Save Lando

i was at work recently, and was listening and sometimes chiming in on a discussion my boss was having with a colleague. they were talking about how the united states and germany gave all sort of weapons to iraq way back when they were fighting iran. i know, old news, but the humor was in the intervals. when getting descriptive on the types of weapons, i was interjecting with addition weapons that may or may have not been supplied to iraq. “you know. guns. bombs. GIANT SPACE LAZERS. chemical weapons. DINOSAURS.” pretty sure you can fish out my comments from the selected text. turns out, we did not supply iraq with battle dinosaurs. there were no t-rex’s in pith helmets patrolling borders (or thats what the governments tell us).

i’ve been taking notice on the increasing number of rear view crucifixes on the road. i can’t say too much, or i’ll get myself in trouble, Loopy having one herself. the only explanation aside from people finding jesus (yeah right) is that there’s a steadily increasing number of Vampire Truckers out there. i thought it might be a bit far fetched until i ran a search for them. this is what happened. now i can say, after watching that, even i might be tempted to protect my car (if i had one) and person with a crucifix. i also found this. but after seeing that there’s a lot of reading, i’ll let one someone else tell me what it says. didn’t tell you there’d be homework, did i? do it or i call in the big guns.

vampire truckers roaming the iran/iraq border stand no chance now. i also am trying to find new ways to disgust customers and entertain myself. and no, not just simply with my visage. asshole. people don’t always get the joke when you exclaim that you pee’d all over your hands on accident, and that the smell from it can’t be healthy. i also, when appearing with freshly washed hands, apologize to them for the wet hands, and promise that it’s not urine. i know. juvenile and easy, but what do you do to entertain yourself at work? they refuse to let me have access to a computer that can reach beyond the prison walls. i mean, it’s probably a good idea, me playing w.o.w at work wouldn’t make for good business. the first time i start screaming at a computer and throwing shit because i’m upset would probably get me fired. ha. that may be an exaggeration, but i do get moody after suffering unfortunate events while playing. enough dork talk. back to work.

i’m tired of watching hormone-exploding teenagers groping each other in my store. every time i see it, i feel like a dirty old man. i’m not. maybe save the intimate touching for home, and not while you’re out shopping for junk. i’m talking to you teenagers. you’re supposed to be our future, and when you figure out theres more than just you in it, we’ll all feel better. thank you. /soapbox. —- and my nepalese houseboy has informed me that the word “Lando” means dick in his native tongue. normally, i don’t like to use several of those nouns in the same sentence, but i can’t decide if i’m amused or appalled that they have sullied my name as such. —- and to the lady in the women’s restroom that let everyone hear the “oooh, yeah’s” through the door. you were in there solo, and those noises mean one of two things. you’re in there flicking the bean, or you’re enjoying taking a shit just a little too much. you pick, and then let us know, so we can end the debate.

and a rough day story for the kids to emphasize my non-robot feelings as of late…

i haven’t talked to my grandmother in quite some time. not because i didn’t want to, but because a few times of not reaching her when i called, and a busy schedule, things just kind of wondered around. for months. maybe even a year. i guess it’s easy when you aren’t thinking about these things, to just let it go and not worry about it. it bothers me that i feel i could be so lazy as to lose contact with people i love. i do it all the time. i beat myself up over it. i called my grandmother earlier today, and talked to her as long as my schedule pre-work could handle. i had trekked to my work a little early and decided that i didn’t want to wait any longer to talk to her. so i wondered around outside the building, talking to her, trying to catch up. the guilt i started laying on myself was horrible. she mentioned that she could send me money to help me get a car, and that there were no strings. she’s always done things like this for me. i am quite vehemently opposed to any such arrangement.

see. my mother is that way. i don’t speak of her much here because we don’t really get too serious in this corner of the interwebbe (and sorry for doing so now). i don’t agree with a great deal of things my mother is prone to doing. one of those is “borrowing” money. it’s a great fear that i’ll take, and continue taking until theres nothing left. i love my grandmother will all of my heart. when i was young, she helped raise me, and i credit her with a great deal of my upbringing. almost everything important i have ever learned, i learned from her. i it would kill me, to have me do anything that would hurt her, break her heart, or cause her to think of me as a disapointment (truth or not). she didn’t get why i just wouldn’t take the money and be happy. i wasn’t about to go through this explanation to her, it being pretty personal (and one only knows why i’m sharing it here).

