...to talk of many things.
I. All My Exes Don't Live In Texas, But They Bloody Well Should.
Especially the psychotic ones. Yes, I'm aware that sometimes schizophrenics improve over time, but the chances aren't good. [There's a thing called the rule of thirds; it's based on observation of schizophrenics and states that 1/3 of them improve, 1/3 stay the same and 1/3 get worse.] And it's also possible that he's on a medication now that controls his hallucinations and delusions without a lot of nasty side effects. I doubt they'd have let him out of the hospital if he weren't on something that worked fairly well. However, there is no medication for being an attention-greedy, fake-intellectual, Jello-brained pothead, which is what he is in addition to being insane. [I wonder if it's ever occurred to him that his meds would work better if he didn't smoke dope and drink booze. Moderate pot use isn't excessively harmful to most people's nervous systems, but it's very hard on schizophrenics and makes their symptoms worse. But I digress.] For this reason, I really don't ever want to talk to him again, even if his symptoms have improved, because once I saw through his fake intellectual, fake culture schtick, I found out I really didn't like him as a person. He has a mind like warm cream cheese and a personality like a bowl of plain rice covered with a bad photocopy of a picture of caviar and beef Wellington.
So that's why I might start doing my shopping elsewhere, or at least stick to doing it early in the morning when nobody's around. See, the town where I usually go to do my shopping is where his folks live. Last I'd heard, he was in the hospital, presumably for good. Well, they must have let him out for some reason, because I've seen him twice. The second time was Saturday, when my ma and I were in a dollar store poking around.
There's something about your first fuck that sticks with you. I'd recognise him anywhere. I know how he stands, how he carries himself, how he's built, everything. I know how he holds a cigarette in his mouth. This was him. He didn't see me, I don't think. I've always been afraid that he'd recognise me too, even though I've lost a few dozen pounds, sprouted increased boobage from the Depo, gotten more muscles and better posture, and have much longer, different-coloured hair. It was a somewhat slim chance, but I didn't want to take it; if he was that unmistakable to me, I might be at least somewhat familiar to him. In any case, I didn't want to be milling around the Halloween decorations and the discount shampoos waiting to bump into him, so I let my mom know that there was somebody there I knew that I didn't want to talk to and that I would be in the mall. Then I beat cheeks out of there and didn't come back to look for her until I'd been to the other end of the mall and back. We caught up with each other, shopped a little more and then left.
No, I don't think I need to do a lot of shopping there anymore, except maybe groceries and herbs.
II. Goddamn, I Hate Acid Reflux.
It's my fault, too. I should know better than to drink that much soda.
III. I Also Hate Motorcycles And Large Pickup Trucks.
I've already explained why in an earlier post, but in case you're too lazy to search for it [I know I am], the short version is that they make too much noise with too little justification. And no, proving your virility to stupid people is not sufficient justification. The trucks also suck because they're so fucking huge that you have to be on a giraffe to see over them. And 99% of the dicksnackers who own them never haul anything bigger than groceries in them anyway.
IV. Sometimes Shit Is Just Weird.
Occasionally something happens that's just a tad too big of a coincidence for me to comfortably label it a coincidence. When it involves something like a Tarot deck, it adds kind of a spooky element that makes me wonder even more.
A year or three ago [I don't remember exactly when], I bought a copy of the Mythic Tarot, which is a lovely deck that comes with a book and a reading cloth. It's a nicer setup than what you typically get with the decks from US Games; the accompanying book is paperbound with an actual spine instead of just folded and stapled, and it's thick and full of information. The art on the cards isn't Rembrandt or anything, but it's not bad, and it does a good job of evoking the cards' meanings. Since this deck had the fewest naked people in it, I chose this to take with me last Samhain as part of my fortuneteller Halloween costume. I remember taking it with me to my mom's house and using it a bit [though not for the trick-or-treaters] and then wrapping it back up again. I'm fairly sure I brought it home, and I think I saw it once in my apartment soon after Samhain. After that it vanished, and I've been looking for it ever since. I've torn up the apartment repeatedly for the better part of a year looking for that dang deck.
Friday I went shopping, and I stopped at the occult/new age shop where I'd gotten my pentagram and my Goddess Tarot. Last time I'd been there, she'd been out of Rider-Waite decks, and I wanted one; she said they were on order and would be there in a couple weeks. So I stopped back on Friday and picked up a pocket-size Rider-Waite deck [the cards are the size of playing cards] and some cursebreaker oil; and I mentioned to the lady, who if I'm not mistaken is psychic, that I was missing my Mythic deck. She said to me, "It wants you to look for it." I said that she was probably right, and bought my stuff and left.
