Dork

So here's my big question of the week. Is it that hard to not be a dork?

Something set me off on this philosophical musing but I can't remember what. I have some serious concerns, however.

Here are some ways that people surprise me with behavior I can only label dorky. Also, dorky is a really ridiculous word if you use it more than twice in a blog. It suddenly looks absurd. Is it even English?

A) I can't remember what happened, but don't hold an eternal grudge against me. Like, say I said or did or DIDN'T do something that bothered you. I no longer remember, plus, remember, for a while there I was pregnant and if you've never been around a pregnant woman OR equally, if you've never BEEN a pregnant woman, well then you wouldn't know, would you. I will tell you. Everything is a bit more insane when you're pregnant. You can't rely on the normal course of things, like the sun rising, the sun setting, etc., because pregnancy throws all that to crap.

So say we had an appointment and I forgot, WAY back when I was pregnant. Might have been because I was pregnant. And you might not have known, because, if it was in the beginning, well, how could you have known? I wasn't tell everyone. Or, say I, in an attempt to be polite, returned a book to you before I finished reading it because I didn't want to forget. Well, might have been because I was pregnant and I was trying to sell my house and you had no way of knowing that because I was keeping that shit a secret. So, really, let's bury the hatchet. I didn't know it would destroy the mutually decent feeling between us and I couldn't really explain at the moment.

Yes, so there is that. Pregnancy. Wow. Really rough. Not that I think a person should just be able to use that excuse carte blanche, because that's annoying. But I'm using it here. Because. It's true.

B) There was something else. Some things. Hard to remember. Not enough sleep. Baby keeping me up all night. Memory shot to hell.

Oh yes. Please. For the love. THE LOVE. Don't let your dog crap in my yard. That's right. Yes, for sure we share the same teensy plot of land in front of our houses, but maybe you can either pick up the poop like responsible people do (with the inside-out bag) or you can monitor your dog and restrain him from pooping on my side of the lawn. See, I have a kid, and when summer comes, I'd love to let him play in the grass, but with your dog crapping all over it, I don't see that happening.

So. Please. Don't a crappy crap neighbor. Don't be a total dork and make me loath you.

I should probably go talk to this neighbor. I just hate confrontation. Is there a passive-aggressive way to deal with this? I mean, besides writing about it here?

C) Don't be a dork and ignore me like this is high school. I know. I was just talking about being passive-aggressive, so how I can make this type of request? I'm not sure how it works, but I'm doing it.

So yeah, maybe I always liked you way more than you liked me. How am I to know? Let's just not play games and accept stupid FB friend-requests and then proceed to ignore any other communication. For the love. That's just stupid. Unfriend me, because I don't care THAT much about it, and so I'm not under the illusion that the lines of communication are open and we are friends, or, um, I don't know, write back?

I mean. Really. Facebook. I get it, I understand that it's easy to forget to do something (see A, for example). I'm just saying, why even HAVE Facebook if you're never going to use it (and that leads to me getting paranoid because you haven't acknowledged me and I want to write a little rant like this).

Wait. I actually know the answer to that because I'm constantly threatening to delete my account and then never do—I don't use it enough and I'm always putting my foot in my mouth and offending someone. But still, I don't delete it. Because I might miss out on something awesome. Like, I don't know, suddenly Facebook gives everyone a free Mac or Ipad or something. Or the great Millennium is first announced on Facebook. That could totally happen.

And that is why I want to delete my Facebook account (but haven't). 



Hmm. That's it. For today. I guess. Wow. I usually have so many more complaints. Welp. Now I feel mysteriously satisfied and empty. Like, I could just go through the rest of the day totally mellow, despite that had to wake up every two or three hours last night and am therefore very tired and head-achey.


Huh. Who would have thought. I only had three complaints today. 


Amazing. Huh. Well then. I guess I'll just go over here, in this corner. And sit. For a while. Huh.....

*Silence*  

Bzzzzzz

We had a tornado. Then a flood. Then our basement filled with water. Then we lost our air conditioner. And power. Then there was a trampoline on my truck. Then I rescued a baby starling from the flood and the rain. Then my sister had a baby. Then they said don't use the water. Then they said, "We're going to cut the water supply." Then they said, "We're not. Just use fifty percent less." Then the water receded and the electric company came in the middle of the night and reconnected our power two days later. Then someone said, "There's going to be a gas shortage, get your gas." Then someone else said, "Don't drink the water. Three people have died from drinking it." Then someone else said, "That's a lie, I contacted the water company." Then I went back to work and the toilets keep flushing for no reason. Then I said, "Hey, does someone want to STOP these toilets from flushing for no reason? We're supposed to conserve water!" And no one listened. Then some people were WASHING their cars at the car wash and they said, "Hey, I paid for it. The truck needs to be clean. Gotta be seen in a clean truck." Then I couldn't concentrate. Then I drank too much caffeine and began to emit a high frequency buzz as my nerves vibrated.

That brings us today. I'm still buzzing. Those events didn't happen in that order. They're sort of out of order, but I like the order in which I wrote them.

Looking again, the order is pretty accurate.

It's been pretty crazy. Someone said to me that they didn't want to rub it in that they haven't suffered, that their house is nice and dry, that they had electricity the whole time, that Nothing Really Happened to them. But I'm glad. See, then they can help out. We can all help out. But if we were all without homes after the flood and the wind, then we'd all just lie there in the mud like mud beetles, helpless, and drowning or burrowing. There is such a thing as a mud beetle, isn't there?

