So far, I haven’t been able to get any other blogger to participate in RCFMHD Monday. If you happen to, post in the comments.

Do you think people aren’t participating because I haven’t made a button for it or anything? Or do you think it’s more that most people only have porn on their hard drive?

Anyway, here’s some Random Crap from my Hard Drive.

Oh NO, Cary Elwes. As YOU wish!

Not knowing the background of the Lysol douche ads from the 30s through 1960, me and my fellow nurses would laugh at them. The background is much more sinister.

When the Comstock Act made contraception illegal, Lysol advertised itself as a feminine hygiene product. This thinly veiled advertising campaign was really promoting the product as a form of birth control. Lysol was even used in illegal abortions. At least 18 women died and tens of thousands were injured from using the product as a douche.

I’m here to tell you from recent experience, it doesn’t fucking make you feel better.

There is something that does…

… happy puppy pics make you feel better!

This is just disturbing.

It is such a treat for me to read the writing at Happy Fun Cog. From what I can gather, the blog writer’s name is Jack and he’s about 8 years younger than me, but he articulates things that I’ve felt over an over, and could never give a voice to, in almost every introspective entry he makes.

I think the thing that makes his writing resonate in the sea of babble on the Blognet is that he is writing for himself, but yet putting himself out there not for attention but for another purpose. I can only guess at what the other purpose is, but it’s definitely not the attention whoring that many recent blogs seem to wallow in. Maybe it’s to learn, examine, validate, discuss, discard, and grow his own philosophies and methods of living. If we don’t stop to examine ourselves, we never know ourselves. Our daily lives is like being on the front row of a rock concert. You start to ignore everything but the noise and the show, forgetting that the mundane details of traffic, bosses, annoyances, chores and responsibility are just a distraction to the real world around us all.

OK, end tangent. I can’t put words in the poor guy’s mouth, or guess at his motives for writing. I’m just glad he does.

Here is an excerpt from his most recent entry.

I am familiar with the concept of needing to go out and meet more people in order to meet someone with whom I click.

However, I was forgetting … what it’s like to have an intuitive connection with someone built on the fact that you’re simply similar people. I knew I had to meet people, I just couldn’t remember what I was looking for. And because of that, I’ve been very angry at myself because I believed that my lack of any romantic relationship was entirely my fault, that it was my fault I wasn’t clicking with people. Now, I am responsible for not going out and meeting more people, which is a necessary precursor to meeting people with whom I click. But I was blaming myself for not clicking, which is fucking ridiculous. You can’t will or think yourself into clicking with people if you just don’t click; well, you could if you made changes to yourself or just fooled yourself and/or the other person into thinking there was a click.

The revelation about “clicking” reminds me of how I was treated back when my friends considered me attractive enough to set up with other people.

If me and the mystery man didn’t hit it off perfectly, my married/attached friends admonished me for being “too picky” and “narrow minded”.

Funny; if I didn’t want to see the guy again, I was griped out.  “I’ll never set you up with anyone else then.  You’re too picky!”  But if the guy didn’t want to see me again, I can only assume he wasn’t griped out or questioned.  All he’d have to say was, “Dude, she was ugly,” and that would be good enough.  Men are allowed to reject someone on sight alone.  Women are held to a higher standard of behavior, and are expected to look deeper.

I guess they thought that 1) single, plus 2) has a pulse, equals “marry this dude or quit trying because picky people don’t deserve love”. This from the same people who waited for their own “perfect match”. What a bunch of hypocrites.

I read this or saw this quote somewhere this week: “It’s better to eat soup with someone you love than eat steak with someone you can’t stand.” I’m sure that’s some warning not to be a gold-digger, but the bigger message to me is that a kindred spirit is worth waiting for. Even if you never find it, it’s better to live with the hope that you may find it, than to saddle yourself up with a person with whom you know you’ll never have it.

