Category Archives: Rants

The drama of the couch

When I moved into my current place, it came with a sofa. This thing is ancient, green, leather, and all out horrific. It’s like someone from the 70s designed something with a teenager from the early 80s. But it was comfortable originally. After many years of use, and abuse, the legs have come off – quite literally. Not to mention I’ve gotten tired of the color.

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I decided to treat myself, and I went couch shopping! After much deliberation I found a good couch at a decent price, I measured it, and it was smaller than standard doors. Perfect. It would get in my place. It would be fine.

I craigslisted my old couch (free). And went to pick up the new one. HURRAY! We get it home, and that’s when trouble strikes.

It won’t go in the front door. Or the back door.

Or any window.

My house has smaller than standard doors.

Soooo anyone need a sofa?!

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Right now, as the sofa will not fit in any of my house’s doors, it’s sat on my deck, under a tarp protected against the elements. I’ve put it on Craigslist. My only hope is to sell my new sofa, and to buy a new-new sofa. Right now, I’m using pillows for seats in my living room.

It’s been a learning experience. Mostly: never let me buy furniture.

A change will NOT do me good

You know that question they ask you in interviews… The one about how you do with change. I always talk about how I’m adaptable, how I easily learn new things, and how I can adapt to change quickly. I never say I’m good at change. That’d be a lie. I never lie in interviews.

 

Here’s the thing. I eventually adapt. Actually, it happens pretty quickly as long as the change happens. When change looms in the horizon forever I tend to freak out… Forever. But when the rug is pulled out from under me and I have to just get it done, I can.  I am strong, capable, independent. RAWR.

 

Why am I rambling about this now? On a Wednesday night in the middle of December? Because change, it has been a looming my friends. A couple of months ago I went to my primary care physician, a wonderful FNP whom I adore to get a referral to a dermatologist (did you see that post.. Did ya?). Well. She wrote my my prescription and told me her good news. She was leaving the area. Now, she wasn’t moving to a neighboring town. She was moving to the freaking beach. So, she couldn’t be my go to gal anymore. Freaking awesome.

 

You see, this wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that I really hate finding doctors. I see my doc regularly, I follow through and I tend to have a good relationship. I trust them, for what it’s worth. I grew up with a lot of health problems and I have this slight neuroses where if I don’t have a primary care doctor I feel like I’m going to die suddenly of a horrific disease that no one has ever heard of. BUT I have to have a doctor that listens, is somewhat accessible, isn’t a total douchebag, and most importantly is capable and intelligent.  Sooo, it’s not an easy process. The fact that my FNP was leaving me just as I had gotten her broken in really broke my heart.

 

So tomorrow? Tomorrow I go to meet a possible candidate for my new internist. He’s a young doctor, so he’s not going to die on me tomorrow (in theory). He’s from around here, so he won’t move away (unless he’s smart).

 

BUT I’M SO NERVOUS.

 

BECAUSE I’M NEUROTIC.

 

I’m going to go, pay for this appointment. Probably hate him… And I’ll have to find yet another doctor… I hate this process. I mean, I really really hate it a lot. WHYYYYYYYYY

Adventures in Dermatology

I’m getting older. That’s not to say I’m getting wiser, or that I’m getting more mature. Really, the only thing that’s changing is my body. Even all of that isn’t changing as expecting. The things that are changing on queue are little sags, little aches, little pains, weight gain, but for whatever reason I can’t get rid of my damn acne. I’ve had it since I was a teenager and it just won’t go away.

 

You see, other than the general over the counter products, I’ve never really done much about it. I mean, I was put on birth control for it… Sure. It didn’t really help much. I saw a dermatologist once in my late teens. I didn’t follow up. It’s never really been that bad, so the follow-ups just seemed like more work than it was worth. That is… Until now. Now, you see. I’m 30. I’m going to be 31 in a few months and I still break out like a teenager. It really seems a bit ridiculous.

 

So yesterday? Yesterday I went into the Dermatologist’s office and I waited my turn like a good girl. With their ads for Botox that say “It’s all about Freedom of Expression!” (seriously) and big poofy couches the office looks more like a sorority house than anywhere that medicine should be practiced. Their nurses have perfect hair, perfect make-up and perfect teeth, and I feel out of place. I am reminded of college again, and that ever so brief time I considered rushing.

