If you’ve been a regular reader here, you know that I am a big fan of Thomas Dolby, who is most famous for his 80s hit “She Blinded Me With Science”. On April 6th, I have the opportunity to see a concert of his in Minneapolis, MN.

I will be taking a greyhound bus there, and a bus back early the next morning. The bus heading back to Iowa doesn’t leave until 5:30 in the morning on the 7th.

This will be a lot of firsts for me. It’ll be the first time I’ve done something like this on my own. The first time I’ve ever ridden a greyhound bus. The first time I’ll have to get around in a strange city on my own, that kind of thing.

I’m a little scared, but I’m really excited.

My mother does not share my enthusiasm. She keeps questioning me having to walk two miles from the bus station to the concert venue on my own, in a strange city. Questioning me being out at night in a bigger city, questioning every goddam aspect of the trip.

A week or so ago she mentioned maybe buying another ticket so she could go, and she’d drive and all… I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I really don’t want her there. I’ve never done anything on my own like this, and I want to give it a try. I mean fuck. If she wants to go, she can buy herself a ticket, and drive up to Minneapolis.  I can try to sell the tickets, or get a refund, and that would be fine… I just want to try doing something I’ve never done before.

I can’t live my life afraid to do things just because I’ve never done them before and because something bad might happen.

If I lived my life like that, then I’d never leave the house at all. What if I get hurt at work? What if I get hurt on the way there or back? What if a piece of space junk falls out of the sky and kills us all? Then we won’t have to worry about it!

And honestly, yeah, I’ll have my guard up, but it’s Minneapolis, not fucking New York City.

I just don’t need my mother telling me shit like that. It’s hard to believe in yourself when nobody around believes in you.

I can do this, and I will, and it’ll be an adventure.

Yeah, I know walking two miles in a strange city will be weird. That’s why I’ll print out directions and a map. I don’t know how long the concert will be, but it shouldn’t go past 11pm…. so I know it’ll be weird having to find my way back to the station and then killing 5+ hours until the bus leaves at 5:25 in the morning. Maybe I’ll find a diner that’s open late. Maybe I’ll find a bar, and I’ll have a beer and kill some time. I don’t know.

I don’t know. That’s what’s so thrilling about this. Sometimes I can be afraid of the unknown, of things that aren’t planned, things I’ve never done before…so I want to do this.

Pepper spray isn’t allowed on greyhound buses, and I’m fine with that. I’ll just keep an eye open. I’ll have my phone in case something happens. I’ll get a flashlight. I’m thinking of also bringing an umbrella, just in case, because you can take umbrellas on greyhound buses. That way I’m prepared in case of rain, and if worst comes to worst I can hit someone with it if they attack me.

I’m sure my mother is just nervous for me, but it’s a little irritating. I am 25 years old. What I don’t need right now is a lot of people giving me doubt because I’ve never done this before.

I’m only now beginning to realize how hard it is to get past the way I used to act. Yeah. I used to be an immature little loser, I used to act like shit almost all the time. I realize that.

I am trying to get past that, I really am. I make a conscious effort every day to try to be a better, more mature person, but that sort of thing takes TIME. It doesn’t fucking happen overnight. There will be bumps in the road. There will be setbacks along the way. I will make mistakes and sometimes I will act like an asshole.

The great thing about life is that I am allowed to do those things. I am allowed to have imperfections. I am allowed to make mistakes. I am allowed to learn from those mistakes and to try harder in the future. That’s all I really can do. I can’t be perfect now, or ever, but I can TRY.  I do not need people harping on me like hell over the tiniest little things that don’t matter like where the spatulas in the kitchen go, or how the towel in the bathroom gets hung up, or some stupid shit like that.

What I would like is for people to have a little faith in me.

I’m 25 years old. I’m at that age where all my friends are engaged, or already married, and are starting to have children, or they’ve already got children. Basically, they’re all growing up. Some of them even have the job they went to college for.

I myself do not want kids, and I don’t even know if I want to get married, and while I really am happy for all of my married/etc friends, I feel like a horrible person for being jealous of them.