my sister had told me she’d been sick. and my grandmother confirmed that she’d been sick, and that the parkinson’s disease she has is only getting worse. she’s having a great deal of trouble getting around and doing things on her own. things as mundane as driving to the grocery store to buy some fruit, or fill her car up with gas. she told me that once or twice when i had called, she was home, and that the reason she didn’t answer was because she couldn’t even get to the phone in time. this breaks my heart. this woman was strong. smart. funny. and now she’s reduced to someone a sliver of what she was. i can’t even sit here and type this without crying, and i couldn’t talk to her earlier without doing the same. thankfully, my co-workers noticed that i was having a rough time and left me alone to compose myself. i finished the phone call feeling both better about having talked to her, and also much worse for doing the same. she said more than once that i should just “come home” to be with family, and to be with her. i don’t think i’m ever going to get that out of my head, or any other part of my body.

so the last two weeks or so, i’ve been called ma’m 3 times. it’s starting to irk me. i understand that people sometimes just don’t pay attention to who they’re talking to, but jesus, do i even come close to being mistaken for a woman? work seems to provide everything needed for an upsetting and/or strange day in my life. i told you guys last entry about the alligator guy. for weeks now, everyones been coming into my store injured. more casts on feet that anything else, but also a fair amount of slings for arms. one such (arm) came in a couple days after the alligator guy. always wanting a decent story, i asked what happened. nonchalantly, his reply was “oh, my son hit my with a shovel handle.” like hit him because they were fighting. apparently, this didn’t seem to strike him as unusual or odd.

only in fucking Oklahoma. i swear. and I live in the biggest city in Ok, the one deemed least redneck and whitetrashy by a panel of blue-ribbon specialists formed to rank rural cities by levels of inbreeding. we score low marks anymore, because it’s becoming the norm to be a white-trash hillbilly who fights his kid in front of his trailer with a fucking shovel. he did offer a semi-explanation of “i was drunk”. it was enough for me to not ask any more questions, i have enough trouble sleeping already, and i don’t need these people making more cameos in my work-related nightmares. and you thought your work was interesting because that bitch in accounts payable wore a tacky yellow dress… oh god, please trade me.

and as if that weren’t bad enough, i ran into someone today with elven writing on his arm. looked just like the writing on the ring from the Lord of the Rings movies. it reminded me of that scene in Clerks 2 with the LotR dorks. too funny, had me chuckling for a little while.

bet that guy gets tons of unshaven/unwashed play at the local ren faire. prolly lays claim to bedding an army of funkyfeet (for you Dick). “Sam straight up fucking bricks in Frodo’s mouth” – is still one of the funniest lines i’ve heard in a movie, ever. which reminded me of actually going to see that movie with Loopy. i remembered being nervous to the extreme, for reasons i will not be expounding on. Loops and I were pretty early in the relationship and were still getting to know each others deep, dark secrets. way before i learned about Voltron, and way before I finally got a look at her apartment (link to follow when it happens and i can write about it). i was even nervous that i was showing signs of nervousness. i’ll call it a basket case moment on my part. i try not to ever be too visibly neurotic or skittish, even when my brain has gone full-blown Woody Allen (without banging my daughter). how successful i am at such is entirely up to your observation.

but enough about that. because i haven’t left all the work stories behind yet. i was jamming along to my mp3 player, like i do every day (you can do this at work also if you’re near invaluable and really don’t give a shit). and a Tori Amos song came on, that i was unaware of adding. big mistake, and i had to feverishly clamor to change the track. i wrote about it in a guest entry once upon a time. not necessarily emotions i want to dance with while trying to deal with the masses of hee-haw rejects stinking up my workplace. afterwards, i got a little mad at myself for not screening my music as dilligently as i apparently need to. it also reminds me that i should take that same theme from the guest entry and write about more music that has touched my life in a way that i’ll never forget. perhaps i’ll let someone write an entry for me if they’re bored, and use that topic so i can segue into my own entry about it. BRILLIANT! and after a week, i finally have my nepalese houseboy back. work without him was a nightmare, as my workload was insane.

I’ve been bored lately. with work and WoW, and i pretty much don’t really know how i get through my days. when i’m at work, i long to be home, playing or doing anything but working. but when i’m at home, i don’t really do anything. i sit around staring blankly at the tv and puter screen. instead of endlessly tossing and turning my way through the night, i turn off the television and just roll over to sleep. it makes me wonder what the hell is going on with me. maybe i’m still working my way through funk residuals. i only say residuals because i’m not outwardly affected, as far as i can tell. i don’t feel bad, i don’t really feel good. i don’t feel like a robot or a psychopath. i don’t feel like i’m being swallowed or buried alive, but i do sometimes feel confused and frustrated for no discernable reason. does that make me strange? a freak? or just normal? these are rhetorical questions (figured i’d save myself there).

i promise, to all of you, that the next time someone comes into my store with a wacky injury, i’ll wait a couple entries before writing about it. unless it’s a story like when this radiologist told me about x-raying a woman who had decided to use an electric mixer where she probably didn’t need mixin’. you can’t let that one go for too long.