Anyway, a bunch of ants were coming into my house Monday night, and I felt kind of bad for them. Did the water get them too? But the ants come out every spring, sending out their little soldiers looking for food sources. So I killed them. Sorry ants. But if I don't kill them and they find a crumb or something that I somehow missed under the couch, then they keep coming in. The way they know to not go back to That Spot is if the soldiers don't return. Ask E. O. Wilson.

To balance out my ant genocide, I saved a baby bird. The bird will live and grow up and eat the ants. It's the circle of life. The girl at Walden's Puddle told me the featherless hatchling was a starling. I thought it was a robin, but either way, I don't discriminate against which birds I'll help.

Initially I put the bird in the dove nest in my barn. It snuggled up to the dove babies and I had such high hopes that it would be one of those amazing stories about some inter-species triumph a la ugly duckling and all that. I think it worked for one day. The next day the baby was on the ground and the mother pigeon gave me a really dirty look, as though to say, "Ha. You really think I'm that naive? I don't take care of interlopers, my dear. I've got my hands full with these two. Next time I'll peck its eyes out!"

I returned the dove's stare as though to say, "Listen, where do you think that bird seed comes from that you munch on every day? Bird seed doesn't grow on trees*?" Still, her steady, unblinking stare made me a feel a twinge of guilt.

But try as I might, I can't be as heartless and unfeeling as Mother Nature. I tried to leave the bird alone, hoping it would just die and go on to loftier things in heaven, but it was too rough on my heart and mind. Like killing a part of myself.

So I fooled my neighbor into taking care of it. Ok, that sounds terrible. I didn't really FOOL her. She's not a dummy. But she's got a terrier rescue already, so I kind of knew she had a big heart for animals.

Plus she had electricity. And time. And I had neither. So we worked it out and she fed the bird Monday night, then I took it to Walden's Puddle the next morning.



*I realize that many seeds DO come from trees. But bird seed doesn't just drop into a nice pile of food for a bunch of doves hanging out next to the bird bath. I admit I've trained the doves to think it does. And I know they'd survive without the seed I put out for them. I help them through the winter, that's all.

Future Headline: Frozen Dinner Kills Woman

I’m suffering here. Normally I’d come home from work and run or ride my new bike. Today I’m trying not to vomit. I loathe the word vomit, but my other options are throw up, retch, or puke. None of them are pretty words. Ugly words for ugly deeds, I guess. Not that throwing up is really a deed. It’s an involuntary action, except in the case of bulimia. And in that case it’s a dirty deed. Done D-I-R-T cheap. But at a cost to your health, so really, why do it? Is it worth it in the long run?

When your stomach feels like mine, induced gagging sounds like a good idea. SOUNDS. But is it? No*. I tried that once, when I was feeling sick, and it hurts. So, I’ll just wait this one out. Though I don’t know how much longer I can stand it.

My neighbors—whoever they are—are cooking something terribly smelly. Stinky. Vomity. I can’t even begin to describe it. To quote myself: ungodly. That’s what I told Stoker in a text message and I like the way it sounds. “I feel like throwing up. Especially every time I breathe and smell the neighbors f*#!*!g food smells. I can’t even describe it. It’s something totally ungodly. Like pig fat salad.” I don’t know what pig fat salad is, but it sounds horrid and makes the bile rise. It sounds like something that would make me vomit if presented with a plateful. I think I stumbled onto the pig imagery because the offending odor has a hint of a meat-smell to it. Boiled meat. Or something. Boiled AND THEN fried. This is my imagination running wild because honestly I can’t see how vegetables could smell this bad. Unless it’s cabbage. Now there’s a thought. Maybe they’re boiling cabbage. Making sauerkraut perhaps.

Think of an apartment complex with indoor entrances to each apartment. The kind with one entrance to the building, and then a hall or stairway, and then doors. You know the kind? Incidentally, that’s not the kind of apartment I live in, but bear with me. Now think of the typical smell in the hallway of a complex like that. It’s usually a bunch of awful cooking smells, mingling and hovering there for days. A stench, if you will. That's the kind of smell seeping into my apartment through the heating ducts. Now you know. Would you want to vomit too if you were already feeling sick?

My stomach-ache is a result of two things. First, against my good judgment, I heated and ate the frozen dinner I’d left in the fridge at work. It had been in there since last week sometime and I mean, it still looked alright. Ha ha. Famous last words. The kind of words you see in a public health brochure: “Just because food looks alright, doesn’t mean it’s safe to eat it. Millions of tiny microbes and bacteria live on that food. Beyond the vision of the naked eye, these microscopic creatures can do a world of damage to the delicate human body.**” If only that had been posted on the fridge at work to remind me of the dangers of rotten food. Instead we have this ancient, typed (on a typewriter, no less) sign saying something forgettable, like “Don’t leave your food in here for very long. We’ll throw it away.”

So the dinner hadn’t been frozen for several days, but it was still cold, and I’m lazy and didn’t want to find something else to eat. I ate it and it’s poisoned me. If I don’t make it out of this alive, promise me you’ll come to my funeral.

The second reason I feel sick is the cooking smell coming from my neighbor’s apartment. I hope it’s a cooking smell and not really the decaying smell of a decomposing body. What if my neighbor died and no one has noticed?

*I don’t know where this rhetorical style is coming from. Question, then answer. I think I’m delirious from the stomach ache. Oh great, now my stomach is trying to trick me into eating. It’s sending me mixed signals. Now it’s hungry. Now it’s upset and wants to throw up. I think it’s trying to trick me into eating so there’s more to upchuck. Oh, new word. Anyway, maybe some cake and ice cream. Something sweet.

**I made this up. No citation necessary.