If you’ve been a reader of mine you’ll remember a couple of people I dated in the past that… well they were assholes. Part of that fault is undoubtedly mine, but it’s just frustrating. Here all my friends are with their perfect boyfriends/finances/husbands, and I’ve literally been single for five  years. That guy who I liked in college that I was interested in a year or two ago, the one who always cancelled our dates? We were never actually “dating” in the official sense. So I don’t count that.

Honestly, I hate to be all emo and depressed about this shit, but it’s just frustrating. It makes me think I have a problem. Why haven’t guys cared about me? Am I too ugly for them? Or too fat? I think I’m just too weird. Or maybe I don’t fit into society’s perfect little “maturity” box.

I still delight in eating dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets for lunch sometimes. I have seen Return of the Jedi so many times I’m embarrassed to admit it. I still watch cartoons and animated movies.  I yell at the characters on tv sometimes, even when I’ve already seen the show and already know what’s going to happen. I own a record player and my vinyl collection outnumbers my cd collection.  I’m obsessed with the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I like making awful jokes and then laughing hysterically at them.

Where is a guy that appreciates that? I’ll tell you. Already taken, or gay.

I don’t mean to have a negative, defeatist attitude about this, because that’s the LAST way one should go about trying to find someone, but it’s just frustrating.

I know it probably isn’t true but sometimes I feel too unique for my own good. Like I’m the ONLY person like this on the entire planet. So I almost feel like I’m driving blind though a thunderstorm or something.

Which is stupid. There are millions of other people on this planet. So there’s bound to be someone who is just as weird as I am, but it’s just really frustrating sometimes to feel this alone.

And friends? They love you but in my case, I’ve been so emo in the past that I’m afraid to show any little sign of depression again in the fear that they’ll get fed up with and ignore me or something.

Which is ALSO stupid, because friends want to help you, if they’re your real friends.

It’s so weird having both sides of an argument with yourself. Knowing you probably shouldn’t be depressed for stupid reasons, but you are anyway.

Even though it’s over, I’m still a little mood swingy after the lovely week I have every month, but I figure it’s best that I write some of this shit out when I’m still feeling this way. Most of the time, during the rest of the month, I feel pretty good and even, and as such,  it can be easy to dismiss feelings like this.

Anyway. I’m going to quit wallowing in depression and play some stupid, time wasting games on neopets. You read that right. A 25 year old who still has their old neopets account. XD

This is the video that I’m using as my info source.

SOPA’s intentions may sound good, but it’s far more sinister than that.

If you’re too lazy to watch the video I will paraphrase for you.

“[SOPA] will create new causes of action against a wide range of internet sites for facilitating copyright or trademark infringement.” -The Daily Beast: Internet Anti-Piracy bill would chill free expression

“A simple allegation submitted to financial and advertising networks would be sufficient to start the process”. -The Daily Beast: Internet Anti-Piracy bill would chill free expression

Now, I’m not going to regurgitate all the quotes from the video, but honestly, that shit is insane. Smaller websites wouldn’t be able to handle the legal fees and shit, and they’d never even get off the ground.

And we’re talking mainstream sites. Google. Youtube. Netflix. A blog where you rant about Fox News. All of it. Perfectly legal, but if there’s even a whiff of legal uncertainty, an allegation (whether founded or not)… and that would be all it takes.

If something this crazy is passed, what’s stopping the US from becoming bigheaded in other areas? Freedom of speech my ass. We’re slowly becoming China, or fucking Nazi Germany.

Once they can shut down any website for any reason regarding copyrights, what’s to stop them from shutting down sites where we criticize our government? Little by little our freedoms are being voted away, but we’re too busy talking about Kim Kardashian’s 72 day marriage to notice. One day we’ll wake up and every waking minute of every day will be monitored.

It sounds sci fi, but if shit like SOPA keeps coming up, it’s not far fetched at all.

Seriously, just go watch the video. I don’t want to steal all the info from there and make it sound like I did a bunch of homework for this…

It’s just that… our voice is all we have. They already censor our radio, our television, our print media… The internet is all that’s left. And our online voice is one of the only things we’ve got left.

Passing this ludicrous bill would stifle creativity and free expression. As someone who bases most of their art on the music they listen to and the movies they see, this bill frightens me. A lot of my art has lyrics in it, or little snippets of lyrics from songs. I name some of my photos after song lyrics.

