What Did I Do?

Man, what did I do? I hurt my friend. That’s the last thing I wanted to do, but because of my steamrolling attempts to be funny or wisecracking or perhaps as a form of self-defense, I went too far.

It’s not the first time my words have gotten me in trouble. Now I find myself wondering: Do I unconsciously want to hurt people? When did I stop being the quiet and overly nice girl of my youth and become this person that I am today? The one who doesn’t stop to think as quickly as she used to about another person’s feelings? The one who is ferociously trying to stop the so-called injustices that only exist in her mind?

About a year and a half ago I wrote something that ended up hurting a lot of people. What may be surprising is that I didn’t care. I actually wrote it knowing it was mean. I wanted her to read it and weep. I guess I was trying to make up for pain that I was feeling. I threw out the “two wrongs don’t make a right” argument that my mom had reminded me of numerous times as a child. I stood steadfast to the principle of censorship and how I had the right to write what I wanted. Perhaps that was true, but when I stopped to think—really stopped to think—about how it made others feel, I realized that I was hiding behind my ostensible principles and using them falsely as an excuse.

About seven years ago I met the meanest person I have ever encountered. She was the first person I had ever met that hated me. She never liked me and made me feel like shit. I became obsessed with trying to get others to see those traits, trying to make them see how I was being treated unfairly, and how mean she was to others. But no one seemed to care as much as I did. I decided I would go against the grain to hold my ground. Yet no one seemed to care about how I felt or how I believed that I was being disrespected. After seven years, I didn’t win that fight; I walked away from it claiming victory, never giving in, and never accepting her faults. Although a huge part of me knows that I didn’t win.

Then three years ago I suffered the greatest hurt of my life at the hands of fate. But no one seemed to care as much as I thought they should. I then became obsessed with the idea of wrong versus right, fair versus unfair. Up until that point, I naïvely believed that bad things happened to bad people and that good behavior was rewarded. Then suddenly I stood face-to-face with injustice. I finalized my theory that a loving God couldn’t possibly exist. I questioned everything. I became embittered, only to be affirmed once again of the universe’s incorrigible lack of justice earlier this year, yet this time I wasn’t as surprised.

Thus, my childhood kindness melted leaving a hardened misanthropist.

And now I am reminded of the fact that I lost that battle because I have let the person I have become hurt one of my closest friends. That person has emerged like a demon, writing things that my kinder self wouldn’t have written. I have awakened like a sleepwalker to realize that in my slumber I was replaced by someone I don’t even recognize.

And yet . . .

I think my friend knows I am sorry and that I didn’t intentionally want to hurt him. I thought I was being funny. I bombed. And we both agreed this morning that our friendship is too strong for all of this. Maybe I should write the word “ass” about fifty times because that word seems to be a prevalent theme on our blog. (Seriously, I like that word WAY too much.)

So I leave you with a joke, since my reputation for humor may proceed me and because I will work on my demon side another day . . . [enter evil laugh here.]


How does Bush feel about Roe v. Wade?










He doesn’t care how people get out of New Orleans.

:)

Me and Noah Go Way Back...

terriamachine wrote: "It's not the spelling of the word I take umbrage with; rather, it is the inconsistent logic with which my contributing partner is speaking from . . . ‘Sorbet’ is the same thing as ‘serbet’ and ‘serbert’ . . . As far as I know, all three spellings are pronounced the same, just as all three spellings of the word pronounced ‘shammy’ (‘chamois,’ ‘shammy,’ and ‘chammy’) are all pronounced the same."

Did you mean to write serbet and serbert (missing the “h”)? I ask this because no such words exist in Webster’s dictionary. That would seem to be a spelling error. Too bad you didn’t read your own entry for spelling errors.

And I also think you meant LOW talker when referring to the Project Ass who sits across from me, not close talker. Seriously, dude, you should read over what you write!

As a side note, here are some words to look up in Webster’s:
1. Pompous
2. Pedantic
3. Pooh-pooh (since you spelled it wrong in “Those Damn Insurance Companies” entry)

It is not inconsistent logic that I would have a problem with Webster’s changing the PRONUNCIATION of a word by changing the SPELLING of the word. Chamois and Shammy are pronounced the same way. Sherbet and sherbert are NOT. One is sher-BET and one is sher-BERT.

