My life is very small. With each discovery of a useless Tumblr site, it gets a little bit bigger.
A card for all seasons
After my degree in Plan II prevents me from finding work in the real world, I plan to soon start a greeting card business catering completely to young women. The first batch of cards will be for congratulating young, silly women who have unprotected sex. The front will say,
“Congratulations on your nonconception!“
The inside will have a lovely script,
“Your idiocy implies that you should avoid procreating. Please do all of us a favor and use a condom next time. We fear the possibility of your spawn. Love, your friends.“
I can feel the success already.
Motive matters
It’s an unspoken tenet of the Code of Authors that we’re not supposed to publish things anonymously. Or, so I thought. Samuel Clemmens published under a pseudonym and managed to find at least a handful of people willing to read him. Woody Allen isn’t Allen Stewart Konigsberg’s real name. Still, submitting something for publication anonymously made my skin crawl ever-so-slightly. I should have been taking credit for my story, for my words. What happens, though, when a story needs to be told that no one wants to take credit for?
I’ve managed to accidentally learn what must be one of the most important about writing: motive matters. I’ve published embarrassingly poorly-written things and taken credit for them. This blog is unapologetically narcissistic and oftentimes downright boring, but I persevere in adding to it. Ironically, this week I found myself anonymously submitting the most important story I have ever told, and probably will ever tell. The most meaningful words I have ever written, bursting with honesty and dripping with reality, are unattributed. Clearly, they aren’t unattributed here, but in a worldwide sense the audience of this blog is basically negligible.
So, here goes: for better or worse, I wrote it. You’re the only ones who know, though. Guard it well.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/content/i-owe-my-life-ut-counseling-and-mental-health-center
The death of Valentine’s Day love
Maybe a good attitude is something you can manage with a Little Engine That Could approach. “I think I can survive Valentine’s Day without committing a homicide.” “I know I can survive Valentine’s Day without committing a homicide.”
3 hours and 10 minutes left. Let’s see if the Engine approach is effective. Otherwise, there will certainly be something fun to read in the Austin American-Statesman tomorrow. Bad life decisions always make for excellent literary fodder. Waiting with bated breath to reach my 21st year and amass enough poor choices for at least a novella.
Bad life decision: breaking up with unsuspecting not-really-boyfriend-but-totally-and-completely-if-you-really-think-about-it the week before Valentine’s Day. I read somewhere (probably on a Facebook thread, don’t be impressed) that a huge percentage of relationships end on or around Valentine’s Day. Apparently they couldn’t take the heat, or the smell of 1-800-FLOWERS arrivals. I’m convinced the statistic arose out of deference to my relationship history. This marks the second relationship to bite the dust under the looming shadow of February 14th. For my sake, can we just call the whole thing off?
Don’t do it for me. Do it for the puppies.
You make this dog sad.
When you tell a lie, your nose grows.
When you betray a friend, a puppy gets eaten by a dragon.
When you do something evil and sociopathic, an entire Eastern European country of puppies dies.
The world lost a lot of puppies this week.
This post won’t flow. I don’t flow lately. Everything is choppy and inconsistent, and one of my oars is appropriately lost at sea.
There’s nothing left to say when you don’t have the right to speak anymore. I’ve never lost my right to speak before.
I’ve been trying to teach myself to write about impersonal things. Somehow, though, I’m not sure if my political writings would be any more interesting than the disjointed personal stuff. I analyzed some Greek this week, but it’s just not inspiring me the way it used to.
It’s time for a change of scenery. If I can find a new job by the middle of next month, I can say goodbye to Kaplan forever. I think it’s time. It’s been fun, guys, but I just don’t think it’s working out.
I wish this post were funnier. Maybe next time. That’s always the solution. Maybe next time.
Pain and suffering
Here’s the obligatory “Pain and suffering” post.
This isn’t your normal “Pain and suffering” post, though. No relationship problems, no failed classes, no crippling self-esteem disorders. Just actual pain. I’ve had this rather persistent searing pain in my poor little mouth for at least the last six months. Given that my dental insurance is only good at the Saipan Seventh-day Adventist Dental Clinic (yes, that’s really what it’s called, and yes, that really is the only place), it’s been a long six months waiting not-so-patiently to return to the Motherland and have my mouth surgically separated from my body.
I was doing alright until about two weeks ago. Then, it was like the pain started doping. Little blood transfusion here and there to give it FANGS OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. At least, that’s how it feels. I almost wrote, “That’s how it felt,” and then remembered that I was blogging at 5:04am because it “feels”–present tense.
This pain can be analyzed in two distinct manners: a) what have I done to deserve it? and b) why won’t it go away?
a) Previous post about “intellectually inferior boyfriend” says a lot about my loud, sometimes unkind mouth. That probably has something to do with this eternal-damnation style pain.
b) It won’t go away because I don’t trust (read: can’t afford) dentists who didn’t receive their degrees from Northern Marianas College. I’m pretty sure you can’t get a degree in dentistry (that’s definitely not what it’s called) from NMC, but you understand the sentiment.