This stupid bill could shut down almost my entire body of work. Our voice is all we have. My art is my voice. I would prefer not to be silenced. All day today 99 percent of my activity has been me posting anti SOPA material  because I decided that would be more effective than just boycotting the internet for a day.

Honestly, we can’t let this pass. It would kill the internet as we know it.

Well well. What can I say about 2011? At the beginning of 2011, I decided to keep a food journal. My plan was to keep it up every day for a year. Even though that didn’t happen, I’ve made lots of progress on that front. Maybe not in the immediate past, because let’s face it, everyone goes a little nuts with food around the holidays.

Early in the summer of 2011, I decided to get a newspaper route because I was having considerable trouble finding work.  I had to bike up to 5 miles a day for that, depending on the roads I took. In between making smarter food choices and delivering the newspaper from early June through late September, I lost about 40 pounds, give or take a couple.

I stopped delivering the paper on September 24th. It was getting increasingly cold in the mornings, and I straight out told the guy who got me started and had me sign paperwork that since I was riding a bike, it was highly likely I’d have to stop delivering once it got too cold. Also, there’s something about waking up at 5am every morning that kind of lords itself over you. I miss watching the world wake up and seeing the sunrise, but I probably wouldn’ t ever get a paper route again, unless I lived somewhere that didn’t have such drastic seasonal changes.

It was fun delivering papers but at the same time, it kind of sucked some of the fun out of my summer. I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything during the day because “I have the paper tomorrow”. And I couldn’t go anywhere overnight without getting a sub to deliver my papers, so it took away some of that spontaneity of summer. Overall, it was fun though, and I’m glad I did it.

In August, since I had finished my paper route, I was back to putting in a lot of job applications online, since I didn’t have a car I could hop in to drive to a bunch of places to apply.

By chance I got an interview at kmart. I’d had one there before, a couple years prior, and didn’t ever hear anything from that. I didn’t have high hopes but I decided I was going to go all out for this one. I did some online research, both on the company, and just interviews in general. What I should say. What I should ask. That sort of thing.

When it was time for the interview, I dressed WAY too nice. Like I would to go to a wedding. I figured that couldn’t hurt. I even wore heels I could barely walk in.

I was still kind of apprehensive about it, because I haven’t had a lot of prior luck with interviews. So I was pretty surprised when whoever interviewed me told me at the end of it that when the background check came back clean (which I knew it would, save for what I already told them about) that I would have the job.

Those were the biggest changes in 2011. Prior to getting that job in August, I hadn’t had an hourly wage job since 2009, so it’s taken some getting used to. I’m only part time right now, but with the state of the economy, jobs and all that jazz, I’m lucky to have a job at all. The longest shift I work is 5 and a half hours, but it’s usually closer to 4 and a half. I know such a small shift would seem like a welcome vacation to some of you full timers, but it’s been so difficult for me to find a job that I can’t afford to complain. Also, with the back and knee problems I have that I can’t afford to have looked at, I can’t really stand like that for 8 hours at a time anyway.

What do I want to accomplish in 2012? I’m not quite sure yet. I want to keep on with being healthier. If I lost another 40 pounds this year it wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all. I would like to lose more than that, but I think the slower you lose weight the more likely you are to keep it off.  So I’ll be patient.

In 2012, I want to pay off my fine and get my driver’s license back. I want to maybe start taking community college classes again so I can finish that degree and start considering going to a university. I’m not entirely sure yet.

Throughout the year, I discovered new music, old music that was new to me, and music I’d loved before that I was ready to listen to again.  This entry is long enough, so I’ll take the liberty to put all that music in a separate post.

http://careofclearlake.blogspot.com/2012/01/music-of-my-2011.html

Also, in 2011, I got my first paid job as an artist. A friend of my mother’s was looking for someone to design a logo for a shrimp farm in Texas. She suggested I try my hand at designing a logo. I did, and the company decided to use it. When I cash the check, I’ll have made 100 dollars, which will officially make it the first time someone paid me to create art.