 

I had to change into a hospital gown to be seen, because apparently my face extends to the rest of my body. When the doctor comes in to examine me,  she wrinkles her nose just a smidge as she looks me over and says “I see you have a family history of skin cancer… yeaaaah, we’re going to need to schedule about .. hmm… well… an hour and a half?” as she looks me up and down “to do a full body skin exam”. At this point I am feeling like a total fat ass, covered in a flimsy piece of barely there fabric.  Then she says “You have acne. We’re going to put you on Differin gel, and some antibiotics, as well as face wash and cream that cost so much that you could feed four large families in Africa for a year if you decided not to buy them. Oh, and I’m so glad you don’t use the cheap cosmetics. Because honestly. They’re so bad for you.” She then goes on to tell me that if the Differin doesn’t work, she’s going to put me on another type of gel that apparently burns a hole from my face to my uterus and requires frequent check ins with the FDA because it’s safe enough to approve, but not safe enough to use.

 

So let me get this straight… long term use of antibiotics? CHECK (ugh). Use of chemicals so dangerous the FDA doesn’t trust women to use them not check, but maybe soon. So old my joints hurt? CHECK!

 

Ugh. I hate 30.

The Bigot

A couple of weeks ago, I went out on a coffee date with a guy who seemed to be pretty swell (on paper). We’d been messaging/texting/talking on the phone for awhile now and we had decided to take the plunge into meeting in person. I was slightly worried about the whole prospect initially, because I’ve been taking a slight break from meeting people/going on dates. The run of horrible dates I had gave me an aversion to men in general, and I felt it was probably best to take a prolonged break from anything significantly romantic.

Well, I took a chance.

It should be said, that he was friendly, attractive, he could hold a semi intelligent conversation… We were going in the right direction. Which seemed like a good thing. Then the red flags started to fly…

  1. You’re not a Democrat… are you?? Let me just start by saying I don’t vote for one political party or the other. I think it’s important to get that on the table. But the way he said that made me feel like I was dirty for even thinking about ever voting Democrat.
  2. DADT was a good thing. I don’t think this needs further comment.
  3. The story of the guy who MUST be gay, because he was friendly to me. We wandered around downtown after getting some coffee, and as we walked around he told the story of when he first moved to this area. He said he went to a party and this guy started talking to him. He offered to hang out with him sometime – maybe a movie or something. When another one of his friends walked up and asked if he was gay because other guy was OBVIOUSLY gay. He got his panties in a wad and freaked out on nice guy. Now let’s think about this for a second. Are we sure nice guy is gay? Or was he just nice…

The list goes on and on, but I think my overall disgust for this guy comes from his real hatred towards “the gays”.  ”I mean, they’re OK if they’re not too flamboyant or anything. I guess”.

 

Funny story… Since that day, when I told him that anyone could be an asshole, and he just proved that to me, I haven’t heard from him. So, that’s a blessing.

 

 

Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile, I’ve been busy with “stuff”. I’ve had some family stuff a brewing, and it’s kept me introspective. I’m working on changing that, however, and hopefully you’ll see more posts soon.

The Joys of Car Ownership

On the 4th of July I bought a car. Which is a big deal if you consider the fact that less than a year ago I ran the real risk of being brain dead due to surgery and goodness knows what else. I am excited, and happy and all sorts of things that you really could not imagine.

No really. You couldn’t.

Well day one, my breaks started squealing and carrying on which was not a good thing. I called the salesman and he said no problem, bring it in on Friday and the shop will take care of it without issue.

I brought the car in and the shop said, oh no no no we cannot do anything about this today. We are so busy. Maybe another day. Maybe uhh Tuesday? So an appointment was made. After much cajoling I managed to get them to agree to a loaner car and off I went Monday night. Tuesday afternoon I called in and they hadn’t even touched my car a full 8 hours after my appointment time. Wednesday, when I called in they said “oh, we can’t get the sound to replicate. We need you to come in and drive it”.

You know what? Screw. You. You’ve had my car for over 1/4 of the time I’ve owned it and you’ve done nothing. I can’t begin to tell you the number of reasons I’m pissed off right now. FIX MY CAR.

So here I am. I’m sitting at the dealership waiting for someone to help me. I’ve been here for over an hour. This is what one may call bullshit.