The persistence of this pain has given me a chance to come to terms with my relationship with ibuprofen. Here, I employ “relationship” in the traditional, romantic sense: my longest successful romance has been with a bottle of painkillers. It started when I was nine…and the mind-bending headaches set in. Since then, I’ve come to the conclusion that these headaches were the work of the devil, attempting to rob the world of my future blog posts. As the headaches continued to fry my tiny brain, my doting parents scrambled for a diagnosis before they converted me into a tiny Headless Horseman to put me out of my misery. After a year, brain tumor was crossed off the list and “just deal with it…and here’s some super-strength Ibuprofen” was officially the diagnosis. Prognosis? Poor.
Such was the beginning of a decade-long NON-ADDICTION to ibuprofen. I don’t have a problem. Okay, I might have an addiction, but it’s certainly not a problem. It’s certainly not a problem right now, at least, because my tiny brain is in a big enough of a haze that the pain has subsided and it is safe to return to the confines of my comfy bed.
If you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling…
A student brought something interesting to my attention tonight: is there ever a good time to break up with someone? She was struggling to decide whether to follow through immediately after telling her boyfriend that she “wasn’t sure about them.” She was fairly sure that making any effort to avoid a complete breakup immediately would be dishonest, regardless of any extenuating circumstances. The timing was bad: she has a life-defining standardized test on Saturday, and he has one the next Saturday. Nevertheless, she was convinced that she had to end things immediately, even if it meant he would be homeless and depressed on the eve of his exam. I disagreed, rather vehemently, and this is why:
This is a no-holds-barred blog, so I’ll be honest: I was dumped this year, rather dramatically. Serious boyfriend decided that it was time for us to be over. Now, I respect a man who knows what he wants. I respect a man even more who is able to stand up to his intellectually superior girlfriend and tell her that he’s just not sure about things. I have a lot of respect for him in general, but this, my friends, is a token example of very bad timing.
Now, said intellectually inferior boyfriend decided that it was time to evaluate our relationship while I was on vacation, a few days before my 20th birthday, and on the same day that I was diagnosed with a scary kind of skin cancer, which required surgery on a very visible part of my pretty face very soon. Facing (pun intended) this terrifying medical problem, the last thing on my mind was my relationship, which had been slowly dying, like unto an old cat, since its inception. Also, intellectually inferior boyfriend decided that it was appropriate to have this DTR (Destroying the Relationship) via phone, which only gave me the opportunity to scream frustrations, rather than pound them out upon him physically. Needless to say, despite boyfriend’s intellectual inferiority and the negative light in which his choice of breakup style shone upon his character, I was devastated.
His repeated question to me, the same question that my student asked tonight, was, “Would you rather I have lied to you until the right time to break up came around?” My answer: “YES.”
Why? The ability to deal with one’s emotions and organize them in a way that avoids hurting people is a sign of maturity. Blurting things out as they come to your mind, particularly life-altering decisions (i.e. breakups), is a mechanism of destruction. You’re supposed to learn things from relationships. I learn things from breakups. This breakup definitely showed me that propriety of relationship destruction is key. It really doesn’t matter much if you don’t love them anymore. They’ve probably given you a good few months (or years) of their valuable life, and the least you can do is wait until after their big test or potentially deforming plastic surgery. Unless it’s a boob job. In which case, destroy to your heart’s content. She’ll be happier without you.
Moral of the story? There is a convenient time to end a relationship. Four requirements of an appropriate breakup:
1) It’s in person. Even if you’ve been dating for two weeks, you really want to do everything you can to avoid being compared to Joe Jonas, because everyone loves Taylor Swift. You won’t win any friends by being like the guy who dumped Taylor Swift over text.
2) It’s not within two weeks of any life-altering examinations/dissertation due dates/finals weeks. Even if their snoring is keeping you awake, and the sex has gotten really bad, you can wait at least two weeks. I promise. (Note: intellectually inferior boyfriend dumped me the first time during finals week. Finals didn’t go so well that year.)
3) You don’t say, “It’s not you, it’s me.” It’s them. Just say it.
4) You don’t try to weasel out of it. If you want to break up, break up. Don’t make them say, “It’s over.” Be a big kid. You can do it.
Death by smoothie
At some point, we decided that it would be a good idea to live next to a McDonald’s. This notion has proven to be, to say the very least, ill-advised. Not a night (or day) goes by when I am not assaulted with an offer for a McDonald’s smoothie. From my extensive observations, I have discerned that the drive-thru routine goes something like this:
Annoyed McDonald’s worker: “Welcome to McDonald’s. *pained groan* WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRY A SMOOTHIE TODAY?”
Equally annoyed McDonald’s customer: “No. I just want a Happy Meal.”