Speaking of art, I have one more accomplishment I’d like to add here. Towards the beginning of 2011, I decided to try my hand at a post a day art blog, where I’d post something new every day for a year. That didn’t last all year either. It got up into the 200s, but after that, I couldn’t do it anymore. It led me to create some great art that I might not have done if it weren’t for my project, but I discovered most of my art is much too complex to produce something brand new every single day. You can go through old entries there if you like.

http://bluesilversartproject.blogspot.com/

When I ended that one, I decided to begin an art blog with a more forgiving timeline. I decided that I was going to illustrate/take a picture for every Thomas Dolby song.

http://cornerofmymindseye.blogspot.com/

In addition to being a place to post my artistic interpretations of Mr. Dolby’s work, the blog quickly grew into a music art blog in general, since so much of my art is inspired by what I listen to.

It sounds really stupid, and it kind of is, but god dammit, once again, something has to give.

I feel like I’m not allowed to have any imperfections at all, ever, or make any mistakes, or be too rude to anyone, and I’m told shit like “Then you better start saving up for an apartment”.

It started last night while watching a movie with the family. Over two hours into the movie, my mother turns to me and says ‘You’re taking a bath tomorrow’.

It has long since been my mother’s deal that if she doesn’t physically see me coming out of the bathroom with wet hair and new clothes on, she doesn’t “believe” that I’ve taken a bath.

Okay, let’s examine this. Back in middle school and such, I didn’t like taking baths.  I don’t know why. I have a habit of reaching life milestones well after everyone else my age, so who knows.

My point is that is in the past, but I got pissed off at her little comment and said she was being a bitch.

Okay, first of all, I’m still on my period, and my mood swings can be pretty awesome. Secondly, I reserve the right to call someone a bitch when they are rude to me. People do it to me, so I’m just giving them a taste of their own medicine.

What kind of an asshole tells their grown children when they’re going to bathe? Do you have it in your head that people should smell like fucking perfume all the time? For years, my mother has complained about smells that nobody else in the house can detect.

It’s made me not even want to sit next to her on the couch, at movies, at restaurants, anywhere, because I’m afraid she’ll think she fucking smells something. I just get tired of her assuming the odd smell must always be me. You know what she’d say to that? ‘Well, it usually IS you so blahblahblahblah’.

But no.

And, okay. You know people get mad and say shit in the moment, when they’re still mad, that might only seem too harsh to them when the mood has passed.  And it’s just an honest mistake.

But no. It’s never that with me, it’s because I’m just a little worthless bitch living off my parents, or something. I don’t know.

All I know is that shit isn’t helping. My moods are generally better, as opposed to the awful depression I had a couple years ago, but when I get into shit like this, it makes the depression all the worse.

And then it doesn’t help if I actually start to cry, because all I am told is that I’m 25 years old and I need to grow up.

What, so I’m not human and I can’t ever want to cry? What kind of bullshit is that?

Speaking of bullshit, after the aforementioned bath incident, my dad had to ask me ‘Why do you cuss so much’. Because I want to.

They’re just words. They’re the words I feel like using. I like swearing. I don’t do it for shock value, I do it because they’re the words I want to use. And he gave me the condescending bullshit response and rolled his eyes at me.

He always assumes that I’m a stupid, little immature shit, and he’s unbelievably rude to me at times, but then he turns around and yells at me to move out if I say anything.

Having a job has made me feel less helpless than I have in the past, but when shit like this goes on, it doesn’t help at all. I almost feel right back down there where I did when I couldn’t find a job. Like nothing I do makes any difference.

And my friends are supportive but they just don’t understand. I can’t have any problems with my job because “Oh well that’s being an adult blahblahblah get used to it”. Yeah, okay, pardon me if I’m a little late to that party. I didn’t have to get a job until I was 19 years old. I am behind on all that shit. Before Thanksgiving this year, I’d never had to work on a holiday, or a black friday, so excuse me if I’m still fucking getting used to that being an adult bullshit. It’s not my fault you’ve been dealing with this adult shit since you were a teenager. I haven’t, okay, and I’m trying the best I can, but it’s fucking difficult.

I’m usually in an all around better mood than I was just a couple years prior, but the truth is, sometimes I feel like this. Where I’m a worthless, ugly, pile of shit that nobody will ever want, nobody will ever want my art, or my photography, and nobody will ever give a shit about me at all, and the only men I attract are dishonest assholes.

It always begins with something innocuous enough.

In August, I began working as a cashier. I only get part time hours, but it’s a job, and I’m not going to be picky about how much I get scheduled… because part time is better than being unemployed, which I recently was for a couple years.