 

Update:

My car is OK, and back in my possession. No longer do the brakes squeal. The guy who helped me with my car was very nice. That’s good… They don’t think I’m crazy, and I was charged nothing. Sooo, all is well that ends well, right?

Relax, Young Padawan…

I love online dating. I know I complain about it a lot, but to be honest, I’ve met a lot of great people. There are annoying people to be met anywhere, and it’s not like there are any more of them to be found on the inter webs than in person. That said, I seem to attract a certain type of crazy. Lately, that certain brand seems to be the needy type.

The other night I got a message from a guy who seemed like he wouldn’t be so bad, maybe a bit boring, but nothing horrible. I read his message, looked at his profile, but didn’t respond right that second. I’ll be honest, I was getting ready to meet up with the Musician. I didn’t have time to write up a good response and I didn’t want to say “hey what’s up?” and be THAT person. So, I left it for later. Apparently this was a bad idea. Within an hour I get another message from him…

Well I am sorry I disturbed you, I just thought you sounded interesting, and since I may be starting a job soon I felt comfortable contacting you.

Luke

I have to say, crap like this pisses me off for a number of reasons.

  1. There is no time limit in responding – except general politeness dictates that it should be within 24 hours or so (in my opinion).
  2. I, as the receiver of the message, owe you nothing as the sender. If I choose not to respond you have no right to give me a guilt trip.
  3. You’re not sorry you disturbed me! Because let’s say you disturbed me… If you disturbed me, you’re just DOING IT AGAIN. STOP IT.

Generally speaking, I do try to respond to every message I get. I try to say why I’m not interested, or I just respond with you know.. a response. When I send a message I do hate to be ignored. So I find it to be polite to even say “Thanks for the time you took to write. I don’t think we’d be a good fit.” It’s something, at least…

This guy, I sent this:

I’m just now getting around to responding to messages tonight. I was looking at profiles while cooking dinner, but I didn’t have a chance to give you a good response, so I didn’t at that time.

But, as I don’t owe you anything, I won’t give you anymore of an explanation. Next time a woman doesnt respond immediately don’t get defensive. It’s a turn off.

Good luck to you.

He then responds with:

Not so much defensive, i sent out a message to you and another woman, and got a nasty message back from the one, I thought you were just being polite and not responding, so I wanted to apologize, I do not have much experience at this.

I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I hope you have a nice night.

Luke

So, you thought I was being polite and you were pushing me into responding and feeling guilty? Dude. You’re a douche.

 

Should I be insulted??

I recently deleted my old dating profile and recreated it. I know this sounds weird, but my old profile had been around for a long time. My user name was linked to just about everything and the questions I had answered gave away too much information about sexual preferences and things that brought out the wrong types of men.

In short, I got way too many “hey! You wanna get together for a quicky tonight!” and I was tired of it. Oh, an they were finding me on other sites because of the username problem. So, deleted.

I recreated, and started from fresh. I have been getting a lot of interesting messages from interesting people since starting again, and I’ve actually gone out a few times. It hasn’t been bad so far. But, there have been a few weird things.

Last night, I got a message from a guy that said:

Hey there. How’s it going? At the risk of making myself look like a total goober I must say you’re exuberantly beautiful.

Wow. Exuberantly beautiful! What does that even mean?!

1. Thanks.
2. You sent this EXACT message to me about 6 months ago. How do I know? I brought I up on Facebook asking what exuberantly beautiful meant.

My question is this: is it that hard to send unique-ish messages to people you want to get to know?! Or is my exuberance in beauty the only quality he sees?? Or, which I find to be more likely, does he send this message to everyone?

Gross.

The Intro Letter of WTF?!

Dating Site Confessions…

I just got this intro letter from a guy… How do I respond to it??

Ready?

Are you sure??

Hi! :)

I really enjoyed your profile.

I’m xxxxx, I do stand-up comedy full time and I also produce music.

Anyways, maybe you could come to one of my shows when I’m in town :)

I should tell you this though…

My ex broke up with me for having what she called an overly large penis. I tell you this because it ruined that relationship and the one previous to it. BOTH times I was blamed for not telling them from the start about it’s size.

So, I’m not going to make that mistake again. I need you to know this now, up front, from the start about me.
I’m in no way trying to be rude or perverted. I just don’t want to invest time in someone who’s not going to like that aspect of me. That’s all :)

I hope that doesn’t scare you away.