Now considerably irritated McDonald’s worker trying to meet his quota of smoothie sales: “ARE YOU SURE YOU DON’T WANT A SMOOTHIE, MA’AM?”
Customer: “Yeah. It’s 40 degrees outside. I just want my Happy Meal.”
Worker: “Go away.”
This is, I suppose, an improvement from the deafening construction chaos that surrounded our particular McDonald’s branch from August-October. Apparently, the Powers That Be had decided that the appearance of this McDonald’s was unpleasing to customers and was, in fact, so offensive that it was discouraging smoothie sales. It was at this point that I discovered that somewhere in the world, there is a CEO who equates jackhammer usage to increased smoothie sales. Thus, Jackhammer Lullabies sang me to sleep (or not) every night.
I think I preferred the jackhammer. At least with the construction, I didn’t find myself talking to the drive-thru attendant in my sleep.
Attendant: “Welcome to McDonald’s. WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRY A SMOOTHIE TODAY?”
Me: “Please. No.”
Attendant: “So, that’s two WILD BERRY SMOOTHIES. right ma’am?”
Me: “Please. I’ll do anything you want. No smoothies.”
Attendant. “FANTASTIC. NEXT WINDOW PLEASE.”
Then, Caroline lost her mind.
Rabies
I realized tonight that I have, indeed, descended into the Deep Pit of Despair that is a Job of Uselessness.
I wasn’t always useless. There was a time when I went to work and made copies. Occasionally, I marketed an overpriced product and was always unsuccessful. Every once in a while, I graded someone’s test and gave them a really low score, which would make them cry.
I really miss making people cry.
These days, all I do is stare at the empty toy drive box and bemoan how no one in the standardized testing world cares about children. They really don’t. What gives?
The only excitement these days comes from the occasional angry, mentally unstable homeless person who graces my doorstep. Last week, one of these gifted individuals made victims of the sweet coeds selling mustache-shaped cupcakes outside of my office. Apparently, he belonged to a religion which associated mustache-shaped cupcakes with eternal damnation, hellfire, brimstone, and several other things usually regarded as unpleasing to Jesus. He resorted to verbally assaulting the sweet coeds, at which point I donned my Fearless Protector of Sweet Coeds cap and stepped outside. Peering in the general direction of the expletives, too afraid to meet his eyes, I commanded that the angry man move along. He cocked his head and looked at me as a bear looks at a wounded rabbit. Thankfully, his bear instincts told him that if he were to bite me, I would probably give him rabies. Good Samaritan Rabies, that is. Far more deadly than its wider-known sister encephalitic disease. Fearful of nervous system failure, brain infection and eventual death, the nice man decided that it was best for him to move along, after all.
An hour later, one of the sweet coeds gave me a mustache-shaped cupcake. Life was complete.
The Time I Tried to Walk Across Lake Travis
I blame the suddenly frigid weather for one of the worst Saturdays of all time. This scatterbrained day makes for this scatterbrained post.
My dearly beloved, adorable Brazilian has been in the hospital twice this week. Today was an unfortunate run-in with a window that left her with a gash in her wrist and 9 stitches in her arm. After taking said Brazilian out to lunch, I watched television for 6 hours (yes, 6 hours) as she slept and her body regained some of its dignity after being mistreated so abjectly by the world this week.
In other news, my newfound adoration for the Capital Metro bus system has worn out its welcome. I got lost for the first time yesterday. After accidentally embarking on the westward-bound route when I actually needed the eastward-bound one, I spent the following three hours a nervous ball of energy on the bus, waiting for it to finish the wrong route. People were inquiring as to why the poor little white girl looked so upset. “I’m not depressed,” I assured them with a faint smile, “just hopelessly lost.” Poor little white girl indeed. I am still residing firmly in the Pity Room and may not vacate said room for several days. I hear the CapMetro train system is starting up on Monday. Perhaps this will help my cause (that is, traveling by public transportation to get to adoring, if vehicularly-impaired, boyfriend).
Daddy says he may be able to ship me my car. My 1996 Tercel is the most dependable hunk of steel I have ever encountered. One time, I drove it off a cliff and it survived. That’s an exaggeration, but something vaguely comparable to that did happen once, so I feel justified. Apparently shipping this stalwart vehicle to the U.S. costs about the same as buying a car here, so I’d rather have my old car than some new contraption. While we were having the conversation about shipping the car, Daddy launched the following exchange:
Dad: I could just put water wings on it and drive it to you.
Caroline: Or I could call Jesus and He could walk it over.
Dad: That reminds me of the time I tried to walk across Lake Travis.
Caroline: Were you on drugs?
Dad: I’m not going to answer that.
Daddy was a hippie in Austin during the 60′s. It explains why I affectionately refer to him now as “Sieve-Brain”. He claims that “if they ran on of those ‘neurograms’ or whatever they call them, I’m sure they’d find a few missing pieces.” Nevertheless, he’s still a successful lawyer. He would just say that this fact reinforces his opinion that all lawyers are useless.