Because I can actually afford to, I have started helping out with buying groceries. Over the last couple months I’ve bought milk, salad, cheese, taco chips, salsa, cereal, cottage cheese, salad dressing, hot dog buns…at least once, staples like flour and sugar, and tuna (we usually keep it on hand at all times).

Recently, I used a raincheck to pick up a 9 dollar toaster (because our current toaster got dropped on the floor and it doesn’t work so well). I help out where I can.

Today, I was in that sort of rut where you rummage through a fully stocked pantry and fridge, and still can’t find anything to eat. Eventually, I settled on the last can of tuna, making sure to put tuna on the grocery list.

In comes my dad, saying something to the effect of “tuna again?”.

I was already in a frustrated mood, so I brought up how cheap a can of tuna is, and how thoughtful it was of him to completely ignore all the other groceries I’ve bought.

No, he says. The problem isn’t how much it costs, it’s how apparently we can ‘never plan a meal around tuna because you eat it all’. Completely ignoring how much tuna he eats. He hasn’t for a little while, but there would be days I wouldn’t see him eat anything all day except a tuna sandwich.

He went on to bitch about how I could have eaten some of the leftovers in the fridge.

And I lost it. I had one of those silly moments where I close the bathroom door and just bawl.

Honestly? Nothing is ever enough. It’s been going pretty well for a while, so a bump in the road was bound to come up, but I honestly feel like my parents are blind sometimes.

No, let’s not see all the progress I’m making and just how fucking hard it is. Let’s ignore all the back and knee pain I endure on a daily basis because I can’t afford to go in and get medications. I don’t have doctor prescribed narcotic painkillers to help me with my pain like my father does.

I realize working part time would be a welcome vacation for lots of you amazing people that work 10-12 hour days every single day, but for me, it’s  damn difficult, so there’s that.

I’m still treated like I was when I was unemployed, immature, and didn’t give a shit.

There are still many ways in which I am not as mature as a 25 year old should be, but come on, I am trying here. It’s an uphill battle for me but I keep at it.

It’s a light hearted joke that my mother, brother, and I laugh at, but the reason I always overly justify myself is because I have my motives questioned so much. I get bitched at for stupid, trivial, unfair reasons, and I feel like I have to stand up for myself.

And because I can’t yet afford to move out, I’m still a victim of the parental shit where you can’t argue with them because they’re the parent.

It sounds like stupid teenage bullshit, but if I wasn’t allowed to live here, I’d be on the streets.

It’s just that stupid comments like that make me feel like a worthless piece of trash, even though I’m putting forth a great deal of effort to be just the opposite. It brings me down. I’ve said this before, but unintentionally, my parents bully me. And what kind of idiot keeps trying and trying and trying even though the reaction is the same? Isn’t that kind of like the definition of insanity?

I don’t know. I don’t want to waste the rest of my day off lamenting about it, but it just makes me mad and depressed,  and there’s nothing I can do about it right now.

My work schedule is completely random. We’re scheduled by a computer system that, as I understand it, randomly sticks people in on the schedule according to the hours listed on each individual person’s listed availability.

This means I start at random hours. One day I might work 8:15-2:45, then I might work 2pm-7pm, then I might work 6:30-12.

I put the hours into a note document on my phone, so I can put them on our calendar when I get home.

Even though I double and triple check the schedule, I have this fear that I’ll have written it down wrong and I’ll get in trouble for being late or something. When one night I would work 6-11, and the next time it would be 6:30-midnight, one can kind of see where that would be kind of confusing.

And I’m famous for having a less than stellar memory with numbers, so that doesn’t help.

Just the whole job thing in general. I try to do my best and do what is asked of me, but I am just so scared that some day I’ll have made some mistake they won’t tell me about and it will get me in a bunch of trouble and in danger of getting fired.

Which is stupid, right? If you’re making mistakes of that magnitude, work would tell you, wouldn’t they?

We’re allowed up to 5 infractions per each 6 month period before we’re in serious trouble (depending on what the infractions are for), and I haven’t had any infractions. And, I’ve only gone home early once (They let me go home an hour early because I was having extremely bad that time of the month cramps).

So I’m not so sure what I’m afraid of, here.  I was told people had had wrong till amounts, given too much change, and all that, and they didn’t get fired.