On the drive home, I wondered if she was shitting me or if there was something to it. As goofy as it sounded, it actually made sense. Knowing how my decks behave [they're perverse like me], it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the damn thing was doing exactly what she said. If it wanted me to look for it, though, it must be because the search itself was important for some reason. It occurred to me that I might not actually find the deck. After all, she didn't say "It wants you to find it." If I didn't find it, or even if I did, there had to be some other purpose behind the search.
And indeed there was. I didn't find the deck, the cloth or the book, but I found my gold nightgown that was missing [under the bed in a Sterilite tub], old artwork I'd done, art supplies, and a whole bunch of other stuff I'd forgotten I had.
Saturday, after my mom and I got back from shopping again, we passed a yard sale. We had originally planned to go to one of the fall citywide yard sales but decided not to because we really didn't have any room for more crap. We'd agreed, though, that if we just happened to pass a yard sale, we'd stop and poke around. So I decided to drive back into town using a route I occasionally take, and as I turned in, we spotted the sale and stopped.
So what did I find? A brand fucking new Mythic Tarot, never out of the box. The cards were still shrinkwrapped, the book still crisp, the cloth still folded. It was the damnedest thing I've seen in ages. This is not a town in which people hold with things like Tarot cards. It's just not done. Why this lady had one, I have no idea; Mom speculated that she goes to other people's yard sales and buys stuff to resell at an increased but still reasonable price. I saw some stuff, such as board games, that looked like Christmas presents that had never been opened. But why she would buy a Tarot deck to resell in a tiny Christian town is a mystery. More mysterious would be why she would buy one for herself, or receive one as a gift, and never so much as unwrap the cards to look at them.
I'm glad to have the new one, but what worries me is that somehow finding the new one gives me the distinct feeling that I'll never see the old one again. If I do find it, I'll give the new one away. I know a couple people that could probably use one.
V. The Shit List Redux.
Since I'm in a better mood, and since I'm aware that many people are very busy this weekend, I have moved the folks who are not answering my e-mails from the shit list to the crap list. If I don't hear from you in a couple days, you will be back on the shit list. If I do hear from you, you will be upgraded to the skid mark list, and, if I like your reply, from there to the clean undies list.
Christ, I had no idea keeping a shit list could get so complicated. This shit is giving me a headache.
VI. Of Shoes And Ships And Sealing Wax.
Ha. You thought I wouldn't remember the rest of that verse, didja? Just to be perverse, I'm gonna talk about that crap now.
Shoes are nice, but sandals are better when it's not cold out. Also, cats seem to have a thing for sandals. They treat them like catnip. I took mine off at my folks' house yesterday and the cat was sniffing them and rolling around in ecstasy like Madonna doing "Like A Virgin" at the VMA's. I don't know what it is about foot funk that drives cats nuts, but it doesn't do the same for me. I'm not sure if I should be grateful or disappointed.
Ships are pretty cool as long as nobody makes an over-hyped three-hour leviathan of a movie about them sinking. Then they suck. Also, ships carry pirates, so they can't be all bad.
I haven't had much occasion to use sealing wax, since licking my envelopes generally works just fine. In any case, I wouldn't trust the postal service to preserve the seal, the way they abuse the mail. Maybe I'd use it if I were going to hand-deliver something. I don't have a seal, so I'd have to use something else to mush down the wax. I suppose I could just use my thumb or the bottom of my coffee cup.
VII. Of Cabbages And Kings.
Cabbage is pretty versatile; you can make coleslaw out of it, or soup, or, uh...um. Okay, you can make coleslaw and soup. And sauerkraut. Hm. Let's move on.
Kings are a damn pain in the ass most of the time. You can't move them anywhere unless you have an empty space, and they're plain useless unless you have some queens to put on them. The only time I like kings is when I'm playing a game where you can put kings on aces. They're also useful in cribbage sometimes, especially if you have a five or a queen and a jack.
VIII. And Why The Sea Is Boiling Hot, And Whether Pigs Have Wings.
Yeah, but the sea isn't boiling hot. Yet. Give us another decade or two, and yank the teeth out of the remaining EPA regulations, and we'll have 'er there.
And pigs typically don't have wings. [Buffalo do, though.] If you're seeing winged pigs and it's not a screensaver, put the pipe down and go sleep it off.
I'm going to go to bed now.
same bitch time, same bitch channel...
Posted by Frida Peeple at October 2, 2005 07:18 PM