Let me break it down for all you kids out there:

Sherbet: as in “I got a sure bet at the racetrack.”
Sherbert: as in “Sure, Bert, I’ll take a bath with you.” [Think Bert and Ernie.]
Sorbet: as in “Sorbet is pronounced ‘sore-bay’ or ‘sore-bet.’ ”

This is exactly the kind of crap that I didn’t want to happen with my entries. Why should I have to defend my thoughts? Why should I have to explain the joke? And why should my contributing partner be able to edit my entries? Why stop there? Why not take out my comments about George W. or how religion is bullshit? (I haven’t written that one yet, but give me time.)

And besides, all of this was spoken in jest, making fun of a childhood pet peeve that had to do with my last name. Most would get that I was trying to be humorous. Shammy and chamois, as my contributing partner, Mr. Linguist, pointed out, is pronounced the same way despite the spelling. I believe it comes from the Native American and means, “Buffs cars with sheepskin.”

Of course, as Webster’s also points out, this all depends on how far up your tight ass your thumb is located.

My Tight Ass

I'm not one to brag, but I've got a nice ass. Many a lady has complimented it in my day, and I pooh-pooh it all away, blushing and trying to change the subject onto something that doesn't have to do with that part of me that blackens the sky for those who are unfortunate to live in a toilet bowl. Yes, I do have a soft spot for the maligned and misunderstood bacteria of the world who get shit on day after day...

But I digress. The problem with having a nice ass is that--in my case--it's tight and firm. And my tight ass has got me into a lot of trouble, most recently with my contributing partner. I silently edited the title of one of her posts because she was making an obvious reference to one of my posts--and she botched it all up. She's not a close reader (not to be confused with the project ass who sits across from her, who is a close talker), and it does cause me some discomfort from time to time, kind of like when my hemorrhoids flare up and I have to douse my hole with cream. She has already commented a number of times to me about how she didn't read this or that correctly, and I let it all slide, but it irked me to no end that her title--a reference to something I had written--was wrong. So I sat there for about ten minutes, me and my tight ass stewing over this, and I thought that since I'm not changing any of her ideas or thoughts or overall meaning, then it would be okay to change the title to match my comment (that's what silent editing is, changing a word here or there, or fixing an obvious mistake, without changing the overall idea or meaning, something I did all the time as a project ass and never once got caught doing it, and something editors do all the time, even to books published many times over), but my fellow contributor sniffed my tight ass out like a fart in an elevator, and I stand here red-faced and brown-assed (actually I'm sitting here with swamp-ass because it's hot in this room and my ass is sweating in this cloth chair, but I'm still red-faced and brown-assed).

Yes, my tight ass is the perfectionist in me: It may look good, but it sure does piss people off--or should I say shit people off? But my faux pas indirectly belies the tight ass of my contributing partner. If someone silently edited a title of my post, I would be most grateful, for my tight ass desires perfection, whereas her tight ass desires freedom. We all have tight asses with which we cram with coal--it's just a matter of what types of diamonds we prefer.

But alas, my tight ass has gotten the best of me again, and I must inquire: Does there not seem to be some inconsistency between what my contributing partner revealed in a comment to her post entitled "Highlights of a Weekend" and something she said in her most recent post, "Sherbet and Deer"? In her comment to another blogger, she writes, "Yeah, I think it's actually chamois, but I prefer SHAMMY." But then, in her post she writes, "I hate the fact that now Webster's dictionary is changing the spelling of words because it is the more common misspelling." Do I need to point out that "shammy" became such a popular misspelling that it actually became a proper spelling? Now don't get me and my tight ass wrong: I love the morphing slipperiness of language as much as the next deconstructionist, and I loathe those purists who tout a prescriptive grammar when every linguist worth his word knows that the very essence of language is descriptive in nature, thus rendering the prescriptive aspect an oxymoron if there ever was one. It's not the spelling of the word I take umbrage with; rather, it is the inconsistent logic with which my contributing partner is speaking from. It seems odd that one would rail against those who like looking at deers in the woods from their front porch while eating serbert, while at the same time admiring their newly waxed car sitting in the driveway, the dirty shammy lying in a bucket underneath said porch.

And while I'm on the subject, I always spelled the word pronounced "sure bert" (not "shore bert" for those of you with a slightly different dialect, and not "sure bit" as my grandmother would say) "sorbet." "Sorbet" is the same thing as "serbet" and "serbert", except that "sorbet" is from the French variant of the Persian, whereas "serbet" is the English variant of the Persian. As far as I know, all three spellings are pronounced the same, just as all three spellings of the word pronounced "shammy" ("chamois," "shammy," and "chammy") are all pronounced the same. With this logic, one would think that "Herbert" and "Hebert" would be pronounced the same, but the former is pronounced "her bert" and the latter "ay bare."