I think I’m so wary because I spent so long being unemployed. I worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant from September 2008-about November 2009, but after that… I couldn’t find a job. No matter how hard I looked or how many applications I filled out.

So, when I got an interview for this job, I didn’t think there was a ghost chance in hell I’d get it, but I tried REALLY hard. I searched online for lots of interview tips, I googled the company, I wore the best clothes I own (save for my prom dresses, which don’t fit anyway), wore makeup… I went all out for this interview. I thought I’d done a good job with that stuff before, but there I was, jobless, so apparently not.

I was shocked when, after the interview, she essentially told me that once the background check came back clean (and I knew it would, save for what I’d already told them about) that I’d have a job.

That was back in August. I’ve worked there for almost 4 months, and for the most part, I like the job.

I just spent so long being completely broke and unable to find a job that I guess I’m scared. In this economy, so many people can’t find a job. I’ve just started getting to the point where I have money to do things. I can finally afford to start helping my parents buy groceries. I can finally afford to give people gas money for giving me rides to work. This is really the first year that I’ve had enough money to buy people christmas presents and to even consider exchanging christmas cards with my friends overseas in England.

I’m just so scared that the economy will get even worse and I’ll get fired or lose all my hours or something, and then I’d be back in that giant job searching hamster wheel where I just keep running and running and running, and when I stop to rest, I’m still in the same place. Because that’s what it felt like, needing a job so bad, but not being able to get one no matter how hard I tried.

I probably don’t have anything to worry about, because I’ve seen people at work act worse than me, yet they still have a job.

Still. I think I’m going to try even harder at work, partly because they deserve it of me, and partly because it will be a good way to ensure my continued employment.

I have a habit of worrying way too much about things, and that’s probably what I’m doing here.

I guess it’s because things are going fairly well for once, but I remember all too well how awful and depressed I felt when things were going shitty, and I don’t want to go back to that.

However, I would like to briefly discuss a news story I read online, which can be found here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2011%2F12%2F03%2FBUPA1M7IAH.DTL

If you read the article, it’s discussing the disturbing prospect that many employers are putting out classified ads stating that the ‘unemployed need not apply’.

This makes no sense. With unemployment being what it is today, and with so many people having such trouble finding work, that kind of thing worries me.

I can’t say for certain because nobody can, but it seems like these are the kind of people that believe good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. In some respects, that’s true, but good people can come upon hard times (i.e. losing their job). How are they going to get their lives back if employers think like that?

Do those kind of people think if something bad happens to you, you whole heartedly deserve it?

Speaking from experience, sometimes it’s true that you do stupid things and you have to put up with the stupid consequences as a result. Some of those people don’t learn their lesson and continue to do stupid shit. However, some people actually learn from it and wish they’d never done whatever it was that they did, and they need help getting their lives back on track.

I think it comes down to people who think if you don’t have a job, you’re a lazy no talent slob who doesn’t ‘want’ to work.

In some cases, that’s true. Before the job I got in August of this year, I hadn’t had an hourly wage job since 2009. More of that time than I’d like to admit was spent not wanting to get a job, but after about a year of that, I was trapped in this “I need money to get my license back to get to a job interview to get a job to get the money I need to get my license back” kind of merry go round situation.

I had this problem where there were hardly any job postings in the newspaper, and the few jobs that were posted were like… truck drivers,  CNAs,  School administrators, and the like. The sort of job that requires some higher education. Education that I couldn’t afford due to being unemployed.

I would apply to a bunch of stores but because most of them weren’t actively hiring, I didn’t find anything.

When I applied to the store that I now cashier at, I had no idea that it was going to come to fruition at all. I thought it was going to be another hopeless drop in the bucket.

If it weren’t for that job, I’d be one of the thousands of unemployed people, having to jump over yet another hurdle to get our lives back on track. It’s asinine shit like “unemployed need not apply” that really pisses me off.

And really, I still have this horrible fear that I’ll lose my job and be right back where I started, with no money feeling like I have no means with which to better myself.

That’s really what it felt like when I didn’t have a job. I was so hopeless because I couldn’t afford to do anything. There was really a point where I felt like I’ve never get a job, and that it would get to the point where my parents would one day just ship me off to the homeless shelter.

