I Suck

Today was a total waste of a day and I failed in every conceivable way one can fail without it coming to the attention of anybody.

I’m a shitty feminist, because, even though I have all these grand ideas for what a world respectful of me is supposed to look like, when I’m faced with real-life situations where I’m not being treated right, I just sit there and take it.

I’m not getting any work done at work because my heart just isn’t in it. It’s nothing against work. Shoot, you read my posts today. My heart isn’t in this either.

Where is my heart? That is a good question, folks, because I just don’t know. It’s adrift somewhere and I’m adrift without it.

When we were in grad school together, Miss J. loved this poem by Czeslaw Milosz called “To My Daimonion” and the middle part goes like this:

My daimonion, it is certain I could not have lived differently
I would have perished if not for you. Your incantation
Would resound in my ear, fill me,
And I could only repeat it, instead of thinking
About my bad character, the decline of the world,
Or about a lost laundry ticket.
And it seems that while others loved,
Strove, hated, despaired,
I have only been busy with listening intently
To your unclear notes, to change them into words.
I had to accept my fate, called today karma,
For it was as it was, though I did not choose it–
And get up every day to honor the work,
Even if there is no guilt of mine in it and no merit.

I’m not very good at analyzing poetry, but tonight I’m jealous of Milosz. My head hurts, my gut hurts, my soul hurts and when I listen quietly for guidance about what I should do with my small shitty life, nothing comes.

I also am missing out on love, striving, hate, and despair, but if there are unclear notes waiting for me to change them into words, today I don’t hear them.

But it’s okay. I’m going to make myself some dinner and watch a little TV and go to bed. Tomorrow will be better. Or not. But I’ll feel better about things, because this day will be behind me.

Ferocious Pit Bull Kills Everyone at the Westminster

Oh, wait, no.

He won Best in Show. Too bad breed specific legislation will keep him out of Denver.

Oh, wait, no.

They still have dog shows in Denver and no one’s storming those events to confiscate bulldogs.

[Edited to add for Summer and others, here’s the link to the explanation for why I’m calling the Best in Show dog a “pit bull.” It also ought to explain why I’m opposed to bans on pit bulls. Any dog, as that brilliant Uncle* says, that can trace its roots back to the old English bulldogs can be and probably has been called a pitbull at one time or another.

But people throw the term around like it has meaning without checking to see if everyone is using the same definition. Which is why I’m not surprised that most “vicious” attacks are blamed on “pitbulls.” If you have a bunch of different kinds of dogs that can be called “pitbulls,” and “pitbulls” are then blamed for all the attacks made by those different kinds of dogs, then yes, it’s going to look like “pitbulls” bite a lot more people than, say, Golden Retrievers.

This is also why I find the “breed specific” bans to be laughable and obnoxious. A “pitbull” is not just a breed of dog, it’s a catch-all term for a type of dog. But are they looking to ban this dog (note the cute euphemism–“can be scrappy with some dog”) or this dog (“some males may be dog aggressive”)? No, because, even though they come from similar stock, we aren’t on a witch hunt against them.

*With the caveat that he’s wrong, wrong, wrong about the Walmart/Massachusetts controversy.]

Assorted Stuff

1. It’s one of those days where you look down and say “If I put on a long skirt, no one will know I didn’t shave my legs.”

2. The Butcher bought this soap that smells so good that I keep having dreams about it. The dreams, however, are not so great. They go basically like this: one of y’all (sometimes I recognize you; sometimes I don’t) shows up at the house and I give you a bath with the awesome soap and then I rub your feet. Then, some really hot chick in a red convertible comes to pick you up and you leave.

3. I’ve now read this article a couple times on single people and our lack of dating. There’s got to be a good post in there somehow, but I can’t make it happen. So, just read the article and pretend I had something intelligent to say about it.

4. My dad called me yesterday to have a “serious talk” about The Vagina Monologues. Apparently Kathy and Judy from WGN were raving about it and now my dad is all excited about my involvement. This may mark me as a Midwesterner for even asking, but Christ, is there anything WGN can’t fix? (Aside from a whole baseball season, of course.)

5. Also, I had this dream about the recalcitrant brother the other day. Well, it was more like a memory while sleeping, since this actually happened. I was young and, as always, he was younger. I was asleep in my lavender room and I got up to go to the bathroom and there in the bathroom was the recalcitrant brother. He was covered in blood, intentionally. He’d drawn lines and swirls all over himself. “Are you hurt?” I asked and he turned to me with this blank look on his face and reached out his fist and opened his hand and resting in the palm was a tooth.

6. After my behavior with Fritz yesterday, I’m contemplating starting a rumor that I drink a lot just to have an excuse for my bad behavior.