Connections with other people get harder as we grow older. When we’re young, we’re still being formed by our environment. I can even say that when I was 33, I was a very different person than I am now that I’m 39. When there are big chunks of you that are still a blank slate, 1) it’s easier to fit with someone else, and 2) you are almost never aware that you are a blank slate.

I consider myself more open-minded than ever before, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t become more hardened in who I am.

It’s no wonder it’s so hard for us older people to find someone whose company we can tolerate for more than 15 minutes at a time.

I don’t have a list of demands about money or social status or education or looks. I care about intelligence, a warped but respectful sense of humor, passion about what a person believes in, and enough similar interests to give us something to talk about. Don’t get me wrong; if someone smells bad or something, yeah that is a deal breaker. But aside from hygeine issues, “Is he a good kisser?” is about as superficial as I get.

The person also has to have my energy level. At work, I run around like a chipmunk on crack. But at home, I have about as much energy as my Saint Bernard (who is a throw rug with paws). I’m not going to try and date a Jack Russell terrier.

I don’t think trying to find someone who matches you in interests, humor and temperament is being too picky.

Search on, Jack. I will too. And screw anyone who implies we’re being “too picky”.

A few years back, I worked a free call-in medical advice line. People would call in with a medical problem or question and ask what they should do. Us nurses would give advice based on nationwide treatment guidelines and evidence-based medicine. Then the people calling in would ignore the advice, because they only called because they wanted a free miracle cure for their heart attack or head injury, and they wanted that cure to be administered instantly over the phone.

One day, I get this call from this guy (in his 30’s) who wanted to know how he could keep his girlfriend from getting pregnant without using birth control. So I spend like 20 minutes talking to him about natural family planning. I kept telling him it’s not a matter of math, and that you have to keep several months of calendars on the woman’s menstrual cycle, the woman has to take her basal body temperature every day for several months and chart it, and keep several months of charting of her cervical mucus (ewwwww!). I said that most women ovulate AROUND day 14 of their cycle, and explained to him that if she ovulated on day 14, then it wouldn’t be safe to sleep with her up to 7-8 days before, and 2 days after the day she ovulates. Of course the moron focuses on that, and thinks that if he knows the first day of her last period, he can practice natural family planning just by doing the math.

I must have told him five times he can’t do that; that women can ovulate even the day after their period stops. He was still trying to “shortcut” it and finally I got a bit exasperated. I said, “Listen, I’m telling you that if you are just going to do the math based on her last period without doing the rest of the stuff, then you WILL be a dad. That’s a fact. It’s not birth control that way. Even doing everything right the way I described it, and using early withdrawl on top of it, the method is only 80% effective.”

Naturally he ignores what I said and talks about how he’s already a dad, he’s been married before and he’s “Roman Catholic” (who says “Roman” any more?) and barrier forms of birth control are “not an option” because him and his GIRLFRIEND are both Catholic blah blah, and something clicked. Suddenly I recognized his name, and blurted out, “I know you!” Oops! He was a guy I dated a few times when I first moved here that I met off Match.com.

I had stopped seeing him about three years before, because he would tell grandiose stories about himself that I knew were lies, and eventually in the stories EVERY TIME he’d almost wind up fighting someone (I roll my eyes), so I knew I had a guy with honesty and anger issues. One night over the phone I heard him yell at his then 3-year old son and I realized I never wanted to see him again. I wouldn’t talk to my worst enemy that way, let alone a 3 year old. Parenting is none of my business, but being emotionally abusive to kids, well I just can’t stand it.

He remembered me right away and even remembered my last name (which is more than I could remember about him) and said that his now 6 year old son has behavior issues (SURPRISE!) blah blah.

I was like, “Well, congratulations on…. um…. needing natural family planning, I guess.”

I love the fact that he’s not Catholic enough to stay married, and not Catholic enough to abstain from premarital sex, but he is SUCH a good Catholic that he can’t use birth control. HA!