It’s a horrible feeling.

And, I don’t know. I’m not saying there should be reverse discrimination for people who are unemployed (because there are people working at jobs they hate who would like to get a better job), but we shouldn’t be seeing that someone is unemployed and throwing out their application.

I really wish I had a better talent with writing so I’d get my point across better. That’s another of the things I worry about. My writing isn’t SUPER ELOQUENT AND AWESOME so I worry I won’t be taken seriously because of it.  I’d be better discussing this with someone face to face.

For now I feel like that’s all the eloquence I can manage but I’ll probably tweak this a bit when I have the presence of mind for it.

I love the nostalgia, the candy and baked goods that you can only get once a year, and giving/receiving presents. There isn’t much in this world better than seeing someone’s face light up when they open a well picked gift from you. And I’m not just saying that to make this sound like sappy Christmas bullshit, I actually believe that.  It’s fun to get gifts, but it’s also lots of fun to give them away.

However, the boon of this season has got to be the retail shopping scene. Now, admittedly, I haven’t really paid that much attention to it, because I’ve never worked in retail before August of this year, when I got my current job.

Now that I have worked there a while, I would like to put together a list of tips one can follow to ensure they will not be acting like a dick this, or any holiday season. And really, most of these rules could be applied to year round shopping.

If you have any suggestions you think should be added to this list, feel free to send me an email at melodyevapope@yahoo.com. Just make sure to put “suggestions” or something of the like in the subject line.

How to not be a complete dick during holiday shopping season:
(These are in no certain order)

+I don’t care if you run into a small family of people you know that just happen to be in the store at the same time you are; do not queue near the checkouts to have an impromptu conference with them. Other people have to come through my line, and you’re in their way.

+I can’t speak for every store, but in most of them, the cart racks are pretty damn close to the doors you use to exit the place. Don’t leave your cart at the end of the checkout line, or better yet, in the middle of my line, blocking in the person after you. It’s not that hard to push the cart a few extra feet, especially if you only have one bag’s worth of items.

+If there are any items you don’t think rang up for the right price, please tell me before your receipt is printing out. If you wait until then, you’ll have to go to customer service to get that fixed. I would love to help, but once that receipt prints out, I offically can’t do anything for you.

+If you thought an item rang up wrong and you waited until I gave you the receipt to tell me, don’t act pissy with me when I tell you to go see customer service. It makes me uncomfortable and just makes you look like an asshole.

+On that note, don’t get all defensive and rude when something rings up wrong (i.e. clearance stuff that hasn’t been put in the system yet). Cashiers have absolutely no power over this. It would make our lives a lot easier if everything just automatically rang up right, so trust me, we would do something about this if we could.

+On another related note, don’t be impatient (i.e. tapping your feet/fingers, sighing, making that clicking sound with your tongue, etc) if we need to call over a manager to override something, or to check the price of something. Again, it makes us uncomfortable and just makes you look like an impatient jackass.

+Don’t get mouthy with me when you try to use an expired coupon. ‘Well it was out by the shelf:’ (i.e. in those coupon dispensers). Tough shit. You can tell me so I can have someone take it down, but that’s it. Again, cashiers have no control over whether expired coupons get taken down. Maybe if you paid a little attention to it yourself, we wouldn’t be in this position.

+When I’m holding out my hand to take your money, don’t plop your money down on the counter, right next to my hand. I mean, honestly. My hand is out, right down on the counter. Clearly, I am waiting to take your money. My hands aren’t that dirty. Money is dirty, sure, but it’s not like you haven’t already touched some. I’m not a leper. If I was, they probably wouldn’t let me be a cashier, so I think it’s pretty safe to just hand me the money.

+I know I already kind of said this already, but when there’s a long line or when something is taking a while, don’t tap your feet/fingers, sigh, make that clicking sound with your tongue, or etc. That’s not going to make the line move faster. In fact, that’s just going to stress me out and make you look like a little spoiled 12 year old.

+Don’t bitch about how there is only one register open. Again, the cashiers have no power over this. We don’t control when people come in, or how many other people are scheduled. Just because there are other workers here doesn’t mean they can just hop on any register and help.

