Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The problem with stalling

Everyone calls it procrastinating, which doesn't seem like the right term somehow. Maybe this is just me, but I have it in my head that procrastinating is a result of doing other things rather than something else that needs done, whereas stalling is doing things to avoid doing something that needs done.


A fine distinction, maybe, but one I mentally make nonetheless.

As you may have guessed, I am currently avidly engaged in the latter.

My bedroom is in worse shambles than it usually is, and rather than clear away enough random crap that I can sleep on my couch (there's not enough floor space for the bed [my bed unrolls from the couch. Yes, it's awesome.]), I'm writing this blog post, which probably won't even get posted until I get up tomorrow morning. Yay for time limitations on my internet, because that's mysteriously necessary -.-

Anyway! I was thinking about how this heinous, overwhelming mess is completely my fault, and how I don't know what to do with it, and while trying to think of some legitimate way to not be cleaning it up, I got to think about stalling and accountability and such.

Also, I think there might be something wrong with making parenthetical statements within a parenthetical statement, but that's neither here nor there.

But have you noticed how often we dig our own graves? This doesn't really qualify as grave, I suppose, but it's at least a very deep hole that is inconveniently difficult to get out of. Because once mess begins, it's hard to fix.

I believe that's the underlying principle to "Kipple." In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, they repeatedly talk about kipple taking over the world, which is essentially just random crap. It's a force akin to entropy, but more lethargic and pointless. At least as I remember it. It's been at least a year since I read that book.

But all this random crap that I'm trying to sort through and throw away has gotten me thinking about how much junk I hold on to for absolutely no reason. Maybe other people don't have this problem and I'm just a level 3 hoarder or something, but I can't help but think this is a concept that transcends me, and probably transcends stuff. I haven't actually thought about it enough to come to an actual conclusion, and now I don't even know where I was going with all of this, so I'm just going to end this here and post it despite its absolute uselessness. I don't want all that typing I've just done to purposeless, though, even though the content is little more than pointless ramblings on a half topic.

I think I'm going to call this to be continued, because there's ideas budding in here that I want to explore further.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Five Valid Reasons Not to be a Stripper

Maybe I'm the only one who keeps being told that being a stripper would be awesome. If so, feel free to skip this post and waste your time and entertain yourself in some other way.

In almost no particular order:

1) EXERCISE

Because no one ever wants to do that except crazy people. Apparently pole-dancing takes some serious muscle.  And, lets be honest, guys, no one wants to see someone's half-naked flab, especially when they're not at all invested emotionally. Most people don't even want to see clothed flab, barring some terrifying fetishes. Also, apparently being attractively toned and athletic is kind of important in a trade where you sell your body.

Did you know that they offer pole dancing classes at a lot of gyms now? They're largely populated by pathetic, suburban soccer-moms.

2) TAN

For some mysterious reason, those of us the color of a luminescent glass of milk are not the standard for beauty.

Whatever happened to the times when this was the height of health and attractiveness?

And that's the creation of Eve, so so obviously the real standard.

So unless you were aiming for some vampire-fetish or goth strip joint (Do they even have those? I don't think strip clubs follow the rule of internet porn subject matter--If you can conceive of it, it exists somewhere.), you'll have to either sit outside under the sun's fiery rays, get baked under artificial, carcinogenic lamps, or coat your skin in some horrifying shade of oily grossness.



3) OUTFITS

Of all the possible horrible outfits that professions can have, I think strippers got the short end of the stick, which shouldn't be possible given that their whole job is to take clothes off. But seriously, watch any movie, videogame, or tv show in existence and tell me you wouldn't feel like an idiot in that stuff.



Little do I know that they're intentionally awful so that people will gladly take them off when they're at work.

4) STAGE NAMES

Have you ever heard a stage name that you wouldn't wince at? I can understand not wanting to use your real name for several painfully obvious reasons, but why do half of them sound like sex-obsessed My Little Ponies? Is it so that there's no confusion? "Wait! That sounds like an actual name. Does that mean the clothes stay on??"

5)TIPS

Think about this for a minute: strippers get tipped by their adoring and horny audience stereotypically in singles. Not only is that not that much money for a very long time, it's going to add up. Think about the number of  dollars that they get on a regular night. Now imagine trying to wrestle all those ones into a wallet. Just think about that. Lots and lots of single bills.



Someone once told me that nearly every time she gets a dollar, she thinks to herself, "I wonder if this has been in a stripper's g-string."

This is the real reason for this whole post. I was carrying eighteen one dollar bills when I left work tonight, and getting them into my wallet was murder.

And that's really why you should finish high school and learn a real trade.

You know, aside from the part where you voluntarily make yourself a sex-object (and the rest of us by extension, men and women), and the creepers peering at your body.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Feelings

I had the idea for this post ages ago, like the middle of the month at least, and until I was just looking through my post list just now, I'd forgotten it existed.

I wanted to talk about emotions and responses (emotional responses, of course) that I find utterly moronic.

Let me start by informing you, dear audience, that I hate emotion-driven people. If you operate largely based on your feelings, I think you are varying levels of stupid. That being said, some of the emotions that I find particularly stupid and wasteful: Regret, guilt, self-martyrdom, and anything that conflicts with what you say you believe about life.

To quote the glorious Katherine again, "Regrets are a waste of time; they're the past crippling you in the present." What does one accomplish by feeling bad about the past? You can no longer change it, and it really has nothing to do with you anymore. Sometimes things happen, sometimes they're your fault. Own that and move on, you whining children. All those feelings do is prevent now from being better than then. And no one wants to be around someone caught up in regrets. Those people suck. Living in the past accomplishes nothing. Same thing goes for guilt. If you screwed up, fine. Do what you can to fix it, and move on. That's also, by the way, the only kind of permissible guilt. If you feel guilty about something that wasn't even your fault, I can't actually think of any response other than to hit you with something heavy, and hope the head-trauma makes your brain work better.

The other thing that really pisses me off is when anyone plays the martyr or the victim. Feelings of victimization are entirely on you. Yes, sometimes people do horrible things to you, but how you respond is on you. If you let that take any power you had away, fine. But don't go about thinking you can't do anything about how you feel. My real fury is directed to the self-appointed victims. So often I see people acting as though everyone has gone out of their way to make life hard :( Sad face. Poor you.

This is the point where you slap them soundly, and then proceed to roll your eyes every time they say something about how they feel.

Last night, I was babysitting, and I asked the youngest (five year old Jacob) to clean up the Go Fish cards that he and his sister had gotten all over the living room. He proceeded to make inarticulate whining noises and say that I made him to everything. He works so hard all of the time doing chores for everyone, and it's not fair, because he deserves a break sometimes.

That night, all he'd done in the way of chores was pick of some trash off the living room floor, take a cup to the kitchen, put his dinner dishes on the counter, and pick up food off the dining room floor.

Oh god. I'm such a monster!

This is what you ALL sound like.

Anyways. I think that's enough of a rant for now.