What were the odds that I would answer that call? Only me. I’m just lucky that way I guess.

That call was at least two years ago. So if I’m doing the math correctly, that guy and his girlfriend’s “natural family planning” aftermath is probably about a year and a half old now!

This week Moose ate a whole roll of toilet paper.  So I can relate to this story.

Written by some guy on the internet.  Slightly edited.  Original post here:  http://littera-abactor.livejournal.com/7748.html?view=480068

____________________________________
I Has a Sweet Potato
You know, a lot of times I write up random posts and then don’t post them. But *girlfriend* just called me, and I could not really explain why I was inarticulate about sweet potatoes, so I said I’d go ahead and post this. That way, she can read it at work and know just what kind of day it has been. (Short version, for those who do not feel like reading the whole post: ARRRRRRG. Fucking sweet potatoes.)

The longer version, summarized in conversation form:

Dog: I am starving.
Me: Actually, no. You aren’t starving. You get two very good meals a day. And treats. And *girlfriend* fed you extra food while I was gone.
Dog: STARVING.
Me: I saw you get fed not four hours ago! You are not starving.
Dog: Pity me, a sad and tragic creature, for I can barely walk, I am so starving. WOE.
Me: I am now ignoring you.
Dog: STARVING.
Dog: Did you hear me? I am starving.
Dog: Are you seriously ignoring me? Fine.

[There is a pause, during which the dog exits the room in a pointed manner.]

[From the kitchen, there comes a noise like someone is eating a baseball bat.]

Me, yelling: What the hell are you doing?
Me: *makes haste for the kitchen and finds dog there*
Dog: *picks up entire raw sweet potato, which is what was causing the baseball bat noise, and flees for the bedroom*
Me: *chases dog, retrieves most of sweet potato, less the portion which has disappeared into dog’s gullet*
Dog: See? STARVING.
Me: …That can’t be good for you. It’s a RAW SWEET POTATO.
Dog: I had to do it. I haven’t been fed. Ever.
Me: You realize you aren’t normal. Normal dogs don’t steal raw sweet potatoes.
Dog, sadly: I was badly brought up.
Me: Yes. Yes, you were.
Dog: By people who starved me.
Me: Oh, no. I am not doing this again.
Me: *exits the room, bearing sweet potato*

[There is a pause.]

[There is a noise like someone is trying to eat a baseball bat very very quietly.]

Me: Oh, for the love of GOD.
Me: *heads off to the kitchen*
Dog: I am not eating a raw sweet potato.
Me: You have sweet potato parts all over your snout.
Dog: But you don’t actually SEE a raw sweet potato, do you? So maybe that’s just - um. A birthmark.
Me: Did you seriously eat a whole sweet potato?
Dog: You don’t listen. I told you, I wasn’t eating a sweet potato.
Me, searching around fruitlessly: Look. NO MORE SWEET POTATOES.
Me: Oh, what am I saying? This is you we’re talking about, here. *goes to hide all the sweet potatoes that are left - which isn’t many - in the fridge, because some people cannot be trusted*
Dog: *attempts to look thwarted*
Dog: *does not succeed, because her tail is wagging so hard small cyclones are forming in the kitchen*
Me: *has a very bad feeling about this*

[There is a pause, during which I do not even bother trying to return to what I was doing. I just stand in the computer room, waiting.]

[There is, as I wholly expected, a baseball-bat-eating noise.]

Me, stomping back to the kitchen: OKAY. GIVE ME THE DAMMNED SWEET POTATO.
Dog, looking up guiltily: What sweet potato?
Me: THE ONE IN YOUR MOUTH.
Dog: Oh, did you want this? I just, um. Found it. Lying here.
Me: *confiscates the sweet potato and deposits it in the locking trashcan*
Me: Let us say no more about this.
Dog: …Nooooo! They be stealin’ my sweet potato!

[I attempt to remember what I was doing before the sweet potato episode.]