I genuinely hope to hear back from you :)

Ps.
Your smile is amazing!

Well golly, mister LARGE penis… I don’t know how to respond to this one… Not at all.

How did I get here?

I did something stupid.

I signed up for an online dating site, again. I was going to give it a rest for a bit longer, but it’s been several months and it doesn’t hurt to *try*. Oh boy, day 2 back? I’ve already got a migraine.

I get this message from a guy who seems very nice. He’s not a *bad* guy from initial messages, I figure heck, he’d be worth meeting so I give him my number. He then proceeds to send me a picture of him shirtless… Guys, this is a little side note for you, if you barely know a girl do NOT send her 1/2 naked pictures, or full naked pictures of yourself. Stick to the face. That’s what we’re interested in…

I don’t respond because I just had nothing to say. He sends me another message and I tell him to not send me pictures like that, he apologizes and we talk some more. He then tells me he only wants a friend with benefits. The conversation went something like this:

Him: I’m actually looking for a FWB

Me: Yeah, that’s not me

Him: How do you know?

Me: Because I won’t do FWB

Him: With hectic schedules, could be a place to start. When time is limited it would be nice to enjoy the time you have with someone special. **Sidebar, sooo why does that mean screwing someone you don’t know?? That’s not someone special. That’s a prostitute**

Me: Yeah, I won’t do it.

Him: Really?

Me: I’m worth more than that kind of relationship. Bottom line, I won’t do it so if that’s what you’re looking for good luck :)

Him: You’re definitely worth more than that, my point is I work nearly 80 hrs a week and get my kids on my days off. So it’s not that I just want sex, its honestly about just knowing you only have an hour or two here and there to give.

Me: Well, that’s great, but like I said I won’t do it.

Him: So you’re not a passionate sexual person.. **Another sidebar, WTF, why does not wanting to have sex with him with no strings mean I’m not passionate?!**

Me: Why is it a bad thing that I don’t want to f*ck someone just for the hell of it? You want FWB, I don’t. So find someone who does!

Him: Me either, but you have got to admit something hot and steamy sounds good. Never said it was a bad thing not to want to “just f*ck”. I admire that

Would you like me to delete your number?

Me: Yes.

Him: Have you thought about me today?

 

UGH! Are you JOKING? Between him and the guy dressed like Red, the kid from Pokemon (oh, Wiki, I love you) I don’t know what the hell to do, besides run screaming into the nunnery.

Troubles…

There’s been a lot going on in the world lately. A whole lot of trouble.

 

First, my favorite donut shop is closing down. I can’t begin to tell you how distressed I am about this (in a way). I love to see local businesses thrive. I love to see people manage to make a run of something and make it work. Blue Collar Joe’s had it. Daniel Knight had managed to start a successful business, market a good product, get noticed by the Food Network and have a very loyal group of customers.  They supported him through a house fire, and he was so well loved. Then, he sold the building his business was located in, and began to lease the space so he could expand. He opened up an “upscale” version of the shop in downtown Roanoke (his staff’s words). His staff told me that Uptown Joe’s would be everything that Blue Collar was not. It would be classy and cultured… Basically slapping the original business in the face.  Every day they trucked donuts back and forth. They raised the prices for the new store, and they added wraps to the menu… Everything was high priced. I know my office tried to communicate with them to get something going at one point and management for UTJs never replied, despite several weeks and several emails on our side. We ended up going with Dunkin Donuts instead of the local option.

Daniel Knight professes that it was bad press. I would like to suggest that it was bad management. I love those donuts. I took a dozen donuts to Kentucky for my parents, my friend from New York was dragged in there on my birthday… No one was safe from the high calorie treat. But I will never forget the rude manager from the store there, and their over priced wraps. Once the donuts are gone, I know I won’t be back. There are better options for coffee and wraps downtown.

 

AS for the rest of the trouble? My governor is giving away women’s rights for a song (Governor McDonnell is shooting for Vice President, but I wonder if he realizes he’s alienating women in the process??)… and Pinterest wants you to defend THEM if they get in legal trouble…  The world is a weird place these days, and I really can’t stand it.

 

http://blogs.roanoke.com/fridgemagnet/2012/03/a-closer-look-at-the-blue-collar-joes-closure/

http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/Pinterest_and_legal_issues_Read_this_before_you_pi_11048.aspx