amazing vanishing waitress. God knows she wasn't actually too busy, she just didn't care. Empty drinks, dirty plates, used napkins ...

I'll call it strikes two and three, man. Game over.

Is this standard for the chain, or did we just get lucky?

Pet Peeved

Pondering a Pooka's Pet Peeve: Our National Anthem at sports events.

This has been just driving me crazy for some time, and I still can't quite figure out the reasoning behind why this is done in this particular fashion, so I'll submit the argument for your dissection.

WHY, when performing the National Anthem at a sporting event, do 90% of the singers perform the number in such a way as to make it TOTALLY impossible for anyone in the audience to sing along?

Isn't this considered a participatory thing anymore? Are we supposed to just nod our heads and wait with hands over hearts for the singer to stop turning it into a Broadway show?

Instead of being able to join in as I was brought up to do, I sit and cringe and wait for the warbling to end, surrounded by hundreds of other people who are feeling the same lack of cohesiveness.

Instead of a show of appropriate patriotism, it's a one man show, and each man seems to need to try to outdo the ones that came before.

Or worse, the ones that turn it into a dirge. Ouch.

I know it's not a huge problem in the greater scheme of things, but if we're going for togetherness, why the heck can't we seem to pull it all together?

But this one goes to 11

Thing 2: (checks watch) "Wow. Two minutes. That's good."

Me: "What's two minutes?"

Thing 2: (shuffling) "Um. But it goes to eleven."

--

I *think* Thing 1 is trying to play air guitar to Metallica.

I'm not entirely sure. Maybe she's just having a seizure.