a deadly breakfast combo

'Nuff said.

no inner monologue

A condition worsened by my association with MNS (she's not a disease).

Here's how things went:

I'm sitting in the box office, finalizing a middle-aged woman's order
Woman: I love your tatoo. My daughter is trying to become a tatoo artist. She draws a lot.
IPJ: Really? I would love to be a tatoo artist. It's an interesting experience that would be fun to share with people but, unfortunately I can't draw at all. I'm also very interseted in piercings and body modification. Piercing (her tickets begin to print) would be my alternate choice to tatooing but most of the piercers I've talked to starting piercing things when they were kids, using sewing needles and things like that but I'm not quite that gung-ho on it.
Woman (slightly uncomfortable): Uh huh.
IPJ: I just think it's fun. Both things release endorphines in your body, which make it a pleasureable experience. Here are your tickets. Remember we don't offer refunds or exchanges.
Woman (still uncomfortable): Have a nice life!

When did I become the crazy person? Later on in the day I explained my artistic aesthetic to another patron, complete with recent examples, and how it differs from Rennie Harris' (who has an upcoming show at the theater). This was a long conversation and she wasn't even buying tickets. She just had some general questions. What's wrong with me?

Maybe I'm just lonely.

calming

This is the beginning of the aftermath of the bathroom fiasco:



And a slightly closer view:




Just to the right of the tub is a two foot open pipe sticking straight up out of the floor that lets air into the system and through which a large amount of sludgy brownish-black liquid came spurting out yesterday.

I was in my room reading (playing video games) when I heard an odd bubbling noise outside. It quickly stopped so I didn't think anything of it. A few moments later it started again and I decided that my roommate must be filling a jug of some sort in the bathroom sink, though I was pretty sure he had left an hour ago, I must just not have heard him come back. But this time the noise didn't stop. So I cautiously opened my bedroom door (my bedroom is next to the bathroom and my roommate has the annoying habit of sometimes leaving the bathroom door open when he does his business [if you know what I mean]) and immediately noticed the bathroom waste basket floating in a sea of black with much more on its way.

I was the only one home and had no idea what apartment the super was in so I tried calling my roommate but apparently the only number I have of his in my phone is the landline in our apartment and that didn't do me any good. By this time I was starting to freak out a bit because the sludge just kept coming so I jammed the stopper in the air pipe which did slow things down a little but also made the remaining sludge shoot out at a more pressurized velocity, thus hitting me. I was seriously starting to consider putting on some clothes (did I mention I was still in my underwear and it was around 2 o'clock?), leaving and just pretending that I wasn't home when this happened. Then came a furious knock on the door. I threw on some pants and a shirt and ran to the door and heard a man call "Super" from outside. Thank god.

The sludge finally stopped coming but to achieve that end the workers had to break through my other roommate's closet wall to put a snake into one of the water pipes. Luckily our bathroom is slightly sloped away from the door so none of the liquid went into the rest of the apartment and the rest on the floor of the bathroom was mopped up with our bathmat, which was already getting soggy so why not use it to finish the job.

So that black liquid? Water and rust and lots of it. Then other things happened, including being told the problem was fixed only to have the tub start to fill up on its own again not half an hour later. The upshot is I finally showered at 7PM and this morning our bathroom still smells like rust because a lot of water got behind the sink counter, which we can't move, so we'll probably just have to deal with it.

My roommate did most of the cleaning, which was a nice gesture (I totally volunteered to help) but I'll probably end up cleaning the bathroom again myself anyway because that's what his cleaning was: a gesture.

loss of face

I sometimes long to be a robot. Usually quite literally. But not today. Today I'd like to be a figurative robot. In a society with strict, clear social standards and customs. A society where an insult or slight is unambiguous and has definitive reparations required. Where your emotions and societal customs are so completely entwined you can't tell them apart. Where an accidental snub becomes a slap to your ancestor's face.

I feel like I'm aimlessly floating around in freedom. Uprooted. Can something be uprooted when it was never, well, rooted in the first place?

Lately I've been thinking about some of my past friendships that have ended. And they didn't end well. They usually weren't so much a "we don't have anything in common anymore" but a "you cause me pain" type of ending. At the time I placed most of the blame on the other person (though reserved a bit for myself). Now I'm questioning the past. It's time to fess up; I'm quick to end a relationship. I'm always prepared to call it quits. Snub me again and it's over. A friend once told me that no matter what I did he would always be there for me.
A standard response might be: "Thank you."
Mine? "What if I killed your mother?"

The point? (A little rambly, but I'm getting there.) If we existed in the society I described my indignation and subsequent termination of a friendship would be sanctioned by custom. But until that happens I'll just continue to be considered a jerk.



In other news my vocabulary is seriously lacking.

I'm mostly posting this so I can use it elsewhere. And because I think it's great.

karma?

Do you believe that if you could have done something for a person but you didn't and that person couldn't hold anything against you because they didn't even know that you could have done this thing for them in the first place that your own semi-selfishness will make the world a worse place? Do you believe other people are better than you? Or are they just as bad but won't admit it (not that I'm admitting it either)? Do you believe in karma?

I'm undecided.