[Some ten minutes later, I succeed, and return to it.]

[NOT ONE MINUTE LATER, I hear a noise with which I have become all too familiar.]

Me, bonking head on desk: Arg.
Me, arriving in kitchen: How did you even get another sweet potato?
Dog, smugly: I have my ways.
Me: Are you punishing me for being away for several days? I was at a FUNERAL, you know. It wasn’t FUN.
Dog: How would I know? You didn’t take me. You left me here with only one human to look after my needs. One human is NOT ENOUGH.
Me: *shuts dog in bedroom, conducts a sweep of the kitchen to track down all remaining sweet potatoes, wipes up random sweet potato particles from floor, eradicates all traces of sweet potato from house*
Me: *lets dog out*
Dog, sulkily: Oh, so you think you’ve won.

[I watch her go about her business with the same sense of overwhelming doom that heroines of Victorian novels get when they meet Count Sinistrus Grimblack for the first time.]

[Half an hour later, there is a wetter, juicier eating noise, as though someone was eating a very moist baseball bat.]

Me, wearily: What NOW?
Dog, hunched over the remains of a butternut squash: *says something garbled because her mouth is full*
Me: Okay. Fine.
Me: *stomps over, empties entire vegetable bowl into trash*
Me: WE JUST WON’T HAVE ANY ROOT VEGETABLES ANYMORE. THERE. ARE YOU HAPPY?
Dog: I’m not even remotely sorry. I told you I was hungry. And you went to a funeral without me.
Me: ARRRRRRRRG.

[A half-hour later, there is another baseball-bat-eating noise from the kitchen. The dog, who apparently does not know how to win gracefully, has found another sweet potato, or possibly caused one to materialize from the Rift.]

Me, hauling chewed sweet potato parts from the mouth of a dog very reluctant to part with them: Oh my god how is this my life?
Dog: Don’t you think it would just be easier to feed me?
Me: EVERYONE GO TO THE BEDROOM AND STAY THERE. EAT NOTHING.
Dog: Actually, I feel…um…not so good.
Dog: *throws up* *vomit is very bright orange*

[Unfortunate details ensue.]

Some time later:
Me, attempting to rescue something from the wreckage: So. What have we learned from this?
Dog: Sweet potatoes are yummy!
Other Dog, looking thoughtful: I should pay more attention to crunching noises. Sweet potatoes are probably yummy.
Me: I need a lobotomy.

FUCKING SWEET POTATOES. ARG.

His AARP card would be the source of his magnificent and super-human, world-saving powers.

Here’s Moose with Sparky, my parent’s puppy, over Christmas.

I had a horrible dream. My best friend was helping plan a party for me and my ex-boyfriend (we were still together in the dream), when he tells me that he’s been dating my best friend and was leaving me for her. I confronted her, and she was all smug and cocky about it. So I tell her husband that she cheated on him, and it all culminates in a big screaming fight in a parking lot, with her kids watching us and crying.

The worst thing is that in the dream, I was actually feeling the emotions that I would feel if this had happened in the waking world. I can still remember how things felt during the dream too.

I actually woke up hyperventilating! I woke up because my dog was crying and woke me up; he could tell something was wrong.

I’m still upset and have this really negative mood about me.

Is 7 a.m. too early to start drinking?

Note to God: Dude, come on! It’s OK if you can’t give me miracles in real life, but good dreams are free. Throw me a bone here.

Afterthought: I’ve only hyperventilated one other time in life. When I found out that another boyfriend (who I almost married) was having a relationship behind my back.

So I guess bad things can happen to me in life, but romantic betrayal is the only thing I find hyperventilation-worthy. That’s good to know.

Confession: When I go to blogs and they have an entry about a dream they had, I never EVER read it. “Who cares about your stupid dream?” I ask myself, closing the browser window. Therefore, by posting this, I am a big fat hypocrite.