And one other note of trivia, after which I promise my tight ass and I will retire for the evening: I was in Pep Boys a number of years ago buying car-cleaning products. My friend told me to buy a shammy, so I spent the better part of my trip looking for a shammy, completely overlooking all of the cam-o-ises I kept finding. I finally asked a sales clerk for a shammy, and he gave me a cam-o-is. It was then that I discovered that a chamois is a shammy is a chammy.

That English language. What a sham.

Sherbet and Deer

My day was going fine and my mood was splendid until I found out that my entries are being edited for spelling errors by my fellow contributor. I like to leave entries as is, spelling errors and all. Fook yew. There. Edit that.

So now that I am irritated, let me take a moment out of my day to tell you about a few things I do not like:

1. Do not share your email address.
I hate when couples find it cute to share email addresses. What happens when you write to only one of them? bobnsusie@email.com is NOT cute. It's stupid. Besides, how do you address the email if you only write to one of them? What if I don't want to talk to both? And how do you write about a cute guy for your friend when her dumb boyfriend/husband might read it?

2. Noah Webster pisses me off.
I hate the fact that now Webster's dictionary is changing the spelling of words because it is the more common misspelling. For instance, sherbet. There isn't a second "r" in it, but if you look under sherbet in the dictionary now, it will say: Also sherbert. And deerS is also acceptable now. So go ahead, tell us how the deers in your yard love to eat sherbert. I have a personal vendetta about the misspelling of sherbet. My 5th grade class knows why.

3. Do not talk to me when I am having lunch by myself, unless I make eye contact.
I swear the weirdest people are the ones who talk to you while you're trying to eat lunch by yourself. I am perfectly fine eating by myself. I don't need anyone to talk to me. The new guy actually sings in between talking to you. So, it goes something like this: "Yeah, I heard it's supposed to rain this weekend...HEARD IT FROM A FRIEND WHOOOO, HEARD IT FROM A FRIEND WHOOO, HEARD IT FROM ANOTHER...Hey, did you see that there's peanuts in the vending machine now?"

Highlights of a Weekend

To address Tom’s disclaimer from September 28, I shall use my old stand-by excuse: I am a lazy bum. I'd love to say I was hiking Everest or appearing as a guest on Oprah, but I wasn't. But, to my credit, I HAVE been writing. Unfortunately I have somehow been imagining that you all have read my journal entries, only to realize that they were not posted on here yet. I would normally just post-date the entry so that it would blend seamlessly with the others, but I can’t because then Tom’s disclaimer wouldn’t make sense and he’d sound like an ass. Speaking of which, at least I don’t use the word “poo-pooing” in my journal entry.

9/26/05:
Some of the highlights of this past weekend:
1. I cried at an infomercial.
That’s right, actual tears streaming down my face. It could have been a physical manifestation because I missed Dan, who went away for the weekend. I also woke up in the middle of the night and thought I saw a little alien aircraft in my bedroom. However, despite these signs, I still don’t believe I’m crazy.

2. My dad and I pissed off a shammy salesman.
Yes, there are shammy salesmen and yes, they are pretty defensive about their shammies. He even ended up taking off his microphone so he could yell at us. It all started with the innocent remark, “I don’t think shammies are worth twenty dollars.” Note that as something never to say to a shammy salesmen at a fair.

3. Dan’s laptop was stolen from his car as it sat in our driveway.
Police recovered it a few houses down after a woman found it in her driveway. Police turned it on and contacted the original owner, who then contacted Dan. I’m not sure if the police played a few rounds of solitaire or looked for kiddie porn, but that’s what I picture.

What I’ve learned this weekend:
Never underestimate the power of people who lost 114 pounds in 9 months.

You CAN eat all you want and still lose weight.

Shammy salesmen at fairs sell 7,000 units a day. [I question the accuracy of this “fact” since it came from the shammy salesman, not from Time or Newsday.]

You shouldn’t forget to check jacket pockets when washing laundry. Lip gloss gets all over and although “Cutie” works with many outfits, does not go with everything.

Chili needs to cook at least 2 hours to thicken.

There’s at least one other weirdo in my neighborhood besides myself.