It's kind of shameful, really, that I'm taking a day off when, in about two weeks, I'm leaving the country/going to be out of office for two and a half weeks, but fuck it, it's almost my birthday, and having my mom be happy (for a few nanoseconds) because I'm willing to drive her around for errands in the sloppyish weather is worth any sort of side-eye I might get from my overlords.
I always make a deal with myself when I play hookey - if I'm going to be a slug and not go into the office, I have to do something of worth with my day. I took my mom out to the Sam's and the Jewels, so that was good. I need to get the big-ass suitcase out of the crawlspace. And, as ever, I should "write something".
"Something"! *clown horn*
I do know that I'd like the use of "peeps" to mean "people" to be stricken from the vernacular. I'm having that itchy teethy feeling now when I see it trotted out. It's as worn out for me as billions of bad Austin Powers imitators crowing, "Yeaaaah, baby!" or "Do I make you horny?"
I'm also finding that megafans of anything, be it "Buffy" or a sporting team or whatever, only tend to make me that much more unwilling to partake in whatever they are selling, let us say. I think it's a definite signifier of my oldness. My megafandom tendencies were spent (oh how they were spent) on "The X-Files", and that was back before the internet REALLY started to eat my brain. Hell, for a goodly portion of that show's run, I didn't even HAVE internet in my own home. I'd truck out to my parents' house on weekends and use their computer that was connected via fairly crap dial-up to use the AOL X-Files chatroom for six, seven hours at a crack on Friday or Saturday nights. I made some inroads to online frienddom, which scored me a videotape compilation of uncensored gag reels from the first three or four seasons...I believe all of which is now findable on YouTube...anyway. Tangent concluded. Whenever someone tells me repeatedly that I should be watching something and if I don't watch something I'm missing out on the greatest bingbong hoohah of my lifetime and seriously, have I watched it yet because you need to watch it how about now are you watching it now...my natural reaction is to dig in my heels and fucking refuse to watch whatever it is you're touting until the end of my life.
I'm saving my serious eye-rolling, however, as the Oscar nominations are being announced tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at stupid o'clock. Then the onslaught of "SO AND SO DIDN'T DESERVE THAT NOMINATION" "THAT MOVIE WAS SHIT AND ITS MAKERS ARE SPAWNED FROM SHIT AND SHIT SHITTERVILLE SHITTOWN" will begin, and the "film fans" will refuse to acknowledge that in the big scheme of things, Oscars and Golden Globes and allllll the awards from assorted groups are about as meaningful as me winning the departmental award for Speech/Drama in 1990 when I was a senior in high school. Sure, it's neat and entertaining to see actors/artists/whatevers that I enjoy get some public kudos for stuff they do (zomg trent rezzzzzzznor), but holy. Christ. almighty. You know the hand-wringing angry CAPSLOCK typers that I'm talking about. The fun-killers. The sniffies who sniff dismissively if someone they deign to be "undeserving" suddenly finds themselves as a nominee for something. I used to be a fun-killer, I know my own kind. Then, you know, I realized what a pompous, whiny wanker I was being. And I didn't want to be a pompous, whiny wanker anymore. I still remain pompous (ohhhhhh, I can put on my Pompous Chapeau in .0012 seconds, trust), but I do my best to reign that shit in because oh GOD how I hate myself when I'm done vomiting forth my wretched observations on completely trivial things.
The other thing of note that I feel compelled to briefly discuss is the ever-increasing obsession with living, essentially, forever. It's a non-stop barrage of messages about how if we take these pills/eat this diet/work out X hours per week/live in X town/blah blah blah, we can live to be 80, 90, 100! Let me tell you, as someone who lives with two people who are old...the Golden Years are not golden unless you can fucking afford to have your casual getaway home in a warm climate and don't have to worry about paying for prescriptions/bills/all that shit. A few nights ago I found myself having to help my almost-80 year old father get tucked into bed and I thought about those who would screech that he didn't live "right" and that's why he has physical impairments now. My father quit smoking 30 years ago and worked out regularly and went to the doctor religiously (and still does) - he did things "right" - and his legs still crapped out on him and his lungs still went into the shitter, resulting in him being almost 80 and miserable because he feels like shit a goodly portion of the time. And then you have my mother, who is constantly gripped with anxiety because of my father's health status, their financial status, and that at 73, she still has to work almost full-time. Physically, she's still able to get around well, but her brain is a roiling mess of having to figure out timing on paying of bills to coincide with Social Security checks and paying for Medicare supplements and when it's possible to repair that goddamned board in the kitchen floor that is mysteriously cracked and worsening.
If you aspire to live to be 80/90/100, good luck to you, but I hope you're saving your dough and miracles abound for you because from this particular front line, it's not pretty. And it's sure not shiny or fucking golden.
Oh, one other note - I must not have had a setting checked on this damn thing so I wasn't being notified when people were actually commenting. That should be corrected now and I shouldn't have things moldering in the mod queue any longer. Whoo-hoo...when I feel heavy metal.