+Don’t get mad when we don’t have an item that is in our ad. I can’t speak for other stores, but our ad is nationally released. That doesn’t guarantee that 100 percent of our stores will have an item Most of them will, but not all. Don’t get mad at the cashier for that. We’d love to carry everything you want, but we don’t have the inventory space for that.

I’d just like to add that when the training video you have to watch to work at most of these retail stores needs to add something in. When they tell you that you’re ‘the face of the store’ and often ‘someone’s last impression’ of the store, they forget to say that we also get a lot of shit for things we can’t control. Like the expired coupons, the clearance stuff never ringing up right, the old signs that don’t get taken down, not having something released in our NATIONALLY RELEASED newspaper ads. Talk to a manager about that shit. Don’t get angry at the little peons.

A great Thomas Dolby song. More mellow than I feel at the moment.

I’m actually quite pissed off. And maybe it’s something that should be innocuous, but I can’t ignore it.

In a lot of ways I’m lucky, mainly because my parents allow me to live here (I’d be homeless otherwise), but in some ways I feel like they take advantage of the fact that I’d have nowhere else to go.

I could spend hours complaining about the other stuff but for the sake of length I’d like to focus on one particular thing that irks me so.

On regular occasion, my mother likes to not ask me outright to do something. She likes to pull that “It would be NICE if such and such chore were done”.

I tell her she should ask me directly if she wants me to do something. Well, hell. I may as well be talking to a donkey’s ass because the answer I get is probably just as helpful.

“Well you should just KNOW” or “I shouldn’t have to ASK you”.

This pisses me off in a great many ways.

In the past, I was even more of a lazy slob than I am now, which is frightening once I think about it.

Make no mistake about it. I have a great deal of progress left to come, but I’ve also made lots of progress, and sometimes I feel that has been overlooked.

I’m not always perfect at doing what’s asked of me either, so I realize I have a great many flaws that others could complain about, but for christ’s sake mother, I am 25 years old. I would probably be more willing and happy to do something for you if you ask me.

Now, when you make snide, passive aggressive, bitchy remarks like “It would be NICE if such and such chore were done”, I am more likely to get mad than to happily help out around the house, even if it’s a chore I don’t normally mind doing.

I’ll hijack a phrase I hear my mother overuse; “It’s the principle of the thing”.

Yes, it is. I am still working very hard to get past my lazy ass, apathetic attitude of yesteryear. Thing is, even when I’ve got valid reasons for something, they’re more likely to be met with cries of ‘You’re using that as an excuse to be a lazy slob!’ than ‘I totally understand that’. But that’s a whole nother can of worms.

It’s the principle of the thing. If you simply ask me nicely, and without a bitchy undertone, I’m probably going to be more willing to help without getting right back in your face and reciprocating your bitchiness.

Do NOT tell me “Well you should just know” or “I shouldn’t HAVE to TELL you”. I’ve said this time and time and time again. My mother is bothered by lots more shit around the house than I am. If I don’t care, I don’t notice. That’s why you have to ASK ME.

And on that topic, why just me? I know my brother is at college a lot of the time, but even when he’s home, he doesn’t even so much as get asked to do one load of laundry. Yet I am still expected to to the dishes, the laundry/scrubbing the floor/cleaning the bathroom/etc when asked. But again, that’s another can of worms.

I’d like to bitch about one more thing before I end this. No matter how I do a chore, it seems I’m bitched at for it.

I get bitched at for not doing the dishes.

Then, I’ll get bitched at for doing them past a certain time of night (apparently there’s an unwritten rule that the dishes should be done by 9pm and any time after that is “too late” to be making dish noise).

Then I’ll get bitched at for forgetting to wipe out the sink/clean out the drain/wipe off the counter/put the dishes away/etc.

That’s it? I do the dishes almost ALL the time, and all you can think to mention is one minuscule thing I didn’t do?

And yet they fail to understand the reasoning behind “Why bother doing anything if I’m going to get bitched at either way?” logic.

And before you go spouting off gibberish about how I’m ungrateful and how so many others are so much worse off than me, save your breath. I know already. By complaining about something, I am not trying to insinuate that I have it the worst ever and that everyone should feel sorry for me, because I don’t and they shouldn’t. But just because someone somewhere has it worse, doesn’t mean that I can’t have problems in my own life.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have dishes to do.